[ENVIRONMENT] WORLD'S LARGEST WIND FARM

WORLD'S LARGEST WIND FARM OPENS IN U.K.: BIG PIC

Sept. 23, 2010 -- The world's largest offshore wind farm opened in Britain on Thursday, as part of the government's bid to reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change.

The project received a qualified welcome from environmental campaigners.

The site, a forest of giant turbines in the North Sea off the east Kent coast, has 100 turbines installed so far with a total of 341 planned.

SEE ALSO: Is Wind Power Green?

Swedish energy company Vattenfall, which built the farm, says it has the potential to power 200,000 homes.

The farm will increase Britain's capacity to generate wind power by more than 30 percent.

Situated around seven miles (12 kilometers) out to sea, the 380-foot (115-meter) high turbines are spread over more than 22 square miles (35 square kilometers) and are visible from the shore.

The farm is expected to produce 300 megawatts of energy at full capacity, which would see Britain's renewable energy capacity rise to five gigawatts.

Energy minister Chris Huhne welcomed Britain's progress on wind power.

SEE ALSO: 'Lens' Wind Turbines Magnify Power

"We are in a unique position to become a world leader in this industry," he said. "We are an island nation and I firmly believe we should be harnessing our wind, wave and tidal resources to the maximum.

Craig Bennett, the campaigns and policy director for Friends of the Earth, said the wind farm was an "important stride forward" but warned that Britain's record on renewable energy was "dismal".

Critics point out that the turbines only produce energy when the wind is blowing and that as yet no cost-effective fuel cell has been developed for storing the power once it has been produced.

Professor Ian Fells, an energy expert, said: "What worries me is the government seems to be obsessed with the option of wind farms and neglects other sources of renewable energy, which in may ways could be more important.

"The other problem is they are intermittent. You never know when the wind is going to blow," he told the BBC.

Construction work at the 780-million-pound ($1.2-billion) wind farm began two years ago.

SEE ALSO: Airborne Wind Turbines Lift Off

There are around 250 wind farms operating in Britain, with a further 12 offshore, with 2,909 turbines in operation in total.

The new site opened as the Global Wind Energy Council, the sector's international representative body, forecast that wind power worldwide would double between 2010 and 2014 to reach more than 400 gigawatts.

"Overall, wind energy continues to be a growth market, weathering the economic crisis much better than some analysts had predicted," said GWEC secretary general Steve Sawyer.

"As wind power is becoming more competitive, it is rapidly expanding beyond the traditional markets in North America and Europe. Around half of the growth is now happening in emerging economies and developing countries."

SEE ALSO: Wind Farms Float Away from NIMBYism

Content provided by: AFP

Photo credit: Vattenfall

http://news.discovery.com/earth/largest-wind-farm.html

[LATIN AMERICA NEWS] Why are Latin American democracies suddenly attacking the free press?

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Juan Mabromata / AFP-Getty Images

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has gone after her enemies in the press.

The Read and the Black

Why are Latin American democracies suddenly attacking the free press?

Here’s a puzzler. Latin America has never been more democratic: of 34 nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, all except one (Cuba) are constitutional democracies, with laws guaranteeing open elections, independent courts, legislatures, and freedom of expression. So why do so many governments still trample on citizens’ rights, bully journalists, harass private business, and generally lord over hearth and home?

Incidents in just the last few weeks range from the grave (the Argentine government’s order to shut down the main Internet provider in retaliation to criticism from its owner) to the ridiculous (a Brazilian law banning parents from spanking kids). But the breadth of official incursions into citizen’s lives has sent out distress signals from Patagonia to the Antilles. In early August, after a shower of lawsuits filed by indignant politicians, the Brazilian Electoral Court ruled that television and radio comedians may not make fun of candidates in the coming national elections. The Argentine government declared war on its two largest independent media groups, Clarin and La Nación, which have been acid critics of president Cristina Fernandéz de Kirchner’s strong-armed rule. In Venezuela, where the homicide rate is soaring, the government reacted by getting a court to ban news media from publishing “violent, bloody, and grotesque images.” Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua have passed new media laws—all of them aimed at clipping the wings of privately owned news sources—and the call for “social control of media” is viral among lefty groups. (It was unanimously endorsed, for instance, by participants at an August confab in Argentina of regional leftist parties—which now govern 11 Latin American countries—called the São Paulo Forum.) “The threat to freedom is all around,” says Amaury de Souza, a Brazilian political scientist. “And it’s growing.”

The clampdown has the pundits and pols buzzing. To some, this is a relic of authoritarian culture dating from the time of military dictatorships, which between 1960 and 1990 kept many Latin nations in check with a boot and a gag. To others the habit dates to colonial times, when paternalistic monarchs ruled. No political party or ideology has a monopoly on the new authoritarianism; rank self-interest united Brazil’s politicians—from left, right, and center parties—in their effort to outlaw sendups by satirists that could make them look bad before millions of voters. And in Mexico, where drug lords are spreading terror and have killed 56 reporters since 2000, the latest threat is “narco-censorship,” in which drug cartels kill nosy reporters.

But it’s no surprise that the worst offenses have emerged in the most volatile flank of the region—in the Andean nations of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia—where the push by charismatic leaders like Hugo Chávez to reinvent their societies through “21st-century socialism” has produced economic dysfunction, hardship, and political strife. And where neo-despots are against a wall, they strike back in time-honored fashion—doctoring numbers, manufacturing applause, and crushing dissent. Populist Bolivian President Evo Morales has proposed a media law that calls for punishing news organizations that criticize candidates during an election year. The last time the Venezuelan government announced crime statistics was in 2004.

Meanwhile, the trouble in Argentina started in 2008, when Kirchner, looking to top up government coffers, slapped a 35 percent surtax on grain and food exports, which infuriated the country’s growers. The media took up the farmers’ cause and drew a swift response from the president, whose popularity is now wavering—just as she ramps up the dynastic plan to elect her husband, former president Néstor Kirchner, to succeed her in 2011 (just as she succeeded him in 2007). Ever since, she has spared no effort in trying to break up Clarin and its rival La Nación. This month, the row came to a boil when Kirchner ordered Argentina’s largest Internet service provider, Fibertel, to shut down on the claim that the parent company, Clarin, was violating its user license and building an illegal monopoly. Meanwhile, a million Internet users received notice they will have to find a new server. Then, on Aug. 27, in a clear move to muzzle dissent, she demanded that congress nationalize the country’s leading newsprint company, Papel Prensa, which is jointly owned by Clarin, La Nación, and a third paper.

That was not the first effort to spin the news in Buenos Aires. In 2007, with the economy faltering, Kirchner took control of the country’s statistics bureau, Indec, replacing its director and firing top staff. The move was seen as a thinly veiled attempt to cook the books and has since thrown a pall over Indec’s numbers. Officially, prices are rising in Argentina at the pace of 7 percent per year, while independent estimates put the number at twice that, with inflation heading to 20 to 30 percent over the next two years.

The spin is even more aggressive in Venezuela, where recession, spiraling prices, and the worst murder rate in the hemisphere (75 per 100,000 residents—three times the Brazilian homicide rate and nearly twice that of Colombia, a country still under siege by guerrilla insurgents) have pushed President Chávez’s approval ratings off a cliff. With congressional elections scheduled for late next month, the Venezuelan strongman has lashed out. Deploying the courts, the cops, and even loyalist mobs, he has muscled one independent media channel after another off the air. Those he cannot bully into silence, he buys. After hounding Guillermo Zuloaga, the director of the scrappy news channel Globovisión, into exile—“Why has he not been arrested!” the president publicly demanded—Chávez’s handlers picked a new manager and are now proceeding to purchase controlling shares in Globovisión in the name of the Bolivarian revolution.

Not all Latin Americans have been cowed into silence. Chile, Colombia, and Peru—all nations that have lived through brutal episodes of terrorism and censorship—are increasingly demanding transparency and democratic freedoms. On Monday, Argentina’s lower house denounced Kirchner’s move to shutter Fibertel as an assault on “democracy and the rule of law.” And even where authoritarian reflexes linger, the most vibrant democracies are fighting back—and winning. Last week, after a flood of writs and a jocular street protest by cranky Brazilian comedians, a supreme court judge suspended the gag order on campaign humor. The ruling: constitutional rights are no joke.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/31/latin-american-democracies-lash-out-at-the-press.print.html

[LATIN AMERICA NEWS] How Hugo Chávez wins by losing in Venezuela

Ariana Cubillos / AP

Posters for the September 26 legislative election.

Failing Upward

How Hugo Chávez wins by losing in Venezuela.

by Mac MargolisSeptember 20, 2010

Consider what President Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” has wrought on Venezuela. The national economy is deep in recession. Chronic power outages darken homes, factories, and shops. Inflation, at 30 percent a year, ranks among the world’s worst. Ditto for murders, which according to official numbers spiked to 21,132 in 2009—or one homicide every half hour. Just about anywhere on the planet, such failed leadership would prove toxic for an incumbent and bolster his challenger. But in Venezuela, where Chávez presides with a combination of fear, favors, cooked books, and rigged rules, the standard political calculus doesn’t always apply.

Chávez has suffered, surely. Serial crises have galvanized his enemies, frustrated loyalists, and sunk his approval rating below 40 percent. That’s his lowest level since taking office in 1999. But Chávez has already launched a preemptive strike; last year the pliant Congress redrew the electoral map, giving more legislative seats to rural areas, where Chavismo is still strong. So even if Chávez’s foes win the most populous regions, they could still come short of a congressional majority. (To achieve that, opposition candidates would need to garner close to 60 percent of the national vote.)

The test will be on Sept. 26, when the country goes to the polls to vote in nationwide congressional elections. Experts expect Chávez’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) to suffer losses, but not collapse. The respected pollster Luis Vicente León, of Datanálisis, predicts that voters will split almost evenly, with 52 percent casting ballots for Chavista candidates and 48 percent for opponents. More than sweeping the country, Chávez’s opponents’ immediate aim is to win enough seats—pollsters say the magic number is 57—to overturn the government’s two-thirds majority, which assures the Chavistas their stranglehold on Congress. That won’t be easy. (Chávez now controls 82 percent of the legislature.) But it would deny the government the power to change the Constitution, revive the clout of the opposition, and so force Chávez to negotiate reforms.

Sharing power is not part of the Bolivarian script. Since coming to office 11 years ago, Chávez has grown accustomed to having his way, rewarding friends, outmaneuvering opponents, charming the masses, and suffocating dissent. With his aura slipping, critics now fear that an electoral loss could trigger an authoritarian backlash before the new legislature is seated in January. “Chavez’s allies would still have 100 days to do what they want,” says Diego Arria, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the UN who predicts Chávez could even try to install a Cuban-style national assembly with its own council and president as a shadow power. The critics and pundits have long pontificated about the dangers to Venezuela and Latin America of a fortified Chávez government. They forgot to warn about the dangers of the patriarch in autumn.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/20/how-hugo-chavez-wins-by-losing-in-venezuela.print.html

[TECHNOLOGY NEWS] Look, a unicorn! Music video pays tribute to geeky gals and gamer girls

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/11/5092629-look-a-unicorn-music-video-pays-tribute-to-geeky-gals-and-gamer-girls

"Hello friends, don't you want to meet a nice girl?"

So asks Seth Green — TV, movie and video game star — as he opens the "Geek and Gamer Girls" music video unleashed on the Internet Friday by Team Unicorn.

Seems Green knows where you can find all the nicest (and badass-est) girls: playing video games and hanging out in comic book stores.

The video, which pays tribute to all the women out there who love gaming, manga and all things sci-fi, stars the members of Team Unicorn.

These four women have got some serious game and geek cred. They are: Michele Boyd(actress from "The Guild"), Clare Grant (voice actress for "Robot Chicken" and Green's wife), Milynn Sarley (TheGamerChick) and Rileah Vanderbilt (actress from horror films "Hatchet" and "Frozen"). Grant and Vanderbilt also starred in the "Star Wars" fan video "Saber."

So why does they go by the name Team Unicorn? "Because like unicorns, geek girls are not supposed to exist," they told the Official Star Wars blog.

Go ahead, check out the video and see if you can catch all the geek references and spot all the geek supa-stars making cameos.

We, love Stan Lee (Excelsior!)
And Joss created all our favorite shows
We Frag
In our sleep
We will pwn your ass in Halo (Uh-oh)

Winda Benedetti is the unicorn who writes the Citizen Gamer column for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter.

[WORLD NEWS] Cuba: Communist Economic Model Loses a Stalwart Defender

September 8, 2010

Cuba: Communist Economic Model Loses a Stalwart Defender

By REUTERS

Fidel Castro said Cuba’s economic model no longer worked, an American journalist reported Wednesday. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in his blog for Atlantic magazine that he asked Mr. Castro, left, last week if Cuba’s model of Soviet-style Communism was still worth exporting to other countries. “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” Mr. Castro said, according to the report. Mr. Goldberg said that Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, thought Mr. Castro’s answer was an acknowledgment that the state played too big a role in the economy. The comment appeared to reflect Mr. Castro’s support for the economic reforms instituted by his younger brother, PresidentRaúl Castro. In the interview, Mr. Castro, 84, also criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for anti-Semitism and denying the Holocaust. He also criticized his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when he urged the Soviet Union to launch nuclear weapons against the United States, saying “it wasn’t worth it at all.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/world/americas/09briefs-Cuba.html

[INTERESTING NEWS] Why Do IQ Scores Vary By Nation?

Why Do IQ Scores Vary By Nation?

Global differences in intelligence is a sensitive topic, long fraught with controversy and still tinged by the disgraceful taint of pseudosciences such as craniometry that strove to prove the white “race” as the most clever of them all. But recent data, perplexingly, has indeed shown cognitive ability to be higher in some countries than in others. What’s more, IQ scores have risen as nations develop—a phenomenon known as the “Flynn effect.” Many causes have been proposed for both the intelligence gap and the Flynn effect, including education, income, and even nonagricultural labor. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of New Mexico offers another intriguing theory: intelligence may be linked to infectious-disease rates.

The Idea

The brain, say author Christopher Eppig and his colleagues, is the “most costly organ in the human body.” Brainpower gobbles up close to 90 percent of a newborn’s energy. It stands to reason, then, that if something interferes with energy intake while the brain is growing, the impact could be serious and longlasting. And for vast swaths of the globe, the biggest threat to a child’s body—and hence brain—is parasitic infection. These illnesses threaten brain development in several ways. They can directly attack live tissue, which the body must then strain to replace. They can invade the digestive tract and block nutritional uptake. They can hijack the body’s cells for their own reproduction. And then there’s the energy diverted to the immune system to fight the infection. Out of all the parasites, the diarrheal ones may be the gravest threat—they can prevent the body from getting any nutrients at all.

The Evidence

Using data on national “disease burdens” (life years lost due to infectious diseases) and average intelligence scores, the authors found a striking inverse correlation—around 67 percent. The countries with the lowest average IQ scores—Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Mozambique, Gabon—have among the highest disease burdens. In contrast, nations with low disease burdens top the IQ list, with Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, and Italy in the lead.

study controlled for other potential causes of the IQ gap, such as the aforementioned education, agricultural labor, and income levels, as well as climate (colder lands tend to have higher IQ scores, and some theorists have proposed that lower temperatures may evolutionarily select for higher intelligence) and distance from humanity’s African cradle, which is the notion that unfamiliar lands might have forced migrating humans to become smarter. However, with the exception of this last theory—which has in any case been challenged—it turns out that “infectious disease remains the most powerful predictor of average national IQ.” The study’s findings may also help explain the Flynn effect, which can’t be accounted for by evolution (the IQ gains occur over time spans too short for natural selection). So what’s going on instead? As nations develop, they improve their population’s access to safe drinking water and to vaccines and medicine—all of which lower parasitic infection rates.

The Conclusion

If the study holds up, it could be revolutionary for our understanding of the still-bewildering variation in national intelligence scores—and also a pressing injunction to continue the fight against malaria and other developing-world diseases, which some global-health watchers have recently declared unbeatable.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/26/why-do-iq-scores-vary-by-nation.html