A quote for those doing research on climate change:
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
– Thoreau
A quote for those doing research on climate change:
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
– Thoreau
Modern computer technology and insights into lunar geology (selenology?) are being used to reanalyze data collected from seismometers left on the moon by the Apollo missions, collected until 1977, to try and more accurately determine how frequently meteoroids strike the moon. The information is necessary to plan for adequate safety if we are to establish a long-term presence on the moon. And another issue in establishing a permanent presence on the moon (or Mars) will be addressing the ever-present dust and its “static cling” that attracts it to everything. NASA scientists have developed a prototype electrostatic “dust buster” that may address the problem.
New research into the ecological impact of the noise from wind farms suggests they need to be sited carefully, to minimize ecological impacts. UC-Davis scientists compared the behavior of ground squirrels from a wind farm site to a control group, and found the noise apparently made the wind farm rodents more “edgy” and prone to dive for cover – this in turn has effects on both their predators (such as the golden eagle) and on creatures that share their burrows (red-legged frog and California tiger salamander).
Your tax dollars at work: Researchers at the Southwest research institute in San Antonio, TX have developed a new means of non-lethal crowd control – a device that uses compressed air to launch a stream of water and non-toxic polyacrylamide gel from tanks worn on the back. The water and polymer mix in flight to create a slippery slime that makes it impossible to keep one’s footing. The patent can be reviewed here, but you have to pay to see the illustrations. 🙁
Scientists have proposed launching a heavy probe to impact into the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, to eject material that can then be spectroscopically analyzed from orbit, as has successfully been done with comet Tempel 1. Interview on the proposal at the link.
Researchers were somewhat shocked to discover that while wealthy Americans enjoy better health than their poorer fellow citizens, this high status fails to confer health benefits to match even the lowliest of their trans-Atlantic cousins. The health of the richest people in the US is as poor as the worst educated, lowest paid among the English. Even after controlling the data for income, race, and a number of other factors, the discrepancy remains. They speculate that dietary differences – and in particular greater consumption of fast-food – could perhaps explain the trend, as well as more stressful and sedentary lifestyles that might also make Americans less healthy. See Londonbear’s diary on this story.
A newly discovered asteroid is now the biggest thing known with a possibility of hitting the Earth in this century – and it is also the one that could hit the soonest. But the odds of impact currently stand at just one in six million, and the odds should further diminish with additional observations. This latest addition to NASA-JPL’s list of potentially hazardous asteroids, called 2006 HZ51, was discovered on 27 April 2006. It has an estimated diameter of about 800 metres and is the one of the largest objects ever to make the list. An object of that size would cause widespread devastation if it did strike the Earth [In the words of Sun Ra, “Goodbye, ass.” – K.P.]. The earliest of its 165 possible impact dates is just over two years away, on 21 June 2008.
Another day, another reason to pound your head against the wall over climate change inaction: The region in the Atlantic where major hurricanes breed has warmed by about 1 degree F in the past century, according to a new study that bolsters arguments that human-induced global warming is contributing to tropical storms. And a scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was “clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.” Another summary is here.The report is available here.
Brother against brother: No, it’s not the civil war (yet?) – With hurricane season approaching, Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday urged an immediate federal response to a report warning that the dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee is in extreme danger of failing. If the levee were to breach, it could rival Hurricane Katrina’s effect on New Orleans by flooding the surrounding region, risking the lives of 40,000 people and threatening urban water supplies to the southeast (i.e., the Miami area), the report predicts. While state officials said they’re hurriedly updating an evacuation plan for the region, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers insisted that the earthen levee it built more than 70 years ago remains safe and work is under way to make it safer.
Not a good week so far for Bush: first l’affair Colbert, then climate scientists won’t lie to (for) you any more, and even brother Jeb ridin’ your ass. Enough to make you want to say “screw it” and go hang out at the ranch for a while, maybe kill some trees…
I wish Bush WOULD go back to Crawford. At least when he’s killing trees he’s not thinking of more ways to screw the country.
Are impact studies for hydrocarbon-burning power plants done at this level of detail? If not, why not? If they are, then let’s get some comparitive studies out there.
It makes no sense to worry about rodents being “edgy” around wind farms if they wouldn’t live at all around an oil-fired power plant … or if human-triggered climate change drowns them.
Here’s the link.
In a replay of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction charade, neoconservative supporters of George W. Bush are pushing the U.S. intelligence community to take a more alarmist view about Iran’s nuclear program – only this time, the nation’s top spy John Negroponte is resisting the pressure unlike former CIA chief George Tenet.
Tenet joined in Bush’s hyping of the WMD evidence about Iraq – famously telling the President that the case was a “slam dunk.” But Negroponte is defying hardliners who want a worst-case scenario on Iran’s capabilities. Instead, he is citing Iran’s limited progress in refining uranium and their use of a cascade of only 164 centrifuges.
“According to the experts that I consult, achieving — getting 164 centrifuges to work is still a long way from having the capacity to manufacture sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon,” Negroponte said in an interview with NBC News on April 20.
Target: Negroponte & Iran
By Robert Parry
April 29, 2006
In a replay of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction charade, neoconservative supporters of George W. Bush are pushing the U.S. intelligence community to take a more alarmist view about Iran’s nuclear program – only this time, the nation’s top spy John Negroponte is resisting the pressure unlike former CIA chief George Tenet.
Tenet joined in Bush’s hyping of the WMD evidence about Iraq – famously telling the President that the case was a “slam dunk.” But Negroponte is defying hardliners who want a worst-case scenario on Iran’s capabilities. Instead, he is citing Iran’s limited progress in refining uranium and their use of a cascade of only 164 centrifuges.
“According to the experts that I consult, achieving — getting 164 centrifuges to work is still a long way from having the capacity to manufacture sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon,” Negroponte said in an interview with NBC News on April 20.
“Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade,” said Negroponte[…]
[snip]
But Bush and his neoconservative advisers may believe that their window for forcing regime change in Iran is closing. The November 2006 elections could bring Republican reversals and leave Bush with less flexibility for launching bombing raids against Iran should he opt for a military attack as many experts believe he will.
The neocons are skewering Negroponte for not allowing himself to be used like Tenet did. I do not like Negroponte, but have to admit that if he’s standing firm against Bush on Iran, he’s a bigger man than I thought. If you have the time, read the article.
Bush’s national anthem hypocrisy made the WashPo today.
This has been plastered all over the alternative news complete with pictures. Not only did he have the national anthem sung in Spanish at his inaugural, he regularly sang it himself at various functions while on the stump. It wouldn’t matter one iota if he didn’t bluster about how the anthem should be in English. I’m glad a mainstream outlet printed this.
That’s what I find so remarkable, that the press is actually reporting it. Who knew they were capable of such a thing?
Now why won’t they do the same with Colbert’s speech?
ON the media big time. Made them squirm in their seats. How could they go back and report that truth?
…one reference to Bush himself singing the anthem in Spanish on the trail, but there was no confirmation…
[From a secret bootleg recording made before the song:]
“Hablo uhhh Espanol uhhh un poco uhhh solo – no… solar? – no… Soledad O’Brien? No, no – solamente, yeah… Hola! Hablo un poco Espanol solamente. I won’t be sold again. Heh heh heh.”
[translation: Hello, I speak only a little Spanish.]
These people are such Hypocrits. When they come and campaign to Latino audiences they “try” to do it in Spanish
from WashPo
Click the link and check out the picture of the house at the edge of the crater…
But check this out:
Yikes!!!
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“I Don’t Have Much Time to Read Fiction, Senator.”
UN Ambassador John Bolton complained that developing nations last week adopted a resolution “which, for all intents and purposes, tanks” U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s management reform plan.
Bolton said he hoped those nations, which he said provide around 12 percent of the U.N. budget, realize that “repudiating the countries that contribute the overwhelming bulk of the U.N. budget isn’t a way to win friends and influence people.”
Bolton also rebuffed persistent questions from Democrats on whether in his previous post as the State Department’s top arms control diplomat, he had a role in writing administration documents making now discredited assertions about Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, congressman. I had no role in this issue,” Bolton told Rep. Henry Waxman of California, top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, remarked that it was “stunning that you were not in the loop.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Eh? Since when does Bolton know anything about winning friends and influencing people? Unless he’s intentionally being a bad example …
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In the first 100 days as Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel still has a 80% approval rating.
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting the US for a two-day trip set to be dominated by the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Officials in Berlin said the visit would be used to show unity with the US in increasing the pressure on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. They said the discussion of sanctions was a possibility, but that Germany remained opposed to the use of force.
Europe and the UN Security Council discussed how to keep Iran from developing nuclear technologyThis is Mrs Merkel’s second visit to Washington since taking office.
Topic Bush Wishes to be Discussed …
● Hamas Funding also on the Agenda
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
From Divide et impera — divide and conquer — by Thomas H. Henriksen, “a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution” and, in his role as “a senior fellow at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University,” i.e. a teacher of covert ops to the military’s junior officers, on what he calls the “underside of the counterinsurgency coin” — terrorism in common parlance — which “is calculated to exploit or create divisions among adversaries for the purpose of fomenting enemy-on-enemy deadly encounters”:
from Seen through a Syrian lens,’unknown Americans’ are provoking civil war in Iraq by Robert Fisk:
Whose civil war is that?
“Reason for Their Death Is Known” by Dahr Jamail:
DemocracyNow!has vidoe/audio of Colbert’s brilliant performance. Amy Goodman airroadbanded it on this morning’s show and it is a scream. I laughed out loud, even wiped a tear or two as he skewered Bush then slow roasted him all while standing not more than three feet away from him. He continually turned and addressed Bush, so he couldn’t escape the biting satire. The corporate media was also blasted over and over.
If you have dial up like me, you can at least listen… if you have broadband, treat yourself to the video. Oh, there’s also a transcript. Go check it out.
Sorry for the typos, I usually proof read and forgot.
Joe Lieberman
From CNN:
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) — Al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui should spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a federal jury decided Wednesday.
The nine men and three women returned their verdict on the seventh day of deliberations after reliving the September 11 attacks through weeks of harrowing testimony and evidence.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema will formally sentence Moussaoui Thursday at 10 a.m.
Jurors sent a note Wednesday afternoon indicating they had reached a verdict after 41 hours of deliberations. The jury had two choices — death by injection or life in prison.
Guess Bush will have to nuke Iran to satisfy his bloodlust…
This case should never have been presented as a DP case. What a waste of time & money!
Blowhard Biden is on Hardball wishing he’d gotten death, & then practically drooling at the thought of Moussaoui getting his at the hands of ‘red-blooded American prisoners.’
Tweety also had a 9/11 family member on who asked why, if ZM is death-liable for withholding information that could have prevented the attacks, aren’t any other officials, like Tenet, being prosecuted similarly . . .