This weekend I took in a day and a half of Critical Resistance, a three-day prison abolition conference held at Laney College in Oakland. The conference was nicknamed CR10, as it marked the tenth anniversary of the first Critical Resistance, which was held at UC Berkeley, and which I also attended.

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In a May 22, 2008, plenary debate at the UN, members discussed the need for a “human security” focus in addressing national and international security concerns, according to a UN press release. The humanitarian crises caused by the early-May natural disasters in Burma (Myanmar) and China illustrated the need for a [...]

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Geoffrey Forden, an MIT physicist and expert on the Chinese space program, was recently interviewed by John Johnson Jr. of the LA Times on the topic of the recent proliferation of space junk from China’s missile test last year (“China Added to Space Debris” April 16, 2008). The news item [...]

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Eco-friendly system will put U.S. Capitol in new light - by Christopher Lee, The Washington Post (April 4, 2008)
Pelosi plans to upgrade the lighting system at the Capitol Dome. Battling global climate change, one lightbulb at a time…
“Everyone supports making the Capitol more energy-efficient, but we don’t have to waste taxpayer dollars [...]

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Tonight the Goldman Environmental Prize winners for 2008 were announced (summaries cribbed from the Goldmanprize.org website):
North America: Jesús León Santos, Mexico: In Oaxaca, where unsustainable land-use practices have made it one of the world’s most highly-eroded areas, León initiated a land renewal program that employs ancient indigenous practices to transform depleted [...]

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Cal law professor John Yoo is in the news again lately. Yoo is the author of an infamous August 2002 legal opinion, written while at the US Justice Department, justifying the use of torture in interrogations. Last week the Pentagon declassified another argument by Yoo on behalf of the [...]

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Our own Robert Reich was called on this week by satirist Stephen Colbert to explain how the Democratic front runners will devour themselves. After Prof. Reich soundly rebuffed Colbert’s characterization of the Democrats as self-destructive, he faced a battery of culinary metaphors as Colbert attempted to extract Prof. Reich’s [...]

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The Serbian province of Kosovo, or the Republic of Kosova as the majority Albanian Kosovar population calls it, declared independence last Sunday, February 17th. The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is moving out, and a European Union force is preparing to move in to help with the political transition. On [...]

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