Bad Deeds for 4-24-2009

 

At Least 110,600 Iraqis Have Died in Violence Since the 2003 U.S.-Led Invasion – Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths – people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.
And conservatives claim that life is better in Iraq now that Sadam is gone.

 

Dick Cheney is Trying to Distract Us From the Important Questions – Dick Cheney claims that waterboarding saved thousands of lives and was worth it. That is the wrong debate. It’s a question as relevant to American democracy as appointing a blue-ribbon commission to study what advantages and efficiencies we might achieve by repudiating the Declaration of Independence and rejoining the British Empire.

Netflix Commercial (video related to the above post)

Here’s a video showing how to handle the discussion

 

Global Warming Skeptics Claim About Sun Proven False – I am sure you have heard the many Global Warming deniers that claim that the reason for the Earth’s warming is the Sun’s cycles of activities. Well, new scientific studies show that the Sun has been unexpectedly quiet lately, but the Earth is still getting warmer. The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares – and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.

The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period. Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

Prof Lockwood was one of the first researchers to show that the Sun’s activity has been gradually decreasing since 1985, yet overall global temperatures have continued to rise. “If you look carefully at the observations, it’s pretty clear that the underlying level of the Sun peaked at about 1985 and what we are seeing is a continuation of a downward trend (in solar activity) that’s been going on for a couple of decades. “If the Sun’s dimming were to have a cooling effect, we’d have seen it by now.” He added that the current slight dimming of the Sun was not going to reverse the rise in global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels. “What we are seeing is consistent with a global temperature rise, not that the Sun is coming to our aid.”

 

Rising Sea Level Forcing Eskimos to Abandon Village – The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground. Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges. The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes.

 

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch Has Grown to Twice the Size of Texas – Currently, scientists believe the world’s largest garbage dump isn’t on land…it’s in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches from the coast of California to Japan, and it’s estimated to be twice the size of Texas. Years of bottles, bags, toys, packaging and plastic trash from all corners of the Earth are swirling in a plastic whirlpool in the North Pacific. Discarded water bottles from Iowa, takeout containers from New York City, flip-flops from California and plastic debris from the world over make their way from land into storm drains, streams, rivers and other waterways. They are carried out sea, where they get trapped in swirling ocean currents – forming a giant, floating trash dump of enormous proportion. There are 46,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile. Videos at the links.

Regards,

Jim