The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists.
They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century.
The fourth consecutive year the ice cap has shrunk! Wow, it must be global warming and the weather is so hot it's warming Mars too!
That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars. Boulders tumbling down a Martian slope left tracks that weren't there two years ago. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. [emphasis mine]
It's time to ditch the car and go back to the horse! But before we do that, I'd like to know what happened over a century ago that resulted in even smaller ice caps than we have now? Maybe the Mr. Richard Black wrote a poorly constructed sentence, but when he said, "They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century," he's inferring that over a century ago the ice caps were smaller and I want to know why. As well, I want to know why Mars' ice caps are shrinking too!
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia on Tuesday denied that top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic had been arrested, but Bosnian and Serbian media insisted he was in custody and had been taken to neighboring Bosnia. ... more
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia on Tuesday denied that top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic had been arrested, but Bosnian and Serbian media insisted he was in custody and had been taken to neighboring Bosnia.
The storm of conflicting reports exposed Belgrade's extreme jitters one week from a European Union decision on whether to go on talking to Serbia about its EU membership prospects or freeze the process as punishment for not arresting Mladic.
"The news about Ratko Mladic is not correct," government spokesman Srdjan Djuric said. "It is a manipulation which damages the (Serbian) government," he said in a statement phoned to various agencies including Reuters.
The handover of Mladic to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he faces genocide charges, is increasingly seen by Serbia as a sacrifice it must make to appease the West, although many Serbs believe he did no wrong.
Serbian newspapers have speculated that Belgrade planned to whisk Mladic to Bosnia after an arrest to defuse anger at home and cast doubt on Western charges that he has been hiding in Serbia all along, with government knowledge and army help.
Independent Belgrade broadcaster B92 insisted the 63-year old general had been arrested in Serbia, then transferred to Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia for a flight to The Hague.
This was the route used to deliver former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to the tribunal in 2001, using the U.S. military's Eagle Base near Tuzla.
Serbia's state news agency Tanjug and the main Bosnian Serb agency SRNA also said that was what had happened to Mladic too: the wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander had been arrested in Belgrade but moved swiftly to Tuzla.
HAGUE, WASHINGTON NOT IMPRESSED
Mladic personifies the ruthless Serb nationalism blamed for the wars that erupted as Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s, with up to 200,000 dead. To westward-looking Serbs he is the main obstacle to reinstatement in the European mainstream.
He was indicted in 1995 for genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which claimed 12,000 civilian lives, and for orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.
His political boss Radovan Karadzic, indicted on the same charges, is still at large.
Serbian newspapers have debated for days whether Mladic would be in The Hague in time to avert suspension of EU talks with Belgrade, a penalty which would deal a body blow to the minority coalition government.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is due to present a report to EU foreign ministers next Monday or Tuesday assessing whether Serbia is cooperating with the tribunal or stalling.
Belgrade is desperate to save the association talks it began with Brussels four months ago. But the EU has warned they will be frozen if Mladic is not handed over very soon.
"The government is aware of the consequences," said Vladeta Jankovic, an adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. The government was approaching a decisive moment and Mladic's handover was "almost a condition of survival".
Reports of the imminent arrest of Mladic or efforts to bring him in intensify each time Serbia faces a Western deadline.
The retired general lived openly in Belgrade until the fall of Milosevic in 2000. He is still a poster-boy for hardliners and he drew his pension via surrogates until last year, facts that fuel Western suspicion of Belgrade.
"Unfortunately, nothing happened," said a spokeswoman for Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte of Tuesday's arrest reports. "Mladic was not arrested, although he is within the reach of the authorities in Belgrade."
State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli also said Washington was "not aware that there's any change in the status of Mladic. He continues to be a fugitive from justice".
History is evoked more and more these days, even as fewer of us read it. ... more
History is evoked more and more these days, even as fewer of us read it.
That apathy explains why when public figures turn to false historical analogies for political purposes, they're often given a free pass to exaggerate or distort. Take, for example, filmmaker Michael Moore, who once compared terrorists in Iraq to our own Minutemen, or Yasser Arafat who implied that the taking of Jenin was as brutal as the battles for Leningrad and Stalingrad. Even Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recently likened the conditions found in Guantanamo Bay to those in Nazi death camps.
So the next time someone quotes philosopher George Santayana for the umpteenth time that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," just assume that what follows will probably be wrong. Having a Rolodex of cocktail party quotes to beef up an argument is not the same as the hard work of learning about the past.
Thus, we are now warned that the war against terror is failing because it has lasted as long as World War II — as if the length of war, not the cost, determines success.
Yet the nearly 2,000 U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq, while tragic, are a fraction of the 292,000 American battle deaths in World War II — about 0.6 percent, in fact.
The mantra "Bush lied; thousands died" charges that President Bush altered his reasons for the war from the original worry over weapons of mass destruction. But aside from the fact that the U.S. Senate voted for the war on 22 additional counts, wars, rightly or wrongly, have often had a variety of changing public explanations.
Lincoln led the North into the Civil War emphasizing that it was a struggle to preserve the Union, not outlaw slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was not passed until January of 1863, when enough Union progress allowed Lincoln to publicly redefine a practical struggle of restoration into one of sweeping idealism.
Woodrow Wilson ("He kept us out of war") and Franklin D. Roosevelt ("Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars") won re-election by promising non-involvement in Europe's fighting. Yet, when voted back in, they both prepared for war, convinced that there was no living with either Prussian militarism or Axis fascism.
Since America entered World War I without first being attacked, should we conclude "Wilson lied, thousands died"?
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) intoned of the USA Patriot Act he voted for, "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night." Though, so far, that mild statute pales before exigencies of past liberal wartime presidents who really did jail innocents, night and day, without warning or sometimes even justification.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. During World War I, under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, Woodrow Wilson detained citizens without trial and made it a crime to slander the United States. Franklin Roosevelt convicted and executed saboteurs through military tribunals and sent thousands of Japanese Americans to relocation camps.
We're constantly reminded of the regrettable intelligence lapses from Sept. 11, 2001, onward, but they seem almost minor in light of prior blunders in the fog of war.
Thousands of Americans perished at Shiloh, Pearl Harbor and during the Battle of the Bulge because commanders like Ulysses S. Grant, Adm. Husband Edward Kimmel and Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't have a clue what the enemy was planning.
In our confusion during this war, why do we often ignore history or twist its details to fit our own particular needs?
First, in our schools, formal study of the past has given way to the more ideological agenda of the social sciences. Mastery of historical facts is seen as passe, while the less educated instead "do theory" to prove preconceived notions.
Second, good intentions don't always equal good history. Being politically correct often makes us plain wrong, relegating history to melodrama and negating history's power to put tragedy into context.
Third, we're in thrall to the present affluent age, convinced that our own depressing experiences are unique, naturally dwarfing all prior calamities.
But history is not a parlor game used to prove a political point. Instead, at its best, history should offer us solace that we are never really alone.
Reporters Needed Do you want to make a difference by reporting the news for your home town?
United States of Earth brings aspiring writers the ability to report the news and write opinions. ... more
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Hey Dwayne -- Wha' happened to you? No more interesting and challenging articles or opinions coming from you; and the site doesn't seem to change. Is it on "auto-pilot?" Hate to see a good thing seem to "linger" -- and aside from the sidebar blogs with their varied views, ain't nobody home in this ol' house, I fear except more and more urls for viagra and other "hard-on" merchandising being posted in the "comments response" column. I realize you're probably working your tail off at your regular gig, but I've been wondering....? If I were capable I'd help out, but you already know I am lost in the world of these matters; just having an editor to help is all that keeps me posting now and then. ... more
Hey Dwayne -- Wha' happened to you? No more interesting and challenging articles or opinions coming from you; and the site doesn't seem to change. Is it on "auto-pilot?" Hate to see a good thing seem to "linger" -- and aside from the sidebar blogs with their varied views, ain't nobody home in this ol' house, I fear except more and more urls for viagra and other "hard-on" merchandising being posted in the "comments response" column. I realize you're probably working your tail off at your regular gig, but I've been wondering....? If I were capable I'd help out, but you already know I am lost in the world of these matters; just having an editor to help is all that keeps me posting now and then.
Let us hear you're okay...you know my e-mail. Persevere. Joab
Out of sheer arrogance, I thought I had succeeded in my one man crusade to substantively and intelligently retort Steve McIntosh, a radio personality with NewsRadio 1330 KNSS in Wichita, KS. I thought my retorts effectively caused him to look at what he was going to say before he said it, thus making his nominally entertaining audio reports more accurate and substantive. ... more
Out of sheer arrogance, I thought I had succeeded in my one man crusade to substantively and intelligently retort Steve McIntosh, a radio personality with NewsRadio 1330 KNSS in Wichita, KS. I thought my retorts effectively caused him to look at what he was going to say before he said it, thus making his nominally entertaining audio reports more accurate and substantive.
You see, Mr. McIntosh has this annoying habit of making generalized statements particularly about republicans and/or conservatives. And if not about them as a group, he does the same about their initiatives. His annoying habits on occasion transcends generalizing to stating historical inaccuracies, such as was the case when Mr. McIntosh issued a correction for comments he had made concerning a sniper incident in Wichita in 1976. Since he normally doesn't issue corrections when the facts are contrary to his statements, I'd bet my bottom dollar that in this instance it was not a listener who had prompted Mr. McIntosh to issue the correction, but peer pressure.
Well, while getting ready for work on the morning of August 29th I heard Mr. McIntosh stray into familiar territory. The subject was support for Operation Iraqi Freedom;
I predicted this before American troops ever set foot in Iraq: if this turns ugly and takes more than a few months and a few bodies, Americans will lose patience and demand an end to our involvement. While the President asks that we “stay the course”, many Americans are having second thoughts.
In a recent Time magazine column, Joe Klein quotes a commander who lost five of his lieutenants in Iraq: “Why hasn’t the president issued a national call to service? I don’t mean a draft, but if the President called on people to serve, they would. And not just in the military. My mother mentioned this the other day: ‘Why aren’t there the war bond drives we had in World War Two? Why aren’t we being asked to collect clothing for the children of Iraq?’”
I thought going into Iraq was a mistake, but I’ve never said we ought to cut and run. The problem is that our nation hasn’t been asked to do a single thing to support the war, except shut up and approve more debt.
Some say of the war dead, “Well, they volunteered … they knew what they were getting in to”. That’s ridiculous! It illustrates a feeling that we have hired people to defend us, and their injuries and deaths are part of the work contract.
To me, that dishonors their service more than any grieving mother who disagrees with our government’s policies.
In Mr. McIntosh's mind Iraq has nothing to do with the over all War on Terrorism (WoT), but he doesn't seem to understand that using the rational he gives for not supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) would also apply to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), which is the Afghani operation. You see, very very few of the leadership of al Qaeda, which we are hunting down in Afghanistan, are actually Afghani -- most are Saudi. We went to Afghanistan, because that was where they were training for their attacks on America and our allies. Much of the planning and organizing for these attacks occurred in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. One could even argue that a great deal of planning, training and organizing occurred in western nations. But setting that all aside, Afghanistan helped facilitate the attacks and Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan; thats why Afghanistan was a target. But in a way, Iraq also helped facilitate the attack, because the fact remains that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq had to give at least tacit approval to Jihadists headed to Afghanistan who would have had to cross Iraqi and then Iranian borders to get to Afghanistan. If the Hussein regime hadn't at least given tacit approval these Jihadists would have had trouble passing through that country.
But I digress; my point was not to address Mr. McIntosh's approval of OIF, or lack thereof. My point is to address a very generalized, if not untrue, statement. As well, I wish to address a very inaccurate interpretation of comments Mr. McIntosh criticizes.
Mr. McIntosh believes the only thing the Bush Administration has asked of America is to "shut up and approve more debt". But the fact is if you look at OIF as part of the WoT, Americans have been asked to do an awful lot. We've been asked to be more diligent and watchful for unusual activity. As well, Pres. Bush and congress has asked us to endure more restrictive laws that some say infringe on our civil liberties. As for Iraq specifically, we've been asked to endure a casualty rate higher than that in Afghanistan and also endure a long-term mission to help establish an Islamic-democracy. This is not to say America could not endure even more in support of our troops and the war, but Mr. McIntosh comes off as though we've not been asked to do anything and that is simply not true.
The second issue I take with Mr. McIntosh is his view that some comments from people illustrate "a feeling that we have hired people to defend us". I can only imagine Mr. McIntosh is referring to the usual retort to the anti-war types like Cindy Sheehan who make a huge todo by saying something to the effect, "Pres. Bush is killing our children in a war they didn't want to fight," or, "they never joined intending to fight a war," and other such things. The retort to these types of comments is that the military is all volunteer and those who joined knew they could see battle sometime during their service. The logic is unarguable and in no way dishonors the service these men and women give to America.
I would address his suggestion that Cindy Sheehan is a mother who simply "disagrees with our government’s policies", but that would require substantially more time and effort. If in the future I hear Mr. McIntosh summarize Mrs. Sheehan in such a manner, then I shall take on the task of rebuting him at that time.
Oh, I almost forgot, there was a valid point in there, but I was mistaken on who made that point. Time Magazine's Joe Kline quotes the mother of a commander in Iraq as saying, "Why aren’t there the war bond drives we had in World War Two? Why aren’t we being asked to collect clothing for the children of Iraq?"
Now I know for a fact that there are private efforts to give clothing and toys to Iraqi children, but I've often wondered why there haven't been war bond drives and the like. I think it would be a great morale boost to the troops and stick-it-in-the-eye to the media who seemingly maintain the notion that support for the war is weak. I can only speculate as to why war bonds haven't been reintroduced, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that during World War II the annual budget deficits were significantly higher than today; in 1943 the deficit was over 30% of the GDP whereas the current deficits are far less.
Regardless of the reasons why, I think it's a valid point and I at least give Mr. McIntosh credit for repeating it.