Berlusconi attacks women’s pensions

This video says about itself:

Our last chance. Ireland, Say NO to Lisbon Treaty.

From Italian news agency ANSA:

Italy to up women’s retirement age

Public-sector move to comply with EC gender parity norm

Rome, June 25 – Italy plans to raise the pension age for women in the public sector from 60 to 65 in compliance with a European Union directive on gender parity, Civil Service Minister Renato Brunetta said on Thursday.

According to another ANSA item of today:

One leftwing party said the warning from Brussels ”came from the bosses and banks who helped create the EU”.

Neither in the brainless heads of the Italian Berlusconi regime, nor in the brainless heads of the European Union’s European Commission bureaucrats in Brussels, there seems to be understanding that gender parity in this case, instead of harming women workers, might have meant lowering the pension age for male workers to 60. As the world economic crisis now hits Europe, also Italy, and unemployment rises, that would have meant more jobs for younger, now unemployed, people.

But no, whenever there is a conflict between reason and the capitalist greed for more profits and still more profits, both the Berlusconi regime and the Brussels bureaucrats are likely to take the side of the latter. Italian women who have worked hard their whole lives will now be robbed, and the booty will go to Mr Berlusconi and other capitalists.

On the one hand, it is true that capitalism pre-dates the European Union and that that Union is not the primary cause of all the miseries of capitalism in Europe. On the other hand, the European Union certainly acts to ram disastrous Thatcherite-Reaganite “neo-liberal” capitalism down the throats of individual member countries.

They tried that with the draft “European constitution”. That failed, as voters in France and in the Netherlands rejected that. Then, they tried with the Lisbon treaty, which still contains most of the objectionable stuff of the draft constitution. Only in one European country did voters have the right to vote on the Lisbon treaty. That country was Ireland. The Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty.

Apparently, the European Union bureaucrats and the unpopular Irish coalition government want to continue to ram the Lisbon treaty down Irish voters’ throats until they are so sick that they swallow it. Stop this anti-democratic promotion of failed capitalism, and of militarism! Irish voters, vote against the Lisbon treaty in the new referendum, like you did in the earlier referendum. Voters in other European countries, demand from your politicians a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

New bat species discovered in Comoros

From DPA news agency:

Scientists discover new tiny bat species in Comoros

Posted : Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:53:43 GMT

Geneva – Scientists have discovered a small new bat species weighing just 5 grams on the Comoros island archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the Natural History Museum in Geneva said. Manuel Ruedi, from the Geneva museum and one of the lead scientists involved in the discovery, said that while they had found the new species it was already on its way to being on an endangered list.

“Forest bats are endangered by deforestation, and in particular this one also,” explained Ruedi in a telephone interview.

The new species was named Miniopterus aelleni, in tribute to the late Villy Aellen, a former director of the museum and an expert on bats.

The bat is thought to originate from the island of Madagascar, off the African coast.

The discovery began in 2006, when a team of Australian, Madagascan, Swiss and United States scientists headed to Comoros to research bats. Upon discovering what appeared to be something new, a series of genetic and other tests were conducted.

Just recently their work was recognized and they were able to announced late Wednesday that the tiny bat was indeed a “new species, unknown until now,” said Ruedi.

Comoros, together with Swiss institutions and conservation groups, will be taking an initiative to educate school children about bats and their importance to the ecosystem and biodiversity.

Ruedi noted that in places where malaria is present, such as the Indian Ocean island, bats eat insects and thereby help prevent the spread of the disease.

It was “sad,” he said, that the newly discovered species was immediately placed in protection for fears of its extinction.

The research on bats off the African coast would go on.

“We need to know more about where and which species exist and what significance they have for local human population,” Ruedi said.

The Geneva museum noted that since 2000 about 10 new species of mammals are discovered each year, indicating that there was “still much to discover about the biodiversity that surrounds us.”

More photos are here. And here.

See also here.

Nematode worm sex

From New Scientist:

‘Worm porn’ video shows details of nematode sex

Some might call it worm porn, but a video showing a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite could equally be described as balletic in its graceful movement.

Allyson Whittaker and Paul Sternberg of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, study the nervous control of mating behaviour in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

Their art-house-esque video, filmed through a microscope, shows the male gliding around the hermaphrodite, which does not actively co-operate in mating.

Spicules

The male presses the front side of his tail against the hermaphrodite, while he backs along and searches for the vulva. The tail, controlled by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, embraces the hermaphrodite, curling round in its quest for the vulva.

On finding it, the male inserts copulatory structures called spicules and mating commences. There are six steps involved in worm mating behaviour.

The researchers say their video provides a better understanding of the molecular and neuro-muscular pathways that regulate male tail posture during mating.

Males more considerate than imagined — at least, in nematode worms: here.

Tubifex worms video: here.

Laboratory nematodes: here.

‘On the origin of nematodes‘ — A phylogenetic tree of the world’s most numerous group of animals: here.

Steinernema pui sp. n. (Rhabditida, Steinernematidae), a new entomopathogenic nematode from Yunnan, China: here.

Nematode communities of Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island, maritime Antarctica: here.

Nematode Worm C. Elegans Muscles Improve During Spaceflight: here.

Sex life of worm hides a protein with links to ALS: here.

Worms live longer with thioflavin T: Dye used in Alzheimer’s research promotes longevity in lab nematodes: here. And here.

The world’s deepest-dwelling multicellular organisms have just been identified, according to a paper in the latest issue of Nature. If you were to dig down about 2.2 miles, you might encounter Halicephalobus mephisto (“Mephisto”) and its other nematode relatives: here.

Young toucans born

This is a Dutch photo, from Rotterdam zoo, about toco toucans recently born there.

Storks, gull, butterfly

In the meadow which I used to know so well, years ago, an artificial storks’ nest was made.

I had never seen any storks there. However, today, for the first time, I saw a white stork on that nest. A herring gull tried to drive it away, by divebombing flying movements. However, the stork stayed. At the ditch bank just in front of me, a meadow brown butterfly.

At another storks’ nest, near the nature reserve, three storks, so probably including at least one juvenile, standing. Below, in the meadow, a mute swan.

US racist Hal Turner arrested

This is a video from the USA about the promotion by Sean Hannity of Rupert Murdoch‘s Fox News of anti-Semite Hal turner.

From Think Progress in the USA:

FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges

FBI agents went to the New Jersey home of white supremacist blogger/radio host Hal Turner and arrested him “on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb,” according to a statement released by the Justice Department. …

Turner’s posts also “referred to the murder of the mother and husband of Chicago-based federal Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow in February 2005,” saying, “Apparently, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court didn’t get the hint after those killings. It appears another lesson is needed.” …

As the Nation has pointed out, Turner has ties to Fox News’ Sean Hannity. In fact, Hannity has “offered his top-rated radio show as a regular forum for Turner’s occasionally racist, always over-the-top rants.” Hannity would also reportedly offer Turner “encouragement” to overcome his cocaine habit and “homosexual leanings.”

Turner’s arrest comes after two major tragedies put the spotlight on the dangers of right-wing extremism: the Holocaust Museum shooting by white supremacist James von Brunn and the assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

Turner update August 2009: here.

Hal Turner GUILTY: Blogger Convicted After Threatening Judges Over Chicago Gun Ban: here.

Rupert Murdoch hacking scandal in Britain: here. And here.

O’Reilly: here.

Hannity concerts scandal: here.

Angler catches shark in Ireland

From British daily The Independent:

You should have seen the shark that got away…

It’s the biggest fish ever caught off the British Isles – but not everybody is happy

By Jonathan Brown and Michael McCarthy

Thursday, 25 June 2009

Big? It’s enormous. It’s immense. It’s the whopper of all whoppers, the largest fish ever caught on rod and line in the waters of the British Isles. And it was caught by a pensioner.

It took Joe Waldis 35 minutes of almighty struggle to bring the 12ft 9ins bluntnose six-gill shark to the side of his boat off the coast of County Clare in south-west Ireland, after it took his mackerel bait. When it was brought ashore it was found to weigh a staggering 1,056lbs (480kg) – or just under half a ton. This decisively smashes the record for the heaviest rod-caught fish in British or Irish waters, overtaking a 968lb bluefin tuna caught in 2001 (also off Ireland), and is more than double the weight of the heaviest rod-caught fish within the UK, a porbeagle shark of 507lbs taken off Orkney in 1993.

It is nearly three times the weight of the heaviest fish caught in freshwater in Britain, a sturgeon of 388lbs which was taken from the River Towy in South Wales in 1933. It is the angling tale to cap all angling tales, and it left Mr Waldis, 70, a visiting Swiss fisherman who lives near Zurich, as astonished as the rest of the angling world.

But alongside the astonishment, there is also controversy, as the question is now being widely asked: shouldn’t he have put it back alive, rather than having it killed and brought ashore to be weighed? For these days, increasingly, “trophy” fish are returned to the water – and some anglers think this should apply no less to the biggest trophy of them all. The stirrings of unease can be found even in the columns of the fishermen’s bible, Angling Times, which this week gives over all of its pages two and three to Mr Waldis’s remarkable capture, complete with a series of dramatic pictures showing him dwarfed by his prize.

The newspaper quotes both Luke Aston, the skipper on the record-breaking trip, and the chairman of the Shark Trust, Richard Peirce, as expressing disappointment that Mr Waldis did not release his capture. …

The biggest fish caught on a rod and line anywhere in the world is believed to have been a 3,427lbs great white shark, caught in 1986 off Montauk, New York, by Frank Mundus – the fisherman thought to have been the model for the shark hunter Quint in the novel and Stephen Spielberg movie Jaws.

Monsters of the deep: Six-gill sharks

* Six-gill sharks are a deep-water species, typically inhabiting depths of more than 300ft, and they have been recorded more than 6,000ft down.

* The sharks are found all over the world, from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to Australia and Alaska, and have a diverse range of prey, from molluscs and crustaceans to salmon, hake and even seals.

* They are only rarely caught, and that is usually at night when they tend to come nearer the surface.

* The females grow bigger than males and can reach as much as 5.5m (18ft) long.

A third of open ocean sharks are threatened with extinction, according to the first global study to assess the conservation status of 64 species: here.

Sixgill shark siblings stick together: here.

Economic crisis, bigger bonuses

Record bonuses at bailed-out US banks: here.

US: State budget crises trigger layoffs, cuts in social programs: here.

The California legislature failed to pass an austerity budget on Wednesday that includes $11 billion in cuts, setting the stage for even more draconian measures: here.

Twenty-four thousand City of Toronto inside and outside workers are resisting a concerted drive on the part of the economic and political elite of Canada’s wealthiest city to impose major contract concessions: here.

Eighteen hundred city workers in Windsor, Ontario, have entered their 11th week on strike: here.

A “man of the boom”, Peter Costello has stepped aside just as a new social and political period has erupted, with the full impact of the world capitalist breakdown beginning to be felt in Australia: here.

New Zealand’s National-led government is implementing austerity measures designed to placate big business and impose the burden of the economic crisis on the working class: here.

This is a video about the Lindsey strike in Britain.

Sacked contract workers employed at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) in Lincolnshire, England, continued their strike action and protests this week: here.

Britain: Barnsley College lecturers protest threat of redundancies: here.

Finance union Unite has issued a Freedom of Information request demanding the details of Barclays bank’s capital reserves after the transnational bank closed its final-salary pension scheme: here.