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| 2004/3/11-12 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:12618 Activity:nil |
3/11 Will the End of Oil Mean the End of America?
http://csua.org/u/6eb
\_ My question is, when will american companies/government actually
start putting money into R&D again. I heard an imbalanced metaphor
the other day: "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of
stones" with the corrolary that we won't stop using oil because we
run out. I think, there are changes in the approach to the market
that make this comparison ring false. There is no market pressure
to actually make a shift (i.e. competition -- warring tribes and
the need for better tools/weapons). We _will_ have a problem
sometime, and it's imprudent not to invest in research. Hell, look
at Ford licensing Toyota hybrid tech. We've gotten lazy, research-
wise. --scotsman
\_ Drilling and burning oil is the easiest and cheapest way of using
energy on a grand scale right now. When that runs out, we will
have to switch to something else. However, since it is such a
huge part of the overall energy picture, the costs/pain
associated with switching may be unbearable. And don't bring up
the whale oil argument -- at that time industrial production and
world population was a fraction of what it is today.
\_ My question is, will the fact that "The sky is falling"
eco-nuts have been completely wrong on every single prediction
they've ever made ever stop anyone from listening to them?
\_ How about the fact that the "eco-nuts" writing this stuff are
now petroleum scientists?
\_ google "world fish population"
\_ More nuts: http://csua.org/u/6ea
\_ You know, the Earth has been getting hotter the past 100 years...
\_ So has yermom.
\_ obObligatory.
\_ You know, the global tempeture has been fluctuating for
umpteen billion years. Not to meantion, in the 70's
the prediction was "Global Cooling!" "New ice age!" Heck
that was the prediction in 1998 when the global temp
data came in and they suddely the realized the global
temp had actually fallen over the last 10 years....
\_ I love how the conservative wingnuts keep trotting out
one study from 30 years ago as "proof" that currently
accepted and peer-reviewed climate models are
inaccurate. And you know, the Earth probably doesn't
revolve around the Sun, because those scientists used to
say that it was the other way around! -tom
\_ I'd like to hear your response to this:
Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data
Base and Northern Hemisphere Average
Temperature Series
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
\_ My response is that you can find a scientist
to say anything, including that AIDS doesn't
exist and the Holocaust didn't happen. I am
not a climatologist and am not qualified to
evaluate the discrepancies between the two
papers: however, you yourself can read the
rebuttal by the original paper's authors.
This is what the peer review process is about.
It is a common tactic of those with an agenda
to publicize the papers of scientists on one
side of the debate, even when those papers
have been discredited or did not pass formal
review. And even if McIntyre's objection is
correct, his revision still shows a spike of
0.5 degrees since 1900. -tom
\_ If "formal review" and acceptance by the
"scientific community" were the be-all end-all
of debate then the planet would still be flat,
dragons would still be flying, mice would
still emerge fully grown from old rags and
rotted seeds and the sun would revolve around
the Earth.
\_ So basically you have no reply, you take
other's 'science' at face value when they
clearly have an agenda. It's not just one
scientist but hundreds if not thousands...
One can say CO2 levels have risen in the
20th century and maybe 0.5 a degree over
the century, most during the first half.
That is all there appears to be concensus
on. The rest is all rhetoric to raise
grant money.
\_ What is your reply to Mann's rebuttal?
Or should I just check the blogs on
http://freerepublic.com? -tom
\_ If you read their initial response
from Oct. 29 2003 Mann's behavior
is very suspicious:
link:csua.org/u/6eh
Later, they also give a more detailed
description of the same run-around.
Don't you agree that for such an important
study the data sets / programs
should be readily accessible
for verification?
\_ no, it's tom. you're wasting
your time. there's no point in
discussing any of his hot button
issues or really much of anything
else with him. he's always right
you're always wrong and you get
a dose of childish insults to go
with it. please just ignore him.
he doesn't even see that he's the
ultimate troll because it comes
naturally to him, he isn't doing
it for amusement.
\_ it worked on you, twink
\_ It's just tom. Don't take it so
seriously. No one else does.
\_ Bad argument. Oil is not a milkshake. It doesn't "suddenly" end,
it just gets more and more expensive to extract. That higher price
will force changes to societal change to energy policy.
\_ But if production starts to decline and demand is going up up
up (China, India, Brazil) WTF is going to happen to our totally
oil-centric economy?
\_ It's called nuclear power. Ever heard of it? We should've been
using it and continually refining process to use it but the
eco-terrorists were very successful in banning it.
\_ It takes shitloads of oil to mine and refine fuel
for nuclear power plants. How are you going to run your
Hummer on Plutonium? It takes years and years to build a
nuclear power plant, we would have to start building
dozens and dozens of them years ago to make a dent in
electricity production. Only very large ships can be
nuclear.
\_ You put a battery in it.
\_ Actually you just use the energy to either put in a
battery or produce e.g. hydrogen. But you are left with
a bunch of extremely toxic shit that no one knows what
to do with, plus other dangers. Too much.
\_ There's not very much Uranium in the world, buddy.
\_ says who? Breeder reactors are already leaving us with
way too much toxic crap to deal with.
\_ According to a wikipedia article: "Uranium is
currently (2004) US$52/Kg ($26/lb), and has an energy
density per unit of mass of about a million times that
of oil. No shortage exists or is anticipated. If
land-based reserves are exhausted, seawater has enough
uranium to power the world's current industrial
civilization until the sun becomes a red giant. The
Japanese have an active project to extract Uranium
from seawater, to reduce their dependence on imports
for energy.
\_ holy shit! stop bringing numbers and facts here!
\_ We will use Unobtainium!
\_ No, we'll use windships. http://www.braunforpresident.us
\_ Hey, that's a cool site!
\_ I think people should read his position papers. He
makes a lot of logical points.
\_ My favorite: "a shop vacuum is also a highly
effective method of eliminating the pests."
[insects] |
| 7/10 |
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| csua.org/u/6eb -> www.commondreams.org/views04/0301-12.htm In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig tells the story of a South American Indian tribe that has devised an ingenious monkey trap. The Indians cut off the small end of a coconut and stuff it with sweetmeats and rice. Soon, a monkey smells the treats inside and comes to see what it is. It can just barely get its hand into the coconut but, stuffed with booty, it cannot pull the hand back out. Even as the Indians approach, the monkey screams in horror, not only in fear of its captors, but equally as much, one imagines, in recognition of the tragedy of its own lethal but still unalterable greed. Pirsig uses the story to illustrate the problem of value rigidity. The monkey cannot properly evaluate the relative worth of a handful of food compared to its life. It chooses wrongly, catastrophically so, dooming itself by its own short-term fixation on a relatively paltry pleasure. America has its own hand in a coconut, one that may doom it just as surely as the monkey. That coconut is its dependence on cheap oil in a world where oil will soon come to an end. The choice we face whether to let the food go or hold onto it is whether to wean ourselves off of oilto quickly evolve a new economy and a new basis for civilizationor to continue to secure stable supplies from the rest of the world by force. As with Pirsigs monkey, the alternative consequences of each choice could not be more dramatic. Weaning ourselves off of cheap oil, while not easy, will help ensure the vitality of the American economy and the survival of its political system. Choosing the route of force will almost certainly destroy the economy and doom Americas short experiment in democracy. To date, we have chosen the second alternative: to secure oil by force. They include the titanic US budget and trade deficits funding a gargantuan, globally-deployed military and the Patriot Act and its starkly anti-democratic rescissions of civil liberties. There is little time left to change this choice before its consequences become irreversible. In the year 2000, global production stood at 76 Million Barrels per Day MBD. But additions to proven reserves have virtually stopped and it is clear that pumping at present rates is unsustainable. Estimates of the date of peak global production vary with some experts saying it already may have occurred as early as the year 2000. New Scientist magazine recently placed the year of peak production in 2004. Virtually all experts believe it will almost certainly occur before the end of this decade. Imagine a production curve that rises slowly over 145 yearsthe time since oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859. Over this time, the entire world shifted to oil as the foundation of industrial civilization. It invested over one hundreds trillion dollars in a physical infrastructure and an economic system run entirely on oil. But oil production is now at its peak and the right hand side of the curve is a virtual drop off. Known reserves are being drawn down at 4 times the rate of new discoveries. The reason for the drop off is that not only have all the big discoveries already been made, the rate of consumption is increasing dramatically. Increases are now driven by massive developing countriesChina, India, Brazilgrowing and emulating first or at least second world consumption standards. This is the formula for global oil depletion within the next few decades. With barely 4 of the worlds population, the US consumes 26 of the worlds energy. It made up the difference by importing 10 MBD, or 53 of its needs. By 2020, the US Department of Energy forecasts domestic demand will grow to 25 MBD but production will be down to 7 MBD. The daily shortfall of 18 MBD or 72 of needs, will all need to be imported. Perhaps it goes without saying but it deserves repeating anyway: oil is the sine qua non of industrial civilizationthe one thing without which such civilization cannot exist. So do virtually all other commodities and critical processes: airlines, chemicals, plastics, medicines, agriculture, heating, etc. Almost all of the increase in world food productivity over the past 50 years is attributable to increases in the use of oil-derived additives: pesticides; And under a Grab the Oil strategy, militarization of US society will only deepen. The reason is that a very major portion of the worlds oil is, by accident of geology, in the hands of states hostile to the US. Fully 60 percent of the worlds proven reserves of oil are in the Persian Gulf. They lie beneath Muslim countries undergoing a religious revolution that wants to return the industrial world to a pre-modern order governed by a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. Saudi Arabia alone controls 25 of all the worlds oil, more than that of North America, South America, Europe and Africa combined. Kuwait, Iran and Iraq, each control approximately 10 of the worlds oil. Another 15 of the worlds oil lies in the Caspian Sea region, also a dominantly Muslim region. It includes a group of post-Soviet, satellite and buffer states that lack any semblance of legal or market systems. They are extraordinarily corrupt, really just Gangster Thugocracies masquerading as countries. Both Russia and China consider this region part of their sphere of strategic influence portending significant clashes for the US over coming decades. As long as the US chooses the Grab the Oil alternative, the implications for national policy are inescapable. This is why the US operates some 700 military bases around the world and spends over half a trillion dollars per year on military affairs, more than all the rest of the worldits allies includedcombined. This is why the Defense Departments latest Quadrennial Review stated, The US must retain the capability to send well-armed and logistically supported forces to critical points around the globe, even in the face of enemy opposition. This is why Pentagon brass say internally that current force levels are inadequate to the strategic challenges they face and that they will have to re-instate the draft after the 2004 elections. But the provocation occasioned by grabbing the oil, especially from nations ideologically hostile to the US, means that military attacks on the US and the recourse to military responses will only intensify until the US is embroiled in unending global conflict. This is the perverse genius of the Grab the Oil strategy: it comes with its own built-in escalation, its own justification for ever more militarizationwithout limit. It will blithely consume the entire US economy, the entire society, without being sated. In his first released tape after 9/11, Osama bin Laden stated that he carried out the attacks for three reasons: 1 to drive US military forces from Saudi Arabia, the most sacred place of Islam; It is the fever of War, of course, that becomes the all-purpose justification for the rollback of civil liberties. Lincoln used the Civil War to justify the suspension of habeas corpus. Roosevelt used the cover of World War II to inter hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans. And now Bush is using the self-ratcheting War on Terror to effect even more sweeping, perhaps permanent rescissions of civil liberties. Under the Patriot Act, a person can be arrested without probable cause, held indefinitely without being charged, tried without a lawyer or a jury, sentenced without the opportunity to appeal, and put to deathall without notification ofanybody. This is simply a Soviet Gulag and it has been rationalized by the hysterical over-hyping of the War on Terror. The fact that it is not yet widespread does not diminish the more important fact that it has been put in place precisely in anticipation of such procedures needing to be being carried out on a mass scale in the future. The broader implications of the Patriot Acts go far beyond the abusive treatment of criminals or terrorists. Their portent can be glimpsed in the language used to justify them. When Attorney General John Ashcroft testified on behalf of the Act, he stated, those who oppose us are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Aid and comfort to the enemy are the words used in the Constitution to defin... |
| csua.org/u/6ea -> www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/05/60minutes/printable598218.shtml They are people who place their faith, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, above everything else in their lives and hope to spread that Gospel to the world. An estimated 70 million Americans call themselves evangelicals, and their beliefs have already reshaped American politics. Bush came from their ranks, and now those beliefs are beginning to reshape the culture as well - thanks to a group of best-selling novels known as the Left Behind series. If you want to understand the people behind this political and cultural shift, the place to begin is in church. I dont think the media has really caught on to whats been going on in the last 30 years or so in America. An enormous number of people have come to faith in Christ and consider themselves evangelical Christians. And these are people that are buying, reading and distributing our books, says Rev. LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have written a series of runaway bestsellers known as the Left Behind novels. All together, there are 40 million books in print, and another 17 million in spin-offs. Plus, The Kids series, audio books and comic books are worth $100 million in annual revenue. The books give a graphic version of the New Testament prophesy of the end of the world, happening in our time, in which only the righteous are saved. Its a triumphant tale - unmistakably Christian, undeniably American. I think if you cut us, Jerry and I would bleed red, white and blue, says LaHaye. We believe that God has raised up America to be a tool in these last days, to get the Gospel to the innermost parts of the earth. The Left Behind sagas begin with a mysterious event: one third of the passengers on a transatlantic flight suddenly disappear, leaving only their clothes behind. Its an event that evangelicals call the Rapture, where every true-believing Christian, and every child under the age of 12, vanishes in an instant to a better place. Bang, says Thomas Ice, who might be called a professor emeritus of the Rapture. He runs the Pre-Tribulation Research Center out of his garage in a Dallas suburb. Its a one-man think-tank funded by LaHaye and dedicated to preparation for the last days on earth. There is a lot of debate over where artificial body parts, and contact lenses, and clothes would be Left Behind or not. There are gonna be many Southern Baptists, for example, or many Presbyterians, or many Catholics, or people who are a part of Christendom, says Ice. But if they havent personally trusted Jesus Christ as their savior, even if they a lifelong member of a church, you know, then they will be damned. Todd Wagner tells his flock that the books may be fiction, but they are based on hard facts. Safer asked Wagner who would be Left Behind: What would be my fate? Folks like yourself that are gonna be here, are gonna go through all the events that Christ outlined in Mark:13 and Matthew:24 - some of which are quite horrific, says Wagner. For evangelicals, the Rapture and what follows are factual history, history of the future, prophecy. Its not a minority view, its not a group of folks that are niched somewhere over there. Its such a concrete reality that the publishers of the Left Behind books can even market a videotape for those who dont make the celestial cut. People who believe in the Rapture believe the Bible - word for literal word. The Bible says what it means, and means what it says, says Don McWhinney, an oil executive from Dallas. And for these readers, the characters in these novels are quite real. Or I begin to reject it, then it begins to work on my faith in the wrong direction It would lead to doubt. All four evangelical Christians, however, agree that they feel confident that they wont be Left Behind. Peter Gomes, a Baptist theologian at Harvard University, is one of this countrys preeminent Christian thinkers. He says that the chief source for such belief is a highly controversial book of the Bible: Revelation. One of the things we know about this book is that it is written in a period of intense persecution of the church. And so the theme that runs through it is what happens to the faithful if they stand up for their faith, says Gomes. But in the long run, they will triumph, and those who persecute them will be destroyed. Gomes believes that this provides some kind of solace and encouragement to believers in todays society: The events of September 11 gave an even greater urgency to believers, and some non-believers. And that fear can lead many people to Christ, says LaHaye, who takes that message around the country. When Jesus shouts from heaven, there are going to be millions of people taken to heaven, and there will be millions of people who are Left Behind. I realize that our message is inherently offensive and divisive, especially in this new age of tolerance. And Gomes says that belief goes well beyond the pews of churches and the aisles of bookstores. And now in the fullness of time, they have come into possession of what they felt was once rightfully theirs, says Gomes. And so, with the White House, and Tom DeLay, and in the House of Representatives, the attorney general talk radio, the conservative Fox News, all that sort of thing, these are parts of the righteous army that has finally come into its own. Gary Bauer, who once competed with George Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, now runs a Washington organization that lobbies for evangelical Christian issues. He remembers being at the Iowa Republican Presidential debate, when all candidates were asked which political philosopher they most identified with. When Jimmy Carter began to support abortion or other things, then that became a jarring inconsistency for many of these voters, says Bauer. With the president, what he says he believes as a matter of faith also seems to be reflected in many of the policies in his plan to distribute social services through religious institutions. Other examples include his rejection on gay marriage, his stand on stem cell research views that fit perfectly into the agenda of the most powerful bloc in the Republican party. But Im just saying statistically, people that attend church frequently, at least once a week or more - two thirds of them vote Republican, says Bauer. Those voters that say they seldom if ever attend religious services, two thirds of them vote Democratic. For evangelicals, the war in Iraq is seen not merely as a war against terror. William Boykin, a deputy undersecretary of defense, and an evangelical, made headlines when he publicly described the war on terror as a religious mission. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the Bush administration, and its cozy relationship with church and state. But in a country that is home to millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Christians who believe otherwise, such exclusivity can take on the appearance of extremism, especially when you add politics and patriotism to the gospels. The trouble with evangelicalism of a certain stripe in America is that its been so long from power that it is seduced by power. And once it gets it, it is very hard to distinguish secular power from spiritual power, says Gomes. These are heady times for evangelicals: an election year, with one of their own in the White House, the final book in the Left Behind series to be published in March, and, of course, always the chance, even hope, of that greatest of events, the Rapture. Not everybody who thinks they know whats going to happen knows, says Gomes. So, Im willing to take my chances, not with the evangelicals, but with the Lord. |
| www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html -> www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/trc.html We then apply MBH98 methodology to the construction of a Northern Hemisphere average temperature index for the 1400-1980 period, using corrected and updated source data. The major finding is that the values in the early 15 th century exceed any values in the 20 th century. UPDATE: March 19, 2004 In response to a couple of requests for an update, here is a quick one. A few papers are undergoing review at some journals, including Steves and my contributions, and there is not a dull page to be found in any of them. McIntyre has been winning squash tournaments and I have started bagpiping lessons . UPDATE: January 22, 2004 Despite the long quiet on this page, the past 7 weeks have been very busy for us. A number of people have written to ask about progress on Part II, while others have interpreted the 7 week gap as a sign that maybe we ran out of material. No, there is a lot of material, and the challenge has been to sift through it and put it into coherent form. There are now some new journals involved in handling material that arose from our paper, and we have held back releasing any of the Part II contents connected to these review processes. Professor Manns response focuses on the role of 3 out of 22 key indicators available in the 15th century portion of the data base. His calculations show that without these series the MBH98 results would look like ours, and his assertion is that we improperly omitted the series in question. Our response will establish that the series in question are in fact inadmissible. Of course the discovery that the 1998 conclusions rest so sensitively on only 3 series already points to the lack of robustness of this famous graph. UPDATE: December 1 We are continuing to work on Part II of our response, which has required a detailed examination of Professor Manns ftp site, hence the delay. We also traveled to Washington DC on November 18, to present a briefing on Capitol Hill, sponsored by the Marshall Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, on our work to date. Some interested experts at a European climate lab had privately criticized us for what they regarded as an insufficiently wide circle of reviewers for the E&E paper. We offered to them that they could review Part II before its release, on the condition that if they found errors they could hold us to public account to rectify them, but if the document checks out they would have to issue a statement saying so. After considering it for a week they declined the offer, saying they dont have time to do the review, and would prefer to follow the debates progress in journals. UPDATE: November 11 Our response to the replies thus far from Professor Mann and his colleagues will be presented in three parts. Our overarching goal is to ascertain exactly what data and what computational steps were used by MBH98, so as to focus in as quickly as possible on the real sources of differences between our results. But along the way there are a few new isses that must also be dealt with. Part 1, available here in PDF format responds to the claim that the data we audited was prepared in April 2003 in response to McIntyres request to Mann, and that we ought to have gone to Professor Manns ftp site instead. We show that the data file we were sent was in existence long before April 2003 and had we gone to the ftp site we would have found it contains the same data anyway. This document, by establishing the practical equivalence between Professor Manns ftp site and the data file we were sent, returns our focus to the basic question of data quality and sets the stage for the subsequent parts in which we will extend our existing critique. Part 2 will present a detailed examination of the contents of Professor Manns FTP site, in light of the claim that it is the official repository for the MBH98 data. This document has been sent to some colleagues for their comments and will be made available shortly thereafter. Part 3, now under way, will seek to resolve the outstanding differences between our computational methods and those of MBH. Completion of this part will be contingent on our receiving the specific computer programs MBH used, and we are seeking this disclosure. McKitrick is going to an economics workshop in Manitoba for a couple of days, to discuss the question Does the possibility of climate change imply that we should wash our laundry in cold water? Professors Mann, Bradley and Hughes have revised their reply to our paper, see here . They have also corrected some errors in their goodness-of-fit calculations. Professors Mann, Bradley and Hughes have made a more detailed reply to our paper, available here in PDF . His reply and our response are available here in MSWord and here in PDF . It introduced the multiproxy method to the study of past climates, and produced what was purported to be a 600-year history of the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the basis for the claim by Environment Canada and many other governmental agencies that the Earth is warmer now than it has been for 600 years. A companion paper published a year later in Geophysical Research Letters extended the 600-year series back to 1000 and spliced a surface temperature record to 1998, producing the famous hockey stick graph of the NH climate. This graph figures prominently in the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has been reproduced many times. It was the basis for the claim in pamphlets mailed by the Government of Canada to Canadians in 2002 that said The 20 th Century was the warmest globally for the past 1,000 years. The pamphlets were sent to generate support for ratifying and implementing the Kyoto Protocol in Canada. In 2003, Steven McIntyre, a Toronto business man who specialized in mathematics at university, got interested in the process by which IPCC Reports were being put together and used for driving major policy decisions. Long experience in the mining industry, including close observation of the delinquent accounting that led to the Bre-X scandal, gave him a good nose for promotions based on unaudited claims. It also taught him that when big investments are at stake, due diligence requires relentless testing and independent verification of the data by all parties at every stage. Also, attention must be paid to potential conflicts of interestfor instance the author of a project feasibility study should not also be a major shareholder in the project. These are rigorous requirements in the private sector, yet in the case of the IPCC, chapter authors routinely promote their own research. This makes it even more important that there be external auditing of the reports foundation. The Mann hockey stick curve was given central prominence in the 2001 IPCC Report. If this is true, the Mann, Bradley and Hughes paper should have no problem passing a detailed audit. Since governments around the world including here in Canada are making some very expensive policy decisions based on uncritical acceptance of the IPCC Report, an independent review seemed in order, and indeed should be a mere formality. McIntyre obtained the underlying data set from Professor Michael Mann of the University of Virginia. Based on some apparent difficulties experienced by Manns associates in supplying the data set, he surmised that it was possible that no one had ever previously requested the data set and that it would be a worthwhile endeavour to try to replicate the famous graph. In the summer of 2003 he contacted Ross McKitrick , an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph and coauthor of Taken By Storm: the Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming , to discuss his findings to that point. Their paper has been published in the British journal Energy and Environment . We have created an audit trail so that third parties can verify these findings for themselves. This includes what we think is the first Internet posting of the original proxy data used in Mann et al 1998. To verify the collation errors resulting in duplication of 1980 entries in the data, one needs only inspect a few numbers. Weve created excerpts from the data ... |
| www.braunforpresident.us -> www.braunforpresident.us/ Net plan that will employ millions of Americans and supercharge the economy by making America energy independent of all fossil and nuclear fuels by 2010. Note the tugboat at the base of the Windship that is delivering the crew that will live and work in the submerged spherical hulls. The hulls will also contain the electrolytic hydrogen production systems that will make hydrogen from the seawater with the electricity generated by the mast of wind turbines. Because of all of the equipment that is located under the water, a vast sanctuary will be provided for the fish and other marine organisms that will otherwise be driven into extinction by 2010, if business and politics as usual is allowed to continue. |
| freerepublic.com -> www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse Republic Log In | Register News/Activism Latest | Search | Topics | Home | Help News/Activism Threads Threads | Messages Search (by title: enter all relevant words or partial title) Search Austrians Praise Schwarzenegger in US Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 9:28:13 PM PDT with 1 comment The Las Vegas Sun ^ | May 13, 2004 at 11:56:36 PDT | GEORGE JAHN GRAZ, Austria (AP) - America, nein. Arnie, ja! When Austrians vent about the United States, the key word nowadays is "no" to things American, with only a few exceptions - including praise of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie, that country has a real problem," says Robert Biber, echoing sentiments across Austria roused by images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. Outrage as KISS player mouths off on Muslims Posted by veronica On 05/13/2004 9:25:48 PM PDT with 3 comments Sydney Morning Herald ^ | May 14, 2004 KISS bass player Gene Simmons has caused an uproar among Australia's Muslim community by launching an attack on Islamic culture while in Melbourne. The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio - including comments which were labelled inaccurate. Cold Turkey Posted by Rennes Templar On 05/13/2004 9:23:01 PM PDT In These Times ^ | May 10, 2004 | Kurt Vonnegut Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace. But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of Americas becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. May, 2004 10amET | Fintan Dunne The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a conservative website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain his arrest by Iraqi police --a detention which fatally delayed his planned return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death. Nick Berg, 26 disappeared into incommunicado detention after his arrest by Iraqi police in March, 2004. He vanished again after his release 13 days later. Science & Space ^ | Thursday, May 13, 2004 Posted: 10:13 PM EDT (0213 GMT) | From Dave Santucci, CNN Firm is competing for the $10 million X Prize Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his firm Scaled Composites took a giant leap early Thursday toward becoming the first private company to send a person into space. Scaled Composites, funded by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen, set a new civilian altitude record of 40 miles in a craft called SpaceShipOne during a test flight above California's Mojave Desert. Turning Shame Into Outrage Posted by neverdem On 05/13/2004 9:18:08 PM PDT with 1 comment LA Times ^ | May 13, 2004 | Charles Paul Freund Charles Paul Freund is a senior editor at Reason magazine. It's a tough call whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the Jordanian militant who is reportedly responsible for the videotaped butchery of Nicholas Berg is more stupid than he is brutal, or whether he is a bigger monster than he is a fool. Zarqawi's own nauseating videotape makes the case for his indescribable brutality and may have inadvertently delivered his enemy from its own demoralization. Official Says War Budget to Exceed $50B Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 9:14:08 PM PDT with 3 comments Yahoo via AP ^ | Thu May 13, 6:29 PM ET | ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) will cost more than $50 billion next year, a top Defense Department official told Congress Thursday in the Bush administration's clearest description yet of the conflicts' price tags. Berg's Father Demands Answers From Bush (Free Republic mentioned) Posted by kristinn On 05/13/2004 9:13:32 PM PDT with 25 comments Duluth News Tribune ^ | Thursday, May 13, 2004 | Nicole Weisensee Egan Posted on Thu, May 13, 2004 Berg's father demands answers from Bush BY NICOLE WEISENSEE EGAN Knight Ridder Newspapers PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - The day he buried his son, Nick Berg's father angrily lashed out at President Bush - and said he had a question for him: "I would like to ask him if it's true that al-Qaeda offered to trade my son's life for another person," Michael Berg told a small group of reporters early Thursday morning outside his West Chester home. One Last Card to Play Posted by Russian Sage On 05/13/2004 9:10:54 PM PDT Claremont Review of Books ^ | Posted March 18, 2004 | By Peter W Schramm One Last Card to Play A review of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, by Allen C Guelzo. Since 1865, the new york state library has been the proud owner of the original Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Media Maelstrom Posted by hope On 05/13/2004 9:06:15 PM PDT with 3 comments News Max ^ | 5-11-04 | John L Perry Media MaelstromJohn L PerryTuesday, May 11, 2004 This presidential election is in peril of being swallowed in a perfect media storm, more terrifying than Edgar Allen Poes A Descent Into the Maelstrom. With the inexorable force of the novelists oerpowering whirlpool that funnels nearly every object in its clutches down, down, down into certain doom, the perfect storm of television is sucking American democracy into oblivion. The way things are headed, television mass communications with print media puppy-trotting alongside its ankles are what will determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Not the candidates. Bush Team to Rework Iraq Funding After Senate Balks Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 8:59:04 PM PDT with 7 comments Yahoo via AFP ^ | Thu May 13, 4:11 PM ET | Vicki Allen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials said they would rework a plan for a $25 billion reserve fund for Iraq (news - web sites) operations after Republican and Democratic senators on Thursday deplored it as an effort to get "a blank check" without congressional oversight. STRATFOR: Geopolitical Diary: Friday, May 14, 2004 Posted by Axion On 05/13/2004 8:57:27 PM PDT STRATFOR ^ | May 14, 2004 0305 GMT Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers went to Iraq on May 13. Three things are clear from this trip. First, the administration is committed to retaining Rumsfeld, or at least is committed to doing everything it can to salvage him. An open letter-- Berg dies while the Senate preens Posted by hatfieldmccoy On 05/13/2004 8:54:43 PM PDT with 16 comments vanity | 5-13-04 | hatfieldmccoy Senator Hagel, Senator Nelson, It has taken two days for me to have regained my composure to the point I could actually write you. You see, I've seen the unedited video of the Berg (an American) murder. Yes I watched the horrors of 9-11. I saw the Pearl (an American) murder video and the burning and gleeful dismemberment of the four security personnel (Americans). But the Berg video was staring straight into Hell. These things took their time. They used a dull knife and took 30 seconds to saw off this man's head. AM ET LONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper suspended the weekly column of Barbara Amiel-Black after its parent, Hollinger International, filed a lawsuit accusing her and her husband Conrad Black of looting the company. Martin Newland, the editor of Britain's top-selling broadsheet, "has decided to suspend the column until legal proceedings are completed," the paper said in a statement on Thursday. What Led Nick Berg to Iraq? Posted by dyno35 On 05/13/2004 8:48:10 PM PDT with 20 comments The Philadelphia Daily News ^ | May 13, 2004 | By William Bunch BERG'S JOURNEY SPARKED FBI PROBE AND OTHER STRANGE DETAILS HE WAS not like anyone else his friends from West Chester had ever known - an adventurous dreamer, a driven idealist, part philosopher and part inventor who was bored with college Record 26m divorce win 'a pyrrhic victory' (More Saudi kidnapping) Posted by Lan... |