#2
It is highly unlikely life will exist on Earth by the time this happens.
I once listened to a radio show in which just the known ways in which Earth could be sterilized were read off in the background, dozens of things, while the host was having a conversation in the foreground. It was timed so that you could hear the brief description of each event.
In turn, these are just a fraction of the events that could *mostly* sterilize the Earth, but from which life could recover, if at a much more primitive state. Events like this are shown to have happened several times in Earth's history.
So I wouldn't be too worried about how it will indeed be the sun that finally destroys the lifeless hunk of rock in the far future.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2008 18:32 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Why, oh why, MADONNA, does GUNS-N-ROSES,
"PIRATES", and the BATTLESHIP OKLAHOMA have to walk to the ARCTIC to get seeds. ala the so-called DOOMSDAY SEED VAULT.
DSV > better late than never. Broadly speaking, is a good idea save for fact its DOOMSDAYS, and VAULTS, events in the plural, not the singular. Humanity needs seeds, including GM types, that can survive severe enviro conditions, poor to non-existent soils = arable lands, and in differentiated world regions. NOT ONLY SEEDS BUT ALSO TECHNOLOGIES, ETC. - WORLD NEEDS VAULTS, NOT VAULT.
* Year 2012 - "Quake felt/heard around the World"
* A large comet will strike the Earth and knock it/displace it from orbit. NO, 'TIS NOT SO-CALLED "PLANET X".
* RUSSO-CHINESE "WAR IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT DESIRED" ANTI-US WAR, formerly 2014-2018 +/-, now 2012-2015 as per RUSSIA vv a RUSS MIL ANALYST???
* Year 2030 - MOON/LUNAR EXPLOSIONS observed from earth. COMET APOPHIS???
* GLOBAL COOLING = NEW ICE AGE.
* GLOBAL "MINI-ICE AGE" versus SOLAR EXPANSION???
* Lest we fergit, DAY AFTER TOMORROW, TIME MACHINE, etc. TO KILL THE MESSIAH IS TO KILL THE SUN.
GUAM by itself > "KAMALEN", + various locals have described personal dreams or visions of volcanoes, quakes, and tidal waves striking the island. WHY WILL A FUTURE GUAM SEE INDONESIAN-STYLE HOMES BUILT ABOVE WATER - LETS ALL GO "BACK TO THE FUTURE" OF THE RECENT INDONESIAN-SUMATRAN QUAKES, SHALL WE?
*IFF ONE BELIEVES THAT [lower form]ANIMALS + INSECTS CAN NATURALLY PRE-SENSE DANGER, WHY NOT [higher form]HUMANS AS PER SECULARISM???
PRAVDA > Underworld/Netherworld > "ITS LIKE WAVES". See GUNS-N-ROSES.
The intent of the DSV is for the cold ARCTIC air to help preserve the seeds - how are these seeds preserved iff there is no Arctic cold air becuz there's no longer a cold Arctic? NO ARCTIC = NO SEEDS, correct? WE DON'T WANT DEAD UNDERWATER-WALKING "PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN" TO GET PISSED OFF AND VISIT OWG-NWO NASA-JPL BECUZ ARCTIC SEEDS WENT BAD BEFORE THEIR EXPIRATION DATE, NOW DO WE!
#10
Just FYI, the DOOMSDAY SEED VAULT above is another old dream/vision of mine - NOT ONLY WILL THE COLD ICY FROZEN ARCTIC NOT BE, BUT HUMAN SURVIVORS WILL ALSO HAVE DIFFICULTIES GETTING INTO THE VAULT TO EVEN RETRIEVE THESE SEEDS [Govt too weak = unorganized]. A little pre-word for design snd construx engineers and architects, plus Pol-Mil Planners.
"PIRATES" > being awakened from the dead, find hell on earth and survivors needing help, walking 000's miles underwater or oer lands to get to an Arctic DSV wid not only bad seeds but can't even get into, then to walk 000's back to Roswell to file a formal OWG complaint in triplicate.
BRAD PITT as ACHILLES in "TROY" > HHHEEEECCTTTORRR....HHHHEEEECCTTTTOOORRRRRR!
Members of Washington's military and defense establishment are expressing trepidation about Sen. Barack Obama, as the Illinois senator comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination and leads in national polls to become commander in chief. But his backers, including a former Air Force chief of staff, say the rookie senator believes in a strong military, and with it, a larger Army and Marine Corps.
"Any military person who concludes he's a left-wing, hair-on-fire, Kumbaya child of the '60s has sadly misunderestimated him, to use George Bush's term," said retired Gen. Merrill McPeak.
Still, the mostly conservative retired officers, industry executives and current defense officials interviewed by The Washington Times cite Mr. Obama's lack of experience in national security. They also point to his determination to pull American combat units from Iraq at a time when a troop surge has reduced violence, damaged al Qaeda and allowed the Iraqi government to progress toward Sunni-Shia-Kurd reconciliation.
Continued on Page 49
#1
...If 'Red Mike' McPeak told me the sky was blue and the grass was green, I'd send a few trusted NCOs out to check first. He did more damage to the USAF in his brief time as COS than any enemy ever has.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/26/2008 11:17 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Defense industry executives worry that Mr. Obama will end six years of defense budget increases and, as he has repeatedly said on the campaign trail and in debates, tap into war and military funds to support his plan for universal health care. "We've got some trepidation. There is no track record," said an industry executive of the first-term senator. "He's an unknown quantity and that scares us a little bit."
There are people still around from the 70s who remember how the Donks gutted defense, eliminated meaningful training and maintenance saved but for a very small portion of the force, reduced the married ranks to food stamp recipients, operated one of the largest ghetto housing inventory in North America, and expected the military to operate one of the largest drug rehab programs for their dependent/victim constituency.
Can't be officially classified as torture since most major music radio stations ran it continuously in 1977. Since there no statutes of limitations for torture, the entertainment executives can still be prosecuted for doing that to the American public if found otherwise.
#12
Get Dave Barry's "Book of Bad Songs". Start at the beginning. Play each song in the book. Repeat endlessly. The prisoners will turn in their own mothers or favorite goats to make it stop.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
02/26/2008 18:51 Comments ||
Top||
This is a full transcript of HonestReporting's interview with Mideast analyst and media expert Tom Gross about the Mohammad al-Dura affair. The Mohammed al-Dura case dates back to September 2000 and many people say it actually sparked the second Palestinian intifada, which then lasted for several years.
A little boy was supposedly shot and France 2, a state-owned French TV channel, got hold of some film and not only broadcast it, they took the highly unusual step of making copies and handed video cassettes to rivals like CNN and the BBC. France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said that, first of all, the boy had died and secondly, that Israel had killed this boy. In fact, it later transpired that Charles Enderlin had not even been in Gaza that day he was in Ramallah, and a freelance Palestinian cameraman had given Charles Enderlin the film. Btw, before g(r)om gets into non-sequitur mode about french, let me point out that enderlin is a joooooooooo, and IIRC, he's an israeli binational, having done his military service in the IDF.
Almost immediately there were questions about who shot this boy. Later on, there were questions about whether the boy had actually been shot at all. The angle the boy appeared to be shot at did not come from the direction of where Israeli soldiers were stationed. How could Israeli soldiers be responsible for shooting this boy when they werent positioned in the line of fire, people asked?
Continued on Page 49
#2
Tomorrow should gives us the judges ruling after France 2 and Enderlin gave 18 of 27 minutes of footage.
Karsenty should also mention that Enderlin also acknowledged press participation in Arafat's fake blood donation after 9/11.
Still, I'm keeping my hopes in check regarding the judges ruling. If this trial were here in the US, I would expect the State Dept. to meddle because an adverse ruling would make their work for Middle East peace that much harder.
How can we help the Israelis and Palis towards peace if you keep calling bullshit on the Palestinian bullshit?
#3
Btw, before g(r)om gets into non-sequitur mode about french, let me point out that enderlin is a joooooooooo, and IIRC, he's an israeli binational, having done his military service in the IDF.
There were plenty of Jews who colloborated with Nazis. Doesn't mean we've forgiven the Nazis, and it doesn't mean we're going to forgive the current crop of Euro-rulers.
On Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei submitted a report on Iran's nuclear program to the IAEA's Board of Governors. It concluded that, barring "one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear programme" -- including a mysterious "green salt project" -- Iran's explanations of its suspicious nuclear activities "are consistent with [the IAEA's] findings [or at least] not inconsistent."
The report represents Mr. ElBaradei's best effort to whitewash Tehran's record. Earlier this month, on Iranian television, he made clear his purpose, announcing that he expected "the issue would be solved this year." And if doing so required that he do battle against the IAEA's technical experts, reverse previous conclusions about suspect programs, and allow designees of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an unprecedented role in crafting a "work plan" that would allow the regime to receive a cleaner bill of health from the IAEA -- so be it.
[Mohamed ElBaradei]
#3
Once again, the fox has been appointed to guard the chickens. I thought we were supposed to learn from history and experience. The only thing I ever learn is that the scoundrels in charge will bend any rule to break every law.
WASHINGTON-- Pakistani authorities' efforts to block access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube from Internet addresses in their own country effectively shut down the site altogether at the weekend, disrupting access to it by would-be visitors from all over the world.
The outage, which appears to have been the result of an error, blocked traffic to the site for about two hours Sunday, and experts say it demonstrates the fragile quality of the Internet, which is a network based largely on trust.
On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the country's telecom regulator, ordered Internet service providers in Pakistan to block access to a YouTube video -- a trailer for a controversial film about the koran being made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
Continued on Page 49
By JONATHAN SPYER In a speech last week broadcast at the Sayed al-Shohada Mosque in south Beirut, Hizbullah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah promised his supporters that Israel's 'disappearance' was an 'established fact.'
The Hizbullah leader railed from his unknown hiding place against the 'robbing and murdering Zionists', whom he accused of killing prominent Hizbullah official Imad Mughniyeh. Behind the Hizbullah leader's customary defiant rhetoric, however, his movement currently faces a series of dilemmas.
Firstly, the movement's attempt to bring down the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, launched in late 2006, has gone nowhere. A few Hizbullah supporters (and a lot of tents) remain at the movement's 'permanent demonstration' in downtown Beirut. But the Saniora government has stood firm.
The constitutional crisis over the presidency is dragging on. There is a growing sense that Hizbullah's only non-Shi'a ally, the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun (Christian Maronite), is becoming an irrelevancy, because of the failure of Aoun to emerge as a realistic presidential candidate.
The movement has spent the last decade and a half cultivating an image of itself as a 'patriotic' Lebanese and pan-Arab movement, rather than a sectarian, Iran-sponsored militia. This image is now looking increasingly frayed.
The result of this is to make Hizbullah's camp look more and more like a narrow, sectarian Shi'a force. The movement has spent the last decade and a half cultivating an image of itself as a 'patriotic' Lebanese and pan-Arab movement, rather than a sectarian, Iran-sponsored militia. This image is now looking increasingly frayed.
The recent clashes at Mar Mikhael in southern Beirut, in which Hizbullah and Amal demonstrators clashed with the army, has served to reinforce this sense. The Army remains one of the few national institutions generally trusted by the Lebanese.
The events since the killing of Imad Mughniyeh have further entrenched the sense of Hizbullah as a Shi'ite militia, operating on behalf of Iran. Mughniyeh was associated with the movement's first phase, in the 1980s, when it had openly engaged in attacks on US and French forces, and acts of international terror such as the hijacking of TWA flight 847. In subsequent years, Hizbullah leaders had denied any connection with Mughniyeh. This fiction had been faithfully re-produced by journalists and analysts close to the movement, and contributed to the carefully-cultivated sense Hizbullah wished to convey of a Lebanese and pan-Arab, rather than narrow Shi'ite force. The open embrace afforded Mughniyeh by the movement following his killing of course put paid to this image.
Most recently, it has been reported that Mughniyeh was involved in bringing members of the Iraqi Shi'ite Mahdi Army to the Lebanese Beqa'a valley, where they trained in paramilitary methods.
Revelations of Mughniyeh's activities on behalf of Hizbullah and Iran over the years have subsequently emerged in the Arabic media. Most recently, it has been reported that Mughniyeh was involved in bringing members of the Iraqi Shi'ite Mahdi Army to the Lebanese Beqa'a valley, where they trained in paramilitary methods.
Mughniyeh is also reported to have been involved with a Kuwaiti Shi'a opposition group, the 'Tharallah' organization. This activity was conducted in cooperation with the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
As Nasrallah swears revenge on Israel from his place of hiding, meanwhile, there is growing evidence of the war-weariness of ordinary Shi'ite Lebanese. Many inhabitants of southern Lebanon have not yet recovered from the damage inflicted by Israel in the Second Lebanon War. A year and a half after the war, the destruction it wrought is still very apparent in the border towns of the south. A section of Maroun a Ras, for example, remains in rubble and uninhabited. Shi'ite civilians interviewed recently by Agence France Presse sounded far from enthusiastic at Nasrallah's latest speeches. One border villager asked reporters "Why must we pay the price every four years or so," adding that "They should leave us to live in peace, wars are no longer acceptable."
Another said "That war took us 100 years back. It's enough."
So Hizbullah currently faces growing political isolation in Lebanon, an increasing sense of the return of the movement's original image as a Shi'a agent of Iran, and a populace weary of war and longing for a chance to return to normality.
Nasrallah may well conclude that the quickest way to escape isolation, once again re-brand the movement as the defender of Lebanese and Arabs, and re-galvanise its core supporters would be to seek another round of fighting against Israel. Certainly, all estimates indicate that while the rubble may remain in the border towns, the movement has successfully recuperated the losses in arms and equipment sustained in the 2006 war. The killing of Mughniyeh makes some form of retaliation inevitable.
But here the Hizbullah leadership faces the final item in the list of dilemmas. In 2006, the movement encountered an Israeli government and military caught off guard, confused and under-prepared. If pulled once again into confrontation, Israel will be concerned above all to commit all necessary force to reversing the ambiguous, troubling result of July-August 2006. The Hizbullah leader and his backers in Teheran will no doubt be weighing the odds and their options carefully in the weeks and months to come.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, IDC Herzliya.
This article starring:
Free Patriotic Movement
Fuad Saniora
HASAN NASRALLAH
Hizbullah
IMAD MUGHNIYEH
Hizbullah
Michel Aoun
Hizbullah
Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Tharallah
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
Maybe if he no longer existed, he wouldn't have these dilemma's.
Let's hope people are working on a solution to relieve him of these existential burdens.
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.
WASHINGTON-- Pakistani authorities' efforts to block access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube from Internet addresses in their own country effectively shut down the site altogether at the weekend, disrupting access to it by would-be visitors from all over the world.
In a speech last week broadcast at the Sayed al-Shohada Mosque in south Beirut, 
