It has been a long time since I’ve saddled up my keyboard, put on my spurs, and rounded up the news doggies. Elections happened, administrations have changed, and even Continental drift has moved on at its glacial pace. But News happens every day whether we like it or not, so here goes.
The Bush Administration is gone, they’ve tiptoed through the tulips into history, and Cheney is still out there trying to frighten Americans. It seems to me that the war on terror should add Cheney to the list of known terrorists.
Cheney warns of new attacks
Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.
In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.
And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans — and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team — understand.
The XVP needs to return to his undisclosed location, close the door, and stay there.
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Nations rise and fall in a complex dance with history. Sometimes we think we have the reasons nailed down. Rome decayed overtime and, eventually, was destroyed by barbarians. Now, geologists have found information that may indicate that a long term change in climate my have been a contributing factor to the end of these civilizations.
Cave’s climate clues show ancient empires declined during dry spell
The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.
Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area’s climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.
They, of course, aren’t the only ones. Climate may have brought an end to the Easter Island Civilization and the Anasazi of the Southwest. For me, this puts the human world on equal footing with animals. We already know that climate change has disastrous affects on animals. Perhaps, those same climate changes echo through the human world. As a species, we are tied to the earth, and when the earth deals us a bad hand, our own populations and civilizations collapse.
As a writer of both fantasy and Science Fiction, this information gives me fodder for conflict. An entire civilization collapsing due to an inimical change in climate is an interesting idea: man against nature. How would a magical civilization adapt and survive? How would a civilization that relies on science overcome a change in their world? What technologies wold they develop?
As a thinker, it opens up other avenues of thought. If the Romans and other civilizations could have been done in by the weather, why not us. With global warming (call it climate change if you will) what will be the result? Will we rise as a world and find a way around it? Will our civilization crumble and give way to the next civilization?
Scientists continue to be stunned at the speed Global warming is overtaking their predictions. Last year’s global models are tossed by the wayside once again. The discovery of massive cracks in the arctic ice at the top of the world show that we may be looking at the loss of much of the polar ice sheet. Once the Ice Sheet goes, the darker ocean will absorb more heat and continue to warm the earth, accelerating global warming. Hold onto your hats, it could be a bumpy ride for the good old planet earth.
Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice
Environment correspondent, BBC News
Dramatic evidence of the break-up of the Arctic ice-cap has emerged from research during an expedition by the Canadian military.
Scientists travelling with the troops found major new fractures during an assessment of the state of giant ice shelves in Canada’s far north.
The team found a network of cracks that stretched for more than 10 miles (16km) on Ward Hunt, the area’s largest shelf.
The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.