Aging Satellite Fleet May Mean Gaps in Storm Forecasts

The article in the New York Times on the coming gaps in satellite weather coverage carefully avoids any mention the role George W. Bush in causing this. The closest they come is mentioning that the problems go back "a decade". They know that most people will have forgotten, if they ever were aware, of the truth. But I did remember. And the internet makes it possible to go back and get the information from that time. I also remember that it was clear that oil man Bush wanted to prevent the detection of climate change due to global warming.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/us/dying-satellites-could-lead-to-shaky-weather-forecasts.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
Published: October 26, 2012

The United States is facing a year or more without crucial satellites that provide invaluable data for predicting storm tracks, a result of years of mismanagement, lack of financing and delays in launching replacements, according to several recent official reviews.

The looming gap in satellite coverage, which some experts now view as almost certain to occur within the next few years, could result in shaky forecasts about storms like Hurricane Sandy, which is now expected to hit the Northeastern Seaboard early next week.

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Experiments show that without this kind of satellite data, forecasters would have underestimated by half the massive snowfall that hit Washington in the 2010 blizzard nicknamed “Snowmageddon.”

“We cannot afford to lose any enhancement that allows us to accurately forecast any weather event coming our way,” said Craig J. Craft, commissioner of emergency management for Nassau County, Long Island, where the great hurricane of 1938 hit without warning and killed hundreds. On Thursday, Mr. Craft was seeking more precise forecasts for the looming storm and gearing up for possible hospital and nursing home evacuations, as were ordered before Hurricane Irene last year. “Without accurate forecasts it is hard to know when to pull that trigger.”

Experts have grown increasingly alarmed in the past two years because the existing polar satellites are nearing or beyond their life expectancies, and the launching of the next replacement, known as JPSS-1, has slipped until early 2017, probably too late to avoid a gap of at least a year.

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The Joint Polar Satellite System also includes important sensors for studying the global climate, and these too are at risk.

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From 2004:

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04341.html

August 18, 2004

Bush Cancels Funding for Important Weather Satellite Program

by Captain Wayne R. Genthner

As a local charter boat captain I have a necessary familiarity with the remote sensing instrumentation employed by NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. These agencies provide some of the most valuable tools professionals such as myself rely on to make a living. My academic background is in meteorological science, which comes in quite handy and I apply that basic knowledge on a daily basis with help from NOAA to create working forecasts of weather conditions at sea. I depend on my experience at sea and on the derived meteorological products from key satellite systems to keep my clients and myself safe. However, you don't have to be a sea going captain to understand the importance of accurate weather forecasting services. It is of grave concern to me that the public is now exposed to a clear and present danger posed by the shut down of the TRMM satellite program. TRMM is an orbiting surveillance platform, which observes and reports important information needed to make sound weather forecasts. TRMM provides sea surface temperature and sea height data, which is factored into the statistical forecasting models, which estimate hurricane growth potential and direction of travel. The TRMM satellite program has been used for over a decade in successful forecasts of intensity and tracking for tropical systems like Hurricane Charley. To the dismay of working professionals, coastal residents and the world science community, funding for this vital program has been terminated by the Bush administration, even as these scientists argue that we are now handicapping our ability to deliver concise warnings of impending hurricane landfalls. The premature closure of this very valuable weather forecasting mission is certainly not laudable given our present circumstances.

The problem with TRMM is not technical; it is all about reassigned budget priorities to accommodate the president's vision of manned space exploration. In the absence of the political will to continue the program a decision was made to implement the controlled de-orbiting of this perfectly good life saving satellite. All because the mere $28 million to $36 million needed to operate the system for another two years could not be found in the new working budget shared between NASA and the Japanese space agency with whom we are in partnership.

.....

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http://www.leftinalabama.com/diary/8165/obama-moves-to-restor-funding-for-noaa-satellites-gop-congress-cut-as-luxury-america-cant-afford

Obama Moves to Restore $$$ for Weather Satellites GOP Congress Cut as "Luxury America Can't Afford"

Mon May 09, 2011

Mary Orndoff correctly reports that President Obama is asking Congress to restore funding for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) which would provide forecasters with precise information on storms like the ones that devastated Alabama on April 27th.

"Under current funding scenarios, the JPSS-1 mission could be delayed by up to two years, thus forcing the weather forecasting community to rely solely on satellites that will be operating well past their planned mission life," John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told Congress last week.

Work on the satellite slowed when Congress this spring made deep cuts in the fiscal year 2011 budget, he said. So President Barack Obama's administration is asking for a $1.1 billion increase for 2012 to get things back on track. The money is targeted for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What is missing from this report is the fact that every Republican Congressperson from Alabama voted to eliminate funding for those satellites. They were one of those "luxuries" that America just can't afford anymore in the Republican view. The GOP budget plan is the reason these satellites are now behind schedule.

.....

It's amusing to watch GOPpers like Spencer Bachus (R, AL-06) scrambling to cover their asses by now supporting increased funding for advanced weather satellites. They just got a lesson in what is and is not a "luxury."

Obama is better at investing than Romney is

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Olbermann-Fan-Page/153964677960664?ref=stream

Keith Olbermann Fan Page:

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU SHARE THIS: It's apparent that Obama is better at investing than Romney is. His failure rate is at 22%. While Obama's is at 8%.

Romney's Bain Record
77% businesses invested in
22% filed for bankruptcy or closed w/in 8 yrs
8%: Bain lost all money invested

Obama's record D.O.E ( Department of Energy) Grant Recipients failure rate
92% success 8% failure for the government

Did Climate Change Help Create ‘Frankenstorm’?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/26/1097391/climate-change-frankenstorm-beyond-strange-unprecedented-bizarre/

Did Climate Change Help Create ‘Frankenstorm’? This Is ‘A Beyond-Strange Situation. It’s Unprecedented And Bizarre’

By Stephen Lacey and Joe Romm on Oct 26, 2012
As the East Coast braces for a possible direct hit from Hurricane Sandy, meteorologists are closely watching the storm’s “freak” formation. They’re calling it “unprecedented and bizarre,” a “perfect storm,” and a “frankenstorm” that could cause historic storm surges, last for multiple days, and cause over a billion dollars in damage.

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A confluence of factors are coming together to make the storm unprecedented. As Sandy moves through the Atlantic, it is expected to combine with an early winter storm from the continental U.S., causing pressure to drop — potentially reaching pressure levels of a category 3 or 4 hurricane with winds over 115 miles per hour.

Brian Norcross of the Weather Channel described the storm this way on his facebook page: “This is a beyond-strange situation. It’s unprecedented and bizarre. ”

Another factor under consideration is climate change. Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace. And like a baseball player on steroids, it’s the wrong question to ask whether a given home run is “caused” by steroids.

As Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, has written, all superstorms “are affected by climate change”:

The air is on average warmer and moister than it was prior to about 1970 and in turn has likely led to a 5–10 % effect on precipitation and storms that is greatly amplified in extremes. The warm moist air is readily advected onto land and caught up in weather systems as part of the hydrological cycle, where it contributes to more intense precipitation events that are widely observed to be occurring.

The climate change link may be more than just more precipitation. A 2010 study found “Global warming is the main cause of a significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High.” Climate Central’s Andrew Freedman explains a possible influence:

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The storm comes at a unique time politically. In August, the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida was disrupted by strong rain and flooding caused by Hurricane Isaac. Two days later in his acceptance speech, Mitt Romney mocked President Obama’s pledge to deal with climate change and “slow the rise of the oceans” — causing uproarious laughter among delegates.

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Top Romney Adviser: If You Own A Microwave, You Aren’t Really Poor

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/10/25/1091501/top-romney-adviser-if-you-own-a-microwave-you-arent-really-poor/

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 25, 2012

A top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign denied the nation’s income inequality gap in a Wall Street Journal editorial on Thursday, brushing off the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the very wealthy by arguing that lower-income Americans are buying more consumer goods.

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Yet the access of low-income Americans—those earning less than $20,000 in real 2009 dollars—to devices that are part of the “good life” has increased.

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The percentage of low-income households with microwave ovens grew to 92.4% from 74.9% between 2001 and 2009. Fully 75.5% of low-income Americans now have a cell phone

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But this argument, a favorite of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, is highly misleading. Appliances and commonly used consumer gadgets like cell phones are necessities in the 21st century and are significantly cheaper today than they were just decades earlier. In fact, were families to sell their appliances in order to help pay for food and other basic necessities, many would still struggle — for while prices on microwaves and air conditioners have fallen, “the real everyday basics such as quality child care and out-of-pocket medical costs” are “squeezing the budgets of the poor and middle-class alike.”

Hassett argues that safety net programs like “unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid” help families afford basic needs, further shrinking the nation’s income gap. But these programs are already failing to keep up with need and Romney and Ryan have proposed massive cuts to the safety net in order to pay down the deficit and finance a tax cut plan that is heavily skewed towards the rich.

Their approach would only exacerbate the differences between the rich and poor — a gap that has grown dramatically since the late 1970s. Indeed, compared to the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States has a Gini coefficient — a number that measures the distribution of income on a scale of 0 (perfectly equal) to 1 (perfectly unequal) — of 0.47 and ranks near the very bottom in inequality. America also suffers from the absolute highest “percentage of national income that went to the top 1 percent” and “has seen income inequality increase at a much faster rate than most other countries.”

This trend is already devastating the American democratic ideals of equal opportunity and upward mobility. Unfortunately, neither Romney nor his advisers can see the problem or offer the kind of tax and economic policies that will help solve it.

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If you think this makes sense, you are totally ignorant about poverty. Eg., apartments usually have refrigerators, etc. People who are renting a room usually have access to the kitchen. There may be several generations of a family living in an apartment sharing expenses. And how do they expect poor people to eat? Go to restaurants? I guess they don't think someone is poor unless they scavenge for food from dumpsters. A microwave can be bought fairly cheaply, and is the cheapest way to cook.

Many people need a phone to find out whether and what time they are scheduled to work, because they don't have a fixed schedule. A friend who works at Chik-fil-a has to check on a computer to find out. An employee at Barnes & Noble said she had to phone in daily to find out if she was scheduled. And the only "address" a homeless person has is their phone! Homeless or not, people need a phone to get a job in the first place.

I know people who have some things only because they were gifts from their parents or other family members.

Comments in on ThinkProgress also point out that many people have second-hand possessions.

Court allows testimony by Mitt Romney in Stemberg divorce case to be unsealed

I find it troubling that court proceedings can be purged from court records.

http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/10/25/court-allows-testimony-mitt-romney-stemberg-divorce-case-unsealed/PYQi6CxYTGOKRhtahY83DI/story.html

By Callum Borchers 10/25/2012

Mitt Romney’s sworn testimony in a post-divorce lawsuit against Staples founder Tom Stemberg was unsealed on Thursday at Norfolk Probate and Family Court.

The suit was filed in 1990 by Stemberg’s ex-wife, Maureen Sullivan Stemberg, who sought to amend the couple’s financial agreement after Staples went public in 1989 and began trading at 10 times the stock value she had received in the divorce a year earlier. Romney, now the Republican nominee for president, testified during the lawsuit in June 1991; the nature of his testimony was not immediately clear on Thursday.

The Globe filed a motion on Oct. 15 to unseal Romney’s testimony, which was impounded along with all other case files from the Stembergs’ 10-year legal battle. Parties in the case also signed a confidentiality agreement that Gloria Allred, the attorney for Sullivan Stemberg, called “the most comprehensive gag order I have ever seen in my 36 years of practicing law.”

The Globe originally moved to amend the confidentiality agreement to allow parties in the case to speak publicly about Romney’s testimony but dropped the request on Thursday, when Stemberg — who had opposed the Globe’s request to unseal the testimony — rescinded his objection.

Allred argued vigorously for Sullivan Stemberg’s right to address Romney’s testimony publicly, saying Sullivan Stemberg was being denied her First Amendment Right.

“Out of context, [the testimony] has no meaning for the public,” Allred said. “She can put it in context.”

.....

In a hearing on Wednesday, Sullivan Stemberg had stated through her attorney that she had no objection to the Globe’s request to selectively vacate the impoundment order. Romney and Staples had taken no position because they had not reviewed the 21-year-old testimony, which had been purged from court records.

But Sullivan Stemberg had saved copies of the two-decade-old records. Allred produced two, inch-thick volumes of Romney’s testimony in court on Wednesday. Romney, Staples, and Stemberg requested and received a continuance to examine the documents, setting up Thursday’s hearing about whether they could be made public.


http://www.examiner.com/article/mitt-romney-implicated-perjury-and-stock-fraud-made-millions-process

October 24, 2012
By: Lou Colagiovanni

Mitt Romney has been implicated in a complex case involving perjury, stock manipulation, and possibly consumer fraud.

Mitt Romney lied in the divorce proceedings of his wealthy friend, Tom Stemberg, founder of Staples, according to a story by radaronline.com. At least that is what Stemberg's former wife, Maureen, says. She is a MS patient who says her husband was so vindictive he even cut off her health insurance. Unfortunately the records for this case have been sealed, and participants are unable to discuss them. Other forces are in motion to lift the gag order.

It is a matter of public record that Mitt Romney went on the stand claiming that Staples as a business was "overvalued." He also specifically said:

"I didn't place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company's future."

Because of Romney's testimony the court valued the corporation at a paltry percentage of its actual worth, and Maureen Stemberg was granted a tiny settlement.

Meanwhile, weeks after the divorce was finalized, Mitt Romney and his buddy Tom Stemberg sold their shares of Staples to Goldman Sachs and made millions in the process.

Chevron Donates $2.5 Million To GOP Super PAC

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/26/1094541/chevron-election-republicans/

By Rebecca Leber on Oct 26, 2012

Chevron, the second-largest oil company in the U.S. and eighth-largest in the world, contributed $2.5 million in October to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC to elect House Republicans. That makes Chevron’s super PAC donation the single largest from a corporation.

The donation comes after House Republicans voted 109 times this Congress to enrich oil companies. According to Public Campaign Action Fund’s Adam Smith:

The donation appears to be the largest from a publicly-traded corporation in the post-Citizens United era. The corporate donation is double what the company’s PAC and employees have already donated to federal candidates and committees this cycle, according to analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The company’s donation arrives in an election year where the oil industry has waged multimillion-dollar ad campaigns, including American Petroleum Institute’s campaign in swing states. Chevron has also sent 91 percent of its federal political contributions to Republican candidates. So far this year, fossil fuel groups have spent more than $153 million on campaign ads to promote pro-fossil fuel candidates.

Chevron gets a good return for its loyalty. House Republicans voted at least twice to protect Big Oil’s $2.4 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Chevron alone receives an estimated $700 million in annual tax breaks. And the company spent $16.6 million of Big Oil’s $105 million lobbying Congress to block pollution controls and safeguards for public health.

$500,000 payment to failed charter school principal sparks outrage

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14698079-500000-payment-to-failed-charter-school-principal-sparks-outrage?lite

By Sevil Omer, NBC News Oct. 25, 2012

A Florida state senator is calling for an investigation into the payout of more than $500,000 to the principal of a failed Orange County charter school.

A school board chairman blasted the payout of taxpayer money, which has sparked outrage in Orlando, as “immoral and unethical.”

Kelly Young, principal of NorthStar High School in Orlando, received a check for $519,453.96 in June, about the same time the Orange County School Board accepted the school’s plan to close in lieu of being forced to shut down based on declining student achievement, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

The Sentinel also reported that Young was “still being paid thousands of dollars a month” at the time to complete the school’s affairs. The school serves about 180 students in east Orange County.

Young's payment was authorized by the charter school's independent board, which is separate from the Orange County School Board, in June. At the time, the independent board called it "well-deserved and earned for her years of dedicated service at a below-market rate of compensation," the Sentinel reported.

.....

Charter schools are privately run public schools with fewer regulations than traditional public schools. Charters, like public schools in Florida, receive state money based on student population.

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Young's salary was more than 2 1/2 times that of the highest-paid principal at a traditional Orange County public school in 2011: $116,565.

Italy disaster experts quit over quake trial

This makes the scientific ignorance of Americans look good in comparison!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121023/DA23DU7G0.html

Oct 23, 2:17 PM (ET)

ROME (AP) - Four top Italian disaster experts quit their posts Tuesday, saying the manslaughter convictions of former colleagues for failing to adequately warn of a deadly 2009 earthquake means they can't effectively perform their duties.

A court in the quake-devastated town of L'Aquila convicted seven former members of Italy's so-called "Great Risks Commission" and sentenced each of them to six years in prison, prompting predictions that experts would be discouraged from working in Italy for fear of similar risks of prosecution.

Commission President Luciano Maiani and two other members resigned, along with a top official for earthquake and volcano risk in the national Department of Civil Protection. Maiani said Monday's court ruling made it impossible to work in a "calm and efficient" way.

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Senate President Renato Schifani has called the convictions and prison terms "strange, embarrassing."

Many scientists and commentators have noted that the court case failed to address a major cause of fatalities in disasters like quakes and mudslides: erecting homes, schools, hospitals and other public buildings on quake-prone terrain without the proper construction techniques or materials to make the structures more resilient.

After the April 2009 quake, which left 308 people dead, many experts said that the 6.3-magnitude temblor wouldn't have caused such extensive damage if buildings been constructed or retrofitted to meet modern quake zone construction standards.

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Mitt Romney’s lack of support in Mass. should be telling to voters nationally

www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/10/25/deval-patrick-says-mitt-romney-lack-support-mass-should-telling-national-voters/ptkiIbWjYcDE3pUQe3znHJ/story.html

10/25/2012 9:58 AM
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick said today that voters in the presidential race should take note of polls showing Republican nominee Mitt Romney trailing far behind President Obama in Massachusetts, the state where he both lives and once served as governor, because it should tell them something.

“He’s a resident of Massachusetts. He will vote in Massachusetts. He governed in Massachusetts. We elected him - and he is trailing 20 to 25 points. What does that tell you?” Patrick said during his monthly appearance on WTKK-FM.

“It tells you that we know him, and, ‘No, thank-you.’ We’ve seen this movie before, and we’re not going to do it again.”

Patrick said Romney’s lone accomplishment while he led Massachusetts - “his only experience as a public executive” - was passing a universal health care law that served as the model for a federal law enacted by Obama, yet the former governor now wants to repeal it.

“I think we know a leader with a core when we see it, and we see that in Barack Obama, and I think we know a leader without a core when we see it, and I think we’ve seen that in Governor Romney,” said Patrick.

Hybrid of Sandy, winter storm threatens East Coast

http://www.locustfork.net/

linked to the following:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121025/DA24DQPO3.html

Oct 25, 2:34 AM (ET)

By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Much of the U.S. East Coast has a good chance of getting blasted by gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and maybe even snow early next week by an unusual hybrid of hurricane and winter storm, federal and private forecasters say.

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Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean, an early winter storm in the West, and a blast of arctic air from the North are predicted to collide, sloshing and parking over the country's most populous coastal corridor starting Sunday. The worst of it should peak early Tuesday, but it will stretch into midweek, forecasters say.

"It'll be a rough couple days from Hatteras up to Cape Cod," said forecaster Jim Cisco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration prediction center in College Park, Md. "We don't have many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting."

It is likely to hit during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing coastal flooding potential, NOAA forecasts warn.

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But this is several days in advance, when weather forecasts are far less accurate. The National Hurricane Center only predicts five days in advance, and on Wednesday their forecasts had what's left of Sandy off the North Carolina coast on Monday. But the hurricane center's chief hurricane specialist, James Franklin, said the threat keeps increasing for "a major impact in the Northeast, New York area. In fact it would be such a big storm that it would affect all of the Northeast."

The forecasts keep getting gloomier and more convincing with every day, several experts said.

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Climate-changing methane 'rapidly destabilizing' off East Coast

No surprising, but scary.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14670511-climate-changing-methane-rapidly-destabilizing-off-east-coast-study-finds?lite

Oct. 24, 2012
By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

A changing Gulf Stream off the East Coast has destabilized frozen methane deposits trapped under nearly 4,000 square miles of seafloor, scientists reported Wednesday. And since methane is even more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas, the researchers said, any large-scale release could have significant climate impacts.

Temperature changes in the Gulf Stream are "rapidly destabilizing methane hydrate along a broad swathe of the North American margin," the experts said in a study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Using seismic records and ocean models, the team estimated that 2.5 gigatonnes of frozen methane hydrate are being destabilized and could separate into methane gas and water.

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"It is unlikely that the western North Atlantic margin is the only area experiencing changing ocean currents," they noted. "Our estimate ... may therefore represent only a fraction of the methane hydrate currently destabilizing globally."

The wider destabilization evidence, co-author Ben Phrampus told NBC News, includes data from the Arctic and Alaska's northern slope in the Beaufort Sea.

And it's not just under the seafloor that methane has been locked up. Some Arctic land area are seeing permafrost thaw, which could release methane stored there as well.

An expert who was not part of the study said it suggests that methane could become a bigger climate factor than carbon dioxide.

"We may approach a turning point" from a warming driven by man-made carbon dioxide to a warming driven by methane, Jurgen Mienert, the geology department chair at Norway's University of Tromso, told NBC News.

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For thousands of years, permafrost has trapped Siberia's carbon-rich soil, a compost of Ice Age plant and animal remains. But global warming is melting the permafrost and exposing the soil, causing highly flammable methane to seep out

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Methane does not last as long as CO2 (carbon dioxide), while it does, is has a much stronger heat-trapping effect. This leads to even more release of trapped methane. After a number of years, methane breaks down into carbon dioxide, but in the meantime, much damage will be done.

See the following link for a comparison of global warming effects of methane vs carbon dioxide:

http://www.global-warming-forecasts.com/methane-carbon-dioxide.php

Video game with biofeedback teaches children to curb their anger

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/bch-vg102412.php

Public release date: 24-Oct-2012
Contact: Meghan Weber
Boston Children's Hospital
Children with anger issues show a drop in anger after playing 'RAGE Control'

Boston, Mass. , Oct. 24, 2012—Children with serious anger problems can be helped by a simple video game that hones their ability to regulate their emotions, finds a pilot study at Boston Children's Hospital. Results were published online October 24 in the journal Adolescent Psychiatry.

Noticing that children with anger control problems are often uninterested in psychotherapy, but very eager to play video games, Jason Kahn, PhD, and Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, MD, at Boston Children's Hospital developed "RAGE Control" to motivate children to practice emotional control skills that they can later use in challenging life situations.

The fast-paced game involves shooting at enemy spaceships while avoiding shooting at friendly ones. As children play, a monitor on one finger tracks their heart rate and displays it on the computer screen. When heart rate goes above a certain level, players lose their ability to shoot at the enemy spaceships. To improve their game, they must learn to keep calm.

"The connections between the brain's executive control centers and emotional centers are weak in people with severe anger problems," explains Gonzalez-Heydrich, chief of Psychopharmacology at Boston Children's and senior investigator on the study. "However, to succeed at RAGE Control, players have to learn to use these centers at the same time to score points."

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Study finds moderate consumption decreases number of new brain cells

http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/special-content/fall-2012/binge-drinking-could-20121023

October 24, 2012
By Robin Lally

Drinking a couple of glasses of wine each day has generally been considered a good way to promote cardiovascular and brain health. But a new Rutgers University study indicates that there is a fine line between moderate and binge drinking – a risky behavior that can decrease the making of adult brain cells by as much as 40 percent.

In a study posted online and scheduled to be published in the journal Neuroscience on November 8, lead author Megan Anderson, a graduate student working with Tracey J. Shors, Professor II in Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, reported that moderate to binge drinking – drinking less during the week and more on the weekends – significantly reduces the structural integrity of the adult brain.

“Moderate drinking can become binge drinking without the person realizing it,” said Anderson.“In the short term there may not be any noticeable motor skills or overall functioning problems, but in the long term this type of behavior could have an adverse effect on learning and memory.”

5 Voter Misinformation Campaigns To Watch Out For

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/24/1079391/5-voter-misinformation-campaigns-to-watch-out-for/

By Aviva Shen on Oct 24, 2012

Though most voter ID laws and voter purges have been thrown out or delayed by judges, voter suppression efforts are still alive and well. With two weeks to Election Day, voters in critical swing states are being inundated with false information and intimidating messages meant to discourage them from voting. While shenanigans have been reported in every election, voting rights advocates say efforts to confuse and intimidate voters are taking an even more prominent role this year.

Phone voting. Residents in Florida, Indiana and Virginia are receiving mysterious phone calls telling them they can vote by phone instead of going to the polls. .....

Fake voter purge letters. Also in Florida, a mass mailing of fake letters questioning voters’ citizenship is being investigated. The letter, written on fake letterhead of a local county’s Supervisor of Elections, tells recipients in 23 counties to fill out a “voter eligibility form” with their Social Security information, Florida drivers licence number, and addresses. The letter claims the recipients must send the form to the Supervisor of Elections within 15 days or be purged from the rolls ..... [This sounds like a scam for id theft]\\

Intimidating billboards. Dozens of billboards warning that voter fraud is a felony popped up suddenly in predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio earlier this month. The message, which includes the prison sentence and fine for voter fraud, is likely targeting former felons who do have the right to vote in Ohio. .....

Misleading voter ID ads. Though a judge ruled that Pennsylvania voters without a photo ID could still cast a regular ballot, state-sponsored ads have continued to tell residents they must show an ID. .....

Employer pressure. Several CEOs are pressuring their employees to vote for Romney by suggesting they will be forced to fire workers if Obama wins the election. While employers used to be banned from directly expressing political opinions to employees, the Supreme Court changed that with its 2010 Citizens United ruling. Workers have reported being pressured to vote, donate, and attend Romney rallies by their bosses.

In 2009, Americans paid lowest tax rates in 30 years to federal government

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-2009-americans-paid-lowest-tax-rates-in-30-years-to-federal-government/2012/07/10/gJQAWc5bbW_story.html


by Lori Montgomery, washingtonpost.com
November 30th -0001

Americans paid the lowest tax rates in 30 years to the federal government in 2009, in part because of tax cuts President Obama sought to combat the Great Recession, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.

Raw Food Not Enough to Feed Big Brains

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/raw-food-big-brains/

October 23, 2012

By Ann Gibbons, ScienceNOW

Eating a raw food diet is a recipe for disaster if you’re trying to boost your species’ brainpower. That’s because humans would have to spend more than 9 hours a day eating to get enough energy from unprocessed raw food alone to support our large brains, according to a new study that calculates the energetic costs of growing a bigger brain or body in primates. But our ancestors managed to get enough energy to grow brains that have three times as many neurons as those in apes such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. How did they do it? They got cooking, according to a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“If you eat only raw food, there are not enough hours in the day to get enough calories to build such a large brain,” says Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil who is co-author of the report. “We can afford more neurons, thanks to cooking.”

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Republican Texas Attorney General, Threatens To Arrest U.N. Elections Observers

What is he trying to hide?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/greg-abbott-texas-un-elections_n_2010081.html

The Huffington Post | By Nick Wing Posted: 10/24/2012

Greg Abbott, the Republican Attorney General of Texas, issued a stern warning this week to members of a United Nations-affiliated delegation expected to be on hand to monitor voting at polling places around the country on Election Day.

In a letter to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a body created by U.N. charter and responsible for helping to ensure the integrity of elections, among other tasks, Abbott warned the diplomatic poll-watchers that their involvement in U.S. elections could have strong legal repercussions.

"It may be a criminal offense for OSCE's representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance," he writes. "Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE's representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law." Such a restriction makes election monitoring highly difficult.

The OSCE announced earlier this month that it would send 44 observers to polling places around the country on Election Day in order to monitor possible disputes that could arise in the voting process. The move came in response to a petition from liberal-leaning voting rights groups, including the NAACP and ACLU, that suggested the OSCE's presence could help combat what they fear will be a concerted effort to suppress votes from supporters of President Barack Obama.

Concerns among Democrats have mounted in the wake of reports that right-leaning groups, such as the Tea Party-aligned True The Vote, had plans to dispatch armies of poll-watchers seeking to root out invalid votes. Opponents warn that the volunteer "poll challengers" will engage in intimidation of legitimate minority voters who tend to vote Democratic.

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GOP Senate Candidate: Pregnancy from Rape is "Gift from God"

He should volunteer to be implanted with the results of a rape. Since everything that happens is according to what God wants, we can save a lot of money by doing away with police, armies, antibiotics, traffic lights, etc.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/24-0

Published on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 by Common Dreams

During a debate for the US Senate in Indiana on Tuesday, GOP candidate Richard Mourdock stirred outrage by saying he considers pregnancies occuring after a women's rape a "gift from God."

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said.

Mourdock's comment was quickly likened to those made recently by GOP senate candidate from Missouri Todd Akin who said that "legitimate rape" rarely leads to pregnancy.

Mourdock defeated longtime US Senator Dick Lugar in Indiana's Republican primary this year and the Tea Party-backed candidate now faces Democratic challenger Congressman Joe Donnelly for the seat.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has endorsed Mourdock and released this video, which began airing in Indiana on Monday:

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Ruling parasites

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/9797374.The_Queen_in_Worcester___map_and_times/?action=complain&cid=10554487

One is reminded of the recent Internet meme (Prof Jason Reed):

“People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as ‘parasites’ fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.

Georgia Charter-school amendment would set off gold rush

If you are a Georgia voter, please read the whole article at the following link.

blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/10/24/charter-school-amendment-would-set-off-gold-rush/

7:47 am October 24, 2012, by Jay Bookman

Reading the list of out-of-state contributors to the campaign to pass Amendment 1, the state charter-schools amendment, you get the sense that an old-fashioned gold rush would begin in Georgia the moment the amendment is approved.

J.C. Huizenga, founder of Michigan-based National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter school operator, has contributed $25,000; his company contributed a matching $25,000. Charter Schools USA, based in Florida, contributed $50,000 as well. D.A. Davidson, a financial services firm based in Great Falls, Montana that touts itself as “a recognized leader in charter school financing,” has so far given $5,000. And K12 Inc., a for-profit provider of online classes and “full-time online public schools,” has kicked in $100,000.

Those account only for contributions made through Sept. 21; the final campaign-disclosure reports may include additional big-dollar donations from companies eager to enter Georgia’s public-school marketplace.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong about for-profit companies operating in the education sector. However, despite the fervor of those who preach that competition solves all problems, there’s nothing inherently good about it either. None of the countries that outperform the United States in education, for example, do so through the for-profit model.

In addition, the overall shoddy performance of for-profit colleges and universities here in the United States provides stark evidence that when the profit motive conflicts with academic standards, profit takes precedence. A Senate report released this summer found that tuition at for-profit colleges averages six times that of community colleges, while the education provided is greatly inferior.

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There’s every reason to worry that similar dynamics will play out in k-12 education. Take K12 Inc., the company that has so far contributed $100,000 to opening up the Georgia market. In Florida, where the company operates in 43 school districts, a typical K12 high school teacher may have as many as 275 online students per class, which enhances profitability if not education. Last month, Florida officials launched an investigation into charges that K12 also uses teachers uncertified for the classes they teach and that company officials asked employees to cover up that fact.

It’s also important to consider the ethical culture in which the Georgia education gold rush would take place. On Sunday, the AJC reported that the State Properties Commission — headed by Gov. Nathan Deal — decided that the best place to locate a new, $13.6 million State Poultry Laboratory was in a Hall County industrial park. In what was clearly just a happy coincidence, the park turns out to be owned in part by Deal’s close friend and campaign manager.

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