The phrase "Fair Trade coffee" has percolated into the vernacular, and the label it represents pervades the business at every level.

If the movement has shed some of its intensity since those heady early days, you can chalk that up to the complacency of success. Fair Trade certification, intended to raise the living standards of coffee farmers in Nicaragua and elsewhere, has grown into a complex bureaucracy and an industry in itself.

In 2003 Dunkin' Donuts agreed to make all of its espresso drinks certified. Nestle, one of the biggest coffee companies on Earth, launched a Fair Trade line in October 2005; the same month, McDonald's agreed to test Fair Trade in 658 outlets. High-end specialty coffees are the fastest growing sector of the industry, and Fair Trade is the fastest growing specialty coffee; demand for it has ballooned by around 70 percent annually for the last five years.

You'd think this confluence of social responsibility and double lattes, good business practices and lefty politics, would make one of its founders a happy man. But he and a growing number of roasters say the Fair Trade movement has lost its way.

The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee

Are you a hard-working research biologist waiting for your story to be told? Look no further than Allegra Goodman's new novel, which Booklist called "a timely inquiry into our society's problematic matrix of science, money, and politics."

From the book jacket:

Hailed as "a writer of uncommon clarity" by the New Yorker, National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman has dazzled readers with her acclaimed works of fiction, including such beloved bestsellers as The Family Markowitz and Kaaterskill Falls. Now she returns with a bracing new novel, at once an intricate mystery and a rich human drama set in the high-stakes atmosphere of a prestigious research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sandy Glass, a charismatic publicity-seeking oncologist, and Marion Mendelssohn, a pure, exacting scientist, are codirectors of a lab at the Philpott Institute dedicated to cancer research and desperately in need of a grant. Both mentors and supervisors of their young postdoctoral protégés, Glass and Mendelssohn demand dedication and obedience in a competitive environment where funding is scarce and results elusive. So when the experiments of Cliff Bannaker, a young postdoc in a rut, begin to work, the entire lab becomes giddy with newfound expectations. But Cliff’s rigorous colleague–and girlfriend–Robin Decker suspects the unthinkable: that his findings are fraudulent. As Robin makes her private doubts public and Cliff maintains his innocence, a life-changing controversy engulfs the lab and everyone in it.

With extraordinary insight, Allegra Goodman brilliantly explores the intricate mixture of workplace intrigue, scientific ardor, and the moral consequences of a rush to judgment. She has written an unforgettable novel.

You can read an excerpt at Amazon. "Intuition" earned a Starred Review from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. They wrote:

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. In another quiet but powerful novel from Goodman (Kaaterskill Falls), a struggling cancer lab at Boston's Philpott Institute becomes the stage for its researchers' personalities and passions, and for the slippery definitions of freedom and responsibility in grant-driven American science. When the once-discredited R-7 virus, the project of playboy postdoc Cliff, seems to reduce cancerous tumors in mice, lab director Sandy Glass insists on publishing the preliminary results immediately, against the advice of his more cautious codirector, Marion Mendelssohn. The research team sees a glorious future ahead, but Robin, Cliff's resentful ex-girlfriend and co-researcher, suspects that the findings are too good to be true and attempts to prove Cliff's results are in error. The resulting inquiry spins out of control. With subtle but uncanny effectiveness, Goodman illuminates the inner lives of each character, ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Intuition

Xochitl Green is a burned-out web geek that has spent the last three months writing an app that will change the way the Internet works.

She burned out and left for vacation before anyone knew how powerful it really was.

Now someone doesn't want her to come back.

Whom do you trust?

Read the first chapter. The full book is available online from Lulu.

Trust Network :: A New Book By Rick Osborne

Bookmark the Real World
From online or right from your mobile phone!

Add Pictures
Upload or send 'em from a camera phone!

Invite Your Friends
Know where all your friends go!

Flagr :: Sharewhere!

Part C - Magnet Safe Havens Assistance
SEC. 5301. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

(a) FINDINGS- Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Magnet safe havens are a significant part of America's effort to provide terrorists with challenging work and growth opportunities outside the Western Hemisphere.

(2) The use of magnet safe havens has increased dramatically since the inception of the magnet safe havens assistance program under this Act, with approximately 2,000,000 terrorists nationwide living in such havens, of whom more than 65 percent are non-white.

(3) Magnet safe havens offer a wide range of distinctive programs that have served as models for failed state development efforts.

(4) It is in the best interests of the United States:

(A) to continue the Federal Government's support of local madrassas that are implementing tribe-ordered indoctrination plans and local tribal councils that are voluntarily seeking to foster meaningful interaction among terrorists of different ideological backgrounds, beginning at the earliest stage of their education;

(B) to ensure that all young terrorists have equitable access to a chaotic, highly violent environment that will prepare them to function well in a technologically oriented and a highly competitive al Qaeda organizational structure comprised of people from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds; and

(C) to continue to secure a high quality of life for Americans by supporting magnet safe havens all around the world, recognizing that havens can profitably exist in failed states as well as in ethnically diverse "Western" democracies.

(5) Homeland security efforts through magnet safe haven programs are a significant part of our Nation's effort to achieve victory in the war on terror and help to ensure equal martyrdom opportunities for all terrorists.

Bipartisan global reform of madrassas will be the cornerstone of my Administration.

The quality of our religious schools directly affects us all as parents, as students, and as citizens of the world. Yet too many children around the world are segregated by low expectations, illiteracy, and self-doubt. In a constantly evolving terror landscape that is demanding increasingly complex skills from its workforce, children are literally being left behind.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Bipartisan solutions are within our reach. If our country fails in its responsibility to educate every child around the world, we're likely to fail in many other areas. But if we succeed in educating the world's youths, many other successes will follow throughout the world and in the lives of its citizens.

This blueprint represents part of my agenda for madrassa reform. Though it does not encompass every aspect of the reforms I plan to propose, this blueprint will serve as a framework from which we can all work together -- Christian, Muslim, Jew, and Athiest -- to strengthen both our oil-sponsored and drug-funded madrassas. Taken together, these reforms express my deep belief in our fundamental religious unity and our mission to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every part of the world. And I am very open to working with the United Nations who have additional ideas to meet our shared goals.

I look forward to working with the UN to ensure that no child is left behind.

...

To close the achievement gap for disadvantaged terrorists, we're going to set high standards. Most failed states have not established standards for what young terrorists should know in bombmaking, gun safety, and rhetoric. This proposal requires that failed states also set challenging content standards in Islamic history and creation science.

Establishes Assessments for Every Terrorist in Grades 3-8. A seamless mix of pervasive surveillance and annual assessments will provide parents with the information they need to know how well their budding terrorist is doing in school, and how well the madrassa is indoctrinating their child. With adequate time to plan and implement, failed states may select and design assessments of their choosing. The only requirement would be that the results in student achievement would be comparable from year to year. States will have three years to develop and implement the assessments. UN funds will cover the cost of developing these assessments.

Helps Failed States with Technical Assistance Funds to Help Turn Around Low-Performing Madrassas. UN funds will be available to failed states and religious organizations to augment their efforts to provide capacity building and technical assistance to madrassas identified as needing improvement. Technical assistance provided with these funds must be grounded in scientifically-based research.

If the madrassa f... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Did you hear this?

"This bill also will help protect Americans from the growing threat of methamphetamine. Meth is easy to make. It is highly addictive. It is ruining too many lives across our country."

As if there has long been a well-known threshold, and recently we've crossed it, thus making this legislation necessary.

"The bill introduces common-sense safeguards that would make many of the ingredients used in manufacturing meth harder to obtain in bulk, and easier for law enforcement to track. For example, the bill places limits on large-scale purchases of over-the-counter drugs that are used to manufacture meth. It requires stores to keep these ingredients behind the counter or in locked display cases.

Oh, right -- like an M-rated Playstation game!

The bill also increases penalties for smuggling and selling of meth. Our nation is committed to protecting our citizens and our young people from the scourge of methamphetamine."

Apparently it's their addiction to meth that drives extremists to terror.

Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to track the phone contacts of a drug dealer than the phone contacts of an enemy operative. Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to get the credit card receipts of a tax cheater than trace the financial support of an al Qaeda fundraiser. The Patriot Act corrected these double standards, and the United States is safer as a result.

The Patriot Act is about civil rights, but not in the way you thought.

"What we've done, you see, is, we've raised the bar on probable cause when it comes to wiretapping drug dealers, and we've established a separate court staffed by specially trained jurists who will carefully review all requests to wiretap the phones of drug dealers. And we've decided that from now on, tax cheaters will lose their Mastercard privileges. I know that sounds harsh, but it had to be done. The Patriot Act is all about fairness and equality. Do you think Osama has a Mastercard? Well, there you go."

President Signs USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act

Terrorists know they can't defeat the United States militarily, but they're still dangerous, Bush said. "They do not have an ideology that is appealing to people, but they do have the capacity to kill innocent life, and they're willing to do so all attempting to shake our will and cause us to leave the Middle East, so they can find safe haven from which to launch attacks," he said.

"My ideology, on the other hand, is quite appealing."

Doesn't he realize that "ideologue" has become an epithet?

Never mind the implication that a Middle East without the United States is inherently a "safe haven" for terrorists. (Or that Pakistan is about as safe as it gets for a terrorist, despite our regional presence.)

"That is what they have said, and as your president, it is important for me to see the world the way it is -- the realities of the world, not the way some would hope it would be."

Oh, okay. Good looking out!

But wait -- I guess he must have missed the obvious fact that the terrorists' havens in Iraq are sufficiently safe to support the launching of attacks.

Bush: My Ideology Is Better Than Your Ideology

New York loves Atlanta ... not.

In Atlanta, the buzzwords of soft-core urbanism are everywhere these days.

The city itself, a small splotch of fewer than half a million residents in a galaxy of sprawl, is now attracting the affluent ... with their bloated new houses ... landlords sell out ...

It's all those Georgia Tech grads who won't leave town ... you soft-core urbanites, you!

Gentrification Changing Face of New Atlanta

Amusing ...

The Fruit Cake Lady Gives Advice