A 21st century catastrophe - Independent Online Edition > Climate Change

A 21st century catastrophe - Independent Online Edition > Climate Change: "lood-ravaged Britain is suffering from a wholly new type of civil emergency, it is clear today: a disaster caused by 21st-century weather.

This weather is different from anything that has gone before. The floods it has caused, which have left more than a third of a million people without drinking water, nearly 50,000 people without power, thousands more people homeless and caused more than �2bn worth of damage - and are still not over - have no precedent in modern British history."

The Energy Solution That Dare Not Speak Its Name - Yahoo! News

The Energy Solution That Dare Not Speak Its Name - Yahoo! News: "So there you have it. There we sit like sitting ducks in the sights of the oil industry both foreign and domestic, our national security at risk, our environment in danger and our economy held hostage to ongoing supplies of oil without which, were there to be a major disruption, we would be exposed to severe bouts of inflation, ever higher interest rates, unemployment and deep recession. We are in their thrall and we have to pay their rent for years and years to come, Right? Well, wrong!

The one thing the oil patch and their allies fear is something they deem us incapable of achieving. Seriously curtailing demand for gasoline! Were we to take demand in hand as a national mission and to sharply reduce our gasoline consumption we would almost certainly:

- Collapse the price of oil"

Lurking in Perogatory

Any reply would be
believing today is the end
when the weekend is yet
yet
yet
yet
a primitive
distraction. An
unformed conclusion
anticipated by aliens
inside our intestines
chanting the celestial
thrum
Buddha initiates
deny
incessantly.

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CJR: Surgeon General's Warning

CJR: Surgeon General's Warning:

"Both The New York Times and The Washington Post today front devastating stories about the former surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona, telling Congress in a hearing yesterday that the White House infused politics into everything he did. 'Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized or simply buried,' he told a House committee. 'The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds.'"

As if health issues were the only science that Bush has trashed.

Compromise Measure Aims to Limit Global Warming - New York Times

Compromise Measure Aims to Limit Global Warming - New York Times:

"The complex measure, sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, would put in place a firm limit on emissions of heat-trapping gases that most scientists say are causing the warming of the planet."

The down side it relies on "cap and trade" strategies that inherently flawed, never-the-less it is a move in the left direction by the right guys.

Pop Goes the Planet

Pop Goes the Planet:

"Startling new research shows that humanity is pushing the Earth to breaking point by devouring the life-support systems that make it habitable. Even before the feared climate change really begins the bite, the planet is already under intolerable strain. An unprecedented study by top ecologists and climatologists, to be published by the US National Academy of Sciences, shows that a quarter of all plant life in the world is being destroyed each year by the demands of just one species: homo sapiens."

Wired Science - Wired Blogs

No Link Between Cosmic Rays and Global Warming:

"The scientific consensus is in: human-produced carbon dioxide is causing a rise in temperatures across the planet. There are still those who reject the evidence that humans have an impact on global temperatures, and instead maintain that natural processes are at the root.

"One of these natural causes, they say, could be from cosmic rays.

"Sloan and Wolfendale reviewed the cosmic ray connection to global warming, and found several different ways that discount the explanation. Of course, no matter how good their evidence, for some people this is a political matter now - no amount evidence will ever be enough."

Framing The Climate Crisis Solution | Campaign for America's Future

Framing The Climate Crisis Solution | Campaign for America's Future:

"Gore also notes that forging the desired global treaty will be much easier once “we give [American] industry a goal and the tools and flexibility to sharply reduce carbon emissions…”. Providing “tools” would surely require the sort of public investment Teague and Navin champion."

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs:

"Moreover, he (Lugar) said, the administration's fixation on 'artificial notions of achieving victory or avoiding defeat' in Iraq risks broader US interests in the region. Lugar called for Washington to focus on meeting four 'primary objectives' - preventing Iraq or part of its territory from being used as a safe haven for terrorists; preventing the violence there from destabilizing the region; preventing Iran from dominating the region; and limiting the loss of US credibility in the region. "

Birmingham Weekly

Birmingham Weekly:

"Skip ahead to the present day, and so much has changed in six years. Pretty much everything except Dick Cheney’s penchant for secrecy, that is. Ordered in 2004 to show how his office was complying with federal guidelines on handling classified information, Richard the Reticent did his civic duty and ignored the dictum. Two years later, the Office of the Vice President again disdained an on-site inspection, saying that the orders did not apply to the OVP. Last Thursday, we learned why: because now Cheney says he’s not part of the executive branch at all, but part of the legislative branch."

WorkingForChange: Rocky Mountain Right Reels As Public Rejects GOP's Outdated & Elitist Rhetoric

WorkingForChange: Rocky Mountain Right Reels As Public Rejects GOP's Outdated & Elitist Rhetoric:

" the much-touted conservative economic revolt over in the Intermountain West? That's a question that undoubtedly has people like Republican presidential operatives and national anti-tax activist Grover Norquist worried - especially with a spate of evidence that suggests a whole new politics is emerging out here, and I'm not just talking about the region being dominated by Democratic governors (that is at least as much a symptom of the underlying phenomenon as it is the phenomenon itself)."

Chief Justice George Orwell Writes For The Majority | Campaign for America's Future

Chief Justice George Orwell Writes For The Majority | Campaign for America's Future:

"Justice Roberts, 'restricting the ability of public school districts to use race to determine which schools students can attend,' wrote for the plurality of Scalia, Thomas, and Alito that, 'Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin.'

If I were a high school teacher and young Johnny Roberts wrote this on an exam on civil rights history, I would give him an 'F.' "

Rupert Cornwell: Out of America - Independent Online Edition > Commentators

Rupert Cornwell: Out of America - Independent Online Edition > Commentators:

"Last week Americans were shown in astonishing detail the hitherto unseen yet unshakable grasp on the levers of power held by George Bush's deputy Dick Cheney
Published: 01 July 2007

Thus the stage was set. Over the past six years I've often run into old journalist friends who, like me, covered the Kremlin in its sealed Communist heyday. Invariably we were struck by the similarities between Moscow then and Washington now - how the adage about rule by general secretaries applied equally to life under George W Bush: you knew nothing, but understood everything. So it was here. Just as there were factions in the Politburo, there were factions in the Bush administration. We further knew that not only was the hardline faction led by Cheney but also, thanks to Cheney, it prevailed.

The Progressive Daily Beacon: "Don't Miss the Bush Administration's Super-Secret Summer 'Terror Spectacular'"

The Progressive Daily Beacon:

"Don't Miss the Bush Administration's Super-Secret Summer 'Terror Spectacular'": "Oh well, all-n-all then, the Brits shouldn't take personally the administration's failure to pass along information regarding possible terror attacks. It's just the 'Loyal Bushies' way - they don't tell anybody about any impending terror attacks.

Well, that isn't exactly true, is it? No, the administration is actually rather fond of warning anybody and everybody about non-existent terror threats. It's what they do. It is rather uncanny, too, how the Bush clan's terror warnings almost always conveniently coincide with other seemingly unrelated events. Bush's ratings dip, terror alerts go up."