Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, February 10, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: A Night Like This by Caro Emerald
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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US harvest threatened by water-intensive oil and gas boom
By Cyrus Lotfipour
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The US has a significant influence on the global food trade, from essential cereal crops to fruits and nuts. Indeed, the US accounts for 32% of global corn production and 31% of global soybean production (pdf) – both vital staples. As a result, the ongoing water crisis in California – the country’s largest agricultural producer – may threaten the price and availability of certain commodities worldwide.
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Nevertheless, according to our research, approximately one-third of publicly traded US electric utilities – including Xcel Energy, Exelon, Pinnacle West Capital and Calpine – derive more than 10% of their electric power generation from already water stressed regions. One in every four publicly traded US electric utilities operate in counties that are both water stressed and irrigation intensive.
We have seen a number of cases in which low water levels and high temperatures compounded into production disruptions. In 2010, Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Alabama was forced to reduce generation to 40-60% of normal operating capacity for 45 days during the summer. Similar events occurred during France’s record-breaking heat waves during 2003 and 2007. These challenges are only likely to intensify, especially for companies that are reliant on water-intensive coal and nuclear power sources in irrigation-intensive regions.
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In the US, if the situation remains as it is today, the competition for water resources may reach a tipping point that results in stranded assets, reduced productivity, and increased tensions between farmers and industry. In the medium term, policymakers may need to dictate water allocation priorities.
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Judge Rules You Can't Sue the NSA for Secretly Spying on You Unless You Prove You're Being Secretly Spied On
By AJ Vicens
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Advocates for less government snooping suffered a blow Tuesday when a federal judge in California ruled that a group of citizens can not sue the National Security Agency to stop the "upstream" collection of their data.
US District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that the plaintiffs in the case, Jewel v. NSA, failed to prove that they have the right to sue because they could not prove that their individual information had been collected and prepared for analysis. Further, White wrote, "even if Plaintiffs could establish standing, a potential Fourth Amendment Claim would have to be dismissed on the basis that any possible defenses would require impermissible disclosure of state secret information."
Essentially, because the plaintiffs can't say specifically how their data was collected by the government, this aspect of their case won't go forward. The reason they can't offer specifics is because, even after the Snowden leaks, the exact workings of the NSA surveillance program remain undisclosed. And even if the plaintiffs could show those specifics, the NSA could swat down their suit by claiming that the case would compromise state secrets.
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EFF will keep fighting the unlawful, unconstitutional surveillance of ordinary Americans by the U.S. government. Today's ruling in Jewel v. NSA was not a declaration that NSA spying is legal. The judge decided instead that "state secrets" prevented him from ruling whether the program is constitutional.
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Greek parliament approves anti-austerity plan
By (Al Jazeera)
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Greece's parliament has approved the new government's 10-point anti-austerity plan, aimed at persuading its international creditors to rethink their bailout terms.
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However, the EU warned Greece on Tuesday to scale back its plans to revise the agreement if it wanted to secure a fund lifeline at the talks.
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The plan offers a series of measures including lower budget surplus targets and cutting debt through a swap plan to replace its current EU-IMF bailout deal obligations.
Meanwhile, Panos Kammenos, Greek defence minister, said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the eurozone, it could always look elsewhere for help.
"It could be the United States at best, it could be Russia, it could be China or other countries," Kammenos said in a Greek television show.
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International |
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Assad denies using barrel bombs, just as barrel bombs fall on Aleppo
By Richard Hall
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At the moment Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was appearing on television screens to deny that his army uses barrel bombs, three helicopters were hovering over Aleppo.
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The Syrian Civil Defense is often the first on the scene following such bombings, arriving to dig survivors from the rubble of destroyed buildings. In many areas, the group has taken the place of the emergency services in a country whose whole health system has been gutted.
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“Most of the barrel bomb victims are civilians — women and children in their homes. And the reason for dropping them is to make civilians go away, to leave the area,” says Abdul Rahman, the Syrian Defense Force’s operational coordinator for Aleppo.
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In response to Assad's remarks, the group and other Twitter users began using the hashtag #notbarrelbombs to share evidence of barrel bomb attacks and their aftermath.
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Delhi election: Arvind Kejriwal's party routs Modi's BJP
By (BBC)
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An anti-corruption party has won a stunning victory in the Delhi state elections in a huge setback for India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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As supporters showered him with rose petals, Mr Kejriwal said the huge mandate was "very scary and we should live up to people's expectations".
The BJP's campaign was essentially anti-AAP and the party leaders often criticised Mr Kejriwal at their rallies and road shows.
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As results showed the anti-corruption party steaming ahead, supporters began discussing the formation of the new government. They say their victory "will be a reinforcement of the common man's choices".
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China: Thousands of air raid shelter residents evicted
By (BBC)
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Beijing's government has evicted more than 120,000 people living in the city's disused air-raid shelters, it's reported.
Authorities will begin redeveloping the spaces this year, after spending three years clearing people out of makeshift underground housing, the Beijing News website reports. The subterranean dwellers occupied 13% of all underground space in Beijing, according to a Civil Defence Bureau official, and more than 7,000 individual residences were recorded during the evictions. Built during the Cold War, the shelters form part of a network of caverns beneath the Chinese capital. A lack of affordable housing means thousands of migrant workers from the countryside have made their homes underneath the streets, and locals have dubbed them shuzu - or the "rat tribe". The government says the evictions were carried out for security reasons. In the past, underground spaces have been converted into car parks or entertainment venues.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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U.S. to unveil new cyber security agency
By Amy R. Connolly
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The U.S. government is creating a cybersecurity agency that will monitor and share information about threats against the government and private businesses in the wake of high-profile cyberattacks at Sony Pictures, Anthem Inc. and several major retailers.
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"The CTIIC will improve our situational awareness, enhance indications and warning, and strengthen cyber unity effort for the U.S. government," an official familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. "It will ensure indicators of malicious activity are downgraded to the lowest possible classification level to facilitate seamless intelligence flows among centers, including those responsible for sharing with the private sector."
The creation of the agency is the latest step by the White House to bolster national security and corporate interests from hackers. While the job of cyber security typically falls on several agencies, including the FBI, CIA and the Department of Homeland Security, the agency is aimed at filling in the gaps.
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Flooding is on the rise in the Midwest, and we’re totally unprepared
By James West
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Scientists have found that flood events in the Midwest have increased in number over the last 50 years. The researchers from the University of Iowa, funded by the National Science Foundation, studied 774 stream gauges across 14 U.S. states and found that rivers over much of the region have burst their banks more often, resulting in more flooding.
. . . the study’s findings are generally consistent with how climate scientists describe one of the major impacts of global warming: As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, resulting in more frequent episodes of intense precipitation, and therefore flooding. Last year’s National Climate Assessment reported that annual precipitation has increased over the past century, by up to 20 percent in some parts of the Midwest, in part “driven by intensification of the heaviest rainfalls.” That trend is likely to worsen.
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The research comes at the same that time the White House is pushing new rules for America’s flood-prone buildings, which put climate science at the center of federal regulations. At the end of last month, President Obama issued an executive order to implement a new “Federal Flood Risk Management Standard,” designed to reduce risks and cut the costs of future flood disasters. But the president’s plan is being met by Republican opposition — mainly from senators whose states border the Gulf of Mexico. These lawmakers question the legality of the executive order and imply that the White House didn’t do enough to solicit input before drafting the order.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
The extent of Emerald’s success has been a huge surprise, not least to the 32-year-old former wedding singer — born Caroline van der Leeuw in Amsterdam. In the Netherlands she’s a sensation, her debut album from 2010, Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, enjoying a longer run at number one than any release ever — 30 weeks, one more than Thriller.
Over here she’s no slouch either. In August 2011 that album quietly joined a UK top 10 featuring an unprecedented seven solo women. She was somewhat lost beside Adele, Amy Winehouse, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, but went on to go platinum and she’s since played the Albert Hall. A follow-up album, The Shocking Miss Emerald, went to number one in May this year.
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All the same, she seems to be less involved in the creative process than many stars. She plays down her co-writing credit on five of the new album’s 14 songs as “vocal arrangements”. While the strings were being recorded in Abbey Road’s hallowed Studio Two, she was away on tour. But the writers see her, or at least the vintage vamp she appears to be in her photographs, as a heavily lipsticked muse. Amid the clarinet and piano of the song Paris, she’s a cold-hearted model. On the jaunty Liquid Lunch she’s a Twenties flapper, claiming of the song’s boozy outing “it must have been a doozy”.
Emerald insists all this nostalgia is just for fun. She doesn’t really wish she was in a Boardwalk Empire speakeasy. “I wouldn’t want to be alive in that period. What’s fun about the music is it’s not now. You can’t be nostalgic if you’re living in it.”
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Apple Is About to Shell Out $850 Million for Solar Energy
By James West
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On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a massive new investment by the company in solar energy: an $850 million installation that will cover 1,300 acres in Monterey County, California. Apple is partnering with First Solar—the nation's biggest utility-scale installer—on the project, which will produce enough power to supply 60,000 Californian homes, Cook said.
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Apple has already made huge commitments to solar. The Guardian reported last year that the company planned to use solar power to manufacture its new "sapphire" screens for the iPhone 6 at a factory in Arizona. Last year, Climate Desk joined the Guardian during a press visit to the biggest solar field then in Apple's portfolio. The Maiden, North Carolina, facility has 55,000 solar panels that track the sun across a nearly 100-acre field, offsetting the electricity sucked up by Apple's data center across the road . . .
Apple's new investment continues the startling growth of solar in America, which my colleague Tim McDonnell has reported on previously: By 2016, solar is projected to be as cheap or cheaper than electricity from the conventional grid in every state except three. Over the past decade, the amount of solar power produced in the United States has grown 139,000 percent.
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Germany leads record wind power growth in Europe
By Jessica Shankleman
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The British wind power industry installed 1.7GW of new capacity last year, coming second only to Germany, which built a massive 5.2GW of new capacity during 2014.
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Thomas Becker, EWEA chief executive, said the figures suggest wind power is becoming an increasingly attractive investment opportunity. “Europe is at a turning point for investment in renewables and particularly wind,” he said. “Ploughing financial capital into the industries of old in Europe is beginning to look unwise. By contrast, renewables are pushing ahead and investments in wind remain attractive.”
Becker added that he expected to see an increasingly concentrated market in 2015, with growth focused in a handful of countries and markets in eastern and southern Europe continuing to struggle as a result of “erratic and harsh changes” to renewable energy policies.
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Poaching in northern Mali threatens rare elephant
By (BBC)
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Authorities believe 19 Gourma elephants have been killed for their tusks in the past month. There are estimated to be just 350-500 of the group left.
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Because of the sparse vegetation in northern Mali they have a long-distance migration pattern that runs into Burkina Faso and Niger.
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Northern Mali has been a flashpoint of conflict since Mali's independence from French rule in 1960, with the Tuareg rebels campaigning for independence or more autonomy.
The region has been further destabilised by the emergence of jihadi groups including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has targeted both the government and the rebels.
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Science and Health |
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Subway DNA Survey Finds Microbes, Mozzarella and Mystery
By Christopher Intagliata
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A 2014 analysis found that New York City’s Queens was the most ethnically diverse county in the continental U.S. But when it comes to the diversity of DNA found in each borough's subway stops--the Bronx takes the prize.
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The DNA at each subway stop mirrored the genetic diversity of the local residents—and, what they like to eat. "We could see other evidence of things like molecular echoes of pizza. Cucumbers, as well as chickpeas that might be from falafels or hummus." The researchers also found DNA fragments from anthrax and plague bacteria. But don’t panic. "We have zero evidence that they're alive or remotely pose a risk to public health."
The team turned up some 1,700 organisms in total. But nearly half the DNA they sequenced could not be linked to any known organism. Assuming there’s no actual Men In Black-type extraterrestrial police agency operating underground in Manhattan, the unknown DNA means that we either haven't discovered some subway dwellers—or maybe we just haven't sequenced their DNA yet. The study is in the journal Cell Systems. [Ebrahim Afshinnekoo et al, Geospatial Resolution of Human and Bacterial Diversity with City-Scale Metagenomics]
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Scientists Weigh in on Plans to Hack the Weather and Cool the Earth
By Sarah Zhang
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Geoengineering, i.e. tinkering with the climate to stop the rising tides of climate change, is a provocative and frankly still kinda crazy idea. Two long-awaited reports from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) out today have some pretty harsh words about geoengineering.
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"There is significant potential for unanticipated, unmanageable, and regrettable consequences in multiple human dimensions from albedo modification at climate altering scales," they write in the report. One of the co-authors took to the more colorful pages Slate, where he called the idea simply "barking mad." Albedo modification also doesn't address the underlying problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide removal, the focus of the other report, is more feasible. In fact, we already have ways of removing carbon dioxide; they are simply slow (planting trees) or expensive (carbon dioxide scrubbers that remove the gas from the air). Researchers need to find better ways of removing carbon but also the political will to do so.
The National Academy of Sciences doesn't tell us anything scientists didn't already know, but as advisors to the nation on science, its reports are influential for setting the research agenda. . .
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Technology |
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Security researcher releases 10 million username and password combinations
By Cory Doctorow
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Security researcher Mark Burnett has released 10,000,000 username/password combos he's downloaded from well-publicized hacks, citing the prosecution of Barrett Brown and the looming Obama administration crackdown on security researchers as impetus to do this before it became legally impossible.
Burnett says that password releases are common in security research, but user/pass combos are an under-researched and important field that is under direct threat due to the activities of zealous, technologically ignorant prosecutors and lawmakers.
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Europe's IXV mini 'spaceplane' set to fly
By Jonathan Amos
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Esa's project manager Giorgio Tumino told BBC News: "Europe is excellent at going to orbit; we have all the launchers, for example. We also have great knowhow in operating complex systems in orbit. But where we are a bit behind is in the knowledge of how to come back from orbit. So, if we are to close the circle - go to orbit, stay in orbit, come back from orbit - this third leg we need to master as well as other spacefaring nations."
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The vehicle is packed with sensors. Their data will feed back into materials research and into the computer models used to describe the energetic physics that occurs when an object plunges through atmospheric gases at hypersonic speeds.
The IXV will start its data dump the moment it clears the descent's radio blackout phase, which occurs when the vehicle is enveloped by the hot plasma created during high-speed re-entry.
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The X-37B is used by the US military. Europe's version would be exclusively civilian in operation
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Cultural |
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Spanish is the world's happiest language
By Brooks Hays
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A massive study of the emotional connotations of the world's most commonly used words reveals that humans prefer the expression of positivity and joy over sadness and cynicism.
The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Vermont's Computational Story Lab, located the 100,000 of the most frequently used words -- uttered and written on Twitter and TV, in song lyrics, the New York Times and movie titles -- across the world's 10 most popular languages.
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Researchers found that wielders of the world's most popular languages tend to prefer happier words than those with negative connotations. But some languages trend happier than others. Spanish proved the happiest, researchers found, with Brazilian Portuguese, English and Indonesian rounding out the top five.
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But scientists say the mostly positive tendency of language suggests human evolution has favored words that promote social cohesion, and diminished the linguistic repertoire of naysayers.
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Study solves age-old Tootsie Pop query
By Brooks Hays
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Since the iconic candy commercial first was aired in 1969, the world of lollipops has been dominated by a single existential question: "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?"
The answer, it turns out, is quite a bit more than Mr. Owl's estimate of three. Researchers at New York University and Florida State University have determined that it takes roughly 1,000 licks to get to the chocolate center of a Tootsie Pop.
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Researchers found the water currents eroded the lollipops in unique ways, sculpting the candy into a consistent shape that persists until finally disappearing with the rest of the candy structure. The results of the study may have implications both the pharmaceutical industry and the field of geology. The same fluid dynamics could help scientists better understand the dissolution processes that affect ingested drugs or the weathering of canyon walls.
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Why is organ donation taboo for many Africans?
By Anne Soy
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At the Lions Eye Hospital in Nairobi, the eye bank has never been full since its was set up four years ago.
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"We'd like them to pledge their corneas but because of their religious beliefs, they say they have to see heaven. Still, we've tried to talk to them to donate their corneas so they can help someone see this world."
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"Belief marks the end of reasoning. No questions are asked. To change that is to provide people with a new argument.
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There are laws covering living donors who wish to give an organ to a relative, but none covering those who wish for their organs to be harvested after they die.
Dr Kennedy Ondede, the consultant physician designated to oversee Kenyatta National Hospital's new liver facility, says he is frustrated with an apparent lack of interest in passing new laws.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |