The world can no longer afford to ignore the environmental cost of economic growth and must redefine the very concept of national wealth, a UN panel of heads of state and environment ministers said Monday.
The panel challenged leaders to recognise that “current global development is unsustainable.”

…a new blueprint for growth and low-carbon prosperity must be “mainstreamed” into economic policy as quickly as possible.

…– a new nexus between food, water and energy. “All three need to be fully integrated, not treated separately, if we are to deal with the global food security crisis”;

– a stronger interface between science and policy. “We must define what scientists refer to as planetary boundaries” beyond which human activity could wreck the planet;
– reducing social exclusion and closing the widening gap of social inequality.

…Social and environmental costs must be factored into how the world prices and measures economic activity, and into a revised measure of wealth that goes beyond the narrow calculus of gross domestic product (GDP), it said.

No “social cost” to the “sustainability” of living on $1 a week. In a dirt hut.

This is Agenda21.

On Dec. 3, 2009, Melson wrote to Breuer, “Lanny: We have decided to take a little different approach with regard to seizures of multiple weapons in Mexico. Assuming the guns are traced, instead of working each trace almost independently of the other traces from the seizure, I want to coordinate and monitor the work on all of them collectively as if the seizure was one case. . . We should meet again just to catch up on where we are in our gun-trafficking issues and we could talk about the above idea as well. Let me know what you think.”

Breuer responded on Dec. 4, 2009, writing, “We think this is a terrific idea and a great way to approach the investigations of these seizures. Our Gang Unit will be assigning an attorney to help you coordinate this effort.”

According to the Republican Oversight Committee staffers’ report, Breuer — Holder’s number two — assigned a prosecutor to help ATF handle Fast and Furious. That attorney, according to the report, was Joe Cooley.

This information comes as Democrats on the Oversight Committee say there is no evidence that suggests any senior political appointees of the Obama administration or in the Justice Department knew about, or approved, gun walking or Fast and Furious.

According to Fox News, on Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole denied that Breuer and Melson were talking about Fast and Furious and its tactics. “In light of Assistant Attorney General Breuer’s commitment to stemming the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico and his strong ties and collaborative relationships with his counterparts in Mexico, it is inconceivable that his intention was to have guns released into Mexico,” Cole wrote.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize’s original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.

The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden’s capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel’s will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county…

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace…”

“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

Well, yeah, b-b-but… George Bush!

The move by the state’s dominant Republicans makes Indiana the 23rd state in the nation and the first in the heartland to adopt right to work. Such measures forbid forced union membership and/or the payment of union dues or fees as a requirement of employment.

The concept has been controversial for more than six decades since 1947 when Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, prohibiting closed union shops, over Democrat President Harry Truman’s veto.

That congressional act also authorized states to take the same steps in their jurisdictions, arguing that the Constitution protects freedom of association and an individual’s right to choose membership or not.

Unions argue that every worker who benefits from union representation should be required to pay their assessments. Unions have become particularly vehement protecting their rights as their memberships have drastically dwindled in the last three decades, as a reflection of worker choice and erosion of traditionally unionized industries such as manufacturing especially in the Midwest.

Today, less than 11% of the U.S. labor force is unionized.

It started off with an official FOIA (Freedom of Information Request) request. COPS asked the assistant US Attorney in Waco for a document. The Davidan criminal trial had been completed and appeals were done. The Civil trial had begun, but that was not legally connected to the government criminal proceedings. So COPS took a shot in the dark and McNulty placed a call to USAS Bill Johnston. This single act opened a door that lead to amazing opportunity. Meanwhile, MGA Films had decided that there was, indeed, more to the Waco story, and after lengthy discussions with McNulty, they agreed to back a second film effort on the subject. So we were off to the races, once again! Although a bit reticent at first, Mr. Johnston wanted to talk about the horror called Waco. He had some things on his mind, and as McNulty and Johnston got to know each other, McNulty offered a couple of insights into the business that seemed to let Johnston know that he understood that something went terribly wrong, especially that the events on April 19th were not exactly as the FBI had stated in their endless press statements. “The FBI had not fired a single shot in response to the Davidan broadsides fired at the FBI tanks. The FBI had not started the fire – David Koresh and the Davidians had set the fire!” And so on. So began a long series of phone conversations and letters that led to the Texas Ranger evidence locker located in Austin, Texas. This was the location where most of the Branch Davidian case evidence was kept and no one other than law enforcement had ever been inside.

A new commentary published online in the Feb. 1 issue of Nature says sugar is just as “toxic” for people as the other two, so the government should step in to curb its consumption.

The United Nations announced in September that chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes contribute to 35 million deaths worldwide each year, according to the commentary. The U.N. pegged tobacco, alcohol, and diet as big risk factors that contributed to this death rate.

Two of those are regulated by governments, “leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked,” the authors, Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis, argued.

As long as it’s local government that’s doing the regulating and not the feds, go nuts.

Sugar meets the same criteria for regulation as alcohol, the authors wrote, because it’s unavoidable, there’s potential for abuse, it’s toxic, and it negatively impacts society. They write that sugar is added to so many processed foods that it’s everywhere, and people eat up to 500 calories per day in added sugar alone. Sugar acts on the same areas of the brain as alcohol and tobacco to encourage subsequent intake, they wrote, and it’s toxic because research shows that sugar increases disease risk from factors other than added calories, such as when it disrupts metabolism…

“We are now seeing the toxic downside,” co-author and sugar researcher Lustig, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the UCSF Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment, told WebMD. “There has to be some sort of societal intervention. We cannot do it on our own because sugar is addictive. Personal intervention is necessary, but not sufficient.”…

“I don’t think people have any idea how many calories they take in when they take in soft drinks – particularly because they are consumed in such large quantities,” Nestle said. She thinks regulation could eventually be possible, since many local governments are already enacting policies to curb sugar in schools or tax sodas.

He also may be betting that it’s good politics, setting up a contrast with Republicans over government’s role in helping Americans who, in Mr. Obama’s words, “play by the rules,” but still face challenges in the tough economy.

The White House proposal unveiled Wednesday faces many pitfalls that have hobbled previous housing-rescue efforts, as well as a big new hurdle: It will require Congress to act. Many congressional Republicans

From The HispanicBusiness.com website: Obama Proposes Housing Refinance Hel

CNBC reports that FHA will indeed be the vehicle for this new program, and that might tip over an already extended agency:

Critics will also argue that the FHA, which now has an inordinately, historically large share of the mortgage market, is in no position to take on any more risk. The FHA could be considered “underwater” itself, guaranteeing about $1 trilling in mortgages but sitting on just a $1.2 billion dollar cushion to cover losses.

To that end, officials say they could create a separate fund for these loans, not the regular mutual mortgage insurance fund (MMI). This would be a special risk fund, designed to handle high losses.

Basically, it sounds like an extension of the bailout, only now for people who bought high and had to watch as values dropped.

Even the prospect of unsustainable deficits has costs, including an increased possibility of a sudden fiscal crisis. As we have seen in a number of countries recently, interest rates can soar quickly if investors lose confidence in the ability of a government to manage its fiscal policy. Although historical experience and economic theory do not indicate the exact threshold at which the perceived risks associated with the U.S. public debt would increase markedly, we can be sure that, without corrective action, our fiscal trajectory will move the nation ever closer to that point.

One, it dramatically undermines his more important warnings that sudden fiscal tightening could destroy the economy.

Two, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that a country that can borrow in its own currency faces this kind of fiscal crisis risk.

The big risk for the U.S. is that it will become Japan, and yet Bernanke’s testimony gives rise to those who fear we’ll be the next Greece.

Say, I got a question: Aren’t you supposed to guarantee a stable currency???

According to the NSB, the U.S. lost about 687,000 jobs in high-tech since their peak of about 2.5 million in 2000. The organization stated that there have been “permanent” losses in an ongoing trend that affects the areas of aerospace, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications equipment, computer and office equipment as well as scientific instruments.

The NSB carefully criticized the government’s approach of funding science and research by stating that there is still a $7 billion budget for the NSF, but the U.S. is quickly dropping in the global view of investment dollars. Between 1999 and 2009, the U.S. share dropped from 38 percent to 31 percent, while Asia gained from 24 to 35 percent during the same time. Especially China is growing fast, the NSB said, and is now the largest science and technology investor behind the U.S.

“Over the last decade, the world has changed dramatically,” said José-Marie Griffiths, chair of the NSB committee that oversees production of the report. “It’s now a world with very different actors who have made advancement in science and technology a top priority. And many of the troubling trends we’re seeing are now very well established.” The NSF said that it has launched a number of new initiatives designed to better position the United States “by enhancing international collaborations, improving education and establishing new partnerships between NSF-supported researchers and those in industry.”