Informed Ignorance

The following are summarised excerpts from a telephone conversation between John Cusack and Jonathan Turley with comments in blue:

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law,
and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers,
is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. — Winston Churchill

Soon after he was elected, President Obama admitted that the waterboarding which certain US officials had authorised WAS torture.  Still, he promised the CIA that they wouldn’t be investigated or prosecuted in regard to it.  Under international law, shielding people from war-crime prosecutions can itself be a form of war crime.  If a government doesn’t investigate and prosecute its own accused war criminals, other countries (in theory) have the right to step in and prosecute the foreign war criminals themselves.  Certainly in the past Americans have prosecuted foreigners being shielded or protected by their own countries — but that’s apparently a one-way street.  When the Spanish government moved to investigate US torture (because Obama had indicated the US didn’t intend to do it), the Obama administration issued threats.
 
Further, defendants at the Nuremberg trials couldn’t base a defense on the fact that they were merely following orders.  Such a defense, if allowed, would shield too many of the guilty — it would shield almost everyone.  Despite this, the Obama administration released a document saying CIA personnel and even some DOJ lawyers were “just following orders” from higher authorities.  Thus, it might help to know why Obama protected CIA officials from prosecution.

“International law” is misleading.  As a general rule, there isn’t such a thing (difficult to enforce).  There is DOMESTIC law, which may (or may not) implement some elements of international law.  Torture is illegal under US law, however whether or not waterboarding is torture is an unanswered question.  Obama cannot “admit” that waterboarding is torture any more than Bush can “admit” that it isn’t.  Neither view is inherently binding.
 
The complexity arises because current Attorney General Eric Holder (apparently) thinks that waterboarding IS torture, and thus that waterboarding in the past WAS a crime.  Holder is also responsible for deciding which crimes will be prosecuted.  He has decided not to prosecute the past administration’s tolerance of waterboarding.  The Justice Department opts against prosecuting apparent crimes every day, and there’s a wide range of legitimate reasons why he might make this decision.  Holder may feel that something as simple as the impact on CIA morale is sufficient.
 
In many ways, Nuremberg represented the purest form of victor’s justice.  Holder and Obama have at various times excoriated the Nuremberg standard as being insufficiently protective of defendent’s rights.  And finally, following orders actually IS a legitmate defence, at Nuremberg and elsewhere.  A meaningful argument hasn’t been advanced here (though that’s not saying there isn’t one).
 
At the end of the day, Obama (through Holder) decided against prosecuting low-level beauracrats acting on the orders of the past administration.  They may have done so because they didn’t believe that what those beauracrats did was actually a crime under US law, or because they thought it would be too hard to prove, or because they thought the risk of losing the case would be too embarrassing, or because they thought it would be a political witch hunt (or appear to be a political witch hunt) or make the possibility of the next administration starting a political witch hunt too likely, or would cost too much money, or would demoralize the CIA, or…who knows?  Under the US system, prosecutors have broad discretion, and need not explain their motives.

[For clarification: A bright-line rule (or bright-line test) is a clearly defined rule or standard, generally used in law, composed of objective factors, which leaves little or no room for varying interpretation.  The purpose of a bright-line rule is to produce predictable and consistent results in its application.  This is in contrast to its opposite, the fine line.]
 
Bright line rules structure relations between branches of government and between government and citizens, protecting freedom and liberty.  The elimination of bright line rules is a slippery slope.  The US denies rights to people at Guantanamo Bay, to foreigners whom they accused of being terrorists, and now even to American citizens by saying they can kill whom of them they choose without court order or review.  This is a nightmare of civil liberties, changing how US citizens relate to government.  Being able to enter the court system has become discretionary because now the president can instead opt to kill even a US citizen if he finds him/her too inconvenient, impractical, or impossible to bring to justice.
 
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced a couple of years ago that the administration would try some defendants in federal court while reserving military tribunals for others.  He began by saying, “We have to believe in our federal courts and our Constitution.  We’ve tried terrorists before, and therefore we’re transferring these individuals to federal court.”  But then he added, “We’re going to transfer these other individuals to Guantanamo Bay.”  Missing was any type of defined principle.  How can we know if these decisions were justified?
 
What evidence is there to support the idea that the court system has “become” discretionary?  What evidence is there that this has not always been the case?
 

Demonization of Osama bin Laden was so intense that Americans were thrilled he was assassinated rather than brought to trial.  If Nuremberg principles are correct, shouldn’t he have been tried before the entire world?  If guilty, he then could have been lethally injected.  But his was an assassination from the beginning — there was no discussion of capturing him and bringing him to justice.  While everyone may feel rightfully loathsome toward bin Laden, principles are not formulated for their convenience.  Adolf Eichmann was captured and tried.  Why not bin Laden?  After all, it is principles which separate man from beasts.
 
The way Americans reacted to Osama bin Laden’s death seems somewhat incidental here.  No evidence is presented in this article that most Americans were thrilled that bin Laden was killed RATHER than brought to trial.  And the reference to Nuremberg is inappropriate; it has nothing to do with whether people need to be taken prisoner in a combat situation.  When people talk about Nuremberg, they are talking about the process for convicting a prisoner of war crimes.  Besides, Former Navy SEAL Mark Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in No Easy Day said that during a pre-raid briefing, an administration lawyer told them that they were not on an assassination mission — if bin Laden was “naked with his hands up,” they should not engage him.  If he didn’t pose a threat, they should detain him.

There may be a disconnect between what people say about the US and what the US has become.  The US seems to have lost clarity in the “war on terror.”  They refuse to accept the jurisdictional authority of sovereign countries while forcing other countries to accept American authority.  Are drone attacks in Pakistan even legal?  Does anyone care?  Who is being killed?  Do they deserve due process?  Americans disregard the fact that Pakistan is a sovereign nation (an ally, even); Pakistan insists they haven’t agreed to US operations and accuses them of murder and of violation of sovereign airspace.  Americans disregard this — American exceptionalism means rules apply to everyone else.
 
A Gallup poll released in August shows 49% of Americans, a record since the poll began asking this question in 2003, believe that the federal government poses an immediate threat to individuals’ rights and freedoms.

The question of whether the people who are being killed by drones (whomever they may be) “deserve due process” and whether the attacks are legal seem unrelated to one another.  What would make someone “deserve” due process?  Might someone NOT deserve due process?
 
If 49% of Americans think that the federal fovernment poses an immediate threat to individuals’ rights and freedoms, how can Cusack and Turley state that there may be a disconnect between what people say about the US and what the US has become?  That poll seems to indicate that about half of Americans are scared of their own government.
 
Glossed over is whether a military or law enforcement framework is proper.  Both fit; neither is illegal, nor self-evidently immoral.  One is probably better, but don’t assume there is Only One Possible Answer.  Note that someone else has reached an opposite answer, but don’t conclude from that that they are A Bad Person Who Hates Justice — which is what Cusack and Turley appear to do.  Their conversation is compelling and interesting to everyone convinced that the law enforcement paradigm is the only possible answer — but there are other answers.  Their conversation is relatively meaningless to those equally convinced that a military paradigm is the only possible answer.  This doesn’t help two sides come to a reasoned compromise, which is what is needed.
 
Turley and Cusack mainly preach to the choir.

• Lying for the Lord refers to the practice of lying to protect the image of and belief in the Mormon religion, a practice which Mormonism fosters.  For the Mormon, loyalty and the welfare of the church are more important than the principle of honesty; plausible denials and deception by omission are warranted by an opportunity to have Mormons seen in the best possible light.  Lying for the lord is part of Mormonism’s larger mainstreaming tactics as conversion numbers may drastically lower if their important beliefs were fully disclosed to the wrong people or at the wrong time.  Shi’a Muslims have a similar practice called taqiyah (meaning “to safeguard or defend”) as a means to protect their faith.  It allows members of the faith to be untruthful when life or religious faith are in danger — their version of Lying for the Lord.
• When the Mormon church’s image or its leaders need protection it’s okay to fib, deceive, distort, inflate, minimise, exaggerate, prevaricate or lie.  Church leaders admit that deception is a useful tool to protect the church and its leaders “when in a tight spot,” or “to beat the devil at his own game.”  They admit engaging in moral gymnastics: God approves of deception — if done to protect the “Lord’s Church” or “the brethren” (as leaders are called).  D Michael Quinn called this use of deception by LDS church leaders “theocratic ethics.”  Joseph Smith lied to protect himself or his church.  Dan Vogel in his work, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, described Smith’s viewpoint as “pious deceiver.”  Smith used deception if in his mind it resulted in a good outcome.  Smith had Moroni, ancient American prophet and custodian of the gold plates, declare, “And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me (Moroni 4:11-12).  Translation: if deception is necessary to do good, or bring a soul to Christ, then it’s worth it, if God approves — and Smith believed he knew when God approved.  He also thought God approved murder if for a good cause.  He wrote in the Book of Mormon that Nephi was inspired by God (1 Nephi 4:6) to deceive and capture a servant then murder another man in order to secure an ancient historical record on brass plates.  In Missouri, Smith and his counsellor Sidney Rigdon threatened to kill Mormons who disagreed with official policies and initiatives (Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Chapter 3, 79-103).  Before becoming a prophet, Smith’s chosen profession relied on deception to earn a living — he assured clients he could see underground treasure using a magic stone in the bottom of his hat; clients paid him to locate gold using this method.  He never did of course.  His arrest, trial and conviction in NY for fraud in 1826 documented this activity.  The modern term for Smith would be con artist (Vogel, 82-86).  Smith was comfortable using deception when it suited him.  He wove it into the fabric of Mormonism as a way of dealing with those who questioned his authority or reported his deceptions or tasteless behaviour.
• From Park Romney, Mitt Romney’s cousin: “The exposure of the Mormon Book of Abraham as a fraud is not a trivial thing.  The book of Abraham is part of the greater volume of canonized Mormon scripture known as the Pearl of Great Price.  It, in particular, is where one finds the very basis of some of the most significant and fundamental doctrines that differentiate the Mormon faith from other faiths.  It was supposedly translated from Egyptian hieroglyphics that came into the possession of the early Mormon Church in a well-documented story out of the Church’s own history, complemented by authenticated journals of Joseph Smith, original Mormon prophet.  Joseph Smith claimed to translate these Egyptian hieroglyphics (after he had talked Mormon investors into putting up money for their acquisition) on the basis of his representation that they were ancient writings of the Biblical prophets Abraham and Joseph from the Bible, now brought forth by God to the hands of the Church for him to translate with his ‘endowed’ gifts of prophecy and revelation.  The hieroglyphics were acquired on this basis, and a detailed account of the translation process, including mention of specific characters, is documented in Smith’s authenticated journal.  These translations resulted in canonized Mormon scripture now known as the Book of Abraham, published with the standard scriptures of the Mormon Church, complete with a copy of the very hieroglyphics from which they were ‘translated.’  At the time this took place, no known scholars knew how to translate such hieroglyphics.  However, over the years, due to the discovery of the Rosetta stone and other research, considerable scholarly work has been accomplished.  What Joseph Smith ‘translated’ were burial documents commonly found in tombs, whose meaning and interpretation has been unquestionably established to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Joseph Smith’s purported translation.  The exposure of this fraud in painstaking detail leaves the Church with no plausible retreat from the inescapable conclusion that the purported scriptures that resulted are fraudulent.  Only the most naïve and uninformed remain with their delusions about their authenticity, propped up by subsequent attempts by Church apologists to reframe history in ways that fly in the face of that which was documented by Smith himself.”

Maybe it’s both…..or maybe it’s because I went too long without paying enough attention…

Actually, back in the mid-1900s, you wouldn’t have expected the average person to know anything about anyone in Congress except his own state’s representatives and the Speaker of the House.  Now, every little gaffe and misspeak from every politician is captured on video or in print, then disseminated worldwide in mere minutes.  Also, there are controversies now that weren’t really issues before the 60s.  Today, people may vilify or vote for a candidate based on the candidate’s beliefs with regard to a single topic such as illegal immigration, gun rights, gay rights, or drug legalization.  In the ’50s and before, there was no (or very little serious) debate on those issues at all.  It was much easier to “look good” back then than it is now.

• “Britain-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, pled guilty to 3 charges brought by the US Department of Justice: 1.) marketing Paxil, an anti-anxiety drug, for use on children and adolescents when it was only approved for adults; 2.) marketing Wellburtin, an anti-anxiety drug, as a weight loss drug; and 3.) failing to report grave safety issues with Avandia, its diabetes drug.  That’s on top of shoddy manufacturing processes in Puerto Rico resulting in adulterated medicines being distributed around the world (including in the US, for which it had to pay a US$750 million fine).  And there are tens of thousands of product liability cases, about half unresolved.  GSK also agreed to higher scrutiny of its sales group, suggesting bribes and kickbacks were found in the marketing division.  For the next 5 years, if the sales force is naughty, they — gasp — forfeit bonuses.  (The horror.)  And GSK will pay the US $3 billion as a fine; 1/3 criminal and 2/3 civil.  This is serious money — the largest ever levied by the US Food & Drug Administration.  But look at this: for fiscal 2011, GSK reported net profits worldwide of $12.4 billion.  Criminal activity had extended for more than 5 years.  So the fine amounts to something like 5% of company net profits over the period.  (Not much of a tap on the wrist.)
• From Derek Lowe’s "In the Pipeline" Corante column: There were GSK sales reps who grew concerned about illegal activity more than 10 years ago: “Regardless of what company policy may be, my letters to human resources and my previous complaints of misconduct have been quashed.  My 23-plus-year career with this company has been trashed, and it is obvious I can no longer work with my district manager and friends/counterparts just because I have come forward with the truth, which could save the reputation of GSK and millions of dollars in fines,” wrote Greg Thorpe (one of the whistleblowers on whose claims the US feds based their allegations), in a note to Glaxo officials — who had issued a warning to Thorpe about his unwillingness to be a team player; they refused to address various violations of the False Claims Act, to which he specifically repeatedly referred in numerous communications.  “Team player” is a phrase that should put a person on guard.  It can be innocuous, but can also justify pretty much any behaviour the rest of a group is doing, and on no more basis than, well, the rest of the group is doing it.  Says Lowe, “I reserve my admiration for those who need more justification than that for their actions.  There are some effects that I hope this GSK news will have: making someone think twice about getting caught when they’re planning something that goes over the line, or (on the other side) shoring up the resolve of a person who’s deciding not to go along with something that they’ve realised is wrong.  The world tends to run short of both of those.”  (Eric Holder: Are you listening?)
• Pfizer, the maker of drugs that help alleviate arthritis and other ailments, has paid almost $3 billion in fines since 2002 and entered into three corporate integrity agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at preventing future fraud.  It and other companies are fighting attempts by Congress to exclude them from government business because of their history of fraud.  Merck, another pharmaceutical giant, paid $1.6 billion in fines since 2008, Medicare and Justice Department records show, to resolve claims it was not paying proper rebates to the government.  Pfizer’s 2009 settlement was for improperly promoting the use of drugs for purposes other than those for which they were approved by the government.  Merck’s 2008 settlement involved claims the company paid illegal kickbacks to health care providers in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

• The majority of power outages in the US are caused by weather, in particular storms blowing trees on the lines, and heat waves that overwhelm the carrying capacity of the system.  Animals, too: in 2011, 130 outages were caused by squirrels, 8 by snakes, 2 by beavers, and one by deer (a fawn which a bald eagle dropped into a substation in Montana).  Since the early 1990s, the number of power outages affecting more than 50,000 people a year has more than doubled, and blackouts now drain between $80-$188 billion from the US economy annually.  The power grid is slipping backward to a time when infrastructure was unreliable.  But it’s not easy to keep 450,000 miles of high voltage lines up and humming.  However, the situation has gotten worse over the years because the US has increased the load on its lines while investing less in the system.  There’s a fair amount of agreement that the US needs to make massive investments in the backbone of the grid, as well as in a self-healing grid that can better handle outages (and hackers), and in information technology to make the grid “smart.”  Creating private, or ultralocal, hedges against failing power without investing in the greater grid is the electric equivalent of creating a gated community.  And America’s grid’s frailties are getting worse as the weather gets weirder.
• The Ogallala Aquifer is vast, yet shallow; located beneath the Great Plains in the US, it’s one of the world’s largest aquifers, covering an area of 174,000 square miles (450,000 square kilometres) in portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.  About 27% of irrigated land overlies the aquifer, which yields about 30% of groundwater used for irrigation and provides drinking water to 82% of people who live within its boundaries.  Water thickness ranges from a few feet to more than 1,000 (300 metres), generally greater in the north.  Water depth ranges from 400 feet (122 metres) in parts of the north to between 100-200 feet (30-61 metres) throughout the south.  Recharge is exceedingly slow (the water dates back to the last ice age).  Success of large-scale farming in areas with inadequate precipitation depends heavily on groundwater pumping for irrigation.  Regions overlying the Ogallala are some of the most productive for livestock and corn, wheat and soybean growing in the US.  Early settlers of the region were plagued by crop failures due to cycles of drought (culminating in the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s).  Large-scale use of the aquifer for irrigation began in the 1930s when electric power came to rural farming communities as did cheap and efficient electric turbine pumps.  But only after World War II did affordable technology allow substantial water extraction, transforming the High Plains into one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world.  At first, the water was thought to be inexhaustible (its hydrology was a mystery).  But the water table dropped more than 5 feet (1.5 metres) per year at times of maximum extraction.  In many cases, wells had to be deepened to reach the steadily falling water table (now disappeared in some places in the Texas Panhandle).  Using treated, recycled water in agriculture is one approach to conservation.  Another is changing to crops requiring less water (sunflowers, for example).  Unfortunately, several rivers in the region (such as the Platte) run below the level of the aquifer, causing them to receive its groundwater flow, thus carrying it out of the region instead of supplying recharge.
• It may be tempting to think that, because the Ogallala does not refill from rainfall, the lack of rainfall will not hurt it.  Would that it were so.  In fact, rainfall is the single most important way to protect the aquifer, as it drastically reduces the need for pumping.  Farmers use about 3 times as much irrigation water in a drought as they do in average times, and during last year’s dry spell some of the monitoring wells in West Texas dropped by 25 feet, 10 times the average annual rate.  With less than 100 feet of aquifer remaining in most parts of the region, one shudders to imagine how many more droughts the farmers of West Texas can take.  The suggestion that residents embrace their own decline and convert their land into a vast national park known as the Buffalo Commons has sparked the enthusiasm of conservationists and the wrath of local farmers in equal measure.  Rural communities across Kansas and Nebraska, Montana and Texas, Oklahoma and the Dakotas have shrunk each decade since the Great Depression.  In Kansas alone, more than 6,000 towns have vanished altogether.  Nearly a million square miles of the American heartland currently meets the definition of “frontier” used by the Census Bureau more than a century ago.  Another possible alternative being suggested: winds farms for hundreds of miles.  Resources for Americans may be plentiful, but they aren’t always located in the right places.

• The Czech Republic had the 4th-biggest price decline in the Bloomberg Gas Price Ranking.  The average daily income is $53.  The share of a day’s wages needed to buy a gallon of gas is 12%.  The price per gallon of premium gasoline: $6.46 (down 15% since last quarter).  The Czech Republic has the 28th most expensive gas and the 25th highest pain-at-the-pump rank.
• Philippines is the world’s 2nd-biggest producer of geothermal energy (after the US) according to the International Geothermal Association.  This nation of 95 million people and 7,100 islands uses this clean-energy source for about 17% of its energy needs.  The Philippines economy is making the transition to more manufacturing and services from one based primarily on agriculture.  Demand for cheap energy is high but wages aren’t.  The average daily income is $6.36; the share of a day’s wages needed to buy a gallon of gas is 70%.  The price per gallon of premium gasoline: $4.42 (no change from last quarter).  The Philippines has the 47th most expensive gas and the 3rd highest pain-at-the-pump rank.
• While Saudi Arabia holds 20% of the world’s oil reserves, it pursues wind, solar and nuclear power to help halve the crude and natural gas it burns to generate electricity.  The country wishes to generate 1/3 of its electricity from alternate energy sources within two decades.  Persian Gulf oil producers are seeking new ways to generate power because they prefer selling their expensive crude to gas-hungry countries, rather than burning it themselves.  Saudi Arabia is OPEC’s biggest producer and heavily subsidises the price of gasoline.  The average daily income is $62; a gallon of gas costs 1% of a day’s wages.  The price per gallon of premium gasoline: $0.61 (no change from last quarter).  Saudi Arabia has the 2nd least expensive gas and the 3rd least pain-at-the-pump rank.

What to Expect When You Get to Mars with All Your Worldly Possessions

• Barchan (crescent-shaped) sand dunes are found within the North Polar erg (desert covered with wind-swept sand with little or no vegetative cover) of Mars.  This type of dune provides a record of the wind environment when they formed and moved: the dunes’ horns point downwind.  It appears possible that these dunes are still active (when not covered in frost) as their crestlines are sharp and slipfaces (the inner curved region between the horns/downwind surface) appear smooth and steep.  This image was taken during the northern spring season; dunes and ground are still covered in seasonal frost.  The speckled appearance is due to warming of the area: as carbon dioxide frost and water ice on the dunes warms, small areas sublimate (turn from solid to gas) faster, creating small jets that expose (and deposit) dark sand and dust onto surfaces.  There are no spots on the ground between the dunes because the ground stays more uniformly cold.  As spring continues, more spots will appear until all frost is gone.
• Mars Express radar has detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor inside previously identified ancient shorelines on the red planet.  The ocean would have covered the northern plains billions of years ago.  The northern plains are covered in low-density material that scientists interpret as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich, a strong indication that there was once an ocean there.  The existence of oceans on ancient Mars has been long been suspected and features reminiscent of shorelines have been tentatively identified in images from various spacecraft.  But it remains a controversial issue.  Two oceans have been proposed: 4 billion years ago, when warmer conditions prevailed, and also 3 billion years ago when subsurface ice melted, possibly as a result of enhanced geothermal activity, creating outflow channels that drained the water into areas of low elevation.
• West Candor Chasma in central Valles Marineris contains some of the thickest of the fine-grained layered deposits on Mars.  As the material erodes in the wind, it disappears — apparently blown away — so the grains must be small.  The layers may have been deposited from windblown materials, fall of volcanic sediments, or carried in by water, or all of the above and subsequently possibly altered by groundwater to produce hydrated minerals such as sulfates.  The enhanced colours are related to minerals or overlying dust or sand.  The dark blue sharp-crested ridges are sand dunes.

So Many Things Are Round

• A close encounter of planets and the moon occurred in the predawn skies 15 July 2012.  While many saw bright Jupiter next to the slender, waning crescent, Europeans had the opportunity to watch it pass behind the lunar disk, occulted by the moon.  Clouds threaten in this telescopic view from Montecassiano, Italy, but the frame still captures Jupiter after it emerged from the occultation along with all 4 of its large Galilean moons.  The sunlit crescent is overexposed with the Moon’s night side faintly illuminated by Earthshine.  Lined up left to right beyond the dark lunar limb are Callisto, Ganymede, Jupiter, Io, and Europa.  In fact, Callisto, Ganymede, and Io are larger than Earth’s moon, while Europa is only slightly smaller.
• This is an image of the moon’s north polar region, made possible by a camera of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009.  This image is a mosaic, composed of nearly 1,000 images taken over a one-month period during the moon’s northern summer.  Who knew the moon could look so alien and strange?  I find it looks a bit like a vortex.
• What created this unusual hole in Mars? The hole was discovered by chance on images of the dusty slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently encircling the planet.  The hole appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated.  Analysis of this and follow-up images reveal the opening to be about 35 metres across, while the interior shadow angle indicates that the underlying cavern is roughly 20 metres deep.  Why there’s a circular crater surrounding the hole remains a topic of speculation, as is the full extent of the underlying cavern.  Holes such as this are of particular interest because the interiors are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them good candidates to contain life.  These pits are therefore prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers.

• Northcott Mouth — A chevron fold anticline in mainly sandstones of the Bude Formation (upper Carboniferous), just south of Northcott Mouth, near Bude, North Cornwall.  The Bude Formation consists sandstones interbedded with shales. The response to earth movements at the end of the Carboniferous was to form slightly asymmetric angular folds.
• As part of the war effort, the US Army Air Force (USAAF) took possession of 341,726 acres (138,292 hectares) of land on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Sioux people, for a gunnery range. Included in this range was 337 acres (136 hectares) from the Badlands National Monument.  This land was used extensively from 1942 through 1945 as an air-to-air and air-to-ground gunnery range including both precision and demolition bombing exercises.  After the war, portions of the bombing range were used as an artillery range by the South Dakota National Guard.  Firing took place within most of the present day Stronghold District.  Land was bought or leased from individual landowners and the Tribe in order to clear the area of human occupation.  Old car bodies and 55 gallon drums painted bright yellow were used as targets.  Bulls-eyes 250 feet (76 metrea) across were plowed into the ground and used as targets by bombardiers.  Small automatic aircraft called “drones” and 60-foot (18-metre) by 8-foot (2-metre) screens dragged behind planes served as mobile targets.  Today, the ground is littered with discarded bullet cases and unexploded ordnance.  125 families were forcibly relocated from their farms and ranches in the 1940s.  Those that remained nearby recall times when they had to dive under tractors while out cutting hay to avoid bombs dropped by planes miles outside of the boundary.  In the town of Interior, both a church and the building housing the current post office were struck by six 6-inch (152 millimetre) shells through the roof.  Pilots operating out of Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, found it a real challenge to determine the exact boundaries of the range.  Fortunately, there were no civilian casualties.  However, at least a dozen flight crew personnel lost their lives in plane crashes.
• “Indian blanket” pattern near Mexican Hat, Utah.  As I recall, there are some spectacular formations in this area.  For a rather nice view of one, see Rapley Ridge.

• The worst erosion on Earth is seen in the deeply gullied hills of the Loess plateau in Shaanxi province of China.  Small fields are all that are left as erosion whittles away at the land available for crops.
• This spectacular valley of scoured rock in Jujuy province offers tortured formations and an artist’s palette of mineral colours.  This narrow mountain valley is located 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) north of Buenos Aires.  It is about 155 kilometres (96 miles) long, oriented north-south.  The name quebrada (literally “broken”) translates as a deep valley or ravine, receiving its name from Humahuaca, a small city of 11,000 inhabitants.  The Grande River (Río Grande), which is dry in winter, flows copiously through the Quebrada in the summer.  The region has been populated for 10,000 years, since the settlement of the first hunter-gatherers, as evidenced by substantial prehistoric remains.  It was a caravan road for the Inca Empire in the 15th century and next an important link between the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata and the Viceroyalty of Peru, as well as a stage for many battles of the Spanish War of Independence.

• Minnehaha Falls in Hiawatha, Minnesota, USA.  The ice is up to 3 feet thick in some areas.  Different sediment and thicknesses cause different colours, with some areas pink, yellow, brown, green, purple, and blue.  The photographer says that multiple shots were stitched together to create this.

• Szinva is a stream in northern Hungary, a tributary to the river Sajó.  It originates in the Bükk Mountains.  It is 30 kilometres long, 20 kilometres of which can be found the city of Miskolc, through which the stream flows from west to east.  More than 70 bridges were built over the stream, and in parts of the city centre it flows underground.  The Szinva was responsible for the great flood of 1878, one of the largest floods of the 19th century.  The flood claimed about 400 lives and almost completely destroyed the downtown of Miskolc.
• Although you can (technically) see waterfalls in 14 of the park’s 18 canyons, the most scenic waterfalls are in St Louis, French, Wildcat, Tonty, Ottawa and Kaskaskia canyons.  In the winter, several of them become icefalls.  I’m not sure in which canyon this one is found.
• Pretty waterfalls spill down a cascade of rocks in the Pennsylvania mountains.  The hike to Glen Onoko Falls is a fairly difficult ascent — there have been numerous deaths from falls in the past.

• The Ice Caves are not true caves at all.  They consist of walls or vertical sheets of ice that form across the face of overhanging rock outcrops.  In the summer, small unimpressive waterfalls and groundwater seeps may be found along the overhangs.  In the winter, however, the water hits the cold air, drips downward under the influence of gravity and freezes, creating spectacular ice caves.  Each winter they look a little different, but typically there are openings in the ice that allow you to walk behind the ice walls.  This photo was taken in 2007.
• This is a different view of Eben Ice Cave by a different photographer.  I don’t know if there is only one so-called ice cave or many (from photos they look to be at least contiguous, if not joined) — this photo was taken in 2006, so the view inside probably changes drastically from year to year.
• The hollows and caves of the park complex have long attracted the peoples of Ohio.  Evidence of the ancient Adena culture indicates that man first inhabited the recesses more than 7,000 years ago.  In the mid 1700s several native American tribes travelled through or lived there including the Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee.  Their name for the river from which the park gets its name was Hockhocking, or “bottle river.”  The name comes from the bottle-shaped valley of the Hocking River whose formation is due to its one-time blockage by glacial ice.  This photo was taken at Old Man’s Cave.  Frozen waterfalls apparently freeze from outside in.  In this shot, it is obvious that a considerable amount of water is still flowing within the ice lume.

• This futuristic mega-skyscraper will be built in Jeddah, a cosmopolitan, commercially-minded port city on the Red Sea.  The challenger for the world’s tallest building title intends to surpass its closest competition — Dubai’s Burj Khalifa — by at least 568 feet.  The triangular structure will be the focal point of Kingdom City, a sprawling urban development that will cost a reported $20 billion. Kingdom Tower will house a Four Seasons hotel, upscale office space, ultra-luxurious condos, and the world’s tallest observatory.  Residents will be able to ride up on one of the building’s 59 elevators (which travel at 22 miles per hour) to enjoy a private sky terrace on the 157th floor.
• This design reflects Sou Fujimoto’s philosophy of Primitive Future, as the “21st Century Oasis” aspires to be a model of green architecture for the future generations.  The project is comprised of two main elements — the grand structural frame and the roof-top garden.  Inspired by the Taiwanese banyan tree, the structural frame creates a shaded, semi-outdoor space as it encases the site.  Simultaneously, the roof-top garden floats 300 metres above, representing the beauty and nature of Formosa (Divine Island).  It has a green roof, rainwater harvesting, solar hot water panels, wind turbine, photovoltaic cells, ground source heat pump, desiccant air-handling unit and natural ventilation.  [Of course, nothing says green architecture quite like lifting an existing park hundreds of metres into the air atop thousands of tons of structural steel.]
• The design comprises 5 wing-shaped solar towers sculpted aerodynamically to work like the feathers of a bird’s wing and draw cooling air currents through the museum.  Conceived as a monument and memorial to the late founding president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the wing-shaped design was chosen to reflect his love of falconry.  Fresh air is captured at low levels and drawn through buried ground-cooling pipes, then released into the museum’s lobby.  As the towers heat up, they act as thermal chimneys.  Air vents at the top also take advantage of negative pressure on the lee side of the wing profile to draw hot air out and keep structures vented.  The central lobby of this Saadiyat Island construction is dug into the earth to take advantage of thermal properties, while the interior spaces open to an outdoor arena for live displays with hunting birds and a gallery devoted to falconry.  It is currently under construction.

• Amsterdam and Vienna-based design studio Büro für MEHR has created a drive-through concept for an airport passenger terminal that could change the way airports process traffic.  The concept offers a significant reduction in the size of an airport’s layout to simplify ground traffic and significantly reduce its environmental impact.  It is anticipated that within next decade aviation traffic could almost double, with many airports already struggling to facilitate increased demand.  The basic idea is to move the aircraft to the passengers, rather than moving the people to their planes; the design focuses around the passenger and aircraft handling processes.  The new concept sends aircraft through a mandatory pathway, much a like a carwash but separated into three3 divisions: arrival, servicing and departure, moving the craft on a linear track.  It can process a maximum of 48 airplanes every 15 minutes.
• This design is rooted in a sense of place, responsive to the climate of one of the hottest inhabited environments on earth and inspired by local forms and materials.  The new Kuwait terminal will feature a trefoil plan with the departure gates forming 3 symmetrical wings.  The aerodynamic building will include a dramatic 25-metre (82 feet) high central space, with the external walls stretching 1.2 kilometres (0.75 miles) wide.  Glazed windows filter daylight and deflect direct solar radiation, while a canopy supported by concrete columns will shade public exterior spaces and entrances.  The baggage reclaim area will be surrounded by an indoor water feature, and the roof will be fitted with an expanse of photovoltaic panels.  The Kuwait International Airport will annually see 13 million passengers through its doors, with the flexibility to accommodate 25 million passengers, and 50 million with further development.
• Spaceport America is the first spaceport in the world built-from-the-ground-up to host private enterprise, intended to be the launch-pad of the global commercial spaceflight industry and the second space age.  The project has attracted worldwide attention because of its bold premise, stunning architecture and the fact that it is home to the world’s first commercial passenger spaceline company, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.  Designed, built and operated by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA), it is nearing completion of the first phase of construction, which includes basic operational infrastructure such as an airfield, launch pads, terminal / hangar facility, emergency response capabilities, utilities and roadways.  It will be capable of accommodating both vertical and horizontal takeoff space launch vehicles, serving as the base for pre- and post-flight activities, and providing a tourism experience for interested visitors and students.

• Man-made supertrees as tall as skyscrapers light up the night sky over Singapore.  The towering structures, stretching 50 metres into the sky, have giant steel and concrete trunks and thousands of thick wire rods for branches.  There are apparently 9 of them.  They form part of the Gardens By The Bay project, a massive £350 million development in the city’s Marina Bay area.
• The Xiying Rainbow Bridge is an elevated pedestrian walkway located in Magong, Penghu County in Taiwan.  Neon tubes reflect a rainbow onto the water’s surface at night.
• Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France — Riders in the 15th stage of the Tour de France race between the cities of Samatan and Pau in the country’s south in July 2012.

• Twenty million years ago ocean covered the area where Panama is today.  There was a gap between North and South America through which the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific flowed freely, but beneath the surface, the Pacific Plate was sliding slowly under the Caribbean Plate.  Pressure and heat from the collision led to the formation of underwater volcanoes, some of which eventually broke the surface, forming islands.  More and more volcanic islands filled in the area over the next several million years.  Over time, sediment filled the gaps between these islands.  By about 3 million years ago, an isthmus had formed between North and South America.  This was no small thing, but rather one of the most important geologic events in the last 60 million years.  It had an enormous impact on Earth’s climate.  Shutting down the flow of water between the two oceans rerouted ocean currents.  Atlantic currents were forced northward, and eventually settled into a new current pattern — the Gulf Stream.  Warm Caribbean waters then flowed toward the northeast Atlantic, causing the climate of northwestern Europe to warm by as much as 10°C and the Atlantic grew saltier.  Each of these changes helped establish the current global ocean circulation pattern.  This regulated patterns of rainfall, sculpting landscapes; the resulting warm wet weather over northern Europe caused the formation of a large Arctic ice cap.  The formation of the isthmus also played a major role in biodiversity.  The bridge allowed animals and plants to migrate between the two continents, an event known as the Great American Interchange.  The North American opossum, armadillo, and porcupine ancestors came across the land bridge from South America.  Ancestors of bears, cats, dogs, horses, llamas, and raccoons made the trek south.
• But wait — not so fast.  The monumental excavations necessary to expand the Panama Canal have given scientists a rare chance to delve into Panama’s ancient history. Geologists have discovered that the isthmus is composed of 20-million-year-old rocks, including fossilised trees.  But according to conventional geologic theory, the Panamanian Isthmus didn’t emerge from the sea until just a few million years ago.  This discrepancy is no small matter.  The 3-million-year time frame neatly accounted for an important sequence of events that began about the same time.  The current global cycle of glaciation dates to this period and might have been triggered by a transformation of the world’s ocean currents, which a slender rib of land separating Atlantic and Pacific would naturally explain.  If the new theory is right, and the oceans were separated much earlier, then what triggered all of those epochal events?  Having ice in the Arctic is the reason we’re in the climate we are right now, and we still don’t have a clear mechanism for it?  How can we even think about modelling Earth’s climate for the next 100 years if we can’t model how to produce such a big feature of our climate today?  Some geologists strongly disagree with the new theory and are preparing rebuttals.  The effect of a new land mass on ocean currents is remarkably tricky to understand.  Supercomputers in France have been examining how close the continents had to be before currents changed.  The preliminary results suggest that with any channel deeper than 200 metres, currents behave as though there’s an entire ocean there.  But at shallower depths currents abruptly hit a wall.  The surprise finding: at less than 50 metres currents arise that have never before been simulated.  Biologists have found a bump in animal migration 3 million years ago, but a spike in flora migration 10 million years ago, in support of the revisionist time frame.
• The Panama Canal is a 50-mile long engineering wonder connecting the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.  Completed by the US in 1914, it runs southeastward from Colon, through the man-made Gatun Lake, to Panama City on the Pacific side of the Isthmus of Panama.  The canal is a major artery of international shipping; it uses a series of massive locks, manmade lakes, and water supplied by the copious tropical rainfall of the region to lift and lower transiting ships a height of 85 feet over the continental divide.  Thick rainforests border the canal, and the protected Canal Zone is easily delineated by the dark green band of forest, which contrasts with the lighter green cultivated areas.  The ecologically sensitive Canal Zone supports diverse lowland rainforest crucial for water balance and erosion/siltation control around the canal.

• A hyper-claustrophobic view of Hong Kong.  This photographer is into matte painting and produces lovely hyperrealistic photos, often featuring cities and shorelines.
• When I saw this, I thought it looked like an abstract of Hong Kong.  However, the artist explained that she was trying to strike a balance between abstract concerns and a suggestion of subject matter, which she described in this case as having to do with slave cages and pens and the Middle Passage.  (Thomasos was born in Trinidad and was black.)
• Old villa houses crowd together like a colourful flock of parrots.  A steep hill rises protectively behind them.  Colours and styles clash like bad 80′s fashion.  Gardens mingle like neighbours, unkempt scramble meeting manicured rose bushes.  Snails trek slowly along window ledges, silvery stories left behind to speak of journeys had, plants to find.