Hard hitting global and local news
March 7, 2013 (LD) – Hundreds of heavily armed terrorists have crossed from the Philippines and landed in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah. Dozens are already dead, and the Malaysian military has brought in aircraft and armor to confront the audacious, bizarre invasion, scattering militants into the jungles of Borneo island.
James Fallows thinks about the ten year anniversary of the Iraq invasion. He says he’d like to hear from the liberal war hawks and what they’ve learned. I don’t quite fit that category – not always a liberal for one thing, and was undecided rather than a supporter of the war.
Wired reports 11 Years Later, Senate Wakes Up to War on Terror’s ‘Battlefield America’ Sen.
While no one was looking the sun has gone cold, more precisely the sun gods have decreased total solar irradiation by about 4 W/m 2 to 1360.8 + 0.5 W/m 2 from 1365.4 + 1.3 W/m 2 ERB is the Earth Radiation Budget instrument, ACRIM is the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiation Monitor, SORCE is the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment carrying the TIM, Total Irradiation Monitor. The rest is left to the industrious reader. What happened was that apertures in earlier instruments were not properly chosen, allowing excess light to be scattered into the sensor (right side of the figure below) resulting in higher TSI being measured. The magnitude of the effect was determined in a purpose built testing facility at LASP. The error is not without consequences As Kopp and Lean point out, A nonzero average global net radiation at the top of the atmosphere is indicative of Earth’s thermal disequilibrium imposed by climate forcing. But whereas the current planetary imbalance is nominally 0.85 W/m 2 [Hansen et al., 2005], estimates of this quantity from space‐based measurements range from 3 to 7 W/m 2 SORCE/TIM’s lower TSI value reduces this discrepancy by 1 W/m 2 [Loeb et al., 2009].
The Markit Eurozone Composite PMI Final Data shows the Eurozone downturn accelerates . Key Points: Final Eurozone Composite Output Index: 47.9 (Flash 47.3, January 48.6) Final Eurozone Services Business Activity Index: 47.9 (Flash 47.3, January 48.6) At 47.9 in February, the Markit Eurozone PMI® Composite Output Index came in above the earlier flash estimate of 47.3 but remained down on January’s reading of 48.6. The index therefore signalled a steepening of the downturn in business activity, contrasting with the easing trend which had been evident in the three months to January
Links Chavez & Thaksin: A Tale of Two Socialists and Western Hypocrisy March 6, 2012 (LD) – Confounding was the Australian’s (newspaper) recent op-ed titled, " Death of a ruthless autocrat ," in regards to the late Hugo Chavez.
I’ve really enjoyed Chris Mooney’s Point of Inquiry podcasts, so it’s too bad the latest one with pro-GMO activist Mark Lynas failed to wrestle significantly with real arguments about GMOs (Chris, you talk about GMOs too much to say you don’t want to delve into technical issues). One interesting issue did come out of the podcast – at one point Lynas says the Union of Concerned Scientists’ rejection of the National Academy of Sciences position on GMOs is a contradiction of UCS arguments that we should rely on the consensus opinion on climate change
March 6, 2013 (LD) – US corporate-financier funded think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), declared in its ” post-Chávez checklist for US policymakers ,” that the US must move quickly to reorganize Venezuela according to US interests. Upon its checklist were “key demands”: The ouster of narco-kingpins who now hold senior posts in government The respect for a constitutional succession The adoption of meaningful electoral reforms to ensure a fair campaign environment and a transparent vote count in expected presidential elections; and The dismantling of Iranian and Hezbollah networks in Venezuela In reality, AEI is talking about dismantling entirely the obstacles that have prevented the US and the corporate-financier interests that direct it, from installing a client regime and extracting entirely Venezuela’s wealth while obstructing, even dismantling the progress and geopolitical influence achieved by the late President Hugo Chavez throughout South America and beyond. The AEI “checklist” continues by stating: Now is the time for US diplomats to begin a quiet dialogue with key regional powers to explain the high cost of Chávez’s criminal regime, including the impact of chavista complicity with narcotraffickers who sow mayhem in Colombia, Central America, and Mexico.
Hello Mish, Your translation seems correct. It’s quite astonishing is that a serious newspaper like Les Echos reports this story
Tuesday, March 05, 2013 Posted by EliRabett Rabett Run Subscribe Rabett Run Posts Posts Comments Comments Contributors Eli Rabett Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional