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kenmcd weighed in with post re conflict of interest, as core Mambo developer selling component that generates SEF URLs. (Since that developer – Saka – has moved to Joomla!, I’ve read of Mambo improving the URLs…)
I followed with this:
kenmcd – I’d not mentioned that, tho occurred to me; does seem to me that good URLs should be pivotal for an open source cms.
[A while ago, I remember someone pointing out that maybe not right to have Mambo “out of the box” demo that relied partly on commercial component, SEF Advance. This wasn’t case last time I checked demo.]Here’s hoping that strong URLs become part of the core. Maybe, say, Xaneon with some improvements, if ok w Xaneon developer? Assuming he can be contacted – seems the poor chap all but vanished after lack of pizza.
(While for people who’d like links to a given item to behave differently, as now – so needing different ids – maybe have as option.
Or, stick to just one URL, for the power in simplicity.)Editing in, lest of interest to people viewing this thread:
Just added to a wishlist post I made re one URL per item –
Item on W3C is headed Cool URIs (URLs) don’t change.
Has some reasoning for this; also potential excuses – like “we just reorganized our website”, “we had to move some files”…
With top-notch URLs built into Mambo, wouldn’t be extra excuses like: “I run Mambo, and I just upgraded my Mambo version”, “I run Mambo, and just switched to another technique for generating URLs”Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/11/01 09:35
A report for UK govt, by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist for the World Bank, tells of massive, extremely expensive potential impacts from global warming – on a par with impacts of world wars or Great Depression. Possible to avert the worst impacts, but only if we take major action (yeah, right, like that’s gonna happen!).
Potential effects include melting glaciers, rising sea levels – a major cause of displacing millions of people, major extinctions, and severe economic impacts. To avert these, wise to spend on counter-measures, even if around 1% of global GDP.
Summary – and links to more info – on BBC site at:
At-a-glance: The Stern Review
The world has to act now on climate change or face devastating economic consequences, according to a report compiled by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government.Quote:A surveillance study conducted over the past year by the Forestry
Ministry has found that migrating flocks of birds are not carrying
strains of avian influenza.The H5N1 virus has so far only been found in either domesticated or
farming poultry, says the Forestry Ministry’s conservation for
biological resources director, Adi Susmiyanto.The ministry has been studying migratory and wild birds in locations
and clusters prone to bird flu in the hopes of identifying the
prevalence of the virus in the wild fowls.Migrating flocks declared H5N1-free – Jakarta Post
No sooner have I posted re health officials and stupidity re H5N1, than see David Nabarro, senior UN coordinator for anti-influenza activities, spouting forth:
Quote:He said in a note of optimism that North America had escaped the bird flu epidemic because of the 'very intense monitoring' system in the US and Canada of birds migrating from Siberia to Alaska and beyond in the Western Hemisphere.UN says worldwide cooperation may have thwarted bird flu spread
:ohmy: What a ridiculous comment re monitoring stopping bird flu (part of a desperate attempt to save face; for this wasn't human pandemic, and indeed wild birds not carrying for long-cited reasons). If it worked, he could solve global warming by giving out lots of thermometers, and having people note temperatures over time. Heck, with this monitoring stopping disasters notion, he could be on to something; Nobel prizes galore. But really, he and other fools don't even deserve Ig Nobels.
Quote:The world – especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil – will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts.
But the prediction of a future of nasty extreme weather also includes fewer freezes and a longer growing season.
In a preview of a major international multiyear report on climate change that comes out next year, a study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research details what nine of the world’s top computer models predict for the lurching of climate at its most extreme.
“It’s going to be a wild ride, especially for specific regions,” said study lead author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the federally funded academic research center.
Tebaldi pointed to the Western U.S., Mediterranean nations and Brazil as “hot spots” that will get extremes at their worst, according to the computer models.
And some places, such as the Pacific Northwest, are predicted to get a strange double whammy of longer dry spells punctuated by heavier rainfall.
…
“Extreme events are the kinds of things that have the biggest impacts, not only on humans, but on mammals and ecosystems,” Meehl said. The study, to be published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, “gives us stronger and more compelling evidence that these changes in extremes are more likely.”
The researchers took 10 international agreed-upon indices that measure climate extremes – five that deal with temperature and five with precipitation – and ran computer models for the world through the year 2099. What Tebaldi called the scariest results had to do with heat waves and warm nights. Everything about heat waves – their intensity, length and occurrence – worsens.
“The changes are very significant there,” Tebaldi said. “It’s enough to say we’re in for a bad future.”Latest global warming study predicts ’wild ride’ of droughts, heavy rain
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/10/21 09:53
Quote:Now, with the disease still centered in Asia and the failure of migratory birds to spread the illness to Europe and North America, the H5N1 virus has dropped out of the media spotlight. The dearth of coverage has prompted some to think that the threat of a pandemic has passed. Health officials were surprised when flocks of migratory birds that had flown south to Africa and then back to Europe last spring didn't carry the H5N1 virus as expected. Neither did birds that wintered in Asia and flew to Alaska last summer to breed. International bird monitors also found no widespread deaths from the virus among migratory birds. Many experts now think that wild migratory birds are only bit players in the spread of the disease.More likely culprits are humans who clean, feed and house infected domestic birds and those who prepare infected birds and transport them to commercial markets, said Rick Kearney, wildlife program coordinator with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Migratory birds may contract the disease and continue in their migration, but they clearly don't play a major or single role in spreading the disease," Kearney said.
Deadly bird flu not forgotten by U.S health officials
prompted me to send email to some folks interested in h5n1 and wild birds:
Just helps show the prevalence of stupidity regarding the H5N1 and wild birds issue. (And the effectiveness of smokescreen from poultry industry, obscuring real issues; rather as some in energy industry befuddling people re global warming; and before them, cigarette makers obfuscated re dangers of smoking.) I could of course say I told you so, but what the heck. (Not much from Robert Webster, say, lately. No repeat, for instance, of his notion that bird flu will kill half the world population. Bah!) Natural selection still works. But, ideas it doesn't have helped some people pocket money and keep quiet about actual science. Should be ashamed, but I doubt it, not when there are "debates" about evolution, global warming; Bush's war on science has proven sadly effective.
HUNTING AND AVIAN FLU PROBLEM IN VOLOGDA REGION In fall 2006 hunting season for monitoring of the avian flu purpose 70 samples of the wild ducks and geese was taken. All give negative results. According “Russian Hunting Newspaper” cancellation of the hunting on ducks, implemented in spring 2006, give limited positive results for amount of this birds in fall. Reason – wide scale “avian flu” preventive measures, when hundreds of wild birds was shoot without any place and time limits. Journalist hope, this officially supported wide scale poaching will not happen again.
Quote:By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The world is not doing enough to combat global warming which, left unchecked, could trigger a mass movement of people and have serious consequences for security, the United Nation’s environment chief said on Thursday.
“For those of us who look at the science and look at the indicators, it’s not enough yet, but it is more than we would have hoped for maybe a few years ago,” Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said.
In an interview with Reuters, he raised the possibility of climate refugees and the huge disruption this could cause.
Experts have said that millions of people in densely populated, low-lying, developing countries such as Bangladesh and parts of China, Indonesia and Vietnam might be forced to move by rising sea levels.
In the South Pacific, this has already begun to occur in some low-lying islands.
“If global warming trends continue at the moment, and the models suggest that they are and maybe doing so more rapidly, they will have significant impact on where people can live, grow food and whether people will have to leave,” he added.
“We will have disease spreading and it will have implications in terms of global trade, perhaps,” Steiner said in an interview on the sidelines of a maritime protection forum in Beijing.INTERVIEW-Refugees, disease big risk from global warming -U.N.
Quote:… the challenge of tackling climate change could create a market of up to £30bn for British business over the next ten years.The research also identifies major opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises in a wide range of markets, by both responding to consumer demand for environmentally friendly goods and to demands created by government action. The biggest identified markets for SMEs in 2010 will be:
Building regulations for commercial and industrial use – £950m
Renewable electricity – £800m
Renewable road transport fuels – £500m
Domestic energy efficiency – £400m
Building regulations for domestic use – £275m
…New report on business and climate change for Shell Springboard
Some time ago, an H5N1 outbreak in Lhasa was traced to poultry from Lanzhou.
Lanzhou since seemed a potential source for further outbreaks in nw China.This just in from a correspondent; also perhaps interesting:
Regarding China’s recent outbreaks in Baotou and Yinchuan, thought you may find the following info of interest (I wonder if they will be traced back to Lanzhou again).
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/18/content_570839.htm
Quote:Railway
Yinchuan Railway Station lies 6 kilometers east to the development zone, 102 kilometers north to the dividing-line station between Lanzhou and Huhhot Railways. The railway from Baotou to Lanzhou runs through the Yinchuan city from north to south, and connects the city with the nation’s arterial railways, through which cargos can be conveyed to the nation’s major coastal ports and to the Middle East and European countries.See also this map:
China Travel Map – Railways and Train StationsPost edited by: martin, at: 2006/10/10 02:51
Quote:The discussion, which was held by National Geographic Indonesia, concluded that migratory birds were not to blame for the movement of bird flu.A vet from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, I Wayan Teguh Wibawa, said separate studies had shown there was no proof anywhere in the world that migratory birds carried the virus.
Studies of migratory birds in Malaysia, China and Australia that have been carried out over the past six years have shown no migrant birds in the three regions had the H5N1 virus, he said.
Wayan, who is also a member of the National Commission for Bird Flu, said that the poultry trade was the most likely cause of the spread of the virus to 29 of Indonesia’s 33 provinces.
Cats can carry bird flu, study says [link no longer works; see next post]
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/10/12 01:19
Quote:earlier this year, officials in the Canadian Inuit territory of Nunavik authorized the installation of air conditioners in official buildings for the first time. …
experienced Inuit hunters, as comfortable reading ice conditions as professional golfers are reading greens, had seldom fallen through the ice and drowned. But this year in Alaska, more than a dozen vanished into the sea.
… “The ice conditions are just so drastically different from all of their hunting lifetimes.”
,,,
The people of this far northern Canadian hamlet of 250 used to hunt eider ducks every summer, using the meat and eggs for food and the soft feathers for clothing. But this past summer was the third in a row that the Inuit couldn’t reach the nesting grounds because the ice around them was too thin.The seals have changed, as well.
…
Wayne Davidson, the resident meteorologist in Resolute Bay for 20 years, says monthly temperatures throughout the year are 5 to 11 degrees higher than recent historical averages. For example, Davidson said, the average daily temperature last March was minus 13.4 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with an average of minus 24.2 degrees from 1947 to 1991.
…
“There’s almost nobody left anymore who doesn’t accept that global warming is real.”It certainly feels real enough to the people of Resolute Bay. From their perch on the edge of the Barrow Strait, they watched this summer as the waters of their rocky bay melted and filled with drifting icebergs – a view as depressing as it was picturesque, because in years past the water remained frozen solid enough to traverse aboard sleds and snowmobiles to their traditional hunting grounds.
“The heat of the sun is different now,” said Kalluk, the village elder, trying to make sense of the changes. “I think there is global warming, because snow that has never melted before is starting to melt now.”
Azerbaijani bird flu monitoring results announced
Azerbaijan’s Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry in conjunction
with Agriculture and Health Ministry has announced the results of the
next bird flu monitoring in the country, the Ministry told the APA.The symptoms of bid flu have not been detected in any of the blood
samples taken from different wild birds during this monitoring. The
monitoring covered Absheron, Aggol, Shirvan National Parks,
Gizilagach State Reserve, Sarvan in Devechi region. /APA/The US is set to begin experiments on storing carbon dioxide below ground, especially in underground saline aquifers; might be one way we can burn our coal and keep earth from warming too much.
Quote:The same rock chambers that held oil and natural gas for millions of years also locked up carbon dioxide. For 30 years, the oil and gas industry has pumped carbon dioxide into waning oil fields to get at the last drops. By some estimates, those depleted deposits alone could hold 20 to 30 years of carbon dioxide released from all U.S. coal-fired power plants.
Coal beds that are too deep or otherwise uneconomical to mine also could hold billions of tons of carbon dioxide, while releasing methane back to the surface as an energy supply.
But the biggest reservoirs are deep, saline aquifers that underlie the Midwest, the Southeast and places like the Central Valley, some as ancient as the emergence of multi-cellular organisms and plants on the Earth and many times saltier than the ocean.
Those underwater seas are big and numerous enough to hold at least 100 years worth of U.S. emissions from all large stationary sources, from refineries to power plants to steel factories.Back in my univ days in the UK, used to hear of the “Loony Left” for some political types with daft ideas. In UK, not sure how should call the rightwingers – Rabid Righties? – who seem oblivious to facts and commonsense (we know CO2 asorbs heat emitted after sun heats the earth; so add more, and earth is likely to get warmer – err, which part of this can’t you understand, rabid ones?)
Just read of a republican senator, Jim Inhofe, who’s someohow on senate environmental committee, giving blustering speech saying global warming isn’t real.
Over at ThinkProgress – CNN Fact Checks Inhofe’s Diatribe Against Global Warming Sci, there’s a blog post inc link to CNN item showing Inhofe was factually incorrect. CNN notes that in recent five-year period, Inhofe received US$850,000 from oil and gas industries.See also a post on blog at Grist Magazine:
Inhofe’s speech and right-wing global warming myths
– comments posted there include quote from book, The Republican War on Science:Quote:There may be no other issue today where a corruption of the necessary relationship between science and political decision-making has more potentially disastrous consequences. And together, Jame Inhofe and the Bush administration have made that corruption systematic and complete.Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/10/01 03:32
In the littoral the measures for the preventive maintenance of the bird influenza strengthened
In connection with the autumnal migration of birds in the territory
of Primorskiy Kray the measures for the preventive maintenance of
bird influenza are intensified. From July through September the
specialists of boundary veterinary service took more than 1 100 tests
of the blood in wild, migratory and poultry from the different
regions of littoral. Not one case of the disease of feathered by bird
influenza it is revealed.Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/09/28 03:36
Hi Werner:
Thanks for the message; good to know you’re spreading word about bird fly being over-hyped, and much silliness.
I’ve seen notions that Ruegen outbreak might be linked to research institute there.
Vogelgrippe auf Rügen: Ist das Virus aus dem Labor spaziert?Risk of pandemic mutation looks tiny, if mean to a dangerous virus (another thread here, on evolutionary biology, has much info on this; seems to me natural selection keeps on working so far).
Best regards,
MartinBritain’s most distinguished scientific academy – the Royal Society – has a good section on warming, with plenty of info, inc debunking climate change myths (as propounded by some sectors of energy industry, and cronies).
Climate ChangeQuote:LONDON — Britain’s leading scientific academy has accused oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. of misleading the public about global warming and funding groups that undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. The Royal Society said Wednesday that it had written to Exxon asking it to halt support for groups that have “misrepresented the science of climate change.” …Scientists Chide Exxon on Global Warming
The Royal Society website has a section on global warming, inc debunking the apparently contradictory obfuscation from the sceptics. Climate change: evidence and causes
With certain officials still trying to persuade us that H5N1 is a great threat to humanity, even as numbers of human deaths remain low, the Mr Neutron analogy still looks valid.
Also, of course, brings back memories of dire warnings re Y2K bug:Quote:“The only difference between now and six months ago is not that the problem doesn’t exist, it is perhaps headline writers have got used to it,” he [David Nabarro, WHO avian flu coordinator] told reporters when asked if bird flu had turned into the Y2K of the viral world.Fears of mass computer breakdowns due to glitches associated with Y2K, the turn of the millennium in 2000, proved unfounded.
Quote:The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has finally found the culprit behind blood poisoning that has caused 179 villagers to be hospitalized in Northwest China’s Gansu Province.The lead smelter in the vicinity of the victimized village in Huixian county has had its production license revoked, and the SEPA has promised that the culprit and the local watchdog will both be punished.
Further investigations will be conducted on the contaminated soil around the plant, and the Ministry of Health has joined hands with the local health department in treating the poisoned villagers.
What has happened to this plant and the villagers is a repetition of the mode of economic growth at the expense of the environment in most parts of the eastern region.
This suggests that the development of the west, at least in some places, is facing the same imperative choice between the environment and economic growth.
…
The too-painful lesson is that the villagers and decision-makers were too blinded by immediate gains to have a far-reaching vision about the impact of environmental pollution.A local official was quoted as saying that most of the industrial projects attracted to the county have environmental problems. It was almost impossible to lure high-tech projects to such a poor county.
It seems that those poor localities in the west must choose between a clean environment and economic growth. Do they have another way out? We need an answer to this question for the development of the western region.
The US – home to the loudest global warming sceptics (and a more than fair number of idiots) – is warming, according to new report from PennEnvironment.
Quote:In the summer of 2006, Americans from coast to coast experienced a sweltering heat wave that broke more than 2,300 daily temperature records in July alone. This record warmth, however, was not an anomaly; rather, it is indicative of a broader trend toward increasing temperatures and extreme weather resulting from global warming. To examine recent trends in temperature in cities and towns across the United States, this report analyzes 2000-2006 temperature data from 255 major weather stations and finds that temperatures were above normal almost everywhere during the period.
…
Between 2000 and 2005, the average temperature was above normal at 95% of the locations we studied. Alaska experienced the most warming on average, with Talkeetna reporting average temperatures 4.6° F above normal. Outside of Alaska, weather stations in Colorado, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming reported the highest above-normal temperatures for the period.During the first six months of 2006, the average temperature was above normal at 91% of the locations.
…Executive summary, and link to full report (pdf) at:
Feeling the Heat: Global Warming and Rising Temperatures in the United StatesQuote:By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment CorrespondentWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Arctic perennial sea ice — the kind that stays frozen year-round — declined by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005, climate scientists said on Wednesday, in what one expert saw as a clear sign of greenhouse warming.
Researchers have been monitoring the shrinking polar ice cap with satellites since the 1970s. What is new, and remarkable to scientists, is that the decline has been observed in winter as well as summer.
“The greenhouse phenomenon is actually becoming apparent in the Arctic,” said Josefino Comiso of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington DC. “The winter warming signal is finally coming out.”
…Claims the sun’s output is varying, leading to global warming, looking more threadbare after study just out, showing output "varied by only 0.07 percent over 11-year sunspot cycles, far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution."
Study says global warming isn’t sun’s fault Analysis disputes claims that solar radiance is behind rising temperatures
Quote:It’s hard at first to get your head around the idea, indeed it seems outlandish: that by switching on the light, or stamping on the car accelerator, you’re helping to pulverise a great city such as New Orleans.But that’s the inescapable implication of a piece of research published yesterday by a group of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists. Freak storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Big Easy a year ago, are not just freaks, they suggest. They are down to us.
Warmer seas causing more violent hurricanes and typhoons are almost certainly the result of greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude; they are caused, ultimately, by the carbon dioxide from the power station that provides your electricity, from the exhaust of the car you drove to work this morning.
…
The 19 scientists, from America, Britain and Germany, include James Hansen of Nasa, the doyen of American climate change researchers, and Professor Phil Jones from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia at Norwich.They said that, in a comprehensive investigation, they had found an 84 per cent probability that human triggers accounted for most of the observed increases in sea surface temperatures (SSTs), during the past century, in the breeding grounds for hurricanes (as they are called in the Atlantic) and cyclones (as they are known in the Pacific).
Here’s summary of paper on Centers for Disease Control site:
Quote:Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 expanded considerably during 2005 and early 2006 in both avian host species and geographic distribution.Domestic waterfowl and migratory birds are reservoirs, but lethality of this subtype appeared to initially limit migrant effectiveness as introductory hosts. This situation may have changed, as HPAI H5N1 has recently expanded across Eurasia and into Europe and Africa.
Birds could introduce HPAI H5N1 to the Western Hemisphere through migration, vagrancy, and importation by people. Vagrants and migratory birds are not likely interhemispheric introductory hosts; import of infected domestic or pet birds is more probable.
If reassortment or mutation were to produce a virus adapted for rapid transmission among humans, birds would be unlikely introductory hosts because of differences in viral transmission mechanisms among major host groups (i.e., gastrointestinal for birds, respiratory for humans). Another possible result of reassortment would be a less lethal form of avian influenza, more readily spread by birds.
Birds and Influenza H5N1 Virus Movement to and within North America
From Jakarta Post:
Quote:Chicken manure seized in AmbonAMBON, Maluku: Fearing the spread of bird flu, the livestock
quarantine station in Ambon on Thursday ordered two tons of chicken
manure from South Sulawesi to be burned.The station’s head, I Putu Terunanegara, said authorities were always
on guard against bird flu. He added that the efforts were working
with Maluku province still free from the virus.“But the bird flu virus will remain a threat to places which are not
yet affected,” Putu told The Jakarta Post.The manure was confiscated Saturday as soon as it arrived in the city
from Makassar aboard a ship. It was to be sold to farmers as
fertilizer.– signalling some awareness of potential risks from chicken manure.
Quote:Asia’s killer bird flu virus is coming and could reach the United States as early as this fall, an expert said this week.How prevalent it is will depend on how the strain mutates, said Sharon Medcalf, associate director of the Center for Biopreparedness Education in Omaha.
“Most of our experts are saying it’s not a matter of if, but when,” she said during a program at Broadway United Methodist Church. “But I’m an optimist. We don’t know what that mutation is going to produce.”
Eventually, the virulent H5N1 strain will be carried into North America and the United States – probably by migratory birds, Medcalf said.
“We anticipate seeing H5N1 coming down when birds come back during migration this fall or this winter,” she said.
Ho hum… :whistle:
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/09/09 11:04
Following the “compost effect” notions, news that carbon is being released more quickly from some northern lakes:
Quote:By Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.
As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Nature.Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.
Scientists are fretting about a global warming vicious cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already underway thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.
…
The effect reported in Nature is seen mostly in Siberia, but also elsewhere, in a type of carbon-rich permafrost, flash frozen about 40,000 years ago.
…“It’s kind of like a slow-motion time bomb,” said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the Science study. “There’s these big surprises out there that we don’t even know about.”
Scientists find new global warming threat from melting permafrost
Quote:The world faces a catastrophic rise in global warming in 2050 unless urgent action is taken to cut human-induced carbon emissions, a leading academic warned yesterday.Professor Peter Cox, of Exeter University, told the Royal Geographical Society annual conference that temperatures could rise 8C by 2100 because of a “compost effect” which could see carbon dioxide levels increase 50 per cent faster than previously estimated.
Currently, around one quarter of carbon emissions are absorbed by the soil and one quarter by the oceans. It had previously been assumed that these proportions would remain the same. But Professor Cox said that global warming is damaging the soil’s ability to absorb carbon emissions.
Changing climate: ‘Compost effect’ may cause global warming to reach crisis point in 2050
