Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1804)	9/27/2006 7:53:26 AM
From: one_less	Respond to of 10087

Earth Headed for Warmest Temps in a Million Years Scientists Also Rebuke Popular Author Michael Crichton By CLAYTON SANDELL and BILL BLAKEMORE, ABCNews.com (Sept. 26) - In about 45 years, temperatures on Earth will be hotter than at anytime during the past one million years, says the U.S. government's top climatologist in a new report released today. According to the report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planet is just two degrees shy of an average temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, which is what they believe the temperature was about a million years ago. NASA's James Hansen, along with colleagues from the University of California and Columbia University, are for the first time, marking a calendar signaling the approach of temperatures that humans have never experienced. "Humans are now in control of the Earth's climate, for better or worse," Hansen tells ABC News. Based on a "business as usual" scenario in which greenhouse gasses continue to rise unabated, Hansen says we'll break the million-year-old record in about 45 years. But he stresses we can't wait that long to cut greenhouse gas pollution, because of the decades it takes for the climate system to respond to changes. "We need to get started now," he says. "We can't wait another decade or two to take this seriously." Those 2 degrees the scientists are talking about may not sound like much, but what that change means is that by mid-century, the world will experience even more record heat waves, wildfires, more intense storms and flooding. In other parts of the world, the increase may worsen drought conditions as more mountain glaciers and snow packs vanish, no longer sending water to the valleys below. And in a highly unusual move for a scientific paper, the authors devote eight paragraphs to systematically deconstructing the assertions of a prominent science fiction novelist. In the non-fiction sections of his 2004 book "State of Fear," best-selling author Michael Crichton wrote that Hansen's climate change calculations were "wrong by 300 percent." Hansen says Crichton misrepresented his scientific work and, adds the scientist, has done so in testimony before Congress and in a meeting with President Bush -- even though he is not a climate expert. "He is propagating false information to the public," Hansen says. Crichton, through a publicist, declined ABC News' request for an interview.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1804)	9/27/2006 7:57:54 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Cartels Use Suburban Homes to Grow Pot By DON THOMPSON, AP ELK GROVE, Calif. (Sept. 27) - Leon Nunn stepped out his front door one recent afternoon only to be waved back by a squadron of drug agents using a battering ram on a neighbor's home. The half-million-dollar home in the quiet subdivision was found to be stuffed with high-grade marijuana plants, growing in soil-free trays under bright lights. More than 40 similar busts have been reported over the past two months in neighborhoods in and around Sacramento, exposing what has become a new battleground in California's battle against marijuana cartels. Pot growers with suspected ties to Asian organized crime in San Francisco have been buying suburban homes to the east because of the anonymity the neighborhoods offer, and because the houses are relatively affordable by California standards. The owners then close the blinds and convert the homes into marijuana hothouses. "We had no idea. I was shocked," said Nunn, an associate minister at Elk Grove's Progressive Church of God in Christ. "We never saw them or heard from them. It was just a real quiet house on the block." The Nunns have since installed security lights and cameras and said some of their neighbors are talking about moving away. "Now we're just suspicious every time we see something around here," said the minister's wife, Patricia. "You pay this much money, you don't expect those things to happen." Until now, West Coast law enforcement agencies have been more concerned about large-scale outdoor marijuana gardens, which often are planted in public forests or parks by Mexican drug cartels. "Now we're just suspicious every time we see something around here." -Patricia Nunn The Drug Enforcement Agency saw a 50 percent increase nationwide in indoor operations in 2005 from the year before, said Gordon Taylor, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration region in central and Northern California. Growing marijuana indoors has certain advantages: The operations cannot be spotted by an airplane or a hunter, and the plants can be grown year-round. Police from Sacramento to Stockton, about 40 miles to the south, are bashing in doors at homes virtually every day as they develop new leads or are tipped by suddenly wary neighbors. "I've been doing this almost 20 years, and I have never seen this many indoor grow operations in such a small area in such a short period of time," Taylor said. "Some people might characterize it as an epidemic."