COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

In Cycles the Climate Rhetoric Heats Up

Bali – The Brainwashing

Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the hitherto little known UN bureaucrat and recently elected Secretary General of the United Nations has issued a warning and laid the foundation for future events:
According to AP:
Guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions cuts opposed by the United States may be "too ambitious" to include in a final statement from the climate conference in Bali, the U.N. chief said Wednesday.
Drafts of the conference statement obtained by The Associated Press have included a call for industrialized countries to reduce emissions blamed for global warming by between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, however, said such goals might have to wait for subsequent negotiations, though he added that at some point targets for emissions cuts would be necessary.
"Realistically, it may be too ambitious" to set guidelines now, Ban told reporters, when asked about steadfast opposition by the United States, though he urged Washington to be flexible.
Later he added, "Practically speaking, this will have to be negotiated down the road."
Reducing green house gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent in the next 12 years? What are the chances of that happening? Given the track record of the Kyoto signatories, not bloody likely. A BBC article pointed out the nations which first signed to Kyoto 10 years ago have not met their CO2 reduction goals.
Japan - a signatory to Kyoto - should have cut by 6% but it has increased emissions by 7%. Italy (+7.4%) and Spain (+59.8%) are missing their targets by a mile.
In the UK, carbon emissions have recently been going up despite all the government's green rhetoric.
Two governmental henny-pennies are issuing catastrophic warnings:
Now, science advisors to two governments with claims to leadership in global climate politics, Germany and the UK, have told BBC News it is unlikely that levels of greenhouse gases can be kept low enough to avoid a projected temperature rise of 2C (3.6F).
Professors Sir David King and John Schellnhuber say the world is more than 50% likely to experience dangerous levels of climate change.
They believe politicians have been too slow to cut emissions.
Current science suggests that above 2C, billions of people will face water shortages, the world's food supplies could be threatened and widespread extinction could be triggered.
Neither scientist believes that the world would achieve the goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of stabilising emissions by around 2015.
It all means that since the world committed to avoid dangerous climate change, emissions globally are up around 22%, the highest levels of CO2 since dinosaurs roamed a sweltering earth.
The Guardian UK also reported the doom and gloom urgency of the Secretary General’s warning:
The time to act on climate change is now, the UN secretary general today warned delegates gathered in Bali to negotiate a new global deal on climate change.
As talks intensify during the crucial top-level section of the climate change conference which begins today, Ban Ki-moon urged ministers and heads of state to reach an agreement for the sake of future generations.
Calling climate change the "moral challenge of our generation", he said: "Succeeding generations depend on us. We cannot rob our children of their future."
"As we convene here in Bali, the eyes of the world are upon us - this is a historic moment long in the making.
"The science is clear, climate change is happening, the impact is real, the time to act is now," he warned, adding that price of inaction - including floods, famine, rising sea levels and loss of biodiversity - would be far higher than the costs of taking action.
"Climate change is as much an opportunity as it is a threat. It is our chance to usher in a new age of green economics and truly sustainable development."


It's time to chill-out with the hot rhetoric. Look at the words being used to incite action:

Floods, famine, extinction.
Sweltering temperatures,

Moral challenge.

In order to save the planet, an English woman has had herself sterilized and an Australian obstetrician/professor, Dr. Barry Walters, has proposed a one-time tax of $5000 (Australian) on babies born into families which already have two children. It doesn't stop there, he says another $800 per year would be in order to, as he put it, "counterbalance the carbon debt." He says he "rejoices in every baby" his patients have but I wonder if he has considered how many will be aborted if ideas such as his are implemented?

A generation of young people are being indoctrinated with this kind of language and thought. It’s only a matter of time before some brain-washed fanatics take it upon themselves to do in the “bastards who are killing mother earth.” After all, it's the moral thing to do.

56 comments:

  1. Headline reads--Congress Deadlocked As Specter of Government Shutdown Looms

    There's still hope folks!

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  2. bobal said: Headline reads--Congress Deadlocked As Specter of Government Shutdown Looms

    There's still hope folks!


    That's not funny Bobal, I could get furloughed, draw unemployment, and have to stay home posting all day on the E-bar.

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  3. Uh, didn't we (the U.S.) lower our CO2 emissions last year?

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  4. I've lowered mine(except for my trip)I don't go anywhere or do anything.Carbon credits for sale, contact bob.

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  5. I've been looking for data to back that idea up, rufus.

    Cannot find any confirmation for that rumor.

    A lot of data that the Kyoto Accords have been a distinct failure, no country meeting the goals set forth or agreed to.

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  6. Germany talks the talk but doesn't take the walk. Phasing out nuclear power with plans to build many new coal fired plants.

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  7. Scientists Use Fertilizer to Quickly Produce Natural Gas Ingredient From Old Oil Wells

    WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- A vast new energy supply in hard-to-tap older oil fields may be generated simply by feeding fertilizer to some deep-dwelling, gas-making microbes, new research suggests.

    Canadian and English researchers were able to convert oil into usable methane in small glass tubes during two years of lab research, instead of a process that takes tens of thousands of years underground. The next step is to do it in real oil fields.
    ...
    "You're talking a very substantial amount of energy," said study co-author Steve Larter, a University of Calgary petroleum geologist. "It's potentially a game changer if it can be demonstrated."

    Proving that it could work on a large scale, economically and in real world conditions is the big unknown, the researchers concede.

    Larter said it was hard to come up with just how much energy they could produce, but speculated it could be near the equivalent of the world's conventional oil reserves.

    The key is the microbes, which have existed underground for hundreds of millions of years. They ferment the oil and expel natural gas without requiring oxygen.
    ...
    "You'd basically feed them Miracle-Gro or fertilizer to accelerate their growth rate," he said.

    The new product would be natural gas, not oil, a cleaner-burning fuel that contributes far less to global warming. Such an approach would be most promising in places with heavy oil, such as Alberta, Venezuela and Utah, other experts said.

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  8. King Coal, bob.
    It's the future, not the peaceful atom.

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  9. The Jewish subway riders attacked by Christians, who accused the Jews of killing Christ.

    While the rest of the riders watched, a Muslim man stepped in to defend the Jews that were under attack.

    Got whipped on, too. Out numbered as he was. The Police later arrested 10 Christians for their behaviour on that subway train.

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  10. USA CO2 emissions down 1.3% last year according to this Report even while the economy grew.

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  11. New York, New York,
    one hell of a town

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  12. Hadn't seen that article about a subway attack--in NYC?--would be interested to know where you found it.

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  13. Good going, bob!!!

    Voluntary guidelines working like a charm. The US leading the way in greenhouse gas reductions, without draconian regulation required.

    While the developing world continues to spew their poisons at ever increasing levels.

    The Chinese blaming the US for their own actions:
    China says the figure is a vital sign of rich nations' commitment to tackling high per-capita and historic levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
    "The developed countries must take their responsibilities seriously. We must have the 25 to 40 percent target," said a source with close ties to the delegation.
    "If they won't agree to this, if they won't even do this, then what hope is there?" he told Reuters.
    ...
    "We hope that it could be finished as early as next year because we need a deal as early as possible, but we need for it to be completed by 2010 at the latest," the source said. But the developed world's reluctance to help China clean up its energy infrastructure may make it less willing to compromise on other parts of any deal.
    China's climate change ambassador, Yu Qingtai, told Reuters before the Bali meeting that China would be willing to do more to fight climate change in return for help with clean technology, but the proposal has had little success, the sources said.
    "We are not asking companies to become charity organisations, we are talking about government obligations. There are policy tools -- tax incentives, rebates -- ways that would encourage the companies to be more proactive," the delegation source said.
    "So we are talking at different wavelengths and there is virtually no progress. Despite all the moralistic statements, there is little readiness to move on this and so that is a bit depressing," he added.


    Even in China, it's all about US.

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  14. I almost be willing to bet that we were the only country, save maybe Zimbabwe, to cut emissions last year. China accounted for 4/5ths of the increase I read.

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  15. The Police later arrested 10 Christians for their behaviour on that subway train.

    Christians? No.

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  16. Re: King Coal.

    Australia is practically loading coal ships bow to stern, 24/7. All headed for China.

    I wonder how Mr. Rudd is going to reconcile Australia's economy with climate change.

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  17. Celebrating Christmas, that makes 'em Christians.

    Pehaps not to your standard, whit, but definately Christians, celebrating Christ's birth.

    Taking their revenge upon his killers, much as the Roman Catholic Church did for hundreds of years, throughout history.

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  18. The assailants as Christian as Osama is Muslim.

    Real Christians and Muslims being members of Religions of Peace?

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  19. One member of the group allegedly yelled, "Oh, Hanukkah. That's the day that the Jews killed Jesus," she said.

    They is a bunch of ignorant suckers, that's for shure.

    Good on the Muslim, shame on the attackers, G-d protect the Jews.

    Kill the Romans!

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  20. It stems from an altercation between four Jewish riders and a group yelling "Merry Christmas" on a Brooklyn-bound train. Walter Adler and his friends say they were attacked when they responded by saying "Happy Hanukkah."

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  21. Of course the Christian put the blame upon the Jews ...

    MyFoxNY.com -- Four people were jumped on a subway train on Friday by another group who police say made anti-Semetic remarks before the attack.

    Ten people are charged with hate crimes.

    The father of a 20 year old man who was not charged tells the New York Post the victims shouted obscenities about Jesus.

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  22. An instance when the Muslim is the good samaritan. Good on you, Abdul.

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  23. Taking their revenge upon his killers, much as the Roman Catholic Church did for hundreds of years, throughout history.

    My local branch of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Philomena's, wouldn't hurt a fly.

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  24. The more of this I see, the more the "alcohol addled mind that is past its apogee" seems to be right about religion.

    At least as it applies to the mass multitudes of folk in the sectarian world.

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  25. Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
    By Jonathan Amos
    Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco

    Arctic summer melting in 2007 set new records

    More details
    Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.

    Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

    Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.

    Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.

    Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.

    In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly
    Professor Peter Wadhams

    "Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.

    "So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

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  26. I've read that Pelosi is the democrat most closely associated with the anti-nuclear plant cause. I think McCain gave a good answer, whether global warming is true or not, and how serious it is, and what's to blame, we ought to leave our kids a cleaner world anyway. It's hard to imagine that humanity isn't affecting the climate, yet it beats me, as I read articles pro and con, and don't have the capacity to make a judgement between the views.

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  27. Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.

    But this ice is already in the water, just like the icecubes in a Rum & Coke (Santa's workshop is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean), so when it melts it won't add to sea level rise.

    All we are seeing is a transfer of ice from where it doesn't add to sea-level rise to a place where it subtracts from al-Gore's sea-level rise (see article below). In short, God Is Of The Opinion That She Knows What She Is Doing.

    SATELLITES SHOW OVERALL INCREASES IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE COVER

    While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period.

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  28. And I'm certain that the Congresspersons don't either.

    But antarctica is land, T. and the models claim increased rainfall caused by global warming would increase the ice pack there, flowing ito the sea, for awhile at least.

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  29. Antarctic Ice. A Global Warming Snow Job

    But the author seems to hedge on what's causing it.

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  30. How did that lunatic Alan Keyes get into that Republican debate? His political skills did launch Obama's national career if i recall.

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  31. Flying into ozone stained skies over every major city, or through the appalling smudge that covers south east China, it is difficult to believe that man created pollution on such a scale can have no affect on a macro scale. In the 1950's you could not find a clean river below any major American city. That was cleaned up. Why should air be any different?

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  32. 2013, no worries then ...

    The world ends on 21 December 2012, the last day of the Mayan Long Count Calendar

    The Pole Shift in 2012

    Author Patrick Geryl came to the staggering conclusion that the Earth will soon be subjected to an immense disaster.
    The cause: upheavals in the sun's magnetic fields will generate gigantic solar flares that will affect the polarity of the entire Earth.
    The result: our magnetic field will reverse all at once, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.

    Massive earthquakes will demolish all buildings on the planet, and instigate colossal tsunamis and intense volcanic activity. In fact, the Earth's crust will shift, sweeping continents thousands of miles away from their present positions.

    There is ample evidence in the literature of ancient civilizations that such disasters have occured in the past and also clues that they knew when another such calamity would occur. The Dresden Codex of the Maya for instance, contains the secrets of the sunspot cycle, about which our modern astronomers know almost nothing!

    In his books, Patrick Geryl continues his scientific analysis of the millennia-old codes of the Maya and Egyptians that refer to the coming super-disaster. He determines that both cultures arose from an antediluvian civilization which was able to calculate the previous polar shifts and that we should take very seriously their calculations that place the next reversal in 2012!


    Sun cycles, that's the real deal.

    The magnetic poles have changed location in the past, shifting around the globe. Evidenced in the geological record.
    In the South Atlantic there are indications of magnetic disturbences, already.

    If the Poles do not shift, well at least the Northwest Passage will be clear.

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  33. Bobal: But antarctica is land, T. and the models claim increased rainfall caused by global warming would increase the ice pack there, flowing ito the sea, for awhile at least.

    Ah, but you see, the water evaporates from the sea and snows on Antarctica far faster than the glaciers dump it back into the sea, which happens at a...how shall I put it? Glacial rate. So the water is put in the bank for a while. If we see the average sea-levels actually decline, and the stars at Malibu complaining about how far they have to walk to get to the surf, there's going to be some egg on al-Gore's face.

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  34. Talked his way in.

    I agree, deuce, water pollution has gotten better, most places. We can clean up the air too.

    The worst place in America that I saw as to air pollution was right here at Lewiston Idaho because of the Potlatch Forest mill. I din't see any major cities, but as to small ones, well, we're the worst. EPA says it's not really as bad as it looks some days, being mostly steam, a little formaldahyde, you know, few parts per million....

    You don't scare me with that Pole Shift talk, Rat, you don't listen to Coast-To-Coast, haven't heard about the 'kill shot' eruption due from the sun :)

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  35. Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'

    A space rock may have exploded in the air over North America

    A controversial new idea suggests that a large space rock exploded over North America 13,000 years ago.

    The blast may have wiped out one of America's first Stone Age cultures as well as the continent's big mammals such as the mammoth and the mastodon.

    The blast, from a comet or asteroid, caused a major bout of climatic cooling which may also have affected human cultures emerging in Europe and Asia.

    Scientists will outline their evidence this week at a meeting in Mexico.


    Their impact theory shouldn't be dismissed; it deserves further investigation

    The evidence comes from layers of sediment at more than 20 sites across North America.

    These sediments contain exotic materials: tiny spheres of glass and carbon, ultra-small specks of diamond - called nanodiamond - and amounts of the rare element iridium that are too high to have come from Earth.

    All, they argue, point to the explosion 12,900 years ago of an extraterrestrial object up to 5km across.

    No crater remains, possibly because the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which blanketed thousands of sq km of North America during the last Ice Age, was thick enough to mask the impact.

    Another possibility is that it exploded in the air.

    Climate cooling

    The rocks studied by the researchers have a black layer which, they argue, is the charcoal deposited by wildfires which swept the continent after the explosion.


    The Clovis people developed an advanced stone tool technology
    The blast would not only have generated enormous amounts of heat that could have given rise to wildfires, but also brought about a period of climate cooling that lasted 1,000 years - an event known as the Younger Dryas.

    Professor James Kennett, from the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB), said the explosion could be to blame for the extinction of several large North American mammals at the end of the last Ice Age.

    "All the elephants, including the mastodon and the mammoth, all the ground sloths, including the giant ground sloth - which, when standing on its hind legs, would have been as big as a mammoth," he told the BBC.

    "All the horses went out, all the North American camels went out. There were large carnivores like the sabre-toothed cat and an enormous bear called the short-faced bear."

    Professor Kennett said this could have had an enormous impact on human populations.

    Population decline

    According to the traditional view, humans crossed from north-east Asia to America at the end of the last Ice Age, across a land bridge which - at the time - connected Siberia to Alaska.


    The extinction of large North American beasts is a puzzle
    The Clovis culture was one of the earliest known cultures in the continent. These proficient hunter-gatherers developed a distinctive thin, fluted spear head known as the Clovis point, which is regarded as one of the most sophisticated stone tools ever developed.

    Archaeologists have found evidence from the Topper site in South Carolina, US, that Clovis populations here went through a population collapse.

    But there is no evidence of a similar decline in other parts of the continent. The Clovis culture does vanish from the archaeological record abruptly, but it is replaced by a myriad of different local hunter-gatherer cultures.


    The Tunguska event devastated parts of Siberia in 1908
    Jeff Severinghaus, a palaeoclimatologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, told Nature magazine: "Their impact theory shouldn't be dismissed; it deserves further investigation."

    According to the new idea, the comet would have caused widespread melting of the North American ice sheet. The waters would have poured into the Atlantic, disrupting its currents.

    This, they say, could have caused the 1,000 year-long Younger Dryas cold spell, which also affected Asia and Europe.

    The Younger Dryas has been linked by some researchers to changes in the living patterns of people living in the Middle East which led to the beginning of farming.

    A massive explosion near the Tunguska river, Siberia, in 1908, is also thought to have been caused by a space rock exploding in the atmosphere. It felled 80 million trees over an area of 2,000 sq km.

    The new theory will be presented and debated at the American Geophysical Union's Joint Meeting in Acapulco, Mexico, this week.

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  36. You don't scare me with that Pole Shift talk, Rat, you don't listen to Coast-To-Coast, haven't heard about the 'kill shot' eruption due from the sun :)

    Art Bell used to have that night shift, and I can't even count how many times the world was supposed to end by earthquake, comet, asteroid, supernova, nuclear war, super hurricane, or all the honeybees going on strike.

    Not only have I been saved from fear by our Lord Jesus Christ, but I am an American. We Americans are traditionally fearless, unless you are talking about a healthy fear of God. This is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, after all.

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  37. ...and then they all hopped in their lear jets and waved goodbye to Bali. Leaving a sooty brown contrail a few thousand feet above the lush green jungles of the island...

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  38. I think clean streams with native fish, clear skies without industrial pollution, or night skies where you can see the stars, are worthy gifts from this generation to the next. They after all are what was normal for the span of most of human history. Nature will continue on in its own cycles. I am fine with that and there is little than can be done to change it.

    If you think man has no affect on the environment, a trip to Haiti would be eye opening.

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  39. Teresita,

    Why did you get kicked off the board? Or did you resign?

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  40. Sam: Why did you get kicked off the board? Or did you resign?

    One of the channel managers suggested that I should go to the Daily Kos, and told me to stuff it, and suggested that I was getting my stuff from a satanic website, so turned in my oak leaf cluster and seat on the board of directors.

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  41. Far out. Sorry I missed that little exchange.

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  42. T's continued participation speaks well for her, with or without the oak leaves.

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  43. I need to clarify that those with oak leaf clusters are an integral part of the bar and enjoy a tenured position. They cannot be fired, but not prevented from resigning.I am sure all here would agree. We all have off days. T only needs to give a nod....

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  44. Ban said he also sent several top aides to Algiers, including Kemal Dervis, the head of the U.N. Development Program.

    About 175 U.N. employees worked in Algeria, including about 115 locally based staff, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

    Before Tuesday, more than 250 U.N. civilian employees had been killed either by violence or in accidents since January 1992, when such record-keeping began, U.N. officials said. Those figures do not include the deaths of U.N. staff from peacekeeping missions.


    United Against Terrorism

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  45. I learned that The EB is something that does not belong to anyone more than those who are active participants. The comments make the blog. I have no litmus test for anyone other than those few times when I felt malicious intent would destroy the EB. I respect all points of view and appreciate all who post here. I learn something every day.

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  46. I don't think I've run across anyone who's been malicious. Habu was about as close as it came but then he was only really just venting.

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  47. Clinton and Obama fighting with each other. They're going to wind up taking each other out. This is great stuff.

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  48. Sam said: Clinton and Obama fighting with each other. They're going to wind up taking each other out. This is great stuff.

    Leaving Edwards to run against Huckabee in the greatest cakewalk since Reagan v. Mondale.

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  49. Former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.) - usually a morose presence at these debates - was surprisingly lively, providing some of the only interesting exchanges during the proceedings.

    At one point, he quipped that he wanted to be as rich as Romney so he wouldn't have to worry about taxes and then, after Romney tried to push back, Thompson delivered this sharp-edged one-liner: "You're getting to be a pretty good actor."

    Sadly, that was likely the moment of a debate that largely failed to provide any significant insight into the differences between the candidates.


    In Name Only

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  50. 2164th: T's continued participation speaks well for her, with or without the oak leaves.

    That whole temper tantrum was me officially giving up my desire to originate posts on the EB again. Desire is the source of all suffering. Now I'm just a civilian with no rank insignia, so I don't have to glad-hand the proprietors and barkeeps, and I sure as Shi'ite don't have to entertain their futyre requests, unless it has to do with blog decorum.

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  51. Sam: Former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.) - usually a morose presence at these debates - was surprisingly lively, providing some of the only interesting exchanges during the proceedings.

    A dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height.

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  52. SO WHAT RIPPLES WILL today's snoozefest send forth? The YouTube debate was a seismic shindig--it heralded the arrival of Mike Huckabee as a serious candidate in this race.

    Today, the incompetence of the Des Moines Register's moderator may well drown out all other stories.

    But Fred Thompson had a big moment when he took on that moderator, and refused to play by her idiotic rules. That moment, and his overall performance, may well reignite his campaign.


    Iowa Loses

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  53. I read am article one time trying to prove the mammoths etc were hunted out. Did some calculations etc about the spread of the homonids, their calory demands and so forth and came to the conclusion that most of the big fellows ended up on the fire spit.But who knows? Maybe a combination of things. I've always had a fantasy about seeing one of those big fellows in the flesh, probably an echo from an earlier incarnation of mine:)

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