
What won't get us out of the financial crisis, obviously, is the Bush administration's bailout plan. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us why in The Nation.
A blog about politics, science, archaeology, human evolution, jazz, culture, and the meaning of life by Michael Balter, a journalist and journalism professor based in Paris and New York (aka The Blog for People Who Don't Have Time to Read Blogs.)
In fact, Congress over the past five years has forked over a total of $4.8 million to study the genetic material of Montana's grizzly bears, according to Katherine Kendall, a research biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Kendall heads the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project, which is aimed at obtaining the first accurate population estimate of grizzlies living in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem—eight million acres of land in northwestern Montana that encompasses Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
"This is not pork barrel at all," says Richard Mace, a research biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP). "We have a federal law called the Endangered Species Act and [under this law] the federal government is supposed to help identify and conserve threatened species."
The grizzly has been listed as a threatened species since 1975 and scientists say that it is essential to get a handle on the population to preserve it. But, according to Kendall, until the feds decided to invest in this grizzly bear DNA study, researchers lacked the funds to conduct research at the scale necessary to get a reliable measure.
Read the rest for more details. And you can find more important information here and here.STATEMENT BY MICHAEL AND ROBERT MEEROPOL
September 23, 2008
On September 11th, the transcript covering testimony of 43 of the 46* witnesses who appeared in front of the Grand Jury investigating our parents in 1950-1951 was made public. (*Only a portion of the testimony of Harry Gold, a key prosecution witness, was made available, and legal efforts to date have failed to win the release of testimony of three other witnesses, including Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, the most crucial witness in the case.)
This historic release of information coincided with an article that appeared on the same date in The New York Times interviewing Morton Sobell, our parents’ co-defendant. Ever since his arrest more than 50 years ago, Morton had maintained his innocence. But in last week’s interview he stated that he and Julius Rosenberg passed non-atomic military intelligence to the Soviets during World War II in an effort to help them defeat the Nazis. Morton has since written a letter to The New York Times clarifying the extent of his personal knowledge of our father’s activities.
We have received many inquiries seeking our reactions to these revelations. Now that we have read all 930 pages of Grand Jury testimony that have been released, and have had an opportunity to integrate this new information with the rest of the historical record, we are sharing the following reactions.
1) In 1975, we made our initial Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Government for all the materials in its possession pertaining to the investigation, arrests and executions of our parents, as well as all material related to Morton Sobell. In our press release announcing that FOIA request we stated, “The truth is more important than our personal political position.” We meant it. Though we believed then that this material would prove our parents’ and Morton’s innocence, we have always been willing to accept whatever the record showed.
2) Since the 1980’s we have maintained that it is possible that our father engaged in non-atomic espionage, but that there is no credible evidence that he participated in ANY activities that resulted in him obtaining or passing the “secret of the Atomic Bomb” to the Soviets. Morton’s statement, buttressed by his letter published in The New York Times on September 19th, 2008, moves us to acknowledge that Julius did, in fact, participate with others in passing along military information. But at the same time, we believe the still-evolving record makes it even clearer that Julius did not “steal” or transmit the “secret of the Atomic Bomb,” the crime for which he was executed.
3) The newly-released Grand Jury testimony provides several bombshells, three of which we outline below.
Confronted with Ruth’s revised statement, David then contradicted his earlier statement to the FBI in which he had denied our mother’s participation in any espionage activities. This sudden appearance, late in the investigation, of what turned out to be the key testimony against Ethel, is why the future release of David Greenglass’ Grand Jury testimony is crucial. Until that information becomes available, we will be left to wonder: Did David corroborate to the Grand Jury what he first told the FBI (that Ethel was not a participant in espionage activities)? Or did he tell the Grand Jury something about Ethel’s alleged involvement?
Obtaining the full record is essential, because both David and Ruth testified about the typing at the trial. In fact, in his summation to the jury, the prosecutor drove home the case against our mother by referencing Ethel’s alleged typing when he declared, “Just so had she on countless other occasions sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets.”
4) All that we have learned in the last two weeks, coupled with all that we have gleaned from the information already available, reinforces the biggest lesson of our parents’ case: The U.S. Government abused its power in truly dangerous ways that are still very relevant today.
Those in power who were involved in our parents’ case:
And finally, the agencies and individuals involved in our parents’ case, systematically and emphatically covered-up and denied all these abuses.
The Department of Defense has identified 4,163 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war and 595 who have died as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which is centered in Afghanistan. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this month:
Iraq:
EDWARDS, Corry A., 38, Chief Warrant Officer, Army National Guard; Kennedale, Tex.; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
ESHBAUGH, Daniel M., 43, Sgt., Army National Guard; Norman, Okla.; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
MASON, Anthony L., 37, Staff Sgt., Army National Guard; Springtown, Tex.; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
ORDONEZ, Julio C., 54, First Sgt., Army National Guard; San Antonio; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
RUDOLF, Brady J., 37, Chief Warrant Officer, Army National Guard; Oklahoma City; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
THOMPSON, Michael E., 23, Cpl., Army National Guard; Harrah, Okla.; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
VALLEJO, Robert II, 28, Capt., Army National Guard; Richland Hills, Tex.; 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.
Enduring Freedom:
BELL, Jerome C. Jr., 29, Sgt., Marines; Auburn, N.Y.; First Marine Expeditionary Force.
FARLEY, Brandon W., 30, Staff Sgt., Army; Haworth, Okla.; First Infantry Division.
HARRIS, Joshua W., 21, Sgt., Army National Guard; Romeoville, Ill.; 122nd Field Artillery.
HAYS, Bruce E., 42, Capt., Army National Guard; Cheyenne, Wyo.; Wyoming Joint Forces Headquarters.
NAQVI, Mohsin A., 26, First Lt., Army; Newburgh, N.Y.; 11th Infantry.
RODRIGUEZ, Rodolfo I., 34, Maj., Air Force; El Paso; 86th Construction and Training Squadron.
VAZQUEZ, Jason A., 24, Staff Sgt., Army National Guard; Chicago; 122nd Field Artillery.
WILEY, James L., 46, Lt. Col., Army National Guard; North Bend, Ore.; 27th Brigade Combat Team.
AP
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In 2004, Israeli archaeologists at the ancient hominid site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) in Israel, first occupied 790,000 years ago, convinced many experts that hominids living there had mastered fire, pushing back previously accepted dates by a half-million years. Now a member of that team has evidence that fire was controlled during the entire 100,000-year occupation of GBY.
Nira Alperson-Afil of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem analyzed the distribution of burned and unburned pieces of flint from eight occupational levels, looking for evidence of "phantom hearths": fireplaces obliterated by time but whose locations are indicated by debitage from the toolmakers who gathered around them.
Although only about 2% of the flint at the site is burned, Alperson-Afil found clusters where at least half the flint was burnt--revealed by pinhead-sized bubbles called "potlidding"--in each of the eight levels, she reports online this month in Quaternary Science Reviews.The GBY hominids made tools belonging to the Acheulian cultural tradition, which arose in Africa about 1.6 million years ago. Ralph Rowlett, a prehistorian at the University of Missouri, Columbia, says that the study offers persuasive evidence that not only tools but mastery of fire was probably part of the "cultural package" of hominids who settled in the Near East after migrating from Africa.
Photo: Photodisc
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