Month: August 2006

Officials: U.S. blocked missiles to Hezbollah

USATODAY.com – Officials: U.S. blocked missiles to Hezbollah
•July 15: Three days after the war began, a source tipped off U.S. intelligence about an imminent shipment of missiles from Iran to Hezbollah.

•July 19: A spy satellite photographed Iranian crews loading three missile launchers and eight crates, each normally used to carry a Chinese-designed C-802 Noor missile, aboard a transport plane at Mehrabad air base near Tehran. Israel says Hezbollah fired a C-802, a precision-guided anti-ship cruise missile, at an Israeli warship off Lebanon’s coast on July 14. Continue reading “Officials: U.S. blocked missiles to Hezbollah”

US baby boomers: Landmark generation

BBC NEWS | Americas | US baby boomers: Landmark generation

In their lives so far, boomers have brought about social and sexual revolutions; they helped roll back segregation laws in the 50s and 60s and played a decisive role in pushing through women’s rights.

Baby boomers created the culture of cool along with trends that were copied round the world – the blue jeans fashion craze, hip hop music and the cult of youth.

Getting the word out (even without the bread)

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Getting the word out (even without the bread)

My favorite strategic thinker in one of his better rambles – about why Africa is next…

Fight heads south because Shiia empowered in ME, so Yalta-like split emerging (west and friends get Sunni Egypt, Saudi and Jordan). East increasingly favors Shiia out of desire for energy and need to plus up on non-West-heavy providers. Watch this play out in competing rebuilds in Lebanon, as Sunni govs support Lebanese gov and Shiia states support Hezbollah (quietly).

Thus Iran safe from isolation and sanctions. By proxy (esp. after Lebanon), so too largely is Syria, but neocon mindset will push hard to target them next as revenge for Israel’s poor showing (Iran will be okay with this diversion too).

In a Sunni-Shiia split ME, Al Qaeda does less well, as neither side approves, and to extent Israeli issues dominate, AQ is effective non-player in a very crowded field.

In the end, Iran’s pre-emptive war is a brilliant move…

So the fight heads south into Africa.

We must stand up to Islamo-fascism

Comment is free: We must stand up to Islamo-fascism
British reaction to IslamoFacism is heating-up. This Post is from the “Gaurdian” Newspaper.
We are facing an irrationalist movement immune to compromise and dedicated to achieve its ends of controlling every aspect of daily life, every process of the mind, through indiscriminate mass slaughter. It is a culture obsessed with death, a culture that despises women, a culture devoted to mad hatreds not just of Americans and Jews everywhere, but of Muslims anywhere who embrace a less totalitarian, less radical, more humane view of Islam.
The Salafist movement was under-rated and misunderstood and the reaction to it has been confused. As always, the right is triggerhappy and hostile to free expression; as always, the left never wants to do anything that would hazard its self-righteous sense of moral purity.

These are historic fault lines. The right tolerated fascism in the thirties, the left Soviet Communism in the fifties. Of course these two earlier totalitarian movements were different in nature and our response when it came was not always well judged – the tendency is to think first of the excesses of the right typified by the witch hunts of the odious McCarthy, but we should remember, too, that the Democratic party in the immediate postwar years of Henry Wallace would have abandoned Europe just as the left in the eighties would have left Europe at the mercy of the new Soviet missiles.

The apologists for the Islamo-fascists – an accurate term – leave millions around the world exposed to a less obvious but more insidious barbarism.

Americans Review Conspiracy Theories

Americans Review Conspiracy Theories: Angus Reid Consultants

Likely

Unlikely

Officials in the federal government were
directly responsible for the assassination
of U.S. president John F. Kennedy

40%

51%

The federal government is withholding
proof of the existence of intelligent life
from others planets

38%

54% Continue reading “Americans Review Conspiracy Theories”

Rinspeed Splash

Rinspeed Splash
The Rinspeed “Splash” is the true incarnation of a really cool and fun sports toy. At the push of a button a cleverly thought-out hydraulic mechanism transforms the sports car into an amphibious vehicle.
A highly complex integrated hydrofoil system enables the “Splash” to ‘fly’ at an altitude of about 60 cm above the water. Continue reading “Rinspeed Splash”

New Medication Appears Effective In Helping Smokers Kick The Habit

ScienceDaily: New Medication Appears Effective In Helping Smokers Kick The Habit
“In this study, varenicline tartrate, 1 milligram twice daily, effectively helped subjects quit smoking, with response rates three times higher than those for placebo while demonstrating a good tolerability profile in this population of smokers who on average had smoked approximately 20 cigarettes per day for approximately 24 years,” the authors write. “Efficacy was maintained in the non–drug treatment phase through week 52. The significant reductions in craving and in some of the rewarding effects of smoking seen with varenicline tartrate, 1 milligram twice daily, may assist in promoting abstinence and preventing relapse,” they conclude.

‘Test-tube coral babies’ may mend reefs

‘Test-tube coral babies’ may mend reefs – Yahoo! News
Looking like an upside-down, underwater snowstorm, most corals in the Keys, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean release eggs and sperm into the water a few days after the full moon in August. In the wild, eggs and sperm randomly mix and fertilize to become larvae. Some take root to become foundation blocks for new coral.

Researchers led by Margaret Miller, an ecologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, gather spawn in cone-shaped, tent collectors anchored over portions of the coral reef off Key Largo. The spawn is blended in jars and the portion that fertilizes is transported to a field laboratory.

Nearly Three Million Migrate A Year to Developed Nations

PRB
Each year, nearly 3 million migrants move from poor countries to wealthier ones. Increasingly, however, more of this migration will occur between developing countries, such as that occurring from Bangladesh to India, or from India, Egypt, and Yemen to the Persian Gulf States.

Almost half — 1.4 million — move to Europe, which is nevertheless facing unprecedented population losses from low birth rates. The U.S. attracts more immigrants than any other country, fueling a national debate on immigration policy. Other destinations include Canada, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, which has a better economy than much of the Middle East. The biggest suppliers of immigrants are China, India and Mexico. Continue reading “Nearly Three Million Migrate A Year to Developed Nations”

Michael Gerson on How 9/11 Changed Bush

Michael Gerson on How 9/11 Changed Bush – Newsweek National News – MSNBC.com
From those events, President Bush drew a fixed conclusion: as long as the Middle East remains a bitter and backward mess, America will not be secure. Dictators in that region survive by finding scapegoats for their failures—feeding conspiracy theories about Americans and Jews—and use religious groups to destroy reformers and democrats. Oil money strengthens elites, buys rockets, funds research into weapons of mass destruction, builds radical schools across Africa and Asia and finds its way to terrorist organizations. Terrorist organizers exploit the humiliated and hopeless—channeling their search for meaning into acts of murder—and plot, as London 2006 proves, to surpass the mad ambitions of 9/11.