Friday, March 31, 2006

Politics - World - s.f. bayarea forums - craigslist

Politics - World - s.f. bayarea forums - craigslist: "Malthus was an optimist < RoughJustice > 03/31/06 16:01

Here's more evidence...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.

'It's an unprecedented die-off,' said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. 'The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months.'

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20060331/D8GM9UO07.html

... when do suppose Easter Islanders figured out that there would never be any more trees? "

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Rumsfeld, Rice Say Iraq Not at Civil War

If this isn't one, what is?


My Way News: "Rumsfeld, Rice Say Iraq Not at Civil War

Mar 9, 11:53 AM (ET)

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

(AP) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Top members of the Bush administration urged Congress Thursday to quickly pass a $91 billion spending bill that includes money to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that despite a surge in sectarian violence in Iraq, the process of creating a stable government is proceeding satisfactorily.
Rumsfeld was pressed to explain the U.S. military's plan to respond in the event that Iraq's sectarian violence grows into a full-fledged civil war.
'The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the - from a security standpoint - have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to,' Rumsfeld said.

(AP) An unidentified protester interrupts a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill,...
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Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., repeatedly pressed Rumsfeld to say what U.S. troops would do if civil war broke out, noting that in his own view the country 'only narrowly missed descending into all-out civil war' in recent days.
Rumsfeld said the key to avoiding civil war is for Iraq's political leaders to form a government of nationa"

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Red states & black students continue to lag.

Draw your own conclusions...


"In the nation's public schools, 14.1 percent of the class of 2005 passed at least one AP test, up from 13.2 percent a year before. In 2000, 10.2 percent of high school seniors passed an AP test.

The number of students passing at least one test increased by nearly 120,000 from 2000 to 2005. But black students continued to take the exams at lower rates than white students, and their overall scores remained a level behind whites last year.

Nationwide, black students make up 13.4 percent of the student population, but only 6.4 percent of the students taking AP exams. The percentage of white and Latino students taking the tests more closely mirrored their numbers in the classroom

... meanwhile, red states continue to show why they're red:

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia increased the percentage of students passing at least one AP test last year. The percentage of students passing at least one test declined in five states — Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming. It was flat in Louisiana.

New York led the nation with 22.8 percent of its high school seniors passing at least one test. Louisiana was last with 2.5 percent."

... 2.5% is around a tenth the national average. I guess that explains why La was flat -- it's hard to get any lower.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/07/national/main1291874.shtml