Happy Fourth
The Aftermath of Neoconservatism
The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis (in Georgia), so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment--it answers them.
This is the danger of McCain, an impulse to shape complex foreign affairs into what Andrew Sullivan deems "schoolyard rhetoric". He continues:"McCain's trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk...The damage that neoconservatism has done to America, to the Middle East, to democratic norms, to Israel's security, to civilized values and fiscal sanity is immense and deep."
A Curious Incident of Dendrology
So why does this happen? And to a greater concern, why is this important? Freemon Dysonexplains.The only plausible explanation of the annual wiggle and its variation with latitude is that it is due to the seasonal growth and decay of annual vegetation...giving us a direct measurement of the quantity of carbon that is absorbed from the atmosphere each summer north and south by growing vegetation, and returned each winter to the atmosphere by dying and decaying vegetation.
All of this adds up to about an 8% jump and decline of carbon throughout the year due to trees. How do we take advantage of this? Not by just planting more oak trees. Again, to Dyson:Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. If one quarter of the world's forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced by half in about fifty years.
A Curious Incident of Dendrology
So why does this happen? And to a greater concern, why is this important? Freemon Dysonexplains.The only plausible explanation of the annual wiggle and its variation with latitude is that it is due to the seasonal growth and decay of annual vegetation...giving us a direct measurement of the quantity of carbon that is absorbed from the atmosphere each summer north and south by growing vegetation, and returned each winter to the atmosphere by dying and decaying vegetation.
All of this adds up to about an 8% jump and decline of carbon throughout the year due to trees. How do we take advantage of this? Not by just planting more oak trees. Again, to Dyson:Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. If one quarter of the world's forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced by half in about fifty years.
API Goes to Hollywood
"Jennifer Garner gave the first speech supporting Obama, and she was very witty, clever and funny," says a source at SET. "She was followed by her husband Ben, then Matt Damon. The men gave serious political speeches on how the country needs change."
"Jen and Ben headed south to Miami to join the Damons to speak at a fundraiser for Obama on Saturday night. The BFF foursome kept things simple in black and white but there was no hiding those glowing grins and growing bellies."
"After an hour-and-a-half at the fundraiser, the Afflecks and Damons reportedly left in a limo for a private party at the Miami Beach home of Anthony Kennedy Shriver, the founder and head of the Best Buddies charity and a first cousin of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, a a member of the Obama Vice Presidential Nominating Committee."
