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Hurricane Irene Demonstrates Threats to Coasts As Climate Changes
Every hurricane season, climate scientists are asked how climate change is impacting hurricanes.
The short answer is that global warming makes the ocean warmer and increases sea surface temperatures, which can make hurricanes stronger. But several factors, including differences in wind speed and direction, can break up hurricanes. Many future projections show a decrease in the frequency of all hurricanes globally, but a higher chance of intense hurricanes forming when they do occur. The changing nature of hurricanes in a warmer world remains an active area of research.
In any case, focusing on climate change and hurricanes can obscure the consequences of less sensational climate-related threats to America’s coasts, including sea-level rise and more intense precipitation. Further, extreme Read more…
Is China Planning a Surprise Missile Attack?
A retired Chinese general recently revealed that his country might be planning a surprise missile attack on the United States. The public comment of Xu Guangyu came in response to WikiLeaks revelations that last year Washington had warned its allies beforehand of China’s test of a missile interceptor.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a classified cable sent last January 9th, instructed American embassies in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand to notify those countries of upcoming Chinese launches two days later. The cable included details of the launch sites for the interceptor and the target, the models of Read more…
Nebraskans say a Canadian oil pipeline poses unacceptable risks
Part of the Keystone pipeline (solid line) is already working. Construction on Keystone XL (red dotted line) is supposed to start soon so oil can flow to the GulfThe 20,000 miles of pipes that carry oil and gas across Nebraska’s open prairies don’t bother Randy Thompson at all. Neither do greenhouse gas emissions or oil geopolitics.
Yet the 63-year-old, Republican-voting rancher and other Nebraska landowners have begun to kick up a lot of dust over the Keystone XL, a 1,711-mile pipeline that, if built, will cut across Nebraska’s heartland as it funnels oil from the Athabasca sands of Alberta, Canada, to Read more…
5 Unexpected Places You Can Be Tracked With Facial Recognition Technology
Once people realized that Facebook was basically harvesting biometric data, the usual uproar over the site’s relentless corrosion of privacy ensued. Germany even threatened to sue Facebook for violating German and EU data protection laws and a few other countries are investigating. But facial recognition technology is hardly confined to Facebook — and unlike the social networking site, there’s no “opt-out” of leaving your house.
Post-9/11, many airports and Read more…
China Analyst: U.S. Can’t Win in Space, So Why Bother Racing?
With access to more than 400 satellites plus at least two tiny, maneuverable robotic shuttles, the U.S. military is the clear leader in military spacecraft. But with 70 orbiters of its own, China is catching up fast. Last year, Beijing matched Washington in space launches for the first time, boosting no fewer than 15 satellites into orbit. It was the first time any nation kept a celestial pace with the U.S. since the height of the Cold War.
The new space race is on. But in the view of one influential analyst, the race isn’t worth the prize. Space “is expensive to enter, hard to sustain assets in, contains no defensive ground, and — barring energy-intensive maneuvering – forces assets into predictable orbits,” Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and editor of the new book Chinese Aerospace Power, told me as part of a longer interview over at AOL Defense.
No one disputes that China is gaining “ground” in space. “The [People’s Liberation Army] is acquiring a range of Read more…
The Largest Bubble in U.S. History
On August 6th after S&P downgraded the U.S. debt rating from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook, NIA prayed that Americans would not make the mistake of buying U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven. We normally don’t pray about economic matters, but only God can save the U.S. economy today as well as investors who have been brainwashed into believing U.S. government dollar-denominated bonds are a safe place to store wealth. Unfortunately, only when hyperinflation arrives will the majority of American citizens realize that fiat U.S. dollars should be used as a medium of exchange only and not a place to store wealth.
Since NIA was launched two and a half years ago, the overwhelming majority of our economic predictions have come true, with many of our accurate predictions being unique only to us. Sometimes we are a bit early with our predictions, but they almost always eventually come true. One of our predictions that Read more…
Liberty Dollars may be subject to seizure (Your private stash of silver&gold)
Liberty Dollars held by collectors may be subject to seizure as contraband by federal law enforcement, officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Secret Service said Aug. 24.
Statements by officials for those two federal law enforcement agencies seem to reverse the position taken in comments released from the United States Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, N.C., and published in Coin World in April, that mere possession of Liberty Dollars did not constitute a violation of any federal statute.
That position has apparently changed, although officials of the U.S. Secret Service — which would be the federal agency likely charged with executing any possible seizures — would not provide any definitive comments concerning under what circumstances Liberty Dollars would be seized.
The revised stance is tied to the Liberty Dollar being determined in a federal court to violate federal counterfeiting statutes. Liberty Dollars, metallic medallic pieces, were privately Read more…
America counts the cost of Hurricane Irene as flooding hits north east
At least 29 people in eight states have now been killed, many through drowning, as estimates of the damage caused to property alone reached $13 billion (£8 billion).
More than 500,000 homes and businesses across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire were left without electricity, as rivers around the north-east burst their banks.
Another 285,000 homes and firms in eastern Canada lost power after being struck by Irene as it left the US, bringing the total dealing with blackouts to more than 5.5 million people.
“The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time,” President Barack Obama told Americans late on Sunday. “And the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer”.
Millions of commuters in New York City faced delays and packed trains upon their return to work on Monday morning, as thousands of evacuated residents continued to return to their homes.
It was their upstate neighbours, however, who bore the brunt. Several small towns throughout the Catskill Mountains were totally submerged by water after local rivers and streams flooded.
Already waterlogged following the wettest August on record, the outer Read more…
Did China Tip Cyber War Hand?
A programme broadcast on the military channel of China’s state TV raises new questions about Beijing’s support for cyber attacks.
Amid growing US concerns over ongoing Chinese cyber attacks, attribution remains the most complex issue. At the open source level at least, it has been hard to find a ‘smoking cursor.’ That is, until the broadcast of a recent cyber warfare programme on the military channel of China’s state TV network.
The programme appeared to show dated computer screenshots of a Chinese military institute conducting a rudimentary type of cyber attack against a US-based dissident entity. However modest, ambiguous—and, from China’s perspective, defensive—this is possibly the first direct piece of visual evidence from an official Chinese government source to undermine Beijing’s official claims that it never engages in overseas hacking of any kind for government purposes. Clearly, Washington and Beijing have Read more…
US east coast on hurricane alert- New York City in direct path
The United States is on a high alert as Hurricane Irene builds momentum along its path from the Caribbean towards the US east coast.
“We’re going to have a very large tropical cyclone move up the eastern seaboard over the next five to seven days,” Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said on Wednesday.
But Read said it was too early to be certain where Irene would hit the coastline.
Latest data showed the hurricane strengthening back into a category two storm as it moved closer to Read more…
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