Friday, September 8, 2006
I
thought for a minute I was watching Tom Cruise, Chief of the Pre-Crime
Division in Spielberg's dark futuristic thriller. No such luck; it was
Commander-in-Chief George Bush: "Were it not for this program, our
intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have
succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By
giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else,
this program has saved innocent lives." Either that or they made it up.
The phrase "saved innocent lives" was used 11 times in the speech delivered
before families of terror attack victims. "The United States does not
torture," Mr. Bush explained. "It's against our laws, and it's against our
values.... However, if prisoners stopped talking, the CIA used a set of
alternative procedures." How's this for an "alternative procedure": inform
prisoners of the charges, treat them humanely, try them openly to expose
their crimes to the entire world. This is America.
Even as
President Bush this week called on Congress to give him "additional
authority" for the "warrantless eavesdropping program," Rupert Sheldrake,
who is funded by a grant administered by Trinity College of Cambridge
University, was explaining to the British Association for the Advancement
of Science that we can already do it telepathically. Sheldrake claims that
when the phone rings we know who is calling. Perhaps he could get in touch
with President Bush, with or without the phone. Sheldrake is
the "scientist" who claims pets are telepathically in touch with their
owners. He was followed by a psychiatrist who thinks near-death
experiences are evidence of an afterlife. I seem to be getting telepathic
messages from Congress that there is no way they can deal with Bush's
requests before the election, however, I haven't a clue as to why BAAS
chose to showcase this session.
There is
something very appealing about a green solution to the energy problem.
Sorry. Franco Battaglia, chemical physicist at the U. of Modena, Italy,
calculated that if all of Italy was devoted to growing corn it could only
supply half of their fuel needs. It also takes oil to pump oil, but Kevin
Delin points out that the energy balance for oil production is 10-to-1
(down from 100-to-1 and declining). That an argument is even taking place
over whether EB is positive or negative means it would be a major life
style adjustment at best. Ethanol from sugar cane made Brazil an energy
exporter, as Cesar Cusatis, a physicist at Universidade Federal de Parana,
observes. But he concedes that byproducts including alkanes are a serious
problem, even with the Amazon River to use as a sewer. Worse, sugar cane
is grown with cheap hand labor, condemning much of the population to
serfdom.
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