Oriana Fallaci had described the pontiff as an ally in her campaign to rally Christians in Europe against what she saw as a Muslim crusade against the West. As she battled breast cancer last year, she had a private audience with Benedict, who was elected only a few months earlier, at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
In one of her final interviews, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal: "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true."
Benedict was surprised by the gift of the books, which dated back as far as the 17th century and included volumes about the formation of modern-day Italy, American history, philosophy and theology, said Monsignor Rino Fisichella, rector of the Pontifical Lateranense University in Rome.
"The veneration that she had for you, Holy Father, persuaded her to make this donation, which will be known as the Oriana Fallaci Archives," Fisichella said during a ceremony at the university Saturday to announce the gift of the books.
Benedict greeted Fallaci's nephew and his family during the ceremony, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. He then spoke briefly about the search for truth in science and academia.
"God is the ultimate truth to which all reason naturally gravitates," the pontiff told an audience of students and faculty.
The real message here is that Pope Benedict publically accepted the Fallaci archive just a few days after receiving the "open letter" from 38 Muslim scholars. How I love and admire this man.
Posted by: john ||
10/21/2006 12:18 Comments ||
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#2
This is great news. A real step forward. Prepartory to rounding up Muzzie population if they don't leave. Any f**kin' leaky tub will suffice. Tow it into North Sea and park it. No guards on board. Load it with explosive charges on the hull. When first storm hits, scuttle it. "Just sank due to overwhelming waves." Lots of problems solved.
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his government's tough stance on Georgia and dodged EU leaders' demands Friday that he commit to a legally binding energy charter that would guarantee better access to Russia's oil and gas fields. Whatcha gonna do about it, eh?
The 25 EU leaders, meeting with Putin over dinner following a one-day summit on energy, also grilled Putin about the recent killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya - an apparent execution-style slaying that EU leaders raised as an example of slipping human rights in Russia. This fois gras is excellent. Have you tried it? You were saying?
Putin called her death "a brutal murder" and pledged to hunt down her killers, diplomats said. We'll get right on it. What's for dessert?
But he sidestepped European appeals for moderation on Georgia, and said he was acting to prevent conflict between Georgia and its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have close ties to Russia. My, what long noses you have.
"To our great sorrow and concern, the situation is developing in the direction of possible bloodshed," Putin told reporters. He accused Georgia of trying to take back the two regions "by military means. This is what you and I should be afraid of ... bloodshed in that region." 'Sides, whatcha gonna do about it, eh?
Russia and Georgia have had a history of friction since they went their separate ways with the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years ago. It's a kind of nostalgia, y'see.
The Kremlin has recently cracked down on Georgian migrants in Russia as retaliation for Georgia's arrest in late September of four Russian military officers on charges of espionage. Russia has deported hundreds of people and closed dozens of Georgian-run firms and restaurants. We didn't like their fois gras.
Summit host Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen confronted Putin on human rights and democracy in Russia, as well as EU concerns about Moscow's military campaign in Chechnya, officials and diplomats said. Finns. Shoulda eaten you 50 years ago.
"It was a tough message," Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus told The Associated Press. But Putin "was very forceful" in defending his country's policy on Chechnya. I was tough, I tells ya. Um, yeah, he was tough, too.
EU leaders spent Friday in the lakeside town of Lahti, north of Helsinki, forging a united front on energy before meeting with Putin in the evening. So, who wants to go first?
Not me, you do it.
No way. He looks like Blofeld!
I know, we'll get the Finns to do it!
The leaders of the European Union - which already depends on Russia for a quarter of its energy - urged Putin to implement a legally binding energy charter that would ensure supplies of Russian oil and gas for Europe. We want you to put it in writing. Then we can send you strongly-worded letters and take you to the ICJ!
And we all know how good the Russians are at honoring their word.
The EU is anxious to secure future supplies of oil and gas from Russia but concerned about Moscow's reliability as a source - at a time of questions about a backsliding on democracy in increasingly authoritarian Russia. Cuz it gets cold here in LalaLand! We don't know if we can trust you... izzat 'sposed to be democracy? Hmmm, doesn't look much like democracy.
"We demand that you sell us oil and natural gas at the price we want to pay!"
Last winter, a dispute with Ukraine led Moscow to temporarily turn off the taps, disrupting natural gas supplies for several EU nations. Eat vacuum, bitch!
"From the economic point of view, we demand that Russia is a stable and reliable supplier," said Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Um, okay, if "demand" is too strong, how about "We beg you, Tsar Pootie?"
The 25 EU leaders succeeded in devising a common stance on how to approach Russia on energy - but Putin disagreed with their views, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told the AP. We were united! And he told us to piss off. *sniff* Now what?
"The European Union was speaking in one voice - one single voice - and of course, Russia wasn't speaking in the same voice," he said with a laugh. We gave 'im a script 'n everything! He thinks he's Marlon Brando.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday's talks with Putin were just the start of a wider discussion on EU's partnership with Moscow. The two sides meet again Nov. 24 for an EU-Russia summit. Just the beginning. Yes.
BMD Rumblings from Russia The bear threatens and growls
As America's European allies become more enthusiastic about ballistic missile defense, a Russian general has issued an ominous warning. In a May 25 column in BMD Focus, we warned that the Russian reaction to the embrace of ballistic missile defense by NATO member nations in Europe, especially former Soviet satellites during the Cold War, "could raise tensions in Europe to a level they have not reached since the last great showdown in the Cold War a quarter of a century ago."
An article published in the Moscow newspaper Izvestiya on Tuesday, and written by a senior Russian general, adds weight to this concern.
According to a report of the article carried by Mosnews Wednesday, Yevgeny Buzhinsky, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's international military cooperation department, wrote that Russia would interpret the deployment of U.S. anti-ballistic missile units "near the Russian borders" as "a real threat to our deterrent forces," the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces. Rusty Russian Rockets in danger of more rust?
Russian leaders would "view the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense components in Eastern and Central Europe as a security threat and take retaliatory measures," Buzhinsky wrote. What sort of retaliatory measures? Restore Stalinism or the KGB-Putin World view?
"We would view that as an unfriendly gesture on behalf of the United States, some eastern European nations and NATO as a whole," he wrote. "Such actions would require taking adequate retaliatory measures of military and political character."
So would it be OK to put them in Russia pointed at the muslim world, mr KGB?
Ironically, Buzhinsky's article appeared only three days after the Russian Defense Ministry announced Saturday that Russia would participate in a joint missile defense exercise in the second half of October with NATO.
According to a report carried Saturday by China's official Xinhua news agency, the exercise was scheduled to start on Monday, Oct. 16 and continue for nine days until Oct. 25.
The exercise was intended to boost "joint planning and coordination procedures for Russia and NATO air defense and anti-missile command structures," the ministry was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. It was scheduled to take place at the Fourth Central Research Institute.
The current exercise is the third of its kind. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, they "have made it possible to practice planning, organizing and conducting concerted and coordinated combat actions to respond to non-strategic ballistic missile attacks in designated areas of responsibility," according to the Xinhua report.
The exercises are clearly intended to boost transparency and maintain trust between NATO and Russia. But Gen. Buzhinsky's article sends another, more alarming message: Russian policymakers are becoming increasingly distrustful of the United States, and they appear increasingly willing to contemplate a major offensive nuclear arms build up of their own to counter the growing deployment of U.S.-built and operated BMD forces in Central Europe.
Thanks to continued very high global oil and gas prices, the Russian government has enjoyed soaring revenues and, as we have noted in BMD Focus and our sister BMD Watch columns, it has been using some of this wealth to upgrade its Strategic Rocket Forces on a scale not seen in more than 20 years.
Also, Gen. Buzhinsky's article appeared almost a month after Marshall S. Billingslea, NATO's assistant secretary-general for defense investment, announced on Sept. 18 that the 26-nation alliance had approved the construction of a $90 million BMD command and control system over the next six years, as well as an integrated test bed for the security of all its member countries.
As we noted in these columns on Sept. 21, "The sum of $90 million, or 75 million euros, is peanuts in the multi-billion dollar world of BMD acquisition and development. But the event was nonetheless a highly significant one. It followed a series of NATO feasibility studies that reported to alliance headquarters in Brussels that a BMD system to defend the alliance's European members was both desirable and feasible."
"The Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program will put in place an inter-operable and integrated command/control center that provides individual member country's missile defense assets to be used for the common protection of NATO and her territory," the Italian AKI news agency reported at the time.
Gen. Buzhinsky's blunt warnings in his article should be seen as an initial Russian response to the NATO announcement.
As we noted in our May 25 BMD Focus column, "The development of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs has prompted at least two major European nations to sign on more enthusiastically than ever before to the U.S. BMD program."
The Bush administration hopes to deploy at least 10 ground-based anti-ballistic missile interceptors at a base in Eastern Europe by 2010 to defend European nations from an attack by a so-called "rogue nation."
The enthusiasm of European nations, especially Poland and the Czech Republic, for BMD has soared over the past six weeks, since the successful test of a Ground-Based Midcourse Interceptor launched from Alaska in destroying a target rocket fired from California on Sept. 1.
Gen. Buzhinksy's article should be seen as an initial Russian response to that development too. But it was far from the first warning of its kind. Back in May, four star Army Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian chief of staff, warned that Russia could react in far-reaching and damaging ways against Poland if it agreed to deploy U.S. BMD systems on its territory.
"Go ahead and build that shield. You have to think, though, what will fall on your heads afterwards," Baluyevsky said. And he pointedly added, "It is understandable that countries that are part of such a shield increase their risk."
Sir Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion teaches that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. The zeal and success with which the Bush administration is pushing BMD deployment in Europe is setting off a Russian reaction to it that may prove to be a lot more than "equal."
#2
We have nothing to fear from 3,000 new missiles on top of 3,000 missiles. What were we gonna do before, whistle Dixie? Better that they waste their newly found wealth on building redundant missiles than in the other ventures they've started. So let's set up BMD in Warsaw.
#3
The Ruskies haven't got two rubles to rub together
Not sure if that's true; supposedly, after the rise of oil, Motherland's budget has been quite revigorated, and the russian army is supposedly floating in oil money. And also, don't forget the weapons sales.
The ruskies are not two-bits players, they're very active re forming that anti-USA axis; true, their society is in dire shape, with suicidal birthrate, AIDs level, alcoholism,... but they're not to be discounted, really, they haven't lost a bit of their commie days subversive abilities.
#5
Okay then, where are they going to find two sober engineers to put something together? Their hardware is second rate from the moment its paint dries. I don't know what Bush was smoking when he declared RasPutin to be our friend, but I hope he's off of the crap now.
#6
Putin was on the fence when Bush came into office. Bush was trying to get Russia to join the west. Instead he chose to go to the Dark Side. Like Iraq, you may not like the result, but Bush had to try it the nice way.
I agree the Ruskies were rolling in dough from oil but so were the Iranians and Venezuelans. It will be interestiing to see what they can do now that prices are headed to a trough.
The best defensive measure we could take is to keep prices in the trough as long as possible. The best way to do this is to impose a floating duty on oil imports so that conservation and domestic production efforts do not cease. This is a national defence issue!
#7
Russian treasury is pretty healthy right now. You see only about 1/3 of incoming revenue. They are making plenty on technology transfer, primarily to Chicoms. Chinese take our cash and transfer thru to Russians for design technology. Then, there are outright sales to Arabs. Note the millions of RPG's everywhere in Muzzie world. You think these are free ? Russia is making billions from these alone. Again, US petrodollars converted to Muzzie weapons. All the while, Russia is benefitting. Don't make slight of Russian technical capbility. If they have bucks, they can do some pretty good work. They are undergoing redesigns on nearly all their weapons systems now. The 2nd-3rd tier stuff will now be on sale. Without Russian backing, how long would the two bit mullahs in Iran last ? Russian bear didn't go away. Just in hibernation. Thanks to Cash + Putie, the bear is waking up.
#10
I s'pose it's silly to think the temporarily rich Russian government might actually pay the back wages owed the troops, and arrange for some actual food to be served in the mess halls?
#1
Whew, this tells you how low the bank accounts are. On the other hand, I heard they were offering some bottles @ $2700.00 each. Hahahaha. Have they ever heard of the Napa Valley ? Who's goin' ta pay that much, when you can have something as good or better for 1/10 the price ? Better start a red tag sale over there.
WASHINGTON -- As he campaigns extensively on behalf of House and Senate candidates, Senator John F. Kerry is under increasing pressure from Democratic Party leaders and activists to tap his $14 million campaign account and spread the money around to help the party's efforts. DemocRATS are always generous with other people's money
Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, has given less than $15,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee since the beginning of 2005. Though he has helped candidates in a variety of other ways, his last major financial contribution to the DSCC came a month after he lost the 2004 presidential election, when he used $1 million in leftover campaign funds to help the committee retire its debt. As local pol Billy Bulger once remarked, "JFK stands for 'Just For Kerry'".
Several members of the Massachusetts House delegation, meanwhile, have contributed minimally to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, even though none of them face serious reelection challenges. Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of South Boston, is $100,000 short of his obligations, and Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, has barely exceeded the $125,000 amount the party asked him to pay, even though his campaign account has a balance of nearly $5 million. How's that term limits thing working out for you, Marty?
With less than three weeks to Election Day, control of Congress in sight, and a last-minute scramble to negate the Republicans' double-digit fund-raising advantage, some Democrats want Kerry and other prominent, well-funded officials to share the wealth for the good of the party. Ah, the 'common good' argument. How refreshing!
But Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat who has already paid more than the required $300,000 in "dues" to the DCCC, said other members of the House delegation may be holding their cash so they can run to replace Kerry if the senator vacates his seat in 2008. Not bloody likely.
"I wish other members of the delegation would give more," Frank said. "I know people are holding back for the Senate race that might happen, but I think this is more important."
Anger at Kerry has bubbled over in the liberal blogosphere. A website, heyjohn.org, was created to pressure Kerry to give more to Democratic candidates. (The site was purportedly set up by a Democratic activist, but its origin is impossible to verify because it was registered through a service that protects the identity of those who establish sites.) Inside job? Preemptive hit by Hillary's squad?
I had no idea Karl Rove was this good.
Kerry aides say the senator has done more for the party's congressional candidates than any other prominent Democrat this year, helping them raise money as well as giving out his own cash. He's spending almost all of this month on the road, lending his political weight to Democrats in competitive races, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Including the $1 million he gave to the DSCC in December 2004, Kerry has doled out $2.8 million to party campaign committees, state parties, and individual candidates since the 2004 election. He has also helped bring in some $7 million for candidates through fund-raisers and his political action committee, including $1.7 million that has gone to Democratic Senate candidates. Rest at link.
#1
"They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."
(NYT - Kate Zernike May 28, 2006)
On election night 2004, Nancy Pelosi faced a painful reality: Her party was again a big loser, failing to win the presidency and losing three more House seats. Pundits were suggesting Pelosi should accept her fate as the leader of a permanent House minority.
But the California legislator had a different idea. Instead, she reached out to advertising executives, Internet moguls and language specialists to ask how Democrats could rise from the ashes and challenge President Bush and the Republicans. The advice that came back was unabashed: "You must take him down" and then hammer away at the differences between the two parties, Pelosi recalled.
Today the Democrats appear capable of taking back leadership of the House after 12 years in the minority, for reasons largely beyond Pelosi's control: an unpopular war, an unpopular president and a series of scandals that have left the Republicans highly vulnerable.
Continued on Page 49
Arizona voters will have to present identification at the polls on Nov. 7 after all.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that Arizona can go ahead with requiring voters to present a photo ID, starting with next month's general election, as part of the Proposition 200 that voters passed in 2004. The ruling overturns an Oct. 5 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which put the voter ID rules on hold this election cycle.
The Supreme Court on Friday did not decide whether the new voter ID rules are constitutional. That decision is still pending in federal district court.
Instead, the court decided that the 9th Circuit made a procedural error by granting an injunction to put the new rules on hold without waiting for the district court to explain its reasons for not granting an injunction.
"The facts in these cases are hotly contested and 'no bright line separates permissible election-related regulation from unconstitutional infringements,' " the Justices wrote. "Given the imminence of the election and the inadequate time to resolve the factual disputes, our action today shall of necessity allow the election to proceed without an injunction suspending the voter identification rules."
The new voter ID rules were passed, in part, to keep illegal immigrants and other non-citizens from voting. Opponents have argued that legal voters, especially the poor and the elderly, might also be disenfranchised because of the rules.
In order to cast a ballot at the polls, voters must show a photo ID with current street address or two forms of identification, such as a utility bill or car registration, with name and street address. The 9th Circus is a procedural error.
#1
Essentially, the plaintiffs waited until the last few weeks to file for an injunction. They were betting that, given the sclerotic judicial system and a sympathetic Ninth Circuit, it'd come in one form or another. Any appeal would come after the election.
BTW, the Ninth didn't issue its four-line statement on the injunction until October 12th.
#2
You can't rent a DVD without some form of ID, but the left want to be able to influence the largest spending entity in the world without any check on entitlement.
The diocese of Gozo said it was opening an investigation after a Roman Catholic priest on the Maltese island said he was naked in saunas with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida. The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, also acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he went skinny-dipping with Foley, but denied that the two had sex. Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from Congress last month after the release of his sexually explicit computer messages to young male pages.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Put a folk in it, simple one pervert to another, move on already
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/21/2006 1:21 Comments ||
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#2
In that kind of probe, be sure to double-glove.
The Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves
The world _ especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil _ will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts.
But the prediction of a future of nasty extreme weather also includes fewer freezes and a longer growing season.
In a preview of a major international multiyear report on climate change that comes out next year, a study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research details what nine of the world's top computer models predict for the lurching of climate at its most extreme.
"It's going to be a wild ride, especially for specific regions," said study lead author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the federally funded academic research center. Tebaldi pointed to the Western U.S., Mediterranean nations and Brazil as "hot spots" that will get extremes at their worst, according to the computer models.
And some places, such as the Pacific Northwest, are predicted to get a strange double whammy of longer dry spells punctuated by heavier rainfall. As the world warms, there will be more rain likely in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and that will change the air flow for certain areas, much like El Nino weather oscillations now do, said study co-author Gerald Meehl, a top computer modeler at the research center. Those changes will affect the U.S. West, Australia and Brazil, even though it's on South America's eastern coast.
For the Mediterranean, the issue has more to do with rainfall in the tropical Atlantic Ocean changing air currents, he said.
"Extreme events are the kinds of things that have the biggest impacts, not only on humans, but on mammals and ecosystems," Meehl said. The study, to be published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, "gives us stronger and more compelling evidence that these changes in extremes are more likely."
The researchers took 10 international agreed-upon indices that measure climate extremes _ five that deal with temperature and five with precipitation _ and ran computer models for the world through the year What Tebaldi called the scariest results had to do with heat waves and warm nights. Everything about heat waves _ their intensity, length and occurrence _ worsens.
"The changes are very significant there," Tebaldi said. "It's enough to say we're in for a bad future."
The measurement of warm nights saw the biggest forecast changes. Every part of the globe is predicted to experience a tremendous increase in the number of nights during which the low temperature is extremely high. Those warm night temperatures that should happen only once every decade will likely occur at least every other year by the time we reach 2099, if not more frequently, Tebaldi said.
Warm nights are crucial because Chicago's 1995 heat wave demonstrated that after three straight hot nights, people start dying, Meehl said. However, heat wave deaths are decreasing in the United States because society has learned to adapt better, using air conditioning, noted University of Alabama at Huntsville atmospheric sciences professor John Christy. He is one of a minority of climate scientists who downplay the seriousness of global warming.
Similarly, the days when the temperature drops below freezing will plummet worldwide. That's not necessarily a good thing, because fewer frost days will likely bring dramatic change in wildlife, especially bug infestation, Tebaldi said.
Fewer frost days will likely bring dramatic change in wildlife, especially bug infestation
"It's a disruption of the equilibrium that's been going for many centuries," Tebaldi said. But she noted that a lengthier growing season in general is good.
"This notion of the greening of the planet ... generally is a positive benefit," Christy said. Christy, who did not participate in the study but acknowledges that global warming is real and man-made, said an increase in nighttime low temperatures makes much more sense than the rain-and-drought forecasts of the paper.
One of the larger changes in precipitation predicted is in the intensity of rain and snowfall. That means, Tebaldi said, "when it rains, it rains more" even if it doesn't rain as often.
Tebaldi's assessment jibes with the National Climatic Data Center's tracking of extreme events in the US
Tebaldi's assessment jibes with the National Climatic Data Center's tracking of extreme events in the United States, said David Easterling, chief of the center's scientific services. Easterling's group has created a massive climate extreme index that measures the weather in America. Last year, the United States experienced the second most extreme year in 95 years; the worst year was in 1998.
#2
not a chance Parabellum - nobody gets Federal grants by doing accurate weather forecasts. The money's in Societal Change Crises.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 16:37 Comments ||
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#3
Daily prediction is actually a much harder problem than looking at long term trends.
I subscribe for $12 a year to the Accu-weather premium site. Their hourly forecasts are pretty accurate for the day, and their daily forecasts for a couple days in advance, enough so that I decide whether to wear a coat or take an umbrella based on them. The TV people, and weather.com, are a lot worse. Guy I know who left grad school just short of a PhD in weather modeling -- to make money programming, btw -- says Acuweather has by far the best prediction models for shortterm forecasting.
#4
looking at trends and determining the causation is the issue with Global Warming advocates. They can't prove their science and accusations that our human activities cause them. Ask them to explain the medieval "warm period" when grapes (and wine) were produced in Britain.....the agenda drives the theory, rather than cause-effect facts
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 16:42 Comments ||
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#5
Cause is a separate issue. That's up for debate.
Trends are simply what the data show. And while it's possible to cherrypick the data to artificially show trends, I've seen some numbers from ice cores through CO2 measurements of the last few decades that show a consistent secular trend in both CO2 and mean temperatures in the last 150 years compared to relatively stable overall means for 35,000 years, with a sharp spike in the last few decades.
Note I said "relatively stable". There ARE periodic changes. But the overall mean stayed roughly the same for a long time.
Now, what CAUSED this rise is open to debate. But that it is happening and has effects on agriculture and possibly public health in some places seems to me, at least, to have some good basis in fact.
What pisses me off is that the tendentious anti-industry agendas of some have made it impossible to discuss this objectively.
#7
lotp, I am not sure what data for the last 35kya are you looking at, but it was anything but stable, bare the climatic optimum at about 7500BCE to 5000BCE whence the temperatures were about 2 deg C above the current average. It is harder to extrapolate the temperatures futher in the past you go, but there is a sort of reasonable amount of data from about 10kyaBCE. One minus spike happened cca 4200BCE, then it levelled on the current average, with ocassional oscillations. Another drop cca 1500BCE, with a 15 years showing almost no growth in tree rings. Then follow large oscillations between 900BCE and 680BCE roughly corresponding to 12 year periods, then between 400CE-800CE, another instability with a dip to colder temps and severe droughts in some regions towards the end of the period. Followed by warmer period when Greenland's coast was truly green. Then again it got colder, again warmer between 1500s and 1600s, then we have the "little ice age". Since then we are getting closer to the "climatic optimum"... not only we, but Mars seem wanting not to be left behind (can't say about Venus, she has been insanely hot always as far as anyone recalls).
#8
An "computer modeling" of the enviroment is not reliable or accurate and should not be used as a basis for any decisions. It's just not something you can do with our current data set and hardware.
#10
2x4, the Vostok ice cores which are sampled back to 41,000 years ago and the Mauna Loa samples for CO2 from 1958-2004.
Primarily I was doing a simple trend analysis on the CO2 levels. I forget where the temp estimates came from ... I have to go back and look that up at work.
The Mauna Loa samples show a rise from annual average of about 315 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere in 1958 to about 375 ppm in 2004.
The Vostok ice samples show mostly a steady state of ~~ 310-315 ppm over millenia.
(AP) Oil prices fell Friday in a sign of traders' skepticism that OPEC will cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, even as some cartel members said further reductions were possible. The pledge to rein in output, announced Friday after an emergency meeting in Doha, Qatar, comes as oil prices have dropped by more than 25 percent since a mid-July peak above $78 a barrel.
But many analysts believe the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will have difficulty enforcing the production cut in its entirety because oil prices are still twice as high as they were just three years ago. "It's clear there will be some production cutbacks. But is it going to be 1.2 million barrels? That's probably unlikely," said Andrew Lebow, a broker at Man Financial.
Light sweet crude for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $1.05 to $57.45 a barrel. In London, December Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange declined by 52 cents to $60.35 a barrel.
"The question now is whether OPEC members will comply with the new quotas or whether history will repeat itself and OPEC members over-produce," Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said in a research note. "The markets appear to be betting on the latter."
United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamili said the reductions will come from actual production levels, which are believed to be about 29.5 million barrels of oil per day. The official OPEC quota, which does not include Iraq's estimated output of 2 million barrels a day, is 28 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is set to reduce output by 380,000 barrels a day, while Iran will cut by 176,000 barrels a day and Venezuela will trim 138,000 barrels a day, analysts said.
Wardell said the market should expect an actual cut of about 800,000 barrels a day and that "this will help to solidify prices."
However, if the Northern Hemisphere winter is mild, energy prices could fall further, analysts said. Domestic inventories of heating oil and natural gas are well above historical averages for this time of year.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil fell 3.94 cents to $1.68-07 a gallon on the Nymex, while gasoline declined 1.69 cent to $1.4725 a gallon. Natural gas fell 6 cents to $7.07 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/21/2006 00:00 ||
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Jan Egeland, the Norwegian diplomat who's been heading the United Nations' emergency aid operations, has signalled his intention to leave his post as an under-secretary general by the end of the year. Egeland has been the chief coordinator of the UN's relief efforts since 2003, working closely with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who also is leaving the UN on December 31.
#4
Probably needed someone as clueless as he was to be able to hold onto his job there. The new guy is probably fart too well versed in supplying food and emergency supplies to the hungry and would be smacking him down every five minutes.
#5
Jan Egeland has saved me hundreds of dollars in donations...I shoved back into my wallet and deeper into my pocket, when I saw his 'melle mouthed face' on the tube. I got tired of him quickly, shoving it to the US every time we bent over backwards to help the needy!
#6
In his resignation letter, Egeland lamented, "The most disappointing aspect of my tenure was that I failed to guilt America into embracing internationally recognized levels of self-loathing enlightenment sufficient to force adoption of progressive taxation, which would have resulted in achieving a higher level of socially conscious humanitarianism than disbursed by the current world leader, the United States of America.
The United States, in a twist on social Darwinism, maintains protection standards so low that they shield only the strongest people from cancer-causing radiation. So say scientists whose conclusions are propelling a new campaign to provide greater safety for women, children, and others at greatest risk.
"A central principle of environmental health protection--protecting those most at risk--is missing from much of the U.S. regulatory framework for radiation," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Takoma Park, Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and co-author of a study, released Thursday, that is driving the campaign.
Many federal radiation protection standards, such as limits on how much residual radiation is allowed in contaminated soil, are designed to protect "Reference Man," a hypothetical Caucasian male, says the report, Science for the Vulnerable: Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental Health Standards to Protect Those Most at Risk.
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#1
I remember reading that in the late 80's, Germany passed a "radioactive waste" law with such low levels that human corpses qualified.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/21/2006 10:00 Comments ||
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#2
This has been going on in some locales since the 80's. The Louisiana EPA (yes, they have their own) declared something similar about ground water produced during the development of oil and gas wells. Seems the level designated as "toxic" was below the normal background in most fo the areas being explored in LA - so produced groundwater was supposed to be treated as toxic waste. Extermely expensive stupidity. Of course the awl companies figgered out how to get around it, but I ain't tellin' how, lol.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/21/2006 10:24 Comments ||
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#4
Only a bunch of goddamned hippies would be running around trying to cause mass panic over a couple picocuries of tritium. What do they expect us to do if there is too much in the water, get out the tritium pico-filters and strain it out?
#5
I remember stopping for lunch in a small town in Germany. They had a lovely four-colour pamphlet touting the spa built around the local hot springs, a common feature in Germany with its health spa obsession. The special feature of hot springs in this particular town was the natural, low level radiation, "very healthful for curing minor ailments, aches and pains, and cleaning the blood." Or some such thing. This was in the first half of the 1990s.
It *is*, however, the case that standards set for adult men may not be safe for women and children. That has been established for PCBs, for instance, and for a number of other substances.
The reason is that estrogen carries many of these substances through cell walls and into the cell nucleus. Some of the original work on this was done at the National Institutes of Environmental Health in Research Triangle Park in the early 90s.
#7
These people don't give two shits about public health or safety. They want a pot of money they can skim from and dole out to those who will do "studies" generating "stats" that support a bigger pot each succeeding budget cycle.
It's another scam. Fred used to have a link on the right to the various scam orgs and scam artists. I think it would either already feature the people behind this or should add them.
Just pointing out that there ARE (and have historically been) some mistakes made in setting exposure standards as a result of relying on male undergrads almost exclusively in studies. The PCB is one well-known example. Gave an opening to the enviro-ticks.
Between radon gas (incredibly common in US), high-voltage powerlines, depleted uranium, DDT banning, climate whatever, etc, ad nausuem, we're doomed! Fake science is the best scam going, since most folks be serious Luddites and dolts.
I still think the MegaDisaster shows (volcanos, tsunamis, NE asteroids, yadda³) are the best, though, since there is some science in there, just a timeframe that usualy eclipses man's total existence, lol.
Given any (more? lol) thought to locating the "safest" place to be on Gaia so we can take it and start stocking up? We mustn't have a Safe Hidey Hole Gap!
#10
...the U.S. standard for allowable exposure is "five times more lax than that in Germany."
And is there corresponding health data to indicate that the incidence rate of [whatever, insert pet disease or thing here] is 5x greater among US citizens? I think not. If there were, they would've quoted it in screaming rooftop headlines.
#11
""A considerable and growing body of evidence indicates that exposure to radiation and synthetic chemicals is contributing to increasing rates of breast cancer in the U.S. and other industrialized countries," said Jeanne Rizzo, a registered nurse and executive director of the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund."
The breast cancer rate (adjusted for age) is four times higher in developed nations compared to undeveloped nations. Nobody knows why.
There is recent evidence that artificial lighting at night disrupts the melatonin production cycle. I.e., as part of the normal sleep cycle darkness triggers melatonin production. Low melatonin levels contribute to breast cancer. There is some rat research that supports this theory.
#13
The people with the scare messages are definitely rip off artists like .com says. But what they are taking advantage of is magical thinking. If I can live to 84 now, then if I achieve some impossible level of purity, maybe I'll live forever.
It just occurred to me that maybe that's the answer to the European fertility crisis. If you don't believe in an afterlife, then maybe if you don't have kids, you can achieve some sort of immortality. At the very least, you won't have to share posterity with any progeny. It's kind of a post-modern paganism.
The Dow Jones industrial averages second run past 12,000 was a little more lasting as the index of blue-chip stocks closed above the mark for the first time. After failing to hold 12,000 after an early run Wednesday, the Dow on Thursday closed at 12,011.73, up 19.05 points, or 0.16 percent. It was the ninth record close for the Dow in a little more than two weeks.
The Dows latest milestone came on the anniversary of Black Monday in 1987, when the Dow plunged 508 points and also suffered its second-biggest percentage drop in history. The Dow finished that day at 1,793.90.
Stocks struggled all afternoon to hold gains after a pair of reports gave fresh evidence that the Federal Reserve might have a tougher time holding interest rates steady.
The broader markets posted slight gains Thursday. The Standard & Poors 500 index gained 1 point, or 0.07 percent, and closed at 1,366.96. The Nasdaq composite index gained 3.79 points, or 0.16 percent, and closed at 2,340.94.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Black Monday 1987...you couldn't dream of a better buying opportunity. Oh to have a time machine...
Posted by: facta non verba ||
10/21/2006 0:15 Comments ||
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#2
Iff the Dems had their way, or at least to what they'll admit to, the Dow, etal. would never see daylight above 1000. Strong Unions, non-competitive companies + MNC's forced to receive Govt subsidies-bailouts, Big Gummermint, deficit spending = Legal/Legislated Bankruptcy, + rising stagflation, ..........etal. = PARADISE FOR THEM. SOLVING PROBLEMS BY NOT SOLVING THEM + CREATING MORE.
Article from the Guardian about the snubbing of the role of black Marines and soldiers in the new Flags of our Fathers movie. The article provides some first-hand accounts of these men. We should indeed remember them, they fought there and did so bravely.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Iff I remember correctly, on-shore black Marine units + smaller assigned Army elements did Arty close support, stretcher-bearer = medical support, landing craft operators/opers, and logistics i.e. the physical unloading of food + combat supplies. Later worked on airfield(s) repair and expansion.
#3
I am sick unto death of the incessant carping of agenda driven assholes who seek to rewrite history to suit their own world view. One of the better things Truman did was to desegregate the military, but in 1944 it was still segregated. Black Marines were restricted to ammunition transport and supply units. Of the 70,000 Marines in the battle of Iwo Jima, about 900 were black. A story following a combat platoon would be unlikely to involve blacks.
The Guardian shows its usual ideological cant in neglecting to mention that there were 30,000 Marines in the first wave followed by 40,000 more:
:
Melton McLaurin...says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.
#4
That makes two of us, RVW. I can't count the number of times I've seen textbook articles skewed to give women and minorities credit for things they simply did not do and had no part in. Voltaire was right when he said that history is a pack of tricks played by the living on the dead. PC makes me want to puke.
Posted by: mac ||
10/21/2006 1:06 Comments ||
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#5
On her blog, Debbie Schlussel writes that Eastwood defames the American system by telling a story of the Iwo' flag bearers being socially shorted after the war. If that is true, then the movie mirrors defunct Soviet worst-of takes on anything American. I haven't seen the movie, but Schlussel usually gets it right.
#6
In 194x the official theory was that Blacks didn't fight well, and to say the truth the performance of the little trained Black ground troops who accidentally saw combat (they were supposed to be in support roles) was less tha stellar.
In addition the USMC was the more seggregated within the services, even more than the Navy.
But I find rich that the Guradian who never gave a hoot about Niggers Balcks being genocided in Sudan, dares to speak of eracism.
#7
Have not seen the movie, SS, but read the book. The three guys were thrust into the spotlight, which they did not like. Two wanted no part of the limelight and soon withdrew from the public eye. The third, who had the least to do with the fighting - he was a runner who happened to be there - thought his fame should bring him glory. He was disappointed.
I'm not sure I understood you comment, but I certainly didn't think the book defamed the American system.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/21/2006 8:58 Comments ||
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#8
"The performance of the little trained Black ground troops who accidentally saw combat (they were supposed to be in support roles) was less tha stellar." Well DUH! If you are not trained as Infantry then you would perform poorly as Infantry. KInd of like saying that the company clerk didn't fly the F-4F as well as the pilot that spent months training to fly that aircraft.
#9
a good point to be made is that the famous Iwo Jima photo did not capture the face or race or anything else showing individual characteristics. Neither does the statue. Anyone carping now is trying to paint their own thin skinned bias on the rest of the world. The three men the film focuses on did not necessarily handle their fame, but the US was not in the wrong to use their heroics (and that of those who never came back) to help energize the war bond drives. Crass, but necessary
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/21/2006 16:03 Comments ||
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#13
well I have been accused of being a judgemental asshole....that's what got me through the RB pre-commenter interviews with Master Fred, tho'....
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 16:04 Comments ||
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#14
What I was meaning "throufgh the less than stellar" (1) sentence is that ther performance of thse Negro ground units did little to dissipate racial prejudice about Negros in combat. I wasn't implying it was through a fault of their own
You will notice I talked of ground units since at about this time the all-Negro 99th Fighter Squadron was performing well above the average for white squadrons.
About Iwo Jima the Guardian could have had a point if it had talked of the lack of Indian Marines in the film (1) since AFAIK even the Marines admitted Indians (in fact Papy Boyington looks more than half Indian and he still became an officer).
(1) I remember a movie shot in the 60s or 70s about the whereabouts of one of the Marines of THE Iwo-Jima photo who was Indian.
#15
but the US was not in the wrong to use their heroics
Also at that time there was a movement for dissolving the Marines and integrating them in the Army. After seeing the photo one of the main anti-Marines said: "This photo guarantees there will be Marone Corps for at least 50 years more"
#16
#13 well I have been accused of being a judgemental asshole....that's what got me through the RB pre-commenter interviews with Master Fred, tho'....
LOL, you passed that test Frank? Damn, ima still on probation!!
#18
Native Americans have served often and honorably in the US military. I had the privilege of hearing a talk by one of the few surviving Navajo Code Talkers from WWII a couple years ago. They were incredibly important in that war.
#19
IIRC, my dad told me there were two black AAA units with Patton's army, and they did all right. Again, training vs no training. I've worked with blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and just about everything else in today's military, and the ones that put some effort into what they do shine, while those (including whites) that don't are pi$$-poor at anything.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/21/2006 16:45 Comments ||
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#20
Saw the movie today in Warner Robins, GA, and left with a tear in my eyes. It was very, very quiet after the film ended. Clint Eastwood followed the book without the usual Hollywood ebellishment. The story was well told, warts and all. Yes, there were some blacks in the picture and their units were assigned to land on a different beach than than 2nd platoon, Charlie Company. It is then, not surprising, that the subsequent pictures of the Marines dying to take Mt Suribachi didn't include them. The film also vividly demonstrated the sacrifice of our father's generation. In taking Iwo Jima, the US lost three times the number of men killed in Iraq.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 20:35 Comments ||
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#22
I live in Pacific Beach, but have a number of projects with the Air Force at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center. Trying to get all the right people together at the right time caused me to spend the weekend in Warner Robins. You'd like it here. Most of the local businesses sport a sign that says EDIMGIAFAD which means Every Day In Middle Georgia is Armed Forces Appreciation Day.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 20:42 Comments ||
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#24
:-) I would
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/21/2006 20:43 Comments ||
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#25
Just saw the movie. One of the main characters was an American Indian. The closing credits are rolled next to a very long series of actual still photos, and blacks are included in those photos.
I thought it was a good movie, but it was very confusing trying to follow so many characters that looked so much alike. My wife and I spent ten minutes after it was over just sorting out who was who in that regard. I'm sure it would be a lot clearer the second time around.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his government's tough stance on Georgia and dodged EU leaders' demands Friday that he commit to a legally binding energy charter that would guarantee better access to Russia's oil and gas fields.
(AP) Oil prices fell Friday in a sign of traders' skepticism that OPEC will cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, even as some cartel members said further reductions were possible. The pledge to rein in output, announced Friday after an emergency meeting in Doha, Qatar, comes as oil prices have dropped by more than 25 percent since a mid-July peak above $78 a barrel.
Jan Egeland, the Norwegian diplomat who's been heading the United Nations' emergency aid operations, has signalled his intention to leave his post as an under-secretary general by the end of the year. Egeland has been the chief coordinator of the UN's relief efforts since 2003, working closely with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who also is leaving the UN on December 31.
The Dow Jones industrial averages second run past 12,000 was a little more lasting as the index of blue-chip stocks closed above the mark for the first time. After failing to hold 12,000 after an early run Wednesday, the Dow on Thursday closed at 12,011.73, up 19.05 points, or 0.16 percent. It was the ninth record close for the Dow in a little more than two weeks.
