“The real problem is not that we are different, nor that we disagree and have conflict. It's that most of us automatically view conflict as something negative rather than as a tool God can use to help us better understand ourselves and one another.

--Robert Ricciardelli”

Thursday, February 01, 2007

02/01 Morning Report

This was a bizarre conclusion. Vladimir Putin isn’t happy about radr stations and rockets in the Czech Republic. Well, I can understand that. The US would get nervous if the Russians put something like that in, say, Mexico. He also isn’t happy about US sanctions because of arms sales to Iran and Syria. OK…I’ll give the benefit of the doubt on that one. The Russian economy could probably use the business. But, I want to know how he came up with this for a motive:

The real motive, he said, was to stop Russian arms firms from taking business away from U.S. rivals.
(…any ideas…or thoughts…or even wild flights of fancy to explain this are welcome…)

And…the sound you just heard was the Palestinian truce going BOOM! Hamas attacked a supposed convoy of weapons headed to supporters of President Abbas’ military guards.
"Hamas's heroes have commandeered arms shipments that came through Kerem Shalom as part of the fight against the Palestinian people," a presenter on a Hamas radio station said.
That doesn’t explain the 2 dead and 17 wounded—including two children.
(…all to keep the President from being guarded…makes you wonder, doesn’t it…)

The Cartoon Network, a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc., broke out a new ad campaign in Boston. It didn’t sit well with authorities.
The 1-foot tall signs resembled a circuit board, with protruding wires and batteries. Most depicted a boxy, cartoon character giving passersby the finger - a more obvious sight when darkness fell.
These “signs” were hung from bridges and overpasses all over the city. In our post-9-11 nation, that would be bad. But, it gets worse…
As soon as Turner [Broadcasting Systems, Inc.] realized the Boston problem around 5 p.m., it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in 10 cities where it said the devices had been placed for two to three weeks: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
(…no further comment from me…I’m sure you can do just fine on your own…)

Meanwhile, the Global Warming conference in France is winding down. The issues now seem to be about wording in various announcements and statements.
According to drafts and participants, the document says it is "very likely" — which means at least 90% certain — that climate change is caused by humans burning fossil fuels, and will result in a temperature increase of between 2.5-10.4 F by the year 2100.
Some participants apparently want to change that wording to "virtually certain," which connotes a 99% likelihood.
It’s interesting how changing one word—or leaving one out can change the entire gist of something. For example, the NY Times published an article on Wednesday, on a hearing in Congress regarding this very subject. It points out that witnesses, and a vaguely identified “source”, basically vilified the administrations policies. What the Times did not say (Courtesy of Times Watch) was that of the four witnesses, three were from major left wing global warming groups. It also did not say that the “source” was one of those groups--the Union of Concerned Scientists. The deception…I mean, misinformation…gets worse.
"The UCS mailed out over 1600 survey forms to climate scientists and based their assertions of political interference on the 297 that got returned. That's a response rate of just 19 percent. OMB guidelines clearly state that a response rate of less than 80 percent requires an investigation of potential biases and an even closer investigation for a response rate lower than 70 percent. A response rate of lower than twenty percent is clearly vulnerable to the charge of a self-selecting sample, perhaps those with an axe to grind against their bosses, the politically motivated, and so on. In short, it provides all sorts of legitimate reasons to dismiss the survey as utterly unrepresentative."
(…really makes you want to trust the media…doesn’tit…)