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7. august 2007
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After facing tough criticism over a de facto independent Talibanistan, Pakistani government forces have launched an attack on two bases in the area.
Government forces attacked two militant bases with helicopter gunships and artillery Tuesday in some of the army's toughest action in the lawless Afghan border region since militant attacks began surging last month.
Spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said troops targeted a pair of compounds in Daygan, a village 10 miles west of North Waziristan's main town of Miran Shah, after they received credible intelligence that militants were there.
Hopefully this was more than a one-off to silence criticism, but I'm afraid that is exactly what it was.
Can we credit Barack Obama with this attack?
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban attempts a rare frontal attack, and gets its asses handed to them.
A group of 75 Taliban militants tried to overrun a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a rare frontal attack that left more than 20 militants dead, the coalition said in a statement.
They do better against Korean missionaries.
6:57:25 PM 
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Climate models are about as accurate in forecasting the effects of global warming as next month's weather.
Climate models may never produce predictions that agree with one another, even with dramatic improvements in their ability to imitate the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans. That's the conclusion of a report by James McWilliams, an applied mathematician and earth scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. The mathematics of complex models guarantees that they will differ from one another, he argues. Therefore, says McWilliams, climate modelers need to change their approach to making predictions.
All climate models predict that the Earth will continue to warm, but when pressed to provide more detailed information, they rarely agree. The best predictions vary by 10 to 20 percent or more. For some phenomena, the variations are even more dramatic. For instance, climate models disagree on whether dry spells will, on average, lengthen or shorten.
A more basic test of models' reliability than their agreement with one another is their ability to reproduce past climate patterns. They're not fully able to do this either.
All we need to know is something Real Bad will happen unless we all our money to the UN to save us.
4:57:54 PM
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Nukes are the best way to deal with an Earth-bound asteroid, NASA thinks.
"Flight International reports that scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center have developed designs for an array of asteroid interceptors wielding 1.2-megaton B83 nuclear warheads. The hypothetical mission for these designs is based on an Apophis-sized Earth impactor 2 to 5 years out. According to NASA, 'Nuclear standoff explosions are assessed to be 10-100 times more effective [at deflection] than the non-nuclear alternatives analyzed in this study."
It has been noted by others that it would be a supreme irony if nuclear weapons, that has threatened our very existance for so many years, actually saved us all from disaster.
4:54:09 PM
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Has Russia just conducted a military attack on Georgia?
Russia committed an "act of aggression" against Georgia by firing a missile at its territory, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili has said.
Georgian officials say the missile hit the village of Tsitelubani, about 65km (40 miles) west of the capital Tbilisi, but did not explode.
Senior Russian officials have moved quickly to deny all of the accusations.
Weird.
7:32:37 AM
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Two men initially stopped for speeding had pipe bombs in their car.
Authorities say two Middle Eastern men arrested near a Navy base had several pipe bombs in their car.
Authorities say 24-year-old Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed and 21-year-old Yousef Samir Megahed were charged Monday with possession of an incendiary device.
An FBI spokeswoman says a joint state-federal investigation is under way to see if there was any terrorism connection but no link had been found yet. The Navy base is the site of a brig where enemy combatants have been held.
The pipe bombs may have been intended for some "normal" criminal conduct. The men insists the bombs were to be used as fireworks. The FBI has found no terrorist link. We will see.
7:29:50 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.09.2007; 12:35:12.
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