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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/4/2013 12:35:54 AM

Well yes Myrna, first thing that comes to mind in regard to this is, "Will this (or can this) be safe?" Since no one can be sure despite any asurances by scientists, it must be concluded that it definitely is not. We have Chernobyl, and more recently Fukushima, as ugly reminders.

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This article ticks me off. Why would anything as dangerous as Nuclear power be good to stop warming. they can tell all kinds of hogwash, I don't buy it. I think this is another one of their big lies!

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Experts say nuclear power needed to slow warming

Associated Press

Associated Press" data-caption="FILE -In this Dec. 11, 2012, file photo, part of the containment vessel for a new nuclear reactor at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant is under construction in Augusta, Ga. Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy will not be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they are asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution.

Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to The Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.

Environmentalists agree that global warming is a threat to ecosystems and humans, but many oppose nuclear power and believe that new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades.

That isn't realistic, the letter said.

"Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough" to deliver the amount of cheap and reliable power the world needs, and "with the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology" that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases.

The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Hansen began publishing research on the threat of global warming more than 30 years ago, and his testimony before Congress in 1988 helped launch a mainstream discussion. Last February he was arrested in front of the White House at a climate protest that included the head of the Sierra Club and other activists. Caldeira was a contributor to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Emanuel is known for his research on possible links between climate change and hurricanes, and Wigley has also been doing climate research for more than 30 years.

Emanuel said the signers aren't opposed to renewable energy sources but want environmentalists to understand that "realistically, they cannot on their own solve the world's energy problems."

The vast majority of climate scientists say they're now virtually certain that pollution from fossil fuels has increased global temperatures over the last 60 years. They say emissions need to be sharply reduced to prevent more extreme damage in the future.

In 2011 worldwide carbon dioxide emissions jumped 3 percent, because of a large increase by China, the No. 1 carbon polluting country. The U.S. is No. 2 in carbon emissions.

Hansen, who's now at Columbia University, said it's not enough for environmentalists to simply oppose fossil fuels and promote renewable energy.

"They're cheating themselves if they keep believing this fiction that all we need" is renewable energy such as wind and solar, Hansen told the AP.

The joint letter says, "The time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems" as part of efforts to build a new global energy supply.

Stephen Ansolabehere, a Harvard professor who studies energy issues, said nuclear power is "very divisive" within the environmental movement. But he added that the letter could help educate the public about the difficult choices that climate change presents.

One major environmental advocacy organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, warned that "nuclear power is no panacea for our climate woes."

Risk of catastrophe is only one drawback of nuclear power, NRDC President Frances Beinecke said in a statement. Waste storage and security of nuclear material are also important issues, she said.

"The better path is to clean up our power plants and invest in efficiency and renewable energy," Beinecke said.

The scientists acknowledge that there are risks to using nuclear power, but say those are far smaller than the risk posed by extreme climate change.

"We understand that today's nuclear plants are far from perfect."

___

Full letter online: http://bit.ly/1fc6Dpu

___

Follow Kevin Begos at https://twitter.com/kbegos


Why climate scientists support nuclear power


Experts say clean-energy alternatives such as wind and solar can't scale up quickly enough to slow extreme global warming.
Weighing risks




"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/4/2013 4:22:37 PM
Mayor refuses to resign

Toronto mayor apologizes but says he won't resign

Associated Press

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford arrives to talk on his weekly radio show in Toronto, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013. Ford repeated this weekend that he won't resign despite mounting pressure for him to step aside after police said they had obtained a copy of a video that appears to show him puffing on a crack pipe. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Mark Blinch)

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TORONTO (AP) — Toronto Mayor Rob Ford apologized Sunday for "a lot of stupid things" and acknowledged the need to curb his drinking, but he didn't address allegations of drug use and said he will continue to lead Canada's largest city despite pressure to resign.

"I'm going to weather this storm," he said.

Ford made his remarks on his local weekly radio show three days after police said they had obtained a copy of a video that appears to show the mayor puffing on a crack cocaine pipe.

The video was recovered from a computer hard drive during an investigation of an associate of Ford's who is suspected of providing him drugs. Police have said they don't have grounds to charge the mayor with any crime.

Ford didn't address the contents of the video Sunday, saying he cannot comment on a tape he hasn't seen. "Whatever this video shows, Toronto residents deserve to see it and people need to judge for themselves what they see on this video," he said.

Police said the video will come out when Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug and extortion charges. Lisi is accused of threatening two alleged gang members who had been trying to sell the video to the media.

Police have said they want to talk to Ford, but his lawyer so far has declined.

Ford on Sunday acknowledged making "mistakes" but declined to take a leave of absence or resign.

"I sincerely apologize, there's absolutely no excuse, no one to blame but myself," he said. "I am going to fight like no one has seen before to win the next election" in October 2014.

Later, he told Toronto radio station AM640 in an interview that "I am not a crack addict. I'm not an addict of any type of drug -- even alcohol."

All four major Toronto newspapers have called on Ford to resign. Municipal law makes no provision for his forced removal from office unless he's convicted and jailed for a criminal offense.

The populist, conservative mayor also said Sunday he would agree to have a full-time city driver, a proposal he had rejected before as a waste of taxpayers' money.

Even before police announced they had the video, Ford had drawn criticism for erratic behavior.

Ford said Sunday he shouldn't have been drunk in public when he appeared at a street festival in August, calling it "pure stupidity."

He also said he got "a little out of control" after St. Patrick's Day in 2012, when city hall security guards said they witnessed a "very intoxicated' Ford having trouble walking and swearing at aides.

An incident report released last week said that at 2:30 a.m. that day, Ford "visited the security desk alone with a half empty bottle of St. Remy French Brandy." The mayor said his car had been stolen and he wanted to call police, the report said. Security told Ford his car was at home, took the bottle from him and found him a taxi.

Ford warned Sunday, "I'm not saying here I'm not going to drink again. That's not realistic. Just slow down on the eating and drinking and everything."

The mayor also met over the weekend with ally and Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, who had said he wanted to express the concerns of city council members.

Kelly said Sunday he was "encouraged" by Ford's decision to hire a driver to pick him up in the morning and take him home at night.

But Kelly said there would be "no generosity by any of the sides" if Ford slips up again.

City Councilor Doug Ford, the mayor's brother and co-host of the radio show, said the mayor should stay in his basement when he drinks.

Ford drove himself to the radio station Sunday, blasting the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" on his car stereo as he arrived.




Rob Ford refuses to address the controversial video that police have seized but does issue a warning.
'I'm going to weather this'



"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/4/2013 4:39:20 PM
Obama blogs for gay rights

Obama turns blogger to make pitch for gay rights bill


U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event for Terry McAuliffe for Governor in Arlington, Virginia, November 3, 2013. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)

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President Obama turned blogger on Sunday night, making an impassioned plea in the Huffington Post for Congress to pass a long-delayed measure to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The bill, called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, is set for a Senate vote on Monday, and proponents are upbeat about its prospects for passage.

Obama writes that while Americans can't lose their jobs because of race, religion, gender, or disability, "in many states a person can be fired simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender."

The president continues: "It's offensive. It's wrong. And it needs to stop, because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense."

Citing "strong bipartisan support and the support of a vast majority of Americans," Obama says ENDA "ought to be the law of the land."

The only thing Americans should be judged on in the workplace, he says, is "their ability to get their jobs done. Does it make a difference if the firefighter who rescues you is gay -- or the accountant who does your taxes, or the mechanic who fixes your car?"

The same legislation failed by a single vote, 50-49, the last time it was considered by the Senate in 1996, the Washington Post reports. This time, 60 votes will be needed to overcome an expected Republican filibuster. Along with all 55 Democratic senators, the bill currently has the support of at least four Republicans, though a fifth, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, has said he is leaning toward supporting the measure.

The column is Obama's third for the Huffington Post, but his first since being elected president. His previous two posts, written in 2008 during his first campaign for the White House, addressed the controversy over his pastor,the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his decision to support legislation concerning the secret FISA court.




The president pens a column urging passage of a bill to protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination.
Proponents upbeat




"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/4/2013 4:58:17 PM

Iran: Protesters swarm former US Embassy in Tehran

Associated Press

Iranian demonstrators hold a cartoon effigy of the US president Barack Obama during a demonstration marking the 34th anniversary of US Embassy takeover in front of the former US embassy in Tehran, Iran, 04 November 2013. Thousands of protesters chanting "Death to America" gathered on 04 November at the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the 34th anniversary of the start of the Iran hostage crisis. American flags were stomped on and burned by participants, who take to the streets every year on November 4 in what is called a "day of national confrontation against world imperialism." EPA/ABEDIN TAHRKENAREH

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets Monday outside the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran in the biggest anti-American rally in years, a show of support for hard-line opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's historic outreach to Washington.

Such protests occur every year outside the former embassy compound to mark the anniversary of the 1979 takeover following the Islamic Revolution. But the latest demonstration is the largest in years after calls by groups such as the powerful Revolutionary Guard for a major showing, including chants of "death to America" that some of Rouhani's backers have urged halted.

The crowds also send a message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who cautiously has backed Rouhani's overtures to the U.S. and efforts to end the impasse with the West over Tehran's nuclear program.

Opponents of thawing relations with the U.S. say they will not back down, opening the prospect of deeper internal rifts and tensions that could put pressure on Khamenei to reconsider his backing of Rouhani's groundbreaking exchanges with the U.S.

In September, Rouhani accepted from a call from U.S. President Barack Obama following the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Iran's foreign minister. Ties between the two countries were severed after the embassy siege, which began a hostage crisis with 52 people held for 444 days.

Critics of the dialogue made their views immediately known, hurling insults and eggs at Rouhani's entourage upon their return from New York. Late last month, huge banners appeared around Tehran depicting the U.S. as a sinister and deceitful adversary that seeks to weaken Iran. Tehran officials ordered the signs removed, but they appeared in poster form at the demonstration Monday outside the former embassy compound.

Protesters also stomped on images of Obama and the U.S. flag. Others carried well-known banners reading "We trample America under our feet" and "The U.S. is the Great Satan." One image showed Obama in a wrestling uniform with Star of David earrings, symbolizing Israel.

On Sunday, Khamenei appeared to chide hard-liners by denouncing any attempts to undermine Iran's nuclear negotiators. Talks with world powers are scheduled to resume Thursday in Geneva.

Diplomats "are on a difficult mission and nobody should weaken those who are on assignment," the official IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, as telling a group of students.

Iran seeks to have painful economic sanctions eased in exchange for concessions in its nuclear program to address concerns by the West, which fears Iran's uranium enrichment could eventually produce weapons-grade material. Iran insists it only seeks reactors for energy and medical applications, but has not made public its possible confidence-building offers at the talks.

Outside the former embassy's brick walls — covered with anti-U.S. murals — students carried a model of a centrifuge used in uranium enrichment. A slogan on it read: "Result of resistance against sanctions: 18,000 active centrifuges in Iran."

Another banner quoted Khamenei: "The aim of sanctions is to make the Iranian nation desperate."

Khamenei's backing of Rouhani also puts him in an unfamiliar spot of having to reassure hard-liners he has not abandoned their views.

Khamenei on Sunday praised Iranian militant students who stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979.

"Thirty years ago, our young people called the U.S. Embassy a 'den of spies.' ... It means our young people were 30 years ahead of their time," he said, a reference to a series of reports of U.S. eavesdropping on foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Largest anti-U.S. protests in Iran in years


Tens of thousands of demonstrators swarm the former U.S. Embassy on the anniversary of the 1979 siege.
Chants of 'death to America'


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/4/2013 5:13:10 PM

Doctors complicit in torture at CIA, military prisons, study claims

AFP

Jennifer Griffin reports from Washington, D.C.

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Washington (AFP) - Doctors and nurses tasked with monitoring the health of terror suspects were complicit in abuses committed at prisons run by the Pentagon and the CIA, an independent report said Monday.

The Defense Department and the CIA demanded that the health care personnel "collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in US custody," according to the two-year study by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession.

Medical professionals helped design, enable and participated in "torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" of detainees, according to the report.

Collaboration at US prisons in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and the Central Intelligence Agency secret detention sites began after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

"It's clear that in the name of national security, the military trumped (the Hippocratic Oath), and physicians were transformed into agents of the military and performed acts that were contrary to medical ethics and practice," said study co-author Gerald Thomson, professor of medicine emeritus at Columbia University.

The Hippocratic Oath is a committment made by medical personnel to practice their profession in an honest and ethical manner.

The report, conducted by two dozen military, ethics, medical, public health and legal experts, calls on the US Senate Intelligence Committee to fully investigate medical practices at the detention sites.

Co-author Leonard Rubenstein of Johns Hopkins University focused on force-feeding on Guantanamo Bay's hunger strikers, as well as CIA agents' use of harsh interrogation methods and simulated drowning known as waterboarding at secret sites.

"Abuse of detainees and health professional participation in this practice is not behind us as a country," he told AFP.

The authors also urged the Pentagon and CIA to follow standards of conduct that would let medical personnel adhere to their ethical principles so they could later heal detainees they encounter.

Both the CIA and the Pentagon rejected the report's findings.

The report "contains serious inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions," said CIA public affairs chief Dean Boyd.

"It's important to underscore that the CIA does not have any detainees in its custody and President (Barack) Obama terminated the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program by executive order in 2009," Boyd said.

Obama signed an executive order shortly after taking office in 2009 that banned interrogation techniques used under his predecessor George W. Bush and that critics say amount to torture.

Although the president has not banned extraordinary rendition, new rules prevent suspects from being tortured before they are transferred to a different country for interrogation, trial or continued detention.

Obama also established a task force to review interrogation and transfer policies and issue recommendations, but the group's 2009 report remains classified.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Todd Breasseale said that none of the critics of prisoner care "have had actual access to the detainees, their medical records," or the procedures at the Guantanamo detention camp.

According to Breasseale, Guantanamo's doctors and nurses are "consummate professionals working under terrifically stressful conditions, far from home and their families, and with patients who have been extraordinarily violent."

The doctors and nurses "routinely provide not only better medical care than any of these detainees have ever known, but care on par with the very best of the global medical profession," he said.

Allegations of medical personnel complicit in abuses are not new: in 2009, the group Physicians for Human Rights said that doctors were directed to monitor the CIA's interrogation techniques in an effort to improve their effectiveness.

The group said the practice amounted to "unlawful experimentation" on detainees treated as human subjects.


Study: Doctors complicit in Gitmo prisoner abuse


The CIA and Pentagon reject a report asserting medical professionals ignored their oath.
'Inflicted severe harm'

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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