Although Mr. Obama has vowed that his long-term goal is eliminating nuclear weapons, there are significant disagreements about how fast and how deep reductions might be made while guaranteeing America’s security in a world in which other nations maintain nuclear arsenals, others might be tempted to build them — and bomb-making knowledge can never be erased.
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2012: NASA's Scientific Reality Check | Universe Today - 0 views
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I'm learning more about 2012 right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is: Should we as a society, put our beliefs into Mayan predictions, or should we believe Scientists just because they have information to back up their facts?I was researching this question online, and this blog post caught my attention because it speaks about the reality of science and whether or not we should believe in it. It also speaks about the Mayan calender. This specific source sparked my interest because lately, with Hollywood coming out with new movies about 2012, the thought of the world coming to end has constantly been bothering me. I had a strong urge to find out the truth. "The Mayan calendar does not end in December 2012. Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period, but then - just as your calendar begins again on January 1 - another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar." The quote I chose here basically tries to persuade us by saying that the Mayan Calender ending on the year 2012 is a hoax. The author of this posts believes that even after the calender ends, just like any of the calenders that we have at home, it will start itself new again. I think this is very captivating because it makes me really wonder. It makes me wonder about all remarks people are making, what society thinks about this, and if there are any evidence that are being hidden from society. I hope as we go further into the years, scientists will dig out more information to support the theory so when the day comes, I won't have to hide under my bed and panic.
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Pentagon Checks Arsenal in Race for Nuclear Treaty - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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“It’s like the operation of a very high-end restaurant kitchen. It may look chaotic, but beautiful things come out of it.”
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Mr. Obama laid out his vision in April, declaring in Prague that he would “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” and urge other countries to do the same, with the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear arms altogether.
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Clive Thompson on the New Literacy - 0 views
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The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it's over something as quotidian as what movie to go see. The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because it had no audience but the professor: It didn't serve any purpose other than to get them a grade.
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This part of the article seems particularly relevant to our work in Youth Voices: "In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it's over something as quotidian as what movie to go see."
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Book The Curious Incident of [...] | Evening Post; Bristol (UK) Newspaper | Find Articl... - 0 views
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"Christopher, 15, has Aspergers Syndrome. Read this book and you'll misunderstand the world like him. He understands maths and science but can't get his logical mind around the science of human beings. He doesn't understand many emotions and he hasn't got the grasp of why people do what they do." I read the book. But that time I had no idea what this disorder was so I didn't understand the character very well. But now that I have a little idea about this disorder I understand why he was acting different.
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'World of Warcraft:' An Online Treasure Hunt : NPR - 0 views
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this is my favroite podcast of all. because i been playing this game for a week and yes indeed i agree is highly addictive. is way too good i cant get it off my mind. i cant really do my home work because i keep on playing this game however now i try to keep my balance between these games i try to be better at studying and playing the game at the same time hopefully i wont be one of those guys who play games all day well i mean i wont play games all day to turn into one of those because i know that plying mmorpg game is an orpg game and i play like crazy so hopefully i will stop playing because i do feel that i pay too much warcraft even though is jsut my forst week. is amazingly addictive and i regret buying the game because now i'm additected to the game hopefully i can be off the game soon well not completely off the game like remeber to play and study but not to remind myself to play everyday. is a great game im a current warlock who kills moster who are higher than my level. i soon have to take math b in jan and i need to start study soon so im goign to be studying and playing at the same time i though that this is a way to improve myself to be a better person and move foward because i know that i have to learn more knowledge each day in order to be a better human being i'm going to try and learn more everyday along with balanceing the games in so mixture of both would be a great combnation studying while playing games. thank you for looking at my thing because this is probally the one podcast that i like the most and it made me reliaard how hard i fell into teh game on the first week.
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It's Simple! Experience An Amazingly Real Lucid Dream! | Day To Day Tips - 0 views
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This is a detailed article about lucid dreaming and how fun it is for a person to experience it. Being able to lucid dream is like entering another dimension where weird is normal and life is extraordinary. I've never actually experienced lucid dreaming, but what I do know that Lucid dreaming is one of the funnest experiences a person can enjoy. The article states,"You can open your own doorway to some amazing experiences by learning and mastering the practice of Lucid Dreaming. Imagine if you will, having the ability to meet and interact with famous people, taking fantastic sci-fi adventures, visiting galaxies far away, creating and manipulating fantasy worlds and touring them or ruling them, and even finally having your dream job or hobby without all the work or mess to get there! You can even meet lost loved ones or distant relatives since anything is possible with your lucid dreaming imagination!" How wonderful will it be to be able to do all of those stuff? You know how sometimes when your mother forces you to go to sleep but you don't want to because you want to finish playing a video game or finish chatting with your favorite person? Some people don't enjoy sleeping because they believe that sleeping is a waste of time. However, if those people actually knew how it felt to be lucid dreaming, wouldn't they have the urge to go to sleep every night? It will be like an adventure waiting for you...Some people may be unhappy with their lives, but with the help of lucid dreaming, anything you want is possible ! ( in your dreams of course) So you're probably wondering, does everyone have the ability to lucid dream?Well yes of course ! With the help of technological developments, it is now possible for everyone to lucid dream. Others will tell you to try different foods such as pickles, ice cream, fish, popcorn etc because they swear by the ability of these foods to produce the right conditions for lucid dreaming. From another article that I've read, there are ways
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Why playing in the virtual world has an awful lot to teach children | Technology | The ... - 0 views
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If we are to understand the 21st century and the generation who will inherit it, it's crucial that we learn to describe the dynamics of this gaming life: a place that's not so much about escaping the commitments and interactions that make friendships "real" as about a sophisticated set of satisfactions with their own increasingly urgent reality and challenges.
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Global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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The most commonly discussed measure of global warming is the trend in globally averaged temperature near the Earth's surface.
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An increase in global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropical deserts.[7] The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with warming being strongest in the Arctic. Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields.
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Political and public debate continues regarding climate change, and what actions (if any) to take in response. The available options are mitigation to reduce further emissions; adaptation to reduce the damage caused by warming; and, more speculatively, geoengineering to reverse global warming. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Politics is making the Climate Chnge issue, unimportant, I beleive that Govermnets are just "selling their image", so they would look good. There are many, many policies pacts that have been made in order to "control Clmiate Change/ Global Warming". When will there be a policy that actually help the meniviroment?
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Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. The concentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since the mid-1700s.[23] These levels are much higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores.[24] Less direct geological evidence indicates that CO2 values this high were last seen about 20 million years ago.[25] Fossil fuel burning has produced about three-quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. Most of the rest is due to land-use change, particularly deforestation.[26]
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If the atmosphere is warmed, the saturation vapor pressure increases, and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere will tend to increase. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, the increase in water vapor content makes the atmosphere warm further; this warming causes the atmosphere to hold still more water vapor (a positive feedback), and so on until other processes stop the feedback loop
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When ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both land and open water are on average less reflective than ice and thus absorb more solar radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and this cycle continues.
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The Ice is melting. If you look at the The cold continent of Antartica, the ice caps are melting there. The North and the South Poles are melting. The sea levels are rising and inhabitants such as polar bears and Penguins are getting affected. The sea levels are afftecting Island Nations as well as sea bordering nations.
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Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the start and the end of the 20th century.
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However, warming is expected to continue beyond 2100 even if emissions stop, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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Temperature changes vary over the globe. Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C per decade against 0.13 °C per decade).
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.
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The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanoes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward.
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The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions.
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The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in the atmosphere warm a planet's lower atmosphere and surface.
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Clouds also affect the radiation balance, but they are composed of liquid water or ice and so are considered separately from water vapor and other gases.
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Global dimming, a gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface, has partially counteracted global warming from 1960 to the present.
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Observations show that temperatures in the stratosphere have been steady or cooling since 1979, when satellite measurements became available.
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Warming is expected to change the distribution and type of clouds. Seen from below, clouds emit infrared radiation back to the surface, and so exert a warming effect; seen from above, clouds reflect sunlight and emit infrared radiation to space, and so exert a cooling effect.
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Measures including water conservation,[99] water rationing, adaptive agricultural practices,[100] construction of flood defences,[101] Martian colonization,[102] changes to medical care,[103] and interventions to protect threatened species[104] have all been suggested. A wide-ranging study of the possible opportunities for adaptation of infrastructure has been published by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.[
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Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of Earth's natural environment on a large scale to suit human needs.[106] An example is greenhouse gas remediation, which removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, usually through carbon sequestration techniques such as carbon dioxide air capture.
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In 2007–2008 Gallup Polls surveyed 127 countries. Over a third of the world's population were unaware of global warming, with developing countries less aware than developed, and Africa the least aware. Of those aware, Latin America leads in belief that temperature changes are a result of human activities while Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East, and a few countries from the Former Soviet Union lead in the opposite belief.
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Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of Earth's natural environment on a large scale to suit human needs.
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one study suggests that projected rates of extinction are uncertain.[80]
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United States President Barack Obama has announced plans to introduce an economy-wide cap and trade scheme
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Measures including water conservation,[100] water rationing, adaptive agricultural practices,[101] construction of flood defences,[102] Martian colonization,[103] changes to medical care,[104] and interventions to protect threatened species[105] have all been suggested. A wide-ranging study of the possible opportunities for adaptation of infrastructure has been published by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.
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2012 phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs and proposals, which posit that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21 or December 23, 2012,[
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NASA likens fears about 2012 to those about the Y2K bug in the late 1990s, suggesting that an adequate analysis should stem fears of disaster.[9]
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Mainstream Mayanist scholars argue that the idea that the Long Count calendar "ends" in 2012 misrepresents Maya history.
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The Long Count set its "zero date" at a point in the past marking the end of the previous world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to either 11 or 13 August 3114 BC in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar, depending on the formula used.
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Today, the most widely accepted correlations of the end of the thirteenth b'ak'tun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, with the Western calendar are either December 21 or December 23, 2012
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According to Schele and Friedel, these 13s should be treated as 0s, so the Coba number would be read as if it were 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0, with the units of each column beyond the second (counting from right to left) equal to 20 times those of the previous one (The Maya, due to their cyclical concept of time, also wrote the date of creation, their zero date, as 13.0.0.0.0)
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United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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The United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between December 7 and December 18, 2009.
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European Union To cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 if an international agreement is reached committing other developed countries and the more advanced developing nations to comparable emission reductions. To cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 unconditionally
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At this international conference, 250 high-ranking representatives from industry, science, politics and non-government organizations discussed solutions for future road transportation under the motto of "Sustainable Mobility– United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009|the Post-2012 CO2 Agenda"
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Potential focus areas for TAPs include early warning systems, expansion of salinity-tolerant crops, electric vehicles, wind and solar energy, efficient energy grid systems, and other technologies.[30]
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A leaked document known as "The Danish Text" has started an argument between Developed and Developing Nations. The document was subtitled as "The Copenhagen Agreement", proposes measures to keep average global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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Devastating Earthquake Hits Haiti - The New York Times > World > Slide Show > Slide 2 o... - 1 views
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I'm learning more about the Haiti Earthquake right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is what will happen next? I was researching this question online, and this news item caught my attention because it shows people laying die and crying for those who die. The title is Devasting Earthquake hits Haiti- New York Times. Something that appear on this article is " Huge swaths of Haiti's capital lay in ruins on Wednesday following a devastating earthquake, and thousands were feared dead. Displaced residents in Port-au-Prince, the capital." People cryng for their relatives who die. Another summary is where this woamn is walking past bodies . " A woman walked past bodies in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian president, René Préval, told The Miami Herald that the death toll was "unimaginable." The quote that I choose was " Parliament has collapsed," President Préval was quoted as saying. "The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them." The streets were strewn with rubble." How sad to know that innocent children die while they were learning having an education! I think this is strong because many people, good people die on this earthquake attack. It's sad to know that people was stuck in schools, buildings, houses, and they can't get out. And most of the people who survive they end u dieing later on.
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Don't count Haiti out - latimes.com - 0 views
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What an inspiring and historically grounded commentary: "The tragedy is tremendous and the threats to life ongoing in a situation in which the ground is still trembling and disease likely. But the capacity of this people for survival and, indeed, for greatness in the worst of conditions has been demonstrated for more than two centuries. These are the descendants of people who overthrew an indecent, inhuman, overpowering slave system. Many of those still alive grew up under a vicious dynasty and rose up to oust it. It's entirely likely, therefore, that Haitians once again will put together a national coumbite. With a huge humanitarian effort from their friends, they will rebuild the country -- for the better. The will must be there for the world to come to Haiti's aid and work with the millions of surviving Haitians to rebuild this valuable country. So many Haitians, including the president, have nowhere to sleep, but they will sleep and get up again tomorrow to face the troubles. "
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A brief primer on the present Haiti/IMF relationship « Mississippi Learning - 0 views
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But it’s also time to stop having a conversation about charity and start having a conversation about justice–about recovery, responsibility and fairness. What the world should be pondering instead is: What is Haiti owed? Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters, its food shortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of infrastructure, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti was made poor–by France, the United States, Great Britain, other Western powers and by the IMF and the World Bank.
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Haiti: a long descent to hell | World news | The Guardian - 1 views
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Haiti: a long descent to hell | World news | The Guardian - 0 views
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Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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As of 2009, Japan is the second largest economy in the world,[72] after the United States, at around US$5 trillion in terms of nominal GDP[72] and third after the United States and China in terms of purchasing power parity.[73] Banking, insurance, real estate, retailing, transportation, telecommunications and construction are all major industries.[74] Japan has a large industrial capacity and is home to some of the largest, leading and most technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, electronic equipment, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemicals, textiles and processed foods.[70] The service sector accounts for three quarters of the gross domestic product. Osaka Castle and Osaka Business Park district of Osaka. The majority of Japan's economy is service sector based.
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CIA - The World Factbook -- Sudan - 0 views
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Government of National Unity (GNU) - the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) formed a power-sharing government under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); the NCP, which came to power by military coup in 1989, is the majority partner; the agreement stipulates national elections in 2009
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males age 16-49: 9,639,923 females age 16-49: 9,321,106 (2008 est.) Manpower fit for military service: males age 16-49: 5,836,971 females age 16-49: 5,942,043 (2009 est.) Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually: male: 498,376 female: 479,005 (2009 est.)