||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ECOCLIPS
BBC- New government figures show that populations of specialist farmland
birds – birds that breed or feed mainly on farmland – have declined
to a record low.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said populations
of specialist farmland birds have declined by an average of 60% since
1970. . .
The 60% average decline masks the near collapse of some species. Between
1970 and 2005 the tree sparrow population declined 93%, the corn bunting
by 89%, grey partridge by 88%, yellowhammer by 54% and the lapwing by
47%.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/19/
conservation1?gusrc=rss&feed=environment
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FREEDOM NOTES
WASH POST - The two owners of the nation's largest chain of alternative
weekly newspapers were arrested and jailed late after publishing the
contents of a grand jury subpoena seeking, among other information,
details on each and every reader who logged on to a Phoenix newspaper
Web site since 2004. This afternoon, after local residents and national
First Amendment advocates voiced outrage over what they viewed as an
effort to intimidate a newspaper critical of a local official, Maricopa
County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced that no charges would be filed
against the executives or their reporters and that a special prosecutor
hired to investigate the newspaper for possible criminal violations is
being fired. The arrests of Michael Lacey, 59, executive editor of
Village Voice Media, and Jim Larkin, 58, the chain's chief executive,
followed an Oct. 18 article that appeared under their bylines in Phoenix
New Times, the company's Phoenix newspaper. The article included a copy
of the grand jury subpoena that had been issued in August seeking
information about reports the newspaper had published concerning
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's real estate holdings.
Arpaio, sometimes called "the toughest sheriff in America," had long
been the focus of Phoenix New Times articles, including revelations of
unusual deaths in the sheriff's jails. The article on his real estate
holdings included a notation of the sheriff's home address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/10/19/AR2007101902361.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AFP - One of Britain's intelligence agencies will embed advertisements
into popular video games this month in a bid to attract new recruits,
The Times reported . . . The advertisements will not be written into the
games themselves, but will instead be fed into them while they were
played on personal computers or Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles connected to
the Internet. "We will monitor the results from this campaign and are
ready to change our recruitment methods ... We know we can't stand
still," the spokeswoman said, adding that GCHQ hoped to "plant the idea
in the heads of younger players".
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071018/wl_uk_afp/
britainintelligenceadvertisingrecruitoffbeat
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WATCHING THE COUNT
JOHN GIDEON, BRAD BLOG - Last week the Netherlands did away with
e-voting and their DREs made by a company called NEDAP. These same
machines were sold to Ireland under the brand name Liberty. Liberty is
now being marketed in New York. Ireland paid 51.3m Euros to purchase
their machines then they found out they were insecure and had many
problems. The machines have been in storage since they were purchased.
They have never been used. Instead of taking NEDAP to court for
restitution, or scrapping the machines; the Irish have now decided to
take out 25-year rental leases for storage facilities. The government
has taken a lease for the 288 machines in storage in County Monaghan for
over 27,000 Euros a year.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5175
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CITIES AND TRANSPORTATION
TREE HUGGER - The quaint college town of Uppsala, Sweden seems like the
last type of place to test these funny-looking personal rapid transit
electric pod cars from Korea-based Vectus. But the Swedish Rail
Administration, which gave Vectus permission to both build a test track
and let engineers drive the pods around, is not as staid as its name
implies - SJ was the first in Europe to put in service a biogas train
last year on the route between the towns of Vastervik and Linkoping . .
. Vectus imagines about a three-second 'headway' between pods which
would run at around 45 kilometers per hour in the inner city, making it
possible to move large numbers of people during rush hour, the company
said.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/the_podcars_are.php
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DRUG BUSTS
SAN FRANCISCO officials are moving towards creation of the first
publicly sponsored safe injection room for drug addicts. A similar site
in Vancouver serves 700 a day. Eight other countries have such centers.
With 11-15 thousand intravenous drug users in San Francisco, overdoses
are the cause of one out of every seven EMT calls there.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ECOCLIPS
BBC- New government figures show that populations of specialist farmland
birds – birds that breed or feed mainly on farmland – have declined
to a record low.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said populations
of specialist farmland birds have declined by an average of 60% since
1970. . .
The 60% average decline masks the near collapse of some species. Between
1970 and 2005 the tree sparrow population declined 93%, the corn bunting
by 89%, grey partridge by 88%, yellowhammer by 54% and the lapwing by
47%.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/19/
conservation1?gusrc=rss&feed=environment
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FREEDOM NOTES
WASH POST - The two owners of the nation's largest chain of alternative
weekly newspapers were arrested and jailed late after publishing the
contents of a grand jury subpoena seeking, among other information,
details on each and every reader who logged on to a Phoenix newspaper
Web site since 2004. This afternoon, after local residents and national
First Amendment advocates voiced outrage over what they viewed as an
effort to intimidate a newspaper critical of a local official, Maricopa
County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced that no charges would be filed
against the executives or their reporters and that a special prosecutor
hired to investigate the newspaper for possible criminal violations is
being fired. The arrests of Michael Lacey, 59, executive editor of
Village Voice Media, and Jim Larkin, 58, the chain's chief executive,
followed an Oct. 18 article that appeared under their bylines in Phoenix
New Times, the company's Phoenix newspaper. The article included a copy
of the grand jury subpoena that had been issued in August seeking
information about reports the newspaper had published concerning
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's real estate holdings.
Arpaio, sometimes called "the toughest sheriff in America," had long
been the focus of Phoenix New Times articles, including revelations of
unusual deaths in the sheriff's jails. The article on his real estate
holdings included a notation of the sheriff's home address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/10/19/AR2007101902361.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AFP - One of Britain's intelligence agencies will embed advertisements
into popular video games this month in a bid to attract new recruits,
The Times reported . . . The advertisements will not be written into the
games themselves, but will instead be fed into them while they were
played on personal computers or Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles connected to
the Internet. "We will monitor the results from this campaign and are
ready to change our recruitment methods ... We know we can't stand
still," the spokeswoman said, adding that GCHQ hoped to "plant the idea
in the heads of younger players".
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071018/wl_uk_afp/
britainintelligenceadvertisingrecruitoffbeat
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WATCHING THE COUNT
JOHN GIDEON, BRAD BLOG - Last week the Netherlands did away with
e-voting and their DREs made by a company called NEDAP. These same
machines were sold to Ireland under the brand name Liberty. Liberty is
now being marketed in New York. Ireland paid 51.3m Euros to purchase
their machines then they found out they were insecure and had many
problems. The machines have been in storage since they were purchased.
They have never been used. Instead of taking NEDAP to court for
restitution, or scrapping the machines; the Irish have now decided to
take out 25-year rental leases for storage facilities. The government
has taken a lease for the 288 machines in storage in County Monaghan for
over 27,000 Euros a year.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5175
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CITIES AND TRANSPORTATION
TREE HUGGER - The quaint college town of Uppsala, Sweden seems like the
last type of place to test these funny-looking personal rapid transit
electric pod cars from Korea-based Vectus. But the Swedish Rail
Administration, which gave Vectus permission to both build a test track
and let engineers drive the pods around, is not as staid as its name
implies - SJ was the first in Europe to put in service a biogas train
last year on the route between the towns of Vastervik and Linkoping . .
. Vectus imagines about a three-second 'headway' between pods which
would run at around 45 kilometers per hour in the inner city, making it
possible to move large numbers of people during rush hour, the company
said.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/the_podcars_are.php
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DRUG BUSTS
SAN FRANCISCO officials are moving towards creation of the first
publicly sponsored safe injection room for drug addicts. A similar site
in Vancouver serves 700 a day. Eight other countries have such centers.
With 11-15 thousand intravenous drug users in San Francisco, overdoses
are the cause of one out of every seven EMT calls there.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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