Long before the current obsession with "Citizen Journalism" one man stood tall and
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Monday, February 21, 2005
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
Saturday, February 19, 2005
SAIC Break-in Stresses Intertwined Nature of Physical and IT Security
Thieves broke windows to access building, made off with computers containing personal data on current and former stockholders
SAIC Break-in Stresses Intertwined Nature of Physical and IT Security
Thieves broke windows to access building, made off with computers containing personal data on current and former stockholders
Geoff Kohl, editor
SecurityInfoWatch.com
A break-in at a government contractor's offices has opened 45,000 former and current employees and stockholders up to identity theft.
In the break-in, which occurred at Science Applications International (SAIC), thieves grabbed SAIC computers that are believed to have contained personal data such as social security numbers.
The company, which experienced the break-in at one of its facilities on Jan. 25 in San Diego, saw the loss of information from numerous computers that were stolen. The computers included private data on stockholders according to an annoucement SAIC made on its website and released to its stock-holder community of the employee-owned company.
According to SAIC, "the stolen computers contained personal information of current and former stockholders, including name, social security number, address, telephone number and stockholder records, including shares bought, sold and held."
The break-in surprised many, especially since much of SAIC's work involved security consulting for the Department of Homeland Security and information security. In a Washington Post article, Iraq weapons inspector David Kay, who was one of the former executives at SAIC and a subsequent victim of the crime, asked why a company whose duties entailed national security would operate in a manner that simply allowed thieves to break windows and steal the company's computers.
This crime event, which occurred at a building that had surveillance cameras, reminds security directors that often the target of a physical break-in will be IT assets. SAIC has been busy since that break-in to reconstruct data and alert its stockholders -- many of whom hold government security clearances -- of the theft of their personal information. It is still not known whether the break-in was for the theft of data or a simple robbery of resalable hardware.
This Post supports the Progressive Blogger Union Topic of the Week: PNAC (Project for the New American Century) Agenda.
War with Iraq
Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/gen/apr03/131523.asp
Neoconservative clout seen in U.S. Iraq policy
By BRUCE MURPHY
bmurphy@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: April 5, 2003
Question: Why are we in Iraq?
Answer: The neoconservatives made us do it.
War with Iraq
The buzz in Washington and beyond has been that President Bush's attack on Iraq came straight from the playbook of the neoconservatives, a group of mostly Republican strategists, many of whom have gotten funding from Milwaukee's Bradley Foundation. The neoconservatives differ from traditional conservatives in favoring a more activist role for government and a more aggressive foreign policy.
Led by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, the neoconservatives have offered a sweeping new vision for U.S. foreign policy: to restructure the Middle East and supplant dictators around the world, using pre-emptive attacks when necessary against any countries seen as potential threats. Traditional conservatives, such as Heritage Foundation fellow John C. Hulsman, suggest that this will lead to "endless war," while Jessica Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has charged that "announcing a global crusade on behalf of democracy is arrogant."
Whether Bush ends up sticking with the neoconservative playbook remains to be seen, but a wide range of observers suggest it is a key part of his current game plan.
"I think Bush has drawn upon that thinking," said Michael Joyce, who led the Bradley Foundation, a leading funder of neoconservative thinkers, from 1986 to 2001. Joyce added that Bush's "key people," including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "were clearly influenced by this thinking."
Under Joyce, the Bradley Foundation made 15 grants totaling nearly $1.9 million to the New Citizenship Project Inc., a group Kristol led and which also created the Project for a New American Century, a key proponent of a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The foundation also is a significant funding source for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank with many neoconservative scholars.
Perhaps more important, noted Joyce, the Bradley Foundation was a longtime funder of Harvard University's John M. Olin Center for Strategic Studies, which until 2000 was run by Samuel P. Huntington, who wrote the influential book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" about the conflict between the West and the Muslim world. Huntington trained "a large number of scholars" who have helped develop neoconservative theories, Joyce noted.
Read by the right people
But it is Kristol's Weekly Standard, bankrolled by conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, that has popularized these viewpoints. The Standard may have a circulation of just 55,000, but it has aimed successfully at policy-makers rather than average readers, making it "one of the most influential publications in Washington," a story by The New York Times concluded. Hulsman calls the Standard the "house newspaper" of the Bush administration.
Kristol and Gary Schmidt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, have accused the media of exaggerating their impact.
"I think it's ludicrous to see all these articles, in this country and in Europe, that somehow we are the diabolical cabal behind the war in Iraq. It wasn't the case that Bill (Kristol) was calling people in the White House advocating for things," Schmidt told the Journal Sentinel. Their influence came from "intellectual leverage, not personal leverage," he added.
In 1997, the Standard's cover story announced that "Saddam Must Go." In 1998, the Standard published a letter to then-President Clinton, calling on him to remove Hussein from power. The letter was signed by 18 people, eight of whom would join the Bush administration in senior positions, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who serves on the influential Defense Policy Board and was until last month its chairman.
Roman Empire of 21st century?
The neoconservatives argue that we no longer live in a bipolar world, as when Russia faced off against the United States. They see a unipolar world, with America as the Rome of the 21st century, a colossus that can dictate its will to the world, noting that America spends as much on defense as the next 15 countries combined and has troops stationed in 75 countries.
"The fact is," writes Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist who espouses neoconservative views, "no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of the world since the late Roman Empire."
Hulsman summarizes the neoconservative view this way: "We should acknowledge we have an empire. We have power and we should do good with it."
In essence, the neoconservatives argue that national sovereignty is an outdated concept, given the overwhelming power of America, and the U.S. should do all it can to impose democracy on countries. Some have called this approach democratic imperialism. It echoes the do-gooder impulses of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president who formulated the League of Nations as a solution to war, then paradoxically blends it with American military might. Hulsman dubbed it "Wilsonianism on steroids."
In a world where nuclear weapons are proliferating, the neoconservatives argue, you can no longer put the genie back in the bottle. "The hard truth is that unless you change some of these regimes, you're going to be hard-pressed to get rid of the threat," Schmidt noted. "Liberal democracies don't go to war with each other."
The theory behind this, developed by Michael Doyle, professor of international affairs at Princeton University, is that democratic governments are reluctant to go to war because they must answer to their citizens. And the history of liberal democracies, though comparatively short in the grand scheme of history, tends to buttress his point.
But for critics such as Hulsman, democracy arises from the bottom up and is "intimately connected with local culture and tradition. It can almost never be successfully imposed from the top down," he contends.
Neoconservatives cite Germany and Japan, but Hulsman noted that Japan is "98 percent ethnically homogenous," unlike Iraq, which is split among three major groups. Yet Japan still required five years of American occupation after World War II before it became an independent democracy.
The mission of democratizing the world may have no end, Hulsman says, because "there are always barbarians to convert."
But whatever his disagreement with it, Hulsman called the neoconservatives' approach "the first new thought in foreign policy for some time."
These ideas had little impact on presidential candidate George W. Bush, who espoused a humble foreign policy that emphatically rejected the kind of nation-building he now envisions for Iraq. In the early days of Bush's administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell's less aggressive views on foreign policy prevailed.
But after the attack on the World Trade Center, everything changed. Wolfowitz was soon declaring that America's intention was not just to target terrorists connected to Osama bin Laden, but to fight a "global war" and eliminate any sovereign states "who sponsor terrorism."
'Critical' voice in Pentagon
Wolfowitz had long held similar views. While third in command at the Pentagon (under Cheney) in 1991, Wolfowitz had argued in favor of pre-emptive action against countries such as Iraq and North Korea. "He was criticized as unduly hawkish prior to September 11th, but you don't hear that criticism now," Joyce said.
Wolfowitz was also unique in that he was comfortable in academia and connected to intellectuals.
"Wolfowitz is critical," Hulsman said. "He's the link between intellectual neocons like Kristol and the world of decision-makers."
Wolfowitz hammered away at the need to attack Iraq, backed by the Weekly Standard and the huge American Enterprise Institute. The institute has supplanted the more traditionally conservative Heritage Foundation, which was more influential with the senior George Bush as the key think tank for GOP insiders. Heritage scholars argue in favor of building alliances, as in the first Gulf War, while the American Enterprise Institute scholars say America's leadership can be decisive, with or without allies.
Turning point of Sept. 11
Joyce said it was inevitable that the younger Bush would embrace the neoconservative view. "I'm not sure September 11th did more than push the timetable up," he said. But press accounts suggest that the events of Sept. 11 were crucial for Bush, and even after this his thinking changed gradually in response to several things:
The anthrax attacks in New York, Washington and Florida in October 2001 raised fears of Saddam Hussein's involvement.
Evidence found in Afghanistan the next month that showed Osama bin Laden's group had been trying to secure weapons of mass destruction raised the question again of whether Hussein could be a possible supplier.
And by early 2002, a source told Time magazine, the stories of Hussein's cruelty to his own people had convinced Bush that the dictator was "insane" and therefore capable of giving weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaida terrorists.
By January 2002, Bush signaled his embrace of the neoconservative vision, declaring Iraq, Iran and North Korea were an "axis of evil" that must be resisted. By May, Bush announced that the U.S. would take pre-emptive action against threats from such regimes.
To the neoconservatives, the question of what weapons Hussein might actually possess was less important than his intention to get them. "Once the nuclear materials are there, you're screwed," argued Schmidt of the Project for a New American Century. "When you can really do pre-emption is when it's early."
'Draining the swamp'
Overthrowing Hussein could also accomplish broader goals.
Neoconservatives often talk about "draining the swamp" in the Middle East. Once Hussein is removed, Hudson Institute co-founder Max Singer has predicted, "there will be an earthquake throughout the region" that could topple the leadership of Saudi Arabia.
Even more pressing, says Schmidt, is the need to create a more moderate regime in Iran, which could have a nuclear weapon in 18 to 24 months, he predicted. (By contrast, North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons, would have to be approached very differently.)
If the goal is to transform the Middle East, the obvious place to start is with Iraq, which was already in trouble with the United Nations, had little international standing and was reviled even by some Arab nations.
A recent story in Time suggests that Cheney became convinced by his discussions with Fouad Ajami, professor and director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, that the people of Iraq would "erupt in joy" at the arrival of the Americans. Others have predicted a victory in Iraq could lead to regime changes in Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yemen and elsewhere.
"To these states," Richard Perle recently suggested, "we could deliver . . . a two-word message: You're next."
Some Middle Eastern leaders have already gotten this message.
"We are all targeted," Syrian President Bashar Assad told an Arab summit meeting on March 1.
Quick action required
If the war in Iraq lasts months rather than weeks, the theory that overwhelming American power can simultaneously pursue objectives in Iraq and beyond will be tested.
"If this is to be done, it has to be done rapidly," Schmidt said of the Iraq war.
Lawrence F. Kaplan, Kristol's co-author of the influential book "The War Over Iraq," has put it this way: "The real question is not whether the American military can topple Hussein's regime, but whether the American public has the stomach for imperial involvement of a kind we have not known since the United States occupied Germany and Japan."
The public's stomach could be affected not just by the war's cost in lives, but also by its costs in dollars. Beyond the $380 billion defense budget, the war already is expected to cost an additional $80 billion, with some administration officials estimating it could go as high as $200 billion.
War's naysayers
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense policy expert at the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank, has argued that most university experts oppose U.S. policy in Iraq.
There are even naysayers within the Bush administration and among retired military officials.
Hulsman described the neoconservatives as "a very incestuous, self-referential group of people."
"It's like what we saw with Vietnam. If you surround yourself with people who agree, you get in trouble."
But Hulsman noted that the secretary of state and his staff have been less enthusiastic about the neoconservative vision and are probably more comfortable with the international "realists" at the Heritage Foundation, such as Hulsman himself. And whatever the seeming unity in the Bush administration is now, the president could change his mind again as world events change.
Which is just what Hulsman and other "outs" are waiting for.
"If Iraq goes badly, then I think the realists are ready to take control," he predicts.
A version of this story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 6, 2003.
The buzz in Washington and beyond has been that President Bush's attack on Iraq came straight from the playbook of the neoconservatives, a group of mostly Republican strategists, many of whom have gotten funding from Milwaukee's Bradley Foundation. The neoconservatives differ from traditional conservatives in favoring a more activist role for government and a more aggressive foreign policy.
Led by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, the neoconservatives have offered a sweeping new vision for U.S. foreign policy: to restructure the Middle East and supplant dictators around the world, using pre-emptive attacks when necessary against any countries seen as potential threats. Traditional conservatives, such as Heritage Foundation fellow John C. Hulsman, suggest that this will lead to "endless war," while Jessica Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has charged that "announcing a global crusade on behalf of democracy is arrogant."
Whether Bush ends up sticking with the neoconservative playbook remains to be seen, but a wide range of observers suggest it is a key part of his current game plan.
"I think Bush has drawn upon that thinking," said Michael Joyce, who led the Bradley Foundation, a leading funder of neoconservative thinkers, from 1986 to 2001. Joyce added that Bush's "key people," including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "were clearly influenced by this thinking."
Under Joyce, the Bradley Foundation made 15 grants totaling nearly $1.9 million to the New Citizenship Project Inc., a group Kristol led and which also created the Project for a New American Century, a key proponent of a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The foundation also is a significant funding source for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank with many neoconservative scholars.
Perhaps more important, noted Joyce, the Bradley Foundation was a longtime funder of Harvard University's John M. Olin Center for Strategic Studies, which until 2000 was run by Samuel P. Huntington, who wrote the influential book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" about the conflict between the West and the Muslim world. Huntington trained "a large number of scholars" who have helped develop neoconservative theories, Joyce noted.
Read by the right people
But it is Kristol's Weekly Standard, bankrolled by conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, that has popularized these viewpoints. The Standard may have a circulation of just 55,000, but it has aimed successfully at policy-makers rather than average readers, making it "one of the most influential publications in Washington," a story by The New York Times concluded. Hulsman calls the Standard the "house newspaper" of the Bush administration.
Kristol and Gary Schmidt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, have accused the media of exaggerating their impact.
"I think it's ludicrous to see all these articles, in this country and in Europe, that somehow we are the diabolical cabal behind the war in Iraq. It wasn't the case that Bill (Kristol) was calling people in the White House advocating for things," Schmidt told the Journal Sentinel. Their influence came from "intellectual leverage, not personal leverage," he added.
In 1997, the Standard's cover story announced that "Saddam Must Go." In 1998, the Standard published a letter to then-President Clinton, calling on him to remove Hussein from power. The letter was signed by 18 people, eight of whom would join the Bush administration in senior positions, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who serves on the influential Defense Policy Board and was until last month its chairman.
Roman Empire of 21st century?
The neoconservatives argue that we no longer live in a bipolar world, as when Russia faced off against the United States. They see a unipolar world, with America as the Rome of the 21st century, a colossus that can dictate its will to the world, noting that America spends as much on defense as the next 15 countries combined and has troops stationed in 75 countries.
"The fact is," writes Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist who espouses neoconservative views, "no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of the world since the late Roman Empire."
Hulsman summarizes the neoconservative view this way: "We should acknowledge we have an empire. We have power and we should do good with it."
In essence, the neoconservatives argue that national sovereignty is an outdated concept, given the overwhelming power of America, and the U.S. should do all it can to impose democracy on countries. Some have called this approach democratic imperialism. It echoes the do-gooder impulses of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president who formulated the League of Nations as a solution to war, then paradoxically blends it with American military might. Hulsman dubbed it "Wilsonianism on steroids."
In a world where nuclear weapons are proliferating, the neoconservatives argue, you can no longer put the genie back in the bottle. "The hard truth is that unless you change some of these regimes, you're going to be hard-pressed to get rid of the threat," Schmidt noted. "Liberal democracies don't go to war with each other."
The theory behind this, developed by Michael Doyle, professor of international affairs at Princeton University, is that democratic governments are reluctant to go to war because they must answer to their citizens. And the history of liberal democracies, though comparatively short in the grand scheme of history, tends to buttress his point.
But for critics such as Hulsman, democracy arises from the bottom up and is "intimately connected with local culture and tradition. It can almost never be successfully imposed from the top down," he contends.
Neoconservatives cite Germany and Japan, but Hulsman noted that Japan is "98 percent ethnically homogenous," unlike Iraq, which is split among three major groups. Yet Japan still required five years of American occupation after World War II before it became an independent democracy.
The mission of democratizing the world may have no end, Hulsman says, because "there are always barbarians to convert."
But whatever his disagreement with it, Hulsman called the neoconservatives' approach "the first new thought in foreign policy for some time."
These ideas had little impact on presidential candidate George W. Bush, who espoused a humble foreign policy that emphatically rejected the kind of nation-building he now envisions for Iraq. In the early days of Bush's administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell's less aggressive views on foreign policy prevailed.
But after the attack on the World Trade Center, everything changed. Wolfowitz was soon declaring that America's intention was not just to target terrorists connected to Osama bin Laden, but to fight a "global war" and eliminate any sovereign states "who sponsor terrorism."
'Critical' voice in Pentagon
Wolfowitz had long held similar views. While third in command at the Pentagon (under Cheney) in 1991, Wolfowitz had argued in favor of pre-emptive action against countries such as Iraq and North Korea. "He was criticized as unduly hawkish prior to September 11th, but you don't hear that criticism now," Joyce said.
Wolfowitz was also unique in that he was comfortable in academia and connected to intellectuals.
"Wolfowitz is critical," Hulsman said. "He's the link between intellectual neocons like Kristol and the world of decision-makers."
Wolfowitz hammered away at the need to attack Iraq, backed by the Weekly Standard and the huge American Enterprise Institute. The institute has supplanted the more traditionally conservative Heritage Foundation, which was more influential with the senior George Bush as the key think tank for GOP insiders. Heritage scholars argue in favor of building alliances, as in the first Gulf War, while the American Enterprise Institute scholars say America's leadership can be decisive, with or without allies.
Turning point of Sept. 11
Joyce said it was inevitable that the younger Bush would embrace the neoconservative view. "I'm not sure September 11th did more than push the timetable up," he said. But press accounts suggest that the events of Sept. 11 were crucial for Bush, and even after this his thinking changed gradually in response to several things:
The anthrax attacks in New York, Washington and Florida in October 2001 raised fears of Saddam Hussein's involvement.
Evidence found in Afghanistan the next month that showed Osama bin Laden's group had been trying to secure weapons of mass destruction raised the question again of whether Hussein could be a possible supplier.
And by early 2002, a source told Time magazine, the stories of Hussein's cruelty to his own people had convinced Bush that the dictator was "insane" and therefore capable of giving weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaida terrorists.
By January 2002, Bush signaled his embrace of the neoconservative vision, declaring Iraq, Iran and North Korea were an "axis of evil" that must be resisted. By May, Bush announced that the U.S. would take pre-emptive action against threats from such regimes.
To the neoconservatives, the question of what weapons Hussein might actually possess was less important than his intention to get them. "Once the nuclear materials are there, you're screwed," argued Schmidt of the Project for a New American Century. "When you can really do pre-emption is when it's early."
'Draining the swamp'
Overthrowing Hussein could also accomplish broader goals.
Neoconservatives often talk about "draining the swamp" in the Middle East. Once Hussein is removed, Hudson Institute co-founder Max Singer has predicted, "there will be an earthquake throughout the region" that could topple the leadership of Saudi Arabia.
Even more pressing, says Schmidt, is the need to create a more moderate regime in Iran, which could have a nuclear weapon in 18 to 24 months, he predicted. (By contrast, North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons, would have to be approached very differently.)
If the goal is to transform the Middle East, the obvious place to start is with Iraq, which was already in trouble with the United Nations, had little international standing and was reviled even by some Arab nations.
A recent story in Time suggests that Cheney became convinced by his discussions with Fouad Ajami, professor and director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, that the people of Iraq would "erupt in joy" at the arrival of the Americans. Others have predicted a victory in Iraq could lead to regime changes in Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yemen and elsewhere.
"To these states," Richard Perle recently suggested, "we could deliver . . . a two-word message: You're next."
Some Middle Eastern leaders have already gotten this message.
"We are all targeted," Syrian President Bashar Assad told an Arab summit meeting on March 1.
Quick action required
If the war in Iraq lasts months rather than weeks, the theory that overwhelming American power can simultaneously pursue objectives in Iraq and beyond will be tested.
"If this is to be done, it has to be done rapidly," Schmidt said of the Iraq war.
Lawrence F. Kaplan, Kristol's co-author of the influential book "The War Over Iraq," has put it this way: "The real question is not whether the American military can topple Hussein's regime, but whether the American public has the stomach for imperial involvement of a kind we have not known since the United States occupied Germany and Japan."
The public's stomach could be affected not just by the war's cost in lives, but also by its costs in dollars. Beyond the $380 billion defense budget, the war already is expected to cost an additional $80 billion, with some administration officials estimating it could go as high as $200 billion.
War's naysayers
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense policy expert at the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank, has argued that most university experts oppose U.S. policy in Iraq.
There are even naysayers within the Bush administration and among retired military officials.
Hulsman described the neoconservatives as "a very incestuous, self-referential group of people."
"It's like what we saw with Vietnam. If you surround yourself with people who agree, you get in trouble."
But Hulsman noted that the secretary of state and his staff have been less enthusiastic about the neoconservative vision and are probably more comfortable with the international "realists" at the Heritage Foundation, such as Hulsman himself. And whatever the seeming unity in the Bush administration is now, the president could change his mind again as world events change.
Which is just what Hulsman and other "outs" are waiting for.
"If Iraq goes badly, then I think the realists are ready to take control," he predicts.
%202%2018%202005%205%2007%2039%20PM.jpg)
February 18, 2005
Scientists say they have found proof that man-made emissions have caused global warming (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)
New proof that man has caused global warming From Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent, in Washington
The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans. The present trend of warmer sea temperatures, which have risen by an average of half a degree Celsius (0.9F) over the past 40 years, can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, new research has revealed. The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change, one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday. "The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people," said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "The models got it right. If a politician stands up and says the uncertainty is too great to believe these models, that is no longer tenable." In the study, Dr Barnett’s team examined more than seven million observations of temperature, salinity and other variables in the world’s oceans, collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and compared the patterns with those that are predicted by computer models of various potential causes of climate change. It found that natural variation in the Earth’s climate, or changes in solar activity or volcanic eruptions, which have been suggested as alternative explanations for rising temperatures, could not explain the data collected in the real world. Models based on man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, however, matched the observations almost precisely. "What absolutely nailed it was the greenhouse model," Dr Barnett told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington. Two models, one designed in Britain and one here in the US, got it almost exactly. We were stunned. They did it so well it was almost unbelieveable." Climate change has affected the seas in different ways in different parts of the world: in the Atlantic, for example, rising temperatures can be observed up to 700 metres below the surface, while in the Pacific the warming is seen only up to 100m down. Only the greenhouse models replicated the changes that have been observed in practice. "The fact that this has gone on in different ways gives us the chance to figure out who did it," Dr Barnett said. "All the potential culprits have been ruled out except one. "This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now, and it shows that we can successfully simulate its past and its likely future evolution. The statistical significance of these results is far too strong to be merely dismissed and should wipe out much of the uncertainty about the reality of global warming." Dr Barnett said the results, which are about to be submitted for publication in a major peer-reviewed journal, should put further pressure on the Bush Administration to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force on Wednesday. "It is now time for nations that are not part of Kyoto to reevaluate and see if it would be to their advantage to join," he said. "We have got a serious problem ahead of us. The debate is not have we got a clear global warming signal, the debate is what we are going to do about it." In a separate study, also presented to the conference, a team led by Ruth Curry of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Connecticut has established that 20,000 square kilometres of freshwater ice melted in the Arctic between 1965 and 1995. Further melting on this scale could be sufficient to turn off the ocean currents that drive the Gulf Stream, which keeps Britain up to 6C warmer than it would otherwise be. "It is taking the first steps, the system is moving in that direction," Dr Curry said. "The new ocean study, taken together with the numberous validations of the same models in the atmosphere, portends far broader changes. Other parts of the world will face similar problems to those expected, and being observed now, in the western US. "The skill demonstrated by the climate models in handling the changing planetary heat budget suggests that these scenarios have a high enough probability of actually happening that they need to be taken seriously by decision-makers."
Copyright 2005
Bill Maher: Kids Say the Darndest, Most Stalinist Things
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-oe-maher18feb18.story
COMMENTARY
Kids Say the Darndest, Most Stalinist Things
By Bill Maher
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher."
February 18, 2005
A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions.
Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.
Now, to those of you who think I'm overreacting: Yes, I understand that when you're in high school you're still very young and that no one really cares what kids say anyway — it's not like priests are dating them for their brains.
But the younger generation is supposed to rage against the machine, not for it; they're supposed to question authority, not question those who question authority.
And what's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation — the kids who first became aware of the news under an "Americans need to watch what they say" administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment — or the loss of your show on ABC.
President Bush once asked, "Is our children learning?" No — they isn't. A more appropriate question might be, "Is our teachers teaching?" In four years, you can teach a gorilla sign language. Is it too much to ask that in the same amount of time a kid be taught what those crazy hippies who founded this country had in mind?
I know the Morals & Values folks want us to take time out of the school day for prayer and the Ten Commandments and abstinence training and at least two theories of evolution — the one agreed upon by every scientist in the world and the one that involves naked ladies and snakes — but, lest we forget, last month the people of Iraq risked death and danger to send a simple, inspiring message: America, get out of our country. But also, we want the freedoms you take for granted.
Now, I didn't mind being on the losing side of the last election. But as a loser, I guess I have some "unpopular" opinions — and I'd like to keep them. I'd even like to continue to say them right out loud on TV, because if I just get up there every Friday night and spout the Bush administration's approved talking points, that's not freedom or entertainment. It's Fox News.
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