Links of the Day, September 23

For those who love The Office, enjoy the timeless wisdom of Dwight Shrute.

News

• The President will address the UN General Assembly for the first time. Among the issues he’ll be addressing, nuclear non-proliferation.
• A shoot-out at the US-Mexican border between US agents and suspected human traffickers shuts down the crossing.
• More fires in California.
• Geithner will press Congress on finance reform.
• A staggering 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Links of the Day, September 17

This man is my President. I love him.

More sobering is this video footage of the landscape post-Station Fire:

News

• In a major foreign policy shift, the US shelves its plans for a European-based missile defense system.
• Van Jones breaks the silence on his resignation.

Green

• VW unveils a new electric car.
• The world’s ocean temperatures this summer were the warmest on record.

Links of the Day, September 7

To start us off this Labor Day … “Tupac in Kazakhstan”

News

• Courtesy of Obama Foodorama: Van Jones’s resignation is a "major win for hate, racism, fear mongering, and the further unraveling of civil discourse in the larger culture." Here’s a couple other perspectives: David Sirota and Jane Hamsher.
• Update on the Station Fire, courtesy of Ann Erdman, Pasadena’s Public Information Officer (PIO).
• Iran announces a plan to purge its universities of Western influences.

Human trafficking

• Another article on trafficking in Texas.
• Police in Assam, India have no clue as to the whereabouts of 11,000 people missing since 1998.

Miscellaneous

• Boing Boing has a spreadsheet of every TED talk as of September 2, 2009.
• How do you know if a truck driving nuclear material is passing through? Answer: you don’t.
• What some places in the world will look like if/when the oceans rise.

Links of the Day, September 3-6

A special weekend edition (since I found time to pop online)!

News

• Obama’s "green jobs" advisor Van Jones resigns after (rather melodramatic, I think) furor from the right over recent comments. See my previous LOTD post for the context and this Huffington Post article on the saga.
• Also, while we’re at it, why don’t we protest Obama’s exhortation to kids to stay in school? Oh wait, somebody already did …
• The California wildfires are gradually being brought under control.

Miscellaneous

• The TNIV Bible is getting the axe … because we’re returning to our patriarchal values? I’ll address this more in a future blog.
• A WSJ article on how Facebook ruins friendships.

Links of the Day, September 2

News

• An earthquake hits off the coast of Indonesia, killing at least 35 people.
• The California Station Fire may have been human-caused.

Human trafficking

• The California State Assembly passes a human trafficking bill.

Green

• The Great Barrier Reef is under threat.

Miscellaneous

• Van Jones uses "a**holes" as a technical, political kind of term. I love this man.
• We’re all mutants, say scientists.

More photos from CA

The previous photo which I credited to Neville for passing on was taken by Dave Bullock. More of his photos here.

Links of the Day, September 1

Four months of 2009 left!

News

• The CA wildfires continue to expand; also, they’re visible from space.
• Cash for Clunkers helps out a little.
• The US Open (tennis) kicked off in Flushing Meadow, NY.
• The Democratic Party of Japan sweeps aside the Liberal Democratic Party, who had been in power for 54 years.

Green

• Blood involved in manufacturing hybrid cars?

Human trafficking

• An arrest in Kansas.
• Sylvester Stallone is bringing Rambo back, this time to fight human trafficking. Here’s a take on all the recent movies about trafficking, and the way they can oversimplify the issue.

Health care

• Do seniors not want reform?
• The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) puts out their position.