Study: Polluted Air Harms Women's Hearts

What part of pollution and evolution is not yet understood?

"It's important because it points to the fact that environmental factors are related to heart disease and that pollution is something that we all have to be concerned about," said study author Dr. Joel Kaufman of the University of Washington.

Study: Polluted Air Harms Women's Hearts
BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2007
(CBS/AP) The fine grit in polluted air raises the risk of heart disease in older women much more powerfully than scientists realized, a big U.S.-funded study has found, raising questions of whether U.S. environmental standards are strict enough. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tightened its daily limit for these tiny specks, known as fine particulates, in September. But it left the average annual limit untouched, allowing a concentration of 15 millionths of a gram for every cubic meter of air. In the study of 65,893 women, the average exposure was 13 units, with two-thirds of the women falling under the national standard. But every increase of 10 units, starting at 0, raised the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease by about 75 percent. That is several times higher than in a study by the American Cancer Society. "There was a lot of evidence previously suggesting that the long-term standard should be lower, and this is adding one more study to that evidence," said Douglas Dockery, a pollution specialist at the Harvard School of Public Health. It has long been known that particulates can contribute to lung and heart disease, ...full text

Groups Say Scientists Pressured On Warming

Science no longer defines Reality? That don't make no lick of sense!! What's the new Freedom definition?

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger."
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Groups Say Scientists Pressured On Warming
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2007
(CBS/AP) Two private advocacy groups told a congressional hearing Tuesday that climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming. The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report. The questionnaire was sent by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private advocacy group. The report also was based on "firsthand experiences" described in interviews with the Government Accountability Project, which helps government whistleblowers, lawmakers were told. The Democratic chairman of the House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming." Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he and the top Republican on his oversight committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but repeatedly been rebuffed. ... full text

Bush pressure seen on climate experts

Lawmakers received survey results of federal scientists that showed 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming” or similar terms from communications about their work.The scientists also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.

Bush pressure seen on climate experts
Lawmakers get survey of scientists, half of whom report political pressure

MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 2:07 p.m. CT Jan 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Congress on Tuesday stepped up its pressure on President Bush’s global warming strategy, hearing allegations of new political pressure on government scientists to downplay the threat of global warming.
Lawmakers received survey results of federal scientists that showed 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming” or similar terms from communications about their work.
The scientists also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.
Bush in his recent State of the Union address acknowledged that climate change needs to be addressed, but he opposes mandatory caps on carbon emissions, arguing that industry through new technologies can deal with the problem at less cost.
The intense interest about climate change comes as ..full text

Climate Report: Global Warming Effects Could Be Seen in 10 Years

A Critical Year: U.N. Pushes for World Summit on Global Warming
Spurred by damning new reports and growing concerns about the effects of global warming, the United Nations wants to hold a summit on climate change in September.

Climate Report: Global Warming Effects Could Be Seen in 10 Years
Giant Mirrors to Deflect Sun Suggested as One Possible Solution
ABC Jan. 30, 2007 — - A major new report on global warming slated to be released Friday raises new fears that the earth's climate is changing faster than anyone thought possible.
Today, 500 of the world's top scientists are meeting behind closed doors to finish a landmark report on global warming, and the picture they paint is not pretty. They say changes in the climate could start happening within the next 10 years.
ABC News has obtained a preliminary draft of the upcoming report on climate change, which shows a grim outlook on the effects of global warming and emphasizes that scientists are more convinced than ever that humans are causing it.
"We're hoping that it will convince people, you know, that climate change is real," said Kenneth Denman, co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ....full text

The Long Road to Energy Independence

An interesting educational, promotional point - beyond 'no child left behind': You don't give a loaded gun to a two year old. "...and yet, by secrecy and silence, the death sentence was also sealed, as the new energy concepts beyond nuclear, required for evolutionary survival, were denied, deemed too dangerous to a population being 'dumbed' down - see Evolution Blog



NYT January 28, 2007 - The Basics
The Long Road to Energy Independence
By MATTHEW L. WALD
President Bush never used the phrase “energy independence” in his State of the Union address last week, and it is just as well. His program for cutting gasoline demand is ambitious in scope, but modest in effect, according to experts.
The reason is that the United States has fallen down a very deep well, and it’s hard to get out. Last year, the United States imported 60 percent of the oil it consumed. If, as Mr. Bush proposes, we cut gasoline consumption 20 percent by 2017 — about 2.1 million barrels a day — then the share of oil imported will fall only by 4 or 5 percentage points.
In fact, the government expects the share of imported oil to fall anyway, to less than 56 percent, because of a rise in domestic production, ...full text

A Pocket Nuke

PREHISTORIC methods of conflict resolution are not an option in an age of nuclear tools - and the use of prehistoric conflict resolution methods today stems solely from "The Trouble With Physics", i.e., disconnected scientific principles creating a naive and shortsighted world view reality of resource/energy and human evolution survival requirements

A Pocket Nuke

Georgian Sting Seizes Bomb Grade Uranium
Offer of Weapons-Grade Uranium an Unsettling Reminder of Nuclear Material on Black Market
By DESMOND BUTLER
ABC - The Associated Press
A Pocket Nuke: Sting Turns Up Bomb-Grade Uranium
WASHINGTON - It was one of the most serious cases of smuggling of nuclear material in recent years: A Russian man, authorities allege, tried to sell a small amount of nuclear-bomb grade uranium in a plastic bag in his jacket pocket.
The buy that took place last summer, it turned out, was a setup by Republic of Georgia authorities, with the help of the CIA. Their quiet sting operation neither U.S. nor Georgian officials have publicized it is an unsettling reminder about the possibility of terrorists acquiring nuclear bomb-making material on the black market.
No evidence suggests this particular case was terrorist-related.
"Given the serious consequences of the detonation of an improvised nuclear explosive device, even small numbers of incidents involving HEU (highly enriched uranium) or plutonium are of very high concern, ...full text

Energy Research on a Shoestring

The lab’s fitful history reflects a basic truth: Despite a lot of promises, no one so far has wanted to pay the extra costs

THIS CRIPPLING OF LIFE's PROMISE & FUTURE STEMS FROM THE "TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS" AND TOP SECRECY IN SCIENCE IN FREEDUMB LAND. With science (and teachers) not getting the attention of Super Bowl footsybally, continuation of this trend has the potential to destroy all human life. Expanding the idea, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH PROFIT?" reveals a prehistoric economic/corporate profit model totally disconnected from LIFE and required evolutionary SURVIVAL parameters - scientific principles notoriously missing in science and education. CONNECT PROFIT WITH LIFE & EVOLUTIONARY SURVIVAL parameters, and profit becomes as beautiful and natural as the sunrise.

January 25, 2007 NYT - The Energy Challenge
Energy Research on a Shoestring

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
GOLDEN, Colo. — Thirty years after it was founded by President Jimmy Carter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the edge of the Rockies here still does not have a cafeteria.
Evaporation chambers for new solar energy systems look like they belong in an H. G. Wells movie. Technicians had to knock out a giant door from a testing facility to fit modern wind turbine blades, which now stick out like a bare toe from an old sock.
The hopes for this neglected lab brightened a bit just over a year ago when President Bush made the first presidential call on the lab since Mr. Carter and spelled out a vision for the not-too-distant future in which solar and wind power would help run every American home and cars would operate on biofuels made from residues of plants.
But one year after the president’s visit, the money flowing into the nation’s primary laboratory for developing renewable fuels is actually less ...full text

Virginia Senator Jim Webb Offers the Democratic Response

"a sharply-worded address that must have startled millions of TV viewers accustomed to Democrat vacillation" - Oh, my, a crack in the use of the psychological brainwashing tool of "Milgram Experiment, version 8.0"? (see Revisiting the Nature of Power)

______________________

Virginia Senator Jim Webb Offers the Democratic Response

Published on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Jim Webb Offers the Democratic Response. . .to Hillary and Obama
by Jeff Cohen

If you watched freshman Virginia Sen. Jim Webb deliver the Democratic response to Bush’s State of the Union speech, you witnessed something historic -- a Democrat on national TV unabashedly ripping into six years of Bush rule for an uninterrupted 10 minutes.
With no O’Reilly or Hannity to disrupt or out-shout him.
Webb offered a populist, anti-corporate stand on economics and a blunt attack on Bush for “recklessly” dragging our country into the Iraq war – a sharply-worded address that must have startled millions of TV viewers accustomed to Democrat vacillation.
It was the kind of stirring appeal, both progressive and patriotic, that could win over voters at election time -- including swing voters, NASCAR dads, soccer moms, even Republican leaners. The new Senator – a novelist and former Secretary of the Navy -- reportedly discarded the speech handed him by Democratic leaders, and wrote his own.
But Webb’s speech was not just a rebuttal to Bush. It was also a pointed response to the tepid pablum that comes out of the mouths of mainstream media-anointed ...full text

U.S. image around world sharply worsens: BBC poll

PREHISTORIC methods of conflict resolution are not an option in an age of nuclear tools. The prehistoric conflict resolution use today stems solely from "The Trouble With Physics" presenting a shortsighted, naive, and skewed view of Reality - sponsoring the notoriety of historical corporate squeeze and greed, Enron-like outcomes, including "what to do with people who live on land that has OUR required resources?"


U.S. image around world sharply worsens: BBC poll
ABC - Reuters LONDON

The image of the United States has deteriorated around the world in the past year because of issues such as Iraq and prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to a poll by the BBC World Service released on Tuesday.
The proportion of people believing the United States has a mainly positive influence in world affairs dropped seven points from a year ago -- to 29 percent from 36, the results from 18 countries that were also polled the previous year showed.
Fifty-two percent thought U.S. influence was mainly negative, up from 47 percent a year ago, the poll found.
The survey, released on the day President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union speech to Congress, found sharp disagreement with U.S. policy on Iraq which is ravaged by violence nearly four years after the U.S.-led invasion.
In all, 26,381 people were questioned in 25 countries. Almost three in four people disapproved of U.S. policy on Iraq, while two-thirds disapproved of U.S. handling of terrorism suspects ...full text

Report: Global Warming Is Here, Now

Analogy: WARNING, Tsunami coming, everybody grab a spoon go to the beach and get ready to bail out and save ourselves, corresponds to the news reports presented in this blog, "an umbrella to shade the earth, "monster bugs to eat CO2"to solve global warming. These are the crippling ideas stemming from the foundational "TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS" problems, and top secrecy in science in our new freedumb land. Is it possible with science (and teachers) not getting the attention of Super Bowl footsybally, that this freedumb trend can destroy all human life? Extending the prior news article in this blog, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH PROFIT?" there is nothing wrong with profit unless this prehistoric economic/corporate profit model is totally disconnected from LIFE and required evolutionary SURVIVAL parameters - scientific principles notoriously missing in science and education.

Report: Global Warming Is Here, Now

CBS WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2007
(AP) Human-caused global warming is here — visible in the air, water and melting ice — and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week. "The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling." Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles." The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released in Paris next week. This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes "a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate," said co-chair Susan Solomon, a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She and other scientists held a telephone briefing on the report Monday. That report will feature an "explosion of new data" on observations ...full text

Iran Warns Of Possible Faceoff With U.S.

I keep telling myself,
current events have nothing to do with Nostradamus, et al.

Iran Warns Of Possible Faceoff With U.S.
TEHRAN, Iran, Jan. 22, 2007
(CBS/AP) Iran conducted missile tests Monday as its leadership stepped up warnings of possible military confrontation with the United States. Hard-liners said an American attack would spark "hell" for the United States and Israel, with some threatening suicide attacks against U.S. forces. The drum-beating suggests Iran does not intend to back down as tensions mount on both fronts of its confrontation with the United States and the West — the nuclear issue and the turmoil in neighboring Iraq. In another defiant move, Iranian officials on Monday said Tehran had rejected 38 U.N. nuclear inspectors from a list of potential inspectors — apparently in retaliation for a Security Council resolution last month imposing limited sanctions on the country. Others on the list would be allowed to enter the country, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, without giving the reasons for the bans. Iran's leaders have increasingly touted the possibility of a U.S. attack since President George W. Bush announced on Jan. 9 the deployment of a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf region, a move U.S. officials have said is a show of strength directed at Iran. The leadership's warnings could aim to rally the public behind the government and silence increasingly bold criticism ...full text

China's Missile Test Has the World's Attention

Theresa Hitchens, with the Center for Defense Information, said knocking out a satellite like this creates about 300 to 800 pieces of debris the size of a baseball. Debris that size is big enough to do serious damage to the space station. A crack in the space station could mean loss of pressure. NASA's own tests have shown a tiny piece of debris could penetrate the space shuttle, and a hairline crack could have catastrophic results

China's Missile Test Has the World's Attention
ABC - Analysts Say the Test Underscores China's Military and Space Ambitions
By GINA SUNSERI
Jan 19, 2007 — - When China launched an anti-satellite weapon to destroy one of its old weather satellites, it also launched an avalanche of speculation around the world. What is the ultimate goal of the Chinese?
The incident is believed to have happened around 5:28 p.m. EST, on Jan. 11, according to Craig Covault of Aviation Week & Space Technology. Covault broke the story late Thursday night, reporting that "the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA and other government organizations have a full court press under way to obtain data on the alleged test."
Covault reported the test is believed to have occurred as the weather satellite flew 520 miles above China's Sichuan province.
Blasting a satellite into bits is one way to get attention.
Covault said this test has significance ...full text

A New Player at Star Wars

“Outer space is the common heritage of mankind, and weaponization of outer space is bound to trigger off an arms race, thus rendering outer space a new arena for military confrontation,”

January 20, 2007
NYT - News Analysis
A New Player at Star Wars
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING, Jan. 19 — China’s apparent success in destroying one of its own orbiting satellites with a ballistic missile signals that its rising military intends to contest American supremacy in space, a realm many here consider increasingly crucial to national security.
The test of an antisatellite weapon last week, which Beijing declined to confirm or deny Friday despite widespread news coverage and diplomatic inquiries, was perceived by East Asia experts as China’s most provocative military action since it testfired missiles off the coast of Taiwan more than a decade ago. Unlike the Taiwan exercise, the main target this time was the United States, the sole superpower in space.
With lengthy white papers, energetic diplomacy and generous aid policies, Chinese officials have taken pains in recent years to present their country as a new kind of global power that, unlike the United States, had only good will toward other nations.
But some analysts say the test shows that the reality is more complex. China has surging national wealth, legitimate security concerns and an opaque military bureaucracy that may belie the government’s promise of a “peaceful rise.”
“This is the other face of China, the hard power side that they usually keep well hidden,” said Chong-Pin Lin, an expert on China’s military in Taiwan. “They talk more about peace and diplomacy, but the push to develop lethal, high-tech capabilities has not slowed down at all.”
Japan, South Korea and Australia are among the countries in the region that pressed China to explain the test, which if confirmed would make it the third power, after the United States and the Soviet Union, to shoot down an object in space.
China’s Foreign and Defense Ministries declined to comment on reports of the test, which were based on United States intelligence data. Liu Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, would say only that China opposed using weapons in space. “China will not participate in any kind of arms race in outer space,” he told Reuters.
The silence on the test underscores how much China’s rapidly modernizing military — perhaps especially the Second Artillery forces, in charge of its ballistic missile program — remains isolated and secretive, answering only to President Hu Jintao, who heads the military as well as the ruling Communist Party.
Having a weapon that can disable or destroy satellites is considered a component of China’s unofficial doctrine ... full text

China Tests Anti-Satellite Weapon, Unnerving U.S.

" Despite the U.S. protest, the Bush administration has long resisted a global treaty banning such tests because it says it needs freedom of action in space."

NYT January 18, 2007
China Tests Anti-Satellite Weapon, Unnerving U.S.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
China successfully carried out its first test of an anti-satellite weapon last week, signaling its resolve to play a major role in military space activities and bringing expressions of concern from Washington and other capitals, the Bush administration said Thursday.
Only two nations — Russia and the United States — have previously destroyed spacecraft in anti-satellite tests, most recently the United States in the mid 1980s.
Arms control experts called the test, in which a Chinese missile destroyed an aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could foreshadow either an anti-satellite arms race or, alternatively, a diplomatic push by China to force the Bush administration into negotiations on a weapons ban.
“This is the first real escalation in the weaponization of space that we’ve seen in 20 years,” said Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks rocket launchings and space activity. “It ends a long period of restraint.”
White House officials said the United States and other nations, which they did not name, had “expressed our concern regarding ... full text

Scientists Warn of Diminished Earth Studies From Space

“This is the most critical time in human history, with the population never before so big and with stresses growing on the Earth,” Dr. Anthes said. “We just want to get back to the United States being a leader instead of someone you can’t count on.”

January 16, 2007
Scientists Warn of Diminished Earth Studies From Space
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The nation’s ability to track retreating polar ice and shifting patterns of drought, rainfall and other environmental changes is being put “at great risk” by faltering efforts to replace aging satellite-borne sensors, a panel convened by the country’s leading scientific advisory group said.
By 2010, the number of operating Earth-observing instruments on NASA satellites, most of which are already past their planned lifetimes, is likely to drop by 40 percent, the National Research Council of the National Academies warned in a report posted on the Internet yesterday at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11820.html.
The weakening of these monitoring efforts comes even as many scientists and the Bush administration have been emphasizing their growing importance, both to clarify risks from global warming and natural hazards and to track the condition of forests, fisheries, water and other resources.
Several prominent scientists welcomed the report, saying that while the overall tightening of the federal budget played a role in threatening Earth-observing efforts, a significant contributor was also President Bush’s recent call for NASA to focus on manned space missions.
“NASA has a mission ordering that starts with the presidential goals — first of manned flight to Mars, and second, establishing a permanent base on the Moon, and then third to examine Earth, which puts Earth rather far down on the totem pole ....full text

The Warming of Greenland

Repeating - A review of Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation (Paperback) by George T. Lock Land, extrapolated to the stagnant energy sector compliments Nobel Prize winner , Ilya Progogine's statement "As systems increase in complexity, their energy intensity and energy requirements to sustain life rise accordingly." Hydrocarbons ceased fitting the energy bill, became obsolete, years ago.

NYT January 16, 2007
The Warming of Greenland
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
LIVERPOOL LAND, Greenland — Flying over snow-capped peaks and into a thick fog, the helicopter set down on a barren strip of rocks between two glaciers. A dozen bags of supplies, a rifle and a can of cooking gas were tossed out onto the cold ground. Then, with engines whining, the helicopter lifted off, snow and fog swirling in the rotor wash.
When it had disappeared over the horizon, no sound remained but the howling of the Arctic wind.
“It feels a little like the days of the old explorers, doesn’t it?” Dennis Schmitt said.
Mr. Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, Calif., had just landed on a newly revealed island 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland. It was a moment of triumph: he had discovered the island on an ocean voyage in September 2005. Now, a year later, he and a small expedition team had returned to spend a week climbing peaks, crossing treacherous glaciers and documenting animal and plant life.
Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice.
Maps of the region show a mountainous peninsula covered with glaciers. The island’s distinct shape — like a hand with three bony fingers pointing north — looks like the end of the peninsula.
Now, where the maps showed only ice, a band of fast-flowing seawater ran between a newly exposed shoreline and the aquamarine-blue walls of a retreating ice shelf. The water was littered with dozens of icebergs, some as large as half an acre; every hour or so, several more tons of ice fractured ...full text

Connecting the Global Warming Dots

A review of Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation (Paperback) by George T. Lock Land, extrapolated to the stagnant energy sector compliments Nobel Prize winner , Ilya Progogine's statement "As systems increase in complexity, their energy intensity and energy requirements to sustain life rise accordingly." Hydrocarbons ceased fitting the energy bill, became obsolete, years ago.

NYT January 14, 2007
The Basics
Connecting the Global Warming Dots
By ANDREW C. REVKIN (see graph at end)

If thought of as a painting, the scientific picture of a growing and potentially calamitous human influence on the climate has moved from being abstract a century ago to impressionistic 30 years ago to pointillist today.
The impact of a buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is now largely undisputed. Almost everyone in the field says the consequences can essentially be reduced to a formula: More CO2 = warmer world = less ice = higher seas. (Throw in a lot of climate shifts and acidifying oceans for good measure.)
But the prognosis — and the proof that people are driving much of the warming — still lacks the sharpness and detail of a modern-day photograph, which makes it hard to get people to change their behavior.
Indeed, the closer one gets to a particular pixel, be it hurricane strength, or the rate at which seas could rise, the harder it is to be precise. So what is the basis for the ever-stronger scientific agreement on the planet’s warming even in the face of blurry details?
As in a pointillist painting, the meaning emerges from the broadest view, from the “balance of evidence,” as the scientific case is described in the periodic reports issued by an enormous international network of experts: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, http://www.ipcc.ch/. The main findings of the panel’s fourth assessment since 1990 will be released in Paris on Feb. 2.
In the panel’s last report, ...full text

Reminder: Hawking: Nuclear war greatest threat to humanity

All because of the Trouble With Physics?
StarSteps and Science Evolution Survival




Changes in Our Solar System: Is Trouble Coming? Hawking Answers
The End of Humanity Could Be Closer Than You Thought
ABC News Aug. 16, 2006 — - For the first time in recent memory, the universe is under scrutiny and the solar system we all learned in grade school may be turned upside down.
Astronomers are now reassessing what makes a planet a planet, so curiosity about our existence in this solar system is peaking.
Could the human race go extinct?
According to Stephen Hawking, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, the possibility of our extinction should be a wake-up call to us all.
Hawking sat down with ABC News to give his perspective on the devastation our civilization could face in the next century.
Here are a few excerpts from Hawking's conversation with Elizabeth Vargas.
Vargas: How crucial is the next 100 years to the survival of the human race?
Hawking: We face a number of threats to our survival, from nuclear war, catastrophic global warming, genetically engineered viruses, and the number is likely to increase in the future, with ....full text

Not planning a second war in the Middle East!

I wonder, Science Evolution Wisdom Understanding: ..... if the universe will even notice when life on earth, or the earth itself, disappears through a combination of "smart" nuclear resource wars and global warming.

Are the foundational problems in physics so massive that our only comprehension of conflict resolution and survival has reverted backwards to the kill stage?


White House softens Iran tone
The administration tries to assure the public and lawmakers that it isn't planning a second war in the Middle East.
By Julian E. Barnes and Solomon Moore LA Times Staff Writers January 13, 2007 WASHINGTON —

The Bush administration sought to assure lawmakers and the public Friday that despite harsh new rhetoric, it did not intend to go to war with Iran, even as U.S. sources charged that Iranians captured in Irbil, Iraq, were suspected members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.President Bush accused Iran in a speech this week of helping launch attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. His remarks were followed by combative comments from his top war advisors, new moves by U.S. naval forces and a raid Thursday in the Kurdish-controlled city of Irbil.The administration moved Friday to defuse concerns that it was planning or inviting a confrontation with Tehran. At a news conference, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow dismissed as an "urban legend" suggestions that the United States was preparing for another war. Similar denials were issued by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.But other U.S. officials pressed the case that the Islamic Republic was helping foment violence in neighboring Iraq.One Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, charged that the Iranians ... full text

Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint

I wonder, Science Evolution Wisdom Understanding: ..... if the universe will even notice when life on earth, or the earth itself, disappears through a combination of "smart" nuclear resource wars and global warming.

Are the foundational problems in physics so massive that our only comprehension of conflict resolution and survival has reverted backwards to the kill stage?


NYT January 13, 2007
Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for Al Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe.
Military officials said the strike by an American gunship on terrorism suspects in southern Somalia on Sunday showed that even with the departure of Donald H. Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations troops intended to take advantage of the directive given to them by Mr. Rumsfeld in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.
American officials said the recent military operations have been carried by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which directs the military’s most secretive and elite units, ....full text

Military Expands Domestic Surveillance

The mid-year 2005 world population estimated at 6,451,058,790, (that's 6.5 billion plus today), presents a lot of potential terrorists justifying infinite war and war powers .......say whaa? Evolution Intelligent Design Survival

NYT January 14, 2007
Military Expands Domestic Surveillance
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.
Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.
The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ ...full text

U.S. Selecting Hybrid Design for Warheads

After WWII, recognition that primitive modes of behavior between nations and nuclear tools does not mix, was understood to be globally terminal. How diseased is our Science of Understanding in Energy and Survival Fundamentals (Five Foundational Problems of Theoretical Physics) - see Evolution Blog

NYT January 7, 2007
U.S. Selecting Hybrid Design for Warheads
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
This article is by William J. Broad, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of the country’s first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. It will propose elements of competing designs from two weapons laboratories in an approach that some experts argue is untested and risky.
The announcement, to be made by the interagency Nuclear Weapons Council, avoids making a choice between two competing designs for a new weapon, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which at first would be mounted on submarine-launched missiles. The effort, if approved by President Bush and financed by Congress, would require a huge refurbishment of the nation’s complex for nuclear design and manufacturing, with the overall bill estimated at more than $100 billion.
But the council’s decision to seek a hybrid design, combining well-tested elements from an older design with new safety and security elements from a more novel approach, could delay the production of the weapon. It also raises the question of whether the United States will ultimately be forced to end its moratorium on underground nuclear testing ...full text

Is U.S. Wasting Money On Iraq Contracts?

What is a few hundred billion, no big deal in an economic model gone wild with infatuated power and the concept of spreading freedumb everywhere - this is not an MO (standard operating procedure), just a few bad apples exposed by freak accident since Enron. Our schools are doing just fine (see 12/14/06 article).........Anyone notice the silence, no outrage, how people's character and level of intelligence are reflected in commercials.

Is U.S. Wasting Money On Iraq Contracts?
Jan. 5, 2007
(CBS) The U.S. has currently spent at least $437 billion on the Iraq war, according to the Congressional Research Service. An estimated $100 billion will be spent in 2007. Much of that money is going to 60,000 civilian contractors involved in reconstruction and providing services to the troops. But recently, the Pentagon admitted it has a hard time accounting for how billions of your tax dollars are being spent — and the billions that may be lost to contractor waste, fraud and abuse ....full text

Real cost of India's cheap stone

I'ez gonna change my yesterday's installed green marble to blue marble kitchen and bath today - them thar women and children need the labor excercise cause they is gots to eat - true freedumb in an economic model that don't make no lick of sense

Real cost of India's cheap stone
By Tom Heap BBC News, Bangalore
The global building boom and the fashion for smart interiors has created huge demand for natural stone.

In the past few years this has been fed by a booming export trade from countries where rock is plentiful and labour is cheap. India is among the most rapidly growing sources of granite, slate and sandstone.

But now questions are being asked about the cost to the environment and the human toll for workers.

Highly-polished kitchen worktops and gleaming stone cladding in the washroom were once the preserve of the very rich, but now, thanks to the exploitation of new sources, the price is plummeting.

In the UK, natural stone has been vigorously endorsed on gardening and interior design television programmes, the resulting appetite increasing granite imports from India to Britain eight-fold in the past five years.

Poor safety and many quarry workers are children
Our investigations into how the stone was being produced focused on Bangalore ....full text