MindMover
MindMover's JournalHey Jerry.....Go Fuck Yourself.........
You are the lowest slime ball, piece of shit serial pedophile to date....and prison is too good for your ugliness....
China astronauts mark first manual space docking
Source: Reuters
Reuters) - China completed its first-ever manual docking between a manned spacecraft and an orbiting lab module on Sunday, putting it a step closer in an ambitious campaign to build a space station.
The Shenzhou 9 and its three-person crew, including the country's first woman in Space Liu Yang, separated about 400 meters from the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1 module for about two minutes before re-connecting under the manual control of the astronauts, with state television covering the event live.
Rendezvous and docking exercises between the two vessels are an important hurdle in China's efforts to acquire the technological and logistical skills to run a full space lab that can house astronauts for long periods.
The Shenzhou 9 had already conducted an automated docking with Tiangong 1, on June 18, a day after it blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-china-space-idUSBRE85E0NI20120624?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=309301
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.....
CAIRO - Five hundred days after they overthrew Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians will finally have a new president on Sunday, the first they have chosen freely and who may well be from the Muslim Brotherhood, which Mubarak and fellow generals spent a lifetime fighting.
The result of last weekend's run-off, due in an election committee news conference at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), will be historic for Egypt and the Middle East. Many think Islamist Mohamed Morsy will become head of state of the biggest Arab nation, reshaping the region after decades of Western-backed military rule, even if the armed forces are not giving up their control just yet.
The Brotherhood may react angrily if it is instead Ahmed Shafik, a former air force commander and Mubarak ally. His victory many Egyptians, and millions across the region, would fear as a mortal blow to last year's Arab Spring revolution, despite his assurances of also wanting an inclusive government.
After an anxious week of street protests at Cairo's Tahrir Square and angry accusations between rivals of subverting the new democracy, the new president will emerge with fewer powers than the candidates, pruned by a first round of voting in May, had expected when the army promised civilian rule from July 1.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/24/12379018-egypt-braces-for-islamist-president-or-army-rule?lite?ocid=twitter
The Earth Cannot Be Saved by Hope and Billionaires
Worn down by hope. That's the predicament of those who have sought to defend the earth's living systems. Every time governments meet to discuss the environmental crisis, we are told that this is the "make or break summit", on which the future of the world depends. The talks might have failed before, but this time the light of reason will descend upon the world.
'To see Obama backtracking on the commitments made by Bush the elder 20 years ago is to see the extent to which a tiny group of plutocrats has asserted its grip on policy.' Illustration by Daniel Pudles
We know it's rubbish, but we allow our hopes to be raised, only to witness 190 nations arguing through the night over the use of the subjunctive in paragraph 286. We know that at the end of this process the UN secretary general, whose job obliges him to talk nonsense in an impressive number of languages, will explain that the unresolved issues (namely all of them) will be settled at next year's summit. Yet still we hope for something better.
This week's earth summit in Rio de Janeiro is a ghost of the glad, confident meeting 20 years ago. By now, the leaders who gathered in the same city in 1992 told us, the world's environmental problems were to have been solved. But all they have generated is more meetings, which will continue until the delegates, surrounded by rising waters, have eaten the last rare dove, exquisitely presented with an olive leaf roulade. The biosphere that world leaders promised to protect is in a far worse state than it was 20 years ago. Is it not time to recognize that they have failed?
These summits have failed for the same reason that the banks have failed. Political systems that were supposed to represent everyone now return governments of millionaires, financed by and acting on behalf of billionaires. The past 20 years have been a billionaires' banquet. At the behest of corporations and the ultra-rich, governments have removed the constraining decencies – the laws and regulations – which prevent one person from destroying another. To expect governments funded and appointed by this class to protect the biosphere and defend the poor is like expecting a lion to live on gazpacho.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/19
Inequality greater in USA than any other advanced country in the World....
The United States is in the midst of a vicious cycle of inequality and recession: Inequality prolongs the downturn, and the downturn exacerbates inequality. Unfortunately, the austerity agenda advocated by conservatives will make matters worse on both counts.
The seriousness of America’s growing problem of inequality was highlighted by Federal Reserve data released this month showing the recession’s devastating effect on the wealth and income of those at the bottom and in the middle. The decline in median wealth, down almost 40 percent in just three years, wiped out two decades of wealth accumulation for most Americans. If the average American had actually shared in the country’s seeming prosperity the past two decades, his wealth, instead of stagnating, would have increased by some three-fourths.
In some ways the data confirmed what was already known, but the numbers still shocked. We knew that house prices — the principal source of saving for most Americans — had declined precipitously and that trillions of dollars in home equity had been wiped out. But unless we understand the link between inequality and economic performance, we risk pursuing policies that will worsen both.
America has “excelled” in inequality since at least the beginning of the millennium. Inequality is greater here than in any other advanced country. The data remind us how a combination of monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies have contributed to these outcomes. Market forces play a role, but they are at play in other countries, too. Politics has much to do with the difference in outcomes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-policy-has-contributed-to-the-great-economic-divide/2012/06/22/gJQAXTX2vV_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost
Members of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms
One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found.
The lawmakers bought and sold a total of between $85 million and $218 million in 323 companies registered to lobby on legislation that appeared before them, according to an examination of all 45,000 individual congressional stock transactions contained in computerized financial disclosure data from 2007 to 2010.
Almost one in every eight trades — 5,531 — intersected with legislation. The 130 lawmakers traded stocks or bonds in companies as bills passed through their committees or while Congress was still considering the legislation. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, 68 to 62.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) reported buying $25,000 in bonds in a genetic-technology company around the time that he released a hold on legislation the firm supported. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sold between $50,000 and $100,000 in General Electric stock shortly before a Republican filibuster killed legislation sought by the company. The family of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) bought between $286,000 and $690,000 in a high-tech company interested in a bill under his committee’s jurisdiction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/members-of-congress-trade-in-companies-while-making-laws-that-affect-those-same-firms/2012/06/23/gJQAlXwVyV_story.html?wpisrc=al_excl
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Congress is a club for high rollers in politics.....
JPMorgan’s Connections to the House Finance Committee
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is on Capitol Hill again today, this time to talk to the House Financial Services committee about the bank's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. According to his prepared testimony, Dimon plans to deliver basically the same remarks he gave the Senate banking committee last week, apologizing but giving few details.
His Senate hearing was hardly a grilling; senators mostly praised him for his "emphasis on continuous quality improvement," in the words of Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
As we charted last week, JPMorgan happens to have plenty of connections to the Senate committee. The House committee where Dimon is appearing today has its own ties to the bank. Congressmen and staff from the committee have gone to JPMorgan and its lobbying firms. Members have also gotten hefty campaign contributions from the bank's PACs and employees.
http://www.propublica.org/article/jpmorgans-connections-to-the-house-finance-committee
U.N. Report from Rio on Environment a ‘Suicide Note’
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development has wrapped up in Rio de Janeiro — contentiously so — marking two decades since the first Earth Summit was held, also in Rio, in 1992.
The recent three-day meeting was more easily known as Rio+20, but so few specifics, so few targets, so few tangible decisions came out of the gathering that some participants were derisively calling it “Rio Minus 20,” or “Rio Plus 20 Minus 40.”
“A failure of epic proportions” was the verdict from Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace.
More than a year of “sophisticated U.N. diplomacy has given us nothing more than more poverty, more conflict and more environmental destruction,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director for conservation at the World Wildlife Fund.
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/u-n-report-from-rio-on-environment-a-suicide-note/?smid=tw-nytimesworld&seid=auto
What Role Did Climate Change Play In Epic Duluth Floods?
As the people of Duluth, Minn. — a community of about 86,000 tucked away at the southwest corner of Lake Superior — try to recover from the record flooding of the past week, it’s reasonable for them to ask whether global warming may have played a role in the floodwaters that so heavily damaged their city.
Given the unusual nature of the rainfall, and the prevalence of extreme weather in Minnesota and other states so far this year and during recent decades, the answer, according to the scientific evidence, is “maybe.” (That the jury is still out is reason enough for concern.).
Here are some of the facts regarding the unprecedented and devastating flooding event that took place this week in Duluth. A cold front sparked slow-moving thunderstorms that repeatedly moved over the Duluth area between June 17-19, dumping between 8 and 10 inches of rain in a 24-to 36-hour period on Duluth and neighboring communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/23/505133/what-role-did-climate-change-play-in-epic-duluth-floods/
Lance Armstrong: USADA abused its powers
Lance Armstrong sent an 18-page letter to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency on Friday, a formal response to allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his seven consecutive Tour de France victories.
In a statement released Friday, USADA CEO Travis Tygart said the Anti-Doping Review Board would "consider all submissions in accordance with the rules."
"We follow established procedures that were approved by athletes, the U.S. Olympic Committee and all Olympic sports organizations," the statement said, adding the rules provided full due process and were designed to get to the truth.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/story/2012-06-22/lance-armstrong-responds-to-usada-allegations/55765770/1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=206567
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