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Monday, December 09, 2002
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Chris Floyd writes: Terrorism itself is nothing new, of course -- not even suicidal Islamic terrorism. For example, those of us of a certain age can easily recall the 1983 attack on the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, when a couple of holy-rolling yahoos with an old truck inflicted a devastating military defeat on the world's greatest power, killing more than 200 soldiers in a single blow. We likewise recall the reaction of Ronald Reagan on that occasion. The hard right hero didn't declare an endless "war on terrorism" -- no, he just turned tail and ran. A wise move under those particular circumstances, although this belated perspicacity hardly makes up for the murderous stupidity of the original decision to send young Americans into the middle of someone else's civil/religious war. In any case, it would have been somewhat awkward for Ron (and his vice president/CIA handler, George H.W. Bush) to launch a "war on terrorism" -- seeing as how terrorism was one of the prime instruments of their foreign policy. At that time, Reagan and Bush were secretly supplying terrorist regimes in both Iran and Iraq (using Donald Rumsfeld as their special conduit to Saddam Hussein), plus fielding terrorist proxy armies in Latin America and Afghanistan. It is the latter group of godly guerrillas that concerns us here. For while there is no real difference in kind between the terrorists who afflict us now and the carnage-wreakers of yesteryear, there is a difference of several magnitudes in the firepower, finance, technology and training that today's mass killers can command. And these enhanced capabilities are the direct result of the bipartisan decision by successive American governments to build an army of Islamic extremists to bedevil the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. As noted here recently, the U.S. arming of international jihad actually began before the Soviets sent troops to help their client regime in Kabul quell growing unrest in 1980. The American operation was not just a reaction to the Soviet incursion; it was also one of its causes. Under the direction of Bush's CIA, the anti-Western, woman-hating, death-addicted holy warriors set about their fanatical task. The CIA schooled them thoroughly in terror tactics -- including the ability to operate under deep, impenetrable cover, to strike without warning, and to use the vicious slaughter of non-combatants to demoralize the enemy. (12/09/02) | |
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Donivan Bessinger, MD writes: The concept of ethics expressed as attitude rather than as rules can be both perplexing and intimidating -- perplexing since "right action" is not immediately obvious, and intimidating in the apparent complexity of decision-making. The ethical model, with Good at the fulcrum of the balance seems simple enough, until one sees that there is not just one set of opposing characteristics on only one balance beam. The Good seeks to resolve not just simple polarities, but to find the balance point of all of the many converging and overlapping vectors or directions of actions in the universe. In geometry and physics, a vector is a line that defines both the direction of an action, and its magnitude. For example, in diagrams of forces acting on a sailboat, the current and wind and boat motion can be shown as arrows pointing in a certain direction, and the length of each line can indicate the speed. The behavior of the boat is a result of the balance of the forces. A vector diagram of a typical ethical problem, however, would be far more complex than that. It might well seem even worse than an art museum's problem of suspending a modernistic mobile sculpture, especially one which has many arms of different length pointing in all directions, and which is not symmetrical in any plane. Only the art director with a clear vision of the beauty of the balanced work would bother to try, and persist until the balance is achieved. ... It is in the seeking of its balance that the system or any subsystem (organism) develops. It is in finding the balance that the system (organism) finds its fullfillment. The Good is found in the regulation of the system itself. 'Peace' for the system is a natural golden mean, and the Middle Way of Confucianist writings. The Middle Way was propounded in one of the great "Four Books" of Confucianist philosophy, the earliest dating from the sixth century BCE. It has also been called the "steadfast mean", or Chung Yung. Chung denotes the correct course to be pursued by all under heaven. Yung denotes the fixed principle regulating all under heaven. The Good is found in actions which seek to optimize the ability of a self-regulating system to serve the development of life in all of its aspects. In Schweitzer's terms, it is not sufficient merely to protect life from injury. The natural ethic (reverence for life) seeks to raise life to the highest level to which it can develop. (12/09/02) | |
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New York Times -- Based in London, BP is the world's second-largest oil company (after Exxon Mobil), with gross revenues of $174 billion and 15,500 service stations in the United States. It operates in more than 100 countries and produces almost 3.5 billion barrels of oil and gas a year. Largely, this has been the handiwork of Lord Browne, who became group chief executive in 1995 (and was knighted 3 years later) and followed his own ascension by quickly expanding the once midsize company into a huge multinational. In 1999, BP merged with Amoco in a deal worth $140 billion; a year later, it bought Atlantic Richfield for $27 billion. These megadeals have more than paid for themselves. At press time, BP shares were trading at $38, which is an 80 percent increase since Browne's rise to power seven years ago. ... Two years ago at a cost of $200 million, it began an enormous corporate rebranding exercise, shortening its name from British Petroleum to BP, coining the slogan ''Beyond Petroleum'' and redesigning its corporate insignia. Out went the old British Petroleum shield that had been a familiar image in Britain for more than 70 years, and in came a green, yellow and white sunburst that seemed to suggest a warm and fuzzy feeling about the earth. BP press officers were careful not to explain exactly what ''Beyond Petroleum'' meant, but the slogan, coupled with the cheerful sunburst, sent the message that the company was looking past oil and gas toward a benign, eco-friendly future of solar and renewable energy. New Yorkers in particular were the target of a high-saturation ad campaign that felt, at times, like an overfriendly stranger putting his arm around you in a bar. In Times Square, a huge billboard went up, reading IF ONLY WE COULD HARNESS THE ENERGY OF NEW YORK CITY. Then the stranger, perhaps feeling the need to explain his intentions, went on: SOLAR, NATURAL GAS, WIND, HYDROGEN. AND OH YES, OIL. Finally, the stranger took his arm away with a bit of a shrug: IT'S A START. BP's print and TV ad campaign, which is winding down this month, represents one of the most dazzlingly high-profile corporate P.R. efforts in recent years. Created by Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, it aspires to a conversational, almost confidential voice that suggests, You know what oil companies do to the environment, and we do, too, but honestly, we're not like that at all. ... Few question the idea that BP is now the most conscientious oil company around, or that Browne is deeply committed to cleaning up BP's act. One of Browne's closest colleagues suggests that he may go into the climate-change field after he retires from the oil business. Meanwhile, its competitors, according to a Royal Dutch/Shell executive, feel pressed by BP into taking ever-greener positions -- even Exxon Mobil has recently given a grant to Stanford University to study global warming. But while Browne and BP may show greater sensitivity to environmental concerns than any other company in its industry, it may also be impossible for any company that derives well over 90 percent of its revenue from fossil fuels to claim to be part of the solution. Despite its new sunburst logo and ''Beyond Petroleum'' slogan, BP still invests $12 billion, or 25 times more, on oil and gas than on its wind and solar division for the simple fact that, right now, there's a huge market for oil and almost none for solar panels. And that's not just BP's problem; that's ours. Ronald Chappell, the BP spokesman, says as much when he points out that all those environmentalists flying into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to save the planet are using up a lot of airplane fuel to do it. ''That,'' he says, ''is the devil's bargain we all have made.'' (12/09/02)
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New York Times -- The melting of Greenland glaciers and Arctic Ocean sea ice this past summer reached levels not seen in decades, scientists reported today. This year's summertime melt, which provides more evidence of recent quick warming in the Arctic, is in part driven by natural climate oscillations, the researchers said. But they added that human-driven changes to the environment like the destruction of ozone and the emission of carbon dioxide could well have accelerated and enlarged the effect. In September, the end of summer, ice coverage of the Arctic Ocean dipped to two million square miles before it started to grow again. Since 1978, when direct satellite measurements of sea ice started, the average summertime minimum has been 2.4 million square miles. Of the sea ice that survived, most was thinner than usual. "That was probably the craziest summer I've ever seen up there," said Dr. Mark Serreze, a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and one of the scientists who presented the findings at a news conference at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union here. (12/09/02) | |
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New York Times -- The Colorado Wildlife Commission recently approved plans to release 50 lynxes a year for three years and up to 30 after that if the number needs to be increased. Wildlife officials hope the lynx, a long-haired, reclusive cat, will reproduce in self-sustaining numbers to firmly re-establish it in Colorado's rugged southwestern mountains, which has not happened since recovery efforts began in 1999. "We're definitely at a crossroads," Rick Kahn, a biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said on Friday. The cats will be held in cages and fattened until April, when more prey will be out. State biologists have argued that more lynxes should be released to reach the numbers they say are needed for the cats to find each other and reproduce. The 34 lynxes still monitored by radio collars are spread over an area 80 miles long and 40 to 60 miles wide, Mr. Kahn said. Biologists released a total of 96 lynxes in 1999 and 2000. Four of the first five released in the mountains, the San Juan range, starved. The Division of Wildlife changed its procedures and released the next animals in the spring, when more prey was available. ... The lynx has federal protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. (12/09/02) | |
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New York Times -- Consumption of energy from renewable sources, like the sun, the wind and biological fuels, fell sharply in 2001, the Department of Energy has reported. The department attributed much of the decline to a drought that cut generation of hydroelectric power by 23 percent. Such variations are natural. But in a report last month, the department's Energy Information Administration also said solar equipment was being retired faster than new equipment was being built. "Back in the late 70's and early 80's, we had very, very large support programs," said Fred Mayes, who handles data on renewable energy at the energy information agency. Those programs, begun after the loss of oil from Iran pushed the price to almost $40 a barrel, expired in the 1980's, and "things went into the tank," Mr. Mayes said. Equipment from the boom years is wearing out, and the base of installed equipment is shrinking, he said. This is true even though shipments of new equipment have risen in the last few years, analysts say. The number of solar collectors, which gather the sun's heat for uses like warming swimming pools, has increased sharply in the last few years, including 34 percent in 2001 alone, the department said. A spokesman for the solar industry, Scott Sklar, agreed with that assessment. But by the Energy Department's estimate, the total amount of solar energy gathered has fallen three years in a row. (12/09/02) | |
5:26:28 AM 
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2003
Timothy Wilken.
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