Friday News Bucket

21 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on September 8, 2006 at 7:09 am

   are scorning Bush: Yahoo

   “I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant,” said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. “He’s been an embarrassment.”

   In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, are the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004.

   Aw, the GRITS are getting smart, bless their hearts.

2. 

   CabinGirl on September 8, 2006 at 7:33 am

   the US is building a state-of-the-art bioweapons facility in Maryland? Alternet

   Trust me, George Bush says, perched on the remains of Geneva Conventions, the Constitution and habeas corpus.

   From this moral high ground, the United States is assuring the world that a new facility for researching a horror shop of weaponized infectious diseases will be used purely for defensive purposes. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center’s (NBACC) $128 million, 160,000-square-foot facility is under construction at Fort Detrick, Md. There, the United States has already weaponized more than a dozen diseases — including anthrax, plague, botulism and ebola — and bioengineered war-friendly “improvements.” Scientists are also using DNA-synthesizing techniques to fabricate genetically altered or man-made viruses, and to study the feasibility of creating germ weapons targeting particular ethnicities.

   “De facto, we are going to make biowarfare pathogens at NBACC in order to study them,” Penrose Albright, former assistant Homeland Security secretary for science and technology, told the Washington Post.

   BushCo to other countries: “Do as we say, not as we do.”

   • 

     Nag on September 8, 2006 at 9:10 am

     They don’t even care enough to have sufficient flu vaccine on hand for the population. Now we’re supposed to believe this is some sort of government philanthropy at work? And I’m the Queen of France. (off with their heads!)

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 2:57 pm

     Don’t know how to break it to you, but Ft. Detrick has been in the biowarfare business since WWII.  From Wikipedia:

     Fort Detrick–formerly Camp Detrick–is a United States Army medical installation located in Frederick, Maryland. It is home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

     Starting during the second world war, Fort Detrick became the site of intensive biological warfare research using various pathogens; there is a building on the base which was sealed with thick polyethylene sheets after an accidental release of anthrax spores.

     On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard Nixon asked the Senate to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons. Nixon assured Fort Detrick its research would continue. On November 25, 1969, Nixon signed an executive order outlawing offensive biological research in the United States. Since then any research done at Fort Detrick [that they’ll admit to – K.P.] has been purely defensive in nature, such as treatments for infections.

     And where do you think the anthrax letters came from?

3. 

   idredit on September 8, 2006 at 8:46 am

   A few days ago NATO’s commander, U.S. Gen. James Jones called for  “more troops from member nations,” but amid rising Canadian casualties in Afghanistan, Canada’s top military officials concede  “force can’t beat the Taliban”

   and in Canada, Britain the troops are stretched thin.

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 10:43 am

     Anyone want to take bets on how long until British troops are pulled out once Tony Blair is gone?

     • 

       CabinGirl on September 8, 2006 at 10:54 am

       I give it 15 minutes.

       • 

         dada on September 8, 2006 at 1:49 pm

         more likey a New York Minute:

         …If there is a debate that really needs to be conducted openly in the Labour Party today it is not over hospital financing or pensions but over the war in Iraq and Mr Blair’s apparent subordination of his principles and Britain’s interests to those of President Bush. This is “the elephant in the room” in any assessment of Mr Blair’s record, as Tuesday’s leaked Downing Street memo admitted, yet it is an issue hardly mentioned in the transition debate.

         Mr Brown’s most important decision when he takes over as Prime Minister will be over foreign policy: to continue with the Blair policy, or to withdraw from Iraq and publicly break with President Bush. If Mr Brown has any sense he will do the latter, not only because US foreign policies have proved so disastrous, but also because a clean break with President Bush will symbolise the end of the Blair era, will allow the Labour Party to return to its internationalist traditions and will reconnect the Government with both middle-class and left-wing voters.

         But this clean break in foreign policy is exactly what Mr Blair can prevent as long as he remains in power. And it is over foreign policy, rather than over public services or taxes, that he will try hardest to “lock in” his successor. Even a few weeks ago, Mr Blair might have been able to get foreign policy commitments out of Mr Brown in exchange for a public timetable for his departure. But now such a chess-style exchange is worthless, since Mr Blair is already finished. “Checkmate,” says Gordon Brown.

         from TimesUK 9.7.06

         Also recommended: James Wolcott.

         Things may becoming a bit lonely for young mr. bush in the immediate future.

     • 

       idredit on September 8, 2006 at 10:59 am

       This AM BBC reports it comes to Kabul. In heavy fortified area

       Suicide attack hits US convoy killing two US soldiers among the 16 killed.

       So very sad.

       Meanwhile there is a flurry of new worthy items –

         Steve Clemons notes it is safe to say John Bolton’s nomination as US ambassador to UN IS DEAD

       and Steve wonders if George has taken the first step to clip Cheney’s wings. Now that’s what I’d think is one soap opera worth watching.

       Bush Pulls Plug on Cheney’s “Cloak & Dagger” Dungeons

4. 

   Nag on September 8, 2006 at 9:01 am

   Link

   Army shuns system to combat RPGs
   Experts agree it might help save lives, so why isn’t it in the field?

   Rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, are a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are cheap, easy to use and deadly.[snip]

   Sixteen months ago, commanders in Iraq began asking the Pentagon for a new system to counter RPGs and other anti-tank weapons.

   Last year, a special Pentagon unit thought it found a solution in Israel — a high-tech system that shoots RPGs out of the sky. But in a five-month exclusive investigation, NBC News has learned from Pentagon sources that that help for U.S. troops is now in serious jeopardy.

   The system is called “Trophy,” and it is designed to fit on top of tanks and other armored vehicles like the Stryker now in use in Iraq.[snip]

   As a result, OFT decided to buy several Trophies — which cost $300,000-$400,000 each — for battlefield trials on Strykers in Iraq next year.

   That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.

   The $70 million contract for that program had been awarded to an Army favorite, Raytheon. Raytheon’s contract constitutes a small but important part of the Army’s massive modernization program called the Future Combat System (FCS), which has been under fire in Congress on account of ballooning costs and what critics say are unorthodox procurement practices.

   That’s right. The army nixed incorporating an existing, highly effective system to protect our troops because it would jeopordize Raytheon’s big bucks project that is about “3 out of 10” effective at this point. Raytheon’s system will be ready… in 2011. This is Bush’s Army… corporatized, dehumanized, and incompetent. Disgusting. Just like Bush.

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 9:23 am

     Maybe it’s because I have teenage sons, or maybe it was playing Dungeons and Dragons in college, but when I saw this headline I thought it was referring to “role playing games,” LOL!

5. 

   Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 9:29 am

   NASA decided yesterday to go ahead with the planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis today despite technical problems with a fuel cell. NASA officials gave the green light to the lift-off for 11:40 am EDT after managers held a meeting to weigh their options and review engineering analysis.

   A psychologist claims his experiments show there is an innate basis for the “Macbeth Effect” – the desire on the part of a person feeling guilty to assuage their conscience by washing him or herself.  [Interesting, but given that the study was performed in the US, where the influence of Christianity and Judaism – with their symbolism of washing away guilt – are part of the psychological air we breathe, I’ll be more convinced when the study is successfully repeated in a culture with no connection to those worldviews, like remote parts of Africa or Asia. – K.P.]

   More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside Earth’s solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, many covered in deep oceans with potential for life, according to a new study, despite the presence of “hot Jupiter” type planets.

   Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The conundrum is that it’s also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star.  The experts seem to be leaning towards the latter classification

   Climate Change Roundup:

   The president of Shell Oil Co. said as far as the company was concerned, the debate over the science of global climate change is over, and the US needs a policy on climate change:  “It’s a waste of time to debate it,” he said. “Policy-makers have a responsibility to address it. The nation needs a public policy. We’ll adjust.”  He called for policy makers to keep fuel prices high to promote a change to alternate technologies…  

   The Associated Press reports that shared concerns over global warming and protecting the Earth are bringing together evangelicals and environmentalists in ways that could make the Republican Party more eco-friendly and lead some evangelicals to vote Democratic.

   …And amidst growing concern about global warming from fossil fuels, seed and biotechnology companies see a big new opportunity in developing corn and other crops tailored for use in ethanol and other biofuels.  

   …The Republican rift over climate change widens as Sen. Inhofe goes ballistic:   A week after reacting angrily to California’s passage of landmark anti-global warming legislation, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., produced a bill to more than double fines on polluters who don’t meet cleanup deadlines for soot and smog. States that don’t submit cleanup plans could be denied federal highway funds. Democrats and environmental activists accused Inhofe, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, of retaliating against California. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said the bill “unfairly targets” the state…  

   Scientists at Oak Ridge National Labs are predicting we will soon enjoy precision climate modeling, offering detail and scale only imagined a few years ago.  They say it’s possible for scientists to create meteorological models that take into account such things as the complete carbon cycle, terrestrial biology, El Ninos and hundreds of other factors…

   Severe climate change was the primary driver in the development of civilization, according to new research by the University of East Anglia. The early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia, China and northern South America were founded between 6000 and 4000 years ago when global climate changes, driven by natural fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit, caused a weakening of monsoon systems resulting in increasingly arid conditions.  

   • 

     Nag on September 8, 2006 at 10:02 am

     “They say it’s possible for scientists to create meteorological models that take into account such things as the complete carbon cycle, terrestrial biology, El Ninos and hundreds of other factors…”

     I suppose they found the key to the theory of chaos? Ha! When they have a model that accurately predicts local weather, we’ll talk.

     • 

       blueneck on September 8, 2006 at 11:54 am

       Strange Attractors are that key to predicting mathematically ‘chaotic’ systems such as weather.  The more powerful the computers become, the more we are able to predict the behaviors of large dynamical mathematically ‘chaotic’ systems.  The use of the term ‘chaos’ in mathematics is not the same as the use of the word in english.  In english it means totally unpredictable, not so in math.

       Chaos and fractal theory do give us the tools to approximate real systems by mathematics and to tell us how good those approximations are. For instance, by running weather models on a supercomputer using slightly different initial conditions forecasters can tell how predictable the weather will be (Gleick, 1987). If the results diverge widely between the two sets of data, then the weather is in an unpredictable mode, otherwise they know their forecasts will be pretty good.

       Also, precise micro-local forecasts are not the same thing as global climate modelling.  While it is true that scientists will never be able to tell you what the weather will be in your city on a given day several years in the future, global climate modelling will be able to tell you, with mathematical precision, whether or not it will be generally be drier or wetter, hotter or colder, or unchanged from the averages you are experiencing this year.
        

       • 

         blueneck on September 8, 2006 at 12:00 pm

         “will be generally” or “will generally be” not “will be generally be”

       • 

         Nag on September 8, 2006 at 12:05 pm

         Thanks for the explanation, Knox. Chaos and fractal theory is fascinating. I have read a few books on the subject, although I freely admit that my retention and true understanding is limited.

         • 

           Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 3:03 pm

           Actually that was Blueneck.  He did a much better job than I would have – I had the same general idea floating around in my head but he expressed it much more concisely.  (As David Sedaris says about learning French, “Me talk pretty one day.”)

6. 

   growthrate on September 8, 2006 at 9:58 am

   What seems to have started as an internecine battle on the Board of Directors at Hewlett Packard has blown up into a full-blown scandal.  California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has launched a criminal investigation concerning the techniques HP’s private investigator used to try to determine the identity of a leaker.

   Floyd Norris in the NYT:

   “H.P. and its subsidiaries respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it,” states the H.P. Web site. It did not mention an exclusion for directors who offend the chairwoman, or reporters who write about the company.

   In our society, more and more people and companies have more and more access to confidential information, which gives them the power to abuse it.

   The fact that people associated with companies that get huge volumes of such information seem to be unconcerned about being spied on — presumably all the H.P. directors were investigated in a similar way — does not inspire confidence in the way their companies will handle such confidential information for the rest of us. But it does indicate that legislation may be needed to make it crystal clear that this is illegal.

   Looks to me like another episode of leadership giving way to an obsession with control.  When that happens, it all runs downhill.  Sort of like Washington.

7. 

   idredit on September 8, 2006 at 10:41 am

   anyone else encountering problems with posting, slow load, preview function or just me?

   Thanks. Enjoy.

8. 

   Knoxville Progressive on September 8, 2006 at 10:42 am

   This is why all dictators and megalomaniacs eventually fall:  People refuse to tell them what they don’t want to hear, even when it’s true.  And as a result their policies become more and more disastrously disconnected from reality.  For reality, PNAC protectations to the contrary, is not an option to be ignored.

   I present to you the latest example:

   Polling Company Owner Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Clients Included Bush and Lieberman Campaigns

       The Associated Press
       Thursday 07 September 2006

       Bridgeport, Connecticut – The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President George W. Bush, US Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results. [emphasis mine – K.P.]

   [snip]

       According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to “talk to cats and dogs” when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.

       An FBI affidavit from 2004 quotes a supervisor of the company estimating that 50 percent of the data sent to Bush’s campaign was falsified…

   Yeah, that reality, it’s a bitch; ignore it and it’ll bite you in the ass.

9. 

   idredit on September 8, 2006 at 11:18 am

   “Bill authorizing warrantless wiretapping stalls in Committee”.

   Kudos to Sen. Russ Feingold. He spoke against the bill, hogged the floor and offered 4 amendments

   (H/T: Thinkprogress)