PARIS — As NATO foreign ministers gather Tuesday for an emergency meeting on the Georgian crisis, Europe is divided over how to balance its ties to Russia with concerns over the country’s new aggressiveness. The European dilemma is clear, said Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm in Washington. ‘How do they square their increasing energy dependence on Russia with their increasing political discomfort with Putin?’ he said, referring to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. ‘It’s a very hard circle to square.’ As the United States looks for more than symbolic gestures on how to support Georgia and another former Soviet republic, Ukraine, there is a split between ‘old and new Europe’ – roughly Western and Eastern Europe, Mr. Kupchan said. New Europe, backed by Britain and Scandinavia, is taking a harder line toward Russia, while old Europe ‘will only be reinforced in its view that Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for NATO.’ After Russian behavior during the Georgia crisis, said Jacques Rupnik, an Eastern Europe expert at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences-Po, ‘There is little disagreement now in Europe about the nature of the new Russia.’ Those […]
WASHINGTON — Scouring the Earth for new sources of clean, renewable energy, scientists and engineers are exploring some unusual nooks and crannies. Kites, waves, tides, ocean currents, geysers, garbage, cow manure, old utility poles, algae and bacteria are being enlisted in the effort to lower the world’s reliance on climate-warming coal and oil. Researchers are even trying artificial photosynthesis, producing electricity by imitating the way that green plants exploit the sun’s energy. Most of these ideas may never make economic or technological sense. It’s always possible, however, that a daffy-sounding scheme could turn out to be the next Google, GPS, Facebook or similar breakthrough. Many exotic proposals would be expensive, at least at first, and of uncertain reliability. They mostly depend on government subsidies, and probably the continued high price of oil, to make them competitive with the old standbys. Here are some of the innovative ideas that researchers - and venture capitalists hoping for profit - are working on: * WAVES: People have always been amazed at the enormous power of waves, especially those pounding the U.S. coastlines. Now they’re trying to […]
From Ed Hornick CNN LAKE FOREST, California (CNN) — Speaking to a group of evangelical Christians, Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that his greatest moral failure — and the country’s — has been selfishness, but his opponent, Sen. John McCain, cited his failed first marriage. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, added that the country’s greatest shortcoming has been a tendency to not devote itself ‘to causes greater than ourselves.’ ‘I think after 9/11, my friends, we should have told Americans to join the Peace Corps, expand the military, serve a cause greater than your self-interest,’ he said. Obama told the Rev. Rick Warren that ‘we still don’t abide by that basic precept of Matthew: that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me. ‘That basic principle applies to poverty. It applies to racism and sexism; it applies to not thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people to get into the middle class.’ VideoWatch more of Obama’s comments » The Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency was the first time both candidates appeared on stage since they became the presumptive presidential nominees for their parties. The event was […]
It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.’ Barack Obama finally said it. Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right’s stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them — and us — unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society. American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes ‘the jury is still out’ on evolution. Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on ‘The Colbert Report.’ Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn’t actually list the commandments. This stuff would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. In the 2004 election, nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed the United States had ‘clear evidence’ that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; and more than a third that a substantial […]
An international team of researchers led by Monash University has used chemicals found in plants to replicate a key process in photosynthesis paving the way to a new approach that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The breakthrough could revolutionise the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen – touted as the clean, green fuel of the future – cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale. Professor Leone Spiccia, Mr Robin Brimblecombe and Dr Annette Koo from Monash University teamed with Dr Gerhard Swiegers at the CSIRO and Professor Charles Dismukes at Princeton University to develop a system comprising a coating that can be impregnated with a form of manganese, a chemical essential to sustaining photosynthesis in plant life. ‘We have copied nature, taking the elements and mechanisms found in plant life that have evolved over 3 billion years and recreated one of those processes in the laboratory,’ Professor Spiccia said. ‘A manganese cluster is central to a plant’s ability to use water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to make carbohydrates and oxygen. Man-made mimics of this cluster were developed by Professor Charles Dismukes some time ago, and we’ve taken it a step […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
