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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: abuelita who wrote (52491)	7/31/2004 7:15:13 PM
From: techguerrilla	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

We're better off for no one to reach anybody .......... .......... I still maintain this is a Bush vs. "Anybody But Bush" election. Bush is self-destructing. Events are causing a slide in his popularity. The war in Iraq is going horribly and the economy here in the United States is deteriorating. This election is going to be decided in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Florida. The economy in those States is not going to make a miracle move forward. The war in Iraq is not going to make a miracle change for the better. The U.S. electorate is incredibly superficial. Kerry is aware of that and has been maintaining a very dignified posture for quite some time now. Frankly, I am amazed at what a dignified campaign he has been running. The electorate is beginning to appreciate it too. He simply has to position himself as a dignified, responsible, strong alternative to Bush. He's doing that. Getting people to read the Ron Reagan article is, unfortunately, given the superficiality of the U.S. electorate, not "where it's at." Hell, most the electorate still thinks Hussein was involved in the Twin Towers' attack. It's pathetic. Kerry has a sense of all that. I'm coming to the conclusion he's brilliant and has excellent advisors. The Democratic National Convention was a well-orchestrated work of art. Kerry came out of it in great shape and the Democratic Party's base was very well energized by brilliant speeches from Gore, Carter, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Kerry. Now Kerry can park in the center and isolate Bush to the right. Bush sickens me. I haven't been this interested in an election since 1960. The results of this election will speak volumes regarding the cultural climate of the United States. If Bush wins, I'm going to seriously consider leaving the country. Four more years of him may very well bankrupt the U.S. /john

To: abuelita who wrote (52491)	8/1/2004 5:41:39 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

University of Alberta Researchers unearth ancient continental rift activity Discovery suggests presence of diamonds in northern Saskatchewan Researchers at the University of Alberta have found evidence that a 2,000-kilometre corridor stretching diagonally across northern Canada was under tremendous pressure to split in two about 2.7 billion years ago. It is the first evidence suggesting enormous continental landforms and plate tectonics existed that long ago. "Rifts are one hallmark of plate tectonics, and there is a huge debate in our field about whether or not large continents and plate tectonics existed on Earth in the Archean age, which is pre-2.5 billion years ago," said Dr. Larry Heaman, a professor of earth sciences at the U of A. "Our findings suggest that a form of plate tectonics did occur in the Archean," said Dr. Russell Hartlaub, a post-doctoral fellow working with Heaman and lead author of a paper on the Archean rift discovery that appears recently in Precambrian Research. For the past six years, the researchers have been studying rocks in the northern Lake Athabasca region of Saskatchewan. These rocks are collectively known as the Murmac Bay Group, and they are part of a corridor that runs from northeast Alberta to Baffin Island. Recently, Hartlaub and his colleagues discovered a sequence of Archean rocks--mainly quartzite and basalt--along this corridor that are consistent with "rift-related" activity. Hartlaub analysed and dated the rocks before determining that the Murmac Bay Group is evidence of a failed rift in the ancient continent that has been named Nunavutia. He estimates the continent was larger than England, France and Germany combined. However, the researchers don't know yet if rifting succeeded in splitting any part of Nunavutia to form an ocean basin. In studying the Murmac Bay Group, the researchers also discovered minerals in northern Saskatchewan that are 3.9 billion years old, and they've found rocks in the same area that date back 3.1 billion years. Heaman noted that these are some of the oldest minerals ever discovered. (In 1989, Dr. Sam Bowring of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found the oldest rock ever discovered on Earth, dating back four billion years, in Canada's Northwest Territories.) Aside from the significance of the discovery to researchers trying to understand Earth's history and evolution, minerals this old will certainly draw the attention of people in the diamond exploration industry, Heaman said. "Virtually all diamond deposits come from areas where you can find ancient crust preserved, such as we've found in northern Saskatchewan," he added. "It's really exciting to find evidence of this large, ancient continent and these ancient crustal processes," Hartlaub said. "Our next step is to analyse the geochemical signatures of the minerals we've found to see if we can get an even better idea of what our Earth looked like more than two-and-a-half billion years ago." ### Dr. Larry Heaman can be reached at 780-492-2778 or larry.heaman@ualberta.ca eurekalert.org