USA-Somali Refugee Sentenced in Vermont for Child Rape

ΤΑ ΚΑΛΑ ΤΑ ΔΙΚΑ ΜΑΣ!

Somali Refugee Sentenced in Vermont for Child Rape

By Brenda Walker
Somalis are among the most undesirable, culturally inappropriate immigrants you could find. Yet Washington keeps them coming — more than 83,000 in 25 years as counted by Refugee Resettlement Watch.
Why is that? Fraud was the ticket some used until DNA testing was brought in.
Let’s review some of their behaviors and cultural traits: they are unassimilated Muslims who follow violent sharialaw, practice polygamy and slice off the private parts of their little girls (aka FGM, with a prevalence of 98% in Somalia).
Some young men have returned to their homeland to pursue jihad against the impure, and astute members of the Senate have recognized that a Somali fifth column is a terror threat to this country.
With that background in mind, consider the crime committed by Ali Abdi(pictured), that of raping a nine-year-old girl, for which he was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Man sentenced for Burlington assault, Burlington Free Press, June 3, 2010
A Burlington man who jumped bail and fled Vermont the night before a jury found him guilty of aggravated sexual assault on a 9-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years to life in prison for the assault.
Ali Abdi, a Somali Bantu refugee, was sentenced by Vermont District Judge Patricia Zimmerman.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said the sentence responded to a “horrific crime” against a girl who has “really been ostracized from her community.” The conviction is a deportable offense, Donovan said, but his understanding is that Abdi will likely serve his sentence in a U.S. prison before the federal government brings any deportation action.

The comment that the girl has “been been ostracized from her community” indicates the victim was Somali also.
Another report noted how crimes against girls are accorded little importance in Somali society.

Somali refugee leader sentenced, WCAX News, June 2, 2010
Ali Abdi, a leader in the Somal Bantu community in Burlington, was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years to life in prison for sexual assault on a nine year old girl, despite pleas to the judge from two of his children.
Abdi had taken off during his trial, and was captured out of state. The jury was not told he ran away. He was convicted.
Abdi’s lawyer argued that the case has to be viewed as different from others, because Abdi comes from a different cultural background. Erik Smart told the judge that Abdi fled Somalia and spent thirteen years in a refugee camp before arriving in Burlington. Smart says the Somali Bantu community has forgiven Abdi.
“I would venture to say this community views this crime differently than our own community would,” Smart told the court.
Prosecutor Susan Hardin argued that cultural differences do not excuse a crime.
“It is critical that the Somali Bantu community and all the others in Chittenden County be sent a very clear message: if you sexually assault our children, there will be severe consequences,” Hardin said.

One example of the disrespect women and girls face in Somali culture is how rape victims may be executed under sharia law…

Somali Girl Raped and Stoned to Death UN Dispatch, November 12, 2008
It doesn’t get worse than this. Last week, 13-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death in Somalia by insurgents because she was raped.
Reports indicate that was raped by three men while traveling by foot to visit her grandmother in conflict capital, Mogadishu. When she went to the authorities to report the crime, they accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death. Aisha was forced into a hole in a stadium of 1,000 onlookers as 50 men buried her up to the neck and cast stones at her until she died.
When some of the people at the stadium tried to save her, militia opened fire on the crowd, killing a boy who was a bystander.

So how exactly is Somali diversity supposed to benefit American society? I must be missing something.
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P. Buchanan: Lift the Siege of Gaza

June 03, 2010

Lift the Siege of Gaza

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In June 1948, our wartime ally imposed a blockade on Berlin, cutting off and condemning to death or Stalinist domination 2 million Germans, most of whom, not long before, had cheered Adolf Hitler.

Harry Truman responded with the Berlin airlift, in perhaps the most magnanimous act of the Cold War.

For nine months, U.S. pilots flew into Tempelhof, carrying everything from candy to coal, saving a city and earning the eternal gratitude of the people of Berlin, and admiration everywhere that moral courage is admired.

That was an America that lived its values.

And today, President Obama should end his and his country's shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life.

Time to start acting like America again.

That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean last Sunday was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel.

Israel claims, and film confirms, that its commandos rappelling down onto the Turkish ship were attacked with sticks and metal rods. One was tossed off a deck, another tossed overboard into a lifeboat.

But that 2 a.m. boarding of an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles at sea, was an act of piracy. What the Israeli commandos got is what any armed hijacker should expect who tries to steal a car from a driver who keeps a tire iron under the front seat.

And the response of these highly trained naval commandos to the resistance they encountered? They shot and killed nine passengers, and wounded many more.

But we have a blockade of Gaza, say the Israelis, and this flotilla was a provocation. Indeed, it was. And Selma was a provocation. The marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge were disobeying orders of the governor of Alabama and state police not to march.

Yet, today, liberal Democrats who regard Martin Luther King as a moral hero for championing nonviolent civil disobedience to protest injustice are cheering not the unarmed passengers trying to break the Gaza blockade, but the Israelis enforcing the blockade.

Where were these fellows when "Bull" Connor really needed them?

Comes the retort: Israel is a friend and ally, and we stand with our friends.

But is not Turkey a friend and ally of 50 years, whose soldiers died alongside ours in Korea and who accepted Jupiter missiles targeted on Russia, even before the Cuban missile crisis? Was it not Turkey whose citizens were wounded and killed in the bloody debacle?

Why are we not at least even-handed between our friends?

On the trip to Israel where he was blindsided by news that Israel would build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, Joe Biden told Shimon Peres, "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."

And that is the problem.

America is a superpower with interests in an Arab world of 300 million and an Islamic world of 1.5 billion -- interests Israel treats with indifference if not contempt when it comes to doing what she regards as necessary for her security.

While Israel had a right to build a wall to protect her people from terror attack, did she have a right to build it on Palestinian land?

While Israel had a right to go after Hezbollah when her soldiers were shot on the border and several kidnapped, did Israel have a right to conduct a five-week bombing campaign that smashed Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians and creating upward of a million refugees?

While Israel had a right to go into Gaza to stop the firing of crude rockets on Sderot, did she have a right to smash utilities and public buildings and kill 1,400 people, most of them civilians?

Is whatever Israel decides to do in the name of her security fine with us, because there is "absolutely no space"between our interests and hers, our values and Israel's values?

Even with Winston Churchill's Britain, there was "space" between us on strategic goals and national policies.

Israel has a right to secure Gaza to deny Hamas access to weapons, especially rockets that could reach Israel. But that does not justify denying 1.5 million people what they need to live in decency.

According to The Washington Post, "80 percent of the population (of Gaza) depends on charity. Hospitals, schools, electricity systems and sewage treatment facilities are all in deep disrepair."

With our silence, we support this. And we wonder why they hate us.

Obama should tell the Israelis that Joe got it wrong. There is space between us. The Gaza siege must end. And America will herself be sending aid, but will also support Israel's right to inspect trucks and ships to see to it no weapons get through to Gaza.

Let's start behaving like who we once were.

Image of the Day: The Ghost Snake of the Milky Way

June 04, 2010

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/06/image-of-the-day-the-ghost-snake-of-the-milky-way.html#more

Image of the Day: The Ghost Snake of the Milky Way

 

A cosmic snake appears to slither across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The snake-like object  located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius is actually the core of a thick, sooty cloud large enough to swallow dozens of solar systems and may be harboring beastly stars in the process of forming. 

"The snake is an ideal place to hunt for massive forming stars as they have not had time to heat up and destroy the cloud they are born in," said Dr. Sean Carey, of NASA's Spitzer Science Center. 

Spitzer was able to spot the sinuous cloud using its heat-seeking infrared vision. The object is hiding in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy, invisible to optical telescopes. Because its heat, or infrared light, can sneak through the dust, it first showed up in infrared images from past missions. The cloud is so thick with dust that if you were to somehow transport yourself into the middle of it, you would see nothing but black, not even a star in the sky.

Spitzer's new view of the snake provides the best view of what lurks inside. The yellow and orange spots located on and around it are massive stars just beginning to take shape. The bright red spot located on its belly is a monstrous stellar embryo, with about 20 to 50 times the mass of our sun. 

Astronomers say these observations will ultimately help them better understand how massive stars form. By studying the clustering and range of masses of the stellar embryos, they hope to determine if the stars were born in the same way that our low-mass sun was formed -- out of a collapsing cloud of gas and dust -- or by another mechanism in which the environment plays a larger role.

The Mystery of Mars' Moon Phobos

June 03, 2010

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/06/the-mystery-of-mars-phobos-deepens-experts-ask-a-captured-asteroid-or-artificial-object-1.html#more

You Couldn't Make This Up Dept: The Mystery of Mars' Moon Phobos Deepens

The origin of Mars' tiny moon, Phobos (fear in ancient Greek), is a mystery, but three theories are considered plausible. The first is that the moon is a captured asteroid; the second is that it formed in-situ as Mars formed below it, and the third is that Phobos formed later than Mars, from debris flung into martian orbit when a massive meteorite struck the Red Planet. A fourth, far more speculative and controversial (although thoroughly intriguing) theory is one that has been kicking around for decades: that Phobos is a artificial object in Mars orbit -in short, a 1.5-mile-long, extremely ancient and battered spacecraft. 

The European Space Agency Mars Express past and future Phobos flybys are designed to provide clues that might solve the mystery of its origins.  

A small, odd shaped object, Phobos orbits about 9  km from the center of Mars, closer than any other known planetary moon. Phobos is one of the least-reflective bodies in the solar system, that appears to be 1/3rd hollow and features a large impact crater, Stickney crater. It orbits so close to the planet that it moves around Mars faster than Mars itself rotates. Phobos's orbital radius is decreasing and it will eventually either impact the surface of Mars or break up into a planetary ring.

The next Phobios Mars Express flyby will come in August 2010, with nine flybys within 1200 km from Phobos. The closest approach will be about 403 km over Phobos' night side, on 24 August 2010. Then, between December 2010 and January 2011, 10 flybys are planned, with the closest one coming within 96 km of the moon's dayside, on 9 January 2011.

The powerful cameras, spectrometers and other instruments on Mars Express can glean amazing details; repeated flybys will augment coverage of the surface of Phobos, help confirm or improve previous findings, complement existing data sets, and possibly even make new discoveries.

In describing the internal geometric structure of this "moon" as revealed by MARSIS,  ESA sources repeatedly emphasized that "several of these interior Phobos compartments also appear to still be holding some kind of atmosphere ...."

The source repeated this several times ... raising all kinds of fascinating questions regarding "how" the radar could, in fact, determine this -- that some of the vast "rooms" inside Phobos (remember "from a quarter to half-a-mile in diameter ...") were "maintaining an internal pressure."

Image from the recent flyby of Phobos, on 7 March 2010 is shown above. The images show Mars’ rocky moon in exquisite detail, with a resolution of just 4.4 metres per pixel. They show the proposed landing sites for the forthcoming Phobos-Grunt mission.

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft orbits the Red Planet in a highly elliptical, polar orbit that brings it close to Phobos every five months. It is the only spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars whose orbit reaches far enough from the planet to provide a close-up view of Phobos.

Like our Moon, Phobos always shows the same side to the planet, so it is only by flying outside the orbit that it becomes possible to observe the far side. Mars Express did just this on 7, 10 and 13 March 2010. Mars Express also collected data with other instruments.  

Phobos is an irregular body measuring some 27 × 22 × 19 km. Its origin is debated. It appears to share many surface characteristics with the class of ‘carbonaceous C-type’ asteroids, which suggests it might have been captured from this population. However, it is difficult to explain either the capture mechanism or the subsequent evolution of the orbit into the equatorial plane of Mars. An alternative hypothesis is that it formed around Mars, and is therefore a remnant from the planetary formation period.

In 2011 Russia will send a mission called Phobos–Grunt (meaning Phobos Soil) to land on the martian moon that will enable to make in-situ observations with an important payload which should operates on the surface for one year. Moreover, it will collect samples which will be sent back on Earth for precise analyses. 

 

The mission main objectives are to solve the following :

-the origin of Phobos in relation with the study of the primitive matter,

-its evolution in relation with Mars,

-the role of the asteroids impacts in the formation of the planets and in the evolution of their  atmosphere, their crust and in the inventory of the volatile elements.

Some of the more fascinating, and wild speculative theories swirling around the Phobos Gunt Mission at sites like EnterpriseMission.com  see it as  "the single most important scientific mission in the history of  the past half-century of modern solar system exploration .... with Phobos as an ancient solar system relic from an extraordinarly distant, pre-human, apparently solar-system-wide ancient high-tech civilization. One that could ultimately turn out to be directly related to our own.

It is expected that Earth-based ESA stations will take part in controlling Phobos-Grunt, receiving telemetry and making trajectory measurements, including implementation of very long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). This cooperation is realized on the basis of the agreement on collaboration of the Russian Federal Space Agency and ESA in the framework of the Phobos-Grunt and ExoMars projects (see post above). 

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the unusual orbital characteristics of Phobos led to speculations that it might be hollow. Around 1958, Russian astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky, studying the secular acceleration of Phobos' orbital motion, suggested a "thin sheet metal" structure for Phobos, a suggestion which led to speculations that Phobos was of artificial origin. Shklovsky based his analysis on estimates of the upper Martian atmosphere's density, and deduced that for the weak braking effect to be able to account for the secular acceleration, Phobos had to be very light.

The density of Phobos has now been directly measured by spacecraft to be 1.887 g/cm³,[4] which is inconsistent with a hollow shell. In addition, images obtained by the Viking probes in the 1970s clearly showed a natural object, not an artificial one, and the "hollow Phobos" speculations have been relegated to the status of a historical curiosity

However, mapping by the Mars Express probe and subsequent volume calculations do suggest the possible presence of vast caverns within the moon and indicate that it is not a solid chunk of rock but a porous body instead. The porosity of Phobos was calculated to be 30% ± 5%, or a quarter to a third of the moon being hollow, likely in the form of large voids.

In a July 22, 2009 interview with C-Span U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin said: "We should go boldly where man has not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit Phobos, a moon of Mars. There’s a monolith there. A very unusual structure on this potato shaped object that goes around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out about that they’re going to say ‘Who put that there? Who put that there?’ The universe put it there." 

Casey Kazan via ESA

 

New NASA Mars Discovery: Evidence of an Ancient Environment Favorable for Life

June 04, 2010 - 

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/06/new-nasa-mars-discovery-evidence-of-an-ancient-environment-favorable-for-life.html#more

New NASA Mars Discovery: Evidence of an Ancient Environment Favorable for Life

The image left was taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Rover Spirit shows the rock dubbed "Pot of Gold" (upper left), located near the base of the "Columbia Hills" in Gusev Crater. Scientists were intrigued by this unusual-looking, nodule-covered rock and investigated its detailed chemistry. To the right is a set of rocks referred to as "Rotten Rocks" for their resemblance to rotting loaves of bread. 

The "Pot of Gold" rock outcrop that Spirit Mars Rover examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water indicated by this find was not acidic; hence, it was favorable as a habitat for life.

"This is one of the most significant findings by the rovers," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the Mars twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and a co-author of the new report. "A substantial carbonate deposit in a Mars outcrop tells us that conditions that could have been quite favorable for life were present at one time in that place." 

Spirit inspected rock outcrops, striking a bonanza at one the NASA scientists named Comanche, along the rover's route from the top of Husband Hill to the vicinity of the Home Plate plateau. Magnesium iron carbonate makes up about one-fourth of the measured volume in Comanche. That is a tenfold higher concentration than any previously identified for carbonate in a Martian rock.

"We used detective work combining results from three spectrometers to lock this down," said Dick Morris, lead author of the report and a member of a rover science team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston."The instruments gave us multiple, interlocking ways of confirming the magnesium iron carbonate, with a good handle on how much there is."

Massive carbonate deposits on Mars have been sought for years without much success. Numerous channels apparently carved by flows of liquid water on ancient Mars suggest the planet was formerly warmer, thanks to greenhouse warming from a thicker atmosphere than exists now. The ancient, dense Martian atmosphere was probably rich in carbon dioxide, because that gas makes up nearly all the modern, very thin atmosphere. It is important to determine where most of the carbon dioxide went. Some theorize it departed to space. Others hypothesize that it left the atmosphere by the mixing of carbondioxide with water under conditions that led to forming carbonate minerals. That possibility, plus finding small amounts of carbonate in meteorites that originated from Mars, led to expectations in the 1990s that carbonate would be abundant on Mars. However, mineral- mapping spectrometers on orbiters since then have found evidence of localized carbonate deposits in only one area, plus small amounts distributed globally in Martian dust.

"It was like looking through dirty glasses," said Steve Ruff of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., another co-author of the report. "We could tell there was something very different about Comanche compared with other outcrops we had seen, but we couldn't tell what it was until we developed a correction method to account for the dust on the mirror."

Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument detected a high concentration of light elements, a group including carbon and oxygen, that helped quantify the carbonate content.

The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last three months. Spirit has been out of communication since March 22 and is in a low-power hibernation status during Martian winter. Opportunity is making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavour, which is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) away.

Casey Kazan via NASA

Image of the Day: The Ghostly Beauty of a Dark Globule & Star Birth

June 03, 2010 - 

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/06/image-of-the-day-the-dark-monster-.html#more

Image of the Day: The Ghostly Beauty of a Dark Globule & Star Birth

   

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a glowing stellar nursery within a dark globule that is opaque at visible light. These new images pierce through the obscuration to reveal the birth of new protostars, or embryonic stars, and young stars never before seen. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is an elongated dark globule within the emission nebula IC 1396 in the constellation of Cepheus. Located at a distance of 2,450 light-years, the globule is a condensation of dense gas that is barely surviving the strong ionizing radiation from a nearby massive star. The globule is being compressed by the surrounding ionized gas.

Within the Dark Globule in IC 1396, a half dozen newly discovered protostars are easily discernible as the bright red-tinted objects, mostly along the southern rim of the globule. These were previously undetected at visible wavelengths due to obscuration by the thick cloud and by dust surrounding the newly forming stars. The newborn stars form in the dense gas because of compression by the wind and radiation from a nearby massive star (located outside the field of view to the left). The winds from this unseen star are also responsible for producing the spectacular filamentary appearance of the globule itself, which resembles that of a flying dragon. The Spitzer Space Telescope also sees many newly discovered young stars, often enshrouded in dust, which may be starting the nuclear fusion that defines a star. These young stars are too cool to be seen at visible wavelengths. Both the protostars and young stars are bright in the mid-infrared because of their surrounding discs of solid material. A few of the visible-light stars in this image were found to have excess infrared emission, suggesting they are more mature stars surrounded by primordial remnants from their formation, or from crumbling asteroids and comets in their planetary systems.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/W. Reach (SSC/Caltech)

Is there Life on Saturn's Moon,Titan? NASA Asks...

Is there Life on Saturn's Moon,Titan? NASA Asks...

"Titan's atmospheric chemistry is cranking out organic compounds that rain down on the surface so fast that even as streams of liquid methane and ethane at the surface wash the organics off, the ice gets quickly covered again. All that implies Titan is a dynamic place where organic chemistry is happening now."

Roger Clark, a Cassini Mission scientist

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, which some scientists believe are chemical signatures that point to a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized "methane-based life."

One key finding comes from a paper online now in the journal Icarus that shows hydrogen molecules flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Another paper online now in the Journal of Geophysical Research maps hydrocarbons on the Titan surface and finds a lack of acetylene, which is important because that chemical would likely be the best energy source for a methane-based life on Titan, said Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, who proposed a set of conditions necessary for this kind of methane-based life on Titan in 2005. 

One interpretation of the acetylene data is that the hydrocarbon is being consumed as food. But McKay said the flow of hydrogen is even more critical because all of their proposed mechanisms involved the consumption of hydrogen.

"We suggested hydrogen consumption because it's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth," McKay said. "If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth."

To date, methane-based life forms are only hypothetical. Scientists have not yet detected this form of life anywhere, though there are liquid-water-based microbes on Earth that thrive on methane or produce it as a waste product. 

On Titan, where temperatures are around 90 Kelvin (minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit), a methane-based organism would have to use a substance that is liquid as its medium for living processes, but not water itself. Water is frozen solid on Titan's surface and much too cold to support life as we know it.

The list of liquid candidates is very short: liquid methane and related molecules like ethane. While liquid water is widely regarded as necessary for life, there has been extensive speculation published in the scientific literature that this is not a strict requirement.

The new hydrogen findings are consistent with conditions that could produce an exotic, methane-based life form, but do not definitively prove its existence, said Darrell Strobel, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., who authored the paper on hydrogen.

Strobel, who studies the upper atmospheres of Saturn and Titan, analyzed data from Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer and ion and neutral mass spectrometer in his new paper. The paper describes densities of hydrogen in different parts of the atmosphere and the surface. Previous models had predicted that hydrogen molecules, a byproduct of ultraviolet sunlight breaking apart acetylene and methane molecules in the upper atmosphere, should be distributed fairly evenly throughout the atmospheric layers.

Strobel found a disparity in the hydrogen densities that lead to a flow down to the surface at a rate of about 10,000 trillion trillion hydrogen molecules per second. This is about the same rate at which the molecules escape out of the upper atmosphere.

"It's as if you have a hose and you're squirting hydrogen onto the ground, but it's disappearing," Strobel said. "I didn't expect this result, because molecular hydrogen is extremely chemically inert in the atmosphere, very light and buoyant. It should 'float' to the top of the atmosphere and escape."

Strobel said it is not likely that hydrogen is being stored in a cave or underground space on Titan. The Titan surface is also so cold that a chemical process that involved a catalyst would be needed to convert hydrogen molecules and acetylene back to methane, even though overall there would be a net release of energy. The energy barrier could be overcome if there were an unknown mineral acting as the catalyst on Titan's surface.

The hydrocarbon mapping research, led by Roger Clark  based at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, examines data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. Scientists had expected the sun's interactions with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene that falls down to coat the Titan surface. But Cassini detected no acetylene on the surface.

In addition Cassini's spectrometer detected an absence of water ice on the Titan surface, but loads of benzene and another material, which appears to be an organic compound that scientists have not yet been able to identify. The findings lead scientists to believe that the organic compounds have sealed the water ice that makes up Titan's bedrock with a film of hydrocarbons at least a few millimeters to centimeters thick, but possibly much deeper in some places. The ice remains covered up even as liquid methane and ethane flow all over Titan's surface and fill up lakes and seas much as liquid water does on Earth.

The absence of detectable acetylene on the Titan surface can very well have a non-biological explanation, said Mark Allen, principal investigator with the NASA Astrobiology Institute Titan team. Allen is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Allen said one possibility is that sunlight or cosmic rays are transforming the acetylene in icy aerosols in the atmosphere into more complex molecules that would fall to the ground with no acetylene signature.

"Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed," Allen said. "We have a lot of work to do to rule out possible non-biological explanations. It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results - for example, reactions involving mineral catalysts."

"These new results are surprising and exciting," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. "Cassini has many more flybys of Titan that might help us sort out just what is happening at the surface."

Casey Kazan via NASA/JPL.

Gaza flotilla: Turkey threat to Israel ties over raid

Page last updated at 11:35 GMT, Friday, 4 June 2010 12:35 UK

The killings have shocked and angered many in Turkey

Turkey has warned it may reduce economic and defence ties with Israel following the deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.

Deputy PM Bulent Arinc said Ankara was "assessing deals with Israel", once its close ally.

Nine Turkish activists were killed when Israeli troops clashed with passengers on a ship trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza on Monday.

Another aid ship - the Rachel Corrie - is on its way to the Hamas-run enclave.

Israel has been widely criticised over the raid, which took place in international waters.

There are conflicting reports as to what happened - the activists say they were attacked, while Israel says its commandos were beaten, stabbed and shot at first.

Israel says it will not allow the ships to dock at Gaza, fearing the cargo might contain weapons and other items it wants to prevent reaching Hamas.

'High emotion'

Mr Arinc said on Friday that all military and economic deals made with Israel were now being re-evaluated, although he suggested no action would be taken immediately.

"We are serious about this subject," he told NTV broadcaster.

The MV Rachel Corrie is carrying items banned by Israel

"We may plan to reduce our relations with Israel to a minimum, but to assume everything involving another country is stopped in an instant, to say we have crossed you out of our address book, is not the custom of our state."

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul says Mr Arinc has made it clear that there will be long-term consequences over what happened on the aid ships.

The government will be able to consider what action to take against Israel once the emotions of recent days - as Turkey mourns the dead activists - calms down, our correspondent says.

Thousands turned out in Istanbul on Thursday for the funeral services of eight of the victims.

The youngest of the dead activists, 19-year-old Furkan Dogan - who was born in the US but moved to Turkey as a child - is being buried in his hometown of Kayseri in central Turkey on Friday.

Banned materials

Meanwhile, the MV Rachel Corrie aid ship is heading towards the coast of Gaza, aiming to break the Israeli blockade.

Activists on board told the BBC's Andrew North in Jerusalem by telephone that they were about 150 miles (240km) away and aimed to arrive just outside Israel's 20 mile (30km) exclusion zone off Gaza by Saturday morning.

They said there are 20 people on board, including five Irish nationals, six Malaysians and nine crew members.

One of the activists, former Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Maguire, said their humanitarian aid shipment includes cement and construction materials - items banned by Israel.

Israel has made it clear it will not allow the ship - named after a US college student who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she protested about house demolitions in Gaza - to dock in the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli government has instead offered to take the aid in by land, once it has checked there is nothing in the shipment that can be used for weapons.

After Monday's deadly assault on the six other aid ships, Israel's response is being closely watched, our correspondent says.

Mairead Maguire told him that they plan to sail all the way in to Gaza, but will show no resistance or violence if Israeli forces stop them and board the ship.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10236884.stm

BP lowers cap on to leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well

Page last updated at 11:51 GMT, Friday, 4 June 2010 12:51 UK

BP lowers cap on to leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well

Oil firm BP has lowered a cap on to a leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, in the hope of piping some of the oil to ships on the surface.

Video footage showed the cap lowered into place against pressure from escaping oil and gas.

BP said some oil had started flowing up the pipe attached to the cap, but it could take the rest of the day to determine how much.

The US Coast Guard said the cap would only be a temporary, partial fix.

Live underwater video footage from the site on Friday showed quantities of oil still escaping into the sea.

BP's latest attempt to cap the well followed mounting criticism from US President Barack Obama

He told CNN that he had not seen "the kind of rapid response" to the disaster that he would have liked and that BP had already "felt his anger" over the spill.

He said was "furious at this entire situation".

Mr Obama has for the second time postponed a trip to Australia, Indonesia and Guam, in order to deal with the crisis.

He is due to visit the gulf later on Friday - his third trip to the area since the leak began six weeks ago.

BP's share price rose 4% in early European trading.

Chief executive Tony Hayward is to hold a conference call with investors, which will be available to the public on the company's website, from 1400 BST (1300 GMT).

ATTEMPT TO CAP OIL LEAK

After removing the pipe, a cap was lowered onto the LMRP. The aim is for oil to be funneled through the cap to the surface. A previous attempt with a larger funnel was blocked by frozen hydrates so this time methanol is being used as "anti-freeze".

BACK4 of 4NEXT

Mr Hayward is expected to try to reassure investors.

BBC economics correspondent Andrew Walker says one key question is whether BP will pay shareholders its dividend as normal.

He says if it does, this will go down very badly in the US, where pressure is mounting for BP to retain the cash for the clean-up.

Mr Hayward has said the results of the latest capping effort should be known later on Friday.

BP IN NUMBERS

Continue reading the main story

• Profits in 2009: $13.96bn
• Clean-up costs so far: $990m
• Estimated cost of sand barrier project: $360m
• Dividend payment 2009: $10.5bn
• BP scheduled to make a first-quarter dividend payment to shareholders on 21 June
• At its worst, BP saw 34% wiped off its value

Just how angry are people at BP?In pictures: Oil spill's impact

BP said it would need 12-24 hours of readings to determine whether or not the cap was working because of the uneven flow of oil and gas from the leak.

Chief operating officer Doug Suttles said on Friday: "There is flow coming up the pipe. Just now, I don't know the exact rate."

BP has said it does not expect to be able to fully halt the oil flow until August, when two relief wells will be completed.

In the first phase of the latest effort to contain the spill, robots cut a leaking pipe.

BP then used giant shears manipulated by undersea robots to snip off the end of the pipe, after a diamond-edged saw failed to do the job.

A funnel-like cap has been placed on top, which if successful, would improve oil recovery and BP would hope to collect the oil on a surface ship above the well.

The US Coast Guard said the placement of the cap was a positive development, but that it would be "some time before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment".

Mr Hayward acknowledged that what engineers were doing had never been tried before, and said there were many challenges ahead.

The White House has been under increasing pressure to show the administration is in control of the response and clean-up efforts.

The government said on Thursday it would send a $69m (£47.1m) bill to BP for expenditure incurred from its response to the spill.

BP estimates that the disaster has so far cost the company about $990m.

A "top kill" procedure, which had been considered the best hope for plugging the leak, failed over the weekend.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leased to BP, exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10233891.stm

P. Krugman-Did The Postwar System Fail?

MAY 24, 2010, 3:31 PM

Did The Postwar System Fail?

I’ve been posting about the contrast between the popular perception on the right that America had slow growth until Reagan came along, and the reality that we did fine pre-Reagan, in fact better; see here, here, and here. And what I’m getting as a common response — including from liberals — is something along the lines of, “That’s all very well, but by 1980 the postwar system was clearly failing, so what would you have done instead of Reaganomics?”

Which all goes to show just how thoroughly almost everyone has been indoctrinated by the current orthodoxy.

How do we know that the postwar system was failing? Yes, there were some bad years — largely due to oil shocks — and there was stagflation. But stagflation was not, as far as I know — and as far as standard textbook economics says — the result of high taxes and/or excessive regulation; it was a problem of monetary policy. It’s a testimony to the strength of supply-side propaganda that so many people think they know differently.

And how bad were those bad years, anyway? Well, let’s look at real median family income over two 8-year stretches, 1973 to 1981 and 2000 to 2008, in each case with income in the first year set to 100:

Census

Funny, isn’t it? The Ford-Carter years look no worse — in fact, somewhat better — than the Bush years, especially if you look from business cycle peak to business cycle peak. And that was in the face of two very severe oil shocks. So a question for all the people who say that the economic troubles under Jimmy Carter discredited postwar economic policies: why don’t the troubles under Bush similarly discredit post-Reagan policies? Funny how that works.

Here’s what I think: inflation did have to be brought down — and Paul Volcker, not Reagan, did what was necessary. But the rest — slashing taxes on the rich, breaking the unions, letting inflation erode the minimum wage — wasn’t necessary at all. We could have gone on with a more progressive tax system, a stronger labor movement, and so on.

In the modern vision, the old US economy is seen as an absurd, unworkable thing. Where were the incentives to grow super-rich? How did you manage with all those well-paid, organized workers? But I’m old enough to remember that system, and it was no more unworkable than what we have now. Radical change happened because a powerful political movement wanted it, not out of economic necessity.

P. Krugman-We’re Not Greece

Reprints

May 13, 2010

We’re Not Greece

By PAUL KRUGMAN

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the crisis in Greece is making some people — people who opposed health care reform and are itching for an excuse to dismantle Social Security — very, very happy. Everywhere you look there are editorials and commentaries, some posing as objective reporting, asserting that Greece today will be America tomorrow unless we abandon all that nonsense about taking care of those in need.

The truth, however, is that America isn’t Greece — and, in any case, the message from Greece isn’t what these people would have you believe.

So, how do America and Greece compare?

Both nations have lately been running large budget deficits, roughly comparable as a percentage of G.D.P. Markets, however, treat them very differently: The interest rate on Greek government bonds is more than twice the rate on U.S. bonds, because investors see a high risk that Greece will eventually default on its debt, while seeing virtually no risk that America will do the same. Why?

One answer is that we have a much lower level of debt — the amount we already owe, as opposed to new borrowing — relative to G.D.P. True, our debt should have been even lower. We’d be better positioned to deal with the current emergency if so much money hadn’t been squandered on tax cuts for the rich and an unfunded war. But we still entered the crisis in much better shape than the Greeks.

Even more important, however, is the fact that we have a clear path to economic recovery, while Greece doesn’t.

The U.S. economy has been growing since last summer, thanks to fiscal stimulus and expansionary policies by the Federal Reserve. I wish that growth were faster; still, it’s finally producing job gains — and it’s also showing up in revenues. Right now we’re on track to match Congressional Budget Office projections of a substantial rise in tax receipts. Put those projections together with the Obama administration’s policies, and they imply a sharp fall in the budget deficit over the next few years.

Greece, on the other hand, is caught in a trap. During the good years, when capital was flooding in, Greek costs and prices got far out of line with the rest of Europe. If Greece still had its own currency, it could restore competitiveness through devaluation. But since it doesn’t, and since leaving the euro is still considered unthinkable, Greece faces years of grinding deflation and low or zero economic growth. So the only way to reduce deficits is through savage budget cuts, and investors are skeptical about whether those cuts will actually happen.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that Britain — which is in worse fiscal shape than we are, but which, unlike Greece, hasn’t adopted the euro — remains able to borrow at fairly low interest rates. Having your own currency, it seems, makes a big difference.

In short, we’re not Greece. We may currently be running deficits of comparable size, but our economic position — and, as a result, our fiscal outlook — is vastly better.

That said, we do have a long-run budget problem. But what’s the root of that problem? “We demand more than we’re willing to pay for,” is the usual line. Yet that line is deeply misleading.

First of all, who is this “we” of whom people speak? Bear in mind that the drive to cut taxes largely benefited a small minority of Americans: 39 percent of the benefits of making the Bush tax cuts permanent would go to the richest 1 percent of the population.

And bear in mind, also, that taxes have lagged behind spending partly thanks to a deliberate political strategy, that of “starve the beast”: conservatives have deliberately deprived the government of revenue in an attempt to force the spending cuts they now insist are necessary.

Meanwhile, when you look under the hood of those troubling long-run budget projections, you discover that they’re not driven by some generalized problem of overspending. Instead, they largely reflect just one thing: the assumption that health care costs will rise in the future as they have in the past. This tells us that the key to our fiscal future is improving the efficiency of our health care system — which is, you may recall, something the Obama administration has been trying to do, even as many of the same people now warning about the evils of deficits cried “Death panels!”

So here’s the reality: America’s fiscal outlook over the next few years isn’t bad. We do have a serious long-run budget problem, which will have to be resolved with a combination of health care reform and other measures, probably including a moderate rise in taxes. But we should ignore those who pretend to be concerned with fiscal responsibility, but whose real goal is to dismantle the welfare state — and are trying to use crises elsewhere to frighten us into giving them what they want.