Report Cites Major CIA Lapses Before 9/11

The trut and nothin but the trut in our search for weapons of mass donkeys, and clean, extremely cheap, unlimited new energy systems missing since the late 1940's - wonder if that has anything to do with the Trouble With Physics and the threats twenty first century civilization faces from lack and limitation fostering Resource Wars with obscenely profitable dinosaur energy systems causing global warming

Report Cites Major CIA Lapses Before 9/11

Insert: beautiful, beautiful words "Systematic Breakdown" - imagine a tsunami approaching a seashore village, and 50-60 people knew about it, but through systematic breakdown, failed to get the warning across and all died.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2007
(CBS/AP) The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al Qaeda and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found. "They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the report stated. Nearly three years before 9/11, then-CIA Director George Tenet signed a directive declaring "we are at war" with Osama Bin Laden and directed that "no resources or people (be) spared," reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. But the inspector general found "no…strategic plan was ever created" and no extra money or people were added to operations against Bin Laden. Yet the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. In a statement, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the decision to release the report was not his choice or preference, but that he was making the report available as required by Congress in a law President George W. Bush signed earlier this month. "I thought the release of this report would distract officers serving their country on the front lines of a global conflict," Hayden said. "It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed." The report does cover terrain heavily examined by a congressional inquiry and the Sept. 11 Commission. However, the CIA watchdog's report goes further than previous reviews to examine the personal failings of individuals within the agency who led the pre-Sept. 11 efforts against al Qaeda. Helgerson's team found that no CIA employees violated the law or were part of any misconduct. The report recommends Tenet and other senior officers face possible disciplinary action, adds Martin, but a statement by the current CIA director says that's not going to happen. In October 2005, then-CIA Director Porter Goss also rejected the recommendation. He said he had spoken personally with the current employees named in the report, and he trusted their abilities and dedication. "The report unveiled no mysteries," Goss said. Hayden stuck by Goss's decision. Providing a glimpse of a series of shortfalls laid out in the longer, still-classified report, the executive summary says:
· U.S. spy agencies, which were overseen by Tenet, lacked a comprehensive strategic plan to counter Osama bin Laden prior to Sept. 11. The inspector general concluded that Tenet "by virtue of his position, bears ultimate responsibility for the fact that no such strategic plan was ever created."
· The CIA's analysis of al Qaeda before Sept. 2001 was lacking. No comprehensive report focusing on bin Laden was written after 1993, and no comprehensive report laying out the threats of 2001 was assembled. "A number of important issues were covered insufficiently or not at all," the report found.
· The CIA and the National Security Agency tussled over their responsibilities in dealing with al Qaeda well into 2001. Only Tenet's personal involvement could have led to a timely resolution, the report concluded.
· The CIA station charged with monitoring bin Laden, code-named Alec Station, was overworked, lacked operational experience, expertise and training. The report recommended forming accountability boards for the CIA Counterterror Center chiefs from 1998 to 2001, including Black.
· Although 50 to 60 people read at least one CIA cable about two of the hijackers, the information was not shared with the proper offices and agencies. "That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systemic breakdown....

Red Star Rising: Russian Military Rebuilds

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies. As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Red Star Rising: Russian Military Rebuilds
MOSCOW, Aug. 19, 2007
NYT (Christian Science Monitor) This article was written by Fred Weir.
After a newly self-confident, oil-rich Russia teamed up with China in joint military exercises Friday, it is moving to reclaim the former Soviet Union's status as a global military power. A seven-year, $200-billion rearmament plan signed by President Vladimir Putin earlier this year will purchase new generations of missiles, planes, and perhaps aircraft carriers to rebuild Russia's arsenal. Already, the new military posture is on display: This summer, Russian bombers have extended their patrol ranges far into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, forcing U.S. and NATO interceptors to scramble for the first time since the cold war's end. "Diplomacy between Russia and the West is increasingly being overshadowed by military gestures," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign-policy expert with the independent daily Kommersant. "It's clear that the Kremlin is listening more and more to the generals and giving them more of what they want." Economic Bloc Ups Military Teamwork On Friday, Mr. Putin joined leaders of China and other members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Russia's Chelyabinsk region to view the final stage of the group's most ambitious joint military maneuvers yet, including 6,500 troops and over 100 aircraft. Also on hand were scheduled to be leaders of SCO observer states and prospective members, among them India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia. At an SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan Thursday, Putin stressed that while Russia is not seeking to build a Cold War-style "military bloc," he does see the SCO expanding from its original purpose as an economic association to take on a greater military role. "Year by year, the SCO is becoming a more substantial factor in ensuring security ...full text

Russia, China Hold Joint War Games

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies. As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Russia, China Hold Joint War Games
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:57 a.m. ET
CHEBARKUL TESTING RANGE, Russia (AP) -- Fighter jets streaked through the air as Russian and Chinese forces held their first joint maneuvers on Russian land Friday in a demonstration of their growing military ties and a shared desire to counter U.S. global clout.
The war games in the southern Ural Mountains involved some 6,000 troops from Russia and China along with a handful of soldiers from four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional group dominated by Moscow and Beijing.
The drills coincided with a massive Russian air force exercise in which dozens of Russian strategic bombers ranged far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Hu Jintao and other leaders of the SCO nations attended the exercise, which followed their summit Thursday in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
The summit concluded with a communique that sounded like a thinly veiled warning to the United States to stay away from the strategically placed, resource-rich region.
''Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region ...full text

US Slipping in Life Expectancy Rankings

Oh, the profits are divinely obscene! What health care? Bridges falling down? Let's Limbo now, lower, lower life expectancy...
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO ...................
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone .............
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

US Slipping in Life Expectancy Rankings
US Slipping in Life Expectancy Rankings; Other Nations Improving Health Care, Nutrition
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
CBS The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.
For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore.
The shortest life expectancies were clustered in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that has been hit hard by an epidemic of HIV and AIDS, as well as famine and civil strife. Swaziland has the shortest, at 34.1 years, followed by Zambia, Angola, Liberia and Zimbabwe.
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, ...full text

China Weighs Economic "Nuclear Option"

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy



China Weighs Economic "Nuclear Option"
BEIJING, Aug. 9, 2007
(CBS) CBS News' Barry Petersen filed this story from China for CBSNews.com.
Talking about currency rates is a lot like being forced by Mom to eat your vegetables: you know it's good for you, but you hate it. So, apologies for offering a big course of Brussels sprouts here, but it is information worth knowing. The Chinese are holding and investing something like $1.3 trillion they made from selling goods to America. Now, some Chinese officials have floated the idea that these U.S. dollars could be used against the United States. Here is how the London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported the story: "Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning — for the first time — that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the U.S. Congress. "Described as China's 'nuclear option' in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the U.S. currency is already breaking down through historic support levels." The words that hit were "NUCLEAR OPTION". Rarely do you find that in a story on currency. Here is the problem: The United States maxed-out its credit cards long ago, and it needs to borrow and borrow both to raise still more money, and to pay interest on that ever-growing debt. The Chinese, with all those dollars, are willing to lend by buying U.S. Treasury bonds. That keeps interest rates down and that gives Americans extra bucks to buy… more goods from China. This is now a part of the presidential campaign. Here's what Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) said at this week's AFL-CIO debate in Chicago about our debts to China: "This administration, in order to fund a war that shouldn't be being fought and tax cuts that weren't needed for the wealthy — we're now in debt almost a trillion dollars — a trillion dollars to China. We better end that war, cut those taxes, reduce the deficit and make sure that they no longer own the mortgage on our home." His comment drew this response ...full text

A Sudden Storm Brings New York City to Its Knees

More trapped energy, more weather

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO ...................

Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone

Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

August 9, 2007
A Sudden Storm Brings New York City to Its Knees
By JAMES BARRON
A brief but fierce storm drenched the New York region just before the morning rush yesterday, paralyzing the transit system, flooding major thoroughfares, cutting off electricity to thousands of homes and causing confusion that lingered through a humid, sweaty day.
The storm, which sent water gushing into subway tunnels and swirling over commuter railroad tracks, also unleashed a tornado that brushed Staten Island, then whipped southwestern Brooklyn with winds of up to 135 miles an hour.
That was perhaps the most ominous part of a deluge that left people wondering if they were waking up to a major catastrophe, with streets blocked by the twisted wreckage of cars with broken-out windows that had been battered by debris.
The deluge overwhelmed storm sewers, and one woman was killed after her car became stuck in a flooded underpass on Staten Island. The police said another car struck hers, starting a fire that burned her so badly that her body could not be immediately identified.
City officials said at least a half-dozen people elsewhere had been injured by the storm.
Commuter rail service was interrupted, and hundreds of airline flights were delayed. Stretches of heavily trafficked arteries like Queens Boulevard and Flatbush Avenue were under water.
But the biggest disruption struck the city’s subway system, where most lines were shut down during the morning rush when the water knocked out signals, stranding or delaying millions of riders. Though the Metropolitan Transportation Authority restored most of them during the day, a half-dozen were still out of commission during the evening rush hour and the agency said some problems could last into today.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to review how the transit system had failed after a sudden downpour for the third time in seven months. At a separate news briefing, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg referred to “chaos with the subway system,” but refrained from judging ...full text

U.N.: Record extreme weather in '07

More energy, more weather
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO ...................
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

U.N.: Record extreme weather in '07
Global land temperatures in January, April likely warmest on record
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 6:50 p.m. CT Aug 7, 2007

GENEVA - The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heat waves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said Tuesday.
The World Meteorological Organization said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at about 3 degrees Fahrenheit higher than average for those months.
There have also been severe monsoon floods across South Asia, abnormally heavy rains in northern Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, extreme heat waves in southeastern Europe and Russia, and unusual snowfall in South Africa and South America ... full text

Airlines Sue FBI And CIA Over 9/11 Blame

What others are saying since 9-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P682rGIhZwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO ...................

Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone

Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

Airlines Sue FBI And CIA Over 9/11 Blame
NYT NEW YORK, Aug. 7, 2007
(AP) Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday to force terrorism investigators to tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. The two lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan sought court orders for depositions as the aviation entities build their defenses against lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for injuries, fatalities, property damage and business losses related to Sept. 11, 2001. The aviation companies said the agencies in a series of boilerplate letters had refused to let them depose two secret agents, including the 2001 head of the CIA's special Osama bin Laden unit, and six FBI agents with key information about al Qaeda and bin Laden. The airlines, airport authorities, security companies and an aircraft manufacturer said they were entitled to present evidence to show the terrorist attacks did not depend upon negligence by any aviation defendants and that there were other causes of the attacks. They said that the depositions were likely to result in evidence showing the terrorists were sophisticated, ideologically driven and well-financed and would have succeeded regardless of any action by the aviation entities. "The aviation parties are entitled to show that operations conducted by the federal intelligence agencies were the most effective way to uncover and stop the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the inability of the federal intelligence agencies to detect and stop the plot is a more causal circumstance of the terrorist attacks than any allegedly negligent conduct of the aviation parties," the FBI lawsuit said. In the CIA lawsuit, companies including American Airlines owner AMR Corp., United Airlines' UAL Corp., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Continental Airlines Inc. and Boeing Co. asked to interview the deputy chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit in 2001 and an FBI agent assigned to the unit at that time. The names of both are secret. In the FBI lawsuit, the companies asked to interview five former and current FBI employees who had participated in investigations of al Qaeda and al Qaeda operatives before and after Sept. 11. Those individuals included Coleen M. Rowley, the former top FBI lawyer in its Minneapolis office, who sent a scathing letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in May 2002 complaining that a supervisor in Washington interfered with the Minnesota investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. The lawsuits also sought to speak to Harry Samit, an FBI agent in the Minneapolis office who was among those who arrested Moussaoui in August 2001. They said he had testified that he suggested to his superiors ...full text

Stop exporting death

Opinion not good from world majority (population numbers)
Meanwhile, Priority ONE ..................
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

16:52, August 06, 2007 China News
Stop exporting death
The U.S. government's recent announcement of its providing a large batch of advanced weapons to Arabian allies and Israel has caused wide concern. What will be the impact of this U.S. act on the Middle East, a region already in disorder? For a long time, as many countries believe, Washington has been creating terror and split in this region so as to gain opportunities to sell weapons there, and the U.S. arms sale plan would intensify Middle East disturbance.In the world pattern of weaponry trade, the U.S. annual exports have been averaging 40 percent of world total since 1991. The sales stood between 10 to 13 billion U.S. dollars since 2001, and even hit a record of 15 billion dollars in 2006. The U.S. leads the world in sales of munitions as a whole, ground-to-air missiles and warships. As a matter of fact, on the proliferation of both conventional weapons and those of mass destruction including missiles as well as nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the U.S. has always been the evil creator lurking behind.The U.S. means of armament promotion can also be lauded world top, which feature the "creation of need" where there is no need. Americans have continuously fanned

.....full text

Iraq's Power Grid Near Collapse

Spreading smart bomb liberation everywhere - that's 98% surf-like poverty freedumb with 2% golden greedy guts freedom ... as the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

Iraq's Power Grid Near Collapse
NYT BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5, 2007
(AP) Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday. Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari said power generation nationally is only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, he said. Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that. The water supply in the capital has also been severely curtailed by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations. Karbala province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days, causing water mains to go dry in the provincial capital, the Shiite holy city of Karbala. "We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having," ...full text

Iraq's Water Woes

Spreading smart bomb liberation everywhere - that's 98% surf-like poverty freedumb with 2% golden greedy guts freedom ... as the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

Iraq's Water Woes
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3, 2007
(CBS) It's illegal, to say nothing of unhealthy — but for tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by sectarian violence, tapping into a main line is the only access to water of any kind. According to U.N. figures, barely one in three Iraqis have access to clean drinking water. Waterborne diseases like diarrhea — the most prolific killer of children under 5 — are on the increase. In some areas, it's up as much as 70 percent over last year. Providing essential services is a cornerstone of American military counter-insurgency strategy. The U.S. has spent $1.5 billion dollars on water projects since the invasion four years ago. Another half a billion has been budgeted for this year and it all adds up to the proverbial "drop in a bucket."

It took U.S. and Iraqi engineers 10 months to refurbish one pumping station to provide 10,000 people with clean water. Security permitting, the officer in charge aims to increase that by a factor of five. "Once we reach that goal, we will be able to supply water for approximately 20 percent of the local area full time,” says Cmdr. Steve Frost, of the U.S. Navy Seabees. For the other 80 percent who often have to walk miles to bring home a bucket of water, that means more than most people can imagine. "We had one Iraqi lady who came up to us, gave us a hug and shook our hands and said ‘Thank you’ because it was the first time they've ever had potable water running in their house,” Frost said. The problem is so dire that after a three-year break, the U.N. has resumed trucking water to cut-off areas. It’s a costly and dangerous way to fill cooking pots and give a few kids a welcome shower ...full text

Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine

No Lies in Freedumb land and that is the "trut''
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine
By Sharon Begley
MSN - Newsweek
Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."
If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. Yes, 19 million people watched the "Live Earth" concerts last month, titans of corporate America are calling for laws mandating greenhouse cuts, "green" magazines fill newsstands, and the film based on Al Gore's best-selling book, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.
Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."
Just last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change; only one third thought planetary warming was "mainly caused by things people do." In contrast, majorities in Europe and Japan recognize a broad consensus among climate experts that greenhouse gases—mostly from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas to power the world's economies—are altering climate. A new NEWSWEEK Poll finds that the influence of the denial machine remains strong ...full text

Unstable Bridges, Underfunded Facilities

No Lie, where is all the money going we ask the 2% corporate golden greedy guts that OWNS most of the world as the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

Unstable Bridges, Underfunded Facilities
Aug. 3, 2007
(CBS) After the catastrophe in Minneapolis, decrepit bridges are getting a closer look and coming up short, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes. From California to Connecticut on Friday, inspectors could be seen hanging off bridges, floating below them, and peering at them with binoculars. "You never know when you're gonna find a crack," one inspector says. What they're seeing are spans that appear to be held together by little more than hope—like one propped up by two by fours in New Jersey. Inspectors also found rusted metal in Maryland and decaying concrete in California. Coming under the greatest scrutiny are the 750 bridges in the U.S. that are similar in design to the one that collapsed. A third of those steel deck-truss bridges are rated structurally deficient—just like the Minneapolis bridge was before its structure failed. "It's like when you bend a paper clip," Ohio structural engineer Chuck Cvitkovich says. "If you keep bending that paper clip, eventually it's going to break." Today and every day, the most sophisticated piece of equipment that's typically used to inspect bridges is the naked eye. "I clean the weld with a brush and wipe the dirt off to make a visual inspection to make sure there's not a crack," and inspector in Arkansas said. But visual inspections don't mean much if they're wrong. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that 56 percent of the time, bridges are rated as better or worse than they actually are. There is new technology that uses electric currents to look for cracks inside metal beams—kind of like an EKG for a bridge. Only a couple of states use it. At Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, they've developed a tiny helicopter that could send signals to and get readings from sensors embedded in bridges. But it's not ready, and it's expensive. Nick Roper is the chief bridge engineer for Northern Virginia, where 30 bridges have been deemed structurally deficient. "If you had enough funding, what would you do that you can't do now?" Cordes asks. "I would replace every deficient bridge that's in my district," Roper says. And that's the real dilemma facing transportation officials from coast to coast. Even if all those inspections do uncover structural problems, where will the money come to fix them? As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, funding the nation's infrastructure is all a matter of priorities. Out of the $2.7 trillion dollar federal budget, it's estimated only around $50 billion dollars a year goes for infrastructure – just a tiny slice of the pie. Experts say what's needed is $210 billion dollars a year for five years just for upkeep. And the need is felt in all 50 states. Coast-to-coast there have been sewage leaks, killer chunks of falling concrete, broken pipes in the Midwest, and contaminated water in Washington D.C. New Jersey loses an astonishing 20 million gallons of drinking water a day from leaky pipes. But when it comes to spending federal dollars, sometimes priorities seem out of whack ....full text