October 2007
Signs of Peak Oil? →
Crude has jumped 52 percent this year to a high today of $93 beating the record price of (inflation adjusted) $84.73 on March 1981. Some analysts expect it to rise to $100.
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK →
“The fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) assessment is a comprehensive and authoritative UN report on environment, development and human well-being, providing incisive analysis and information for decision making.” Grim reading about a dire outlook for the future livibility of this planet.
A Comeback for Lebanon's Hashish →
Hurray for the brave Lebanese farmers of the Bekaa valley! “We are tired of being hungry. We view the government as an enemy and from now on we are going to grow hashish and we don’t care what the government says or tries to do,” said Ahmad, a hashish farmer.
The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the... →
Results of their (University of East Anglia researchers) 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.
“What do you call 15 guys sitting around the TV watching the Rugby World Cup...”
– The Financial Times of London
They can't help themselves. They want to confess. →
The Bush administration, in search of a world where they could do anything, reached instinctively for torture as a symbol. After all, was there any more striking way to remove those “gloves” or “unshackle” a presidency? If you could stake a claim the right to torture, then you could stake a claim to do just about anything.
Diabetes, More Complex Than Thought →
The Bush administration hides its most perverse... →
Masri was seized from a tourist bus en route to Macedonia in 2003. He was held there for five months before being turned over to Americans and flown to a prison in Afghanistan. There, he says, he was beaten, stripped, sodomized, photographed and injected with drugs. Then, as suddenly as he’d been seized, Masri was released and dropped on a mountain road along the border between Albania and...
“Of all the things that can happen in this world, we’ll be prepared for that, yes...”
– Rudy Giuliani, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire in response to a question about an invasion of aliens.
Secret Maori ‘terror camps’ in New Zealand →
The operation has shocked New Zealand, which has long believed that its isolation would protect it against terrorism. A napalm bomb had been tested at one camp and a threat made against Helen Clark, the Prime Minister. Howard Broad, the Police Commissioner, said: “They are training in the use of firearms and other weapons. I believe this is domestically oriented. I don’t have evidence that there...
Oil futures close above $86 in uncharted territory →
“Trouble keeps brewing and we have not had a relief in tensions in any part of the world for years. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another, from pipeline disruptions in Alaska, hurricanes in the Gulf region, continued Middle East tensions, rebels in Nigeria, or heightened tensions in Venezuela — the oil market has seen it all in just these past two years.” — John...
Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty
I was an Arabic linguist serving in US Army Inteligence at Asmara, Ethiopia, at the time of the attack. There was a huge radio intercept facility at Kagnew Station outside of Asmara. It was clear to everone working at the intercept facility that the Israelis deliberately attacked the Liberty. Many of us had friends and collegues aboard the Liberty. We knew that we might just as easily have...
“The evidence was clear. Both Adm. Kidd and I believed with certainty that this...”
– U.S. Navy Capt. Ward Boston (retired), senior counsel to Adm. Isaac C. Kidd, named by Adm. John S. McCain to “inquire into all the facts and circumstances” of the Isreali attack on the USS Liberty .
“We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these [Greenland]...”
– Robert Correll, Chairman of the Artic Climate Impact Assessment
Ice Caps Melting Fast: Say Goodbye to the Big... →
Scientists say the acceleration of melting and subsequent speeding up of giant glaciers could be catastrophic in terms of sea level rise and make previous predictions published this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) far too low. If all of Greenland melts, something we were previously assured would take thousands of years, but now could be hundreds, then sea level round...
Thousands of walruses flock to Alaska shore, away... →
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, September sea ice was 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000. Sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return, with a possible ice-free Arctic Ocean by summer 2030, said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist.
Why Major Labels Just Lost →
Paul Resnikoff’s excellent analysis of the impact of a Minnesota jury’s ruling against file-sharing defendant Jammie Thomas on Thursday.
Why Climate Change Can't Be Stopped →
The mounting scientific evidence, coupled along with economic and political realities, increasingly suggests that humanity’s opportunity to prevent, stop, or reverse the long-term impacts of climate change has slipped away.
Private security contractors now outnumber... →
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster....”
– Nietzsche