Moral Turpitude Is Spelled Blackwater

This is what happens when you contract out your war to private armies.

"A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries-with equally profound strategic consequences. " Philip Bobbitt

- Iraq's Interior Ministry canceled the license of controversial American security firm Blackwater USA today after Iraqi officials charged that eight civilians were shot by company bodyguards accompanying a U.S. State Department motorcade the day before in Baghdad.

"It has been revoked," said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry. "They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action."

The decision marks Iraq's boldest step yet to assert itself against foreign security contractors, who arrived in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen accused by many Iraqis of speeding through Baghdad's streets and shooting wildly at anyone seen as a threat.

moral turpitude

1. depravity
2. (law) Any base or vile conduct, contrary to accepted morals, that accompanies a crime

turpitude
"depravity, infamy," 1490, from M.Fr. turpitude (1417), from L. turpitudinem (nom. turpitudo) "baseness," from turpis "vile, ugly, base, shameful," used in both the moral and the physical senses; of unknown origin. Perhaps originally "what one turns away from" (cf. L. trepit "he turns").

TURPITUDE - Everything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals, is said to be done with turpitude.

Moral Turpitude is a legal concept in the USA, which refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals"

Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy SEAL named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.

Erik Prince was political at a very early age and watched as his father used his company as a cash-generating engine to fuel the rise of what we now know as the religious right in this country, as well as the Republican Revolution of 1994. His father gave the seed money to Gary Bauer to found the Family Research Council. Young Erik Prince was in the first crop of interns to serve at the Family Research Council. They gave significant funding to James Dobson and his group Focus on the Family, which is now sort of the premier evangelical organizing network in this country, the “prayer warriors.”

Personnel

Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, and other business unit leaders are former Navy SEALs. Blackwater was founded and is owned by Erik Prince, who is also a former Navy SEAL.

Prince and Jackson are also major contributors to the Republican party. In addition, Prince was an intern in George H.W. Bush's White House and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992.

Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, was the Bush adminstration's top counterterrorism official when 9/11 occurred. In 2002, he famously stated: "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off." But Black is not alone, Blackwater has become home to a significant number of former senior CIA and Pentagon officials. Robert Richer became the firm's Vice President of Intelligence immediately after he resigned his position as Associate Deputy Director of Operations in fall 2005. He is formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.

In October 2006, Kenneth Starr, independent counsel in the impeachment case of Bill Clinton in 1999, represented Blackwater in front of the US Supreme Court in a case related to the March 2004 killing of four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, Iraq. In response to that event, Blackwater also hired the Republican lobbying and PR firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images

Blackwater USA contractors secure the site of a roadside explosion in central Baghdad in 2005. The U.S. Embassy said that the Blackwater convoy accused of killing eight civilians during a shootout on Sunday had come under fire, and some local Iraqi television accounts reported an exchange of gunfire at the scene in Baghdad.

The Iraqi government said Monday that it was revoking the license of an American security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said.

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country.

The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of "Little Bird" helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

The decision to pull the license was likely to be challenged, as it would be a major blow to a company at the forefront of one of the main turning points in the war.

The 2004 battle of Fallujah — an unsuccessful military assault in which an estimated 27 U.S. Marines were killed, along with an unknown number of civilians — was retaliation for the killing, maiming and burning of four Blackwater guards in that city by a mob of insurgents.

Tens of thousands of foreign private security contractors work in Iraq — some with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles — to provide protection for Westerners and dignitaries in Iraq as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war.

Monday's action against Blackwater was likely to give the unpopular government a boost, given Iraqis' dislike of the contractors.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani called the shootings "a crime that we cannot be silent about."

Many of the contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution.

"There have been so many innocent people they've killed over there, and they just keep doing it," said Katy Helvenston, the mother of Steve Helvenston, a Blackwater contractor who died during the 2004 ambush in Fallujah. "They have just a callous disregard for life."

Helvenston is now part of a lawsuit that accuses Blackwater of cutting corners that ultimately led to the death of her son and three others.

The question of whether they could face prosecution is legally murky. Unlike soldiers, the contractors are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

Khalaf, however, denied that.

The embassy also refused to answer any questions on Blackwater's status or legal issues, saying it was seeking clarification on the issue as part of the investigation, which was being carried out by the State Department's diplomatic security service and law enforcement officials working with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military.

Is there even a license to revoke? Buzz on the contractor street is that it isn't clear how this development will affect Blackwater. Allegedly, Blackwater doesn't have a "license" to revoke, and its contracts with the State Department and CIA may not be immediately affected. This could play out in an interesting (albeit depressing) powerplay between the al-Maliki, Iraq's Ministry of Interior, and the U.S. Government.

The issue of accountability is a troubling one, however, as Scahill reveals the Blackwater operatives are essentially above the law in Iraq. They can’t be prosecuted under military law because they’re civilians. But they have little to worry about from civilian law in the chaos of Iraq.

At one point in the book, a politician confronts a military official and claims Blackwater agents can get away with murder, and the official more or less admits he’s right. It’s a point that’s highlighted by another video featuring an alleged mercenary shooting people at random on a highway in Iraq (YouTube link).

It was inevitable. Private military contractors have been involve din all sorts of questionable incidents, since the very start of the Iraq enterprise. U.S. military officers frequently expressed their frustrations with sharing the battlefield with such private forces operating under their own rules and agendas, and worry about the consequences for their own operations. For example, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the US 3^rd Infantry Division (responsible for Baghdad area) tellingly put it two years back, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath.”

Karel Prinsloo/AP, File

A U.S. private security officer, with his face covered against dust, on board a Chinook helicopter in Iraq.

Blackwater Guards Accused of Past Deaths

By DEBORAH HASTINGS – 2 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — In the past year, employees of the Blackwater USA security firm have been involved in other incidents in which they were accused of killing civilians and security forces in Iraq.

On Dec. 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

The contractor had gotten lost on the way back to his barracks in the Green Zone and fired at least seven times when he was confronted by 30-year-old Raheem Khalaf Saadoun, an official in the vice president's office said on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation.

The contractor fled after the incident. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy, where Blackwater officials arranged to have him flown home to the U.S., said American officials.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said earlier this year the company was cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department and the FBI. She declined to provide further details.

In May, Blackwater guards under contract to the State Department were involved in two other shootings in Iraq.

In one, a Blackwater guard shot to death an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a security detail near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, enraging Iraqis. At the time, Tyrrell said the guard acted lawfully and appropriately, given the incident reports and witness accounts.

A day earlier, Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces exchanged gunfire on the streets of the capital. A passing U.S. military convoy intervened and stopped the fighting.

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill describes the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army.

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)

SEE:

IRAQ- THIS WAR IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION

Bad News For Bush

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout

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Capitalism and Islam

Dubai World Begins MGM Mirage Tender

Ah good old capitalism it will make a believer out of Muslim businessmen yet.

Dubai's proposed purchase of a 9.5 per cent stake, as well as a 50 per cent share in MGM's $7bn CityCenter project, for a total outlay of $5bn, stunned the gaming industry when it was announced last week.

They invest in gambling while prohibiting it to believers. Making money off the vices of the infidel.

While it won't be just another day at the office, Nevada gambling regulators say they're ready to dig into a mass of paperwork to be filed in the $5.1 billion investment that the Persian Gulf state of Dubai is making in MGM Mirage.

The deal marks the first time a state has applied for a Nevada gambling license. And the applicant is part of a Middle Eastern emirate that strictly forbids gambling for its citizens.

Notice there has been no hew and cry about Dubai World buying MGM. Nope not a peep. Of course Congress is off on holidays. But what about Lou Dobbs? Nope not a peep.

MGM needs the investment money with credit drying up because of the sub-prime melt down.

Las Vegas Not Exempt From Money Woes

A silver lining to this means the hotel workers can be assured that management will meet their contract demands. MGM Mirage workers: Unions approve contract


While on the global level it means the Gulf States, UAE, are using Dubai to create Arab capital to compete against other national capital. Since they have little in the way of military power in the region, they are amassing capital to compete with the other imperial powers.

Qatar Offers $2 Billion to Buy Nasdaq’s Share in London Stock Exchange

SABIC Concludes Purchase of GE Plastic Business

They are using their capital to further their own political agenda in the region;Gulf’s Federation of Chambers of Commerce Welcome Free Trade with Iran

And typical of capitalism they have created a metropolis a capitol of capital in the region; Dubai.

Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Growth and Challenges of State-Sponsored Investments

A combination of an unprecedented volume of oil revenues in the last three years and a staggering American trade deficit have been the main causes of foreign exchange reserve buildup in countries around the world—specifically in the Gulf region (oil revenues) and East Asia (current account surplus). As economist Michael Pettis explains, “…it seems reasonably certain that what has powered the [globalization] boom in the last decade is the recycling of the massive U.S. trade deficit. As central banks and sovereign funds accumulate reserves as the flip side of the U.S. trade deficit, excess U.S. consumption is being converted into global excess savings.”

China and the Gulf countries, excluding Kuwait, actively ensure the growth of their respective sovereign wealth funds by holding down their exchange rates in order to retain the dollar amount of their funds, which draw on dollar-denominated oil revenues. Kuwait is the only Gulf country to have un-pegged its currency from the dollar as a measure to combat inflation. Saudi Arabia does not consider it in its interest to follow suit.

In addition to rapidly accelerating oil revenues, capital appreciation and dividends on initial country investments caused incomes to snowball long before the SWF became an investment vehicle. For instance, the father of Dubai’s current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, defied skeptics by investing a large part of the emirate’s oil revenue into developing the Jebel Ali Port in the 1970’s. The port is now one of if not the world’s busiest ports, and has firmly established Dubai as the region’s trading and transit hub.

Dubai World Ports Might Offer IPO of $4.2 Billion

On the other hand, the QE2's future is settled. Sold for $100 million, it will become a hotel permanently docked in Dubai, and many past passengers view that as a good thing.

Halliburton Spin-Off Positive

The KBR spin-off and an increased push in the Eastern Hemisphere through a headquarters in Dubai are both positive developments for Halliburton (NYSE: HAL). The spin-off of the high volume, low margin KBR business removes distractions, improves operational focus, and makes Halliburton a pure-play on the oilfield service market.

Ahmed Lotfy relocates to Dubai, strengthens Halliburton’s regional presence

Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) announced today that Ahmed Lotfy, Senior Vice President – Eastern Hemisphere, is relocating to Dubai following the opening of a second corporate headquarters office for Halliburton in the centrally located Gulf city.

Gone are the days when the oil sheikdoms simply amassed personal wealth and engaged in conspicuous consumption. Now that capital is being used to take on the imperial powers at home as the case of MGM and OMX show and by attracting their TNC's, like Halliburton, to Dubai.

Changing Patterns of Investment in the Gulf Region: The Case of Dubai

The massive increase in oil revenues in most of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait—has created unprecedented opportunities for the building of infrastructure, the provision of social services and, at the same time, for investments overseas.

These investments have been channeled through two principal pipelines—acquisition of assets and the purchase of shares in high quality financial and industrial firms. According to the London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat of August 13, the Gulf countries have channeled $140 billion into overseas investments in the last three years. In a relatively short time, some of the Gulf countries have become respectable actors on the international financial scene.

At the same time, a hospitable investment environment, the privatization of state-owned entities and the prospects of mutually profitable deals have attracted a massive influx of Western financial services and industry to the Gulf region. The opening of the real estate market for foreign investors, particularly in Dubai, has created a massive construction boom which is fueling economic growth at a rapid rate.

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the investment activities of Dubai, and how an enlightened and entrepreneurial leadership has turned what was a small desert outpost just a few decades ago into a bustling metropolis with a vigorous economy that is subject to both envy and emulation.

In contrast to the earlier oil booms of the 1970’s and 1980’s, however, these countries are not squandering their oil revenues on spending sprees, but rather are focusing on diversifying their assets and buttressing their fiscal solvency through massive investment schemes.

Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, in particular, exemplifies the investment trends of the Middle East, mostly on account of the fact that it is an investment powerhouse out of necessity. The emirate seeks to open itself to and extend its reach within international markets in order to hedge any risk it faces due to the steady decline of its oil and gas reserves, which are expected to reach depletion within twenty years. Dubai currently has a strong penchant for the real-estate sector, but is learning to thoroughly diversify its assets in its search for some high-yielding financial instruments.

The current generation of economic and industry ministers in the Gulf region is largely composed of men who began their careers in the private sector. This correlates with efforts in almost all MENA countries to increase the privatization of state-owned entities in an attempt to create an “open market” atmosphere. As the Middle East daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on August 8, 2007, an international investment firm in Kuwait noted that privatization trends in Gulf countries—which are competing amongst themselves to become the next global “financial capitol”—are reflected in the flow of private capital into publicly traded stocks and other financial instruments. In 2006 this amount totaled $7.07 billion, which was a 61.6% increase over the previous year.

The Carlyle Group LP says that the Middle East is now the “hot spot” for private equity deals, and HSBC reports that as much as one third of all project finance involves Middle Eastern projects. Dubai is a particular hub of this activity. The chief executive of oil services company Halliburton has recently opted to relocate at least part of the company’s corporate and executive headquarters from Houston to Dubai. Other prospective buyers of property in the emirate include Oracle, Cisco and Microsoft.

Expanding Horizons

While Western banking, financial and information technology industries are rapidly being drawn to the Gulf countries, Gulf investment is not necessarily giving preferential treatment to the Western hemisphere that has largely responsible for its explosion of financial power.

While it is true that various emirate companies invested $3.5 billion in the US last year, many of those same companies are also shifting their interest to Asian markets on account of the falling dollar and for the sake of diversification:

- Dubai International Capital and DIFC Investments are working to extend their reach into Pakistan, India and South Korea.

- Istithmar’s real estate arm, which is part of the Dubai World group of companies, plans to increase the 5% of its assets it has invested in Asia to 30% within five years.

- The Dubai government firm Emaar is responsible for the housing boom taking place across Asia, most recently securing a deal to construct a 1,200-hectare project, set on the pristine Mandalika Beach, estimated at $600 million in worth.

- Remaining oil exports in the Dubai are being used to help launch the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, a joint venture with Nymex that is to create a futures market for Mideast crude oil exported to Asia.

- Dubai Ports World, in its attempt to double its capacity in 10 years, is developing terminals in China, India, Vietnam and Pakistan.

These investment patterns place the Gulf region, and especially Dubai, in a unique position. As relationships increase in number and depth within certain markets, namely Iran and China, diplomatic ties with Washington and Europe will probably occasionally feel a squeeze.

SEE:

At Least It's Not Dubai Ports

Calgary Fraud Funds Dubai Boom

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Ezra Levant Does Not Speak For Me

Hey Fellow Albertan does Ezra Levant Speak For You?

Well he sure as hell does not speak for me.

Let CBC know.

Dear Eugene Plawiuk:

I write to acknowledge your e-mail which I am sharing with Sharon Musgrave, the Producer of "Politics" so that she may be aware of your concerns.

Yours truly,

Vince Carlin

Ombudsman, CBC

If you agree post this on your blog

Hey CBC

Does Not Speak For Me!

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GST Cut Falls Flat

Here is a new definition of Flat Tax.
A tax cut that lands flat, as in flat on its face.

Last year's GST cut did not stimulate increased consumer spending or the economy and, unlike some other tax cuts, will not pay for itself in the long run, a new analysis has concluded.

"Do tax cuts pay for themselves? Well, certainly the GST reduction didn't," Global Insight said in an analysis Tuesday of the costs and impact of the one-point cut in the sales tax rate by the minority Conservative government to 6% from seven last July.

"The relationship between GST revenues and consumer expenditures reveals no significant evidence of stimulated consumer spending," concluded the analysis, based on Finance Department fiscal reports that run through June 2007 -- the first 12 months since the Harper government carried through on its election promise and cut the GST.

"A cut in almost any other kind of federal government tax would have been more effective in stimulating economic growth and would have resulted in it getting more of the lost revenue back," Dale Orr, the think tank's chief economist, and author of the report, said in an interview.

Among the tax cuts that would be the most effective in stimulating economic activity and boosting future revenues would an income-tax cut, which as well as leaving people with more money to spend, would encourage them to work longer and harder to earn more, Mr. Orr said.

However, he noted that the Conservative government instead raised personal income taxes in its first budget.

"That was done specifically to finance the GST cut," Mr. Orr said.

Insured workers pay GST which was intended to address the national debt, yet we have not received any evidence that all those funds are doing that. Insured workers then pay GST for servicing the national debt, pay income taxes to fund programs and serve the national debt and then workers and employers pay down the national debt yet again through their EI premiums - not voluntary contributions!

VAT (value added tax) and GST (goods and service tax) are two of the fastest growing taxes globally, a new report launched today by PricewaterhouseCoopers demonstrates. The report, Shifting the balance –the evolution of indirect taxes, offers an insight into the growth of indirect taxes and focuses on a number of key themes such as the shift from direct to indirect taxes, barriers to business and the need for reform, litigation, and the use of technology in indirect tax compliance.

It suggests that this could reflect a global trend by governments to focus on the certainty of revenues from VAT/GST and a desire to shift compliance costs from tax authorities to businesses. The report describes how, in light of the evolution of indirect taxation, there is a further challenge not to be forgotten. VAT systems can be regressive in nature and also potentially inflationary. It recommends that governments considering the introduction of such systems to enhance global tax competitiveness, need to bear in mind measures that will ensure a level of welfare for the lower paid individual taxpayers, including the potential for applying reduced tax rates or even zero tax rates for basic goods and services or those supporting other social aims, such as relieving the burden on the elderly or disabled.

SEE

Tax Cuts For The Rich Burden You and Me

Tax Fairness For The Rich

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Quebec By-elections

As fellow blogger Gone Green In Alberta points out CTV has a media bias in its Quebec By-election polls when it comes to the Green Party.

The Greens are ahead of the Conservatives in Outremont. But you wouldn't know it from the way it is posted.

The Greens are ahead of the Liberals too, in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, again you wouldn't know it from how the poll is set up.

And the only poll that is unaffected is that of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, where they are neck and neck with the NDP.

And Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean is the only riding the NDP is not ahead of the Liberals.

It is not just NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair who is popular in Outremont, and Quebec in general, it is also Jack Layton who has scored well in polling of Quebecers.

In Quebec, support for Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe now sits at 17 percent (up 1 point), compared with 29 percent for Stephen Harper (down 3 points), 18 percent for Jack Layton (up 3 points) and 10 percent for Stéphane Dion (down 2 points).



Leader Approval. There have been some shifts in the approval ratings of the party leaders over the past three months. The proportion of Canadians approving of the job being done by Stephen Harper has fallen below the 50-percent mark for the first time since he became prime minister and now stands at 48 percent (down 6 points from March). Approval of Stéphane Dion has declined once again to 38 percent (down 2 points) and the proportion expressing disapproval of him has risen to 48 percent (up 5 points). Jack Layton has the highest approval rating of any of the party leaders at 56 percent (up 2 points), and a similar share of voters in Quebec approve of the job being done by Gilles Duceppe (53%, down 3 points). Approval of Elizabeth May has dropped three points to 42 percent.

Which leaves Dion as the dud. And it doesn't help when the dud chooses his doppelgänger to run. But then Dion has been more of a similcarum of a leader than a real leader.

The biggest loser of all, if Mulcair pulls it off, would be Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. The loss would be a devastating blow to his already shaky leadership.

"If his party underperforms, Dion -- as an untested leader -- will take the biggest hit," wrote Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert on Friday.

"By all indications, Dion's candidates in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot and Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean are not even in contention for second place."

The degree of pressure on a leader also depends to a large extent on how closely the party's candidate in a by-election is identified with the leader.

This plays heavily in Outremont because Coulon was handpicked by Dion, who also blocked Justin Trudeau from the nomination, though some Liberals maintained Trudeau would have been the party's best hope in the riding, said Antonia Maioni, director of McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada.

"Dion's claim was that he'd win back Quebec, and this is what potential Liberal voters are going to look at, and more so people in the party. If he fails to capture the riding, one of the safest Liberal seats in the province, it's not going to play well outside Quebec."

"Coulon is sort of Stéphane Dion's alter ego," said Antonia Maioni, a political scientist at Montreal's McGill University. "He's like Stéphane. An academic, quite reserved, very well spoken. And so in many ways, this is not only a by-election, but it's also a referendum on Stéphane Dion because he's chosen someone who resembles him the most."

SEE:

Rudderless Liberals

Layton and May Winners

Ms. Joe Clark

Waiting For Dion

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Sudbury And The Dinosaurs

So all those minerals that abound in Sudbury, in particular nickel, were the result of an asteroid impact, in fact a result of 298 Baptistina. The asteroid credited with wiping out the dinosaurs.

Physical and chemical evidence of the 1850 Ma Sudbury impact event in the Baraga Group, Michigan

Peir K. Pufahl, Acadia University, Earth and Environmental Science, Wolfville, Nova Scotia B4P 2R6, Canada; et al. Pages 827-830.

A catastrophic extraterrestrial impact 1850 million years ago produced the Sudbury crater, the second largest known impact site on Earth. Pufahl et al.’s discovery of debris in northern Michigan, USA, produced from this impact has provided new information regarding the nature of this event. A prominent iridium anomaly in impact-generated tsunami deposits containing shocked quartz, spherules, tektites, and accretionary lapilli demonstrate that the extraterrestrial body was a meteorite and not a comet, as previously proposed. The Sudbury event was larger than those responsible for later major extinction events, and may prove important in the evolution of early life on Earth.

Two of the three largest impact craters on Earth have nearly the same size and structure, researchers say, but one was caused by a comet while the other was caused by an asteroid. These surprising results could have implications for where scientists might look for evidence of primitive life on Mars.

Susan Kieffer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kevin Pope of Geo Eco Arc Research and Doreen Ames of Natural Resources Canada analyzed the structure and stratigraphy of the 65 million-year-old Chicxulub crater in Mexico and the 1.8 billion-year-old Sudbury crater in Canada.

Chicxulub is well preserved, but buried, and can be studied only by geophysical means, remote sensing and at a few distant sites on land where some ejecta is preserved. In contrast, Sudbury has experienced up to 4-6 kilometers of erosion, and is well exposed and highly studied by mining exploration companies because of its rich mineral resources.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, June 21, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) announces that exploration drilling at Creighton, a more than century-old nickel mine near Sudbury, province of Ontario, Canada, is confirming mineralization at depth that has the potential to extend the mine life well into the future and continue its longstanding economic contribution to its wholly-owned subsidiary, CVRD Inco Ltd. (CVRD Inco) Ontario operations.

The Creighton Deep Project, a deep mine exploration program, has the potential to almost double the proven and probable reserves at Creighton from 17 million metric tons grading 3.1% nickel and 2.5% copper to up to 32 million metric tons grading 1.9 to 2.2% nickel and 2 to 2.3% copper.

In operation since 1901, Creighton has delivered a total of 173 million metric tons over its life with an average grade of 1.52% nickel and 1.22% of copper.

Exploration and advanced exploration diamond drilling have shown significant high-grade nickel, copper and platinum group elements (PGE) mineralization between the 2,150 and 3,200 meter levels at the mine.

The exploration program continues, and three exploration stations located 1.5 kilometers have been constructed to support further economic study of the findings to date. These latest stations are excavated further into the footwall beyond current infrastructure, allowing exploration to the 3,200- meter level across the entire strike length of all ore bodies.

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Ghost

Are ghosts real? Well according to an Australian insurance company since they can't prove they aren't real they must be....

A MAN was driving home at night and had to cross a bridge, which locals swore was haunted. On his insurance claim the man said that halfway across the bridge he saw the ghost walking across the road.

He said he instinctively swerved, and ran his car off the road, writing it off. While the circumstances of the claim were bizarre, it was paid on the basis that the insurance company could not prove that ghosts do not exist.

Damn agnostic of them.

Of course insurance companies often deal with very real ghosts too. Like ghost ships. And ships some folks wished were ghosts.

Inquiry set for ghost ships plans

The scrapping of so-called "ghost ships" on Teesside is likely to move a step closer when a public inquiry is held into the controversial plans.

In 2003 Able UK Limited won a contract to dismantle, for the recovery of scrap metal, 13 former US Naval Reserve ships. The ships were to be dismantled in a 26 acre dry dock facility on the Tees Estuary.

The ships are owned by US Maritime Administration (MARAD) and had become known in the US as "ghost ships" since they were anchored for years in the James River, Virginia, without anyone on board. The name became a major factor in generating media interest.

SEE:

Congo's Ghosts

Iraqi Ghost Dance

Mulroney's Ghost

Halloween Election?

Allendes Ghost

Dion Ghost Writer

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ghost ship, insurance,, Ghost, UK, Australia

Greenspan Bitch Slaps Bush

According to the Wall Street Journal in his new biography ex Fed Chairman Greenspan, a follower of Ayn Rand, bitch slaps the Bush regime. Too bad he didn't say this when he was still Fed Chairman.

Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

Mr. Greenspan discovered that in the Bush White House, the "political operation was far more dominant" than in Mr. Ford's. "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," he writes.

And interestingly he takes no blame for the current housing crisis sub-prime melt down that he created when he was fed chairman.

Many economists say the Fed, by cutting short-term interest rates to 1% in mid-2003 and keeping them there for a year, helped foster a housing bubble that is now bursting.

Instead he blames communism, or at least the melt down of the Soviet Union.

He attributes the housing boom to the end of communism, which he says unleashed hundreds of millions of workers on global markets, putting downward pressure on wages and prices, and thus on long-term interest rates.

So it was not the Fed that brought down interest rates, or created the global capitalist boom rather it was the devolution of the Soviet Union and the massive amount of unemployed workers available world wide to drive down wages.

The wave of migrant workers now flooding Europe, like those flooding into America, created the housing boom, by being a cheap source of construction labour and as consumers of the housing.

Mr. Greenspan returns repeatedly to the far-reaching importance of communism's collapse. He says it discredited central planning throughout the world and inspired China and later India to throw off socialist policies.

As well as cheap labour in the new fordist economies of China and India, especially the formers transformation from state capitalism to monopoly capitalism directly impacted on the American and global markets more than anything he and his monetarist pals did.

Confession is good for the soul. Ironically that confession fits classic Marxism more than it does the wacky ideology of his idol Ayn Rand.

And here is another irony that the joy expressed by the monetarists over the transformation of state capitalist economies to fordist monopoly capitalism will result in more inflation, their bugaboo.

In coming years, as the globalization process winds down, he predicts inflation will become harder to contain. Recent increases in the price of imports from China and a rise in long-term interest rates suggest "the turn may be upon us sooner rather than later."

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Coral

Two interesting stories appeared this week on coral. The fact they are endangered and that they have been discovered off the Canadian East Coast.

Corals Added To IUCN Red List Of Threatened Species For First Time

"There is a common misconception that marine species are not as vulnerable to extinction as land-based species," said Roger McManus, CI's vice president for marine programs. "However, we increasingly realize that marine biodiversity is also faced with serious environmental threat, and that there is an urgent need to determine the worldwide extent of these pressures to guide marine conservation practice."

"Marine ecosystems are vulnerable to threats at all scales -- globally through climate change, regionally from El Niño events, and locally when over-fishing removes key ecosystem building blocks," said Jane Smart, head of the IUCN Species Program. "We need more effective solutions to manage marine resources in a more sustainable way in light of these increasing threats."

Scientists find trio of coral 'hot spots' off Canada's East Coast

Scientists have for the first time discovered a string of coral 'hot spots' in waters off Canada's East Coast and will use the surprising finds to press global fishing interests to steer clear of areas they say are vital marine habitats.

Canadian researchers, in a study to be released Tuesday, said they found heavy concentrations of about 30 species of coral along a stretch of the seabed that extends from the Hudson Strait off Labrador to the Grand Banks off southern Newfoundland.

Their 40-page report says three main sites serve as sanctuaries for a variety of marine animals, but are being damaged by intense fishing.

"We're recommending an immediate fisheries closure in those areas where coral concentrations can be identified within those hot spots," said Bob Rangeley of the World Wildlife Fund, which released the study.

While large scale trawler fishing is a problem for coral reefs so is offshore oil and gas exploration in countries like the Philippines.

Gov’t Selling Protected Seas to TNCs – Environmental Groups In line with its thrust of attracting foreign investments, the Arroyo government is now opening up the country’s protected seas to oil and gas exploration by transnational corporations.

In our brave new world of genetic modification coral genes have been added to tropical fish.

GlowFish - freshwater zebra fish native to Asia that have been genetically modified to express fluorescent proteins so they glow red, green or yellow. The genes come from a coral and an anemone.

And ancient coral reefs are being studied because of the impact that volcanic global warming had millions of years ago on the extinction of almost all life on earth.

In 1991, scientists reported that the largest known volcanic event in the past 600 million years occurred at the same time as the end-Permian extinction. Magma extruded through coal-rich regions of the Earth's crust and blanketed a region the size of the continental United States with basalt to a depth of up to 6 kilometers. The eruptions that formed the Siberian Traps not only threw ash, debris and toxic gases into the atmosphere but also may have heated the coal and released vast quantities of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Rapid release of these greenhouse gases would have caused the oceans first to become acidic and then to become supersaturated with calcium carbonate. In the July Bulletin, Payne presents evidence that underwater limestone beds around the world eroded at the time of the end-Permian extinction. This finding, coupled with geochemical evidence for changes in the relative abundances of carbon isotopes, strongly suggests an acidic marine environment at the time of the extinction. The rock layers immediately covering this eroded surface include carbonate crystal fans, which indicate oceans supersaturated with calcium carbonate.

More than 90 percent of all marine species disappeared from the Great Bank of Guizhou and other end-Permian fossil formations 250 million years ago. Land plants and animals suffered similar losses. Douglas Erwin, curator of the Paleozoic invertebrates collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, has dubbed this event "the greatest biodiversity crisis in the history of life." An unusually long period of time passed before biological diversity began to reappear.

"This end-Permian extinction is beginning to look a whole lot like the world we live in right now," Payne said. "The good news, if there is good news, is that we have not yet released as much carbon into the atmosphere as would be hypothesized for the end-Permian extinction. Whether or not we get there depends largely on future policy decisions and what happens over the next couple of centuries."

Reef communities are a sort of canary in the mineshaft, Payne explained. Today, coral reef health is considered a measure of environmental stability. When stressed by environmental conditions, the algae that inhabit the reef leave, and the reef loses color-and one reason why algae might leave is temperature. For example, when ocean temperatures rise during El Niño years, corals bleach. This type of immediate response to environmental change is hard to track in the geologic record.

The climate change deniers will probably blame El Nino and El Nina for this.

In mid-2007, scientists announced the results of an examination of the geological record of coral reefs in the Caribbean, dating back over 3,000 years.

Using core samples from the coral, these scientists found that – for thousands of years – reefs grew rapidly. But, since about 1980, reef-building has faltered.

Richard Aronson: The kinds of changes that we’ve seen over the last several decades are unprecedented on a scale of at least several thousand years.

That’s Rich Aronson of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. He said that reef cover – the percentage of living coral on a reef – has shrunk from covering about 50 % to 10 % of Caribbean reefs since the late 1970s.

Threats to coral come from water pollution – from destructive fishing with dynamite – from carbon-based greenhouse gases, which can acidify the ocean and stunt coral growth and from warmer ocean waters causing coral bleaching.

Another recent study found a nearly identical trend in the much broader Indo-Pacific region, which contains 75% of the world’s coral reefs.

Canada's Coral Museum on Video.ca

Welcome to Canada's Coral Museum which turned out to be the greatest coldwater coral museum in the entire world. Canada had more coral on our East Coast than 11 Great Barrier Reefs but we destroyed it all in our mindless quest for fishsticks while we blamed seals and handliners for the disaster. Too bad nobody helped and I only run the very sucessful museum for a few months.


See:

Strange Sea Creatures

Climate Catastrophe In Ten Years

They Walk Among Us

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Stating The Obvious

Oh dear what are the reactionary right wing climate change deniers going to do now?

The White House has finally admitted the obvious after years of being in denial.

George Bush's top scientific advisor has delivered the strongest statement yet from within the US administration that greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity are to blame for climate change.

Professor John Marburger said it was more than 90 per cent likely that mankind was causing global warming and that the earth may become "unlivable" without reductions in CO2 output.

"I think there is widespread agreement on certain basics, and one of the most important is that we are producing far more CO2 from fossil fuels than we ought to be," he told the BBC.

"And it's going to lead to trouble unless we can begin to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we are burning and using in our economies."

Of course its one thing to admit the obvious and another to do something about it.

The federal office that oversees the nation's research on global warming is inadequate on many levels and some of its tools are falling apart, according to a critique issued yesterday by a committee of the National Research Council.

Lack of new investment would mean that “U.S. capability to monitor trends, document the impacts of future climate change and further improve prediction and assimilation models . . . will decline even as the urgency of addressing climate change increases,” said the report, which focused on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

The bleak assessment was led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate and atmospheric scientist at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

It is the second major study released in recent days that denounced the U.S. government's handling of global warming. The other, written by the Government Accountability Office, blamed the Bush administration for doing little to address how climate change is altering the nation's lands and waters.

It's unclear whether such criticisms will gain traction at the White House, which has been faulted for years for not making global warming a priority.

SEE:

APEC Is Not Kyoto

No Rush

Michael Crichton Climate Change Denier

Industrial Ecology

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