U.S. and China Forge Climate, Clean Energy Partnership (Scuttle Copenhagen?)

U.S. and China Forge Climate, Clean Energy Partnership

During President Obama’s first state visit to China, the two leaders said at a joint news conference that the two sides are “committed to working together and with other countries in the weeks ahead for a successful outcome at Copenhagen.”

There, from December 7 through 18, governments will attempt to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that are increasingly warming the climate. Whatever agreement they reach is expected to take effect when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires at the end of 2012.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addresses the APEC meeting. (Photo courtesy APEC)

But the meaning of what a “successful outcome” is shifted over the weekend….

The Nobel Funk Off

Not Really….

The two posts below make it seem that I’m ragging on Japan.  Not so.  It was totally a coincidence that they ended up adjacent to one another.

In binge-tolerant Japan, alcoholism not seen as disease

In binge-tolerant Japan, alcoholism not seen as disease | Reuters

Alcoholic beverages are readily available at convenience stores and vending machines, liquor ads are often on evening television and building work ties by going drinking is common.

Katsuya Maruyama of Kurihama Alcoholism Center, a leading hospital for treating alcohol dependency, said Japan is too tolerant when it comes to drinking too much, which makes it hard for both society and alcoholics to realise they have a problem.

“There is no proper teaching on how alcohol can be dangerous, so no one knows alcoholism as a disease,” he said.

Japanese Government Funding Cuts Could End ‘Research’ Whaling

Japanese Government Funding Cuts Could End ‘Research’ Whaling

The spending review committee established by Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has recommended that funding for the Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation be cancelled after 2010.

The OFCF is the largest financer of the Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the Japanese whaling program. The whaling fleet usually sails for the Southern Ocean in mid-November, hunting whales for scientific research regardless of a moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission in 1986.

Playing for Keeps — Derrick Jensen

Would we listen to nature if our lives depended on it?

PEOPLE WHO READ MY WORK often say, “Okay, so it’s clear you don’t like this culture, but what do you want to replace it?” The answer is that I don’t want any one culture to replace this culture. I want ten thousand cultures to replace this culture, each one arising organically from its own place. That’s how humans inhabited the planet (or, more precisely, their landbases, since each group inhabited a place, and not the whole world, which is precisely the point), before this culture set about reducing all cultures to one….

Playing for Keeps | Derrick Jensen | Orion Magazine

Extreme Buddhism

Extreme Buddhism | Home

Like “extreme” sports, we bring an urgency, intensity and exhilaration to the practices of self-discovery and the pathway to enlightenment that are distinctly non-ordinary.

Whatever happened to the Middle Path?

*hums*

Somebody’s gonna make a buck
Before th’ night is through
Nobody’s gonna get ‘er done
A’pushin’ for th’ truth….

Gay-Rights Battle Brewing Over 2010 U.S. Census

Gay-Rights Battle Brewing Over 2010 U.S. Census | Newsweek National News | Newsweek.com

For the first time in the centuries-long history of the census, the number of same-sex couples who self-identify as married—license or no license—will be tabulated and released to the public. The move is seen as both a friendly nod to the gay community—which had pinned its hopes on President Obama and has, at least in some quarters, been frustrated by a perceived slow response to gay-rights issues—and a boost to policy fights, from challenging laws that limit gay adoptions to the nationwide legalization of gay marriage.