Flight 214 Animation

Sure most everybody knows of  Asiana Airlines Flight 214 which crashed upon an attempted landing. Well, first the sad news is Third victim dies.

This is an interesting animation illustrating path of the crash.

Government Email

That the Iranian government does not like the Internet is not news. Not much different than the Chinese government, Internet is seen a a threat to their domination and control of information to the populace. 

Offhand, I don't know of another despotic regime which has gone this far in creating a national Intranet.

Iran Kicks Off Its Internal Internet With Government Email

It’s no secret that Iranian authorities don’t trust or like the Internet.

This week, the Islamic Republic inaugurated the national email. A government assigned email address linked to your social security number that makes it easy to trace users and monitor their communication.

The minister of telecommunication and information technology, Mohamad Hassan Nami, even said on Tuesday that every Iranian “must” register for a nation email address upon entering elementary school. He added that official communication between government and citizens would eventually be redirected through the national email service.

Obtaining your own personal government-run email address, according to the minister, is as mandatory as having a Zip code.

Iranians can obtain their national emails through the state-run postal service. One must register online and fill out a lengthy form handing over personal information—date of birth, social security, home address, telephone number and so on.

Eventually there will also be a national Internet service, or what the government call “halal Internet’, which acts as a nation-wide intranet and could effectively cut Iran off from the world wide web if authorities deem fit.

FULL STORY - Wall Street Journal

Climategate ?

This is a long article, well worth the read. Does a good job of exploring the politics involved when it comes to climate research.

Best I can do here is show the introduction, then the final paragraph.  Link to the article at the end.

The Climategate Chronicle: How the Science of Global Warming Was Compromised

To what extent is climate change actually occuring? Late last year, climate researchers were accused of exaggerating study results. SPIEGEL ONLINE has since analyzed the hacked "Climategate" e-mails and provided insights into one of the most unprecedented spats in recent scientific history.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Time for Clear Answers Is Over

However, it seems all but impossible to provide conclusive proof in climate research.

There are still significant gaps in climate research.
 In particular, the simulation of clouds is nearly
 impossible.

Scientific philosopher Silvio Funtovicz foresaw this dilemma as early as 1990. He described climate research as a "postnormal science." On account of its high complexity, he said it was subject to great uncertainty while, at the same time, harboring huge risks.

The experts therefore face a dilemma: They have little chance of giving the right advice. If they don't sound the alarm, they are accused of not fulfilling their moral obligations. However, alarmist predictions are criticized if the predicted changes fail to materialize quickly.

Climatological findings will probably remain ambiguous even if further progress is made. Weingart says it's now up to scientists and society to learn to come to terms with this. In particular, he warns, politicians must understand that there is no such thing as clear results. "Politicians should stop listening to scientists who promise simple answers," Weingart says.

The Enigmatic Sun: With the "STEREO" (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) telescope, climate researchers are able to observe the sun, whose influence on climatic variations is still a controversial topic.


Der Spiegel - FULL ARTICLE