 |
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The Conveyor and global climate
The global ocean as we know it is not a steady-state pond, as winds slap it and waves roll on to beaches. But underneath the global ocean may be one of the planet's greatest secrets, pricking the conceit of the planet being named Earth, when it is the ocean that largely determines its fate.
An enigmatic process underneath the oceans may have a great impact on climate changes, especially in the coming decades.
The Great Ocean Conveyor (also called thermohaline circulation) may hold the key to understanding the cycle of ice ages.
The conventional theory about ice ages is that they come steadily every couple thousand years or so, with a long ice age followed by a longer warming period. Yet recent evidence shows sudden spikes of ice ages. The mystery points to the role of the Conveyor.
The Conveyor, as its name suggests, is an oceanic conveyor belt of about 100 Amazon rivers flowing at approximately 10 centimetres per second. Heated surface water from tropical regions in the Pacific and Indian Oceans move to higher latitudes, passing through the coasts of places like Britain. At a further point in the north, cooling and saltier water (glaciers retain fresh water) makes the water denser, suddenly forcing the water from the Conveyor to go down, producing what is called a sink hole. This sink hole of heavy water creates a vacuum which pulls the waters of the Conveyor northward. This cold water then gets back to the Conveyor. So in a way, the sink hole serves as the engine of the global oceanic conveyor belt.
Recent evidence from different areas show a threat to the Conveyor's flow. In an observation of certain shelled creatures in the Atlantic, a scientist showed a slowing down of the flow. At a certain speed for the Conveyor, nutrients would not have enough time to settle down on the floor along the Conveyor's path. So if it becomes slower, it would show in the mineral content of the shelled creatures. Basically, the more nutrients they absorb means the flow is slower for the Conveyor. Another indicator was seen in the lower salinity levels in the sinkhole.
Now what does this have to do with an ice age? Well, remember the warm currents brought in by the Conveyor to the Atlantic? This enables places like Britain to have good surfing, even as they have the same latitudes as places in Canada. Once the Conveyor stops, places like Britain would have colder winters.
What causes the slowing down, and why is it feared that an ice age will occur soon? While ice ages occurred in the past without human intervention, humans now produce a new factor on the global climate scene. That factor is an accelerated global warming caused by human activities.
One would think that global warming would put a dent in this theory of an ice age. After all, the standard interpretation is that with global warming will come the melting of the polar ice caps, and there will be wilder rains and an increase in the water level. But the counterintuitive impact on the climate is this: general warming results in regional ice ages (in Northwestern Europe) along with drought regions. See, what happens is that with global warming, glaciers are melting, supplying more freshwater to the sinkhole, reducing its salinity, in turn reducing the downward flow of water from the Conveyor. Once the Conveyor ceases to flow, areas in Northwest Europe would stop receiving the warm waters passing through them, resulting in colder temperatures.
Moreover, climate changes brought about by global warming include more rains and typhoons. We're seeing the consequences now, in the tsunami, hurricane or typhoons occuring in different parts of the world. This rainwater adds more freshwater to places like Siberian rivers that reach the sinkhole.
Computer simulations show that the earliest cold front could come in the next twenty years, affecting Nortwest Europe. That's the worst-case scenario. Nevertheless, the dire impact should be taken seriously. For British people, it could mean nothing less than the dissolution of the British way of life. Simulations also show that areas like Central America could experience drought, drying up large areas of rainforests. The effects are nothing less than cataclysmic. Global warming has to be addressed.
Posted at 09:28 pm by starsi
Permalink
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Harbour Bridge
@@@
Private investment, public benefit. At least that's the theory behind public-private projects. But such public-private collaboration is increasingly being discredited, recently highlighted by public outrage over the Sydney Harbour cross-tunnel, according to ABC News Affairs. Motorists are angry by the traffic gridlock and the high toll fees to cross the tunnel. ABC and other media indict the public-private schemes that have been disadvantageous to the public.
Posted at 12:24 pm by starsi
Permalink
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The Howard government is under fire from church leaders and unions for the proposed industrial relations changes. The Catholic Church and Sydney's Anglican Church Archbishop condemn the new workplace plans, saying it would affect family weekends and would turn workers into robots.
A showdown between the Federal (Liberal) and State Governments (Labour) may be in the offing in the coming months. Despite Labour's complicity in some of Howard's policies - Labour was instrumental in watered-down versions of government bills - like the Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), the Iraq war and anti-terror laws, it is being pushed by unions, families and the rest of the public to fight this one out. Even mainstream media is critical of the policies; concern about the fate of wages, of workers and their families cannot be offset by the A$100 million set aside for the new policy's publicity.
Posted at 02:23 pm by starsi
Permalink
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Canberra has now unveiled advertisements for flexible workplace arrangements, purportedly to make the system simpler and fairer. Unions say this will make it easier for employers to fire employees and would do away with overtime penalties and other benefits. The Federal government says it will make it easier for every individual employee to negotiate working conditions. Yeah, right.
Under the present collective negotiation arrangements, workers still have a long way to advance benefits. Employers are resorting more to contractualization. In the new arrangements, it's not as if individual employees would find it easier to approach their employer to ask for fairer arrangements. It's nothing less than an assault on unionism and workers in general in favour of profit-making. Again, the Liberals are so class conscious. Unions and Labour, in the meanwhile, seem unable to rouse out of a debilitating stupor, their large mobilizations notwithstanding. In the next few years, Australia could go the way of the US, with its minimal wages regime and other worse conditions for workers. The trend of a growing gap in incomes seen in such a society could happen to the Land Down Under.
Posted at 06:07 pm by starsi
Permalink
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Imposing the hegemony of silence
@@@
Ok, enough of the accentuation of the positives; that should be given. Nothing to solve there. Back to happenings we can help improve.
More waves of political killings and repression are happening in the Philippines. In the past couple of weeks, people who are fighting for more decent living conditions are being murdered with impunity. A union leader working for the multinational company Nestle (hmm, a best friend I once had now works here as a manager) was murdered just a day after the 33rd commemoration of Martial Law. Farmers are being picked one by one in Central Luzon, right where the notorious general Palparan is deployed.
These human rights violators learn nothing from history. Every spill of blood waters and provides nutrients for renewed and new struggles. Every death adds to the growing demand for justice.
Voicing of grievances is being repressed. On 'presidential' orders, rallies are being violently dispersed, after the scrapping of maximum tolerance. People should not tolerate it. Whatever happened to civil liberties? Take, for example, the October 6 dispersal at Mendiola. And the sad/funny thing about it is the one agency supposed to be looking out for fundamental rights, the Commission on Human Rights, is so stupid, it blames both the ralliers and the police! It should be renamed the Commission of Human Rights Violations.
Another psychological atrocity: I just saw the video clips from a news channel, and the caption described how the ralliers were evidently fighting the police. It's not as if the ralliers didn't have the right to defend themselves, but the bloody clips were showing the violence being perpetrated by the police! Stating a potential bias in knowing one of those victims, a woman named Fudge, but how can one interpret a phalanx of police surrounding one exposed lady as disadvantageous to them? This is the tragedy of corporate-controlled media. It's been happening for a while, no surprise about media filters. Yet it's becoming more blatant. Before, there was a semblance of objectivity. People should become more aware of the corporate merger of this one TV station and one of the most respected Philippine papers. Before the right-wing came to power in the US, and elsewhere, the road was paved for them by compliant media agencies.
I think college-time friends also work in the particular TV show, yet I suppose they're not decision-makers.
While the violent dispersals may be unimaginable to some people, they are actually happening. Aussies may remember the riots in Macquarie Fields a few months ago and how police were admonished for using excessive violence. For someone like me who'd seen dispersals, it didn't look so violent then. Yet any civil society would be horrified. In the Phils, practices like torture and violent dispersals are sanctioned with glee. We're good students of the US model. Why, they taught us such delights such as the 'water cure' and the coursing of electricity through fingertips. And it's not to mutate the tortured into superpowered Electro's (the comics character, duh). The Philippines now even has pending laws patterned after the USA Patriot Act. Wanna know what the Philippine parrot sounds like? In an irritating voice, it says "Hello Garci?"
***
Worries about bird flu and skyrocketing oil prices abound. I hope I have time later to look into it, but lots of indicators point to oil demand exceeding supply. Sources may be reaching what is called 'peak oil,' that is, the point at which oil can be extracted maximally. Oil reserves may last for a couple more generations, yet they will be harder and harder to get; the energy expended to extract oil would be greater. This could be where the im/balance of power will be fought in the coming years. We're already seeing that in the foreign policies of the giant hegemoth (hegemonic behemoth), the US. Hopefully can focus on this later, as it is nothing less than trying to discern the fate of the world. Naks! Too easy:)
Posted at 11:24 pm by starsi
Permalink
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Medical discovery uneclipsed
Aussies Robin Warren and Barry Marshall win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work showing that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria and not stress, allowing cures through antibiotics.
A lunar eclipse seen in some parts of the world.
Posted at 05:26 pm by starsi
Permalink
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Blonde View of Football
Just in time for football season... Football finally makes sense!
A guy took his blonde girl friend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience.
"Oh, I really liked it," she replied," especially the cute guys with all the big muscles; but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."
Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, I saw them flip a coin and one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was:
'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!'
Helloooo? It's only 25 cents!"
___
A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here."
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer please, and one for the road."
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?"
"Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.' " "That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"It's not unusual."
Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," says Dolly.
"It's true, no bull!"
Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. one says, "I've lost my electron."
The other says, "Are you sure?"
The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive...!"
A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's cross-eyed. Is there anything you can do for him?"
"Well," says the vet. "Let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down."
"What! Because he's cross-eyed?"
"No, because he's really heavy."
I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly. But when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank.
Proving once and for all that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
What do you call a fish with no eyes?
A f sh.
Two fish swim into a concrete wall. one turns to the other and says, "dam".
Two fish are in a tank. One says to the other, "I'll man the guns, you drive."
Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before
If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out.
Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good.
Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.
No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.
Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.
Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.
----
Smart Ass Answer #5:
A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check
tickets.
As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket and he opened his trench coat and flashed her. Without missing a beat.... she said,"Sir, I need to see your ticket not your stub."
*****************
Smart Ass Answer #4:
A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but she couldn't find one big enough for her family.
She asked a stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?"
The stock boy replied, "No ma'am, they're dead."
*******************
Smart Ass Answer #3:
The cop got out of his car and the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window.
"I've been waiting for you all day," the cop said.
The kid replied, "Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could."
When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket
***********************
Smart Ass Answer #2:
A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, "Low Bridge Ahead." Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles.
Finally, a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, "Got stuck, huh?"
The truck driver says, "No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of gas."
***********************
AND NOW.FOR.THE. #1 SMART ASS ANSWER.
A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow's final exam.
"Now class, I won't tolerate any excuses for you not being here
tomorrow.
I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury or illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that's it, no other excuses whatsoever!"
A smart-ass guy in the back of the room raised his hand
and asked, "What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?"
The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering.
When silence was restored, the teacher smiled
knowingly at the student, shaking her head and sweetly said,
"Well, I guess you'd have to write the exam with your other hand." Smart teacher!!!
Posted at 12:33 pm by starsi
Permalink
In the news: Bombs explode in Bali, Indonesia.
Pinoy fiesta in Bankstown.
Posted at 08:13 am by starsi
Permalink
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Puerto Rican independence figure murdered
Bondi Beach
###
The FBI just murdered the Puerto Rican independence figure Filiberto Ojeda Rios. They stormed his house, shot him and left him to bleed, as FBI agents refused to allow medical teams inside the militarized perimeter. Ojeda Rios, 72, was the leader of the Macheteros, who advocated the independence of Puerto Rico from the USA. His murder triggered demonstrations throughout the island. Even figures who are satisfied with Puerto Rico's colonial status have condemned the FBI action. What the FBI did is a warning to all political dissenters of the methods that will be used by the US government in the context of more repressive conditions.
Posted at 06:59 am by starsi
Permalink
Monday, September 26, 2005
That is it. State and Territory governments (under Labour) have approved with the Federal government tough anti-terror laws - with the caveat of a ten-year timeline and some oversight to monitor abuse. The world has gone mad; state powers and non-state terrorists increasingly turn the world into a whirlpool of violence and fear that rationalize the actions of the other. Yet this is not the time of unvoiced fears, now is not the day to toe the line, now is the time to voice out the irrationality of what's happening, now is to throw the bucket of cold water on the heads of the people who stir up more fear and repression of civil liberties, as well as address the solutions and the deeper causes of what's presented as the most urgent problem of the world. A lesson here is that it has to grow from the grassroots. It's not a choice between fire and war, between the desperate bombs of non-state terrorists and the war machine of big powers; it's a matter of people winning their rights. Or should be, in a world trying to gain a semblance of peace and justice. There has to come a time when people shout out: Enough! We have no need of both your terrorisms. We want the world back! We want our world back! And we want it now!
Posted at 06:46 pm by starsi
Permalink
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
