Saturday, May 16, 2009

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Waylon Lewis: Top 10 Yoga Twitter Tweeters (who u shld Follow) Top
I've only been on Twitter for say five months...and it took me the first few months--until I started using Tweetdeck (advice and link here)-- to get Twitter. For those of you who are still holding back from this latest greatest fastest virtual communications tool, I say: go for it. Take the plunge. If I offered you a free way to communicate with your community in real-time, you wouldn't say 'No.' That's all Twitter is. Forget the hype--especially if you're a local retail or service-focused business. Twitter helps me network, share my work, learn about cool news, local specials and activities. I just got named a Top Ten Green Tweeter Worth Following--a nice honor that inspired me to write the below Top Ten Yoga Tweeters, because, after all, we here @elephantjournal don't just focus on Green, or any one thing for that matter--we focus on anything that "can help you to live a good life that also happens to be good for others, and our planet." Anyways: favorite useful yoga-savvy tweeters...follow the below twitstars, and if you feel you ought to be followed, or if I forgot one of your favorite yoga tweeters , just add the Twitter id (@blanketyblank) in the Comments section in the bottom. I get enough comments on one in particular, I'll add you to the Top 10 list (and kick one of the other worthies out). 0. Yours truly, @elephantjournal , focuses on "the mindful life" generally. So while we're not a dedicated top yoga tweeter , we do offer some fun, interesting interviews, articles...most recently an interview at our Walk the Talk Show with John Friend of Anusara , an article about Yoga for Basketball , and a review of a yoga DVD for plus size yogis and yoginis . Okay, on your mats, get set, breathe... ... 1. @yogadork has got to be number one--they're fun, personal, care and know about yoga. 2. Yogadork likes @YogaHeals 3. I like @yoga_journal , obvious but strong twitterer. 4. @davekennedy he's a great mensch, a dedicated yogi behind prAna 5. @yogabear 6. @lotuspad 7. @presentjoyoga 8. @aredlotus 9. @IntegralHack 10. @yogitechchick is super sweet and networking savvy, active, totally worth the follow. Spinal Tap Honorary Number Eleven: @gaiam More on Twitter
 
Larry King Interviews The Large Hadron Collider (VIDEO) Top
The world's largest particle accelerator sat down for interview with Larry King. It can't talk, but that didn't seem to bother Larry, whose endless stream of inane questions led him to an endless stream of inane anecdotes. WATCH: More on Funny Videos
 
Congressional Budget Office Could Kill Health Care Reform, Again Top
Everywhere you look, health care reform seems to be chugging along. Insurers and drug companies are visiting the White House to show solidarity with President Obama. House Democrats are promising to pass a bill by July 31. But, if you talk to senior staff in the administration or on Capitol Hill, you'll detect anxiety over one tiny agency--an agency that helped kill health care reform in 1994 and has the power to do so again.
 
Bush's Afterlife In Texas Top
Patrick Bibb, a 19-year-old from Dallas, glanced at his cell phone. He was in the middle of his economics class at Texas Christian University on a February morning. His caller ID read withheld. He decided not to answer. When class ended, he checked his messages and found that George W. Bush had been trying to reach him.
 
CANNES: Ang Lee's 'Taking Woodstock' Premieres (PHOTOS) Top
(AP Article, Scroll for HuffPo Slideshow) CANNES, France - Ang Lee views his 1970s drama "The Ice Storm" as a representation of the disillusionment of the '60s, the hangover of Woodstock. Now director Lee has gone back in time a few years to capture the party that led to the hangover. "Taking Woodstock," Lee's Cannes Film Festival entry, presents a loving glimpse of the behind-the-scenes hijinks that resulted in the gloriously sloppy music fest. Set in 1973, 1997's "The Ice Storm" was a portrait of suburban families unraveling amid adultery, casual drug use and the backdrop of the Watergate scandal. "Taking Woodstock" shows the summer-long buildup to the 1969 rock 'n' roll gathering that lured half a million free spirits to a rainy, muddy patch of farmland. Woodstock "has a symbolic meaning to me. It's the innocence of a young generation departing from the old establishment and trying to find a more refreshing way, more fair way, to live with everybody else," Lee said Saturday before the Cannes premiere of "Taking Woodstock." SATURDAY'S PREMIERE PHOTOS: "It was dirty, filthy. It was actually a mess," said Lee, a best-director Academy Award winner for "Brokeback Mountain." "But you have to give those kids, those half a million kids credit, that actually, they had three days of peace and music. Nothing violent happened. I think that's something. I don't know if we can pull that off today." Based on the memoir by Elliot Tiber, "Taking Woodstock" is the story of a dutiful son (Demetri Martin) who views the upcoming rock festival as a means to save his parents' seedy Catskills motel from foreclosure. After Woodstock organizers lose their permit to stage the event in a nearby town, Elliot brokers a deal with the promoters to stage the event on the dairy farm of his neighbor Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) in Bethel, N.Y. "Taking Woodstock" also features Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman. It's Lee's lightest film since the mid-1990s, when he made the romances "Sense and Sensibility," "Eat Drink Man Woman" and "The Wedding Banquet." The project landed on Lee's desk by chance while he was promoting his last film, the dark World War II-era spy thriller "Lust, Caution." Tiber was the guest following Lee on a San Francisco TV talk show. The two talked a bit and Tiber gave Lee a copy of his book. "I was yearning to do a comedy-slash-drama again without cynicism," Lee said. "It took me a long way to get there. I thought after 13 years, I sort of earned the right to do it, just be relaxed, be happy and at peace with myself and everybody else." With a 1960s-soaked soundtrack featuring The Band, Canned Heat, Joan Baez, Richie Havens and Country Joe and the Fish, "Taking Woodstock" is awash in period detail, from Volkswagen Love Bugs to hippie hair and sideburns to a vintage Slinky toy commercial on TV. Lee ran a hippie camp to teach the extras the right way to behave and carry themselves. The filmmakers said their hardest task was getting the extras to look like '60s youths. Screenwriter James Schamus -- who heads Focus Features, which is releasing "Taking Woodstock," and who won the 1997 screenplay prize at Cannes for "The Ice Storm" -- said there's a different look to today's young people, with their passion for fitness and disdain for pubic hair. Said Schamus: "When you think about it, a generation of people who weren't fat, who weren't staring at themselves in the mirror all the time, and not shaving everything off down there, it captures the difference of 40 years right there." ___ On the Net: http://www.festival-cannes.fr More on Photo Galleries
 
Teen Tries To Use Banana As Gun In Hold-Up, Fails, Eats Banana Top
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Authorities in North Carolina say a store owner and a patron thwarted a teen accused of trying to carry out a robbery by concealing a banana beneath his shirt to resemble a gun. Winston-Salem authorities say 17-year-old John Szwalla entered the Internet cafe Thursday and demanded money, saying he had a gun. The owner, Bobby Ray Mabe, said he and a customer jumped Szwalla, holding him until deputies arrived. While they waited, Mabe says the teen ate the banana. Mabe says deputies took pictures of the peel. Forsyth County Sheriff's office spokesman Maj. Brad Stanley says deputies joked about charging Szwalla with destroying evidence. Szwalla faces a charge of attempted armed robbery. Jail officials say he doesn't have an attorney. ___ Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com More on Stupid Criminals
 
Miss Tiffany Universe Transsexual Beauty Pageant (PHOTOS) Top
The Miss Tiffany Universe took place in Thailand on Saturday. According to the photo captions on the Getty images below, the contest has been running for 12 years, and all of the contestants are transsexuals or transvestites. In Thailand transsexuals are considered a third gender given the Thai name 'Katoey.' PHOTOS: More on Photo Galleries
 
David Epstein: Two Obvious Truths About the Torture Scandal Top
Obvious Truth #1: Let's say there's this terrorist, and he has plans to blow up a major US landmark, killing lots of people (maybe even your son or daughter!). I'm walking past his house, ten minutes before the bomb is set to go off, and I see the folder with his plans right there on his kitchen table! (He's perhaps not the most organized or secretive of terrorists.) I can get the plans and save all those people's lives (maybe even your son's or daughter's!), but I have to break into his house to do it, and that's a crime. The answer should now be obvious to you: stealing should not be a crime! Still not convinced by my logic? This could really, really happen! I saw it on an old episode of SWAT (or was it Get Smart ?). Why are you still opposing me? Why are you willing to put innocent American lives in danger? Tough guys (especially tough guys who got out of fighting real wars when they had a chance) rob houses. (Back to reality.) There's lots of good debunking of ticking-time-bomb scenarios out there, but I have yet to see the simple point made that even if such a situation did arise (which in real life might happen once every decade or two), and even if torture would work in such a case (no real-life examples of that yet, outside of 24 ), that wouldn't justify a regime that makes torture legal. Torture is wrong, hideous, and abhorrent, and if you needed it for a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, you could get the equivalent of a judicial bypass, or warrant, from the President for that one occasion. But it makes no sense at all to torture what are likely innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, sold to US forces by their neighbors looking to make a buck, and justify it under the ticking-time-bomb scenario. Obvious Truth #2: Torture is to the Iraq War what the internment of Japanese-Americans was to WWII. In both cases the exigencies of war created a special kind of hysteria that let us brand certain human beings as "others" and do unspeakable things to them, to our lasting national shame. Of course, even by these standards what we've done now is dastardly: at least the forces we fought in WWII posed much more of an existential threat to our country than Al Qaeda ever will, and even then we merely forcibly relocated innocent people rather than torture them. It also follows that in 50 years (or maybe sooner), the US will officially apologize for what it's done here, just like we apologized to those interned during the Second World War. And I hope Condi Rice realizes that future school children will watch tapes of her, like others from the Bush Administration, still make the claim that "we didn't torture" and be told that yes, it's unbelievable that she could say something like that, but that's just an object lesson in what bad people do. More on War Wire
 
Allison Kilkenny: Al-Barakaat: The Little Charity That Could Have Saved Somalia Top
Most Americans only hear about Somalia if the country's name precedes "is a failed state," or "is a hotbed of pirate activity." But what many Americans don't know is that the US worked to undermine a Somalian charity that stepped in to provide aid to the chaotic state. After the gross failure of the 1993 Black Hawk rescue mission which left 18 US Army Rangers and perhaps 1000 Somalians dead, the world turned its back on the impoverished country. Somalia was largely supported by a charity group, Al-Barakaat, which accounted for "about half of the country's $500 million remittances." Al-Barakaat, which literally means "blessings" was "set up to address the needs of Somali immigrants who sent, on a weekly or monthly basis, a significant part of their earnings to their families," writes Ibrahim Warde in The Price of Fear. Following the 1991 collapse of the Somali government and banking system, Al-Barakaat "assumed a significant role in the Somali government." Warde adds that at the time of the September 11 attacks Al-Barakaat was Somalia's largest business group with "subsidiaries involved in banking, telecommunications, and construction." The charity's model consisted of wiring money (much like Western Union) from expatriate Somalians to their families in Somalia-- for means of survival -- not terrorism. Warde explains that although the global money transfers understandably raised initial suspicion, accusations that Al-Barakaat was "closely associated with or controlled by the terrorist group Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI)," which in turn gave a portion of money to Osama bin Laden "were dismissed by intelligence professionals, and attributed to political and business rivalries within the community." In 2001, President Bush accused Al-Barakaat of funding Al-Qaeda. He quickly announced that the Treasury Department would force the Somalian charity to close, and remarked that the termination would "[send] a clear message to global financial institutions: You are with us, or you're with the terrorists. And if you're with the terrorists, you will face the consequences.'' About a year later, the New York Times reported that American officials claimed they had proof that Al-Barakaat provided "as much as $25 million a year to Osama bin Laden's terrorists in weapons, cash and other support," but that "some United States officials now acknowledge that the evidence of Al Barakaat's backing for terrorism is more tenuous." All of these accusations turned out to be false, and the US government shyly snuck away from the mess. They were able to do so with an assist from the mainstream media, which barely reported on any of this. The wild goose chase not only negatively affected Somalia, but it tarnished the image of the United States. Allies, which had followed the US's lead on Al-Barakaat on good faith, began to doubt the accusations. Warde writes: "[A] Canadian judge, saying that he found no evidence of a link to terrorism, rejected the US request to extradite Liban Hussein, the chairman of Barakaat North America. The man was freed on a $12,000 bond." Creating a link where there is no link . The mantra should be familiar to Americans by now, particularly in light of the report that Vice President Dick Cheney's office "suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner ... who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection." By the time the US was ready to admit its colossal mistake, it was like watching a bull try to discretely back out of a china shop post-rampage. The mainstream media barely covered it. Worse, Warde writes, the US continued to use Al-Barakaat as an example of "a major victory of the War on Terror." The closing of Al-Barakaat had devastating effects on Somalia. International telephone service to 25,000 people was cut off. "The company was the country's biggest employer and ran the biggest bank, the biggest phone system, and the only water-purification plant," Warde writes. Perhaps the most devastating effect is on the psyche of the Somalian people, who feel betrayed that their largest charity was accused of terrorist activities, and that they have been robbed of a valuable human resource without so much as an apology or recognition of mistakes from the United States. Trust is another casualty of the War on Terror. In the Price of Fear , Warde cites a Wall Street Journal interview with a European diplomat assigned to the United Nations Security Council who said, "In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was enormous goodwill and a willingness to take on trust any name that the US submitted." That trust is gone now. It's gone because the intelligence community, and the government failed both in gathering intelligence during the lead-up to the War on Terror, and in how it has been treating War on Terror detainees, namely torturing them. An apology and an Obama administration change of course with its inherited War on Terror Overseas Contingency Operations seems like meager largesse considering the devastation the US (along with its propaganda-peddling media) has wrought on the planet, but it would be a small step toward reparations. Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog . Also available on Facebook and Twitter . More on Somalia
 
Mark Joseph: How Pope Benedict Outsmarted Ron Howard Top
So, it looks like Angels & Demons is going to be a box-office dud this weekend, barely holding off Star Trek and taking in a little more than half in box office revenue what the Da Vinci Code did in its opening weekend. This despite the desperate attempt by director Ron Howard to use these pages to try to create a controversy where none existed. Mr. Howard apparently thinks its still 1988 when Evangelical Christians showed their lack of smarts by protesting the release of The Last Temptation Of Christ , thereby giving it far more publicity than it would otherwise have received. But today traditionalists have become far more sophisticated in their response to movies like Howard's. They ignore them or even worse, praise them. A few years back the producers of Saved hoped to incite a protest or boycott by sending around screeners to religious leaders. What they got instead was a collective yawn. But Pope Benedict's Vatican offered the unkindest cut of all when it labeled Howard's film "harmless" For a film hoping desperately for an organized protest, that was the unkindest cut of all.
 
Teryn Norris: First Analysis of Full Waxman-Markey Climate Bill Top
By Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins The landmark Waxman-Markey 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act was introduced in the House yesterday (May 15, download PDF here ), and the Breakthrough Institute has performed a preliminary analysis of how it would invest over $1 trillion in cap and trade revenue between 2012-2025. Our key findings for this period include (all numbers are approximate -- download spreadsheet here ): Polluting industries : 57.3% of allowances would be freely distributed to polluting industries, including 36.7% for the electricity sector, 12.3% for energy-intensive industries, 6.5% for local natural gas distribution companies, and 1.8% for oil refiners Direct consumer protection : 16.5% of allowances would be used for direct consumer protection , including 15% for low and moderate-income families and 1.5% to benefit users of home heating oil and propane Energy efficiency and clean energy technology : 12.2% of allowances would be used to fund energy efficiency and clean energy technology development and deployment Adaptation and technology transfer : 4.7% of allowances would be used for domestic and global climate adaptation and technology transfer Workforce development : 0.6% of allowances would be used to fund worker assistance and job training Deficit reduction and other : 8.6% of allowances would be used to fund deficit reduction and other public purposes (click image to magnify) How much money would these allocations translate into? That depends on the average price for each pollution allowance -- the EPA's initial price estimate was $13-17 per allowance, so we will assume an average price of $15 per allowance. The allocation would look like this: Investment in clean energy technology development and deployment is broken out here (Note: the amount for clean energy technology within the "Renewable Energy and Efficiency" program is not specified): Our analysis finds that Waxman-Markey would spend about $9 billion annually on a range of things that could generously be classified as technology innovation. By contrast, the legislation would give $32 billion to utilities, $9 billion to heavy industries, and $11 billion to low-income consumers annually. This $9 billion is far less than what Obama promised ($15 billion) and far less than the $30 billion that three dozen energy scientists and experts, including several Nobel laureates, called for in a sign-on letter during the fall of 2007. The large allowance giveaway to polluters also stands in contrast to Obama's previous calls for a 100% auction , which was included in his final budget proposal.
 
Craig Crawford: Anti-Abortion Lobby Takes Another Hit Top
Anti-abortion activists are really out of luck if the top GOP senator for reviewing Supreme Court nominees sticks by his words that he will support a "pro abortion" pick. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions , the new ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the remark on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" airing on Sunday (5/17). "Could I support a pro-abortion nominee? The answer is yes." Still, Session goes on to say that "shouldn't allow their personal view on abortion to shape how they define the law." (More on Craig Crawford's Trail Mix ) Despite the apparent qualification of his words, Session's first statement shows that pro-lifers might not have gained much when the Alabama Republican replaced party switcher/pro-choicer Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania as the top GOP senator on the Judiciary Committee. It has been a long time since anti-abortion groups faced a shut-out in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Despite Specter's opposition as ranking Republican in past confirmations, they at least had the votes to prevail. Now they lack the votes along with a committee leader and a president favorable to their cause. More on Supreme Court
 

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