Tue May 12, 2009 6:24pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would cut nearly $700 million from land stewardship programs at the Agriculture Department, a small-farm and an environmental group said on Tuesday after examining budget proposals.
Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the proposals would cut "a very healthy chunk out of the $5 billion increase" provided for stewardship programs in the 2008 farm law.
The Environmental Working Group, which favors more money for stewardship, said the cuts "undermine the administration's goals of reducing global warming, cleaning up waterways and restoring balance and integrity to environmental programs."
In separate statements, the groups listed the proposed cuts as:
-- $250 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps control field and feedlot runoff.
-- lowering enrollment in the Wetlands Reserve by 138,000 acres, which should save $350 million over the life of the farm law.
-- $43 million from the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program.
-- $30 million from the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which helps buy easements to keep land in farms.
-- $5 million from the Agricultural Management Assistance Program.
(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE54B7AS20090512
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Katz on Dogs
by Jonah Goldberg
Harry Truman famously said of D.C.: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." It turns out that Truman was wrong, at least if you go by the experts.
I'm not talking about Washington, but of dogs. And I'm not referring to the First Dog, Bo, who has received a ton of attention that should have gone to a shelter dog as the president promised. No, this is about dogs as dogs.
And love.
As traditional arrangements dissolve in the heat of the present age, or perhaps just under the hot studio lights of "Oprah," we are constantly told that there are many "kinds of love." Actually, this isn't a new insight. But we can leave that -- and the debate over this observation's meaning and utility -- for another day. What rankles is not where the line is being extended but where it is being withdrawn.
Until the day before yesterday, figuratively speaking, everyone understood that among the most honorable expressions of love -- a kind of love -- is the relationship between man and dog. Canines were lovers of learning for being able to distinguish friend from foe, according to Plato. Sigmund Freud observed that "dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."
Charles Darwin, a true secular saint of the modern age if ever there was one, loved dogs unreservedly. And, in "The Descent of Man," he marveled at the ability of dogs to love back. He noted how even "in the agony of death, a dog has been known to caress his master."
But even Darwin was a sucker, apparently. Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, recently mocked a local woman, Jess Craigie, who dove into near-freezing waters to save her dog from drowning. Zorn wrote, "Note to Jess Craigie: Your dog still doesn't love you."
Zorn's source for this dog slander is Jon Katz, who despite his name has written mostly wonderful stuff about dogs. Zorn uses an unfortunate quote from Katz to peddle the fashionable notion that dogs are, in the words of science writer Stephen Budiansky and others, "social parasites." According to this theory, canines are evolutionary grifters that have fooled humans into believing they are our friends. "Dogs develop very strong, instinctive attachments to the people who feed and care for them," Katz told Zorn. "Over 15,000 years of domestication, they've learned to trick us into thinking that they love us." (In his book "Soul of a Dog," Katz is far more nuanced about the nature of canine affection, suggesting a quid pro quo of food for love. Here, Katz is out of the bag.)
Look, few would dispute that dogs are complicated creatures with internal lives that fall far short of humanlike consciousness or self-awareness. And anyone who's spent more than five minutes with dogs knows their priorities and our own differ dramatically. That's part of the magic of doggy goodness. Dogs don't care whether you're rich or famous or popular. They care about you. Or, in the case of my dog, Cosmo (a shelter dog), he cares about me and about maintaining an orderly and secure perimeter on our block, as free of mail carriers, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, cheetahs and wildebeests as possible. His biggest successes have been with the cheetahs and wildebeests -- so far.
Here's the question reductionists like Zorn don't answer: Why does canine affection have to be a trick or a con? After all, according to the very same logic, I love my wife and daughter because I have strong instinctive attachments for them grounded in my genes. But even if the genetic explanation is absolutely true, it doesn't change the fact that I love my family.
Why should it be different with dogs? It's not as if dogs have a Terminator-like computer screen inside their heads that says "run fake-love subroutine now" when their masters come home from work. Dogs don't pose in front of the mirror practicing their tail-wags like lines from a script so they can make it convincing. If it is true of any living thing, it is true of dogs: They are what they are. A happy dog can no more be faking his joy than a hungry lion could be faking his appetite.
Do we really want to live in a society in which love is a genetically mandated confidence game? Where will that argument take us?
Indeed, if embracing modernity means I have to accept such unlovely idiocy, count me out. I'll be elsewhere. If you need me, just follow the sound of the barking.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/05/13/katz_and_dogs
Harry Truman famously said of D.C.: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." It turns out that Truman was wrong, at least if you go by the experts.
I'm not talking about Washington, but of dogs. And I'm not referring to the First Dog, Bo, who has received a ton of attention that should have gone to a shelter dog as the president promised. No, this is about dogs as dogs.
And love.
As traditional arrangements dissolve in the heat of the present age, or perhaps just under the hot studio lights of "Oprah," we are constantly told that there are many "kinds of love." Actually, this isn't a new insight. But we can leave that -- and the debate over this observation's meaning and utility -- for another day. What rankles is not where the line is being extended but where it is being withdrawn.
Until the day before yesterday, figuratively speaking, everyone understood that among the most honorable expressions of love -- a kind of love -- is the relationship between man and dog. Canines were lovers of learning for being able to distinguish friend from foe, according to Plato. Sigmund Freud observed that "dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."
Charles Darwin, a true secular saint of the modern age if ever there was one, loved dogs unreservedly. And, in "The Descent of Man," he marveled at the ability of dogs to love back. He noted how even "in the agony of death, a dog has been known to caress his master."
But even Darwin was a sucker, apparently. Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, recently mocked a local woman, Jess Craigie, who dove into near-freezing waters to save her dog from drowning. Zorn wrote, "Note to Jess Craigie: Your dog still doesn't love you."
Zorn's source for this dog slander is Jon Katz, who despite his name has written mostly wonderful stuff about dogs. Zorn uses an unfortunate quote from Katz to peddle the fashionable notion that dogs are, in the words of science writer Stephen Budiansky and others, "social parasites." According to this theory, canines are evolutionary grifters that have fooled humans into believing they are our friends. "Dogs develop very strong, instinctive attachments to the people who feed and care for them," Katz told Zorn. "Over 15,000 years of domestication, they've learned to trick us into thinking that they love us." (In his book "Soul of a Dog," Katz is far more nuanced about the nature of canine affection, suggesting a quid pro quo of food for love. Here, Katz is out of the bag.)
Look, few would dispute that dogs are complicated creatures with internal lives that fall far short of humanlike consciousness or self-awareness. And anyone who's spent more than five minutes with dogs knows their priorities and our own differ dramatically. That's part of the magic of doggy goodness. Dogs don't care whether you're rich or famous or popular. They care about you. Or, in the case of my dog, Cosmo (a shelter dog), he cares about me and about maintaining an orderly and secure perimeter on our block, as free of mail carriers, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, cheetahs and wildebeests as possible. His biggest successes have been with the cheetahs and wildebeests -- so far.
Here's the question reductionists like Zorn don't answer: Why does canine affection have to be a trick or a con? After all, according to the very same logic, I love my wife and daughter because I have strong instinctive attachments for them grounded in my genes. But even if the genetic explanation is absolutely true, it doesn't change the fact that I love my family.
Why should it be different with dogs? It's not as if dogs have a Terminator-like computer screen inside their heads that says "run fake-love subroutine now" when their masters come home from work. Dogs don't pose in front of the mirror practicing their tail-wags like lines from a script so they can make it convincing. If it is true of any living thing, it is true of dogs: They are what they are. A happy dog can no more be faking his joy than a hungry lion could be faking his appetite.
Do we really want to live in a society in which love is a genetically mandated confidence game? Where will that argument take us?
Indeed, if embracing modernity means I have to accept such unlovely idiocy, count me out. I'll be elsewhere. If you need me, just follow the sound of the barking.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/05/13/katz_and_dogs
AU Fires Claim Animals Lovers & Their Animals
Funeral honours fire victims' love of animals
Geoff Strong
May 13, 2009
Horse-drawn hearses marked Sue Evans' and Robert O'Sullivan's kindness to animals. Photo: Pat Scala
There was always room for animals in the lives of Sue Evans and Robert O'Sullivan. Family friend Karen Crabtree reminisced: "They loved all species, equine, canine, reptile or human."
Yesterday, while friends of the human kind gathered to remember the couple killed in the February 7 fires, four of the equine variety delivered their remains to the tiny Church of St Margaret's in Eltham.
Ms Evans and Mr O'Sullivan were among five people who died when the Black Saturday inferno roared over a ridge and across their Strathewen property about 6pm. It also claimed the lives of Ms Evans' son Jon LeGassick and his friends Haydn McMahon and Kaya Mehmedoff.
At yesterday's funeral, to honour the couple's love of animals, their bodies were taken to and from the church in a pair of 19th century horse-drawn hearses.
The couple's own horses all perished in the fire, along with the family's dogs and chickens.
Ms Evans' brother Paul said two of the horses were found and buried by Grocon, the company that has volunteered to clear all the bushfire-destroyed properties.
The couple had bought their 16 hectares high in the Strathewen hills, near the boundary of the Kinglake National Park about four years ago. They did not just care about animals in the abstract, they nursed injured wildlife and ran a pet shop in Diamond Valley.
Through tears, Ms Evans' mother, Vicky, described her daughter as a compassionate person with a love for family, friends and animals.
Mr O'Sullivan's sister Leonie Moody described a shy young man who left his native Perth to make a home in Melbourne.
"But I find I have spent more intense time with my brother over the last three months, than during his life," she said. "The main consolation I have is that I know he would have been a happy man before his death."
http://www.theage.com.au/national/funeral-honours-fire-victims-love-of-animals-20090512-b1w7.h
Geoff Strong
May 13, 2009
Horse-drawn hearses marked Sue Evans' and Robert O'Sullivan's kindness to animals. Photo: Pat Scala
There was always room for animals in the lives of Sue Evans and Robert O'Sullivan. Family friend Karen Crabtree reminisced: "They loved all species, equine, canine, reptile or human."
Yesterday, while friends of the human kind gathered to remember the couple killed in the February 7 fires, four of the equine variety delivered their remains to the tiny Church of St Margaret's in Eltham.
Ms Evans and Mr O'Sullivan were among five people who died when the Black Saturday inferno roared over a ridge and across their Strathewen property about 6pm. It also claimed the lives of Ms Evans' son Jon LeGassick and his friends Haydn McMahon and Kaya Mehmedoff.
At yesterday's funeral, to honour the couple's love of animals, their bodies were taken to and from the church in a pair of 19th century horse-drawn hearses.
The couple's own horses all perished in the fire, along with the family's dogs and chickens.
Ms Evans' brother Paul said two of the horses were found and buried by Grocon, the company that has volunteered to clear all the bushfire-destroyed properties.
The couple had bought their 16 hectares high in the Strathewen hills, near the boundary of the Kinglake National Park about four years ago. They did not just care about animals in the abstract, they nursed injured wildlife and ran a pet shop in Diamond Valley.
Through tears, Ms Evans' mother, Vicky, described her daughter as a compassionate person with a love for family, friends and animals.
Mr O'Sullivan's sister Leonie Moody described a shy young man who left his native Perth to make a home in Melbourne.
"But I find I have spent more intense time with my brother over the last three months, than during his life," she said. "The main consolation I have is that I know he would have been a happy man before his death."
http://www.theage.com.au/national/funeral-honours-fire-victims-love-of-animals-20090512-b1w7.h
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
DC Cockfighting Ring a Hoax, Editors say
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
DC Cockfighting Ring a Hoax, Editors say
Mental Note to Myself: check your sources before passing info along. Live and learn.
Although "Onion" is a well-respeced newspaper, their sense of humor leaves alot to be desired. How can they get away with that?
This is not funny and I appoligize for passing around mis-information.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/34_congressmen_arrested_in_d_c
There are no cockfighters in Congress that we know of...
CJ/MK
Posted by MuleKist / ErthMa at 3:22 PM
34 Congressmen Arrested In D.C. Cockfighting Crackdown
May 12, 2004 | Issue 40•19
WASHINGTON, DC—Washington police seized 22 members of the House of Representatives, 12 members of the Senate, and more than 100 fighting cocks Monday night, in the latest crackdown on blood sports at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Congressmen Don Nickles (R-OK), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and John Lewis (D-GA) minutes before their arrest.
"At 1 o'clock this morning, uniformed officers, acting on tips from undercover operatives, staged simultaneous raids on four known beltway pits, arresting a large bipartisan coalition of legislative cockfighting enthusiasts," D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey told reporters Tuesday. "Of course, we were aware of the longstanding cockfighting problem, but we were shocked to catch so many highly placed lawmakers in the act of betting on, training, and selling fighting birds—or, in the case of [Rep.] Tammy Baldwin [D-WI], operating back-alley clubs."
A full report of evidence gathered in the raids will be issued later this week, but police have released certain facts, including details about a breeding network for elite fighting cocks—prized for their extreme aggressiveness and high pain threshold—run by members of the House Judiciary Committee. Undercover officers said they witnessed committee members selling birds to other congressmen for hundreds of dollars apiece.
Evidence also included photos of congressional motor-pool limousines that had been converted into "crating trucks" to transport cocks from venue to venue. Perhaps most stunning of all were the firsthand sightings of cocks, their crests and wattles surgically removed, being trained to fight with blades tied to their natural spurs in a 400-bird "hardening pen" in the basement of the Old Executive Office Building, just blocks away from the White House.
Detective William Gargano of the D.C. vice squad was present for the previous evening's raid on El Pollo Diablo, a cockfighting pit located among several blocks of abandoned warehouses in southeast D.C.
"I was there shooting undercover video when detectives and animal-control operatives, working in a combined task force, busted down all the doors to the place at once," Gargano said. "It had already been shaping up to be one hell of a night. [Sen. Dick] Lugar [R-IN] was a few hundred dollars ahead in the pit. His famous Stag Hammer just couldn't lose. Well, that didn't sit well with [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY], who accused him of giving his bird ginger and amphetamine suppositories to make it fight harder."
Continued Gargano: "Then [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein [D-CA] tried to suck her rooster's punctured lung clear so it could last a whole match, but she swallowed too much blood and puked everywhere. [Supreme Court Justice David] Souter had just broken up a fight between [Rep.] Mark Kennedy [R-MN] and [Rep. Jim] Oberstar [D-MN], after they knocked the damn carcass barrel all over the floor. When the raid happened, I was relieved. It was getting pretty dicey in there."
The raids themselves were carried out with minimal resistance. Only Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) needed to be restrained and charged with resisting arrest.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) inspects fighting birds during a cock-buying trip to Tibet.
Ramsey said that, though formal charges have yet to be filed, the congressmen taken into custody will most likely be charged with illegal gambling, animal cruelty, and collusion. Nearly all of the arrested cockfighting enthusiasts are out of jail after posting bail. However, not one of the arrested parties, even those who were not elected officials, has agreed to speak openly to reporters.
One legislator who asked not to be identified said the charges were "petty," and that the indicted members of Congress were victims of a "witch-hunt."
"Although violent, cockfighting is a traditional part of the American lawmaker's way of life," the legislator said. "It's a sport, with a code of conduct the uninitiated simply wouldn't understand. I'm sure many of the good people of Oklahoma, hypothetically speaking, would agree that there's a place for different people's tastes in this great country. As far as the cruelty charges go, that's ludicrous. I love my fighting cocks—my wife likes to say I treat my champion red-eyes better than I treat her—and I'm sure my fellow Congressmen would say much the same."
As troubling as the mere existence of a legislative cockfighting ring may be, lawmakers who were not implicated in the scandal say they are more disturbed by evidence that legislation has been derailed, altered, or passed based on successes and failures in the cockfighting pit.
"One week, the Civic Funding for Secondary Education Act is dead in the water, with no compromise on the horizon," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said. "The very next week, 12 Democrats turn over on their votes. I heard strange rumors that some hefty debt to the Senate Republicans was just erased—something involving '10-to-1 odds on a one-eyed Rhode Island Red.' It didn't make sense until this morning, when I flipped on the news and saw all these same senators getting cuffed at the rooster pit in a basement off Constitution."
"Now that I think about it, this may explain why the Chicken Feed Price Stabilization Act passed through the House so quickly last month," McCain added.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/34_congressmen_arrested_in_
DC Cockfighting Ring a Hoax, Editors say
Mental Note to Myself: check your sources before passing info along. Live and learn.
Although "Onion" is a well-respeced newspaper, their sense of humor leaves alot to be desired. How can they get away with that?
This is not funny and I appoligize for passing around mis-information.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/34_congressmen_arrested_in_d_c
There are no cockfighters in Congress that we know of...
CJ/MK
Posted by MuleKist / ErthMa at 3:22 PM
34 Congressmen Arrested In D.C. Cockfighting Crackdown
May 12, 2004 | Issue 40•19
WASHINGTON, DC—Washington police seized 22 members of the House of Representatives, 12 members of the Senate, and more than 100 fighting cocks Monday night, in the latest crackdown on blood sports at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Congressmen Don Nickles (R-OK), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and John Lewis (D-GA) minutes before their arrest.
"At 1 o'clock this morning, uniformed officers, acting on tips from undercover operatives, staged simultaneous raids on four known beltway pits, arresting a large bipartisan coalition of legislative cockfighting enthusiasts," D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey told reporters Tuesday. "Of course, we were aware of the longstanding cockfighting problem, but we were shocked to catch so many highly placed lawmakers in the act of betting on, training, and selling fighting birds—or, in the case of [Rep.] Tammy Baldwin [D-WI], operating back-alley clubs."
A full report of evidence gathered in the raids will be issued later this week, but police have released certain facts, including details about a breeding network for elite fighting cocks—prized for their extreme aggressiveness and high pain threshold—run by members of the House Judiciary Committee. Undercover officers said they witnessed committee members selling birds to other congressmen for hundreds of dollars apiece.
Evidence also included photos of congressional motor-pool limousines that had been converted into "crating trucks" to transport cocks from venue to venue. Perhaps most stunning of all were the firsthand sightings of cocks, their crests and wattles surgically removed, being trained to fight with blades tied to their natural spurs in a 400-bird "hardening pen" in the basement of the Old Executive Office Building, just blocks away from the White House.
Detective William Gargano of the D.C. vice squad was present for the previous evening's raid on El Pollo Diablo, a cockfighting pit located among several blocks of abandoned warehouses in southeast D.C.
"I was there shooting undercover video when detectives and animal-control operatives, working in a combined task force, busted down all the doors to the place at once," Gargano said. "It had already been shaping up to be one hell of a night. [Sen. Dick] Lugar [R-IN] was a few hundred dollars ahead in the pit. His famous Stag Hammer just couldn't lose. Well, that didn't sit well with [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY], who accused him of giving his bird ginger and amphetamine suppositories to make it fight harder."
Continued Gargano: "Then [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein [D-CA] tried to suck her rooster's punctured lung clear so it could last a whole match, but she swallowed too much blood and puked everywhere. [Supreme Court Justice David] Souter had just broken up a fight between [Rep.] Mark Kennedy [R-MN] and [Rep. Jim] Oberstar [D-MN], after they knocked the damn carcass barrel all over the floor. When the raid happened, I was relieved. It was getting pretty dicey in there."
The raids themselves were carried out with minimal resistance. Only Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) needed to be restrained and charged with resisting arrest.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) inspects fighting birds during a cock-buying trip to Tibet.
Ramsey said that, though formal charges have yet to be filed, the congressmen taken into custody will most likely be charged with illegal gambling, animal cruelty, and collusion. Nearly all of the arrested cockfighting enthusiasts are out of jail after posting bail. However, not one of the arrested parties, even those who were not elected officials, has agreed to speak openly to reporters.
One legislator who asked not to be identified said the charges were "petty," and that the indicted members of Congress were victims of a "witch-hunt."
"Although violent, cockfighting is a traditional part of the American lawmaker's way of life," the legislator said. "It's a sport, with a code of conduct the uninitiated simply wouldn't understand. I'm sure many of the good people of Oklahoma, hypothetically speaking, would agree that there's a place for different people's tastes in this great country. As far as the cruelty charges go, that's ludicrous. I love my fighting cocks—my wife likes to say I treat my champion red-eyes better than I treat her—and I'm sure my fellow Congressmen would say much the same."
As troubling as the mere existence of a legislative cockfighting ring may be, lawmakers who were not implicated in the scandal say they are more disturbed by evidence that legislation has been derailed, altered, or passed based on successes and failures in the cockfighting pit.
"One week, the Civic Funding for Secondary Education Act is dead in the water, with no compromise on the horizon," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said. "The very next week, 12 Democrats turn over on their votes. I heard strange rumors that some hefty debt to the Senate Republicans was just erased—something involving '10-to-1 odds on a one-eyed Rhode Island Red.' It didn't make sense until this morning, when I flipped on the news and saw all these same senators getting cuffed at the rooster pit in a basement off Constitution."
"Now that I think about it, this may explain why the Chicken Feed Price Stabilization Act passed through the House so quickly last month," McCain added.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/34_congressmen_arrested_in_
Warning: Sunspot cycle beginning to rise
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Sat May 9, 4:55 pm ET
WASHINGTON – When the sun sneezes it's Earth that gets sick.
It's time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here.
Like hurricanes, a weak cycle refers to the number of storms, but it only takes one powerful storm to create chaos, said scientist Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather prediction center.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a storm as severe as one in 1859 occurred today, it could cause $1 trillion to $2 trillion in damage the first year and take four to 10 years to recover.
The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, sent readings of Earth's magnetic field soaring, and produced northern lights so bright that people read newspapers by their light.
Today there's a lot more than telegraph lines at stake. Vulnerable electrical grids circle the globe, satellites now vital for all forms of communications can be severely disrupted along with the global positioning system. Indeed, the panel warned that a strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions.
The solar prediction center works closely with industry and government agencies to make sure they are prepared with changes in activity and prepared to respond when damage occurs, Biesecker said in a briefing.
While the most extreme events seem unlikely this time, there will probably be smaller scale disruptions to electrical service, airline flights, GPS signals and television, radio and cell phones.
On the plus side, the solar storms promote the colorful auroras, known as the northern and southern lights, high in the sky over polar areas.
An international panel headed by Biesecker said Friday it expects the upcoming solar cycle to be the weakest since 1928.
The prediction calls for the solar cycle to peak in May 2013 with 90 sunspots per day, averaged over a month. If the prediction proves correct it will be the weakest cycle since a peak of 78 daily sunspots in 1928.
Measurement of sunspot cycles began in the 1750s.
The panel described solar storms as eruptions of energy and matter that escape from the sun. At least some of this heads toward the Earth.
Solar cycles of more and fewer sunspots last several years and the cycle currently building up will be number 24 since counting began.
It's only the third time researchers have tried to make such a forecast. In 1989 a panel predicted Cycle 22, which peaked that year. And in 1996 scientists predicted Cycle 23.
Both earlier groups did better at predicting timing than intensity, according to Biesecker.
The last solar minimum occurred in December, the researchers said.
W. Dean Pesnell of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the forecasts are based on such indicators as the strength of the sun's magnetic field at the poles and the reaction of the Earth's magnetic field to the sun. Both are weak right now, he said, with only a few sunspots visible since 2007.
A preliminary forecast issued in 2007 was split over the outlook for the upcoming cycle, Biesecker said the researchers have now reached consensus.
___
On the Net:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov
Space Weather Center: http://www.spaceweather.gov
Related Searches:
space weather prediction center
solar storm
solar storms
solar minimum
noaa
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090509/ap_on_sc/us_sci_space_weather;_ylt=Au_ZczYlxdvLgSOsKojH.fwPLBIF
tHE sCOOP On PoOp
From the Grist;
Three hundred million Americans head to the restroom multiple times a day. The amount of sludge produced staggers the mind—7 million dry tons per year and counting. And it’s not even just crap—it contains residues from everything else we put down the drain, from the detergent in your dishwasher to the chemicals used at the industrial plant down the street.
Can the United States continue to flush all that waste down the drain? Can Western-style sanitary practices be replicated throughout the developing world without breaking the natural water and nutrient cycles? And what if the answer is that each one of us needs to start taking more responsibility for where our crap winds up? It ain’t easy being green as it is, but even the most diehard enviros may not be ready to live under the same roof with a composting toilet.
Journalist Catherine Price, a contributing editor at Popular Science and a 2008 Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Reporting, gives a crap about crap. Over the course of three days, she’ll take Grist readers on a guided tour through the bowels of sewage. So grab some extra toilet paper and get ready for some straight poop on poop.
Day 1
Sludge, farmer’s friend or toxic slime?
Regulating biosolids
Day 2
Businesses struggle to profit from sewage sludge
Day 3
For some eco-pioneers, solving the sludge problems means getting their hands dirty
Click on title above for full article;
http://www.grist.org/article/series/2009-05-05-human-waste-series/
WHO: Poor & Middle Class Hit Hardest in Pandemics
Of course, we already know that they are trying to "disappear" us!
"..For several reasons, the prevalence of chronic diseases has risen dramatically since 1968, when the last pandemic of the previous century occurred. The geographical distribution of these diseases, once considered the close companions of affluent societies, has likewise shifted dramatically. Today, WHO estimates that 85% of the burden of chronic diseases is now concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. In these countries, chronic diseases show an earlier average age of onset than seen in more affluent parts of the world..."
Full article;
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/assess/disease_swineflu_assess_20090511/en/index.html
"..For several reasons, the prevalence of chronic diseases has risen dramatically since 1968, when the last pandemic of the previous century occurred. The geographical distribution of these diseases, once considered the close companions of affluent societies, has likewise shifted dramatically. Today, WHO estimates that 85% of the burden of chronic diseases is now concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. In these countries, chronic diseases show an earlier average age of onset than seen in more affluent parts of the world..."
Full article;
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/assess/disease_swineflu_assess_20090511/en/index.html
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