After looking at 226 tree species at 81 locations around the world, two dozen experts from around the world have determined that fully 70 percent of trees are likely to suffer if conditions get drier—and it doesn't matter whether those trees live in wet or dry habitats. [...]Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do to prevent forest die-offs in a warming, drought-prone world. "Basically, this tells us that we should keep climate change in check as much as possible," [said Bettina Engelbrecht of the University of Bayreuth].
Mark Bowden, who gained access to the president and other top officials in order to write his new book "The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden," talks to "Viewpoint" host Eliot Spitzer about Obama's "target killings" program, in which the president regularly decides whether to kill or capture individual terrorist suspects with no judicial review.
"He has in effect a sniper rifle and each day he is given a dossier of an individual who has come into the crosshairs of the CIA or the military, and on a regular basis has to decide whether to pull the trigger," Bowden says. "It's very direct, and it's also, as the president told me, a tool that is very dangerous because it's relatively easy and there's so little risk involved in targeting and killing someone anywhere in the world with this technology."
Dangerous? Really?
Far from being the land of the free, The US has become the land of financial slaves in which millions of serfs toil in conditions of near servitude for the sole purpose of making the very few who are obscenely rich beyond measure even richer. These very rich people are locked in a veritable pissing contest with each other to see who can accumulate the most wealth because wealth to them is the symbol of power. This struggle for dominance over the rest has gone on since Ogg the cave man's days and has only gotten worse as time wends it's relentless way. America is a relatively young country and came in on the tail end of the days when there were a plethora of natural resources to be exploited and now that those resources are dwindling, our present day alpha males among the rich and mighty have nothing but the people to exploit. Keep reading here.
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Wonkette
We're on a road to nowhere - Meet Alaska's Airport And Harbor To Nowhere
What are you thankful for this holiday weekend? The re-election of the Muslin in the White House? That Ol' Handsome Joe Biden is still driving his bitchin' Camaro up and down Pennsylvania Avenue? That drunk Uncle Fred is behind bars awaiting trial on a DUI? Hookers and coke?
The people of Akutan, Alaska, have much to be thankful for. Oh so very much. About $100 million reasons to be thankful! Or sort of not thankful, and annoyed! Either way!
This is the Akutan airport:
Akutan, 766 miles southwest of Anchorage, has a year-round population of 75. But more than 1,000 seasonal employees work at the Trident Seafood fish-processing plant, described as the largest such facility in North America.
For years, air service was provided by PenAir (ed. note: heh!). The small Alaska airline used a World War II-era Grumman Goose, an amphibious aircraft, to land in the harbor and taxi up a ramp on the shore of the town. The age and operational costs of that airplane led officials to start planning a new land airport in 1999.
The steep terrain on volcanic Akutan presented obstacles. So authorities looked to uninhabited Akun Island, six miles away.
The airport cost $75.5 million dollars. To access it, suckers passengers had to board a hovercraft — we are not sure if it was full of eels — and take a $100 ride to the new airport.
Did we mention the hovercraft has failed epically in other Alaskan waters? The hovercraft has failed epically in other Alaskan waters.
The airport opened September 1, 2012. It closed November 4, 2012! About the only good news that can be said about the whole debacle is that there have been no plane crashes. Not even a mØØse bite.
But an airport to nowhere, that could happen to anyone. How about a harbor to nowhere as well?
Over the last two years, Knik Construction has converted what was once a flat stretch of tundra at the end of Akutan Bay into a full-size boat harbor.
"We've excavated almost a million cubic yards of material," says project manager Craig Bauld.
For now, the harbor is mostly just a big hole in the ground. While the construction team has finished its work, there's still no electricity, no running water, and no floats. There's also no road from the village, which is two miles away, so the only way to access the boat harbor is by boat. That means the harbor is cut off from the village's grocery store, post office and fuel dock. Steve Boardman is head of the Army Corps of Engineers' civil projects division. He says the transportation situation is unusual.
This harbor to nowhere that will service the town that can't even get its mail any longer for a plant that won't be able to get rid of all the fish that are stinking up its shelves cost $29 million and was built on spec: "If you dig it, they will come," if you will. Dig it?
But where did that money come from?
You might recall a big brouhaha over a program that President Obama signed that provided…and we at Wonkette Central want to make sure we get the language correct…grift money to shut critics up a stimulus to the economy by funding shovel-ready projects as well as education, energy assistance and other social services.
You know, for the kids!
The money for this harbor was approved in early 2009 by the then-governor of Alaska, who decided that the need for an unnecessary harbor for a town smaller than your local subdivision was huge enough to betray principles of not accepting stimulus funds, but that education was much lower down the list.
We salute you, Grifter-In-Chief!
It seems like 21st century America is still experiencing its birth pangs in North Carolina.
Bob Dumas, it seems is the local right-wing shock jock in Raleigh, North Carolina. And coming off the election, he and his show G105 "Showgram" decided it would be a good idea to have a special float at the Saturday's Raleigh WRAL Christmas Parade.
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