US Snipers Use Bait, Then Shoot First, With No Questions

In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military’s Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the “drop items” to be used “to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight.”

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined “quite meticulously” because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

“In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back,” Fidell said.

Not terribly surprising; you have to be a sociopath to be a sniper anyway.  I’m so proud ta be an Amerricun.

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With ‘Bait’ – washingtonpost.com

A $128 million gift of gratitude

NEWTOWN, Pa. – The news reached a few students at the George School last week in an e-mail carrying the subject line “You are kidding!?”

But no one was. The e-mail went on to say that Barbara Dodd Anderson, a 75-year-old graduate living modestly in Fresno, Calif., had given the small Quaker school $128 million, believed to be the largest single gift ever made to a US secondary school.

A $128 million gift of gratitude | csmonitor.com

U.N. revs up over global warming

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. -  The annual summertime retreat of the Arctic icecap, greater this year than perhaps at any time during the 20th century. The nightmare of intensifying storms in some areas and extended drought in others, already taking place in developing countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

It is against this backdrop of almost daily news of what scientists describe as signs of advancing global warming that the United Nations holds Monday what may be the largest high-level international meeting ever on climate change.

Be sure to check and see how this is covered in the “liberal media.”

U.N. revs up over global warming | csmonitor.com

Dying Cancer Victim Gives Views — Video

Randy Pausch, Ph.D., a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon has advanced pancreatic cancer. Since his diagnosis a year ago, he has undergone surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, as well as an experimental pancreatic cancer vaccine treatment. But the cancer has metastasized to his liver and spleen. On September 18, he delivered a farewell lecture to a packed lecture hall. In this video produced by Greg Laub for MedPage Today, we present the highlights of that lecture.

Medical News: Words and Thoughts About Living from Randy Pausch, Ph.D. – in Gastroenterology, Pancreatic Diseases from MedPage Today

Collective Lens – Photography for Social Change

Collective Lens uses photography to connect individuals to the social and humanitarian concerns of today’s world. By submitting photographs to promote awareness of various social causes, you can inspire others to become involved with important issues. Photographers may submit photos or contribute photo essays that help to educate the public, promote charitable acts or organizations, or showcase humanitarian needs.

Collective Lens – Photography for Social Change

Cats Harbor Secret Plan to Turn Us Into Litter-Scooping Robots

I already have an automatic water dispenser for the cats, and I’m thoughtfully eyeing one of those elaborate automatic self-cleaning litter boxes that scoops, flushes and sprays its interior with the delicate scent of live mice, the better to make it not just a litter box, but a space to exist. It occurs to me that with the proper application of money and floor space, you can get machines to take on most of the duties incumbent upon the cat owner.

For instance, any number of electronic cat toys will whip a fuzzy thing around so you can watch Best Week Ever without having to move any part of your body. Better yet, they make actual electronic mice. When I get that time machine working, I’m going to go back to colonial times and explain to a farmer that in the future, we go to the store and buy artificial vermin. I’m sure he’ll enjoy thinking about that when he’s not busy watching locusts eat his crops or burying his children.   Continue reading…

The North Pole Is Melting

“At this point, I’d say the year 2030 is not unreasonable” for a summer without sea ice in the Arctic, Serreze says. “Within our lifetimes and certainly within our children’s lifetimes.”

When that occurs, the Arctic Ocean may become a spooky, foggy place, haunted by diminished populations of spectrally thin polar bears clinging to life in residual habitat. “It’s going to be a different world,” Serreze notes. “The observed rates of change have far outstripped what we projected.”

The North Pole Is Melting: Scientific American

Landis loses doping case and Tour de France title

The ruling, handed down nearly four months after a bizarre and bitterly fought hearing, leaves the American with only one way to possibly salvage his title – an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. If Landis doesn’t appeal, he will be the first person in the 105-year history of the race to lose the title because of a doping offense.

Cycling: Landis loses doping case and Tour de France title – International Herald Tribune

Environmental News Service

Ethanol Production Threatens Plains States With Water Scarcity

Army Expansion to Impact Air, Water, Traffic, Noise, Wildlife, Energy

Fouling Alaska Sea Floor Costs Icicle Seafoods a Fortune

Disaster Relief Mobile Home Wins First Lifecycle Building Challenge

Third Blue Whale Found Dead Off California Coast

Victims of CITGO Petroleum Crimes Asked to Step Forward

Landscape Architects’ Green Roof Kept Runoff Out of DC Sewers

War Costing $720 Million Each Day

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 — The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says – washingtonpost.com

You got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50

“There was this nonsensical idea that Saddam and everything he created was a kind of freak and that once you eradicated him the whole thing would fall apart and the potential for a liberal, democratic and a civil society would emerge as if somehow he was the only problem,” he says. “But Saddam was a recognisable part of Iraqi history. Many Iraqis feel now that they’ve been delivered into the hands of many lesser dictators. As one of my friends said: ‘Thanks very much: you got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50.’”

‘You got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50′ | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited