Scott Chisholm Lamont, RN.

Listed on:

Search 4 RSS

Yeah, I'm a Technorati member

Weblog Directory Directory of blogs from all around the world.

)O( Green Man

A small collection of headlines.

In the "oh, shit" category:

Ocean tells the story: Earth is heating up
Human activity, not variables in nature, cited as culprit

New temperature readings from the deep ocean trace a clear warming trend that seems impossible to turn around any time soon, scientists reported Thursday, promising a steadily warming world and raising the odds of a catastrophic sudden change marked by rising seas and melting icecaps.

Researchers led by James Hansen, one of NASA's top climatologists, looked at the planet's "energy imbalance" -- the difference between the amount of heat absorbed by Earth and the amount radiated out into space -- and compared those results with predictions of leading climate models.

They concluded that the unusual magnitude of the warming trend could not be explained by natural variability, but instead fit precisely in line with theories suggesting that human activity -- the dominant "forcing agent" driving the computerized climate models -- is responsible.

Under the "yeah, probably true" category:

The Greediest Generation
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

We boomers are also preying on children in a more insidious way: We're running up their debts, both by creating new entitlement programs and by running budget deficits today. Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist and fiscal expert who with Scott Burns wrote the excellent and scary book "The Coming Generational Storm," calls this "fiscal child abuse."

BTW - another debt the Boomers have run up (and many national gov'ts keep running up, the US not the least) is the environmental debt. The older generation had better hope the milk of human kindness flows pretty freely amongst the younger generations if 20 to 30 years from now the oceans have risen and flooded the major coastal cities, most key species have died off, the oil has run out, and all the various government programs have disappeared due to economic implosion.

Under the "is that a good idea or not?" category:

On Bloggers and Money
Some Seek Disclosure Rules for Web Sites Paid by Candidates

The Federal Election Commission, which has been considering issuing new regulations on a range of political activities on the Internet -- and was said by some to be contemplating taking a tough stance on the online commentators -- revealed in late March that it intends to be much less aggressive than many had feared. But now some observers are wondering whether the FEC is not being aggressive enough when it comes to one category of bloggers: those who take money from political campaigns.

The FEC requires candidates to disclose their expenditures, including any payments to bloggers, in periodic reports to the government. Some bloggers also disclose their financial relationships with candidates, but they are not obliged to reveal those payments, and the agency recently said it is not proposing requiring them to do so.

Under the "damn right" category:

Canada can lead the way on nuclear weapons

By MICHAEL BYERS AND ROSS NEIL

Let's come out of the closet: Canada is a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

Today, the fate of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hangs in the balance as representatives from 188 countries begin a month-long review conference in New York. Canada could make a decisive contribution to saving the NPT by officially declaring itself a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

The NPT has been remarkably successful, to the extent that none of the 183 ratifying non-nuclear weapon states has subsequently acquired nuclear weapons. The only three countries to have acquired nuclear weapons since 1970 - India, Pakistan and Israel - exercised their sovereign right to stay out of the treaty.

Instead of sitting on the fence, Canada should join the "new agenda coalition," a group that includes Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden. Together, these countries are seeking to decrease the political legitimacy of nuclear weapons and persuade the nuclear powers to move decisively towards disarmament.

Canada should also declare itself a nuclear-weapons-free zone, a possibility encouraged under Article VII of the NPT and already seized upon by many other countries. Currently, nearly half the Earth's surface and one third of its population - in Latin America, South East Asia, the South Pacific and elsewhere- fall within officially declared nuclear-weapons-free zones.

As a nuclear-weapons-free zone, Canada would be forbidden to produce, test, store, acquire or deploy nuclear weapons, or to have nuclear weapons deployed on its behalf by other countries. As it happens, Canada currently does none of these things. We are, in practical terms, already nuclear weapons free.

In its foreign policy statement, the federal government asserted that Canada should present itself as a "model country." Models don't hide their finest attributes away in a closet. Let's be frank about our nuclear-free status, and show some leadership on the world stage.

And finally, in the "uncomfortable truth" category:

From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'
By BOB HERBERT

"Haji" is the troops' term of choice for an Iraqi. It's used the way "gook" or "Charlie" was used in Vietnam.

Mr. Delgado (a soldier) said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong.