"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream" - E. A. Poe
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -Teddy Roosevelt
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."
- attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic" (1776)
"If there is any hope for America, it lies in revolution. And if there is any hope for revolution, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara." - Phil Ochs
Women are 4 times more likely to be the victims of a sexually motivated murder than men, but men are 10 times more likely to be the murderers. That's just the way it is.
"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?" -The Buddha
"We need above all, to be shaken out of our indifference — the greatest source of danger in the world…For, remember, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. The opposite of faith is not arrogance but indifference; the opposite of art is not ugliness but indifference. And the opposite of peace is indifference to both peace and war — indifference to hunger and persecution, to imprisonment and humiliation, indifference to torture and persecution." - Eli Wiesel
"Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in
his facts." - Bernard Baruch
Achtung! Das machine ist nicht fur gerfingerpoken und mittengraben. Ist easy schnappen der pringenwerk, blowenfusen, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dumkopfen, das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in der pockets, relaxen und watchen der blinkenlights.
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[This photo, released by the European Space Agency (ESA), shows an Envisat ASAR mosaic of images of the Arctic Ocean for early September 2007, clearly showing the most direct route of the Northwest Passage open (orange line) and the Northeast passage only partially blocked (blue line).(AFP/ESA-HO)]
PARIS (AFP) - The Northwest Passage, the dreamed-of yet historically impassable maritime shortcut between Europe and Asia, has now fully opened up due to record shrinkage of Arctic sea ice, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday.
It released a mosaic of images, taken in early September by a radar aboard its Envisat satellite, which showed that ice retreat in the Arctic had reached record levels since satellite monitoring began in 1978.
"We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around three million square kilometres (1.158 million square miles), which is about one million square kilometres (386,000 sq. miles) less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006," said Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Centre.
"There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq. km. (38,600 sq. miles) per year on average, so a drop of one million sq. km. (386,000 sq. miles) in just one year is extreme."
The most direct route of the Northwest Passage across northern Canada is "fully navigable", while the so-called Northeast Passage along the Siberian coast "remains only partially blocked," ESA said in a press release.
The previous record low was in 2005 when the Arctic area covered by sea ice was four million sq. km. (1.54 million sq. miles). Even then, the most direct Northwest Passage did not become fully open, ESA said.
On August 10, US Arctic specialist William Chapman of the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana said that Arctic sea ice cover had already plunged to the lowest levels measured, 30 days before the normal point of the annual minimum.
Scientists under the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have warned that the Arctic is one of the most vulnerable areas for global warming.
In its 4th Assessment Report issued this year, the IPCC predicted the Arctic would be virtually ice-free by mid-2070; other experts believe this could happen as soon as 2040, driven by a phenomenon called albedo.
Albedo is the reflectivity of light. Because sea ice has a bright surface, the majority of solar energy that strikes it is reflected back into space.
When sea ice melts, the dark-coloured ocean surface is exposed. Solar energy is then absorbed by the sea rather than reflected, so the oceans get warmer and temperatures rise, thus making it difficult for new ice to form.
The dramatic loss of sea ice over the past few years has prompted jockeying among countries bordering the Arctic Ocean over navigation routes and the rights to its mineral-rich seabed.
