Archive for the ‘Saving The World’ Category
September 27th, 2005 | 
Author: [ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]
Maybe the feds can use their new patent to track these morons below…and “disconnect” them.
Rich
Purported al Qaeda Newscast Debuts on Internet
Masked Anchorman Lauds Gaza Pullout, Iraq Attacks, Hurricane Katrina
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; A16
ROME, Sept. 26 — An Internet video newscast called the Voice of the Caliphate was broadcast for the first time on Monday, purporting to be a production of al Qaeda and featuring an anchorman who wore a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.
[ Reading time: 5 - 8 minutes ]
It’s a ‘new era’ of hurricanes
Experts: String of intense storms is part of normal cycle
By Ann O’Neill
CNN
Friday, September 23, 2005; Posted: 3:52 p.m. EDT (19:52 GMT)
Hurricane Rita feeds on warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico
Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne tore up parts of Florida last year. After tweaking Florida, Katrina and Rita are wreaking havoc this year along the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Texas.
But don’t rush to blame it on global warming, experts warn.
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, told a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday that we’re in a period of heightened hurricane activity that could last another decade or two.( See scientists collect data — 1:33)
“The increased activity since 1995 is due to natural fluctuations (and) cycles of hurricane activity driven by the Atlantic Ocean itself along with the atmosphere above it and not enhanced substantially by global warming,” he testified.
Mayfield’s colleague at the National Hurricane Center, meteorologist Chris Landsea, said two recent studies about global warming and hurricanes raise more questions than they answer. He added that the impact of global warming is “minimal for the forseeable future.”
Landsea said the studies indicate global warming could increase hurricane wind speeds and rainfall by about 5 percent –100 years from now. But, he added, more study is needed, looking back at historical data and making it more compatible with modern reporting techniques.
The debate over global warming
Brenda Ekwurzel, climate scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientist National Climate Education Program, told CNN that while global warming might not be causing hurricanes, it already is making them more intense.
“We would never point to a single weather event and blame global warming,” she said. “While hurricanes have bedeviled the Gulf Coast region for years, global warming is making matters worse.”
Ekwurzel points to recent studies indicating that carbon dioxide is raising ocean temperatures.
“And those warmer oceans are converting low-grade storms into powerful hurricanes,” she said. “In short, the warm oceans are like fuel to a hurricane. It’s like throwing gasoline on a fire.”
But not all hurricane experts are willing to make the link between global warming and hurricanes. At least not yet.
They say the string of major storms that have struck the southeastern United States over the past two seasons signal a return to normal.
Return to normal
“From 1970 to 1995, there weren’t that many hurricanes, and the ones we had were nice, well-mannered, housebroken hurricanes that stayed out to sea and didn’t make a mess,” said Hugh Willoughby, a hurricane researcher at Florida International University in Miami.
“The only thing I can say,” he added, “is this run of good luck we had is ending.”
“This year you can just say nature is averaging out its climatology,” said Colorado State University’s famed hurricane predictor, William Gray. (See video of the science of the storm –3:55)
Katrina and Rita are what Gray calls “Bahama busters,” storms that form off the Bahamas rather than near the coast of Africa. They explode after feeding on the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The past century saw 18 “Bahama busters,” Gray said.
Even Katrina’s and Rita’s back-to-back pounding of the Gulf Coast has a precedent. In 1915, Gray said, New Orleans and Houston areas were hit by Category 4 storms six weeks apart.
“You can’t blame that on global warming,” he observed.
Gray first sounded the alarm in 1995, noting that the surface waters in the north Atlantic Ocean had warmed slightly. 1995 saw 11 hurricanes and eight tropical storms, the highest tally since 1933.
By 1997, Gray’s annual forecasts warned of “a new era” of hurricanes.
He put forth the theory that many climatologists, including Mayfield and Willoughby, now embrace — that hurricanes are driven by cycles of rising water temperature and salinity that affect the speed of currents in the Atlantic.
Warm currents drive hurricanes
The technical name for the engine driving the hurricane cycles is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO for short. It can cause droughts in the West and hatch hurricanes in the East.
“This cycle has been repeating back to the Ice Age,” Willoughby said. “It’s related to changes in the ocean currents that move heat northward. If it’s fast, we get a lot of hurricanes.”
Studies show the AMO was cool — and the currents slower — from 1900 to 1925, warm from 1926 to 1969, cool from 1970 to 1994 and warm since 1995.
And so, to a generation of Americans with little experience with hurricanes, it seems like these monsters are coming out of nowhere.
Gray and Willoughby are among the skeptics who doubt global warming can be blamed for the trend of the past few years. They are joined by the hurricane trackers at the National Hurricane Center.
“We’re just entering a busy time here,” said Chris Lauer, a meteorologist at the center.
“You see a few decades of slower activity, followed by a few decades of higher oscillation,” he said. “Our position is the recent increase in hurricane activity is not caused by global warming.”
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested earlier this month that more than nature and coincidence might be driving the storms.
More study needed
In the September’s issue of the journal Science, Peter Webster and Judith Curry documented a 60 percent global jump in major hurricanes with winds of 131 mph or more and a 1-degree increase in the tropical ocean surface temperature.
But Webster warned on Georgia Tech’s Web site that more study was needed before blaming global warming.
“We need a longer data record of hurricane statistics,” he said, “and we need to understand more about the role hurricanes play in regulating the heat balance and circulation in the atmosphere and oceans.”
Willoughby said he is keeping an open mind about the role of global warming but believes it won’t be a factor for at least another 100 years.
“The answer I give everybody, because it has all been so politicized, is I don’t know,” he said.
Gray was more direct. “There are all these medicine men out there who want to capitalize on general ignorance on this subject,” he said.
“With all the problems in the world, we shouldn’t be dealing with this.”
Willoughby believes the debate over hurricanes and global warming is healthy. “It’s good for the science,” he said.
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Thought you might find this interesting….there are numbers in here that EVERYONE should be aware of…
Rich
Press Release
September 8, 2005
Contact: Public Liaison Office 202-282-8797
HIGHLIGHTS OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE
AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE KATRINA
Federal support to state and local officials and
volunteer organizations continues around the clock in
effort to save lives, sustain life, and assist with
law enforcement operations in areas affected by
Hurricane Katrina. The following facts highlight some
of the important activities as of 2 p.m.:
Lives Saved (rescues performed)
47,300
Shelters
750
People housed in shelters
235,200
FEMA responders
7,500
U.S. Coast Guard personnel
4,000
National Guard personnel
45,000
Active Duty Military
19,000
MREs provided (meals)
17 million
Water provided (liters)
37.4 million
[ Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes ]
War Plans Drafted To Counter Terror Attacks in U.S.
Domestic Effort Is Big Shift for Military
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; A01
COLORADO SPRINGS — The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.
The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.
The possible scenarios range from “low end,” relatively modest crowd-control missions to “high-end,” full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said.
Some of the worst-case scenarios involve three attacks at the same time, in keeping with a Pentagon directive earlier this year ordering Northcom, as the command is called, to plan for multiple simultaneous attacks.
The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Indeed, defense officials continue to stress that they intend for the troops to play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups.
Posted in Federal Govt., National Security, Saving The World, Terrorism, The 'Future' | 
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[ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]
Courtesy of Stan and Holly Deyo.
Stan has issued an alert, regarding possible catastrophic earthquake activity in the next few days, off the west coast. Please go to this page on Stan’s site to view the report and the maps he has posted with the warning areas. Stan also refers to the very recent activity on Mt. St. Helens, of which he has provided the video below.
http://standeyo.com/Reports/041222.EQ.warning/050803.Deyo.EQs.html
Here is the video of the collapse of the lava dome at Mt. St. Helens.
Click on the PLAY button. Or, RIGHT CLICK here and SAVE AS to your computer, and then OPEN after download completes.
Please be aware, and keep your ears to the news in the next few days…and if you’re near the west coast, then HAVE A PLAN…just in case.
Stan was able to forecast the Sumatra quake last christmas, and gave some warning of the resulting tsunami.
Rich
[ Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes ]
What would YOU do…if a terrorist is standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU? And you comprehend that fact after something has JUST HAPPENED?
Read this….
Original Source
‘I saw the wire and it hit me: he’s a suicide bomber’
July 23, 2005
A COMMUTER who rushed to help a Tube passenger he thought had been shot only realised when he saw wire sticking out of the man’s T-shirt that he was “staring into the eyes” of a potential suicide bomber.
Abisha Moyo, 28, a Zimbabwe-born business analyst, told the Daily Mail newspaper that he was on his mobile phone on the Tube near Shepherds Bush station in west London when he heard a noise like a pistol shot.
“I turned around and there was a man lying on the ground with his arms outstretched in a Jesus Christ position, lying on top of a medium-sized black and green rucksack, face up,” he said.
“I thought he might have been shot. I went up to him and said: ‘Are you all right mate?’ But he just ignored me and kept his eyes shut.”
The man was about 19 or 20, of mixed race, and was clean-shaven and smartly dressed, Mr Moyo said.
“The rucksack was ripped at the bottom, with some sort of muslin showing and some gooey lard coming out of it. I could see what looked like a pressurised canister or tube and there was a strong smell of vinegar,” he said.
Mr Moyo said he moved to the next carriage and the man sat up. “He looked dazed and confused and very shaken … He sat down in our carriage very briefly and then walked back again. As he did, I could see some wire sticking out of his T-shirt.
“It looked a bit like the wire for some headphones, but I could see the exposed copper at the end. It was then it hit me and I thought ‘Oh my god, he’s a suicide bomber’.”
Mr Moyo said the man abandoned his rucksack and leapt on to the tracks.
Witnesses also saw suspects at other blast sites around London.
Sofiane Mohellavi, 35, was reading his book on the train at Warren Street when the carriage filled with the stench of burning rubber.
“Suddenly, people started screaming and were walking on each others’ backs trying to get out of there,” he said. “I couldn’t move, I didn’t know what to do, whether to run or not.”
Tariq Khan was in bed with the flu when he realised the normally busy, noisy street outside his flat in Hackney had gone quiet. A friend called to tell him that a bus parked opposite his home had a bomb on board.
“It was like a scene from (the movie) 28 Days Later, when the man goes outside and everyone has gone,” Mr Khan said. “There was just the 26 bus opposite, with its hazard lights on. Nothing else at all.”
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With the above stories, it’s good to know that there is technology that has a CHANCE of finding terrorist nukes, before they are able to get used. This technology would be used (even could currently be testing) at seaports, truck depots, and more. Let’s hope we catch ALL of them.
Rich
J. Andrew Green of Los Alamos’ Physics (P) Division inspects the drift tubes that make up one pair of detectors for the muon radiography prototype at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Green is checking for proper alignment of the modules, electrical resistance and integrity of the insulation. Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez, Public Affairs
Los Alamos muon detector could thwart nuclear smugglers
Trillions of cosmic rays that constantly bombard Earth could help catch smugglers trying to bring nuclear weapons or materials into the United States.
Laboratory scientists have developed a detector that can see through lead or other heavy shielding in truck trailers or cargo containers to detect uranium, plutonium or other dense materials. Their technique, muon radiography, is far more sensitive than x-rays, with none of the radiation hazards of x-ray or gamma-ray detectors now in use at U.S. borders.
