The end of the Global War on Terror — or at least the use of that phrase — has been codified at the Pentagon. Reports that the phrase was being retired have been circulating for some time amongst senior administration officials, and this morning speechwriters and other staff were notified via this e-mail to use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation’ instead. ‘Recently, in a LtGen [John] Bergman, USMC, statement for the 25 March [congressional] hearing, OMB required that the following change be made before going to the Hill,’ Dave Riedel, of the Office of Security Review, wrote in an e-mail. ‘OMB says: ‘This Administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT]. Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.” Riedel asked recipients to ‘Please pass on to your speech writers and try to catch this change before the statements make it to OMB.’ An OMB spokesman took issue with the interpretation of OMB’s wishes. ‘There was no memo, no guidance,’ said Kenneth Baer. ‘This is the opinion of a career civil servant.’ Referring to the phrase ‘global war on terror,’ Baer said, ‘I have no reason to believe that would be […]
WASHINGTON — With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks. ‘This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat,’ said Senator Benjamin Cardin. A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs. Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible. Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, ‘no substantial loss of federal revenue’ was expected under the legislation, Cardin’s office said […]
Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is ‘significant’ evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community. The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions. ‘Our finding is very significant,’ said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California. ‘To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device,’ added the study’s co-author in a statement. The study’s results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. The city is also the site of an infamous presentation on cold fusion 20 years ago by Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons that sent shockwaves across the world. Despite their claim to cold fusion discovery, the Fleishmann-Pons study soon fell into discredit after other researchers were unable to reproduce the results. Scientists have been working for years to […]
Gang violence is surging in Mexico, where 40,000 soldiers have been deployed across the country to root out drug cartels. Beheadings, attacks on police, and shootings in clubs and restaurants are a daily occurrence in some regions. One of the worst areas for the violence has been the border city of Juarez, where thousands of Mexican troops are now trying to re-establish control. Driving into Mexico’s most dangerous city is slightly nerve-wracking, to say the least. There has been murder, kidnapping and extortion on a grand scale. Ciudad Juarez has not exactly been the safest place. So the first time you cross that bridge over the Rio Grande, which divides Mexico and the United States, there is a slight flutter in your stomach. Then you see the soldiers. Juarez has been flooded with troops. Thousands have arrived in the past few weeks, under direct orders from the president. The car park of the central police station is full – with army vehicles. Several lorries drive in with two-dozen camouflaged troops in the back. Pickups head out, with soldiers standing on the tailgate, guns at the ready. Army officers give the troops their […]
Maize was domesticated from its wild ancestor more than 8700 years according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in the Mexico’s Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest dated evidence — by 1200 years — for the presence and use of domesticated maize. The researchers, led by Anthony Ranere of Temple University and Dolores Piperno of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, reported their findings in two studies — ‘The Cultural and chronological context of early Holocene maize and squash domestication in the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexcio and ‘Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico — being published in the PNAS Early Edition, March 24. According to Ranere, recent studies have confirmed that maize derived from teosinte, a large wild grass that has five species growing in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The teosinte species that is closest to maize is Balsas teosinte, which is native to Mexico’s Central Balsas River Valley. ‘We went to the area where the closest relative to maize grows, looked for the earliest maize and found it, said Ranere. ‘That wasn’t surprising since molecular biologists had determined that Balsas […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
