47, an environmental scientist, Italian-American, married, 2 sons, originally a Catholic from Philly, now a Taoist ecophilosopher in the South due to job transfer. Enjoy jazz, hockey, good food and hikes in the woods.
Probes seeking life on Mars must dig deeply into young craters, gullies, or recently exposed ice to have a chance of finding any living cells that were not annihilated by radiation, researchers report in a new study. One promising place to look for them is within the ice at Elysium, site of a recently discovered frozen sea, they say. Current probes designed to find life on Mars cannot drill deeply enough to find living cells that may exist well below the surface, according to the study.
Archaeologists say they have found a huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge. People seem to have occupied the sites seasonally, using them for ritual feasting and funeral ceremonies. In ancient times, this settlement would have housed hundreds of people, making it the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain. The dwellings date back to 2,600-2,500 BC – according to the researchers, the same period that Stonehenge was built.
Help is at hand for the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s poverty-stricken rural people – through Brazil nuts. The nuts are a valuable food source with a huge market in Europe and North America: up to 7,000 metric tons of unshelled nuts and 20,000 metric tons of shelled nuts are shipped every year. And because the trees that supply the nuts grow wild, they offer a way for communities to make a living from the forest without destroying it.
A cyclic model of the universe has been developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by Professor Paul Frampton and graduate student Lauris Baum. The model has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce. During expansion (the phase we are in now), dark energy — the force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate — pushes until all matter fragments into patches so far apart nothing can bridge the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. That, a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the turnaround. At the turnaround, each fragmented patch collapses and contracts individually instead of pulling back together in a reversal of the Big Bang. The patches become an infinite number of independent universes, contracting and then bouncing outward again, reinflating in a manner similar to the Big Bang. One patch becomes our universe. “This cycle happens an infinite number of times, thus eliminating any start or end of time,” Frampton said.
Reintroducing wolves to the Highlands of Scotland, where they were last seen in 1769, could boost conservation and local economies, a new study suggests. The idea has been widely debated, but the research concludes that bringing the animals back could be a cost-effective way of reducing the overwhelming populations of red deer, which are considered pests in the Highlands.
Currently a delicacy, oysters fed the masses in the past and could again become “the soy bean of the sea” as traditional fisheries collapse. The key lies in applying the techniques of breeding used in the last century for land agriculture to develop robust, high-yielding hybrid stocks (not genetic engineering, just traditional breeding for desired traits). Seed companies used these methods to increase corn yields seven-fold from the 1920s to the present, but such techniques have yet to be applied methodically to aquaculture.
Your last link … I think I’d want to know which articles were changed if it were possible. Those documents will be used in lit reviews and as arguments for other research and they’re false. If any findings were published in journals, the journals should issue notices. It’s make-believe … pie in the sky … we don’t like what you found, so we’ll make you say the opposite. We are beyond the anecdotal the article states. How do you know what is real and what is false.
You could consider this a form of high tech book burning…don’t burn the books just don’t let factual info through. The depth of disaster this administration has created in how our government is run going to be written about for generations I think once or if everything they’ve done comes to light. Unless bushco does get his nukler holocaust that he seems to want so badly.
Nuclear Plants Need Not Protect Against Airplane Strikes
WASHINGTON, DC, January 30, 2007 (ENS) – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, Monday turned down a petition to strengthen security at nuclear power plants from Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap, which monitors governmental radiation policy.
The commission’s new rule defining the kind of threats nuclear power plant operators must address does not require protection against a deliberate hit by a large aircraft, as the group had recommended.
“The NRC has already required its licensees to take steps to mitigate the effects of large fires and explosions from any type of initiating event,” the commission said in a statement.
“The active protection against airborne threats is addressed by other federal organizations, including the military,” the NRC said.
The commission said it is an active partner with other federal, state and local authorities “in constant surveillance of the threat environment” and will adjust regulatory actions or requirements if necessary.
Attempts are being made to knock down all kinds of stories about the Najaf uprising. Bush expressed happiness that the Iraqi Army (actually the Badr Corps fundamentalist Shiite militia) acquitted itself well against the rebels. But in fact, the Iraqi security forces were surrounded, cut off and nearly destroyed by heavily armed cultists–and had urgently to call in US troops, tanks and close air support.
So does the US military not tell Bush when their Iraqi allies get into deep trouble fighting a few hundred cultists and they have to go bail them out? Or was Bush briefed on the situation and he came out and told a bald faced lie to the public about what had happened?
Either thing at a time the country is at war is truly horrifying.
I honestly think he’s not told the truth(not that he wants it or would believe it anyway). He’s told what he wants to hear so in a sense he’s not actually lying when he repeats crap he believes to be true. That doesn’t mean though that I don’t think he flat out lies in most cases.(or everytime he opens his mouth)
BERLIN, Germany (WaPo) Jan. 31 — German prosecutors said they have issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives suspected of kidnapping a German citizen in the Balkans in 2004 and taking him to a secret prison in Afghanistan before realizing several months later that they had the wrong person.
Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, the chief prosecutor in Munich, said 13 CIA operatives were wanted on charges of kidnapping and inflicting bodily harm on Khaled el Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Masri has said he was detained by border guards while en route to a holiday in Macedonia and was handed over in January 2004 to the CIA, which secretly flew him to Afghanistan and interrogated him about his alleged ties to Islamic radicals in Germany.
The German arrest warrants, filed in Munich, are the second case in which prosecutors have filed criminal charges against CIA employees involved in counterterrorism operations in Europe. European investigators acknowledge that it is highly unlikely the U.S. spies — most of whom worked undercover or using false identities — would ever be handed over to face trial. But the prosecutions have strained U.S.-European relations and underscored deep differences over how to fight terrorism.
This administration seems to have gone to unprecedented lengths to piss of every country in the freaken world. I think the true legacy of 9/11 is how bush turned global sympathy for the US into our becoming a pariah around the world by our governments actions…and in such a relatively short time.
Does President Bush have it in for the press corps?
MSNBC — Wearing a pair of stylish safety glasses–at least more stylish than most safety glasses–Bush got a mini-tour of the factory before delivering remarks on the economy. “I would suggest moving back,” Bush said as he climbed into the cab of a massive D-10 tractor. “I’m about to crank this sucker up.” As the engine roared to life, White House staffers tried to steer the press corps to safety, but when the tractor lurched forward, they too were forced to scramble for safety.
Military Equipment: Missing in Action
A new Defense audit says the Pentagon has failed to properly equip soldiers in Iraq–just as the President struggles to find support for a troop increase
[snip]
The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn’t been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to “effectively complete their missions” and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General’s office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.
“As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment,” reads the executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary. [snip]
In the summary of the Inspector General’s audit, the equipment shortages were attributed to basic management failures among military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command lacked standard policies for requesting and tracking equipment requirements or for equipping units to perform nontraditional duties. Auditors surveyed 1,100 service members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan from all four military branches, the National Guard, and Reserves.
So it would seem that INCOMPETENCE is the main reason that our men and women are sent into the meat grinder poorly equipped. Lord knows, it isn’t a lack of money. From all reports, many of the troops that are being rushed to the escalation in Iraq will not have the time to receive proper training. Infuriating.
I’d like to take bush’s mouth and wash it out with soap every damn time he says our troops have everything they need to fight this ‘war on terror’. This horror house of massive war profiteering, carnage and incompetence seems almost beyond belief.
globeandmail — The federal government still doesn’t know who is behind the campaign to smear the reputation of Maher Arar, senior security officials said yesterday.
Cont’d
And an interesting r/t opinion piece:
Something is wrong about Maher Arar’s compensation
CBC — But a payment is being made for a grievous wrongdoing without Canadians ever having received answers to some fundamental questions that go to the heart of what our democracy is all about.
Why did Canadian officials, for example, actively work to destroy the reputation of a man Justice Dennis O’Connor has determined committed no offence?
Why did Canadian officials feed false information to U.S. counterparts, information that very likely was a significant factor in the decision to ship Arar to Syria where he would face certain torture?
Did Canadian officials knowingly violate international law by making use of information obtained from Arar while he was tortured?
Why has not one Canadian official been held accountable for any of these violations of Arar’s constitutionally guaranteed civil rights? For there to be justice there must be a full exposure of the truth, and the individuals who violated Arar’s rights must be identified and held responsible.
Note the connection between Oui’s posting about the warrants issued for CIA operatives in Germany, following similar warrants in Milan (related to another kidnapping), and Olivia’s posting about Maher Arar, the Canadian who recently received a settlement exceeding $10 Million from the Canadian government PLUS an apology from the prime minister. Both relate to the U.S. extraordinary rendition program. (for more, see my 1/27/07 diary).
The warrants in Germany pertain to the kidnapping of Khaled El-Masri, represented by the ACLU in his suit against the U.S.. It’s on appeal, having been dismissed in the trial court based on the government’s “national security” defense. This is the same defense which another court had bought in Arar’s suit against the U.S. government.
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31, 2007 — It appears a new age of enlightenment is upon us, championing energy conservation.
A California lawmaker wants to ban the use of incandescent light bulbs in order to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gases which are linked to global warming.
Incandescent Light Bulb Out
The “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act” would ban the use of incandescent light bulbs by 2012. Instead, compact fluorescent light bulbs (COLS) would become the alternative for California residents.
For all the criticism of U.S. activities and strategy in Iraq, including on the Booman Tribune, too little attention has been paid to what’s going on in the U.K. — which does after all, have its own troops in southern Iraq along the border with Iran.
It deserves more than isolated comments or a mention in a “news bucket.” I was thinking about this while watching members of a parliamentary committee ask pointed questions of military brass and the foreign secretary, shortly after Bush’s surge speech. They were not happy. She was less than impressive.
Probes seeking life on Mars must dig deeply into young craters, gullies, or recently exposed ice to have a chance of finding any living cells that were not annihilated by radiation, researchers report in a new study. One promising place to look for them is within the ice at Elysium, site of a recently discovered frozen sea, they say. Current probes designed to find life on Mars cannot drill deeply enough to find living cells that may exist well below the surface, according to the study.
Archaeologists say they have found a huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge. People seem to have occupied the sites seasonally, using them for ritual feasting and funeral ceremonies. In ancient times, this settlement would have housed hundreds of people, making it the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain. The dwellings date back to 2,600-2,500 BC – according to the researchers, the same period that Stonehenge was built.
Help is at hand for the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s poverty-stricken rural people – through Brazil nuts. The nuts are a valuable food source with a huge market in Europe and North America: up to 7,000 metric tons of unshelled nuts and 20,000 metric tons of shelled nuts are shipped every year. And because the trees that supply the nuts grow wild, they offer a way for communities to make a living from the forest without destroying it.
A cyclic model of the universe has been developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by Professor Paul Frampton and graduate student Lauris Baum. The model has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce. During expansion (the phase we are in now), dark energy — the force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate — pushes until all matter fragments into patches so far apart nothing can bridge the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. That, a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the turnaround. At the turnaround, each fragmented patch collapses and contracts individually instead of pulling back together in a reversal of the Big Bang. The patches become an infinite number of independent universes, contracting and then bouncing outward again, reinflating in a manner similar to the Big Bang. One patch becomes our universe. “This cycle happens an infinite number of times, thus eliminating any start or end of time,” Frampton said.
Reintroducing wolves to the Highlands of Scotland, where they were last seen in 1769, could boost conservation and local economies, a new study suggests. The idea has been widely debated, but the research concludes that bringing the animals back could be a cost-effective way of reducing the overwhelming populations of red deer, which are considered pests in the Highlands.
Currently a delicacy, oysters fed the masses in the past and could again become “the soy bean of the sea” as traditional fisheries collapse. The key lies in applying the techniques of breeding used in the last century for land agriculture to develop robust, high-yielding hybrid stocks (not genetic engineering, just traditional breeding for desired traits). Seed companies used these methods to increase corn yields seven-fold from the 1920s to the present, but such techniques have yet to be applied methodically to aquaculture.
The production of biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes create more harmful emissions than fossil fuels, scientific studies are finding. Production of palm oil has made Indonesia the third leading producer of greenhouse gases, after the US and China.
No surprise to anyone here, but it is nice to watch the dam slowly crumble: More than 120 scientists across 7 federal agencies say they were pressured to remove references to climate change from documents, and a similar number say appointees altered the meaning of scientific findings. [I wonder if this kind of thing is criminal? Wouldn’t it be ironic if suppression of the truth about global warming was what finally brought down the house of BushCo?]
Your last link … I think I’d want to know which articles were changed if it were possible. Those documents will be used in lit reviews and as arguments for other research and they’re false. If any findings were published in journals, the journals should issue notices. It’s make-believe … pie in the sky … we don’t like what you found, so we’ll make you say the opposite. We are beyond the anecdotal the article states. How do you know what is real and what is false.
You could consider this a form of high tech book burning…don’t burn the books just don’t let factual info through. The depth of disaster this administration has created in how our government is run going to be written about for generations I think once or if everything they’ve done comes to light. Unless bushco does get his nukler holocaust that he seems to want so badly.
Comforting, especially since I have a nuke about 5 miles from me.
Link
From Juan Cole calls bullshit on Bush:
Bush told National Public Radio on Monday, “My first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something.”
So does the US military not tell Bush when their Iraqi allies get into deep trouble fighting a few hundred cultists and they have to go bail them out? Or was Bush briefed on the situation and he came out and told a bald faced lie to the public about what had happened?
Either thing at a time the country is at war is truly horrifying.
“Truly horrifying.” Yep. That about sums it up.
.
A Greek drama"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I honestly think he’s not told the truth(not that he wants it or would believe it anyway). He’s told what he wants to hear so in a sense he’s not actually lying when he repeats crap he believes to be true. That doesn’t mean though that I don’t think he flat out lies in most cases.(or everytime he opens his mouth)
.
BERLIN, Germany (WaPo) Jan. 31 — German prosecutors said they have issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives suspected of kidnapping a German citizen in the Balkans in 2004 and taking him to a secret prison in Afghanistan before realizing several months later that they had the wrong person.
Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, the chief prosecutor in Munich, said 13 CIA operatives were wanted on charges of kidnapping and inflicting bodily harm on Khaled el Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Masri has said he was detained by border guards while en route to a holiday in Macedonia and was handed over in January 2004 to the CIA, which secretly flew him to Afghanistan and interrogated him about his alleged ties to Islamic radicals in Germany.
The German arrest warrants, filed in Munich, are the second case in which prosecutors have filed criminal charges against CIA employees involved in counterterrorism operations in Europe. European investigators acknowledge that it is highly unlikely the U.S. spies — most of whom worked undercover or using false identities — would ever be handed over to face trial. But the prosecutions have strained U.S.-European relations and underscored deep differences over how to fight terrorism.
Italian Court Weighs CIA Kidnap Charges
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This administration seems to have gone to unprecedented lengths to piss of every country in the freaken world. I think the true legacy of 9/11 is how bush turned global sympathy for the US into our becoming a pariah around the world by our governments actions…and in such a relatively short time.
Does President Bush have it in for the press corps?
Link
A new Defense audit says the Pentagon has failed to properly equip soldiers in Iraq–just as the President struggles to find support for a troop increase
[snip]
The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn’t been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to “effectively complete their missions” and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General’s office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.
“As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment,” reads the executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary. [snip]
In the summary of the Inspector General’s audit, the equipment shortages were attributed to basic management failures among military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command lacked standard policies for requesting and tracking equipment requirements or for equipping units to perform nontraditional duties. Auditors surveyed 1,100 service members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan from all four military branches, the National Guard, and Reserves.
So it would seem that INCOMPETENCE is the main reason that our men and women are sent into the meat grinder poorly equipped. Lord knows, it isn’t a lack of money. From all reports, many of the troops that are being rushed to the escalation in Iraq will not have the time to receive proper training. Infuriating.
I’d like to take bush’s mouth and wash it out with soap every damn time he says our troops have everything they need to fight this ‘war on terror’. This horror house of massive war profiteering, carnage and incompetence seems almost beyond belief.
And an interesting r/t opinion piece:
Something is wrong about Maher Arar’s compensation
Note the connection between Oui’s posting about the warrants issued for CIA operatives in Germany, following similar warrants in Milan (related to another kidnapping), and Olivia’s posting about Maher Arar, the Canadian who recently received a settlement exceeding $10 Million from the Canadian government PLUS an apology from the prime minister. Both relate to the U.S. extraordinary rendition program. (for more, see my 1/27/07 diary).
The warrants in Germany pertain to the kidnapping of Khaled El-Masri, represented by the ACLU in his suit against the U.S.. It’s on appeal, having been dismissed in the trial court based on the government’s “national security” defense. This is the same defense which another court had bought in Arar’s suit against the U.S. government.
.
pre-emption – collective punishment – civilian deaths – collateral damage – extra-ordinary rendition – torture – assassinations – abu ghraib – bagram – guantánamo bay – diego garcia – prison boats – dark prisons – syrian, jordanian and egyptian prison chambers – cia kidnapping – death squads – mercy shots – fallujah massacre
Are we surprised to learn of news in Blair’s United Kingdom –
Nine arrested over ‘Iraq-style’ kidnap plot to torture and behead a British Muslim soldier
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31, 2007 — It appears a new age of enlightenment is upon us, championing energy conservation.
A California lawmaker wants to ban the use of incandescent light bulbs in order to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gases which are linked to global warming.
Incandescent Light Bulb OutThe “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act” would ban the use of incandescent light bulbs by 2012. Instead, compact fluorescent light bulbs (COLS) would become the alternative for California residents.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."For all the criticism of U.S. activities and strategy in Iraq, including on the Booman Tribune, too little attention has been paid to what’s going on in the U.K. — which does after all, have its own troops in southern Iraq along the border with Iran.
It deserves more than isolated comments or a mention in a “news bucket.” I was thinking about this while watching members of a parliamentary committee ask pointed questions of military brass and the foreign secretary, shortly after Bush’s surge speech. They were not happy. She was less than impressive.