A 15-year-old New Brunswick boy is in custody after police discovered an execution hit list containing 24 names and an arsenal of weapons in his home. RCMP Cpl. Marc Beaupre said on Monday that police believe he was planning to go to school and carry out a crime. The teen is charged with one count of uttering threats, but police say more charges may be laid.
#2
Gotta love the racial angle. IMHO, it's much more likely the economics/"class" angle, rather than race. The chauffeured elites in city government don't care for the dogs, so they must go.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 13:40 Comments ||
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#3
I woke up this morning, there were racists in my Wheaties, man!
#5
Angel is my Pit Bull/English Mastiff mix. She is as gentle a dog as there ever was. When we play she will grab my arm but has never bit hard enough to hurt. My grandchildren play with her and she has never hurt one of them even unintentionally. This really bites.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/11/2005 15:26 Comments ||
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#6
Deacon: My sister-in-law had a friend with a pit bull who felt the same way. Friendly, affectionate, member of the family. Was very pissed that my brother would not allow her to bring the dog with her to the house.
One day she came out of the bathroom to find the dog had her six-year-old daughter by the face. Kid couldn't even scream because of the grip, just went mmph-mmph. Took a lot of surgery to fix that girl. The dog got put down with a quickness.
#2
Remember folks, "sith" is just an anagram for "shit".
(I was burnt by the horrid Hitckhiker's Guide movie. If Josh Whedon craps out on Serenity, I may just swear off sci-fi.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 13:32 Comments ||
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#3
RC???? I LOVED the Hitchhikers movie. Followed the book, the cast seemed made for their part, and that Robot sole the show! But then I am just one man who saw it with three of his kids and they loved it too. Yes it detracted from that dry wit that the TV version had, but I liked that aspect of the movie. **** (Four stars)
#6
CS -- the pseudo-Marvin was the second worst part. The way they tossed out Zaphod's second head and third arm was the worst. The fricking TV series did better with Zaphod, fer crissake.
The "detraction" from the dry wit consisted of utterly excising the wit.
It was an extremely Hollywood version of the story, with all the bad that implies. The dialogue was simplified so the studio execs could understand it, the few original jokes that remained lost their rhythm, and they slapped on an extraneous love story to fit the Hollywood need for a formula.
It was very much a replay of "Heinlein's Puppet Masters" as far as I could see.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 15:56 Comments ||
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#7
I'm probably going to go see it. Mucky liked it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/11/2005 16:24 Comments ||
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#8
I was so afraid that HHGttG was going to be Hollywoodized. I guess I'll wait for cable.
#2
What is it with environuts and their hostility to CO2? Did they skip school? It's a plant food! In that sense it may be a greenhouse gas if one wants to pump it there to increase yield.
In fact, compress an ample supply of CO2 to fil the fire extinguisher in liquid state, release it against a sixpack and your beer is cooled from 65F to 37F in mere 120 seconds!
#3
I didn't read anything about their environmental impact statement. Or is it standard Euro policy to let some small business just upset the fagile ecosystem as they see fit.
#4
"Environmental groups protested as the glacier was covered, saying a fundamental change in climate policy - not short-term measures - was required."
I'll bet they lose chunks of the foil at night when these clowns need party hats or decide to "brainstorm" their next protest.
#5
Looks like a business issue to me, not enviro craziness. This resort gets a lot of visitors who want to see the glacier.
I think they're stupid to try this stunt, tho.
Posted by: too true ||
05/11/2005 7:24 Comments ||
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#6
Funny, .com. These guys are clearly not systems thinkers. A glacier advances or retreats as a function of the precipitation over its source (which to a degree is its entire length) and the temperatures at or near its terminus with some time lag in between. The answer should be obvious to anyone who has worked in a ski resort - make snow over the glacier. These clowns are either to stupid to have figured this out or this the tinfoil is publicity stunt (irony is not their strong suit). I tend to the later explanation cos the environmental 'debate' is one long series of publicity stunts, completely void of any serious analysis.
#7
Right on, .com! It all has to do with what is happening in the neve, plus time delay. Maybe the aluminum foil can be used to construct massive quantities of tinfoil hats.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/11/2005 9:35 Comments ||
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#8
Sorry, I meant phil_b.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/11/2005 9:36 Comments ||
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#10
The Andermatt ski-lift company has laid a synthetic carpet over 2,500 square metres of glacier in a unique experiment to ward off the effects of global warming.
The reflective high-tech material is designed to stop the Gurschen glacier from melting away beneath the resortâs upper cable-car station.
SwissInfo
I thought polio vaccinations were all an infidel plot?
Saudi Arabia has taken all precautions to prevent the polio virus from entering the country following the outbreak of a major epidemic in neighboring Yemen. "We are aware of the situation in Yemen and have taken all the necessary precautions to prevent the virus from crossing into our borders especially the southern regions closer to Yemen," said Dr. Khaled Merghalani, director general of health awareness and media at the Ministry of Health. "We have launched a major awareness and immunization campaign and we have not reported any new cases since last December," Dr. Merghalani told Arab News. "The worry has always been locally transmitted cases and there are none here; the three cases reported last year were imported," he explained.
The latest case reported in Saudi Arabia by the World Health Organization involved a Nigerian boy who had been living near Makkah. He fell ill in mid-December 2004 after the family hosted visitors from Nigeria. Senior WHO officials at the time played down the possible long-term impact of the three cases because of "impeccable" Saudi sanitary precautions for the Haj, and high levels of vaccination coverage in Saudi Arabia &0151; 95 percent &0151; which were regularly maintained. The polio outbreak in Yemen could cripple more than 100 children before it is brought under control, WHO said yesterday. A Yemeni Health Ministry official said in Sanaa on Monday the number of children diagnosed with the paralyzing disease had risen to 40, nearly double the initial 22 cases the WHO confirmed in late April.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/11/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
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#1
The princes would be wise to innoculate all hajis upon arrival at the border. After all, their power base is the favour of Allah, and that favour is not demonstrated by hajees bringing home a dreadful disease to share with all their friends and neighbors.
#2
I'd guess they'd still have a big problem with the twitchy conspiracy fear of some of the pilgrims that the vaccine is actually a secret poison of the evil Joooz that renders the faithful infertile or otherwise diseased. That type of irrational fear based in ignorance doesn't die quickly or easily.
#3
What fatwas about vaccinations do the Saudi Wahabbi clerics emit?
Posted by: James ||
05/11/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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#4
I'm sorry - why are they vaccinating anyone against anything?
After all, everything is Allen's will, right? So if Allen doesn't want them to get diseases, they won't, right? So if they get diseases, it must be Allen's will, right?
Right?
Or maybe everything isn't Allen's will? Hmmm.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/11/2005 12:00 Comments ||
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A "Jurassic" tree dating from the dinosaur age and long thought to have been extinct for 200 million years has been planted at a park in London by British wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough. One of the rarest trees in the world, the Wollemi Pine was found in Australia by a national parks officer, David Noble, in 1994. The discovery astonished botanists worldwide who had thought the tree died out millions of years ago. "How marvellous and exciting that we should have discovered this rare survivor from such an ancient past," Sir David said as the tree went on public display at Kew Gardens. "It is romantic, I think, that something has survived 200 million years unchanged," he said.
Tony Kirkham, head of the arboretum at Kew, was one of the people allowed to see the tree in its natural habitat in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. "In botanic terms, it is like a zoologist going out and finding a live dinosaur somewhere, a Tyrannosaurus Rex," he said.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/11/2005 12:17 Comments ||
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#3
Wonderful tree- related to the monkey Puzzle tree. The fossil pollen has been an important marker in the oil industry for ages, but nobody knew what plant it came from. The official website;
http://www.wollemipine.com/
George Bush was, as usual, one of the first to try to spoil the party, mentioning the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after the Second World War before he even stepped foot in Russia and this spoilsport attitude, hanging a grey cloud over the anniversary celebrations, has been copied by western press sources.
I hate to break it to you, but he's only thinking what any non-massively-ignorant person in the US has actually thought about the situation over the last fifty or so years.
As usual, it is a question of terminology, for liberation and occupation are two words which can be the same side of the same coin, or different sides of the same coin, depending on which way you look at it. If the Americans like to claim that they liberated western Europe, setting up their military bases, colonizing the countries economically and flooding their markets with American goods, then the Russians could claim that the Americans occupied western Europe while they installed a hostile regime, drew a line from northern Germany to the Balkans and set up an Iron Curtain behind which they adopted a belligerent stance against the USSR and her allies.
Yes, they could claim it.
There's just one problem.
It's not really true.
Anyone can tell a lie.
It's easy. It's been successful. The Nazis did it in the lead-up to WW2, and they were so successful they got Stalin to destroy the Soviet Army. And the stalinists have been successful at lying about the result for the past sixty years... but there's no other explanation for the massive casualties the Soviets suffered at the outset of the campaign unless you want to believe the Nazis really were ubermen or something like that...
At the same time, the USSR could claim that the liberation of eastern Europe brought with it for the citizens of the nine countries (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Democratic Republic of Germany) a guaranteed job, a guaranteed pension, housing, safety in the streets, a secure state, excellent and free healthcare and education and free or cheap public services. The American occupation of western Europe brought with it on the other hand societies colonized by perverse values, pornography, endemic unemployment, a situation in which it was, and is, a drama to buy a house, and when it is bought, the buyer is saddled with a massive debt which will be with him almost until he meets his Maker, education systems which churn out generations of idiots and thugs every year who cannot speak or write their own languages and whose weekend entertainment is to destroy other people's property, healthcare systems with massive waiting lists and an approach which squeezes the bottom line first and provides a service second, expensive and badly planned public transportation, drug abuse and so on and so forth.
Well, then where did those systems go? Why were the Eastern Europeans willing to celebrate the loss of their social services? Why are all the institutions he says Western Europe (naturally, he says, because of US interference) gets wrong all socialized institutions like the education systems or the healthcare? The last time I checked, the UK didn't have a capitalist health care system... and it wasn't run by US dictators.
Secondly, it should be remembered that the Soviet presence in these countries was to provide a buffer zone to stop the West coming East (after the loss of millions of lives in two world wars), the presence was there to help build the societies in these countries (under the Soviet-backed Comecon system, they developed in many cases from medieval societies into front-line development in many areas, meaning that today a Pole or a Balt or a Hungarian can compete for any job, against any other candidate anywhere in the world, on at least an equal footing).
Given the way the Soviets mismanaged their "buffer zone" of the Baltic States and their half of Poland the last time around, and their alliance with the Nazis, they'd have been much better off not invading the Baltic States and Finland in the first place.
Thirdly, the governors of these countries were not Russians. Poland was governed by Poles, Romania was governed by Romanians, Bulgaria by Bulgarians. If there was Soviet military presence in Eastern Europe, so was there American military presence in Western Europe.
Much is made of the absence of certain leaders at today's party. However, Russia sent out the invitations. Those who wanted to come to the party came. Those who preferred to stay outside did so. On one hand, a party and 50 heads of state, of government and of international organizations. On the other, a handful of sour-faced, bitter, complexed individuals with a chip of their shoulders. Small men are often complicated - just look at Napoleon.
So a president finally admitted we were wrong to sell the Eastern Europeans into servitude for a fifty-year period... and the natural response of Pravda's opinion page is to talk about how small-minded he was. Bah.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Well, that's a suprise. (I thought I'd dodged his material for the day...)
Debt Relief - Help or Hindrance?: Two months before the G8 leaders discuss debt relief for Africa, what are the issues at stake?
The basic and fundamental question at stake here is whether or not the richer nations are committed to helping Africa or to perpetuating endemic poverty, holding the continent hostage in a stranglehold which they refuse to loosen.
To a large extent, it's not the decision of the richer nations whether Africa remains poor or not. They have much natural resources, and Europe has for the most part given up on "colonization" or otherwise running the governments of small African nations.
On 6th July, at Gleneagles in Scotland, the leaders of the eight richest nations will gather to discuss the issue of debt relief for Africa. The agenda was drawn up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, when he formed his Commission for Africa, whose report was released on 11th March this year, in preparation for the G8 Summit.
Among other things, the report calls for a total pardon of the continent's debt, which saddles the African nations with a system of debt repayment costing a staggering fifteen billion USD per annum, money which could be better spent on social programmes.
What will the G8 decide?
There is a difference between debt relief per se, which means a total pardon of the continent's debts with no political or commercial strings attached, and a neo-colonialist approach camouflaged by a debt relief which is massively and heavily conditioned in favour of the developed nations and against the interests of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries in Africa.
A real and complete debt relief will free the African countries from the yolk of the suffocating repayment to fat-cat financial institutions in western nations and will enable them to throw the full weight of their budgets into programmes which foster sustainable development. NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, will ensure that a bilateral approach which stimulates accountability on one hand and responsibility on the other, can then flourish, aiding the African nations to grow as they discover new markets and become full and equal members of the international community.
What will not work is a debt relief which forces African nations to launch privatization programmes, only for their companies to be swallowed up by multi-nationals, sending hundreds of thousands of people across the continent into chronic unemployment and endemic poverty, precisely what Africa needs to avoid.
Equally disastrous would be an exchange between debt relief and a reduction in aid, because the African nations benefiting from relief would not be able to transform the capital into immediate liquid funds. They need a two-pronged approach, with an increase in aid and a cancellation of debt.
In short, you believe that they not only need the debt forgiven, but they need more money gratis, with no say from the contributors on how the money is spent.
How united is the G8?
It is not united when it comes to debt relief. However commendable the effort of Tony Blair, and however careful he was to make his Commission as broad-based as possible, the plan is always the British plan and there will be other members of the G8 which will want to impose their own plans for political reasons.
John Snow, the US Treasury Secretary, gave a clear sign of what we can expect at Gleneagles only last month, when the G7 finance ministers failed to agree on exactly the same question.
George Bush's Treasury Secretary refused to agree to total debt relief for debts to the IMF.
So, while the G8 squabble and bicker about what are paltry sums when compared with their resources, Africa is saddled with debt repayments of fifteen billion dollars every year, one hundred and fifty billion dollars over ten years. Meanwhile, the number of children who die from drinking unsafe water continues to increase, the AIDS infection rate rises and the endemic and chronic problems of sub-Saharan Africa in particular are not addressed.
I believe the author is mistaking correlation for causation... Noone in Africa was ever responsible for their own actions, they were all influenced by nebulous international capitalists? Oh dear, I'm beginning to suspect the author is...
If the G8 does not commit itself to a total pardon of Africa's debt and a new approach to global trade, practicing what they preach in the WTO, namely a cancellation of subsidies and tariffs to keep African producers poor and western producers rich, one could conclude that with friends like the G8, who needs enemies?
Speaking to the people through his Sunday radio emission "Alo Presidente", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised to tighten control over strategic oil resources. The leftist leader said his government is ready to probe tax evasion from foreign companies in crude terms: "The companies must pay what they owe. If they don't pay, they must leave."
In short, he wants American companies to leave.
According to government reports, many private companies producing oil in the company have been evading taxes for years. Tax officials have said that many declare losses to avoid paying income tax. If that is finally probed, Chavez said they must be charged retroactively.
The government will charge "everything they owe retroactively, along with the interests of what they didn't pay," he said. It's not possible that an oil company can come here, pay 1 percent royalty and not pay income tax, and still declare losses," he said. According to Venezuelan law, oil companies must pay 30 percent royalty, but companies producing heavy crude were allowed to pay 1 percent royalty until last year, when the Congress raised it to 16 percent.
The case against foreign companies has been fuelled by lawmakers loyals to the President. Lawmakers expect to find evidence of tax evasion, royalty debts, production over the limit set by the government and irreversible damage to some wells, National Assembly President Nicolas Maduro, a pro-government lawmaker, was quoted as saying.
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said last month that many of these companies have evaded taxes for an estimated total of $2 billion.
Despite the National Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) State owned corporation controls country's oil market, the South American nation opened its oil industry to foreign oil companies in the 1990s. During that time, 32 operating agreements were signed with companies like ChevronTexaco, British Petroleum, Total, Petrobras, Repsol YPF, Royal Dutch Shell and the China National Petroleum Corp.
Lately, Chavez promoted similar agreements with Brazilian, Indian, Russian and Iranian companies, as well as cooperation deals with their respective governments. On the other hand, the current administration has shifted its sales strategy in order not to be totally dependent of its main client: the United States of America.
With the above in mind, Chavez's government has been studying selling PDVSA premises in the US, including a large refinery in Texas. Venezuela is the world's fifth oil exporter and produces over 3 million barrels a day.
This is interesting... we've already read reports of how the people currently running PDVSA are having problems running things after Chavez fired everyone who was on strike there from ever working in the oil industry in Venezuela again. Now he wants to get rid of the remaining foreign companies who still know how to do things.
George and Laura Bush arrived in the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, on Monday night. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the chairwoman of the Georgian parliament, Nino Burjanadze, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, members of the Georgian government and parliament met US VIP guests at the airport of Tbilisi.
Two Boeing planes landed in Tbilisi: the first plane delivered three identical armored vehicles for the American president, who arrived shortly on another Boeing afterwards. It is noteworthy that local authorities closed the air space of Georgia in the expectation of the US president. Georgian law-enforcement agencies and special services toughened security measures in the whole city...
...The US president's visit to Georgia caused unbelievable public excitement in the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi. George W. Bush is expected to deliver a speech to the Georgian nation on Svoboda Square at 2 p.m. Moscow time. A crowd of people gathered on the square wishing to listen to the American leader. Thousands of local residents broke through the barriers and metal detectors and made their way to the city's central square, waiting for George W. Bush to appear at the tribune...
Gee, I wonder what the crowds know that the apologists for Stalin's occupations don't?
50 Heads of State, of Government and of international organizations are currently participating in the celebrations of the 60th Anniversary of Victory in Europe today and tomorrow in Moscow. The only CIS President who will not participate is Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia.
Today, 9th May, fifty heads of state, of government and of international organizations will stand alongside President Vladimir Putin to remember the victory over the Fascist tyranny of Nazism which took away the lives of around 25 million Soviet citizens between 1941 and 1945. The President of Georgia is the only one in the CIS states who has decided to boycott the event.
Several issues are at stake here. While the deaths of those heroes who gave their lives to make the world a better place for future generations are to be remembered and honoured, while the human sacrifice of those who lived through the war years must never be forgotten, we must also remember the millions of Germans who lost their lives, along with the citizens of other countries, as the world stood firm against Fascism and fought for right and reason against the forces of evil.
The Great Patriotic War was supposed to be the war to end all wars. However the vacuum created by the implosion of Germany created a stand-off between Soviet and American forces which would stagnate into the Cold War which neither side could afford to lose.
It occurs to me that if the Soviet Union had called it quits in 1975 instead of today, the main result would be much the same, except Russia would be able to afford to have a real economy, and an army real enough to stop things like Beslan.
In the event, the Cold War never became a war as such and so neither side lost nor won. Today, the Soviet Union, its objectives having been fulfilled, has evolved into the CIS. I suppose this will be Gibbon's next book: The Fulfillment of the Roman Empire. The Russian Federation and its allies stand for a continuation of the spirit of peace and good will pursued by the USSR, they stand for a development of bilateral relations in a spirit of friendship and equality, a brotherhood of nations living around a common lake - the sea.
Today, despite the efforts of the Russian Federation to guarantee that international crises are resolved and managed in the proper forum of law, the United Nations Security Council, there are still those who would rather pursue their own agendas in disrespect and open breach of international law, while justifying wars in which tens of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered with lies instead of a sound casus belli.
While we celebrate the victory in Europe 60 years on, we must also question whether what was fought for and gained is not still under threat today. The tears of the Russian child slaughtered by a Nazi storm trooper tasted of salt, just like the tears of the Iraqi child whose limbs were blasted away by an American pilot.
Oh, no, it can't be... but...
If we are to stand together this weekend to celebrate peace and to celebrate victory over one of the most evil regimes in the history of our planet, we must also stand together and take a firm position against those of us who still today flout the law as they perpetrate acts of mass murder.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Yup, it was him. What did he do, weld himself inside the Bridge Deck on the USS Pravda?
One has to acknowledge that the USA and Russia differ a lot as far as their attitudes to major international issues are concerned. The two countries hardly have anything in common at this point. It is not ruled out that the dialogue might soon take the "cold war" style, unless Russian and American politicians learn to show mutual respect to each other. Russia and the USA need to turn down the double standards policy in order to be able to continue the cooperation, at least sporadically.
Here is a short list of what George W. Bush's administration dislikes about Putin's Russia. President Putin regrets the break-up of the USSR. Putin prevents the USA from "promoting freedom" on the post-Soviet space. Putin is not willing to join the Western perception of freedom and democracy, trying to adjust this concept to the Russian reality. Putin approves arms deliveries to anti-American regimes (nuclear technologies to Iran, missiles to Syria, Kalashnikov guns and helicopters to Venezuela). Russia does not participate in the anti-Hussein coalition and joins France and Germany in their disapproval of the US-led campaign in Iraq. To crown it all, the US administration protests against the process of the Yukos case in Russia.
Actually, I've rarely read anything about the Yukos case in the US press, or from the US administration. It seems to be something much more important to the current Russian administration than to the US. And to be blunt, the case seems to be hurting Russia much more than it does the US, since it limits Russia's possible oil revenue while oil is at the highest price it's been for years.
When Condoleezza Rice gave a friendly piece of advice to her Russian colleague, Sergey Lavrov, not to put obstacles on Belarus's way in its quest for freedom and democracy, Ms. Rice heard quite a harsh statement in return - to leave Belarus alone.
It is noteworthy that several members of the US Congress asked Russia to acknowledge the illegal occupation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on the threshold of the 60th Anniversary of Victory over Nazism. It brings up the idea that the USA stands alongside with those, who dooms the Russian-speaking population in the Baltic states to semi-genocidal existence.
I wonder if the Russians are even aware that the Soviets invaded those countries during the period when the Soviets were still de-facto allies of Nazi Germany.
The USA's aggressive strategy has become evident already. NATO continues deploying its army bases around Russia, urging the Russian administration to close military bases in the Transdniestr region and in the former post-Soviet republic of Georgia. It goes without saying that Russia needs to abide by its obligations within the scope of decisions made at the Istanbul summit. On the other hand, it would be good for the North Atlantic Alliance not to build its bases in former Soviet republics too, in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, for instance. Once the USA establishes control over Eurasia, Russia's Ural and Siberian regions will find themselves unprotected. Control over Eurasia? We can't even control France (although, that begs the question, who would want to). In addition, refugees from Central Asia (Muslims) might inundate Russia on account of NATO's presence in the region. The US-led "humanitarian intervention" is likely to become "virus-infected freedom."
US Congressman Curt Weldon acknowledged, for example, that the USA has been using Russia for its purposes for 13 years already. It goes without saying that the USA can not come to terms with the "Russian empire" in its promotion of the single-polar world order. The Russian Federation, in its turn, does not at all wish to be a raw materials-producing appendage for the USA either. Russian and American politicians are standing on the line, which separates them from another cold war period. One may say that both Russia and the USA are following the preventive strategy of expectation, the strategy of containment, affecting each other with the help of indirect actions.
Urging Russia to take the pro-Western stance inevitably implies the collapse of Putin's regime in the country. Civil wars would tear Russia to pieces, and American interests would turn to might-have-been hopes.
I respectfully disagree. It isn't in Russia's interest to sell nuclear weapons technology to fundamentalist Islamic states on its southern borders, and if war breaks out there as a result of this a lot of the negative consequences the author speculates above will happen, and on a much greater scale.
One could probably refer to Henry Kissinger's formula in order to ease the tense relationship between the two superpowers: Russia and the USA can follow parallel courses in their policies, being at a certain distance from each other. The new quality of relations needs genuine truth and sincere respect to the interests of the true national security of both Russia and the United States of America.
Yevgeny Vertlib
I guess they've gotten back control of the bridge...
The Russia-EU summit opened in Moscow's Kremlin Palace today. It became known prior to the start of the summit that Russian and European politicians had achieved the final agreement on the texts of road maps of joint Russia-EU spaces...
Unprecedented Russian Art Show to Mark 60th Anniversary of United Nations: Russia's leading museums of fine arts are expected to take part in an unprecedented show of Russian art called Russia to be opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York this September. The exhibition will mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.
Must... not... snark... I am in control of my emotions!
For the period of four years, the citizen of Rwanda is reported to have grossly violated the rules applicable to foreigners' stay in the Russian Federation. All that time the detainee lived in the village of Gremyachy Kolodez.
The use of the term 'peasant' bugs me; their excuse for everything they've done over the past ninety years, all the blood and sweat and tears, is to eradicate class and racial differences... but he's still a 'peasant.'
Mr. Habimanu, a former student, reportedly lived like a rural resident running errands for local people in exchange for board and lodging. He did not drink, did not get involved in antisocial behavior, and enjoyed talking to reporters. He said that he had come to Russia to earn a degree in university but soon the war broke out in his homeland. Then he ran out of money and was unable to pay for his education. "I'm the man without a passport," he used to say talking to reporters.
Elena Vasilieva is a disabled elderly woman. Regular housekeeping was a big problem for her until Josef or Maksimka came along and offered his services. Josef asked the old lady for lodging and she let him in. Soon he began helping her by carrying water and firewood to the house. He also looked after the house. He proved to be a hardworking and diligent person, a sort of indispensable helper a disabled old woman could only dream of.
So at one point or another he probably actually had legal papers, but they must have been misplaced, or were held by the embassy or some such bureaucratic nonsense, and when the regime at home fell into disarray, he became stranded. It occurs to me that Gerhard Neumann also had a similar status in this country at one time. You may have ridden on something that used an invention of his at one time or another... called the turbojet.
Josef Habimana Mr. Vasilieva developed a deep attachment to Josef. She thought she could even do a bit of matchmaking for the black guy. But Josef refused to talk marriage until he settled down and became a real breadwinner. Besides, a student's record book was the only document he had in his pocket.
Mr. Habimana arrived in Russia in 1994. Having spent a year attending preparatory course at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, he was sent to Voronezh to be enrolled in the department of mechanical mathematics of a local university. He studied in the university for four years, was reported to be an average student. Then a civil war broke out in Rwanda and the flow of money from home ran dry. He was told that tuition to complete his education would cost him $1,000.
Mr. Habimana took a year-off at the university to get the money for tuition and make both ends meet. He began working as a loading hand and rented a tiny room in a communal apartment. He did not know at the time that more troubles were coming his way. Once he called home and a stranger informed him that his father and two brothers had been killed and his mother moved away. Then his money and his passport got stolen.
So that's what happened to it.
Mr. Habimanu made a few attempts to get himself a new passport but to no avail. The embassy of Rwanda had shut down by that time in Russia, the nearest one was in Germany. No reply came to the letters he sent to Germany. The local authorities first issued him a document certifying that his passport was lost. Then they told him to refer his case to the embassy. His compatriot, a guy called Bon advised him to head for the country where life was cheaper and people were more simple-minded. Josef followed his advice.
"Simple-minded" must be the Russian euphemism for honest.
Mrs. Vasilieva still keeps a bunch of newspapers with articles about an unusual peasant in the Voronezh region. Many reporters left their business cards in her house while interviewing Maksimka. The old lady was going to call a reporter or two and tell them that Maksimka had been taken into custody. But for some reasons the black guy took all the cards with him before the police put him in a patrol car. So now Maksimka and the cards are in a holding cell.
The Voronezh police do not give any official comment regarding further developments in the case of Maksimka. On the other hand, police officers can tell you a great deal about the case off the record. They normally start by cursing the civil war in Rwanda along with the Russian laws. In theory, Maksimka should be fined for violating the rules applicable to foreigners' stay in Russia. But imposing a fine on Maksimka would certainly entail deportation. The whole matter boils down to paperwork and money. The authorities have no idea who would provide necessary paperwork and where to the guy should be deported after all. Not to mention the deportation costs which are roughly estimated at $2,000.
Mrs. Vasilieva says Maksimka would not mind staying in Russia. The question is: how? How can a person without any documents apply for a residence permit? According to some officials in the Voronezh law enforcement agencies who requested not to be identified, Maksimka is a misunderstanding and headache, period. The authorities are likely to set him free quietly but he should not have been detained in the first place, according to the police.
"We've determined that we shouldn't have arrested him and we might let him go."
Israelis to Recycle Nuclear Waste in Chernobyl: Chernobyl nuclear plantAn Israeli energy company is going to kick off a large-scale project in Ukraine for the treatment and recycling of radioactive waste in Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Israeli company signed an agreement with the Ukrainian government.
Israeli specialists are planning to use their exclusive methods of plasma gasification for storing and recycling the Chernobyl nuclear waste. The methods were developed in collaboration with the Moscow Kurchatov Institute, reports Regnum...
Well, at least someone's going to do something constructive. Maybe we could license the process, or form a similar collaboration. It doesn't look like the people who want us to remain dependent on foreign oil will let us build nuclear waste storage sites anytime soon.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/11/2005 18:52 ||
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George W. Bush: An insult to our collective intelligence
President of the USA is provocative and aggressive instead of conciliatory and diplomatic
Let us compare for one instant the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America. On one side, we have a President whose policy is directed towards improving relations with the international community in a climate of friendship and peace (principles which guided the foreign policy of the USSR) and in tandem with the norms of international law as stipulated by the UNO. On the other, a roving cowboy, taming the wilderness with his gun and his Bible, with an absence of tact and diplomacy.
Diplomacy, debate, dialogue and discussion are the basic precepts of democracy, a word much referred to by the USA but unfortunately not practised in principle and diplomacy, debate, dialogue and discussion are for sure the four words which summarise Moscow's foreign policy, while Washington's continues to be dominated by bullying, blackmail, belligerence and bullishness. Alliteration aside, see what I mean about "loon"?
#1
Russian loon, American loon, what's the difference?
Moonbats International members are so predictable--one may suspect that they reproduce by cloning.
#3
Somehow I knew without checking that this would turn out to be Timothy Bancroft-Hinchley.
I usually try to ignore his stuff. It's too predictable.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/11/2005 16:03 Comments ||
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#4
Pravda's back. For a while I thought they were going to compete with the Weekly WOrld News for the really weird alien stories but they've resolved to return to their roots.
The question is how many english speakers really pay attention to Pravda for anything other than comic relief?
ISN SECURITY WATCH (11/05/05) - Belarus opposition leader Anatoly Lebedko visited Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he sought revolutionary advice from Georgian officials on the sidelines of US President George Bush's address to the crowds at Tbilisi's Freedom Square. The head of Belarus' opposition United Civil Party arrived in Tbilisi on a personal invitation from Georgian Parliamentary Vice-President Mikhail Machavariani, who said they had discussed the political situation in Belarus and the county's upcoming presidential elections scheduled for June 2006.
"Yesterday it was Georgia, today it is Ukraine, and tomorrow it will be Belarus," Lebedko told ISN Security Watch on Tuesday, referring to the peaceful revolutions that overthrew long-time Georgian and Ukrainian leaders - and expressing the opposition's hopes of a similar fate for Belarus President Aleksandar Lukashenka. "We have come to create a democratic coalition," Lebedko said, adding that he had met with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli and Interior Minister Giorgi Baramidze to seek advice. He also said he would be meeting with Parliamentary President Nino Burdzhanadze and President Mikhail Saakashvili, saying: "I don't doubt that I will receive support from them."
Lebedko has also received support from Washington. During his stopover in Latvia on 5 May, Bush described Belarus as the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe", and gave assurances that the US would work with the country to ensure that future elections would be free and fair.
Lukashenka has ruled Belarus for the past 11 years and is widely viewed in the West as a dictator and an opponent of democracy. He is also often criticized for his support of the former authorities in Iraq and the current authorities in Cuba. A controversial referendum introduced by Lukashenka in 2004 abolished presidential term limits, allowing the president to seek a third term in next year's election. Looking down at the cheering crowd gathered to hear Bush's speech in Tbilisi's Freedom Square, Lebedko said: "Next year, I want this in June - a rally of 120,000 people."
Posted by: Steve ||
05/11/2005 9:13:33 AM ||
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Taiwan says it has detained 17 military officers and civilians suspected of passing military secrets to China. They include an army major working in the defence ministry reported to be responsible for collecting intelligence about China's People's Liberation Army. Taiwan says the alleged spy ring was discovered by accident during investigations into credit card fraud.
Both Taiwan and its rival China are believed to run extensive intelligence networks in each other's territory. Both sides regularly announce the arrests and convictions of alleged spies. One of the suspects rounded up in the latest operation works in a Taiwanese defence ministry unit, which has access to sensitive information about the island's missile systems. Officials have denied reports that the alleged spy, an army major, sold missile secrets to China. When police searched his home, they found classified information about China's annual military drills, and unspecified scientific research his unit had collected. Leaking this information, they said, could have allowed China to better understand Taiwan's intelligence-gathering operation on the mainland. What they call "damage control mechanisms" have been activated.
They've alerted their sources in China that their cover may have been blown.
The investigations continue.
So will the "interogations".
Posted by: Steve ||
05/11/2005 8:36:55 AM ||
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#1
One of China's biggests past spys was a famous singer. The song, played on the radio, would be slightly changed to pass the message...
The yen and other Asian currencies jumped sharply higher in European morning trade on Wednesday after a report claimed that China was on the brink of revaluing the renminbi. when this does happen, it will send a shock wave around the global economy -- long overdue, but the correction will be a big deal unless it is done very skillfully
However the Japanese currency later pared its gains as it emerged the report was based on a disputed translation of a story that appeared in the People's Daily, a newspaper owned by the Chinese Community party. The disputed report claimed that China will widen the trading band of the renminbi, effectively a revaluation, in the coming week. China will allow the renminbi to appreciate against the dollar by 1.26 per cent in a month and 6.03 per cent in the coming year, it was claimed.
However Tony Norfield, global head of forex strategy at ABN Amro, said the figures referred to were merely the revaluation implied by the non-deliverable forwards market for renminbi-dollar last week, when a Chinese News Service report that the People's Daily story was based on first appeared. "There was complete mayhem in the market, which shows how sensitive the market is," said Mr Norfield. "However this was a useful trial as to how the market would react if there was a revaluation."
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Posted by: too true ||
05/11/2005 7:48:15 AM ||
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#1
Nah. Not gonna happen.
Too many speculators in currency trading. Shenanigans like this happen constantly. Everyone's trying to game the market. It's destructive to the market as a whole.
It has become a space-based myth. The Great Wall of China, frequently billed as the only man-made object visible from space, generally isn't, at least to the unaided eye in low Earth orbit. It certainly isn't visible from the Moon. You can, though, see a lot of other results of human activity. The visible wall theory was shaken after China's own astronaut, Yang Liwei, said he couldn't see the historic structure. There was even talk about rewriting textbooks that espouse the theory, a formidable task in the Earth's most populous nation.
The issue surfaced again after photos taken by Leroy Chiao from the International Space Station were determined to show small sections of the wall in Inner Mongolia about 200 miles north of Beijing. Taken with a 180mm lens and a digital camera last Nov. 24, it was the first confirmed photo of the wall. A subsequent Chiao photo, taken Feb. 20 with a 400mm lens, may also show the wall. The photos by Chiao, commander and NASA ISS science officer of the 10th Station crew, were greeted with relief and rejoicing by the Chinese. One was displayed prominently in the nation's newspapers. Chiao himself said he didn't see the wall, and wasn't sure if the picture showed it.
Kamlesh P. Lulla, NASA's chief scientist for Earth observation at Johnson Space Center in Houston, directs observation science activities from the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. He says that generally the Great Wall is hard to see and hard to photograph, because the material from which it is made is about the same color and texture as the area surrounding it.
Australians will be able to work and live more easily in the United States after major changes to immigration law approved by the US Congress today. The US Government has voted to create a new visa called the E3 specifically to allow Australians to live and work in America for up to two years. Once they win a visa, people will be able to renew them indefinitely. A total of 10,500 of the new visas will be available to people with bachelor degrees and relevant work experience.
The new legislation represents a huge increase in work opportunities in the US because currently Australians have to compete on a global basis for just 65,000 of the so-called H1B work visas. Another reason the change is highly significant is that the spouses of these new E3 visa holders will also have work rights in the US, something not currently available.
I'm all for open immigration between the U.S. and Australia.
#3
I think this should also be extended to the UK and even Canada (just keep out anyone named Khadr, OK?). Countries with similar language, culture and income should get preferential treatment for work and migration.
Posted by: ed ||
05/11/2005 10:22 Comments ||
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#4
Aussies yes, UK and Canada have too many Islamists admitted as refugees....we don't need any more Patterson NJ's with british or canuck accents
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/11/2005 10:28 Comments ||
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Australian will fund a tsunami warning centre aimed at preventing a repeat of the December 26 catastrophe that killed about 217,000 people on Indian Ocean coastlines, Treasurer Peter Costello said Tuesday. Costello said the system, which would upgrade the existing sea level gauge and seismic network, would warn people in coastal areas of incoming tsunami. The government would spend 68.9 million dollars (53.3 million US) in the next four years establishing the system, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said. "It will be one of the first Indian Ocean regional warning systems and will join the planned network of national systems which collectively will form the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System," they said in a statement. "Australia is surrounded by 8,000 kilometres of active tectonic plate boundary capable of generating tsunamis with the potential to reach our coastline within two to four hours. One-third of the earthquakes worldwide occur along these boundaries." Australian will also provide technical assistance to improve systems in Indian and Pacific Ocean nations, they said.
EFL
Germany closed down a second atomic reactor -- also the country's oldest -- on Wednesday. The move is part of a government policy to phase out nuclear power.
After nearly 37 years in operation, Germany's oldest atomic reactor, in Obrigheim, was disconnected on Wednesday, Baden-WÃŒrttemberg state officials said. Energie Baden-WÃŒrttemberg (EnBW) said the shutdown would cost some 500 million euros ($642 million). The three-phase shutdown process is expected to last until around 2020, the company said.
Obrigheim is the second reactor that was shut down as a result of national legislation agreed between the EnBW and the red-green coalition government in the summer of 2000. The first to close was E.ON's 672 mw Stade reactor, which was switched off in November 2003.
The 340 megawatt Obrigheim reactor will be prepared for final shut down over the course of the year. There are 17 other atomic reactors still active in Germany.
The policy of phasing out nuclear energy is still subject to debate, however. Industry and political opposition want it to be reviewed but the government is standing firm by the 2000 decision.
Baden-WÃŒrttemberg relies on nuclear energy for 55 percent of its electricity. Replacing lost local nuclear power with imported nuclear power from France or restarting idled coal plants does not make sense, especially if Germany wants to meet climate protection targets, B-W Environment Minister Tanja Gönner said.
#1
I thought they already failed at making their "Kyoto goals", even counting the E. German shutdowns
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/11/2005 17:04 Comments ||
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Replacing lost local nuclear power with imported nuclear power from France or restarting idled coal plants does not make sense, especially if Germany wants to meet climate protection targets, B-W Environment Minister Tanja Gönner said.
Flamanville on Normandy's Atlantic Coast is already home to one nuclear facility, and it's about to get another. Paris plans to start building the first of a new generation of nuclear plants in 2007.
Well above the European average, France derives almost 80 percent of its electricity from its 58 nuclear reactors. The country's first atomic power station began operating near Colmar, close to the German border, in 1977.
EDF pointed out that the 2nd generation reactors could generate 1600 megawatts of electricity, compared to 900 for current reactors, need less regular recharging and have a life-span of 60 years. The company also claims that they would be able to withstand the impact of an aircraft flown by terrorists.
The center-right government, meanwhile, argues that EPR is the most strategic response to the rising cost of oil.
Or, as the shameless Beeb puts it: "Euro-MPs back tighter work hours"
A rule which allows workers to choose to put in more than 48 hours a week may end after MEPs voted to scrap it. They voted to phase out the right to opt out of the Working Time Directive over three years. Unions said the decision was a victory for UK employees, but business groups said competitiveness would suffer. But, they don't seem to have a word for 'competitiveness' in EUtopia anymore.
The UK government hopes to block it from becoming law. To do that, it would need to recruit other countries' support to retain the clause under qualified majority voting. That's right: if we Brits want to work overtime in future, we'll have to ask Brussels' permission and prove we're not the only ones.
Under the current system - used more in the UK than elsewhere - individuals can opt out if they want to work longer hours. The issue was about "freedom of choice", said the Director-General of the CBI, Sir Digby Jones. "People who just do five hours a week overtime and use the money for a holiday. All I want to know is who's going to pay them for the money they lose." He added: "The European Parliament has learned nothing about the challenge of globalisation. "Presumably these are the same MEPs who will be complaining about employers relocating to China and India in the years to come." Don't worry, Digby, word is that next month the EU's going to outlaw 'reality'.
The retention of the opt-out had also been supported by hospitals in Germany, France and Spain and small business groups across the EU. But the vote saw Labour MEPs oppose the UK government line and side with many Socialists, Communists and Greens in backing the changes. [snip: more insanity]
This may seem weird, mad even - but we mustn't forget that those of us who aren't in favour of giving ever more power to the EU are encouraging another holocaust. No shit.
The EU power grab is frightening. And predictable.
Hopefully you all still have time to figure out what went wrong over the last 50 years, wake up enough of the British people to it, and take back your country.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/11/2005 15:19 Comments ||
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..Labour MEPs...side with many Socialists, Communists and Greens...
Europe is sliding into a shit hole. No blood or treasure for western europe. Get the US out of NATO and Europe now.
#4
The EU has begun a steady movement towards what in the US was called "isolationism". That is, reducing their contact with the outside world to set up and protect artificial economic constructs. To deny the free market by refusing to buy or sell in it. Masquerading as "self-sufficiency", its real purpose enlarges upon "protectionism" to try and "protect" their entire unnatural economy. It has been tried, and failed, many times before.
#5
Or, Bulldog, you could move here. A tough option, I realize, but if things keep going the way they look to go, it might be your best bet.
Posted by: too true ||
05/11/2005 15:40 Comments ||
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#6
...wake up enough of the British people to it, and take back your country.
I think the English, at least, are waking up and smelling the ... The increasingly Eurosceptic Tories won the biggest share of the public vote in England this election, for the first time since Labour came to power in '97. We're at the point where pro-Europe Labour is maintained in office by MPs despatched to Westminster by the much more socialistically-inclined Scots and Welsh. They now have a significant degree of autonomy - a parliament and assembly respectively - where the English, ironically, have none. England does now need a voice. If it got one it could well be the first to throw off its European shackles.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/11/2005 15:56 Comments ||
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#9
Wow.
And there are people who think this is acceptable in a free society?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 15:59 Comments ||
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"...but who would be left to fight them on the beaches?"
We've got great beaches here; on the East coast there are beaches in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, the Carolinas, and of course all of Florida. You can do your fighting from there. Just bring plenty of sunscreen.
Really: come on over, and be free (or at least relatively free).
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/11/2005 16:14 Comments ||
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#11
I'm doing a minuteman stint on the beaches of San Diego this summer - platoon of 1
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/11/2005 16:26 Comments ||
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EFL
International medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres is tracking down hundreds of thousands of tsunami donors worldwide and offering them their money back after it received four times as much money as it needed. In Australia alone the charity sent out more than 4 000 letters telling donors it could not use their money for tsunami victims, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres received four times the â¬20m it needed to fund its response to the December 26 disaster.
The charity's president, Rowan Gillies, was quoted as saying it was ethically compelled to contact every donor of the surplus and offer to return it.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn. It used to be a nice place to live. Oh well. There goes the neighborhood.
The United Nations may temporarily have to move across the East River to gritty Brooklyn while it renovates its Manhattan headquarters, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday.
After looking at more than 100 properties, the world body found that only a site in downtown Brooklyn would be able to accommodate both U.N. staff and conferences, Annan said in a report to the U.N. General Assembly.
"The advantage of this site is that conference and office space would be together. The disadvantage is that the site would require additional travel for many staff and delegates," he said. a cryin' shame
His report made no mention of the psychological impact to the organization and staff of moving from chic Manhattan to one of New York's less-fashionable outer boroughs. THIS is what they worry about?!?!?!!! The "psychological" impact? Aren't these do-nothing petrowhores supposed to be worrying about global famine, disease and war? And they're upset about having to commute like 99.9999% of the rest of the people who live in NYC?!?!?!!! (myself included)
The United Nations has been working for five years on a $1.2 billion Capital Master Plan for renovating its aging headquarters, which was completed in 1952. only 5 years? I woulda thought it started way before then.
Renovations are due to begin in 2007, although financing is not yet locked in place. But the plan depends on staff moving into a temporary building while the main U.N. secretariat building is gutted and refurbished.
The U.N. complex is an architectural landmark that draws 800,000 tourists a year. But inside, some roofs leak, toxic asbestos lines ceilings, heating and cooling systems are erratic and there are no sprinklers in case of fire. yep. that's nyc.
Under the plan's initial version, a new 30-story office tower was to be built in Robert Moses Park near U.N. headquarters to temporarily house the staff. holy crap! ONLY the UN would come up with a plan like that.
But that ran into a brick wall when the New York State Legislature, caught up in a wave of anti-U.N. sentiment in the United States, declined to give it the necessary approvals. whew! that's a relief.
Delaying the project to wait for those approvals might now mean major delays in the renovations, Annan said.
The United Nations just three months ago had denied it was looking at temporary sites in Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx. they lied? tap. tap.
In his new report, Annan said that despite finding the Brooklyn site, the United Nations would keep looking for the ideal real estate solution. How about Sudan?
Another option, he said, was to lease Manhattan office space and build a temporary conference building nearby at a cost of about $45 million, not counting operating costs or acquiring the land. Yeah. How about giving to the NY economy. At least they can do something good.
#3
I still think they should move it to the center of the largest mass-gave in Iraq. Somehow I think it would be fitting.
1.6B to only renovate the building? You could probably build a new one with - in fact it does, that includes the 'new building' they will build to for a 'temporary' location.
#4
Under the plan's initial version, a new 30-story office tower was to be built in Robert Moses Park near U.N. headquarters to temporarily house the staff.But that ran into a brick wall when the New York State Legislature, caught up in a wave of anti-U.N. sentiment in the United States, declined to give it the necessary approvals. Maybe it wasn't anti-UN sentiment. Maybe they just didn't want to build a 30 story office tower in a park. On the other hand, I kind of like the idea of New York sticking it to the UN after 50 years of unpaid parking tickets and othe UN shennanigans. I once worked for The Gruzen Partnership, Architects in New York City. Loved the reataurants, theatre, and museums but it was just too big for a South Alabama farm boy.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/11/2005 9:30 Comments ||
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#5
You know, no matter what we want, they'll whine and cry and will end up with something. I recommend, unlike the Dems, to actually offer an alternative. Move the lot to San Francisco, their first home. Then once we get them all moved in and confortable, make the city independent like Vatican City. Hehehehe.
#6
Deacon, that "park" is a playground. One of the few, if only, ones in the area.
Here is a nice short writeup about how NYC got shafted with the UN in the first place, as well as a nice rundown of the local opposition.
That said, they'll never move to Brooklyn. I cannot imagine any diplomats having to cross the river. As it is now, most can walk to the UN, or drive their cars and park illegally. Plus, Mayor Bloomberg will probably cut some deal for Manhattan space, claiming the city would lose lots of money if the UN left.
#7
growler - RINO Bloomberg can claim whatever he wants, but it's a sure bet that NYC will GAIN bigtime if the UN leaves town.
I suggest we push encourage the UN to move to Paris. I'm sure they'll love it there - a metropolitan city with lots of shopping, restaurants, cultural places and events, etc., AND they wouldn't have to deal with uneducated, coarse, simplisme Americans.
Send 'em to America-hating, jealous Phrogistan - they'll fit right in.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/11/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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#8
They won't move to a third world nation no matter how ironic or just it might be. They might move to France and France might take them. Win/win for everyone. Then the third world can come to the UN in time as the French economy sputters.
The Indonesian official in charge of rebuilding tsunami-hit Aceh province says he is shocked at how little has been done for the survivors, and claims virtually no money has been received for reconstruction.
Gee. Golly. I wonder where the money went?
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said there was no sense of urgency in disbursing the 6trillion rupiah (A$792million) earmarked in the Jakarta Government's budget for rebuilding areas hit by the tsunami. In the job for just over a week, the former minister for mining and energy said the reconstruction funds had to come through the bureaucracy and get approval from parliament, and he did not expect the money to be available until September. Meanwhile, Dr Kuntoro said, his agency would rely on $US2 billion ($2.59 billion) pledged by major non-government agencies and the private sector to kickstart the reconstruction in Aceh. Even here, much had to be done before the development funds could begin to be fully used, he said. "It's shocking - very limited things have been done for the poor people," Dr Kuntoro said in Jakarta after visiting Aceh to get a first-hand look at the monumental task he faces. "There are no roads being built, no bridges being built, no harbours being built. When it comes to reconstruction - zero." The December 26 disaster left 160,000 people dead or missing in Aceh province, made about 500,000 homeless and destroyed the economy.
The Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction agency headed by Dr Kuntoro is due to manage nearly $US5billion in reconstruction aid. The appointment of the Stanford University-trained engineer, who reports directly to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has been applauded by the international community. One problem with the slow pace of reconstruction, he said, was the time it took to get the agency set up, with donors unsure about who needed to approve projects. The agency was incorporated in an Aceh reconstruction blueprint that was finished only last month.
All of the above have info at the links about the work they are doing in Aceh. There are many more agencies at work, too. There is a very comprehensive, multi-lingual look atAceh and aid at Relief Web.
There's a great deal being done. Is some of the aid going to graft and corruption? Of course. But this guy is so off the mark, I have to suspect he has a different agenda.
If I had even a hint that things were going dreadfully wrong, I'd have been trumpeting it from the housetops. I didn't spend all that time keeping the Stingy List for nothing.
#2
A fall in the dollar would hurt the amount. Likely it was a slight strengthening of the dollar and a slight fall in oil prices helped by a nonchelant consumer market for Eu smoke and mirrors.
#3
A fall in the dollar would hurt the amount. While there may be a short term 'J-curve' (explaining the few months delay before the USD's fall took effect), the net effect is to decrease imports becuase they are more expensive and increase exports becuase they are cheaper.
Lots of residents of Cairo are getting tired of the noise...Just before dawn, Cairo resident Muhammad Ahmad is jolted out of his peaceful sleep by a thunderous azan, or call to prayer, roaring out from huge speakers attached to a very modest mosque two streets away. A few moments later a second, even louder muezzin's voice joins in - not in time or in tune with the first call to prayer - summoning him to do his duty, this time at the local prayer hall just around the corner. Over the next few minutes, at least half a dozen other voices of varying tunefulness join in - distorting the sound of the azans and making them sound like a military order.
Interesting choice of words, Beeb.
Last September, the Ministry of Religious Endowments decided to bring Cairo's 4,000-odd mosques and prayer halls into line by broadcasting a live, centralised call to prayer to replace the current ear-splitting cacophony. But since Religious Endowment Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq made the announcement, there has been a huge outcry of public anger at his proposed reforms. Although crackling sound systems, mediocre muezzins and staggered prayer calls have long been the butt of jokes among local people, the official plan to tamper even in a minor way with the running of individual mosques unleashed deep disquiet at what might really lie behind these new moves. The conspiracy theorists prophesied that the centralised sound system was just a test case for the real goal: to disseminate a single Friday prayer sermon, approved beforehand by the government.
Opponents have expressed deep outrage at the very idea of someone tampering with the tradition of each mosque having its own muezzin, of different voices echoing across the city in a continuous round. They claim their religion is being muzzled.
*Splutter.*
In response, Cairo's government has produced senior religious leaders to reassure people that the plan is not in contravention of Islamic law. But many Egyptians continue to suspect a sinister conspiracy, backed by Washington, to stifle the voices of more conservative religious leaders.
Hmm.
There have also been dire predictions that the change would throw at least 100,000 muezzins out of work in a country already suffering severe unemployment.
It's in this month's Lancet. You could look it up.
But the official line remains that there is no nudging from Washington behind this effort. Furthermore, so as to avoid further charges of bias, the centralised radio broadcasts will feature a revolving group of religious leaders, who will offer a range of religious viewpoints. But at least one conservative imam has argued that "technologising" the call to prayer will start the nation down an ungodly path that will one day terminate with people bowing down before TV sets tuned to pictures of Mecca. The comments at the link are worth reading too.
Posted by: seafarious ||
05/11/2005 12:50:55 AM ||
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#1
Well considering this religion is based on pure utter bunk a bit of insanity is to be expected. I know if some squealing turd woke me up before I was ready to wake everyday under the guise of religion I would burn the SOB down.
#2
RPGs or some other ordinance needed to take out the speakers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/11/2005 9:39 Comments ||
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#3
In Germany we lived near a church. The bells rang daily for each service of the traditional schedule... from morning 'til night. I never did discover whether the bells were real or a recording, but they definitely were intended to be heard.
Silicon Valley progressives, a major labor union and a centrist Democratic organization have joined forces to fund a startup think tank that focuses on politics, not policy. The New Politics Institute (NPI), unlike conventional think tanks that churn out white papers and policy briefs, will work to counter "[White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl] Rove and [RNC Chairman Ken] Mehlman on the other side," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network but now known just by its initials. NPI will be funded by venture capitalist Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, as well as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to the tune of $1.5 million to $2 million annually, and will be under the umbrella of NDN. The union will provide "considerable resources," NDN spokesman Guillermo Meneses said.
With offices in both Washington and the San Francisco Bay area of California, the think tank will rely on a network of fellows to manufacture and disseminate its political products. Part of NPI will be incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)(4) and other elements will be free to engage in campaign activity as a 527, Rosenberg said in a conference call with reporters.
In addition to its support from SEIU and the Rappaports, NPI has enlisted the help of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the popular liberal blog dailykos.com, as well as Trippi, to find innovative ways to deliver their ideas in a changing media landscape. Pollsters Sergio Bendixen and Mark Penn, SEIU official Gina Glantz and Theo Yedinsky, formerly of the Kerry campaign and currently with NDN, will all play a role in the new startup.
Zuniga was dismissive of the existing progressive thinks tanks' capacity to change the debate or influence elections in the Democrats' favor. "Policy think tanks are pretty useless," he said, without naming any in particular. "All the great policy white papers aren't going to do any good," he added. NPI will be focused on "building a Democratic Party that is focused on winning." In a minor disagreement with Zuniga, Rosenberg said that NPI would work in concert with groups like the Public Policy Institute and other progressive think tanks, insisting that that such like-minded organizations would draw on their separate expertise to develop and deliver progressive ideology. Rosenberg said NPI would focus on three specific themes: the ascendancy of the conservative movement, demographic trends and the demise of the traditional broadcast media.
#1
All I can say is I hope he catches a massive infection and dies. There is nothing closet about this little commie puke. Please step out in front of a speeding garbage truck. Hopefully with a group of your nearest friends as well.
#3
Eh? Where's the centrist -- actually, where's the liberal? 'Screw them' Kos is an out-and-out leftist.
This is hilarious, though. Another lefty gazillionaire flushing money down the toilet. Did they even look at what Kos' political insticts got him last time (zero for all the backed candidates)? This time he's spreading the 'ideas? we don't need no steenkin' ideas' brain-fever. If they can scream loudly enough, on enough channels, surely people will start voting Democratic, right? Right?
#4
I propose rantburgers fund the acquisition of an M1A2. Then invite the progressives to bring their (non)think tank against ours for a civil discussion.
#7
I read the DailyKos. All agitprop, all the time. But of far more interest (in fact lack of interest) is they are horribly provincial. Its like the rest of the world doesn't exist except as a remote backdrop like a Shakesperean character mentions a war in a distant place. Its all so 19th or 18th century. 'Fog in the world, Left is isolated.'
#8
...as well as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to the tune of $1.5 million to $2 million annually, and will be under the umbrella of NDN. The union will provide âconsiderable resources,â NDN spokesman Guillermo Meneses said.
And this program will benefit the SEIU union membership how much? Like maybe... not one friggin bit?
The union 'leadershit' haven't given a shait about the membership for decades - except for funding.
Take a look at the NEA (National Extortion Education Association - teachers union. Which teachers are compelled, by law (at least here in WA), to contribute to in order to ply their trade.
#12
Just when I thought the LLL KoolAid drinkers couldnât think of a new way to waste money! How can one counter the truth? How can a group counter the tide that is American Conservative politics? Are they going to tell you that itâs ok for Iran and North Korea to have Nukes? Maybe they will build up that story that Social Security will only go bankrupt in 30 years so let it ride for now? Mind you if a CEO knew his company was going to sink in X number of years and did nothing to stop it, the LLL would want him prosecuted for their inaction. I can see it in about six months Kos will have a show on Err Amerika where he reads that latest âfindingsâ from this LLL think (sic) tank.
#13
Actually, I'm all for the leftie billionares to send more money to Kos in support of the canidates. He was so not successful last time, let's have him keep up all the good work and the money going to where it does the least good.
Images of deep space exploration in old sci-fi movies will take one giant leap toward reality as Battelle scientists manipulate microtechnology to produce rocket propellant in space and breathing oxygen for interplanetary travel, thanks to new funding from NASA. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which is operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy, will launch the development of a lightweight and extraordinarily compact system for NASA applications. These microchemical and thermal systems, also known as MicroCATS, configure such things as microchannel absorbers, reactors, separators and heat exchangers to produce the propellant from resources found on Mars and the moon. In addition, the system also will be designed to regenerate breathable air for life support. The NASA contract is valued at $13.7 million over four years.
"Further development of the microchannel architecture makes this all feasible," says Kriston Brooks, PNNL principal investigator. "Our ultimate goal is then to use the same microtechnology principles on a larger scale to provide propellant for a manned mission to Mars in the 2030 timeframe." PNNL's mission supports the President's new vision for space exploration. President Bush pledged to return to the moon by 2020 in preparation for future human exploration of Mars and other distant destinations in his January 2004 address at NASA headquarters. "The contract is four times larger than any PNNL has previously had with NASA," says Martin Kress, Battelle's NASA relationship manager. "We hope this technology system ushers in an entirely new approach for lunar and Martian exploration and habitation," Kress added.
#1
Utterly, utterly cool! How soon can we use the mini air thingies for scuba diving? And the propellent extractors for the next generation of hybrid vehicles? Research has to pay its own way nowadays, y'know.
The brains of monkeys who learned to control robotic arms rewired themselves to treat the arms as if they were real -- a finding scientists say has implications for developing limbs to assist handicapped humans. The findings build upon a 2003 study that found monkeys were able to control robotic arms using only signals from their brains and without moving their own arms. Miguel Nicolelis and colleagues at Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering analyzed the data to see what was happening to the primates' brain cells as they learned to use the robotic arm to position a cursor on a video screen. "The monkey's brain incorporates properties of the robotic arm as if it was another arm and changes to adapt to those properties," Nicolelis, a neurobiologist, told United Press International. "Basically, the brain extends the representation of the animal's body and enhances the sense of self. The animal can function using two arms but also can function as if he has a third arm."
This not only expands the limit of the brain's ability to adapt itself to new situations, it also "opens new venues for how to design prosthetics that can be more readily incorporated by the brain," he said. Such prosthetics, dubbed "neuroprosthetics" by Nicolelis, could give those needing artificial limbs the ability to control them as if they were the real thing. Experiments in Nicolelis' lab already are building on the neuroprosthetic concept. His team is developing ways patients can receive feedback sensation, either visually or by touch, from neuroprosthetic devices via electrodes running from the limb to the brain. This would make the appendages function more like real limbs by providing a perceptual image in the patients' minds, he said. Although neuroprosthetics probably are five years away at least, Nicolelis said, "It's becoming rapidly a new area of clinical research."
At least 50 percent of the world's species, including the dinosaurs, perished 65 million years ago. A large meteorite struck Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula around the same time, and most scientists blame this impact for the mass extinction. Yet there is nothing that directly links meteorite impacts with the extinction of entire species. Scientists can recite a long list of the devastating environmental consequences of a large meteorite impact, but they cannot prove these effects have led to the simultaneous loss of life around the globe. Answering the question of how and why such a large variety of species died out at the same time is one of the greatest mysteries in paleontology.
While the exact reason for the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction is still under debate, other past extinctions have been clearly linked with climate change. As species become increasingly specialized to their environment, a substantial or sudden change will tend to threaten their survival. The Earth has gone through many cycles of extreme warming and cooling in its history, with an associated rise and fall of species. Could such climate change have played a role in the K-T extinction? One proponent of this theory is Dewey McLean, a geologist at Virginia Polytechnic University who first published the idea in the 1970s. McLean thinks the Chicxulub impact in Mexico just added more stress to an environment that was already upset by the release of copious amounts of volcanic gases. His culprit for the outgassing is the Deccan Traps, an ancient lava flow in west central India. This flood basalt volcanism, says McLean, upset the Earth's carbon cycle and led to long-term global warming. McLean suspects the dinosaurs gradually became extinct through heat-induced reproductive failure. He says that the higher temperatures, along with pH changes in ocean water, led to the extinctions seen in marine life at the time.
Continued on Page 49
#1
There is good evidence that water vapour released by volcanic eruptions is the major medium term driver of climate (change). I.e. there is no reason to posit changes to CO2 levels.
Ive just noticed the last few lines of the article is cut off in the comments windows, as I was going to savage the incredibly ignorant last sentence. A 100% of all life on earth dies irrspective of the climate. Species dissapear because conditions are no longer conducive to their survival across their range. All that is required for their survival is a pocket that remains conducive. For all but the larger vertibrates that can be a very small area, perhaps the size of a swimming pool.
#2
Dinos big, mammals small. Change gravity and the big bad dinos can't support their massive bodies. Only those that live mostly in water have some chance to float a bit past the extinction event. If some of them had the wits to get resized to fit in the new setup, they may have survived until recently. At least, it does not seem they are still present, bare a few anecdotal reports from inacessible areas of Congo whence the natives describe critters that are a bit too similar to brontosaurus. Since some gorila species were discovered just a couple of decades back, one can't exclude the possibility that the natives see somethingn real and do not suffer from a wholesale vision disorder. The pictures they draw would be recognized by almost anybody, except paleontologists. So I am not sure who exactly has a vision problem here. Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) anyone?
The fact is that at the present gravity, as I noted a few days ago, the elephant is the ultimate in size as the land based critters go.
How do you change gravity? I dunno, but since gravitational constant is anything but constant, even on our speck of cosmic comedy it varies, I suppose there may be a way. I'll think about it.
#3
I have no trouble with the very large dinosaurs being aquatic in shallow seas and swamps. This neatly explains their very long necks which are otherwise a difficult to explain adaptation. Why have a long neck when to extend it even halfway upwards would cause the animal to drop dead from an anuerism. The answer is to graze horizontally along riverbanks and similar becuase they couldn't leave the water. Aquatic animals can be much larger than terrestial animals - the Blue Whale is larger than any dinosaur. There is no need to posit a change in gravity.
#4
Change gravity and the big bad dinos can't support their massive bodies.
Sobiesky, that's as insane a theory as cold fusion.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 7:32 Comments ||
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#5
Just as I suspected. Q is responsible for the dinosaur extinction.
Posted by: ed ||
05/11/2005 7:36 Comments ||
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#6
Phil, the only problem is that there were extra large land critters. Larger than elephant.
Several times over. Bruhathkayosaurus, 45 m, 175-220 tons. Seismosaurus about the same. You find diplodocs and titanosauria in different places, not in isolated area, meaning they had to go places. BTW, blue whale... The largest specimen found was a female 94 feet (29 m) long weighing more 174 tons (158 tonnes). There were longer ones, (about 35 m) but not that heavy, so she was short and plump. That zillions of websites say it is the largest animal evar does not make it so.
As for sauropods' long necks and danger of aneurism... giraffe anyone? Sauropods were likely to inhabit nearby swampy areas, but that does not make them aquatic. Their feet do not seem to be adapted to permanent swampy environment, like crocks' or gators'.
#7
Sobiesky, I googled both of the dinos you mentioned and what do you know? They both have extremely long necks. A long neck is an adaption (and must be an adaption) to the animal accessing a food supply that it cannot physicaly reach without the long neck. For an animal that can move on land that must be a food source that is high up. Most of the giraffe's reach results from its long legs. Its neck is nothing like as long as these dinos. Their necks are at least 3 times as long. The giraffe has a number of special adpations to ensure it doesn't die becuase of its long neck (its the pressures involved in pumping a fluid against gravity) and its length is generally considered to be the biological limit to neck length (in our gravity). Ergo the dinos long necks must have been to reach horizontally because they could not physically move to the food source. I.e. they could not leave the water. It seems cut and dried to me.
#8
That should have read - and its length is generally considered to be the biological limit to neck length in a neck that reaches up (in our gravity).
#9
Could be the thunk of the asteroid was enough energy to release copious amounts of methane from the methane hydrate deposits under the oceans. From what I read the deposits don't need much additional energy to gasify.
For instance, I see formation of planets from an accretion disk as insane, and yet it is a fashionable tale for many decades now. (I won't say fairytale in order not to hurt anyone's feelings. Though, we have white dwarves and red giants and all sorts of lore critters inhabiting universe, so what the heck?)
One would suspect that in that time, somewhere in the universe, you would see that happen. They're lookin'. Lookin' is still goin' on. And, they're puzzled. A lot of planets discovered recently have highly eliptical orbits. I mean giants like Jupites or biger. They say it went through a hypothetical cloud of dust over there and that pulled it from a circular orbit. Hahahaha. Actually, not anything one two black holes can't fix, no? We can't see them so they must be there. If we could see something there, it wouldn't be a black hole then. Where we would be without black holes? Problem is, that in one case the x-ray burst are visible at the perihelium, while the mythical invisible singularity should be 90 degrees from that position, pulling the orbit towards itself. No bursts there, though. Well, we can add normalization constant here and there and viola! Time to invent a while hole, maybe? Darn, already done, let's make up something extra exotic! Make Alice happy!
#11
Phil, look at the pictures. The neck and tail are not the main mass of the body. I agree that the horizontal mode of neck movement is likely, but the neck and tail comprise maybe 15% of the body mass. So, we are stuck with a chunk that is 10 or more times as massive as whole elephant. I'll see if I can dig up some data that would indicate that these behemoths would have a really hard time to support their weight with the gravity as it is. May take a bit of time.
#12
Phil, if you say that they had an obvious adaptation, then why their limbs did not follow the trend and adjust to liquid environment? Then, consider plesiosaurs that were obviously aquatic and did not have a need to reach some foliage on banks as the fed on fish and aquatic animals and yet they had looong necks as well. What was the possible reason for that kind of adaptation?
#13
The impact structure at Chixilab (SP) IIRC from the reconstruction of crustal plate movements was 65MY ago just about antipodal from the hot spot that created the Deccan Traps (there are similiar volcanic outpourings at various other place around the globe including one still running, its called Iceland). One thing I have always wondered about is just what causes hot spots to form. While they my arise from variations in the movement of the molten interior of the Earth I personally think they may also arise from the results of large impacts. Consider all of the shock waves that result from the impact would travel through and around the Earth and would refocus at a spot somewhere in the antipodal region of the impact. Of course the only way to find out would be to stage a really large impact on the Earth or perhaps Venus. Fortunately I have a Dentist apoint ment that day. But there are regions on Venus that show volcanic structures similiar to hot spot activety and the impact structures that due exist are above a certain size (the atmosphere of Venus is thick enough that below a certain size comet and asteriods should detonate in the atmosphere) could be related. Has anyone ever thought to look for impacts and lava flows that are antipodal on Venus. As to the feeding or other behaivor of the Saurapods we simply don't have enough evidence to to prove any theory IMO
Because it takes Occam out into the woodshed and buggers him with a rusty pitchfork. There are infinitely simpler explanations available that fit the facts; why start inventing things like changes in gravity?
More importantly, there's no reason dinosaurs couldn't be the size they were under the same strength gravity we have today. That the elephant is the largest CURRENT land animal says nothing about what the largest POSSIBLE land animal could be; there have been, after all, relatively recent animals that were larger than the elephant.
(For example, Indricotherium transsouralicum was between 11 and 20 tons, and lived as recently as 25 million years ago. The largest elephant on record -- a literal Guinness world record holder -- weighed 12 tons.)
Here's a whole bunch of articles dedicated to punching holes in the silly "dinosaurs had less g to deal with" theory.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 9:59 Comments ||
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#16
Evolutionary adaptation is driven by necessity. That is, the adaptions that are most advantagous occur first. For a shallow water animal that doesn't swim just wades, ie walks on the bottom there is no need for fins/flippers or they are of marginal advantage. The hippopotamus is a good modern example of a largely aquatic animal that has no aquatic adaptations to its limbs.
I come back to a long neck has severe physiological problems and must have evolved for compelling reasons - a need to reach a food source that the dino could not move to - a restriction that could not possibly apply to an animal that could move on land. Ergo the dinos could not leave the water.
Re the plesiosaurs, evolution has lots of examples of similar form resulting from different function. Its long neck is no more relevant to the argument than is the giraffes.
#20
Phil, it is not that the artist just decided that the neck was upright. It is a reconstruction based on the shapes of the vertebrae. In contrast, when you look at vertebrae of diplodocus and titanosaurus, they vertebrae were shaped in a way that if they lifted their head above the back spine, the vertebrae would simply lock. That is why I said it was likely that they moved their head horizontally.
Will dig it up for ya, but may take a bit of time. Deadline looming up so I have to behave and do some work, or my butter would be in peril. Bread I can bake myself. ;-)
#24
Biggest dinosaurs had long necks for different reasons than the giraffes. Giraffes have long necks to get to the food at the top of the trees where they have less competition for tasty leaves. Sauropods gotta keep eating, they can't be relying on the top of a few trees. They have long necks so they can eat everything in a much larger radius.
Keeps a lot of fuel to keep such a beast fed. Any serious change in climate that might reduce that food source would reduce the population quick as the big predators would hop on the slowest ones and shred them. It wouldn't be long before the numbers were unsustainable and once the sauropods go the carnivores have nothing to eat and they fall as well.
Not talking days or weeks here but centuries or more. There is also no reason to believe there wasn't a plague or two that thinned the herd during all that time as well. An ill-timed plague could really tip things.
#25
You mean that at the present time they are authorities and get funding, while I don't.
No. I mean that they have to use physics to explain their theories, and have to run those theories past a whole bunch of other people who use physics to punch holes in the theories.
Halton Arp: His work's been pretty well demolished by peer review: "it has been shown that Arp's bridges are almost certainly nothing more than either photographic artifacts or statistical anomalies"
Hoyle: Last holdout on the Big Bang. Crank when it comes to evolution.
They may make more sense, but they're wrong.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 11:19 Comments ||
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#26
it has been shown that Arp's bridges are almost certainly nothing more than either photographic artifacts or statistical anomalies
"Almost certainly". That's peachy. (We can't say just "certainly", what if it turns out to be right at some time?).
Which one is it--photo artifacts or stats anomaly? Can't they make up their mind?
Statistical anomaly.... meaning that if that shows on several pictures from different observatories and apparently something is there, then in the grand sheme of things it must be a statistical anomaly because it simply can't be.
#27
Re Big Bang... The hypothesis is another metaphysical "creationist theory" for which the only difference with the usual "creationist theory" claiming that universe started 4000 B.C. is by changing the number 4000 B.C. by 15 billion years.
There is new research data which has turned up possibily the best theory to date.
Scientists have unearthed a massive specimen on the coast of California. The reasearch team nicked named it 'Barry', seems as if 'Barry' consumed large quanitys of Balco nutrients.
More study is needed but to date the Pacific Coast team believes Barry's freak size is due to diet alone and not changes in gravity.
Posted by: I know ||
05/11/2005 12:27 Comments ||
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#29
Are you sure they did not nicknamed it "Barney"?
Feeding on Balco nutrients? Very advanced type then. And a Californian to boot, health conscious! ;-)
Posted by: too true ||
05/11/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#31
Hey, I took Geology for Idiots (not the actual name of the course) from Dewey McLean at Virginia Tech circa 1985! He was a good lecturer, but a bit of an eccentric because he kept coming up with pretexts for mentioning his "the dinosaurs were killed by mantle degassification" theory. He's not at all out of the mainstream, though, and he's published some well-received stuff in his time.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/11/2005 13:25 Comments ||
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#32
I for one intend to get rich during the coming era of low gravity.
#33
As I recall, dinosaur species had been dying off throughout the era prior to that asteroid hit. Contrary to the scientist quoted in the article, I had always understood that the climate had cooled a bit, and new types of plants appeared, which the dinosaurs weren't as easily capable of digesting. The meteor was just the final straw in a fragile situation.
As for dinosaur size, would the air density make a difference? During the height of dinosaurea, the humidity was generally quite high -- certainly able to support larger flying creatures, so would it be able to support larger walking creatures as well?
And finally, not all selection is the result of physical environment. Some traits, like large horns, the fancy tail of the peacock, or voluptous breasts on the female homo sapian, (are you done snickering yet?) are the result of innate sexual preference, resulting in preferential mating opportunity. It could be that the long neck of the brachiosaurus and other sauropod species was simply sexy.
#36
1) For the same temperature and pressure, humid air is less dense than dry air. This is because water molecules are lighter than nitrogen, yet carry the same kinetic energy.
2) I have a problem with variations in G. That is, if there were enough variation to have a measurable impact on life, it would also be enough to move Earth out of the habitable zone. Even if it increased slowly so that orbits remained roughly circular, an increase would pull the planets in.
#37
Ah, SSCs (Secondary Sexual Characterics) where would we be without them. However, they are always present in one sex and not in the other. Nice theory TW, but there is no indication of a long neck being a SSC, so I think we can discount it.
#38
Phil. Long neck is a SSC in certain African tribes. They streeetch it a much as they can, by creating an exoskeleton of metal rings. Malians and femalians. If, being a malian, you see a femalian with a short neck, you skip her--she is too ugly. If, being a femalian, you see malian with a short neck, he won't get laid. May not be a SSC, but perhaps a TSC. ;-)
#39
A characteristic present in both male and female is generally referred to as a fitness display and not an SSC, although I agree one could blur into the other. The example that comes to mind is aerobatic diplays in some birds of prey. While I can think of examples of SSCs that clearly have no survival value - the male Peacock's feathers (yes I know a female Peacock is called a Peahen), I can't think of a fitness display that doesn't clearly relate to a survival characteristic, which leads me back to 'what purpose did the long neck serve?'.
#40
Dishman, everyone would have a problem with it, but perhaps there is also a repulsive force/agent.
Just an analogy... Grab an ebonite rod and a cat. Yea, you remember that experiment from physics class! Granted, to overcome gravity, it would take a lot of cats... But here ya go, a force that is polarised and attracts and repels.
I am not saying that there are gravitons and antigravitons. But I've never seen the curvature of the spacetime either. It may have some degree of elasticity--you push against, and it will push you back. Or maybe the cats are really the answer. The EM force may be more relevant in our universe than we think it is.
#42
I can't think of a fitness display that doesn't clearly relate to a survival characteristic
And I can't think of a survival characteristic that doesn't clearly relate to a fitness display.
Darwinian Fitness Def: The relative reproductive success of a genotype as measured by survival.
Darwinian Survival Def: The survival of only those organisms best able (fittest) to obtain and utilize resources.
That is cuz I love circles. They are the the ultimate, most sublime form. ;-)
A few snippets from the article.
Twenty years ago, a political philosopher named James Flynn uncovered a curious fact. Americans—at least, as measured by I.Q. tests—were getting smarter. This fact had been obscured for years, because the people who give I.Q. tests continually recalibrate the scoring system to keep the average at 100. But if you took out the recalibration, Flynn found, I.Q. scores showed a steady upward trajectory, rising by about three points per decade, which means that a person whose I.Q. placed him in the top ten per cent of the American population in 1920 would today fall in the bottom third. Some of that effect, no doubt, is a simple by-product of economic progress: in the surge of prosperity during the middle part of the last century, people in the West became better fed, better educated, and more familiar with things like I.Q. tests. But, even as that wave of change has subsided, test scores have continued to rise—not just in America but all over the developed world. What's more, the increases have not been confined to children who go to enriched day-care centers and private schools. The middle part of the curve—the people who have supposedly been suffering from a deteriorating public-school system and a steady diet of lowest-common-denominator television and mindless pop music—has increased just as much. What on earth is happening? In the wonderfully entertaining "Everything Bad Is Good for You" (Riverhead; $23.95), Steven Johnson proposes that what is making us smarter is precisely what we thought was making us dumber: popular culture....
Continued on Page 49
#1
multi-player gaming in realtime over the internet (SOCOM US NAVY SEALS 2, etc.) will provide the most capable trained military America has ever seen....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/11/2005 12:25 Comments ||
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#2
Or the most annoying pack of brats ever known to history.
(I liked SOCOM until it proved impossible to play online without some eight-year-old constantly screaming into the headset. When you have a team that TRIED to coordinate, the game's magic. The screaming brats made it a chore.
And shooting them just counts against your own team, dammit.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/11/2005 13:35 Comments ||
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#3
Yup. "Lancelot Link" made me what I am today... :))
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.
Saudi Arabia has taken all precautions to prevent the polio virus from entering the country following the outbreak of a major epidemic in neighboring Yemen. "We are aware of the situation in Yemen and have taken all the necessary precautions to prevent the virus from crossing into our borders especially the southern regions closer to Yemen," said Dr. Khaled Merghalani, director general of health awareness and media at the Ministry of Health. "We have launched a major awareness and immunization campaign and we have not reported any new cases since last December," Dr. Merghalani told Arab News. "The worry has always been locally transmitted cases and there are none here; the three cases reported last year were imported," he explained.
George Bush was, as usual, one of the first to try to spoil the party, mentioning the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after the Second World War before he even stepped foot in Russia and this spoilsport attitude, hanging a grey cloud over the anniversary celebrations, has been copied by western press sources.
Taiwan says it has detained 17 military officers and civilians suspected of passing military secrets to China. They include an army major working in the defence ministry reported to be responsible for collecting intelligence about China's People's Liberation Army. Taiwan says the alleged spy ring was discovered by accident during investigations into credit card fraud. 
It has become a space-based myth. The Great Wall of China, frequently billed as the only man-made object visible from space, generally isn't, at least to the unaided eye in low Earth orbit. It certainly isn't visible from the Moon. You can, though, see a lot of other results of human activity. The visible wall theory was shaken after China's own astronaut, Yang Liwei, said he couldn't see the historic structure. There was even talk about rewriting textbooks that espouse the theory, a formidable task in the Earth's most populous nation.
Australian will fund a tsunami warning centre aimed at preventing a repeat of the December 26 catastrophe that killed about 217,000 people on Indian Ocean coastlines, Treasurer Peter Costello said Tuesday. Costello said the system, which would upgrade the existing sea level gauge and seismic network, would warn people in coastal areas of incoming tsunami. The government would spend 68.9 million dollars (53.3 million US) in the next four years establishing the system, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said. "It will be one of the first Indian Ocean regional warning systems and will join the planned network of national systems which collectively will form the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System," they said in a statement. "Australia is surrounded by 8,000 kilometres of active tectonic plate boundary capable of generating tsunamis with the potential to reach our coastline within two to four hours. One-third of the earthquakes worldwide occur along these boundaries." Australian will also provide technical assistance to improve systems in Indian and Pacific Ocean nations, they said.
The Indonesian official in charge of rebuilding tsunami-hit Aceh province says he is shocked at how little has been done for the survivors, and claims virtually no money has been received for reconstruction. 
Silicon Valley progressives, a major labor union and a centrist Democratic organization have joined forces to fund a startup think tank that focuses on politics, not policy. The New Politics Institute (NPI), unlike conventional think tanks that churn out white papers and policy briefs, will work to counter "[White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl] Rove and [RNC Chairman Ken] Mehlman on the other side," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network but now known just by its initials. NPI will be funded by venture capitalist Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, as well as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to the tune of $1.5 million to $2 million annually, and will be under the umbrella of NDN. The union will provide "considerable resources," NDN spokesman Guillermo Meneses said.
