It's A Blue Moon New Year's Eve Party!

Written by Tammy Plotner

Have you enjoyed our lunar studies together this year? We hope you've taken the time to follow the phases and to appreciate what you see. Although it would be wonderful to end our this year's time together viewing the distant cosmos, something very cool is about to happen…

In 1982, a second full Moon of the month was visible. Known as a ''Blue Moon,'' the name does not refer to the Moon's color but reflects the rarity of the event and gives rise to the expression, ''once in a blue moon.'' The Blue Moon of 1982 was even more special because a total lunar eclipse also occurred (for the United States) then. The image you see below has a strange significance as well. Not only is it the absolute finest photo of the full Moon I have ever seen, but it was recorded at a year's end, too… on December 22, 1999 by incomparable astrophotographer Rob Gendler. That particular December's Moon was special for another reason, as the full phase occurred on the day of the winter solstice, within hours of lunar perigee and just one month away from a lunar eclipse.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/12/22/its-a-blue-moon-new-years-eve-party/

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Turkey seeks return of Santa Claus' bones

By Jonathan Head

St Nicholas was born in modern-day Turkey 17 centuries ago

A Turkish archaeologist has called on his government to demand that Italy return the bones of St Nicholas to their original resting place.

The 3rd Century saint - on whom Santa Claus was modelled - was buried in the modern-day town of Demre in Turkey.

But in the Middle Ages his bones were taken by Italian sailors and re-interred in the port of Bari.

The Turkish government said it was considering making a request to Rome for the return of the saint's remains.

While Christmas is by and large not celebrated in Muslim Turkey, the Christmas figure of Santa Claus certainly is, in the Mediterranean town of his birth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8432314.stm

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Wis. man's bank quip earns him Champion Liar title

 

By DINESH RAMDE

MILWAUKEE – A jab at the woes of the nation's banks has been named the top tall tale of 2009.

The Burlington Liars Club bestowed its highest award Wednesday for this line: "I just realized how bad the economy really is. I recently bought a new toaster oven and as a complimentary gift, I was given a bank."

The quip earned Larry Legro of Sun Prairie, Wis., the dubious — but serious — distinction of being the year's World Champion Liar.

"I was ecstatic," said Legro, 58, a state health inspector. "I told people all year I was planning to win this contest."

Legro told The Associated Press he had been submitting entries for four to five years, even if his wife didn't share his enthusiasm.

"When I told her I won I could see her roll eyes like, 'Why do you want to do this?'" he said. "Because it's there. Somebody's got to do it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_top_liar

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Get Hypnotized By Facebook

 by Christina Warren

Given the sheer amount of time that individuals spend on Facebook and Twitter, it's easy to make jokes about the hypnotic nature of social networking. However, real-life hypnotherapist Chris Hughes plans on bringing together hypnotism and the Internet in a very real way.

On January 4, 2010, at 20:30 GMT (that's 3:30 p.m. EST and 12:30 p.m. PST), Hughes will be attempting to set the world record for mass online hypnosis via his website socialtrance.com. Users can sign up for the audio event via their Facebook () or Twitter () accounts.

At the time of this post, more than 2,260 users have signed up to take part in Monday's event. All that's required is a computer with an Internet connection, speakers or headphones, a comfy chair and a quiet interruption-free location.

http://mashable.com/2009/12/31/hypnosis-facebook-twitter/

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Thomas Jefferson Decided The Hemp Brake Was Too Important To Patent

from the locking-stuff-up-isn't-a-very-good-thing dept

by Mike Masnick

We've had plenty of discussions about Thomas Jefferson's views on the patent system. He is, clearly, the father of the patent system in the US. While he was incredibly skeptical of the idea of granting any monopolies originally, he did come around to accept patents in very limited circumstances, and when he oversaw the patent system, he was careful to make sure that the downsides of such monopolies were limited. Separately, for many years, I've heard the story of how Ben Franklin purposely decided not to patent his stove invention, stating:

"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

However, I had not heard of a similar story involving Thomas Jefferson refusing to patent certain inventions he came up with as well. Reader jprlk points us to a recent Straight Dope column, which is mostly about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's exposure to marijuana, but there is one interesting part about how Jefferson refused to patent his "hemp brake" patent, because he found the invention to be "too important":

Jefferson invented a better "hemp brake" to separate the fibers from the stalks, something he thought was so important agriculturally that he refused to patent it.

Combined with the Franklin quote, this is quite telling. In both cases, they realized that the invention could be a lot more useful if it were not limited.

 

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091211/0810217306.shtml

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Cheney in Winter

by Eugene Robinson

Washington - It's pathetic to break a New Year's resolution before we even get to New Year's Day, but here I go. I had promised myself that I would do a better job of ignoring Dick Cheney's corrosive and nonsensical outbursts -- that I would treat them, more or less, like the pearls of wisdom one hears from homeless people sitting in bus shelters.

But he is a former vice president, which gives him a big stage for his histrionic Rottweiler-in-Winter act. It is never a good idea to let widely disseminated lies and distortions go unchallenged. And the shrill screed that Cheney unloosed Wednesday is so full of outright mendacity that, well, my resolution will have to wait.

In a statement he gave to Politico, Cheney seemed to be trying to provide talking points for opponents of the Obama administration who -- incredibly -- would exploit the Christmas Day terrorist attack for political gain. Cheney's broadside opens with a big lie, which he then repeats throughout. It is as if he believes that saying something over and over again, in a loud enough voice, magically makes it so.

"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney begins.

Flat-out untrue.

http://www.truthout.org/topstories/123009vh13

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Alma

 

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

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Report Says ACORN Didn't Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding

by Mary Susan Littlepage

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn't misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress.

Among its findings, CRS also reported that recently enacted federal legislation to prohibit funding to ACORN raises significant constitutional concerns. The report said courts "may have a sufficient basis" to conclude that the legislation "violates the prohibition against bills of attainder." Also, concerning recent "sting" operations related to ACORN, although state laws vary, two states, Maryland and California, "appear to ban private recording of face to face conversations absent the consent of all the participants," the report said.

The CRS report was requested by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank in September.

"There were no instances of individuals who were allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN or its employees and who were reported attempting to vote at the polls," the CRS report states.

This report came on the heels of another report that also cleared ACORN of wrongdoing. That outside report indicated ACORN doesn't show a pattern of intentional and illegal behavior in undercover videos that conservatives shot of ACORN staffers. That's according to an independent, two-month review of ACORN released in early December by Scott Harshbarger, senior counsel at Proskauer Rose and former Massachusetts attorney general. Proskauer Rose is a law firm that led the independent review of ACORN at the behest of its senior officials. This review shows the independent analysis requested by ACORN on September 21 in the wake of the video controversies, significant negative news coverage and lost support among some funders, allies and supporters.

http://www.truthout.org/1230091

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Vote On TSA Nominee Caught Up In Union Dispute

by Brian Naylor

The attempted detonation of an explosive device aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day has shifted national attention to the airport screeners who work for the Transportation Security Administration. For nearly a year, the TSA has been without a permanent administrator.

President Obama has named Los Angeles Airport Security Assistant Chief Erroll Southers to the post. But the Senate has yet to vote on the nomination, because one Republican senator wants a guarantee that the administration won't allow collective bargaining for airport screeners.

That revives a bitter controversy from the days of the Homeland Security Department's creation in 2002.

Echoes Of 2002

GOP Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina says it would be wrong if union bosses were to "dictate" security at the nation's airports. In a statement released by his office, DeMint says that the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA.

Earlier this month, DeMint asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano how unionization and collective bargaining could enhance airport security.

"Well, senator, the answer is collective bargaining and security are not mutually exclusive concepts, and these types of agreements are negotiated all the time all over the United States," Napolitano said.

Giving airport screeners the right to bargain collectively was a nonstarter for the Bush administration back in 2002, when it drew up legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security and put airport screeners under its jurisdiction.

While employees were able to join a union, they were blocked from bargaining for a contract. When Democrats tried to insert a right to collective bargaining in the bill, they were attacked for opposing homeland security. The accusation was that such bargaining would mean strikes and would leave the country open to terrorist attacks.

In the 2002 elections, Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA), who voted against homeland security measures, saw himself depicted in a TV ad alongside pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

That fall, Cleland lost to Saxby Chambliss, his Republican opponent, who has held that Georgia Senate seat ever since.

But have times changed?

"I think that we can accomplish collective bargaining, and also do that in such a fashion that we never at one moment sacrifice any wit of security," says Napolitano.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122061240

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Art reproduction of the day

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Clueless in Washington

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Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Journalists

by Brenna Ehrlich

Navigating the journalistic seas this past year has been a particularly challenging/exciting task. As many a publication foundered in the economic benthos, others rode the wave of new technology into previously uncharted waters.

Mashable has been there through it all, stepping in to provide journalists with touchstones and compass directions to help them do everything from tell more compelling tales through alternative storytelling to make the most of their Twitter accounts.

It's not enough today to have a good rolodex of sources (seriously, who even has a rolodex nowadays?) and a solid recorder, journalists need to be able to make use of every tool in their arsenal in order to stay afloat in today's almost real-time media landscape.

It's time to add another factor to the boot leather equation. Here's how:

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Add Social Media Tools to Your Belt

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From making use of social media tools to create and store content (ala YouTube and other video blogs) to tracking down sources (via Facebook) to publicizing stories and interacting with readers (by logging into Twitter), social media tools have opened up a whole new realm to today's journalists. Here are some great resources that can teach you everything from how to use YouTube to conduct man-on-the-street interviews to how to keep up with other journos on Twitter.

The Journalist's Guide to YouTube

The Journalist's Guide to Facebook

The Journalist's Guide to User Generated Video

The Journalist's Guide to Twitter

The Complete Guide to Video Blogging

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Turn Your News Website Into a Community

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Reading the news these days is becoming less and less about passive consumption and more about interacting with and commenting on what's going on in your world. Therefore, websites have to be less like art museums (hands-off) and more like those children's museums of bygone days (hands-on). Check out these great guides to making your publication's website more interactive — from tapping into local news to riding the Google Wave.

10 Rules for Increasing Community Engagement

7 Ways to Make News Sites More Social

How Google Wave is Changing the News

How Social Media is Taking the News Local

- more -

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Kucinich to Investigate Fannie/Freddie Bailout

By Jane Hamsher

If the White House thought they could slip the bailout of Fannie and Freddie through by announcing it in a Christmas Eve news dump, think again.

Dennis Kucinich just released this statement:

As Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I'm announcing that the Subcommittee will launch an investigation into the Treasury Department's recent decision to lift the current $400-billion cap on combined federal assistance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, opening the way for additional, unlimited funds through the end of 2012. This investigation will include the role played by Fannie Mae chief executive Michael J. Williams and Freddie Mac chief executive Charles E. Haldeman in the decision, if any, and will seek to ensure that the additional assistance is used for homeowners and not Wall Street.

Many questions remain unanswered regarding this move by the Treasury. Why suddenly remove the cap? Indications are that Freddie and Fannie, even as millions of Americans lose their homes, have used just $111 billion of the $400 billion previously available to them. Is lifting the cap on assistance a back-door TARP?

Additionally, I want to determine whether Fannie and Freddie have a cohesive plan to buy up the under-performing mortgages that remain on the books of the big banks, at appropriate prices, and undertake a massive reworking of the terms of the mortgages so as to stem the foreclosure crisis that continues to plague our country.This new authority must be used responsibly and for the benefit of American families. This cannot be used simply to purchase toxic assets at inflated prices, thus transferring the losses to the U. S. taxpayers and acting as a back-door TARP.

On Christmas Eve, they also announced $4-$6 million compensation packages for their top executives.  But they'll start foreclosing on homeowners again in January.

Fannie and Freddie have been corrupt cesspools for years, a place where presidents of both parties parked friends like Dennis DeConcini and Rahm Emanuel, giving them lucrative spots on the board of directors as political payoff.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/30/kucinich-to-investigate-fanniefreddie-bailout/

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The Harvard Bookstore's new print on demand machine

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Can't our government get anything right?

Whichever party's in charge fumbles the basics -- security, health, infrastructure. Why are we paying these people?

 

By Michael Lind

 

I have a confession to make. I have been suffering from painful flashbacks lately. Memories of the 1970s force themselves, unbidden, into my mind. Memories of the high school assembly where we students were handed WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons.

Grownups who were unable or unwilling to take the policy measures necessary to reduce inflation told us children that price inflation was our personal responsibility, just as similar cowards and charlatans today tell us that addressing global warming is a moral responsibility of ordinary people, not a technological issue to be resolved by governments and utilities. I remember the U.S. retreat under fire from Indochina under President Gerald Ford and the debacle of the Desert One mission to rescue the American hostages in Iran under President Jimmy Carter.

And then there is the most painful memory of all: the killer rabbit. On April 20, 1979, a White House photographer captured an image of the beleaguered President Carter using his paddle to fend off a rabbit as it swam toward his fishing boat in Georgia. The photo was suppressed until the Reagan years, and Carter's press secretary explained that the creature was a ferocious "swamp rabbit." But headlines like "President Attacked by Rabbit" gave a comic spin to the widely shared feeling that the U.S. government had become feeble and ridiculous.

I've got those killer-rabbit blues again. And I'm not the only one.

Some Democratic partisans have claimed that the pathetic, lobby-written healthcare bill is the greatest expansion of social insurance in the U.S. since Medicare. Possibly true, but so what? Passing the greatest social reform since the days of LBJ is easy, like being the greatest novelist in Lichtenstein or the greatest tap dancer in Mongolia. There isn't much competition. Since the 1960s our increasingly paralyzed Congress seems to have become incapable of enacting any reform that isn't trivial, or botched, like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, or corrupted beyond recognition, like the healthcare bill.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/12/28/bumbling

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Thirty years since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

by Alex Lantier

In the press coverage of President Barack Obama's recent decision to deploy more US troops to Afghanistan, a historical milestone has gone curiously unmentioned—the 30th anniversary of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, which began on December 27, 1979.

An examination of the circumstances of this event undermines Obama's claims that American policy in Afghanistan is motivated by a "war on terror," revealing instead the imperialist aims behind US policy.

At the time, President Jimmy Carter seized on the Soviet intervention—which aimed to suppress mujahadeen rebels fighting the Soviet-backed regime of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)—to undo a decade of détente and escalate tensions with the USSR. This critical decision unleashed a conflict that would ultimately devastate Afghan society.

It emerged only years later that the Soviet invasion was itself a response to a deliberate US attempt to set up a new military front against the USSR in Afghanistan. Even before the Soviet invasion, Washington was secretly assisting the mujahadeen, with the aim of provoking a Soviet intervention and trapping the USSR in a bloody quagmire. The US foreign policy establishment's ultimate goal in pursuing this policy was to destroy the USSR and promote an expansion of US power in strategically located, oil-rich Central Asia...

Washington's policy towards the Soviet-Afghan war was marked by unsurpassed cynicism. It unleashed a barrage of sanctimonious protests against an invasion it had helped promote, including organizing a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. As it sent billions of dollars in weaponry to the mujahadeen, it publicly denied that it was giving the rebels any assistance.

Though Washington proclaimed that its Afghan proxies were "freedom fighters," the mujahadeen and their international backers were social reactionaries. With the assistance of right-wing Muslim regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the US promoted Islamic fundamentalist warlords within the resistance. Washington turned a blind eye as they exterminated competing mujahadeen factions and funded themselves through large-scale opium sales.

When the mujahadeen proved incapable of organizing attacks on Kabul and strategic roadways, the CIA armed and trained international Muslim recruits to launch terrorist attacks and suicide bombings. The young Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden oversaw these global recruitment networks, which later formed the core of Al Qaeda.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pers-d30.shtml

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John Ortved's The Simpsons: An Unauthorized, Uncensored History

By now The Simpsons is among the most predictable institutions in America. Not in the sense that the show is boring or unsurprising—though many will argue that it is—but predictable in that, after two decades, it's still on the air every with new episodes Sunday night at eight o'clock. Like baseball or The Ramones, The Simpsons has come to be synonymous with America.

That wasn't always the case, obviously, and when the series began it's success was anything but assured. That hectic period is at the heart of The Simpsons: An Unauthorized, Uncensored History, a 300-plus page oral history that began two years ago as a Vanity Fair piece. Drawing from extensive interviews with cast members, current and former writers (including Conan O'Brien, Wallace Wolodarsky, George Meyer, and others) and loveable Aussie billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the book was also done without the participation of principals such as Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, forcing Ortved to rely on outside sources (primarily quotes from print and broadcast interviews) and the word of the dozens of others interviewed for the project.

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/the_simpsons_an_unauthorized_uncensored_history/

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Facebook yanks high-profile cannabis pages

 

Picked up the following off indybay.org, a most cool Bay Area-based site if you haven't seen it before. We'll be watching for updates on the Facebook situation:

CANNABIS CULTURE – For reasons unknown, Cannabis Culture Magazine's Facebook page has been disabled by the popular social networking site.

The Cannabis Culture Facebook page, which had over 25,000 fans, (and was available at this link) disappeared on December 23, 2009. Shortly afterward, administrators of the page received an email notification:

Hello,

You created a Page that has violated our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit the Terms applicable to Facebook Pages at http://www.facebook.com/terms_pages.php.

The Facebook Team

CC editors have contacted Facebook and we hope to have the page reinstated soon. We are still trying to figure out how our page violated their terms; hopefully they do not consider discussion of cannabis "obscene".

http://calpotnews.com/pot-pourri/facebook-yanks-high-profile-cannabis-pages/

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Grow-your-own to replace false teeth

by Ian Sample

 

The British institution of dentures sitting in a glass of water beside the bed could be rendered obsolete by scientists who are confident that people will soon be able to replace lost teeth by growing new ones.

Instead of false teeth, a small ball of cells capable of growing into a new tooth will be implanted where the missing one used to be.

The procedure needs only a local anaesthetic and the new tooth should be fully formed within a few months of the cells being implanted.

Paul Sharpe, a specialist in the field of regenerative dentistry at the Dental Institute of King's College, London, says the new procedure has distinct advantages over false teeth that require a metal post to be driven into the jaw before being capped with a porcelain or plastic tooth.

"The surgery today can be extensive and you need to have good solid bone in the jaw and that is a major problem for some people," Professor Sharpe said.

The method could be used on far more patients because the ball of cells that grows into a tooth also produces bone that anchors to the jaw.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/may/03/sciencenews.health

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Last hour of Flight!

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