Image via Wikipediahttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/03/haunting_of_nada_prouty.html
* In 1999, she was nominated for female FBI agent of the year.
Responses to the War in Gaza
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/gaza-writers/responses-to-the-war-in-gaza
A few weeks before the assault on Gaza, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army published a levelheaded document on ‘Hamas and Israel’, which argued that ‘Israel’s stance towards the democratically-elected Palestinian government headed by Hamas in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence – legal, territorial, political and economic – has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking.’
Israel vs Turkey: Which Serves US Interests Better?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharmine-narwani/israel-vs-turkey-which-se_b_595583.html
In light of Turkey's reaction to the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla last week, media pundits and policy wonks are already underlining the demise of the US-Turkish special relationship. The growing chorus of critics miss one vital point. Turkey was criticizing Tel Aviv's military overkill off the Gaza coastline, not Washington's.
So closely aligned have we become to Israel since the Reagan era, we now find ourselves reacting on behalf of the government of Israel. Instead of basing our policy determinations and official statements on the US's national security interests, we find ourselves uniquely defending the indefensible over and over again -- expending precious global political capital on Israel and attracting the whispered derision of even our allies.
( Guess I'll have to 'whisper' louder. 'Since the Regan era' ? What defines that endpoint when the 'Liberty' incident in the Johnson administration is considered ?)
Gulf oil spill: 'Kevin Costner solution' has green light, but no green
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-costner-solution-has-green-light-but-no-green.html
BP has issued a letter of intent to buy 32 centrifugal oil-and-water separators, Costner said Thursday. His company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, was ramping up its operations to ship more than two dozen of the massive stainless steel machines to the Gulf of Mexico, he said.
“Kevin has spent 15 years and $24 million of his own money on this technology, and we have spent over $1 million more than that on adjusting the machines and preparing them for testing,” said Costner’s business partner, Louisiana attorney John Houghtaling. “We haven’t gotten a check yet from BP. The sooner it comes, the sooner we can act.”
Deployment of the 2½-ton machines had been delayed by rigorous testing requirements of BP and federal regulatory agencies, as well as engineering challenges posed by leaked oil that had degraded over time into gooey masses with the consistency of peanut butter, Costner said.
“Our machines were originally developed to operate as first responders” to oil slicks, Costner said. He said the problems were resolved by adjusting the machines to accommodate oil that has been weathered and hardened by evaporation and dispersants.
High schooler launches solar panel installation in Thousand Oaks
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/high-school-student-launches-solar-panel-installation-at-thousand-oaks-school.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenspaceEnvironmentBlog+%28Greenspace%29
What's wrong with the sun?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html?full=true
SUNSPOTS come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years.
But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged for nearly a hundred years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise. "This is solar behaviour we haven't seen in living memory," says David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The sun is under scrutiny as never before thanks to an armada of space telescopes. The results they beam back are portraying our nearest star, and its influence on Earth, in a new light. Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun's magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun. The big question is what?
Has Jupiter sent cosmology down a false trail?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627650.201-has-jupiter-sent-cosmology-down-a-false-trail.html
Might misleading measurements by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have been leading us towards the wrong theory of cosmology? One astrophysicist thinks so, and he says the planet Jupiter is to blame – though others insist that there is nothing amiss.
WMAP detects photons of the cosmic microwave background, the "echo" of the big bang, and these measurements are used to map the temperature of the sky. Ripples in the map are used to calculate a spectrum that produces a near-perfect fit to the standard model of cosmology.
Since 2007, Tom Shanks at the University of Durham, UK, who is a critic of the standard model, has been tracking a discrepancy between measurements from WMAP and X-ray measurements of some of the same star clusters made by ground-based telescopes. He initially assumed that the problem was with measurements from the ground and that the WMAP data was "pristine".
To calibrate the microwave data, WMAP scientists use the planet Jupiter, which they assume to be a steady source of microwaves. Observations of Jupiter show how much the cosmic ripples are being blurred by the instrument's optics, allowing the WMAP team to correct for this.
Now Shanks and his PhD student Utane Sawangwit have recalibrated the data using objects such as radio galaxies observed by WMAP that also emit microwaves. The result is a spectrum that is compatible with a host of theories that the WMAP team claims to have ruled out. For example, one-dimensional cosmic strings – defects in the fabric of space-time – or modified laws of gravity might explain the clumping of matter that is currently attributed to the dark matter and dark energy of the standard model. "If we're right, that would be incredibly important for cosmology," says Shanks.
Is there a Global War Between Financial Theocracy and Democracy?
http://blcnn.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/is-there-a-global-war-between-financial-theocracy-and-democracy-leo
( Nah. 'Democracy' is the vehicle for destroying traditional feudalism - by giving Empire a new face. )
Report reveals direct links between Pak's ISI and Afghan Taliban
http://story.afghanistansun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/6e1d5c8e1f98f17c/id/647029/cs/1
Back in Iran and on trial
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/100610/tehran-iran-democracy-protests-anniversary
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan
huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world,
Though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill.
http://blcnn.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/the-inside-story-of-how-obama-let-the-world%e2%80%99s-most-dangerous-oil-company-spiral-out-of-control
Multi-Billion $$ Monsanto Sues More Small Family Farmers
http://rawearthliving.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/monsanto-atrocities-read-and-take-action
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