BBC NEWS | China condemns Dalai Lama meeting
China has criticised Gordon Brown for taking part in talks with Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama.The two men had a 30-minute discussion at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official residence, Lambeth Palace in London, on Friday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the meeting “interfered” in China’s internal affairs.
ABERDEEN, Scotland, May 22, 2008 (ENS) – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is investing in the world’s largest offshore wind turbine and also in the development of offshore windfarms in Scottish waters, her property company The Crown Estate announced on Wednesday.
On April 17, The Crown Estate signed an agreement to purchase a prototype of the world’s largest offshore wind turbine, Clipper’s 7.5 megawatt MBE turbine. Known as the Britannia project, the turbine will be built by California energy company Clipper Windpower.
According to officials from three national organizations—the Wounded Warrior Project, The Military Family Network,, and the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes— an estimated 10,000 recent veterans of these conflicts now depend on their parents for their care. Working unheralded, these parents have quit jobs, shelved retirement plans, and relocated so they can be with their injured sons and daughters. Many have become warriors themselves, fighting to make sure this new wave of injured veterans gets the medical care and rehabilitation it needs. When Wounded Vets Come Home
“Mainly I’ll be talking about human values and what I usually call secular ethics,” he said of his packed lecture schedule, which includes talks in Nottingham in central England. “Using secular ethics and a secular way of approach. That is my main objective and I plan to talk about that.”
The Associated Press: Dalai Lama reaches out to non-Buddhists in UK
The Hammerstein Ballroom — actually a theater, originally an opera house — on Manhattan’s West 34th Street holds about 3,000 people. From where I was sitting on Saturday afternoon it looked filled to capacity. There were Tibetan monks and nuns in mustard yellow and maroon robes; lay Tibetans, including children, in their best traditional dress; and many others clutching glossy commemorative programs.
We were there to see Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa. The reborn head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism arrived in New York last Thursday to begin an 18-day tour of the U.S. The Traveling Karmapa
A senior McCain aide confirmed yesterday that Romney and his wife, Ann, are among 20 couples McCain and his wife have invited for the weekend, along with Governor Charlie Crist of Florida and newly elected Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.
But the aide insisted that the gathering “is a purely social visit” in a scenic part of Arizona.
A stunning new report just issued by the Bush administration finds that for under 2 cents a day per household, Americans could get 300 gigawatts of wind by 2030.
Wind power, alternative energy | Salon News
There are some issues: turbines need to be placed off flyways to protect migrating birds, other measures to protect birds need to be developed, but these are doable and are the major stumbling blocks apart from appearance and political inertia.
NB: think the Bushes and their friends are investing in wind power? Snark, snark…
BONN, Germany, May 20, 2008 (ENS) – German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel Monday urged governments to take stronger action to protect the diversity of life. Opening the largest UN biodiversity gathering yet, Gabriel warned that the world is not on the right path to protect the diversity of species and said the world would not reach its agreed target of the year 2010 for reversing biodiversity loss.
Human Impacts, Climate Change Pushing Species to Extinction
The United States, as well as France and Great Britain, have naval vessels loaded with humanitarian supplies off the Myanmar coast, and had been waiting for a green light to deliver them. The article did not say whether the French and British supplies would be allowed.
The state media report said that other U.S. aid airlifted into the country was welcome, an apparent reference to ongoing relief flights, which land in the country about five times a day. American officials are required to hand the aid to Myanmar authorities upon landing in Yangon, from which it is a difficult journey to the Irrawaddy delta.
State media: Myanmar shuns aid from US warships
Clearly the Burmese junta’s agenda is twofold: get rid of a lot of ethnics that they find undesirable and blame it on the cyclone, and divert portions of the aid to their own coffers. There is no other sensible explanation. Reminiscent of Katrina, actually.
Since most of the generals have never been out of Burma, it’s too bad there’s no hell; they could finally get to know other so-called “leaders.”
TALLAHASSEE — Executions in Florida are scheduled to resume this summer after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday lifted a stay on the lethal injection of convicted child rapist and murderer Mark Dean Schwab.
Gov. Charlie Crist moved swiftly after the high court’s decision and said that Schwab would be executed July 1.
Dear Readers,
I’ve just started a new blog, Last Thing I Was Expecting…, that deals with addiction and recovery issues (with a strong 12-step slant). If you, or anyone you know, is in recovery, interested, or in need of it, I’d appreciate your passing the information on.
I don’t “pimp” my blogs in the usual way — trading links and so forth — as I’m not concerned about numbers of hits but am concerned about quality links. As you may know, the search engines don’t start indexing regularly until they’re sure a page will be around for a while — months, in the case of Google. Therefore, everything is pretty much word of mouth until then.
Appreciate your help — and someone else might (some day).
Bill
As a Christian myself, the thing that I find so attractive about Buddhism is the practice.
Buddhism and Christianity
Brown v. Board of Education Decided
In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas, by 13 African-American parents on behalf of their children. The plaintiffs contended that segregating school facilities along racial lines violated the students’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law. The case was heard by the US Supreme Court, which unanimously agreed that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
