WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. judge who oversaw the now-abandoned lawsuit against the federal government over leaks in the investigation that led to the resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus is giving the Justice Department until Friday to ask her to keep secret any court documents that were part of the case.
The files include transcripts of sworn interviews with senior Obama administration officials about the sex scandal and its fallout.
#1
I hope Judge Jackson is a very private person. Something bordering on heavily armed recluse might be helpful. She sits in a most unenviable position.
#1
Yet another demonstrative experiment providing evidence of a meme categorization structure for memory...and a happy, vacuous, targeted sampling of the voting public.
MAY!?!?!
Predictions of unprecedented rainfall extremes in the 20th century driven by global warming turned out wrong, a study said Wednesday, casting doubt on methods used to project future trends.
A massive trawl of Northern Hemisphere rainfall data for the last 1,200 years revealed there had been more dramatic wet-dry weather extremes in earlier, cooler centuries before humans set off fossil fuel-driven global warming. Still gotta be human's fault somehow. Otherwise the grant money runs out.
This is problematic, said a study in the journal Nature, as the same data models used to anticipate that global warming would cause record rainfall extremes in the 1900s, are the basis for projections of things to come.
"It might be more difficult than often assumed to project into the future," the study's lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University told AFP of the findings.
"The truth can be much, much more complicated." Welcome to entropy based systems, asshole.
The UN's climate science panel, the consensus authority, *snicker*
contends that dry areas will become ever drier and wet ones wetter as the global temperature rises in response to greenhouse gas emissions.
But the new work said sky-high temperatures in the 20th century did not directly translate into record extremes between wet and dry weather, as many had expected.
This meant that "much of the change is not only driven by temperature, but some internal, more random variability," explained Ljungqvist. If that is the case, I hear your funding drying up
"It's therefore very, very hard also to predict (precipitation extremes) with models."
Over the study period, drought was most severe during the 12th century, which was a warm one, and the 15th which was cold, said the scientist. Actually heat and cold can lock up water vapor and prevent rain so how is this fucking news to these donkey fluffers?
For the study, a team of experts in history, climate, geology and mathematics, compiled drought and rainfall data for Europe, North Asia and North America, and reconstructed 12 centuries worth of "water history". Better go farther back to when the Sahara was wet and try to work out why it dried up first
They considered geologically preserved evidence of stream flow, lake levels, marine and lake sediments, tree rings and historical records.
The team's reconstruction for the 20th century differed vastly from climate models which had suggested wet areas should have been wetter, and dry ones drier, than ever before.
"In the past, on a longer timescale, there have been even larger variabilities," said Ljungqvist.
This divergence "certainly adds fuel to the fiery debate" on the link between warming and rainfall extremes, Matthew Kirby of California State University's Department of Geological Sciences wrote in a comment published by Nature.
"Do their results invalidate current predictive models? Certainly not. But they do highlight a big challenge for climate modellers, and present major research opportunities both for modellers and climate scientists..." No no! Don't mind the data. We are still right!!! We'll fake something then build a nice graph off it to make people afraid! The media will help!
James Renwick of the Victoria University of Wellington said the predicted wet and dry extremes are "very likely" to materialise in the 21st, century. Hope in one hand and shit in the other and see what fills up first.
Extreme drought and downpours are among many risks that scientists warn about in a warmer world. Others include land-gobbling sea level rise, crop and water shortages, disease spread and wars over dwindling resources.
In December, the nations of the world signed a pact to limit average global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels, when the fossil fuel burning began.
Research suggests we may already have reached 1 C. They are right. We are still doomed. All is lost unless you repent and give up your carbon sins and keep up the funding for their "research".
#2
The Beest will use this to sell CGI money-laundering services. "See, if you had used my services fund, your deposits graft would be hidden by the super-secret server no one knows is there."
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/06/2016 13:56 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] South African President Jacob Zuma has defeated an impeachment motion following a parliament debate over his alleged violation of the country’s constitution.
This came after lawmakers from Zuma's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, which controls almost two-thirds of the parliament, rallied to his defense, defeating the motion by 233 votes to 143. Something tells me the oud kaffir will be dancing the night away. Like our own Hildebeest, different standards of justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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President of Russia Vladimir Putin had phone conversations with Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders.
Putin talks, Biden tweets. Guess who they listen to...
The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was discussed, Kremlin reported. The leaders had an in-depth discussion of the recent developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
“Expressing serious concern at the large-scale armed clashes, which led to numerous casualties, Vladimir Putin has called on both sides to urgently ensure a complete cessation of hostilities and to observe the ceasefire. It was noted that Russia will carry out and implement the necessary mediatory steps to promote the normalization of the situation,” Kremlin said in a statement.
The importance of resuming talks with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group was emphasized. It was agreed to continue contacts in different formats.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"We shall make a solitude and call it Peace", sorta thing?
Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides, said Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
Azerbaijan's armed units are now carrying out fortification work in the retaken areas, the ministry added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Russia has announced the formation of a new National Guard security force that will answer directly to President Vladimir Putin. ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
"The decisions have been taken, we are creating a new federal body of executive power," said Putin during a security meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
He noted that the National Guard would be formed from the merger of SWAT teams, riot police, and interior ministry troops to fight terrorism, organized crime, and drug trafficking while they have normal police functions.
"I do hope that the National Guard troops will perform their tasks effectively, just as they have been doing up to this day and step up the work along the priority guidelines," he added.
The new force is set to be led by the head of the interior ministry’s forces Viktor Zolotov, who formerly directed Putin's personal security detachment.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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Radio Free Asia has a series on how the Norks send people to other countries to earn the hard currency needed at home. Two recent installments show the deployment of Nork medical teams to Africa, and the awful, terrible medicine that they practice.
North Korea on Monday called for talks with the U.S. a month after the UN Security Council enforced tougher sanctions against the North following its latest nuclear test.
No.
A spokesman for the powerful National Defense Commission complained of "unilateral sanctions" but added "preparing steps for negotiations" is a more fundamental solution than military pressure. The spokesman said "a war of aggression" against the North "to stifle it militarily created the worst crisis in which it may make a retaliatory nuclear strike at the U.S. mainland any moment."
Hell no.
The Choson Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang mouthpiece in Japan, also urged Washington to negotiate with Pyongyang in order to "avoid the crisis of war and destruction."
For whom?
The North added that it has grown used to sanctions and claimed the sanctions strengthened its self-reliance.
Then why are you complaining?
But there was a hint that the sanctions are biting. The commission likened them to the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany during World War II and added the "evil hand" of sanctions stretched deep into all corners of North Korea.
Pundits said the call for talks demonstrates the concrete impact the latest sanctions are having.
Singaporean media cited data that the North's exports dropped following the latest UN sanctions, which had a direct impact on its economy. China has apparently enforced tougher border checks on imports of North Korean minerals and coal shipments.
"It's impossible for China to enforce crackdowns along the whole 1,400 km border with North Korea, but Beijing does appear to be applying increased pressure against the North in financial and other dealings," a source said.
At the nuclear security summit in Washington last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama "sweeping" sanctions against North Korea.
Pyongyang's latest threats, experts say, appear to be a last-ditch effort to intimidate the international community in order to create divisions between them ahead of a massive Workers Party congress in May.
A senior government official here said, "At a time when China is mentioning the need for both sanctions and negotiations, North Korea is attempting to foment divisions among the international community by raising the negotiating card."
But South Korea's Defense Ministry rejected North Korea's call for talks. "Now is the time to focus on implementing sanctions over North Korea's reckless behavior," said ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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[6 views]
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North Korea on Saturday released launch images of a new surface-to-air missile that appears to be a home-grown version of the Patriot missile. The missile has an estimated range of 100 to 150 km and is aimed at repelling South Korean fighter jets.
That being the definition of a SAM after all...
The North's official Rodong Sinmun daily carried about a dozen pictures of the missile being launched as their corpulent leader Kim Jong-un looked on.
Also seen in the photos are trucks loaded with three cylindrical launching tubes. They also show the missile flying obliquely shortly after the vertical launch before hitting the target in the air.
The launch technology is the same as that used for South Korea's new home-grown surface-to-air Cheongung missile.
The KN-06 was unveiled during a military parade marking the 65th anniversary of the Workers Party in Pyongyang in October 2010, but no images of the test launch were available. Military authorities here have noticed striking similarities to Russia's S-300 and China's HQ-9.
Imagine that...
"The North probably didn't develop the missile and radar system completely on its own," an intelligence source here said. "Some equipment or technology may have been smuggled into the North from China, Russia or a third country that has S-300 missiles."
The publicity for the rocket seems to have been a response to recent South Korea-U.S. drills that practiced airstrikes on strategic North Korean facilities.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Military authorities here have noticed striking similarities to Russia's S-300 and China's HQ-9.
What better way to showcase capabilities than using an abstracted 3rd world despot.
It may turn out the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter. Trade data released Tuesday show the U.S. deficit widened more than expected to $47.1 billion in February and was a bigger drag on growth than expected. It's the latest economic metric that chiseled away at the tracking model for first quarter growth.
The median of economists who participate in the CNBC/Moody's Analtyics rapid update is now 0.5 percent for tracking GDP growth, down from 0.9 percent last week. Their average forecast for growth is 1.1 percent.
Given the average, and substantial, revisions to government GDP data, that 0.5 percent could easily turn into a negative number, or a much higher number. That is based on a CNBC study that examined every report going back to 1990 and found an average error rate of 1.3 percentage points in either direction.
The widely followed Atalanta Fed's GDPNow model sees the economy expanding by just 0.4 percent, down from 0.6 percent. Tracking forecasts are based on the data that has been reported.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Given my "trust" in gov't statistics, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that growth for Q1 was actually negative.
Afterall we are seeing the initial stages of socialism.
#3
Outside the inflation created by the Fed-Treasury printing (or button pushing) of money, has there really been any growth beyond statistical variance (5%) since 2008? What was the number of Americans employed in 2008 and (at similar pay/job levels) today?
#5
No growth has actually happened since 2009.
1% 2% does not cover growth of even the population. They lie about these numbers too.
The books are cooked.
You need 2 or more consecutive quarters of 5.5% growth to pull out of a recession. This has not happened yet. In fact, it's time for another recession about right now.
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.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
It may turn out the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter. Trade data released Tuesday show the U.S. deficit widened more than expected to $47.1 billion in February and was a bigger drag on growth than expected. It's the latest economic metric that chiseled away at the tracking model for first quarter growth.
