US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1323

On September 29 2014 10:37 Livelovedie wrote:

Vegetarianism is, at best, a temporary solution to the growing population needing more food. It would only make around a twenty percent difference anyways in exchange for less nutrients.

For almost two years, an unmanned space plane bearing a remarkable resemblance to NASA’s space shuttle has circled the Earth, performing a top-secret mission. It’s called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle — but that’s pretty much all we know for certain.

Officially, the only role the Pentagon acknowledges is that the space plane is used to conduct experiments on new technologies. Theories about its mission have ranged from an orbiting space bomber to an anti-satellite weapon.

The truth, however, is likely much more obvious: According to intelligence experts and satellite watchers who have closely monitored its orbit, the X-37B is being used to carry secret satellites and classified sensors into space — a little-known role once played by NASA’s new retired space shuttle.

For a decade between the 1980s and early 1990s, NASA’s space shuttle was used for classified military missions, which involved ferrying military payloads into space. But the shuttle’s military role rested on an uneasy alliance between NASA and the Pentagon. Even before the 1986 Challenger disaster, which killed all seven crewmembers, the Pentagon had grown frustrated with NASA’s delays.

Now, with the X-37B, the Pentagon no longer has to rely on NASA, or humans.

The X-37B resembles the shuttle, or at least a shrunken down version of the shuttle. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B is boosted into orbit by an external rocket, but lands like an aircraft on a conventional runway. But the X-37B is just shy of 10 feet tall and slightly less than 30 feet long.

Its cargo bay, often compared to the size of a pickup truck bed, is just big enough to carry a small satellite. Once in orbit, the X-37B deploys a foldable solar array, which is believed to power the sensors in its cargo bay.

“It’s just an updated version of the space shuttle type of activities in space,” insisted one senior Air Force official in 2010, the year of the first launch, when rampant speculation about the secret project prompted some to question whether it was possibly a space bomber.

Here’s how Craig Shirley, a longtime political consultant and Ronald Reagan biographer, put it in his book Reagan's Revolution:





"It was the wail of pathetic losers," Shirley told Yahoo News.

New report finds human-caused climate change increased severity of 2013 heat waves in Asia, Europe and Australia

A report released today investigates the causes of a wide variety of extreme weather and climate events from around the world in 2013. Published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, "Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective" addresses the causes of 16 individual extreme events that occurred on four continents in 2013. NOAA scientists served as three of the four lead editors on the report.

Of the five heat waves studied in the report, human-caused climate change-primarily through the burning of fossil fuels-was found to have clearly increased the severity and likelihood of those events. On the other hand, for other events examined like droughts, heavy rain events, and storms, fingerprinting the influence of human activity was more challenging. The influence of human-caused climate change on these kinds of events was sometimes evident, but often less clear, suggesting natural factors played a far more dominant role.

"This annual report contributes to a growing field of science which helps communities, businesses and nations alike understand the impacts of natural and human-caused climate change," said Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D., director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. "The science remains challenging, but the environmental intelligence the report yields to decision makers is invaluable and the demand is ever-growing."

On September 30 2014 08:05 kwizach wrote:


Source.

This is huge... Watch climate change deniers completely ignore/reject this report.

On September 30 2014 09:27 oneofthem wrote:
not sure what there is to be done outside of massive scale carbon sequestration in terms of actually halting the warming trend. the wheels are in motion.

On September 30 2014 09:32 Nyxisto wrote:
Vox had a pretty cool article on what we'd need to do to not exceed two degrees Celsius in temperature rise, which is considered "acceptable".(http://www.vox.com/2014/4/22/5551004/two-degrees)

It looks pretty dim though

On September 30 2014 08:05 kwizach wrote:


Source.

This is huge... Watch climate change deniers completely ignore/reject this report.

On September 30 2014 09:58 Danglars wrote:
I don't even know if I'm supposed to call this past decade-and-a-half a human-caused climate-change hiatus. Everything under the sun, pun intended, is blamed on fossil fuel consumption, so I'll go along with the crowd and blame these past 15 years of frozen temperatures on humans as well.

The climate change orthodoxy and the climate change deniers. Every fresh report stirring the environmentalist movement to renewed fervor, every sign to the opposite ignored/suppressed/oh-you-must-be-a-denier-to-bring-that-up. We've been through these paces before, and like every religion debate hereabouts, you basically leave believing what you came in believing. Let me just leave Koonin's primer on the science both sides accept here if you do nurse doubts.

Society's choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.

WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday (Sep 29) asked Hong Kong's leaders to show restraint after riot police fired tear gas on mass democracy protests, and said it had told Beijing it backs universal suffrage in the territory.

"The United States urges the Hong Kong authorities to exercise restraint and for protesters to express their views peacefully," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

"The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law and we support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people. We have consistently made our position known to Beijing and will continue to do so," he said.

"We believe an open society, with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by the rule of law, is essential for Hong Kong's stability and prosperity."

Earnest also said that the position of chief executive in Hong Kong would be given more credibility if the people of the semi-autonomous Chinese city could freely choose its candidates for the job.

Escalating tensions in Hong Kong also boosted an online petition, calling on President Barack Obama to press China to avoid a "second Tiananmen massacre" in Hong Kong, past the signature threshold required to compel a White House response.

The petition was lodged under the White House's "We the People" initiative designed to facilitate the constitutional right of US citizens to petition their government. When 100,000 people sign up to a petition within 30 days, the Obama administration has said it will respond.

On September 30 2014 10:07 Nyxisto wrote:

From the article:

Which is exactly the opposite of what people think of when they talk about "climate change deniers". No one is arguing against making models more accurate.

On September 30 2014 13:14 Danglars wrote:
I guess when you pick your own pejorative terms, you earn the right to throw aside anybody that doesn't neatly fit inside by saying, "Oh, I wasn't referring to THAT guy, just all these other ones." Presuming you to have read the entire article, and only quoted favorably the part you wished to discuss, I then assume you agree with the author's main point ... which is that climate science is indeed not settled for the reasons he discussed.

Any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties...

The climate has always changed and always will. Geological and historical records show the occurrence of major climate shifts

Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax

That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.

On September 30 2014 09:58 oneofthem wrote:
thorium is like 5 years away from being 5 years away. promising though

In attempting to downplay the political damage from a slew of second-term controversies, President Obama has counted on the American people having a very short memory span and a healthy suspension of disbelief. The time-tested strategy for Obama: Claim he's in the dark about his own administration's activities, blame the mess on subordinates, and hope that with the passage of time, all will be forgotten. Harry Truman, the president isn't. He's more likely to pass the buck.

His latest eyebrow-raiser came on 60 Minutes on Sunday, when the president blamed the failure to anticipate the rise of ISIS on his intelligence community for not informing him of the growing threat. "I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," Obama said. Most early news reports dutifully pinned the blame on the intelligence agencies, with the president escaping any further scrutiny.

But anyone following the news over the past year would have been better informed than the commander in chief. As NBC foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engel said on MSNBC Monday: "It's surprising that the president said that U.S. intelligence missed this one, because it seems that U.S. intelligence was the only group that missed this one. Everyone knew that Islamic extremists were on the rise in Syria and in Iraq; it was well documented. The extremists were publicizing their activities online—they were bragging about it. Journalists, including us, were interviewing foreign fighters. This was no state secret."