MOSCOW (AP) Breaking News — A Russian passenger jet with 170 people aboard disappeared from radar screens after sending a distress signal and probably crashed, an emergency official said.
The plane, on its way from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg, disappeared from radar screens over Ukraine, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Stadnikova said.
The RIA-Novosti news agency reported that wreckage from a Russian plane have been found on the ground (on fire – Oui) in Ukraine.
LONDON (The Guardian) Aug. 22 — The Tories have gained over the last month while support for Labour has fallen heavily (5%) in the wake of the recent alleged terror plot against airlines. An overwhelming majority of voters appear to pin part of the blame for the increased threat on Tony Blair’s policy of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ministers – including Mr Blair – have repeatedly denied that there is a connection. But 72%, including 65% of Labour voters, think government policy has made Britain more of a target for terrorists.
(The Courier-Journal) Aug. 14 — The official publishing house of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has printed a new book about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that has outraged conservatives in the church and elsewhere.
The book, “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11,” written by David Ray Griffin, a professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology in California, accuses the Bush administration of carrying out the attacks as a pretext for expanding America’s “demonic” imperial power.
I have a shortwave radio receiver that I adore listening to. The American bible bangers are a dime a dozen. Many if not most of them are busy screaming and moaning about the end times. Surprisingly, there are a few preaching about how evil America has become. So the conservatives are outraged? Pfft… that’s their normal state. 🙂
First it was the typewriter, then the teleprinter. Now a US news service has found a way to replace human beings in the newsroom and is instead using computers to write some of its stories.
Thomson Financial, the business information group, has been using computers to generate some stories since March and is so pleased with the results that it plans to expand the practice.
The computers work so fast that an earnings story can be released within 0.3 seconds of the company making results public.
Guess that would also work for things, like, say, Condi’s NYT editorial about the ‘defeat of Hezbollah’ or any story about things going well in Iraq, wouldn’t it? More free time for shoe-shopping and bike riding…
I guess most of American news stories are written for the average 4th grader, so they figure this could work. Doesn’t say much for content, does it? On second thought, I think that they just might have that computer prompting Bush through his hidden earphone.
An endangered manatee made a rare appearance in Rhode Island waters during the weekend, a state marine biologist said.
The manatee was seen Sunday in Greenwich Bay off the coast of Warwick. The large marine mammals are usually found only in the warm waters of Florida and the Carolinas. The animal was not spotted Monday.
Maybe it’s a manatee realtor scouting out future properties for manatee colonization.
An idea for educating the masses: We need to bring back Dana Carvey as Church Lady on SNL, only this time as a climatologist reporting stories like this, saying “Could it beeeee… Global Warming?”
speaking of lunch, I hope Gov. Mark Warner and future Rep. Patrick Murphy are serving a good one today. I’m hungry and I’ve seen them both speak before more than once 😉
Don’t laugh, but a loaner training kayak in the pool of the House of Representatives gym made the difference in President Bush’s House victory for a pork-busting line-item veto. “That’s spot on,” says Colorado Rep. Mark Udall, who helped talk 34 other Democrats into backing the measure 247 to 172. It now faces Senate action. Say outdoor enthusiasts Udall and former Rep. Rob Portman, now Bush’s budget director: It was their passion for kayaking and Portman’s loaner to the gym that led to their friendship and eventual pairing to seek passage of the line-item veto. “It’s an icebreaker,” Republican Portman says of kayaking, “something you can talk about.”
And more. Both say that practicing together in the House pool built a trust uncommon in politics. “You can develop relationships through that,” says Portman, a former Ohio lawmaker. “I trust Mark, he trusts me, because we’ve gotten to know each other through the outdoors,” adds Portman, who’s kayaked thousands of miles since he built his first boat out of fiberglass in college. “It’s a shared experience of what it takes to stay calm, not overreacting,” says Udall, who says: “It applies in the human world, too.” If only Portman could find a kayaking senator to help there. Ironically, the duo has never really paddled anywhere together. “We talk about it a lot,” says Portman. “That’s more fun than going on the trip.” link
BIG NEWS: Dark matter, an invisible form of matter that interacts with what we can see only through gravity, has been postulated for over 70 years. Now, astronomers have observed very strong evidence that dark matter actually exists, by studying a distant collision between two clusters of galaxies using the Chandra X-ray telescope. The stars in the colliding galaxies passed right by each other, but the clouds of gas in the galaxies crashed and interacted much more severely. The stars in the post-collision galaxies, stripped of obscuring gas clouds, could be observed more clearly, and the effects of dark matter – without which galaxies would fly apart from their own rotational momentum – could be observed and measured precisely. We still don’t know what causes dark matter, but a form of subatomic particle that has virtually no interaction with ordinary matter (other than gravity) is suspected. This discovery should further spur the search for such particles at particles accelerators on earth. Details here.
A detailed study of 247 of 350 shrinking glaciers on Disko Island off Greenland reveals 70% have been retreating since the 1880s. A speedup due to a warm spell in the 1920s and 1930s was found to have a lag time of dozens of years, so the effects of the warm spell of the 1990s will not be seen for another 10-20 years, researchers said. The retreat we are seeing today is not due to recent global warming but likely related to overall warming since the end of the “Little Ice Age” of past centuries. The shrinkage from current global warming has not hit yet.
Not hobbits but pygmies? The skeletal remains found in a cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, reported in 2004, do not represent a new species as then claimed, but some of the ancestors of modern human pygmies who live on the island today, according to an international scientific team.
Researchers isolated an unusual nerve toxin in venom from an ocean-dwelling cone snail, and say its ability to glom onto the brain’s nicotine receptors may be useful for designing new drugs to treat a wide range of nervous system disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and depression, as well as treatments for nicotine and alcohol addiction. The head of the research team previously discovered another cone shell neurotoxin in 1979 (as a college freshman!) that was successfully developed into the drug Prialt for severe pain – approved for US use in 2004 and European use this year.
Everybody has their role to play: Researchers have experimentally shown that the removal of just one important species in a freshwater ecosystem can seriously disrupt how that environment functions. This finding contradicts earlier notions that other species can jump in and compensate for the loss. While other species would probably eventually fill the gap, it would well take hundreds or thousands of years, during which time the processes of the entire ecosystem are impaired. The experiment was conducted by dividing a small river into two sections, only one of which had the full complement of fish species in it.
This doesn’t sound like good news: Contrary to expectations of how methane hydrate deposits form in the oceans, Canadian researchers found anomalous occurrences of high concentrations of gas hydrate at relatively shallow depths, 50-120 meters below the seafloor. These might be more easily affected by global warming than those at greater depths, triggering a positive feedback in global warming if disturbed…
…Which might make the following an even more timely idea: The man often regarded as the front-runner in the race to head Canada’s opposition Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, proposed Monday a modified carbon tax to try to limit climate change. Ignatieff also said that Canada would be unable to meet its emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The Conservative Party under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which defeated the Liberals in January’s election, also says Canada will not be able to meet its Kyoto obligations. Unveiling his policy, Ignatieff said federal taxes on transportation fuels should be restructured to be heavier on those like gasoline and diesel that emit more carbon and lighter on cleaner natural gas and propane. The restructured fuel taxes would be revenue-neutral — ending up with the same tax bite. “We’re using tax policy to incentivize good behavior,” said Marc Chalifoux, a spokesman for Ignatieff, who is a former Harvard professor.
Well, there’s only time to comment on a few of those “scientific” news stories:
Dark Matter postulated for over 70 years: Postulated? Dick Cheney is DEFINITELY 65! When will these physicists start getting their dates correct? As for observing the effects of Dark Matter directly, we already know that the Supreme Court isn’t going to go along with that! Give it up, physicists!
Venom from an ocean-dwelling cone snail, may be useful for designing new drugs to treat a wide range of nervous system disorders. This is a keeper!! Good job, scientists! It’s great news that there may actually be some functional reason for Ann Coulter’s existence.
Global warming and methane emissions: As one of our own BooTrib lead stories indicates, our prez seems to be able to hit his mark on methane emissions quite frequently. At last, the real truth about why he refuses to acknowledge global warming.
Jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean. Ok, this isn’t a science story, it’s the Almighty at work. I have it on good authority that this is God’s punishment of the sinful nude bathers who are engaging in such profligate behavior on the clothing-optional beaches of the Mediterranean. Painful welts from jellyfish stings will teach those wanton types to return to fully-clothed bathing!
Shrinking glaciers on Disko Island. I hate to say this, especially since Booman seems fond of Disco, (if you missed his recent late-night posting of the ultimate Disco lesson. . . well, you are really, really, lucky). However, if you had to live on an island devoted to Disco, you’d shrink, too, or be in need of a shrink, pretty quickly. Booman should be very, very careful!
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Aug. 21 — Sudan’s government has proposed using more than 10,000 of its own troops to quell the violence in the troubled region of Darfur instead of the United Nations peacekeeping force that it has repeatedly refused.
The Sudanese plan was presented to the United Nations Security Council last week, but whether it is a serious blueprint or another tactic in the country’s efforts to stall or thwart a United Nations peacekeeping force remains to be seen.
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been engaged in an escalating war of words over the proposed United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur, declaring that Sudan would “defeat any forces entering the country just as Hezbollah has defeated the Israeli forces,” according to the state-run news agency, Suna.
KINSHASA, Congo, Aug. 21 — Battles between forces loyal to President Joseph Kabila and those of his main campaign rival raged for a second day Monday, and U.N. peacekeepers safely evacuated foreign diplomats who had been trapped inside the challenger’s besieged home when gunfire broke out.
The fighting in the Central African nation came after election officials announced Sunday that Kabila had failed to win an outright majority in Congo’s first balloting in more than four decades and would face former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in a second round in October.
(snip)
It was not clear if the diplomats were ambassadors or lower-ranking officials. The U.S. Embassy had no comment, and others were not immediately reachable for comment.
.
MOSCOW (AP) Breaking News — A Russian passenger jet with 170 people aboard disappeared from radar screens after sending a distress signal and probably crashed, an emergency official said.
The plane, on its way from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg, disappeared from radar screens over Ukraine, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Stadnikova said.
The RIA-Novosti news agency reported that wreckage from a Russian plane have been found on the ground (on fire – Oui) in Ukraine.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
LONDON (The Guardian) Aug. 22 — The Tories have gained over the last month while support for Labour has fallen heavily (5%) in the wake of the recent alleged terror plot against airlines. An overwhelming majority of voters appear to pin part of the blame for the increased threat on Tony Blair’s policy of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ministers – including Mr Blair – have repeatedly denied that there is a connection. But 72%, including 65% of Labour voters, think government policy has made Britain more of a target for terrorists.
David Cameron has succeeded in making it acceptable for people to say they intend to vote Tory.Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
(The Courier-Journal) Aug. 14 — The official publishing house of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has printed a new book about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that has outraged conservatives in the church and elsewhere.
The book, “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11,” written by David Ray Griffin, a professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology in California, accuses the Bush administration of carrying out the attacks as a pretext for expanding America’s “demonic” imperial power.
David Ray Griffin claimsU.S. orchestrated attacks
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
That’s an interesting twist.
I have a shortwave radio receiver that I adore listening to. The American bible bangers are a dime a dozen. Many if not most of them are busy screaming and moaning about the end times. Surprisingly, there are a few preaching about how evil America has become. So the conservatives are outraged? Pfft… that’s their normal state. 🙂
a few things: FT
Guess that would also work for things, like, say, Condi’s NYT editorial about the ‘defeat of Hezbollah’ or any story about things going well in Iraq, wouldn’t it? More free time for shoe-shopping and bike riding…
I guess most of American news stories are written for the average 4th grader, so they figure this could work. Doesn’t say much for content, does it? On second thought, I think that they just might have that computer prompting Bush through his hidden earphone.
affecting Manatees? AP/Yahoo
You decide.
Maybe it’s a manatee realtor scouting out future properties for manatee colonization.
An idea for educating the masses: We need to bring back Dana Carvey as Church Lady on SNL, only this time as a climatologist reporting stories like this, saying “Could it beeeee… Global Warming?”
Hey, maybe they’d be interested in moving to Chez Cabin? I just know I’m going to have waterfront property someday.
speaking of lunch, I hope Gov. Mark Warner and future Rep. Patrick Murphy are serving a good one today. I’m hungry and I’ve seen them both speak before more than once 😉
Well, we’re expecting a full report on your return…are you expecting a Stratospheric lunch? 😉
no. I don’t think so. The coconut shrimp were a little disappointing anyway…so…
How sleazy! That’s abuse of a kayak! Grrrr…
I liked this line, though: It applies in the human world, too.” If only Portman could find a kayaking senator to help there.
A lot of stuff today:
A detailed study of 247 of 350 shrinking glaciers on Disko Island off Greenland reveals 70% have been retreating since the 1880s. A speedup due to a warm spell in the 1920s and 1930s was found to have a lag time of dozens of years, so the effects of the warm spell of the 1990s will not be seen for another 10-20 years, researchers said. The retreat we are seeing today is not due to recent global warming but likely related to overall warming since the end of the “Little Ice Age” of past centuries. The shrinkage from current global warming has not hit yet.
Not hobbits but pygmies? The skeletal remains found in a cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, reported in 2004, do not represent a new species as then claimed, but some of the ancestors of modern human pygmies who live on the island today, according to an international scientific team.
Now this is just great – another gift of global warming: A warmer and wetter world could lead to more outbreaks of the deadly bubonic plague, a study suggests.
Researchers isolated an unusual nerve toxin in venom from an ocean-dwelling cone snail, and say its ability to glom onto the brain’s nicotine receptors may be useful for designing new drugs to treat a wide range of nervous system disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and depression, as well as treatments for nicotine and alcohol addiction. The head of the research team previously discovered another cone shell neurotoxin in 1979 (as a college freshman!) that was successfully developed into the drug Prialt for severe pain – approved for US use in 2004 and European use this year.
Everybody has their role to play: Researchers have experimentally shown that the removal of just one important species in a freshwater ecosystem can seriously disrupt how that environment functions. This finding contradicts earlier notions that other species can jump in and compensate for the loss. While other species would probably eventually fill the gap, it would well take hundreds or thousands of years, during which time the processes of the entire ecosystem are impaired. The experiment was conducted by dividing a small river into two sections, only one of which had the full complement of fish species in it.
This doesn’t sound like good news: Contrary to expectations of how methane hydrate deposits form in the oceans, Canadian researchers found anomalous occurrences of high concentrations of gas hydrate at relatively shallow depths, 50-120 meters below the seafloor. These might be more easily affected by global warming than those at greater depths, triggering a positive feedback in global warming if disturbed…
…Which might make the following an even more timely idea: The man often regarded as the front-runner in the race to head Canada’s opposition Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, proposed Monday a modified carbon tax to try to limit climate change. Ignatieff also said that Canada would be unable to meet its emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The Conservative Party under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which defeated the Liberals in January’s election, also says Canada will not be able to meet its Kyoto obligations. Unveiling his policy, Ignatieff said federal taxes on transportation fuels should be restructured to be heavier on those like gasoline and diesel that emit more carbon and lighter on cleaner natural gas and propane. The restructured fuel taxes would be revenue-neutral — ending up with the same tax bite. “We’re using tax policy to incentivize good behavior,” said Marc Chalifoux, a spokesman for Ignatieff, who is a former Harvard professor.
We should have listened to Jacques Cousteau: South American “Red Devil” squid found off Alaska and jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean may point to vast disruptions in the seas linked to global warming, pollution or over-fishing, experts say. Fish such as salmon and mackerel have also been spotted in the Arctic, far north of their normal ranges, in a possible vanguard of wrenching billion-dollar shifts in world fish stocks this century caused by warming oceans.
Finally, for your cool photo of the day, a “smoke angel.” (Follow link for an explanation.)
That smoke angel picture is cool…
And I guess we can add manatees in RI to the list of sealife disruptions.
Well, there’s only time to comment on a few of those “scientific” news stories:
Dark Matter postulated for over 70 years: Postulated? Dick Cheney is DEFINITELY 65! When will these physicists start getting their dates correct? As for observing the effects of Dark Matter directly, we already know that the Supreme Court isn’t going to go along with that! Give it up, physicists!
Venom from an ocean-dwelling cone snail, may be useful for designing new drugs to treat a wide range of nervous system disorders. This is a keeper!! Good job, scientists! It’s great news that there may actually be some functional reason for Ann Coulter’s existence.
Global warming and methane emissions: As one of our own BooTrib lead stories indicates, our prez seems to be able to hit his mark on methane emissions quite frequently. At last, the real truth about why he refuses to acknowledge global warming.
Jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean. Ok, this isn’t a science story, it’s the Almighty at work. I have it on good authority that this is God’s punishment of the sinful nude bathers who are engaging in such profligate behavior on the clothing-optional beaches of the Mediterranean. Painful welts from jellyfish stings will teach those wanton types to return to fully-clothed bathing!
Shrinking glaciers on Disko Island. I hate to say this, especially since Booman seems fond of Disco, (if you missed his recent late-night posting of the ultimate Disco lesson. . . well, you are really, really, lucky). However, if you had to live on an island devoted to Disco, you’d shrink, too, or be in need of a shrink, pretty quickly. Booman should be very, very careful!
Jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean a divine intervention?
Could well be – puts a whole new spin on “noodly appendges…”
Yes, there’s always an alternate hypothesis, isn’t there?
Sudan’s Plan for Darfur Involves Its Own Force, Not the U.N.’s
U.N. Troops Rescue Diplomats in Congo
August 22… isn’t this like a rapture ready day or something?
I have a library to turn in… or maybe not. 😀