Sunday, May 07, 2006
My Hero Feingold says it all....again....his stance on Gay Marriage
Gay rights backers see chance for victory here
By CRAIG GILBERT
Posted: May 7, 2006
Washington -
In an election year roiled by Iraq, immigration and gas prices, gay marriage may seem like a second-tier issue.
But next month, the U.S. Senate will consider a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And this fall, voters in at least a half-dozen states will decide ballot proposals against gay marriage.
Wisconsin is not only one of those states but it is emerging as the main event in the nation's ballot battles over same-sex unions. Gay rights supporters have never defeated such a referendum and are convinced Wisconsin is their best shot at ending that cross-country losing streak. Their success - in the ultimate swing state - would give the contest national significance.
"So far, the same-sex marriage proponents are O-for-everything. If they can win one, that's actually big news for them," said Marquette political scientist Christopher Wolfe, who sits on the board of the Wisconsin Coalition for Traditional Marriage, which backs the gay marriage ban.
In a speech here Saturday night to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Senate Democrat Russ Feingold vowed to help defeat the Wisconsin referendum, declaring that marriage "is not always and should not always be between a man and a woman."
Along with his state, Feingold may provide his own case study in the politics of gay marriage. Like most Democrats, he opposes a constitutional amendment defining marriage, an amendment that is expected to fail in the Senate next month.
But he has gone a significant step further and declared his personal belief that gays and lesbians should be able to marry. He is one of only four U.S. senators - and the only potential 2008 presidential candidate - to do so.
Feingold has surprised even some gay rights advocates by stating his endorsement in such plain and unequivocal language, in contrast to the personal qualms about gay marriage typically voiced by political figures who support civil unions. Along with being honored at Saturday's dinner, the senator drew several standing ovations.
"So many other politicians dodge and weave on this," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Saying what he feels
As a political matter, Feingold's stand could enhance his image among liberal voters as a fearless progressive, on top of sharp stands against the Iraq war and the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance. But it also could marginalize him among more tradition-minded voters and fuel questions even among Democrats about his national electability.
"It goes against a lot of what people were brought up to believe, let's face it," Feingold said in an interview last week. He said he declared his views because he was going to have to vote on the Wisconsin referendum.
"I thought it was best just to say what I really have concluded, that this is really the ultimate civil rights issue, not just a state's rights issue, and that I support gay marriage. If two people care enough about each other that they want to get married, they ought to be able to," he said.
Opponents of gay marriage say all it would take is another controversial judicial ruling to stoke feelings on the issue, and court cases are pending.
The issue "ebbs and flows with what's happening in the courts and what's happening in an election. . . . We're in an ebbing cycle. People need a rest," said Julaine Appling, executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin and coordinator of the Wisconsin Coalition for Traditional Marriage.
Appling is in the thick of a Wisconsin campaign that will be closely watched by partisans across the country. The general view on both sides is that supporters of the gay marriage ban have started out ahead in the battle for public opinion.
But gay rights groups and allies have organized early and avidly through a group called Fair Wisconsin. The organization claims 6,000 volunteers and has 22 full- or part-time staffers, many of whom have been on board for more than a year.
"It really is a state (where) for many reasons, the stars are aligning," said Carrie Evans of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading national gay rights group.
Indications cited
She cites the early mobilizing as well as the vocal support of prominent Democrats, which has sometimes been lacking in other states. Among them: Feingold; Madison Democrat Tammy Baldwin, the first open lesbian to win a seat in Congress; Milwaukee U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore; and Gov. Jim Doyle.
Other opponents of the gay marriage ban say Wisconsin's perceived independence and unpredictability, along with its relatively low share of evangelical voters, are helpful.
Appling concedes the battle is not a slam dunk for opponents of gay marriage. "We're not in the Bible Belt. We're not Louisiana or Mississippi or Georgia and all those other states where we've had a much easier time," she said. "We take nothing for granted."
But Appling contends that the referendum's opponents have "misjudged the demographics," that the "rank and file Wisconsin citizen, when he or she goes into that voting booth, will read (the proposition) and say, 'Yeah, marriage is between a man and woman.' "
A campaign costing several million dollars is expected. Appling's group brought in conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly for a fund-raiser last week and has scheduled a "pastors summit" on the issue for May 16.
Wider implications
The referendum could have a political impact on other November contests, such as the fierce battle for governor between Doyle and Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Green Bay.
The common wisdom is that state referendums on gay marriage helped boost GOP turnout in 2004, though some scholars dispute that.
"Having a gay marriage question on the ballot had little or no impact," said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz.
But he said such a referendum might have more impact in a lower-turnout midterm election where the presidential race is not the overwhelming factor that draws people to the polls.
"It's going to draw out evangelicals. It's also going to draw out a lot of people on the other side. I think it will probably marginally improve the chances for Republicans," said Wolfe, of Marquette University.
Feingold offered a somewhat different prediction. "My view is not only is it possible this thing could be defeated," he said, "but it may end up driving turnout on the progressive side in a way that Republicans didn't anticipate."
From the May 8, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
© 2006, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.
By CRAIG GILBERT
Posted: May 7, 2006
Washington -
In an election year roiled by Iraq, immigration and gas prices, gay marriage may seem like a second-tier issue.
But next month, the U.S. Senate will consider a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And this fall, voters in at least a half-dozen states will decide ballot proposals against gay marriage.
Wisconsin is not only one of those states but it is emerging as the main event in the nation's ballot battles over same-sex unions. Gay rights supporters have never defeated such a referendum and are convinced Wisconsin is their best shot at ending that cross-country losing streak. Their success - in the ultimate swing state - would give the contest national significance.
"So far, the same-sex marriage proponents are O-for-everything. If they can win one, that's actually big news for them," said Marquette political scientist Christopher Wolfe, who sits on the board of the Wisconsin Coalition for Traditional Marriage, which backs the gay marriage ban.
In a speech here Saturday night to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Senate Democrat Russ Feingold vowed to help defeat the Wisconsin referendum, declaring that marriage "is not always and should not always be between a man and a woman."
Along with his state, Feingold may provide his own case study in the politics of gay marriage. Like most Democrats, he opposes a constitutional amendment defining marriage, an amendment that is expected to fail in the Senate next month.
But he has gone a significant step further and declared his personal belief that gays and lesbians should be able to marry. He is one of only four U.S. senators - and the only potential 2008 presidential candidate - to do so.
Feingold has surprised even some gay rights advocates by stating his endorsement in such plain and unequivocal language, in contrast to the personal qualms about gay marriage typically voiced by political figures who support civil unions. Along with being honored at Saturday's dinner, the senator drew several standing ovations.
"So many other politicians dodge and weave on this," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Saying what he feels
As a political matter, Feingold's stand could enhance his image among liberal voters as a fearless progressive, on top of sharp stands against the Iraq war and the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance. But it also could marginalize him among more tradition-minded voters and fuel questions even among Democrats about his national electability.
"It goes against a lot of what people were brought up to believe, let's face it," Feingold said in an interview last week. He said he declared his views because he was going to have to vote on the Wisconsin referendum.
"I thought it was best just to say what I really have concluded, that this is really the ultimate civil rights issue, not just a state's rights issue, and that I support gay marriage. If two people care enough about each other that they want to get married, they ought to be able to," he said.
Opponents of gay marriage say all it would take is another controversial judicial ruling to stoke feelings on the issue, and court cases are pending.
The issue "ebbs and flows with what's happening in the courts and what's happening in an election. . . . We're in an ebbing cycle. People need a rest," said Julaine Appling, executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin and coordinator of the Wisconsin Coalition for Traditional Marriage.
Appling is in the thick of a Wisconsin campaign that will be closely watched by partisans across the country. The general view on both sides is that supporters of the gay marriage ban have started out ahead in the battle for public opinion.
But gay rights groups and allies have organized early and avidly through a group called Fair Wisconsin. The organization claims 6,000 volunteers and has 22 full- or part-time staffers, many of whom have been on board for more than a year.
"It really is a state (where) for many reasons, the stars are aligning," said Carrie Evans of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading national gay rights group.
Indications cited
She cites the early mobilizing as well as the vocal support of prominent Democrats, which has sometimes been lacking in other states. Among them: Feingold; Madison Democrat Tammy Baldwin, the first open lesbian to win a seat in Congress; Milwaukee U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore; and Gov. Jim Doyle.
Other opponents of the gay marriage ban say Wisconsin's perceived independence and unpredictability, along with its relatively low share of evangelical voters, are helpful.
Appling concedes the battle is not a slam dunk for opponents of gay marriage. "We're not in the Bible Belt. We're not Louisiana or Mississippi or Georgia and all those other states where we've had a much easier time," she said. "We take nothing for granted."
But Appling contends that the referendum's opponents have "misjudged the demographics," that the "rank and file Wisconsin citizen, when he or she goes into that voting booth, will read (the proposition) and say, 'Yeah, marriage is between a man and woman.' "
A campaign costing several million dollars is expected. Appling's group brought in conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly for a fund-raiser last week and has scheduled a "pastors summit" on the issue for May 16.
Wider implications
The referendum could have a political impact on other November contests, such as the fierce battle for governor between Doyle and Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Green Bay.
The common wisdom is that state referendums on gay marriage helped boost GOP turnout in 2004, though some scholars dispute that.
"Having a gay marriage question on the ballot had little or no impact," said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz.
But he said such a referendum might have more impact in a lower-turnout midterm election where the presidential race is not the overwhelming factor that draws people to the polls.
"It's going to draw out evangelicals. It's also going to draw out a lot of people on the other side. I think it will probably marginally improve the chances for Republicans," said Wolfe, of Marquette University.
Feingold offered a somewhat different prediction. "My view is not only is it possible this thing could be defeated," he said, "but it may end up driving turnout on the progressive side in a way that Republicans didn't anticipate."
From the May 8, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
© 2006, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Was Space Shuttle destroyed by lightning?
The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas on February 1, 2003, during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on its 28th mission, STS-107. The entire seven-member crew died.
Now an image taken by an amateur astronomer from a hillside in San Francisco, showing a mysterious blue streak striking the shuttle, is making NASA reconsider an earlier theory: that the shuttle may have been struck by an unknown form of lightning.
The photo shows a bolt of lightning striking the shuttle. The astronomer, who is asking that his name not be used, took five photos of the shuttle at about 6 am. This was just about the time that sensors on the shuttle began indicating the first signs of trouble. Seven minutes later, the shuttle broke up over Texas.
The San Francisco Chronicle sent former shuttle astronaut Tammy Jernigan to the home of the amateur photographer to examine the pictures in person. He gave her the actual camera, an automatic Nikon 880, to take back with her to NASA. Jernigan, who no longer works for NASA, asked the photographer about the exposure and other settings the camera was on when the picture was taken. The camera had been mounted on a tripod, and the shutter was triggered manually.
Jernigan has a special interest in exploring what caused the Columbia tragedy. She flew five shuttle missions during the 1990s—three of them on Columbia. On her last flight, the pilot was Rick Husband, who was also at the controls when Columbia broke up.
The San Francisco photographer had been trying to reach NASA for three years, but had no success until he contacted a relative who attends the same church as astronaut Jack Lousma.
Could something as mundane as lightning have brought down the space shuttle, which is built at the upper limit of our technological expertise?
Sunday, April 02, 2006
New York Times Article on Homelessness 4-1-06
April 2, 2006
Keeping It Secret as the Family Car Becomes a Home
By IAN URBINA
FAIRFAX, Va. —
After being evicted from his apartment last year, Larry Chaney lived in his car for five months in Erie, Pa. As he passed the time at local cafes, he always put a ring of old house keys and several envelopes with bills on the table to give the impression that he had a home like everyone else.
While Michelle Kennedy was living in her car with her three children in Belfast, Me., she parked someplace different each night so no one would notice them, and she instructed the children to tell anyone who asked that they were "staying with friends."
Last year, William R. Alford started keeping a car cover over the station wagon where he sleeps. "I originally just had drapes, but the condensation on the inside of the windows was a dead giveaway," said Mr. Alford, who has been homeless here in Fairfax since May 2005.
As with all homeless people, finding food, warmth and a place to clean up is a constant struggle. But for those who live in their cars, remaining inconspicuous is its own challenge, and though living this way is illegal in most places, experts and advocates believe it is a growing trend.
"It's most often the working poor who find themselves in this situation, teetering on the border between the possessed and the dispossessed," said Kim Hopper, a researcher on homelessness for the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, which is based in New York.
The number of "mobile homeless," as they are often called, tends to climb whenever the cost of housing outpaces wages, Dr. Hopper said. Last year was the first year on record, according to an annual study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, that a full-time worker at minimum wage could not afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates.
In 2001, officials in Lynnwood, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, passed an ordinance imposing penalties of 90 days in jail or fines of up to $1,000 against people caught living in their cars.
Peter Van Giesen, a code enforcement officer for the town, said that up to 20 cars a night were found with people parking near a park where there were complaints of people using the bushes as a restroom.
"Most of these people were trying to find work," Mr. Van Giesen said.
Living inside their last major possession, the mobile homeless have often just fallen on hard times, advocates and social workers say, and since they are more likely to view their situation as temporary, they are also more inclined to keep it secret.
Though the average duration of homelessness is four months, it tends to be shorter for the mobile homeless, experts say.
"You spend a lot of effort just trying to pass," said Ms. Kennedy, a former Senate page who wrote a book, "Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America" (Viking Adult, 2005), about her experiences being homeless for several months in 1997 after her marriage fell apart. But residing — and hiding — in plain sight takes guile, and that starts with deciding where to park.
In cities, steep streets with no sidewalks, no overlooking windows and adjacent to woods are ideal because they have the least foot traffic and offer the easiest ability to enter and exit the car unnoticed, according to many who have been through the experience.
The best location is one sparse enough to avoid nosy onlookers but populated enough that the car does not stand out, they say, near enough to walk to a restroom but far enough to avoid passers-by. Parking lots of big-box retailers are a popular choice. If free, hospital parking lots are also an option. Guards often take pity when told that you are waiting to visit a sick spouse, many say.
Finding a place to shower can take ingenuity.
"The key is to be smart about when you enter and leave the building," said Randy Brown, who for the last three months while living in his car has been sneaking onto a college campus near where he waits tables in Fredericksburg, Va., and using a shower that security guards do not realize is publicly accessible.
Like several others interviewed, Mr. Chaney said that when he lost his trucking business after Hurricane Katrina and was evicted from his home, he was lucky enough to have already paid for a yearlong gym membership.
"That was probably the most important thing I had for keeping up appearances," said Mr. Chaney, who moved to Pennsylvania to be near his son, who was in college there.
Mr. Chaney said that while he looked for work, he did not reveal his situation to his son, who was going to school on a basketball scholarship, because he did not want to become a distraction.
While pride is usually the motivation for not telling friends or family, worries about the law and harassment are more often the reason people give for keeping their situation hidden. Safety is also a concern, advocates say, since homeless people are frequently targets for crime and physical abuse.
"A lot of what people do to keep the secret sounds paranoid, and some of it probably is," said Michele Wakin, who wrote her doctoral dissertation about people living in their vehicles in California and who is now a professor of sociology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. "But when you're trying to be discreet and you're spending a lot of time in one area, little things get noticed."
People often develop severe back problems because they resist reclining their seat while sleeping, Ms. Wakin said. If questioned, they wanted to be able to tell the police that they were just napping, she added. People also built elaborate compartments in their cars, she said, to hide bedding.
Mr. Alford said he had learned to move slowly to avoid attracting attention by rocking the car when he was inside. When he has a lot of items to take from his car to the library where he spends much of his time, he makes several trips rather than load his arms and seem like a "bag lady," he said.
"It might seem crazy, but the stakes are pretty high in the suburbs when it comes to staying invisible because it's supposed to be sanitized out here," said Mr. Alford, who works occasionally as a Web developer. "People call 911 in the city to report seeing a homeless person, and the cops laugh. Out here, the cops are out the door in no time when that call comes in."
Experts say there are 2.1 million to 3.5 million homeless people nationally. Ms. Wakin said that the vigilance required to live in a car was one reason there tended to be fewer people who are drug addicted or mentally disabled living in their cars, compared with those living on street grates.
"Keeping the car in working order with the license, registration up to date, figuring out an address where offices can send things, and all the while trying to stay off the radar of police and neighbors becomes like a full-time job," Ms. Wakin said.
For some, secrecy can be an obstacle to needed services.
Richard Pyne, who was evicted from his home after losing his job at a factory in North Philadelphia, said he did not seek help because he feared losing custody of his 17-year-old daughter, Kristinlyn, who was living in their car with his wife, Suzanne, and him.
Last April, a social worker noticed the family asleep in the car at a park, and after explaining their rights, the worker persuaded them to move into a shelter.
The strain of constantly finding a place to wash up and the stress of avoiding detection became unbearable, Mr. Pyne said, adding, "You have no idea how exhausting it gets to survive like this."
Keeping It Secret as the Family Car Becomes a Home
By IAN URBINA
FAIRFAX, Va. —
After being evicted from his apartment last year, Larry Chaney lived in his car for five months in Erie, Pa. As he passed the time at local cafes, he always put a ring of old house keys and several envelopes with bills on the table to give the impression that he had a home like everyone else.
While Michelle Kennedy was living in her car with her three children in Belfast, Me., she parked someplace different each night so no one would notice them, and she instructed the children to tell anyone who asked that they were "staying with friends."
Last year, William R. Alford started keeping a car cover over the station wagon where he sleeps. "I originally just had drapes, but the condensation on the inside of the windows was a dead giveaway," said Mr. Alford, who has been homeless here in Fairfax since May 2005.
As with all homeless people, finding food, warmth and a place to clean up is a constant struggle. But for those who live in their cars, remaining inconspicuous is its own challenge, and though living this way is illegal in most places, experts and advocates believe it is a growing trend.
"It's most often the working poor who find themselves in this situation, teetering on the border between the possessed and the dispossessed," said Kim Hopper, a researcher on homelessness for the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, which is based in New York.
The number of "mobile homeless," as they are often called, tends to climb whenever the cost of housing outpaces wages, Dr. Hopper said. Last year was the first year on record, according to an annual study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, that a full-time worker at minimum wage could not afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates.
In 2001, officials in Lynnwood, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, passed an ordinance imposing penalties of 90 days in jail or fines of up to $1,000 against people caught living in their cars.
Peter Van Giesen, a code enforcement officer for the town, said that up to 20 cars a night were found with people parking near a park where there were complaints of people using the bushes as a restroom.
"Most of these people were trying to find work," Mr. Van Giesen said.
Living inside their last major possession, the mobile homeless have often just fallen on hard times, advocates and social workers say, and since they are more likely to view their situation as temporary, they are also more inclined to keep it secret.
Though the average duration of homelessness is four months, it tends to be shorter for the mobile homeless, experts say.
"You spend a lot of effort just trying to pass," said Ms. Kennedy, a former Senate page who wrote a book, "Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America" (Viking Adult, 2005), about her experiences being homeless for several months in 1997 after her marriage fell apart. But residing — and hiding — in plain sight takes guile, and that starts with deciding where to park.
In cities, steep streets with no sidewalks, no overlooking windows and adjacent to woods are ideal because they have the least foot traffic and offer the easiest ability to enter and exit the car unnoticed, according to many who have been through the experience.
The best location is one sparse enough to avoid nosy onlookers but populated enough that the car does not stand out, they say, near enough to walk to a restroom but far enough to avoid passers-by. Parking lots of big-box retailers are a popular choice. If free, hospital parking lots are also an option. Guards often take pity when told that you are waiting to visit a sick spouse, many say.
Finding a place to shower can take ingenuity.
"The key is to be smart about when you enter and leave the building," said Randy Brown, who for the last three months while living in his car has been sneaking onto a college campus near where he waits tables in Fredericksburg, Va., and using a shower that security guards do not realize is publicly accessible.
Like several others interviewed, Mr. Chaney said that when he lost his trucking business after Hurricane Katrina and was evicted from his home, he was lucky enough to have already paid for a yearlong gym membership.
"That was probably the most important thing I had for keeping up appearances," said Mr. Chaney, who moved to Pennsylvania to be near his son, who was in college there.
Mr. Chaney said that while he looked for work, he did not reveal his situation to his son, who was going to school on a basketball scholarship, because he did not want to become a distraction.
While pride is usually the motivation for not telling friends or family, worries about the law and harassment are more often the reason people give for keeping their situation hidden. Safety is also a concern, advocates say, since homeless people are frequently targets for crime and physical abuse.
"A lot of what people do to keep the secret sounds paranoid, and some of it probably is," said Michele Wakin, who wrote her doctoral dissertation about people living in their vehicles in California and who is now a professor of sociology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. "But when you're trying to be discreet and you're spending a lot of time in one area, little things get noticed."
People often develop severe back problems because they resist reclining their seat while sleeping, Ms. Wakin said. If questioned, they wanted to be able to tell the police that they were just napping, she added. People also built elaborate compartments in their cars, she said, to hide bedding.
Mr. Alford said he had learned to move slowly to avoid attracting attention by rocking the car when he was inside. When he has a lot of items to take from his car to the library where he spends much of his time, he makes several trips rather than load his arms and seem like a "bag lady," he said.
"It might seem crazy, but the stakes are pretty high in the suburbs when it comes to staying invisible because it's supposed to be sanitized out here," said Mr. Alford, who works occasionally as a Web developer. "People call 911 in the city to report seeing a homeless person, and the cops laugh. Out here, the cops are out the door in no time when that call comes in."
Experts say there are 2.1 million to 3.5 million homeless people nationally. Ms. Wakin said that the vigilance required to live in a car was one reason there tended to be fewer people who are drug addicted or mentally disabled living in their cars, compared with those living on street grates.
"Keeping the car in working order with the license, registration up to date, figuring out an address where offices can send things, and all the while trying to stay off the radar of police and neighbors becomes like a full-time job," Ms. Wakin said.
For some, secrecy can be an obstacle to needed services.
Richard Pyne, who was evicted from his home after losing his job at a factory in North Philadelphia, said he did not seek help because he feared losing custody of his 17-year-old daughter, Kristinlyn, who was living in their car with his wife, Suzanne, and him.
Last April, a social worker noticed the family asleep in the car at a park, and after explaining their rights, the worker persuaded them to move into a shelter.
The strain of constantly finding a place to wash up and the stress of avoiding detection became unbearable, Mr. Pyne said, adding, "You have no idea how exhausting it gets to survive like this."
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Introducing "Mini Me"...My New 2006 Ford Focus - See details, hatchback options, ZX3
So I spent the day up in Green Bay Wisconsin today.
Why was I up there?
To say goodby to my beloved Ford Ranger 4by4 "FX Off Road" 2003 truck and to lease another vehicle.
With gas being so expensive and not seeming to let up for some time to come (as well as cars getting more expensive and wages not keeping pace with those increases), I decided to "downsise" a bit.
I think I will enjoy this newest toy all the same. It was a 2 hour plus drive home and I got a chance to get a bit "accustomed" to it during the drive.
I am officially calling her "Mini-Me" as that is what she is. She kind of reminds me of the car that Fred Flinstone drives. It has some of the same features....
-Open air roof via an electronic sun roof
-Sits low to the ground...so low that I thought my feet would rub on the highway on my way home
and also has some other nifty little features.
-Seat Warmers for one (so my Ars can be nice and toasty on cold winter days)
-A nice sound system that is capable of playing MP3s as well as CDs and an auxilary option for Satellite Radio
-A rear windshield wiper (which being a hatchback really comes in handy...I didnt realize it was there until I looked in my rear view mirror as I was driving home-it was raining- and there it was....swoooshing back and fourth...I was like WTF is that??
-I managed to get it in one of my favorite colors ( Pitch Black)
-And not least of all it gets around 35-40 MPG on the Highway!!!
It is only a two year lease and is less expensive than my truck so with all that, I guess I can learn to love her as much as I loved my "Ranger-lady". Time will tell.
Time to retire for the evening...
A good Tuesday to all.
Click on link below to see a photo of my new "little" toy. There are options to goof around with other vehicles on Ford's site also.
I have what is considered the "Enhanced Sport package" and even with something this small...you cant get much better than that.
Ford Vehicles: 2006 Ford Focus - See pricing details, car wagon hatchback options, ZX3 ZX4 ZX5 ZX4 ST ZTW
I was thinking of the "yellow" but I was imagining getting up and going to work and seeing something so bright right away in the afternoon...and I decided against it.
Besides someone would probably have made a stupid joke like..."Look, its John driving a banana"... or something like that.
Oh well.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Full Story on Bird Flu-Part Two
Bird flu is a killer when it infects human beings, but so far it has not mutated into a virus that people can catch from each other. Now scientists are learning why. Scientists are learning why the avian flu virus H5N1 has not yet mutated into a strain that can be transmitted between humans. It turns out that the avian strain can't bind to human cells. But only one major mutation is needed for the flu to become transmittable between people. Is this mutation likely to occur?
A study of cells in the human respiratory tract reveals a simple anatomical difference between humans and birds that makes it difficult for the virus to jump from human to human. But viruses are opportunistic, and H5N1 may discover a way to overcome this in the future. Virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka says, "No one knows whether the virus will evolve into a pandemic strain, but flu viruses constantly change. Certainly, multiple mutations need to be accumulated for the H5N1 virus to become a pandemic strain."
Kawaoka discovered that only cells deep within the respiratory system have the surface molecule or receptor that is the key that permits the avian flu virus to enter a cell. Flu viruses, like many other types of viruses, require access to the cells of their hosts to effectively reproduce. If they cannot enter a cell, they are unable to make infectious particles that infect other cells—or other hosts.
He says, "Deep in the respiratory system, (cell) receptors for avian viruses, including avian H5N1 viruses, are present…Our findings provide a rational explanation for why H5N1 viruses rarely infect and spread from human to human, although they can replicate efficiently in the lungs…But these receptors are rare in the upper portion of the respiratory system. For the viruses to be transmitted efficiently, they have to multiply in the upper portion of the respiratory system so that they can be transmitted by coughing and sneezing."
Existing strains of bird flu must undergo key genetic changes to become the type of flu virus that could cause another flu pandemic like the one that struck in 1918 that killed between 30 million and 50 million people worldwide. While over 200 people have contracted bird flue virus and about a hundred people have died from it—mostly in Asia—they all got it directly from poultry. None of them caught the virus the way humans usually do, from other people.
In LiveScience.com, Bjorn Carey interviews Netherlands virologist Thijs Juiken, who says that while few people have actually caught the disease, those who for whom it was fatal died from pneumonia. Pneumonia is a disease that can be bacterial or viral and it is common among patients who have been in the hospital for a long time. However, viral pneumonia is usually not dangerous to healthy adults.
A study of cells in the human respiratory tract reveals a simple anatomical difference between humans and birds that makes it difficult for the virus to jump from human to human. But viruses are opportunistic, and H5N1 may discover a way to overcome this in the future. Virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka says, "No one knows whether the virus will evolve into a pandemic strain, but flu viruses constantly change. Certainly, multiple mutations need to be accumulated for the H5N1 virus to become a pandemic strain."
Kawaoka discovered that only cells deep within the respiratory system have the surface molecule or receptor that is the key that permits the avian flu virus to enter a cell. Flu viruses, like many other types of viruses, require access to the cells of their hosts to effectively reproduce. If they cannot enter a cell, they are unable to make infectious particles that infect other cells—or other hosts.
He says, "Deep in the respiratory system, (cell) receptors for avian viruses, including avian H5N1 viruses, are present…Our findings provide a rational explanation for why H5N1 viruses rarely infect and spread from human to human, although they can replicate efficiently in the lungs…But these receptors are rare in the upper portion of the respiratory system. For the viruses to be transmitted efficiently, they have to multiply in the upper portion of the respiratory system so that they can be transmitted by coughing and sneezing."
Existing strains of bird flu must undergo key genetic changes to become the type of flu virus that could cause another flu pandemic like the one that struck in 1918 that killed between 30 million and 50 million people worldwide. While over 200 people have contracted bird flue virus and about a hundred people have died from it—mostly in Asia—they all got it directly from poultry. None of them caught the virus the way humans usually do, from other people.
In LiveScience.com, Bjorn Carey interviews Netherlands virologist Thijs Juiken, who says that while few people have actually caught the disease, those who for whom it was fatal died from pneumonia. Pneumonia is a disease that can be bacterial or viral and it is common among patients who have been in the hospital for a long time. However, viral pneumonia is usually not dangerous to healthy adults.
Time Magazine Cover Story-Global Warming-March 2006
(Be Worried,Be Very Worried- Time Magazine Cover of Most recent issue)The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame.
Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it.
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By JEFFREY KLUGER
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.
The image of Earth as organism--famously dubbed Gaia by environmentalist James Lovelock-- has probably been overworked, but that's not to say the planet can't behave like a living thing, and these days, it's a living thing fighting a fever. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.
Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.
But glaciers, it turns out, can move with surprising speed, and so can nature. What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you're not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft. Nature, it seems, has finally got a bellyful of us.
"Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted," says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense and a former professor of atmospheric chemistry. "The last 12 months have been alarming." Adds Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts: "The ripple through the scientific community is palpable."
And it's not just scientists who are taking notice. Even as nature crosses its tipping points, the public seems to have reached its own. For years, popular skepticism about climatological science stood in the way of addressing the problem, but the naysayers--many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies--have become an increasingly marginalized breed. In a new TIME/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll, 85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover, most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something should be done to get cars to use less gasoline. Even Evangelical Christians, once one of the most reliable columns in the conservative base, are demanding action, most notably in February, when 86 Christian leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, demanding that Congress regulate greenhouse gases.
A collection of new global-warming books is hitting the shelves in response to that awakening interest, followed closely by TV and theatrical documentaries. The most notable of them is An Inconvenient Truth, due out in May, a profile of former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-change work, which is generating a lot of prerelease buzz over an unlikely topic and an equally unlikely star. For all its lack of Hollywood flash, the film compensates by conveying both the hard science of global warming and Gore's particular passion.
Such public stirrings are at last getting the attention of politicians and business leaders, who may not always respond to science but have a keen nose for where votes and profits lie. State and local lawmakers have started taking action to curb emissions, and major corporations are doing the same. Wal-Mart has begun installing wind turbines on its stores to generate electricity and is talking about putting solar reflectors over its parking lots. HSBC, the world's second largest bank, has pledged to neutralize its carbon output by investing in wind farms and other green projects. Even President Bush, hardly a favorite of greens, now acknowledges climate change and boasts of the steps he is taking to fight it. Most of those steps, however, involve research and voluntary emissions controls, not exactly the laws with teeth scientists are calling for.
Is it too late to reverse the changes global warming has wrought? That's still not clear. Reducing our emissions output year to year is hard enough. Getting it low enough so that the atmosphere can heal is a multigenerational commitment. "Ecosystems are usually able to maintain themselves," says Terry Chapin, a biologist and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But eventually they get pushed to the limit of tolerance."
CO2 AND THE POLES
As a tiny component of our atmosphere, carbon dioxide helped warm Earth to comfort levels we are all used to. But too much of it does an awful lot of damage. The gas represents just a few hundred parts per million (p.p.m.) in the overall air blanket, but they're powerful parts because they allow sunlight to stream in but prevent much of the heat from radiating back out. During the last ice age, the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was just 180 p.p.m., putting Earth into a deep freeze. After the glaciers retreated but before the dawn of the modern era, the total had risen to a comfortable 280 p.p.m. In just the past century and a half, we have pushed the level to 381 p.p.m., and we're feeling the effects. Of the 20 hottest years on record, 19 occurred in the 1980s or later. According to NASA scientists, 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century.
It's at the North and South poles that those steambath conditions are felt particularly acutely, with glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush. Once the thaw begins, a number of mechanisms kick in to keep it going. Greenland is a vivid example. Late last year, glaciologist Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996. A cubic mile of water is about five times the amount Los Angeles uses in a year.
Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's, is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising (because warm water expands), and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft., swallowing up large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh. The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft.
FEEDBACK LOOPS
One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface shrinks, it changes the relationship of Earth and the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains, the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it.
That is what scientists call a feedback loop, and it's a nasty one, since once you uncap the Arctic Ocean, you unleash another beast: the comparatively warm layer of water about 600 ft. deep that circulates in and out of the Atlantic. "Remove the ice," says Woods Hole's Curry, "and the water starts talking to the atmosphere, releasing its heat. This is not a good thing."
A similar feedback loop is melting permafrost, usually defined as land that has been continuously frozen for two years or more. There's a lot of earthly real estate that qualifies, and much of it has been frozen much longer than two years--since the end of the last ice age, or at least 8,000 years ago. Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7 gigatons a year.
One result of all that is warmer oceans, and a result of warmer oceans can be, paradoxically, colder continents within a hotter globe. Ocean currents running between warm and cold regions serve as natural thermoregulators, distributing heat from the equator toward the poles. The Gulf Stream, carrying warmth up from the tropics, is what keeps Europe's climate relatively mild. Whenever Europe is cut off from the Gulf Stream, temperatures plummet. At the end of the last ice age, the warm current was temporarily blocked, and temperatures in Europe fell as much as 10°F, locking the continent in glaciers.
What usually keeps the Gulf Stream running is that warm water is lighter than cold water, so it floats on the surface. As it reaches Europe and releases its heat, the current grows denser and sinks, flowing back to the south and crossing under the northbound Gulf Stream until it reaches the tropics and starts to warm again. The cycle works splendidly, provided the water remains salty enough. But if it becomes diluted by freshwater, the salt concentration drops, and the water gets lighter, idling on top and stalling the current. Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle. In a global-warming world, it's unlikely that any amount of cooling that resulted from this would be sufficient to support glaciers, but it could make things awfully uncomfortable.
"The big worry is that the whole climate of Europe will change," says Adrian Luckman, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Wales, Swansea. "We in the U.K. are on the same latitude as Alaska. The reason we can live here is the Gulf Stream."
DROUGHT
As fast as global warming is transforming the oceans and the ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. People, animals and plants living in dry, mountainous regions like the western U.S. make it through summer thanks to snowpack that collects on peaks all winter and slowly melts off in warm months. Lately the early arrival of spring and the unusually blistering summers have caused the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone. Climatologist Philip Mote of the University of Washington has compared decades of snowpack levels in Washington, Oregon and California and found that they are a fraction of what they were in the 1940s, and some snowpacks have vanished entirely.
Global warming is tipping other regions of the world into drought in different ways. Higher temperatures bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to cross the line into full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, El Niño events--the warm pooling of Pacific waters that periodically drives worldwide climate patterns and has been occurring more frequently in global-warming years--further inhibit precipitation in dry areas of Africa and East Asia. According to a recent study by NCAR, the percentage of Earth's surface suffering drought has more than doubled since the 1970s.
FLORA AND FAUNA
Hot, dry land can be murder on flora and fauna, and both are taking a bad hit. Wildfires in such regions as Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been increasing as timberlands and forest floors grow more parched. The blazes create a feedback loop of their own, pouring more carbon into the atmosphere and reducing the number of trees, which inhale CO2 and release oxygen.
Those forests that don't succumb to fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops," Millar says.
Across North America, warming-related changes are mowing down other flora too. Manzanita bushes in the West are dying back; some prickly pear cacti have lost their signature green and are instead a sickly pink; pine beetles in western Canada and the U.S. are chewing their way through tens of millions of acres of forest, thanks to warmer winters. The beetles may even breach the once insurmountable Rocky Mountain divide, opening up a path into the rich timbering lands of the American Southeast.
With habitats crashing, animals that live there are succumbing too. Environmental groups can tick off scores of species that have been determined to be at risk as a result of global warming. Last year, researchers in Costa Rica announced that two-thirds of 110 species of colorful harlequin frogs have vanished in the past 30 years, with the severity of each season's die-off following in lockstep with the severity of that year's warming.
In Alaska, salmon populations are at risk as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small animals such as bushy-tailed wood rats, alpine chipmunks and piñon mice are being chased upslope by rising temperatures, following the path of the fleeing trees. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears--prodigious swimmers but not inexhaustible ones--are starting to turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."
WHAT ABOUT US?
It is fitting, perhaps, that as the species causing all the problems, we're suffering the destruction of our habitat too, and we have experienced that loss in terrible ways. Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places. "There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for NCAR in Boulder. "If so, you're likely to get tropical cyclones there, but we honestly don't know."
WHAT WE CAN DO
So much for environmental collapse happening in so many places at once has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions--an imperfect accord, to be sure, but an accord all the same. The U.S., however, which is home to less than 5% of Earth's population but produces 25% of CO2 emissions, remains intransigent. Many environmentalists declared the Bush Administration hopeless from the start, and while that may have been premature, it's undeniable that the White House's environmental record--from the abandonment of Kyoto to the President's broken campaign pledge to control carbon output to the relaxation of emission standards--has been dismal. George W. Bush's recent rhetorical nods to America's oil addiction and his praise of such alternative fuel sources as switchgrass have yet to be followed by real initiatives.
The anger surrounding all that exploded recently when NASA researcher Jim Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a longtime leader in climate-change research, complained that he had been harassed by White House appointees as he tried to sound the global-warming alarm. "The way democracy is supposed to work, the presumption is that the public is well informed," he told TIME. "They're trying to deny the science." Up against such resistance, many environmental groups have resolved simply to wait out this Administration and hope for something better in 2009.
The Republican-dominated Congress has not been much more encouraging. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have twice been unable to get through the Senate even mild measures to limit carbon. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico and both ranking members of the chamber's Energy Committee, have made global warming a high-profile matter. A white paper issued in February will be the subject of an investigatory Senate conference next week. A House delegation recently traveled to Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand to visit researchers studying climate change. "Of the 10 of us, only three were believers," says Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. "Every one of the others said this opened their eyes."
Boehlert himself has long fought the environmental fight, but if the best that can be said for most lawmakers is that they are finally recognizing the global-warming problem, there's reason to wonder whether they will have the courage to reverse it. Increasingly, state and local governments are filling the void. The mayors of more than 200 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging, among other things, that they will meet the Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in their cities to 1990 levels by 2012. Nine eastern states have established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for the purpose of developing a cap-and-trade program that would set ceilings on industrial emissions and allow companies that overperform to sell pollution credits to those that underperform-- the same smart, incentive-based strategy that got sulfur dioxide under control and reduced acid rain. And California passed the nation's toughest automobile- emissions law last summer.
"There are a whole series of things that demonstrate that people want to act and want their government to act," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. Krupp and others believe that we should probably accept that it's too late to prevent CO2 concentrations from climbing to 450 p.p.m. (or 70 p.p.m. higher than where they are now). From there, however, we should be able to stabilize them and start to dial them back down.
That goal should be attainable. Curbing global warming may be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem.
The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we're finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we've been monkeying with those margins. It's long past time we set them right.
 With reporting by Greg Fulton/ Atlanta, Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Rita Healy/ Denver, Eric Roston/ Washington, With reporting by David Bjerklie, Andrea Dorfman/ New York, Andrea Gerlin/ London
