Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday December 28 2008 - (813)

Sunday December 28 2008 edition
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Commentary: Anti-Global Warming 2008-12-28 00:58:45   Editor:   I get around a lot.  I read lots (and lots and lots) of information.   Not only news sites, but technical analysis, studies, etc.  I may be the publisher of Free Internet Press, but by day job is technical based.  A little information is worthless, without having all of the information available.  I demand this from my coworkers and friends.  Unfortunately, here at Free Internet Press, to provide all the information available, we would need to concentrate on a single topic.  This would change us from being a news site to being an informational resource on a single topic.   I've read a lot of disinformation on global warming lately.  It's cold in the Northern US this winter, therefore there's no global warming.  This news by itself has convinced some that global warming is a myth.    Global warming causes changes in our norma! l weather patterns.  What most people expect is drought and hurricanes.  This isn't always the case.  Changing weather patterns are exactly that.  Drastic changes in the weather are all an indication, regardless if its 110 degrees in the summer, or extreme snowfall in the winter, outside of the normal patterns.    Read The Full Story U.S. Economy Shrinks As IMF Warns Of Great Depression 2008-12-27 18:09:01 Intellpuke: This article appeared on Truthout.org's website edition for Tuesday, December 23, 2008, but I thought it merited a broader readership and didn't want to let it fall through the cracks. The U.S. economy shrank in the third quarter, official data confirmed Tuesday, as the International  Monetary Fund's (IMF) top economist warned of a second Great Depression offering no respite from relentless gloom ahead of Christmas. The abrupt 0.5 percent contraction of gross domestic product (GDP) in the world's largest economy was seen as marking the start of a steep downturn for the United States after GDP growth of 2.8 percent in the second quarter. Stocks on Wall Street rose in early trading, however, as the contraction had been expected and was unrevised from a previous estimate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.54 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.60 percent. "This report is largely old news," said John Ryding at RDQ Economics, who forecast fourth-quarter data out next month would be far bleaker. Read The Full Story Floods Could Follow Ice In U.S. Midwest 2008-12-27 18:08:23 Rain and rapidly rising temperatures accompanied by thick fog threatened to cause flooding Saturday in theU.S. Midwest after days of Arctic cold, heavy snow and ice. Thick ice on roads that contributed to dozens of deaths had thawed and mountains of snow turned into pools and streams of water. "It's a Catch 22," said Marisa Kollias, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Transportation. "We're getting rid of one problem, the ice, but we're getting another problem with the flooding." The National Weather Service posted flood watches and warnings Saturday for parts of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Missouri. As much as 2 inches of rain fell in two hours during the night in west-central Illinois, the National Weather Service reported Saturday. And as warm air collided with cold, the weather service posted tornado watches for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. Read The Full Story In Britain, Threats To Mobile Phone Jobs Loom As Companies Cut Costs 2008-12-27 18:07:49 Thousands of British jobs are expected to be lost across the mobile phone industry in the first few months of next year as the networks look to cut costs in the face of fierce competition and the worsening economic slowdown. Management consultants are being used by several mobile phone companies to advise on where cost savings can be made and a series of announcements on restructuring are expected early in the new year. The five U.K. mobile phone networks - 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone - employ almost 45,000 people in Britain, from managers and network engineers to call center staff and shop assistants. Two of them - Vodafone and O2 - count Britain as the center of their international operations. Last month Vodafone announced its intention to cut costs by £1 billion ($1.75 billion), mostly in the mature markets of Europe, as it reduced its annual sales forecast for the second time in four months. Read The Full Story Grim Details Surface In California Massacre 2008-12-27 18:06:59 A man who carried out a Christmas Eve massacre and arson at the home of his former in-laws while dressed as Santa Claus apparently intended to flee the United States, but his plans were dashed after the inferno he created severely burned his arms and melted his red costume onto his body, police said Friday. Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, a laid-off aerospace worker, apparently shot some of his nine victims execution-style in a plot to destroy his ex-wife's family after a costly divorce that was finalized last week. He had airline tickets to Canada and $17,000 in cash on his body, some attached to his legs with plastic wrap and some in a girdle, said Covina Police Chief Kim Raney. Armed with four guns, wearing the Santa suit and carrying a fuel-spraying device wrapped like a present, Pardo showed up at the home at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday as a party of about 25 people was underway, said police. Raney said Pardo, 45, fired a shot into the face of an 8-year-old girl who answered the door and at first shot indiscriminately, then apparently targeted relatives of his ex-wife as other guests fled. "There's some information that he stood over them and shot them execution-style," said Raney. Read The Full Story	How The West's Energy Boom Could Threaten Drinking Water For 1 In 12 Americans 2008-12-27 18:09:20 The Colorado River, the life vein of the Southwestern United States, is in trouble. The river's water is hoarded the moment it trickles out of the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado and begins its 1,450-mile journey to Mexico's border. It runs south through seven states and the Grand Canyon, delivering water to Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Along the way, it powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans. Now a rush to develop domestic oil, gas and uranium deposits along the river and its tributaries threatens its future. The region could contain more oil than Alaska's National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It has the richest natural gas fields in the country. And nuclear energy, viewed as a key solution to the nation's dependence on foreign energy, could use the uranium deposits held there. But getting those resources would suck up vast quantities of the river's water and could pollute what is left. That's why those most concerned are water managers in places like Los Angeles and San Diego. They have the most to lose. The river is already so beleaguered by drought and climate change that one environmental study called it the nation's "most endangered" waterway. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn the river's reservoirs could dry up in 13 years. The industrial push has already begun. In the eight years George W. Bush has been in office, the Colorado River watershed has seen more oil and gas drilling than at any time in the past 25 years. Uranium claims have reached a 10-year high. Last week the departing administration auctioned off an additional 148,598 acres of federal land for gas drilling projects outside Moab, Utah. As still more land is leased for drilling and a last-minute change in federal rules has paved the way for water-intensive oil shale mining, politicians and water managers are now being forced to ask which is more valuable: energy or water. Read The Full Story British Wildlife May Not Survive Another Wet Summer, Warns National Trust 2008-12-27 18:08:34 A third consecutive miserable summer in parts of the U.K. could spell disaster for many species of insects, birdlife and mammals, the National Trust warned Saturday. The charity says three wet summers in a row in many regions could mean that creatures - ranging from craneflies (often called daddy-long-legs, though not the same as daddy-long-legs spiders in the U.S.) to species of butterflies, members of the tit family, puffins and bats - may struggle to survive in some places. Matthew Oates, a nature conservation adviser for the trust, said: "After two very poor years in a row we desperately need a good summer in 2009 - otherwise it's going to look increasingly grim for a wealth of wildlife in the U.K. "Climate change is not some future prediction of what might happen. It's happening now and having a serious impact on our countryside every year." The warning comes in a yearly audit produced by the National Trust of how the weather in 2008 affected wildlife. Read The Full Story Israeli Airstrikes In Gaza Leave At Least 205 Dead, Hundreds Wounded 2008-12-27 18:08:05 Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes Saturday throughout the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rockets fired into Israel from the Hamas-ruled territory, killing at least 205 Palestinians and wounding more than 350, Palestinian health officials reported. Missiles launched by Israeli F-16 warplanes hit Hamas security installations, killing Hamas officials, policemen, security officials and bystanders, they said. Many people were reported still trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings. Following the strikes, Palestinian factions in Gaza launched dozens of rockets into southern Israel from the strip, killing a resident in the town of Netivot and wounding at least four others. Other rockets landed in the port town of Ashdod. The Israeli military announced that the attacks were targeted at Hamas facilities and "this operation will be continued, expanded and intensified as much as will be required." Israel's Channel 2 television reported 60 aircraft took part in the strikes on 100 targets in the densely populated enclave. There were no immediate signs that Israel intended to launch a ground incursion into the strip. Read The Full Story At Least 24 Killed By Baghdad Car Bomb 2008-12-27 18:07:33 A car bomb killed at least 24 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims, and wounded 46 others when it exploded Saturday on a busy road in Baghdad that leads to the revered shrine of Kadhimiya, according to the Ministry of Interior. That bombing, along with several others in recent weeks, was a stark reminder that even as violence has sharply fallen, insurgents still have the power to carry out deadly strikes in the heart of the capital. The attack’s timing and location appeared to be intended to reignite sectarian passions. Millions of Shiites are preparing to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The observance falls during Muharram, the holiest month of the Shiite religious calendar, which begins Monday. Shiite families from across Iraq traditionally visit the shrine, with its shimmering twin golden domes, on Saturdays. The explosion occurred at midday about 100 yards from Bab al-Dirwaza, one of the main gates to the shrine and the Kadhimiya district’s bustling market, which has been a pedestrian-only area for several years because of a spate of deadly attacks in the area. According to several witnesses, the car that exploded was parked outside the fence of one of the nearby parking lots. Read The Full Story
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