Big trouble in the Antarctic has been brewing for a long time

by David Spratt, June 15, 2014

“A game changer” is how climate scientist Dr Malte Meinshausen describes newly published research that West Antarctic glaciers have passed a tipping point much earlier than expected and their disintegration is now “unstoppable” at just the current level of global warming. The research findings have shocked the scientific community. “This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like,” ran a headline in Mother Jones magazine.

(cont’d below the fold)

Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

June 12, 2014

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term “warfighter-relevant insights” for senior officials and decision makers in “the defense policy community,” and to inform policy implemented by “combatant commands.”

Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD ‘Minerva Research Initiative’ partners with universities “to improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US.”

Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model “of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions.” The project will determine “the critical mass (tipping point)” of social contagians by studying their “digital traces” in the cases of “the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey.”

Twitter posts and conversations will be examined “to identify individuals mobilised in a social contagion and when they become mobilised.”

Another project awarded this year to the University of Washington “seeks to uncover the conditions under which political movements aimed at large-scale political and economic change originate,” along with their “characteristics and consequences.” The project, managed by the US Army Research Office, focuses on “large-scale movements involving more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity,” and will cover 58 countries in total.

Tom Englehardt this morning channels Andy Borowitz:

I hate to laugh, but why not? Here’s New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz on a recent study showing that the phrase “climate change” manages to essentially elicit no reaction from anyone. Tom

“After a report from the Yale Center on Climate Change Communication showed that the term “climate change” elicits relatively little concern from the American public, leading scientists are recommending replacing it with a new term: ‘You will be burnt to a crisp and die.’

“Other terms under consideration by the scientists include ‘your cities will be ravaged by tsunamis and floods’ and ‘earth will be a fiery hellhole incapable of supporting human life.’ Scientists were generally supportive of the suggestions, with many favoring the term ‘your future will involve rowing a boat down a river of rotting corpses.’“

Spencer Ackerman at The Guardian, May 22/14:

“It does not deserve the name ‘USA Freedom Act’ any more than the ‘Patriot Act’ merits its moniker,” wrote four former NSA whistleblowers and their old ally on the House intelligence committee staff.

The former NSA officials – Thomas Drake, William Binney, Edward Loomis and J Kirk Wiebe – and former congressional staffer Diane Roark denounced 11th-hour changes to the Freedom Act as resulting in “a very weak” bill.

[…snip…]

Most significantly, the version emerging from the rules committee expanded the definition of a “specific selection term,” the root thing – formerly defined as information that “uniquely describe[s] a person, entity, or account” – the government must present to a judge, with suspicion of connection of terrorism or espionage, in order to collect data under the bill.

The new definition is “a discrete term, such as” a person, entity, account, “address or device”. That revision has spurred privacy advocates and even major technology companies to doubt that the bill will actually ban the mass collection of Americans’ data, its ostensible purpose.

A coalition of the US’s largest technology companies – including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, AOL, Dropbox, Twitter, Yahoo and LinkedIn – warned that definition created an “unacceptable loophole that could enable the bulk collection of internet users’ data”.

NSA reform bill loses backing from privacy advocates after major revisions

Tom Englehardt this morning on Facebook:

Can it be? More than a decade later, is it possible that somewhere in the world of power in Washington there are actually officials who have finally grasped that the drone war on terror is a war of terror, that no matter how many “militants” and “leaders” of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda wannabe organizations it kills, it kills enough others to create whole ranks of people — family members, tribal associates — who want revenge. It’s been obvious for such a long time that the drone wars are a machine for the creation of more enemies and for the destabilization of societies, just not in Washington. Now, Reuters reports that some in Washington are starting to wonder about the efficacy of drone attacks (even as the use of drones, mostly but not totally unarmed ones) is spreading across Africa. I guess it’s never too late. Tom

“[A recent drone attack in Yemen with civilian casualties] was a stark reminder that a year after Obama laid out new conditions for drone attacks around the world, U.S. forces are failing to comply fully with the rules he set for them: to strike only when there is an imminent threat to Americans and when there is virtually no danger of taking innocent lives.

“Although Obama promised greater transparency in his speech at the National Defense University, U.S. lawmakers are increasingly critical of the secrecy surrounding the operations. Despite some spectacular drone hits that took out militant leaders in places such as Yemen and Pakistan, there are growing concerns in Washington that the net effect of the targeted-killing program may be counterproductive. ‘Collateral damage’ is seen as an al Qaeda recruiting tool that undercuts the main rationale for the drone campaign – to make Americans safer.

“‘It’s never a good idea to make more enemies than you get rid of,’ a former U.S. national security official said.

“In his speech on May 23 last year, Obama defended the drone program as effective while promising to narrow its scope, but he is showing no sign of relinquishing what has become his counterterrorism weapon of choice since he took office in 2009.”

Obama’s Drone War Shows No Signs of Ending

The largest creature ever to walk the Earth has been unearthed, palaeontologists say.

Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall.

Weighing in at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus.

Scientists believe it is a new species of titanosaur – an enormous herbivore dating from the Late Cretaceous period.

A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, about 250km (135 miles) west of Trelew, Patagonia.

[…]

A film crew from the BBC Natural History Unit was there to capture the moment the scientists realised exactly how big their discovery was.

By measuring the length and circumference of the largest femur (thigh bone), they calculated the animal weighed 77 tonnes.

“Given the size of these bones, which surpass any of the previously known giant animals, the new dinosaur is the largest animal known that walked on Earth,” the researchers told BBC News.

“Its length, from its head to the tip of its tail, was 40m.

“Standing with its neck up, it was about 20m high – equal to a seven-storey building.”

…as praying is to religion.

And produces about the same results.

NY Court: US Must Release
Targeted Killings Memo

NEW YORK April 21, 2014 (AP)

The U.S. government must publicly disclose in redacted form secret papers describing its legal justification for using drones to kill citizens suspected of terrorism overseas, because President Barack Obama and senior government officials have commented on the subject, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled in a Freedom of Information Act case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and two reporters for The New York Times. In 2011, they sought any documents in which Department of Justice lawyers had discussed the highly classified “targeted-killing” program.

The requests came after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader who had been born in the United States, and another U.S. citizen, Samir Khan, and after an October 2011 strike killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki’s teenage son and also a U.S. citizen. Some legal scholars and human rights activists complained that it was illegal for the U.S. to kill American citizens away from the battlefield without a trial.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to phone and email message requests for comment.

more…

National Journal, March 24/14

Millennial Madness: What Happens If Young Voters Bolt Both Parties?

New study shows choosiest voters itching to disrupt two-party system.

My generation had just two options politically – Democrats or Republicans, and that made sense to us. To my kids’ generation, binary choices are absurd, especially when the choices are bad, which is why the two major parties are in danger of losing the future.

In a must-read study, political scientist Michelle Diggles of the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way, created a sociological profile of the Millennial Generation and projected how those attitudes might affect U.S. politics when young voters age and dominate.

Millennials have come of age in a period of increasing availability of information and expansive customization of goods and services. Their experiences have led them to an `a la carte worldview, including in politics. They may be voting for Democrats in wider margins than Republicans, but there’s no indication that they have bought the “prix fixe” menu of policy options historically offered by the Democratic Party, nor that brand loyalty to the Party will cement them as Democrats forever. Yet while Republican claims that these voters are winnable in future elections are plausible, they, too, have been asking younger voters to agree to a multi-course tasting menu with limited options. Millennials are pragmatic – they want to know what works and are willing to take ideas from each side. They eschew ideological purity tests of the past. In short, they are winnable by both parties, if only policymakers understood and reflected their values.

What Diggles has done is virtually unheard of in politics today: She set aside her ideological preferences and preconceived notions to ruthlessly assess attitudinal data in a political vacuum. Unlike many in Washington who seem to believe that social changes start with politics, Diggles knows the reverse is true: A fast-changing populace, driven by a hard-to-peg rising generation, will change politics in ways we can’t fully fathom.

More and Better™…