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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (281785)	10/7/2010 7:17:48 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 306849

Search was called off after drug cartel threatened the law officers. .......................................................... Sheriff: Evidence supports wife's account in pirate attack Denver Post ^, October 07, 2010 denverpost.com ZAPATA, TEXAS — Blood, witness accounts and other unspecified evidence all corroborate the version of events laid out by a Colorado woman whose husband is missing and presumed dead after an attack on a lake straddling the Mexican border, the sheriff leading the investigation said this afternoon. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. detailed some of the reasons he does not doubt that David Hartley, a 30-year-old Loveland native, was murdered a week ago by a drug gang on Falcon Lake, a 44-mile long waterway bisected by the U.S.-Mexico border. And Gonzalez's faith was echoed by three congressmen who visited this border town today to discuss the ongoing effort to find Hartley's body and return it to American soil. "We have to rely on the law enforcement officials," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, at an afternoon news conference. Hartley's wife, Tiffany, told sheriff's investigators that the couple had ridden their personal watercraft into Mexican waters to explore the town of Old Guerrero, which was flooded after the Falcon Dam was built in the 1950s. One of its spectacular sights is the ancient Catholic church, rising from the reservoir's waters. Tiffany Hartley told investigators that the couple was approached by armed young men in several boats, and that her husband was shot in the head. At one point, she said she tried to pull him onto her waverunner, but she ultimately fled amid gunfire and was chased all the way to the shore on the edge of Zapata. Her story has been the subject of speculation among Mexican officials and others in recent days, and the first question at today's press conference was whether Cuellar or two other congressmen were suspicious of it. But Gonzalez said he is not and said there is extensive evidence to corroborate her version of events. He said an eyewitness - a man working outside that day - witnessed Tiffany Hartley being chased by a small boat with several men in it. He said investigators have concluded that the man was truthful and had no connection to her. In addition, he said Tiffany Hartley's life jacket was smeared with blood that likely stained it as she tried to pull her husband's body onto her craft. And he said other witnesses have been interviewed who saw the couple in Zapata before they set out on their, and the information - and, in particular, the times - provided by those people also line up. He said the type of attack described by Tiffany Hartley is exactly like other incidents in April and May on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake in which Americans were robbed. The only difference, he said, is that no one was injured then. Finally, he said "other evidence has surfaced" that he would not specify that backs Tiffany Hartley's statements and descriptions. The effort to locate David Hartley's body and return it to his family grew more intensive Thursday, Cuellar said. He said Mexican authorities had assured him that 60 federal agents were involved in searches both on the ground along the banks of the lake near Old Guerrero and in the water. They were using 20 vehicles, three boats and a helicopter. A similar search had begun a day earlier but was called off after members of a drug cartel apparently threatened the law officers. "It's not where you're going out there and it's the middle of a park and everything's fine," Cuellar said. "There are threats."

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (281785)	10/7/2010 7:49:54 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 306849

Global warming theory in chaos after report finds increased solar activity may COOL the Earth .......................................................... 7th October 2010 dailymail.co.uk A puzzling discovery has raised a question mark over the Sun's impact on climate change and could provide ammunition for sceptics, it was revealed today. Until now it has been assumed that less activity from the Sun equates to less warming of the Earth. But the new research, which focuses on a three-year snapshot of time between 2004 and 2007, suggests the opposite may be true. As solar activity waned at the end of one of the Sun's 11-year cycles, the new data show the amount of energy reaching the Earth at visible wavelengths rose rather than fell. Enlarge Several giant sunspots crossing the face of the Sun. The amount of solar activity may have negligible effects on the Earth's climate Scientists believe it may also be possible that during the next up-turn of the cycle, when sun activity increases, there might be a cooling effect at the Earth's surface. A further twist arises from the fact that over the past century, overall solar activity has been increasing. If the new findings apply to long as well as short time periods, this could translate into a small degree of cooling rather than the slight warming effect shown in existing climate models. It would effectively turn received wisdom on its head. Sceptics are likely to say the results further undermine the reliability of climate change science, especially with regard to solar effects. Professor Joanna Haigh, from Imperial College London, who led the study, said: 'These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun's effect on our climate. However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun's activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly. 'We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period and we need to carry out further studies to explore the sun's activity and the patterns that we have uncovered on longer timescales. Enlarge The rising sun lights up the sky as low-lying clouds sit along the horizonin Wyoming. Researchers have warned against jumping to any conclusions based on what the have found during this 'comparatively short period' 'However, if further studies find the same pattern over a longer period of time, this could suggest that we may have overestimated the sun's role in warming the planet, rather than underestimating it.' Speaking at a news briefing in London, she denied that it would fuel scepticism about climate change research. 'I think it doesn't give comfort to the climate sceptics at all,' she said. 'It may suggest that we don't know that much about the Sun. It casts no aspersions at all upon the climate models.' The research, published in the journal Nature, is based on data from a satellite called SORCE (Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment) that has been measuring the Sun's energy output at X-ray, ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths. Prof Haigh's team found that, above an altitude of 28 miles, concentrations of ozone in the atmosphere increased as total solar output decreased. How global temperatures have risen steadily since records began in 1880 How Surface and satellite temperatures have varied over the past 35 years The ozone rise accompanied a steep fall in levels of ultraviolet radiation. Closer to the ground, an increase in visible radiation caused heating of the lower atmosphere. 'At face value, the data seem incredibly important,' Michael Lockwood, a space physicist at the University of Reading, told Nature.com. 'If solar activity is out of phase with solar radiative forcing, it could change our understanding of how processes in the troposphere and stratosphere act to modulate Earth's climate.' 'The findings could prove very significant when it comes to understanding, and quantifying, natural climate fluctuations,' he added. 'But no matter how you look at it, the Sun's influence on current climate change is at best a small natural add-on to man-made greenhouse warming.' 'All the evidence is that the vast majority of warming is anthropogenic. It might be that the solar part isn't quite working the way we thought it would, but it is certainly not a seismic rupture of the science.' Read more: dailymail.co.uk