MISC. NEWS FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
PROOF YOU'RE GETTING ROBBED AT GAS PUMP http://www.nypost.com/business/22624.htm
JOHN CRUDELLE NY POST - All you need to know to understand that Americans are getting screwed at the gas pump:
Fact 1: The inventory of crude oil in the U.S. right now is 8 percent larger than it was this same week last year. And that's the biggest amount of crude on hand since the middle of 2002.
Fact 2: That the 8 percent increase doesn't include all the oil purchased by Washington and put into the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which now has 685 million barrels. That's up from 650 million barrels last year and 599 million in '03.
Fact 3: There is 7.5 percent more gasoline in stock right now in this country than during the same week last year. And you'd have to go back to this same week in 1999 to find more gasoline inventory — when the average price at the pump was only $1.01 a gallon.
Fact 4: Including everything made of oil, there is 4.9 percent more supply this year than when Spring began in 2004. And there's about 10 percent more of all petroleum products in stock today than when the Iraqi war began.
And, finally, Fact 5: American consumers are being conned by speculators — and a media that doesn't ask enough tough questions — into thinking there is some sort of supply problem.
WHERE THE WATER'S RUNNING OUT
The world's supply of fresh water is running out. Already one person in five has no access to safe drinking water. The BBC shows where.
MAPS http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2000/world_water_crisis/default.stm
ARTICLE
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/755497.stm
EVEN IN THE U.S.
BBC - Ninety-five percent of the United States' fresh water is underground. As farmers in the Texan High Plains pump groundwater faster than rain replenishes it, the water tables are dropping. North America's largest aquifer, the Ogallala, is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters a year. Total depletion to date amounts to some 325 bcm, a volume equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado Rivers. The Ogallala stretches from Texas to South Dakota, and waters one fifth of US irrigated land. Many farmers in the High Plains are now turning away from irrigated agriculture, as they become aware of the hazards of over-pumping, and realize water is not in endless supply.
42% OF TAX DOLLARS GO TO WAR
Tax day is April 15. Did you know that about 42% of our income taxes this year will go for military purposes. This figure is computed based on federal funds outlays in fiscal year 2004 of $1.7 trillion. The federal funds budget includes spending for all discretionary programs (for which Congress appropriates funds each year) and for all mandatory programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, and other needs-based programs (which are paid for out of general revenues). The federal funds budget does not include spending by trust funds such as Social Security and Medicare, as these are paid for through separate, dedicated payroll taxes--not income taxes. http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1253&issue_id=19
EVOLUTION POLL AN NBC NEWS POLL finds that 57% of Americans believe in the Biblical account of creation as opposed to only 33% who believe in the scientific explanation of evolution. 44% believe the world was created in six days.
WHAT SCIENTISTS MEAN BY "THEORY"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48944-2005Mar19.html?nav=rss_print/sunday/outlook
STEVE OLSON, WASHINGTON POST - If you want to know one reason why the debate over teaching evolution remains so contentious, consider the stickers some school boards have wanted to paste in high school biology textbooks. They label evolution a "theory, not a fact," suggesting that an alternative explanation is possible. It's a clever strategy. Even people sympathetic to evolution often don't know how to respond to the assertion that evolution is "just a theory." And the opposite claim -- that evolution is a fact -- can generate skepticism among those who don't like to be told what to think. But these stickers use the words "theory" and "fact" in a very misleading way. The biggest problem is that "theory" has two separate meanings. In common usage, "theory" means an idea or a hunch: "I have a theory about why she left him." No one really knows what the reasons were, but we can guess.
That's not what "theory" means within science. When scientists speak of the theory of gravitation, cell theory or evolutionary theory, they are talking about scientific concepts that have been so thoroughly tested that they are very unlikely to change. Theories are the results of decades or centuries of scientific effort. They draw on many interconnected observations and ideas. They are the end products of science, not stages on the way to the truth. In science, a hunch or conjecture is called a hypothesis, not a theory. When Copernicus proposed in the early 16th century that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa, his idea was a hypothesis. But four centuries of observation and thinking have convinced us that heliocentrism is a theory, not just an intriguing idea. It is compatible with everything we know about the solar system and explains observations that cannot be explained in other ways.
Ideally, English would have a different word for these comprehensive organizing concepts in science. But for now, "theory" is doing double duty. So calling evolution a theory may seem to denigrate it in everyday terms, but in scientific terms that's high praise.
JOHN CRUDELLE NY POST - All you need to know to understand that Americans are getting screwed at the gas pump:
Fact 1: The inventory of crude oil in the U.S. right now is 8 percent larger than it was this same week last year. And that's the biggest amount of crude on hand since the middle of 2002.
Fact 2: That the 8 percent increase doesn't include all the oil purchased by Washington and put into the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which now has 685 million barrels. That's up from 650 million barrels last year and 599 million in '03.
Fact 3: There is 7.5 percent more gasoline in stock right now in this country than during the same week last year. And you'd have to go back to this same week in 1999 to find more gasoline inventory — when the average price at the pump was only $1.01 a gallon.
Fact 4: Including everything made of oil, there is 4.9 percent more supply this year than when Spring began in 2004. And there's about 10 percent more of all petroleum products in stock today than when the Iraqi war began.
And, finally, Fact 5: American consumers are being conned by speculators — and a media that doesn't ask enough tough questions — into thinking there is some sort of supply problem.
WHERE THE WATER'S RUNNING OUT
The world's supply of fresh water is running out. Already one person in five has no access to safe drinking water. The BBC shows where.
MAPS http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2000/world_water_crisis/default.stm
ARTICLE
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/755497.stm
EVEN IN THE U.S.
BBC - Ninety-five percent of the United States' fresh water is underground. As farmers in the Texan High Plains pump groundwater faster than rain replenishes it, the water tables are dropping. North America's largest aquifer, the Ogallala, is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters a year. Total depletion to date amounts to some 325 bcm, a volume equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado Rivers. The Ogallala stretches from Texas to South Dakota, and waters one fifth of US irrigated land. Many farmers in the High Plains are now turning away from irrigated agriculture, as they become aware of the hazards of over-pumping, and realize water is not in endless supply.
42% OF TAX DOLLARS GO TO WAR
Tax day is April 15. Did you know that about 42% of our income taxes this year will go for military purposes. This figure is computed based on federal funds outlays in fiscal year 2004 of $1.7 trillion. The federal funds budget includes spending for all discretionary programs (for which Congress appropriates funds each year) and for all mandatory programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, and other needs-based programs (which are paid for out of general revenues). The federal funds budget does not include spending by trust funds such as Social Security and Medicare, as these are paid for through separate, dedicated payroll taxes--not income taxes. http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1253&issue_id=19
EVOLUTION POLL AN NBC NEWS POLL finds that 57% of Americans believe in the Biblical account of creation as opposed to only 33% who believe in the scientific explanation of evolution. 44% believe the world was created in six days.
WHAT SCIENTISTS MEAN BY "THEORY"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48944-2005Mar19.html?nav=rss_print/sunday/outlook
STEVE OLSON, WASHINGTON POST - If you want to know one reason why the debate over teaching evolution remains so contentious, consider the stickers some school boards have wanted to paste in high school biology textbooks. They label evolution a "theory, not a fact," suggesting that an alternative explanation is possible. It's a clever strategy. Even people sympathetic to evolution often don't know how to respond to the assertion that evolution is "just a theory." And the opposite claim -- that evolution is a fact -- can generate skepticism among those who don't like to be told what to think. But these stickers use the words "theory" and "fact" in a very misleading way. The biggest problem is that "theory" has two separate meanings. In common usage, "theory" means an idea or a hunch: "I have a theory about why she left him." No one really knows what the reasons were, but we can guess.
That's not what "theory" means within science. When scientists speak of the theory of gravitation, cell theory or evolutionary theory, they are talking about scientific concepts that have been so thoroughly tested that they are very unlikely to change. Theories are the results of decades or centuries of scientific effort. They draw on many interconnected observations and ideas. They are the end products of science, not stages on the way to the truth. In science, a hunch or conjecture is called a hypothesis, not a theory. When Copernicus proposed in the early 16th century that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa, his idea was a hypothesis. But four centuries of observation and thinking have convinced us that heliocentrism is a theory, not just an intriguing idea. It is compatible with everything we know about the solar system and explains observations that cannot be explained in other ways.
Ideally, English would have a different word for these comprehensive organizing concepts in science. But for now, "theory" is doing double duty. So calling evolution a theory may seem to denigrate it in everyday terms, but in scientific terms that's high praise.
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 4:57 AM
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