Fossils of a baby pleicosaur, kind of a Loch Ness Monster, were found in Antarctica:

Plesiosaurs lived for millions of years in the then-warm southern ocean surrounding Antarctica, with adults growing as large as 9.75-metres long. With diamond-shaped fins they could “fly” through the water much as penguins do now.

The U.S. National Science Foundation said researchers battled freezing conditions and 110-kilometre-an-hour winds in recovering the fossil, which was too heavy to be carried out and had to be moved by helicopter.

Remember, though, it is the warmest now than it has ever been, ever, ever, everever-ever.

And global warming now, it seems, threatens us, even from the heavens themselves. See, global warming may help polute even outer space, by keeping "space junk" aloft for longer.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Human increases in carbon dioxide emissions are thinning the Earth's outer atmosphere, making it easier to keep the space station aloft but prolonging the life of dangerous space debris, scientists said on Monday.

"It's a bit of a two-edge sword," said Stanley Solomon, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "In the future, it will be a little bit easier to keep the space station, for instance, in orbit. It will need a little bit less fuel."

"On the other hand, it will give space junk a much longer lifetime," he told the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Solomon is the co-author of a study presented on Monday that found man's burning of fossil fuels and increase of carbon dioxide emissions will make the Earth's outer atmosphere above 62 miles 3 percent less dense by 2017. The study found a decrease of about 5 percent between 1970 and 2000.

Although scientists say that carbon dioxide contributes to global warming closer to Earth's surface, in the thinner outer atmosphere where space craft orbit, a cooling effect takes place. Solar activity also impacts the outer atmosphere.

As this outermost region becomes less dense, it produces less drag on satellites, space craft and tens of thousands of pieces of discarded space debris from previous missions orbiting at about 250 miles from Earth's surface.

"These objects are now experiencing less drag proportionally than they did 30 years ago," Solomon said.

Um, I'm not really sure how it's a "two-edged sword" that space trash will remain in space, rather than crashing back to earth, for a longer period of time.

Except that maybe Iron Eyes Cody will one day be resurrected and sent into orbit and cry his famous tears over the derelict satellites polluting his beloved magnetosphere.

Every global warming story has to have the required chill for the reader. Even if it's absolutely fucking stupid.

Oh... And a nuclear war would still lead to nuclear winter and crop failures and mass starvations and other things of this nature, too.

Correction: I meant "Iron Eyes Cody," of course.

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (240)
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Of course she passed away this Friday. She will be missed.

MRC reprints a terrific forward for an MRC book by her. It's worth reading in full, but here are some choice bits:

This whole problem of controlling arbitrary power is, in short, one that has been with us throughout our national life. It inspirits all our basic documents and our political culture. We developed the whole notion of separation of power as the response to the desire to control arbitrary power over our lives and times and national affairs. Popular government itself is regarded by our Constitution and by democratic theory in general as the most effective means of controlling arbitrary power, on the grounds that if government can be kept responsive to citizens, and rulers can be forced to be accountable to the people whom they rule, then we will truly have government by the consent and control of the governed.

What's the point? Obviously, the point is that we have always sought to control (not to destroy, but to control) important, significant powers that small groups can exercise over ourselves and our society. ...

New powers have arisen: among them, the power of the media. Some people believe, and I am among them, that the power of the media today constitutes the most significant exercise of unaccountable power in our society. It is unaccountable to anyone, except for those who exercise the power. I believe that the domain of culture is as important as the domain of government or the economy. My view is that the domain of culture is more important than that of economics or government. It conditions the economy and it conditions government. When we talk about what comes first, the chicken or the egg, I believe that it's the chicken. Whether economics controls ideology and culture, or whether ideology and culture control economics -- and I believe that it is ideology and culture.

Our ideas about what is true, what is good, what is important, what causes what, what's worth doing, what's legitimate -- those are the very essence of our culture, and they shape our behavior in the economic and the governmental sphere. No domain is more important than the domain in which the media operate.

I believe that it is terribly important that the same principles that concern limitations of arbitrary power apply to the media and in the domain of culture. It is very important to realize that the electronic media, which provide mass audiences, have made our culture much more manipulable than it ever was in the past. Typically, historically, cultures have been slow to change. Ideas about what's real, what's important, and what causes what, change very slowly in history. They are grounded in the experience of peoples, and respond only to additional, cumulative experiences of peoples.

...

The electronic media are many times more useful because they manipulate images as well as ideas. Images are very easily manipulated -- pictures speak a thousand words and all that. People are more readily manipulated through images than just with words.

Reutersgate?

It's about time the media voluntarily agreed to be held accountable, through close questioning of their reportage. They're in favor of accountability, sunlight-the-best-disinfectant and all that, for everyoe in America except themselves.

They are a powerful force in America -- so powerful they happily call themselves "The Fourth Estate" of government. Why should this one powerful body not have to submit to tough questios and grilling the same as every other influential organization in America?

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (13)
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Kind of gossip page, but Kaus quotes a Diana blabber claiming she had dreams of becoming First Lady, married to Republican senate-wannabe Teddy Forstmann.

But there won't be much media interest in the story. After all, it has none of the international hard news value they cherish, nor the sex/celebrity/scandal angles that draw eyeballs.

More on the Forstmann angle here.

The CIA and NSA are both denying... which means... I have no idea.

There's some speculation the bugging was actually at the request of the British governmet -- to keep a protective eye on her while she was overseas, and outside of the capabilities of British government protection -- but as of yet there is no admission by the British government they requested such a thing.

By the way... I think there's value in eavesdropping on Diana. Hell, I think there's good value in eavesdropping on just about every important political figure.

I wouldn't condemn the Clinton Administration for bugging her (assuming it was for real national security reasons).

I just want to know where the outrage! is from civil libertarians who have assured us that every time a phone is bugged Baby Jesus cries.

Posted by: Ace at 09:14 AM | Comments (30)
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The "Star Wars kid" brings peace and justice to the world:

Star Trek (Animated series!) Bohemian Rhapsody. This one gets a little old after the first long section, so skip ahead to the middle to hear some funny dubbed dialogue/lyrics:

Not funny, so much as endlessly frustrating. A recorded call with multiple customer service reps at Verizon -- the complaining customer was promised a rate of .02 cents per kilobyte of usage in Canada, but was billed at the rate of .02 dollars per kilobyte. The difference between .02 cents and 2 cents per kilobyte. Here's the thing -- everyone -- everyone! -- at Verizon insists these are the exact same numbers.

Thanks, respectively, to SteveB., Locusts & Honey, and Dr. Reo Symes.

Late Addition... from Craig. Warning: Some light embarassing-dog-behavior content.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (15)
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Just a reminder that the left is soft on terrorism generally. Murder is okay, depending on your politics. If you're left, or at least anti-American/anti-government, it's okay to kill people. You might even get your own shrine at a government-supported university.

These days, Joanne Chesimard is known as Assata Shakur, but she's had dozens of other aliases in a life on the run.

She now lives in Cuba, a guest of dictator Fidel Castro, and carries a $1 million price tag for her capture and return to prison in the U.S.

She's a convicted cop killer who left behind a lifetime of pain for the family of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.

But in at least one corner of City College, Chesimard is a hero, honored and remembered.

Her latest alias enshrines theGuillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community Center at the City University of New York's flagship campus.

It's a punch to the gut that has furious police groups demanding the publicly funded institution strip away the Black Liberation Army militant's name.

"We use tax dollars to support an institution that indemnifies a cold-blooded terrorist?" asked Dave Jones, president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association.

"She's a cowardly, cold-blooded convicted murderer who's part of a murdering sect," he said. "She's no different from those people who flew those planes into those towers and destroyed all those innocent lives."

Shakur was sentenced to life for her role in the the 1973 murder of Foerster.

Foerster was shot twice at point-blank range with his own weapon when he pulled over a car carrying Chesimard and other activists on May 2, 1973, on the Jersey Turnpike.

"9/11 changed everything."

Right.

For a month and a half.

Thanks to JackStraw.

Posted by: Ace at 08:13 AM | Comments (19)
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King of Pork/Ex-Kleagle Robert Byrd claims this.

Democrats tidying up a cluster of unfinished spending bills dumped on them by departing Republican leaders in Congress will start by removing billions of dollars in lawmakers' pet projects next month.

The move, orchestrated by the incoming chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, could prove politically savvy even as it proves unpopular with other members of Congress, who as a group will lose thousands of so-called earmarks.

"There will be no congressional earmarks," Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said Monday in a statement announcing their plans, which were quickly endorsed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev.

We'll have to see. I have a feeling they just mean that "pork" and "special interest money" -- also known as "earmarks Republicans wanted" -- will be cut, and "investments in the future" -- also called "Democratic pork" -- will be retained.

But they've made a promise. Let's see if they keep it.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (22)
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Key witness disappears:

A key witness in Litvinenko case, Andrey Limarev, has disappeared from his home in the French Alps, the Echo of Moscow Radio reported citing a statement of News Ru. Limarev is a former Federal Security Service agent and a colleague of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned recently in London. Some time ago, Limarev accused a former agent of the Federal Security Service, of LitvinenkoÂ’s death. Limarev told the British press that he would be the next victim. A day later, he went missing.

About Polonium itself.

Whoever the assassin was, he or she had some method of concealing the poison (no doubt in some ingenious James Bond-type device) before it was given to Litvinenko. The hidden poison would be undetectable because this isotope emits almost no telltale gamma rays. However, polonium has a tendency to leak from containers. This probably explains why traces have been found in five airliners, particularly those used for flights to Moscow. (Passengers in those aircraft were not at risk.)

Where Litvinenko was poisoned is still not known. But wherever he went after he was poisoned, he left traces of polonium, including his home in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill, a sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus where he dined with a friend, a luxury hotel where he met two unidentified Russians, and the home of Russian billionaire exile Boris Berezovsky. His room in the hospital was the most contaminated.

It's expected that a victim of the poison will sweat it out and leave bits of it behind in his sweat, spit, and fingerprints, so it's not surprising the trail "leads" to Berezovsky. It doesn't lead back to him, it leads to him, as Litvinenko had contacts with him.

Germany may charge Kotvun, not with murder (for now) but for "improperly handling radioactive materials," which seems a much easier case to make, given that the poison is all over his ex-wife's apartment, where he stayed before coming to the UK. A New York Times article is worth the click.

A backgrounder on the other suspect, Lugovoy, ex-high-ranking KGB officer and millionaire Russian businessman.

Meanwhile, the air has a Cold War nip to it, as Russia now demands Shell give up its $20 billion majority stake in a the world's biggest liquified gas project:

Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.

After months of relentless pressure from Moscow, the Anglo-Dutch company has to cut its stake in the $20bn Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia in favour of the state-owned energy group Gazprom.

The Russian authorities are also threatening BP over alleged environmental violations on a Siberian field in what is seen as a wider attempt to seize back assets handed over to foreign companies when energy prices were low.

Meet the new bear, same as the old bear.

Posted by: Ace at 07:54 AM | Comments (7)
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With the tiny blogger pool included. Laura, Michael, and Dave from Garfield Ridge are actually in the top ten overall.

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 AM | Comments (10)
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Because nothing says "football" like a dandified satyr who legally changed his name to a symbol of ambivalent sexual construct:

Funk pioneer Prince will follow in the footsteps of Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones as headliner for the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, organizers say...Prince, known for hits such as Kiss, Purple Rain, Let's Go Crazy and Little Red Corvette, will perform at the game at Dolphin Stadium near Miami on Feb. 4, organizers said Sunday.

The show is also said to feature an elaborate pantomime, wherein Prince will dress up as a young Peyton Manning and explore his sexuality with the offensive line of the '85 Giants.

Producers claim it's "designed to highlight the Martian/Venusian dichotomy that lurks within us all", and will be titled "The Quarterback Sack", a reference to a sequence in which he trades massages with Phil McConkey.

Posted by: AndrewR at 02:43 PM | Comments (77)
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Long, but worth reading in bits and pieces.

I'm not sure how a rider like this would stand up in a court of law:

MONITOR REQUIREMENTS.

We need: one (1) monitor man who speaks good English and is not afraid of death.
(Only joking... or am I?).
Also, he needs to know a little bit about monitors. This may seem a little obvious but believe me...
(For example, in Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia in Northern Spain, they appear to think -- if they just ignore riders like this, then supply a fat, bearded hippy with a digital monitor desk (doh!) who doesn't know shit about eq-ing [ramble omitted] that this the same as actually providing what a band needs in order to do a gig to the best of their ability. And tat if they deny their gear is no good, it will suddenly, mysteriously, become good.

I'd just like to say the next time the Stooges get booked for their festival, I'm going to turn up with some pickled eggs, a small blue vibrator with a jelly dolphin balanced on the shaft, a set of dog-eared encyclopedias with the volume E-G missing and a screwdriver that's accidentally been dropped in the toilet.

And then, when they say [referring to this odd assortment of things, which Iggy will present as the band] "That's not the Stooges"
I'm going to say, "Yes it is!"
And then they'll say "No it isn't."
And I'm going ot say, "Yes it is!!!"
See how they like it, the fuckers.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes...
We do not have our own monitor man, because in the future robots will work for us and make the world a better place.

Sorry about that rant about Santiago, by the way. I just wanted to get it off my chest, and killing people is sooo 80's, don't you think?

The next page contains the information you require.

Bear with me. Not a real bear, of course.

By the way, our guitar roadie, Chris, assures me that the panda is not of the genus "Bear" but is actually part of the "Pig" family. Could this possibly be true? And if not, why would he risk telling me, so that I can tell the whole world his half-baked theory? Unbelievable.

He also explains how he'd like his room to look: "less like a typical rock & roll dressing room... just let someone loose with a little bit of artistic flair...Er, do you know any homosexuals?"

I guess it's not all that funny, except this really is supposed to be a legally-binding instrument. Can one be found in breach of not knowing any homosexuals?

Thanks to Slublog.

For some reason... He adds an addendum ("whatever that means") to the rider where he pitches a reality tv show called "Dead Dog Island," which seems to be about forcing people to kill, cook and eat their favoirte breed of dog while on an island.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (110)
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