Pick Your Bad

Those whacky science folks got us all worried about a sudden new ice age, but the latest crew is saying not to worry. It's just going to get hotter than hell, like we thought before.

"Frostbite and snow-blindness are less likely to be in our future than heat stroke and malaria," one of them says. We might be repeating conditions that led to a greenhouse event 55 million years ago, which scientists can study through evidence left in soils. They see big changes in patterns of wet and dry, but mostly movement towards hot:

During the greenhouse spike of 55 million years ago, tropical mangroves and rain forests spread as far north as England and Belgium and as far south as Tasmania and New Zealand," Retallack says. "Turtles, alligators and palm trees graced Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, which is now the treeless abode of musk oxen and polar bears."

They offer additional comfort by pointing out that this last "greenhouse event" was temporary. It only lasted, oh, half a million years.

New Research Indicates A 'Troubled' Greenhouse Is Brewing

In Other New...

Great Mall of China at Shopopolis...

Brit Industry Ready to Deal with the Climate Crisis

Still not convinced the Climate Crisis is upon us? Check this out:

By Roger Harrabin
BBC Environment Correspondent

A group of Britain's leading industrialists has written to the prime minister urgently demanding long-term policies to combat climate change. The heads of the 12 leading firms say climate change is a huge challenge that needs serious investment by business. But they say they cannot invest because they are not sure what future government policies on climate will be.

The letter is signed off by the heads of BP, Shell, HSBC Bank, BAA, John Lewis, Scottish Power and more.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is that these industry leaders, including fossil fuel behemoths, are endorsing a view long held by alternative energy advocates. Here's what the BBC story says:

But in their letter the business leaders say they believe emissions cuts of 60% can be achieved in the UK without damaging competitiveness if firms use energy more wisely and harness new technology.'

They believe measures to hold CO2 emissions to a safe level would reduce economic growth by no more than 2% by 2050. They say bold policy action could actually boost Britain's profits by making the UK a world leader in low carbon technology.

The group say some of the technologies to achieve this goal already exist but need to be developed. Some are yet to be invented.

This is the kind of breakthrough that's needed---when people like this see a business opportunity. Will the dinosaurs of American based global industries follow? Or be left behind?

BBC NEWS Business Industry chiefs' environment plea

Good News for the Can't Wait for the Rapture Crowd

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: May 27, 2005
WASHINGTON, May 27 - A monthlong conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended in complete failure today, many of its participants said, with the nuclear and non-nuclear states so far apart that they never engaged in a detailed discussion of how to fix the gaping loopholes that many experts say have allowed a resurgence in the spread of the most dangerous nuclear technologies.

Participants Say Talks Fail on Strengthening Nuclear Treaty - New York Times

That's Historical! It's Just Not Funny

Speaking of six months ago, here's how Paul Krugman ended his most recent column, another brilliant one to which this is a kind of ominous aside:

Everyone loves historical analogies. Here's my thought: maybe 2004 was 1928. During the 1920's, the national government followed doctrinaire conservative policies, but reformist policies that presaged the New Deal were already bubbling up in the states, especially in New York.

In 1928 Al Smith, the governor of New York, was defeated in an ugly presidential campaign in which Protestant preachers warned their flocks that a vote for the Catholic Smith was a vote for the devil. But four years later F.D.R. took office, and the New Deal began.

Of course, the coming of the New Deal was hastened by a severe national depression. Strange to say, we may be working on that, too.

America Wants Security - New York Times

Six Months Too Late

(CBS) Four months into his second term, President Bush is increasingly viewed as being out of touch with the American people, according to a CBS News poll.

Six in ten Americans say the president does not share their priorities, while just 34 percent say he does – the lowest numbers for Mr. Bush since the eve of his first inauguration.
CBS News CBS Poll: Bush Out Of Touch May 25, 2005?21:00:10

Something Positive For A Change

Some 15 states and 3 cities offer incentives to people who buy hybrid vehicles. While only 1% of the auto market now, hybrid sales are growing fast, while SUV sales are trending downward.


States hoping more will buy hybrid vehicles - Yahoo! News

American Gulag

Amnesty International finds human rights abuses so extreme and systematic at Guantanamo, the organization is calling for it to be shut down.

"Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time," Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said as the London-based group issued a 308-page annual report that accused the United States of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections.

Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo - Yahoo! News

Space War Continued

"The Air Force is pressing hard to develop defensive and offensive space weapons without adequately considering the potential adverse consequences," the New York Times editorializes today.

"Congress and the administration need to assess whether a multilateral treaty to ban space weapons might not leave the nation far safer than a unilateral drive to put the first weapons in space. "

Weapons in Space - New York Times

In Other New...

Review of three new books on the past, present and future of the wired, wired world, in the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review.

Review of DEATH SENTENCES: How Cliches, Weasel Words, and Management Speak Are Strangling Public Language by Don Watson at Books in Heat.

Birth of An Empire (Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith) at Soul of Star Trek.

The U.S. sithing on planet earth

U.S. Threatens Earth! The Real Star Wars

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," proclaimed General Lord. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

No, it's not more stilted dialogue delivered by a dark figure with an unbelievable name in the new Star Wars movie. It's a straight-faced statement of purpose by the leader of the U.S. Air Force Space Command.

"We must establish and maintain space superiority," General Lance Lord told the U.S. Congress. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting."

Moreover, as the New York Times reported, billions of dollars has already been spent on space warfare, with little public knowledge or debate. And without public outcry, it will soon become official U.S. policy.

According to the New York Times story and other sources, Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space. Currently there are weapons planned for attacking earth targets from space (including the so-called Rods from Gods, which would hurl cylinders of metal, including uranium, from space to targets on the ground, with the force of nuclear weapons) and space planes which could strike ground targets from the other side of the planet.

"This is the type of prompt Global Strike I have identified as a top priority for our space and missile force," General Lord said.

General Cartwright of the Space Command told a Senate Arms Services subcommittee that the goal is to provide the U.S. with the capability of attacking "very quickly, with very short time lines on the planning and delivery, any place on the face of the earth."

U.S. planners are also looking at destroying other space targets, beginning with existing satellites of potential enemies but also commercial communications and weather satellites that could aid opponents.

All of this---plus the more publicized "star wars" missile defense--- has been quietly accelerated during the Bush administration, and is one reason the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The fact that no other nation is known to be designing space weapons is apparently no deterrent. Virtually every technologically advanced nation on the planet has objected to the U.S. plans. But if plans go forward, a new arms race may very well be the outcome, and it will costs horrendous amounts of money.

There are major concerns about the havoc that could be caused on earth's surface even by testing such weapons, especially if nuclear weapons or nuclear powered space vehicles are included.

Groups that oppose this strategy point to the needs on the planet itself, and all the scientists and money tied up in this essentially insane project.

Even some advocates of space travel and exploration point out that warfare around the earth will result in so much debris that vehicles may never get off the planet to explore space.

There are more details on these plans and groups that oppose them here at www.armscontrol.org and this summary of the space command threat.

The reason this is news now is that the White House is considering making this official U.S. policy by accepting an Air Force directive outlining all of this. Bush is expected to approve it within weeks.

What if a really crazy group of people got control of these weapons---you know, religious zealots who want to hasten the Rapture, or political assassins who see the world in black and white, and who bare their teeth even at allies when they dare to differ? Look out France! In 45 seconds you could be French toast, because whoever isn’t with us is against us.

Only a concerted public outcry can save the planet.

Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it?

ever notice how the presidency ages people? 

This Just In--Darth Rove Unmasked

The Sith are coming, or are they already here? Agreeing with that remarkably perceptive piece in the SF Chronicle,
various other voices quoted by the Washington Post:

The Empire Strikes Bush

UPDATE 5/19
from the New York Times:

¶Conservative Web logs were lacerating Mr. Lucas over the film's perceived jabs at President Bush - as when Anakin Skywalker, on his way to becoming the evil Darth Vader, warns, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy," in an echo of Mr. Bush's post-9/11 ultimatum, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
¶A little-trafficked conservative Web site about film, Pabaah.com - for "Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood" - added Mr. Lucas to its list of boycotted entertainers, along with more than 200 others, including Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks.

Lucas in Cannes: " he went on to say that he had first devised the "Star Wars" story during the Vietnam War. "The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable," he told an appreciative audience."

In Other New...

Econ for the Future 101 at Books in Heat. Capra's "Lost Horizon" Found at Blue Voice.

Springtime in Canada, without countdown. Photo by Lemmuel Dash. 

Friday 13: And Your Friend the Atom

An Associated Press report, appearing in the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Washington isn't taking “the common bargain” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as seriously as it once did, hurting global support for the U.S. campaign to shut down the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix says.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, by questioning the value of treaties and international law, has also damaged the U.S. position, Mr. Blix said.

“There is a feeling the common edifice of the international community is being dismantled,” the Swedish arms expert said.

Mr. Blix, now chairman of the Swedish government-sponsored Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, spoke with reporters Monday in the second week of a month-long conference to review the 1970 nonproliferation treaty.
The Globe and Mail: Blix chides U.S. over nuclear outlook

Joseph Kahn reports in the New York Times that Yang Xiyu, the top China official involved in North Korean nuclear negotiations said in an interview, "It is true that we do not yet have tangible achievements" in ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But a basic reason for the unsuccessful effort lies in the lack of cooperation from the U.S. side."

The statement, Kahn writes, is noteworthy "because the Chinese authorities very rarely speak to journalists about the issue. The comments reflect growing frustration in Beijing with the Bush administration." Similar sentiments were expressed by a leader in the Russian legislature.

North Korea announced another step in extracting weapons grade plutonium from its main nuclear reactor, as a move "necessary to bolster its nuclear arsenal," according to an unnamed North Korean official in a Los Angeles Times report.

But several overseas newspapers noted that the U.S. right-rigging media is concentrating on the "Iran nuclear crisis." Reports midweek indicated that Iran is ready to formally end its freeze on nuclear activities, dooming the stalled negotiations with European countries.

The chickenhawks are likely concentrating on Iran because it's not believed they as yet have nuclear weapons, so according to chickenhawk logic, because they aren't a threat---whereas North Korea may be capable of launching an atomic attack on San Francisco--they are the chosen target of the only action the Bushheads are capable of: bullying.

Nuclear Arms Talks Stalled

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE CONTINUES GENERAL DEBATE AT UN HEADQUARTERS

Canadian Scientists Prove Italians Are Smarter

Hand Gestures Linked To Better Speaking

The Outrageous Skies

It's bad enough that United Airlines asked to be relieved of its pension obligations to its employees, especially after years of convincing many to take early retirement in order to preserve their pensions, and asking, or demanding, other concessions that translated into hardships for workers, while management maybe had to leave St. Bart's a day early.

But what's worse is that a Bankruptcy Court in Chicago granted their request. What this means in terms of money is still unclear---technically it's a transfer to a government agency, but it's likely the benefits will be cut, though so far no one is saying by how much.

Apart from the rank injustice to the rank and file, those of us who depend on United, not as a matter of choice but of monopoly or damn close to it, are not looking forward to the next flight on the "friendly skies." What motivation do these folks have now?

That may sound selfish from those of us who have the choice of flying United or flapping our arms and jumping off a roof, but it goes directly to the logic of being unjust and oppressive to the people everyone depends on to keep things working. Things stop working.

Now that United has gotten away with this so far (we hope it's appealed, all the way up, and let the Supremes tell America what to do with their pensions, before their GOPer brethren get their teeth into Social Security), other troubled airlines won't be far behind. And American workers will find themselves joining the millions of workers in the rest of the world who are hard at work building the pyramids for the Bushfolk of the planet, all for the honor of being bamboozled, lied to, exploited, cheated and scorned.

United workers feel betrayed / Bankruptcy judge relieves airline of pension obligation