Socolow Buenos Aires COP-10 12-9-04.pdf (application/pdf Object)
That link is a slide show. The full paper is here.
Countering Gore’s ultimately hopeful outcome is the pessimistic Doomsday Camp led by James Howard Kunstler, the flame-throwing author of best-selling “The Long Emergency“.
And here are the optimists, who aren’t giving up at worldchanging.com and at the Alternative Energy Action Network.
This Fox News video has been circulating around the Internet. This pressurized electrolysis was fathered by Russian Scientist Kanarev Many scams have developed in the race for the new energy holy-grail to end the hydrocarbon age. Time will tell if Hydrogen Technologies Applications in Clearwater, Fla. really has something revolutionary. 
Tom Friedman has recently pointed out that American ingenuity will win out over giant government programs in the new energy source quest. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and here are some of them. What we don’t see are the huge research funds that mega-corporations have also been pumping into their efforts, but are kept under wraps to prevent industrial espionage.
In the meantime, while the price will rise from processing less-desireable grades of hydrocarbons, we won’t run out of supplies anytime soon. Industry consultant and author of “The Prize”, Daniel Yergin is dismissive: “This is the fifth time we’ve run out of oil since the 1880s”. Alberta is home to vast deposits of oil sands, grit mixed with oil. These are more difficult and costly to refine than conventional liquid crude. However, already in 2002, 178bn barrels of reserves from oil sands were added to Canada’s reserves, leaving them second only to Saudi Arabia’s.
In April, Venezuela announced that it was adding a significant chunk of its heavy oil – another largely untapped source that remained unexploited until relatively recently– to its reserves. These will allow its reserves to surpass those of Saudi Arabia, with enough oil to maintain its current production for another two centuries. Heavy oil already accounts for roughly a quarter of its output.
Disagreeing is James Howard Kunstler, the flamethrowing author of The Long Emergency. Still, the sooner that the hydrocarbon age ends, the better for the environment.
Preparing for life after Castro’s death
The University of Miami — in coordination with the American Red Cross of Greater Miami and the Keys and a slew of nonprofit groups and local, state and federal agencies — has completed what officials say is the most comprehensive plan ever put together in Miami to prepare for the critical days following the death of Cuba’s communist leader, who will turn 80 this year.
The greatest fear among the planning organizations is another mass migration along the lines of the Mariel boatlift in 1980 or the 1994 balsero crisis. Much of the report is dedicated to planning for such an event, such as assigning a county official as the point person and assigning specific tasks to deal with migrants.
Los Angeles Times: EU is at a turning point
In Britain and Poland in the last month, nationalistic parties uneasy with integration into the European Union have scored major advances. The EU constitution, rejected last year by France and the Netherlands, is dead in the water. Economic nationalism and protectionism are surging. The French, Italian, Spanish and Polish governments recently have taken steps to protect national industries from foreign takeover.
On a continent that dreamed of eliminating national borders, hostility toward immigrants — especially those from Muslim countries — is causing national boundaries to spring back to life.
In short, political life across Europe is being renationalized, plunging the enterprise of European integration into its most serious crisis since World War II.
Iran’s president redefines power politics at home International Herald Tribune
In Iran’s theocratic system, where appointed religious leaders hold ultimate power, the presidency has been a relatively weak position. In the multiple layers of power that obscure the governance of Iran, no one knows for certain where the ultimate decisions are being made. But many of those watching are in near disbelief at the speed and aggression with which the president is seeking to accumulate power. They assume that he is operating with the full support of Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad, elected in June 2005, is trying to outpace the challenges buffeting Iran, ones that could undermine his presidency and conservative control. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is soaring, and the president has so far failed to deliver on his promise of economic relief for the poor.
The Observer | Review | Chaos and cock-up always trump conspiracy
Alongside Hurricane Katrina, the tragedy of 9/11 is providing fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and the film industry. But this should hardly be surprising, says Mark Kermode. After all, conspiracies are comforting.
A worrying number of people still believe that the Apollo missions were faked.
Most of what the public knows about the Kennedy assassination is based on a string of excitably dramatic movies, from David Miller’s Executive Action (1973) to Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), which viewers have mistaken for verifiable truth. (Debunked here)
In his new Movie on Katrina, Spike Lee will present that the levees were deliberately detonated, by the government.
In the ongoing tradition, the video 9/11 Loose Change helped force the release of another Pentagon tape of the Pentagon crash (Click on picture to view). The film appears especially popular among young people immersed in a Web culture brimming with sites that question the credibility of government. They see 9/11 as the defining moment of their lives.
A quick search of Wikipedia, produces a slew of carefully researched debunkings including a scene-by-scene Word document and whole web-site (9/11 Myths) devoted to different theories. The Loose Change Web-site tries to counter “the Government did it”arguments. The majority of the Muslim world blames the jews for 9/11 . Andyou can still see Fahrenheit 9/11 to add to your paranoid. But few will take the time to read the patient research. Instead we will be passively entertained by videos.
Conservative writer David Horowitz, a former 1960s radical, says conspiratorial thinking can offer a world view that is somehow less scary than reality. “Conspiracy theories are a kind of secular religion,” he says, adding that campus faculties sometimes encourage anti-government feelings. “People feel great anxiety … by the thought that nobody’s in control.”
People believe in conspiracy theories because the truth “is either too simple or too remote,” says sociologist Clifton Bryant of Virginia Tech University, who has made a study of “deviant logic” and behavior.
“We’re always ready to believe something about which we know nothing,” he says.”
Update –majority of young people believe conspiracy theory. Thanks Daily Show & the Internet?
Search for 9/11 on this site for more links, such as:
TIME.com Print Page: TIME Magazine — What Happened To The Gangs of New Orleans?
Before Katrina, New Orleans had a murder rate 10 times worse than the U.S. average. The killers evacuated too. Tracing the criminal exodus.
But when police interviewed the suspects, they suddenly understood why New Orleans was so violent. No matter what police said, they couldn’t get the suspects to talk. They had no leverage because no one took their threats seriously. It was a logical response: in New Orleans, 93% of people arrested from 2003 to 2004 never went to prison. It was the first time the Houston police had heard the phrase “60-day homicide.” Suspects would say, “This ain’t nothing but a 60-day homicide,” meaning that if they kept quiet for 60 days, they would walk–just as they had too often in New Orleans. So Houston police started letting evacuees spend a few days in jail before questioning them in depth. While they waited, the suspects talked with other inmates and had court appearances–which did not end with release. Eventually, for some, the reality of Texas law began to sink in. “As they stay here more, they seem to talk more,” Sergeant Harris says
Powerball winner losing home in auction
David Lee Edwards, a laid-off laborer in 2001 when he won $42 million from a $295 million Powerball drawing in Kentucky and moved to Palm Beach Gardens, appears to have the kind of financial problems that he never should have faced again.
In what is the talk of the town, an unemployed man that won a Powerball jackpot may be broke again as his $1.2 million Florida home is scheduled to be on the auction block May 22, 2006.
Update: A court hearing is scheduled July 24 to determine the status of the heroin charge, according to the state attorney’s office. Update thanks to Julie ” According to the Palm Beach Comptroller online records search… David Edwards was not present for his status check yesterday and it has been re-scheduled for August 23.”
Last July, Edwards’ $1.2 million home was auctioned for $400,000.
And Saturday, July 14th 2007 much of the home’s contents will go on the auction block at a Riviera Beach warehouse where Edwards spent his final days in Palm Beach County.
Update: Auction Results
Update: Shawna released from jail
Update: Shawna back in jail
Update Felony Charges dropped against Shawna
Update Powerfall A good article that pulls the narrative together. Amy, the reporter, wanted to talk to Tiffani, but she refuses interviews. Thanks Julie for sending this.
Teenager killed his sister for living a Western life – World – Times Online
AYHAN SURUCU was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date German men that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. Kids at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them
Head of Arab League Pushes Nuke Programs – Yahoo! News
KHARTOUM, Sudan – The head of the Arab League called on Arab states Tuesday to work toward “entering the nuclear club” by developing atomic energy
BERLIN (AFP) – Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, a German magazine reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.
This atavistic love of blood and death and, indeed, self-immolation in the name of God may not be new–medieval Europe had an abundance of millennial Christian sects–but until now it has never had the means to carry out its apocalyptic ends….If nothing is done, we face not proliferation but hyperproliferation.
Henry Kissinger said yesterday “ “We live in a period in which most of what we know from history is inapplicable or applicable in limited ways.”
Then he says, Asia today is like 19th C. Europe and the Middle East is like the 17th C. Then there’s globalization which both integrates economically and fragments politically. And somehow we need to synthesize this all in a way the public can understand.
NEW DELHI – Village elders ordered a Muslim man in eastern India to leave his wife after he accidentally divorced her in his sleep, a news report said Tuesday.
In the wake of the cartoon jihad and mosque-on-mosque violence in Iraq, most Americans now think Islam has more violent believers than any other faith. Yet many still view it as a “peaceful religion.”
Psychologists might call this cognitive dissonance — a state of mind where rational people essentially lie to themselves. But in this case, it’s understandable. In our politically correct culture, criticizing any religion, even one that plots our destruction, is still taboo. And no one wants to suggest the terrorists are driven by their holy text. Is Islam the only religion with a doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers?
Chanting “God is Greatest” after the 71-to-36 vote, Hamas lawmakers hugged and kissed Ismail Haniyeh, their teary-eyed prime minister-designate who vowed to not to abandon the fight against Israel.
“The Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration,” Hamas lawmaker Hamed Bitawi said.”
To bolster its campaign, the Iranian government has one of the most extensive and sophisticated operations to censor and filter internet content of any country in the world — second only to China, Hopkins said.
It also is one of a growing number of Middle Eastern countries that rely on U.S. commercial software to do the filtering, according to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet Initiative