For Herman Cain, the campaign all but over (AP)

ATLANTA ? Herman Cain is still campaigning for president. But by most measures, his White House bid is all but over.

His standing in polls is cratering. Supporters are wavering if not fleeing. Fundraising is suffering.

And, these days, the former pizza company executive is less a serious candidate than the butt of late-night comedy jokes after a string of accusations of sexually inappropriate behavior and, now, an allegation of a 13-yearlong extramarital affair.

"His chance at winning the presidency are effectively zero," said Dave Welch, a Republican strategist who worked on both of John McCain's presidential bids.

And Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said: "It's the daily dose of the wince-and-cringe factor that leaves people wondering what could be coming next,"

As it has since Ginger White stepped forward Monday, the allegation of an affair overshadowed Cain's campaign for another day Thursday, when he told the New Hampshire Union Leader that his wife, Gloria, did not know he was providing the 46-year-old Atlanta-area businesswoman with money for "month-to-month bills and expenses."

And, Cain said, his wife also didn't know of what he called a friendship with White until she said publicly that she had a casual 13-year affair with Cain that ended about eight months ago.

White returned to television herself, telling MSNBC in an interview Thursday night that she was "deeply sorry" for causing Cain's wife or other members of his family any pain.

"My heart bleeds for this woman because I am a woman and being in a situation like this cannot be fun. And I am deeply, deeply sorry if I have caused any hurt to her and to his kids, to his family," she said.

White said the affair was never about love and that Cain never said he loved her.

"Nor did I tell him that I loved him," she said. "It wasn't a love affair. It was a sexual affair, as hard as that is for me to say and as hard as it is for people to hear it. You know, it pretty much is what it is. And that's what it was."

On Fox News Thursday night, Cain said he will make a decision on the future of his campaign before Monday. One option would be to continue his bid "full steam ahead" and another would be to suspend the effort. Viability will be a key consideration.

"This whole series of accusations is going to leave a little cloud of doubt in a lot of people's minds for a long, long time," he said.

It is the latest chapter in a saga that has played out in recent weeks as his campaign has been rocked first with allegations of sexual harassment and, now, White's affair claim.

Even before all that surfaced, Cain faced steep hurdles to the nomination. He didn't have much of a campaign organization. He was spending more time on a book tour than in early primary and caucus states. And he was facing doubts about whether he was ready for the presidency, given a series of fumbles on policy questions.

Over the past month, Cain has watched his standing in polls sink. He acknowledged his fundraising took a hit after White came forward, and political experts predict that his ability to take in campaign cash will evaporate now that he is re-evaluating whether to remain in the race. If he decides to continue running, Cain would face another big hurdle: the loss of grassroots support, which has provided the core of his base for his anti-establishment campaign.

Atlanta Tea Party Patriots co-founder Debbie Dooley typifies the falloff of support. She had been vigorously defending Cain as the sexual harassment allegations trickled out. But White's accusation proved too much. On Thursday, White's attorney released more cell phone billing records showing that Cain and White had dialed each other 10 times from June 18 to Nov. 18.

The pair also exchanged 226 text messages, including 58 that Cain sent to White. Cain's attorney, Lin Wood, said some of the messages are White asking for help paying for her rent, gasoline and car tags.

"I don't know what to believe," Dooley said. "I just think he needs to get out now and focus on his family."

Charlie Gruchow, one of Cain's earliest and most devout supporters in Iowa, has said he has moved his support to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, because he doesn't think Cain can survive politically.

"I still don't believe all the allegations," he said. "But it's really damaged him."

Even Cain's supporters acknowledge his odds have grown even steeper with a cloud planted over his campaign and just weeks before voting gets under way in Iowa.

"I'm still backing him, but I definitely think it's a bigger and bigger mountain to climb," Florida state Rep. Carlos Trujillo said Tuesday, the day after White emerged. "It's going to be difficult to make up that ground in so short an amount of time."

Cain has said he is reassessing and re-evaluating whether to remain in the race and will only make that decision after speaking face-to-face with his wife of 42 years.

The candidate is expected back in his home state of Georgia after campaign stop in South Carolina Friday afternoon and will presumably talk with his wife then. His campaign wouldn't provide details.

He has canceled a Friday night event at the Atlanta Athletic Club.

"We've postponed it while he revaluates," organizer Gil Bell said.

But Georgia state Sen. Josh McKoon, a supporter, said the planned opening of a campaign headquarters in Atlanta was still on.

"Without a doubt," McKoon said.

Cain was keeping up a busy schedule. After visiting New Hampshire, Cain spoke Thursday night at the business school of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, focusing his remarks on his business career and making no mention of White's accusation or the fate of his candidacy. He was set to headline a campaign event Friday afternoon in Rock Hill, S.C.

Hecklers interrupted Cain at Middle Tennessee State. One man shouted, "Sexual abuse is unacceptable" while others chanted, "We are the 99 percent," the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

"We have freedom of speech. Some people simply abuse it," Cain said after the protesters left. "That's why I didn't get rattled."

____

Associated Press writers Ray Henry in Atlanta, Tom Beaumont in Iowa, and Erik Schelzig in Murfreesboro, Tenn., contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_el_pr/us_cain

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Unique geologic insights from 'non-unique' gravity and magnetic interpretation

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 1-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
Geological Society of America

Dec. 2011 GSA Today

Boulder, Colorado, USA - The December GSA TODAY science article, "Unique geologic insights from "non-unique" gravity and magnetic interpretation," is now online at http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/. The article is open-access.

In many fields of applied science, such as geology, there are often tensions and disagreements between scientists who specialize in analyses of problems using mathematical models to describe sets of collected data, and those that rely on on-the-ground observations and empirical analyses. One common source of these disagreements arises from applications of geophysics -- studies of variations in gravity or Earth's magnetic field -- that use models that are strictly (from a mathematical point of view) non-unique. For example, using theories derived from Isaac Newton's studies of gravitational attraction, a geophysicist who measures local variations in gravitational acceleration that are produced by contrasts in the density of rocks below Earth's surface can calculate an infinite set of mathematically valid sources (with different shapes, depths, and contrasts in density) that would explain the measured gravity difference (or anomaly). This theoretical non-uniqueness leads many geologists to conclude that such geophysical information is of limited value, given the infinite number of possible correct answers to those numerical problems.

In the December 2011 issue of GSA Today, Richard Saltus and Richard Blakely, two U.S. Geological Survey scientists with extensive experience using gravity and magnetic field models to help improve the understanding of a number of geological problems, present several excellent examples of unique interpretations that can be made from "non-unique" models. Their motivation for this article is to improve communication among various geologists regarding the ability (and limitations of) gravity and magnetic field data to yield important information about the subsurface geology of an area or region.

This communication barrier is an important issue, because a great deal of our understanding of the geology of Earth and the planets is primarily derived from these types of geophysical measurements. More practically, geophysical tools such as gravity and magnetic field measurements are used in mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, so the utilization of these methods can aid economic development by locating subsurface mineral resources more efficiently that other techniques (such as drilling and excavating).

In their article, Saltus and Blakely advocate a holistic approach to geological studies. By combining other observations -- such as the surface location of a fault or the likely density contrast between a set of different rock units based on their composition -- the infinite array of theoretical solutions to some of these potential-field geophysical models can be narrowed down to a few, or even one, best interpretation(s). They present a number of examples where this approach can successfully solve important geological issues -- one of the best is an analysis of magnetic anomaly data from the Puget Sound area that allows a detailed image of the active Seattle Fault zone to be constructed.

###

Unique geologic insights from "non-unique" gravity and magnetic interpretation. Richard W. Saltus, U.S. Geological Survey, MS 964, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046; and Richard J. Blakely, U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, MS 989, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA. Pages 4, doi: 10.1130/G136A.1

http://www.geosociety.org



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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 1-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
Geological Society of America

Dec. 2011 GSA Today

Boulder, Colorado, USA - The December GSA TODAY science article, "Unique geologic insights from "non-unique" gravity and magnetic interpretation," is now online at http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/. The article is open-access.

In many fields of applied science, such as geology, there are often tensions and disagreements between scientists who specialize in analyses of problems using mathematical models to describe sets of collected data, and those that rely on on-the-ground observations and empirical analyses. One common source of these disagreements arises from applications of geophysics -- studies of variations in gravity or Earth's magnetic field -- that use models that are strictly (from a mathematical point of view) non-unique. For example, using theories derived from Isaac Newton's studies of gravitational attraction, a geophysicist who measures local variations in gravitational acceleration that are produced by contrasts in the density of rocks below Earth's surface can calculate an infinite set of mathematically valid sources (with different shapes, depths, and contrasts in density) that would explain the measured gravity difference (or anomaly). This theoretical non-uniqueness leads many geologists to conclude that such geophysical information is of limited value, given the infinite number of possible correct answers to those numerical problems.

In the December 2011 issue of GSA Today, Richard Saltus and Richard Blakely, two U.S. Geological Survey scientists with extensive experience using gravity and magnetic field models to help improve the understanding of a number of geological problems, present several excellent examples of unique interpretations that can be made from "non-unique" models. Their motivation for this article is to improve communication among various geologists regarding the ability (and limitations of) gravity and magnetic field data to yield important information about the subsurface geology of an area or region.

This communication barrier is an important issue, because a great deal of our understanding of the geology of Earth and the planets is primarily derived from these types of geophysical measurements. More practically, geophysical tools such as gravity and magnetic field measurements are used in mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, so the utilization of these methods can aid economic development by locating subsurface mineral resources more efficiently that other techniques (such as drilling and excavating).

In their article, Saltus and Blakely advocate a holistic approach to geological studies. By combining other observations -- such as the surface location of a fault or the likely density contrast between a set of different rock units based on their composition -- the infinite array of theoretical solutions to some of these potential-field geophysical models can be narrowed down to a few, or even one, best interpretation(s). They present a number of examples where this approach can successfully solve important geological issues -- one of the best is an analysis of magnetic anomaly data from the Puget Sound area that allows a detailed image of the active Seattle Fault zone to be constructed.

###

Unique geologic insights from "non-unique" gravity and magnetic interpretation. Richard W. Saltus, U.S. Geological Survey, MS 964, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046; and Richard J. Blakely, U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, MS 989, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA. Pages 4, doi: 10.1130/G136A.1

http://www.geosociety.org



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/gsoa-ugi120111.php

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COP 17: Africa calls for clear climate finance benchmarks after failed ...

You Are Here: Home ? Africa/International ? COP 17: Africa calls for clear climate finance benchmarks after failed pledges

Page last updated at Wednesday, November 30, 2011 11:11 AM //

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) is arguing strongly for the need to have agreed benchmarks on climate finance, so as to foster transparency and accountability in the way the money is provided and used, according to a new report released on the sidelines of the ongoing COP17 in Durban, South Africa.

Chaired by Mr. Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the African Group is the group of 53 African countries represented at the UN climate change negotiations.

According to a statement issued by the Information and Communication Service of the UN?s Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the report presents up-to-date figures on the current provision of climate finance for Africa and reveals the abysmally low levels of delivering on global climate change finance promises.

The report, researched and written for AGN by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the ECA, reveals that current finance available for Africa and other developing countries under the fast-start finance is not commensurate to the scale required to implement the activities agreed to in the UN climate convention.

?For example,? according to the statement ?the report points to the $29.2 billion pledged since 2009, and states that only between $2.8 and $7.0 billion are ?new? or not previously pledged. This means that the total amount of funds that are both ?new? and ?additional?, that is on top of aid budgets, would be less than $2 billion.?

The report further reveals that ?While 97% of the promised $30 billion has been pledged, only 45% has been ?committed?, 33% has been allocated, while a mere 7% has actually been disbursed.?

The report, ECA said, states that finance is being directed towards mitigation projects over adaptation projects, and instead of seeking a minimum of balance, ?around 62% of the money has been poured into mitigation and only 25% is earmarked for adaptation and 13% for REDD+ (forestry, which should count as mitigation).?

It points to several lessons that can be learned from the current ?fast start finance? system, which was supposed to deliver $30 billion in ?new and additional? funding to developing countries, as agreed upon at the Copenhagen climate conference (COP15) in 2009, the UN agency indicated.

Launching the report, Yacob Mulugetta, Senior Energy and Climate Specialist at the ACPC said that ?the experience with the ?fast-start? pledges and discussions of the $100 billion promise suggests that the adequacy and predictability of climate finance may remain very uncertain if the future climate finance architecture reflects current practice.

?African countries, as well as many other developing countries, are vulnerable to climate change and are among those least likely to have the resources required to withstand its adverse impacts. Yet, there has not been any indication that the magnitude of climate finance will get to the level of what is needed,? Seyni Nafo, Spokesperson of the African Group was quoted as saying.

He pressed the case for long-term climate finance to be made more accountable and transparent, adding that ?in Africa, we need to know how much is new, where it is coming from, and whether it will be directed towards adaptation projects that are desperately needed in Africa.?

By Ekow Quandzie

Comments

Source: http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/11/30/cop-17-africa-calls-for-clear-climate-finance-benchmarks-after-failed-pledges/

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Americans mixed on adequacy of cancer screenings: poll (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Many Americans are satisfied with how often they are screened for cancer but some say they are not screened often enough, while a growing body of evidence suggests too much screening for certain types of cancer may do more harm than good, a Gallup poll showed.

According to the poll released on Wednesday, 58 percent of 1,012 adults surveyed thought standard cancer screenings, such as Pap smears, mammograms or blood tests to detect prostate cancer, were performed often enough.

Thirty-one percent said such cancer screenings were not done often enough, and seven percent said they were done too often. More data is available here: http://bit.ly/uy9Fs5.

"Americans for many years have heard the traditional admonition that 'early detection' of cancer is always beneficial for the patient, and the results of the current question suggest that this belief still holds in the minds of most," Gallup pollsters said in their report.

There is a debate over the value of frequent screening, set off by recommendations that widespread cancer screening for breast and prostate cancer be scaled back.

In October, the government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force triggered an uproar among cancer specialists when it issued a draft recommendation that healthy men not get a common blood test for prostate cancer called the PSA test. The task force is collecting public comment on the draft recommendation against the PSA test until December 13.

The same panel caused a media storm in 2009 after it recommended that doctors scale back routine mammograms for women in their 40s and 50s.

Just over half the respondents in the Gallup poll, conducted between November 3 and 6, were men. The maximum margin of sampling error was five percentage points for men and six percentage points for women.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/hl_nm/us_cancer_screenings

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China kicks off yuan trading vs Aussie, Canadian dollar (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China's yuan started trading against the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar in the country's onshore foreign exchange market on Monday, the latest currency pairs to be introduced as part of Beijing's efforts to promote the use of its currency.

Beijing's wants to expand the use of the yuan for trade and investment, as a way of reducing reliance on the dollar and thereby simplifying the settlement of trade in everything from energy to manufactured goods.

The yuan is not fully convertible under the capital account but China has made efforts to raise the international status of its currency over the past couple of years as it works toward its goal of making Shanghai a global financial center by 2020.

"This is part of official efforts to enrich trading products in the Chinese market," said Liu Dongliang, currency analyst at China Merchants Bank in Shenzhen.

"In addition, both Australia and Canada are China's important trade partners," he said. "In particular, because of its strong links with Australia, China's economic and market movements often have some influence on the Australia dollar."

Australia and Canada are both major producers of the commodities that have powered China's rapid economic growth.

The pricing of the yuan against the two currencies largely reflected the value of the yuan against the U.S. dollar and the dollar's value against the Australian and Canadian dollars, traders said.

It would take time for the yuan, which has been closely linked to the U.S. dollar, to trade more independently, they added.

Trading was thin on Monday morning, but market players expect it to pick up over time along with the gradual expansion of the yuan's use in global markets.

"This morning those banks trading yuan against Australian and Canadian dollars calculated on the basis of the central bank's mid-point and real time movements of the two foreign currencies against the dollar in global markets," said a trader at a European bank in Shanghai.

"The PBOC has so far still been pricing the fixing of other currencies based on the yuan's near peg versus the U.S. dollar."

The yuan opened at 6.1266 against the Canadian dollar, after the People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the yuan/Canadian dollar's mid-point at 6.1048, and was later trading around 6.1227.

It opened at 6.2769 against the Australian dollar, also slightly weaker compared with the PBOC's fixing of 6.2491, and fetched around 6.2714 later in the session.

MORE TO COME

Trading in these two new currency pairs comes after the China Foreign Exchange Trade System started yuan trading against the rouble and Malaysian ringgit in 2010.

As part of its efforts to broaden the use of its currency, the government has turned Hong Kong into a center for offshore yuan as more and more trade is conducted in the renminbi, the official name of the currency, leading to the creation of bigger and bigger yuan pools outside mainland China.

Traders and analysts said China needed to add direct yuan trading against the Aussie because of increasing deals between China and Australia, in particular, in the mining sector.

Adding the Canadian dollar was a move to acknowledge the importance of one of the Group of Seven economies as well as being part of China's efforts to gradually have trading in all major currencies versus the yuan, they said.

Traders expect the Singapore dollar and Korean won to be among the next currencies to be traded versus the yuan.

The yuan can rise or fall 3 percent versus the Aussie and Canadian dollar from the PBOC's mid-points each day, according to an exchange announcement last Thursday.

The yuan can move only 0.5 percent to the dollar in either direction from the fixing in a day.

The domestic market now trades a total of nine currencies against the yuan, including the new currency pairs.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/ts_nm/us_china_yuan_trade

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Huge Tesla Coils Will Recreate Natural Lightning

This can't be anywhere near civilization, as a Tesla coil can fry any electronics. It also can't be in some forest wilderness, as a Tesla coil can easily ignite trees. As they say, they're making something that's more and more lightning like, which is also more unsafe. So building a 10' Tesla coil is probably not the hard problem.... the hard problem is operating it Safely, and actually being able to take experimental observations.... because, this is all very dangerous.

And also, will the FCC allow them to operate it, once they've built it?

Considering spark gap transmitters have long been banned due to the spectrum-wide interference they cause; and the earliest such radio transmitters were tesla coils... and EMI in particular can be generated across the spectrum as well, resulting in disruptions to communications, with such a large tesla coil, and such a large arc, especially if they are attempting to use frequencies associated with wireless transmissions; I wonder what will the RFI fallout will be.

; and any horizontally long metallic structure can get induced currents and also become antennae for further RFI emissions. Yes, lightning does show up on the radio spectrum as well, but a powered up Tesla coil emits many arcs not spread out by time, a much bigger footprint than lightning....

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/hOBpKast-RM/huge-tesla-coils-will-recreate-natural-lightning

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The Future Of Foxconn: Ten Thousand Horses Galloping

scaled.IMG_0117Shenzhen is a town of migrants. The estimated median ages is between 15 and 25 and the old and battered sits in wild contrast with the brand new. Even in the few years between my last visit and this one, the city has changed so drastically that I barely recognized it. The last time I was here I imagined the place as a cross between a favela and Blade Runner, high and low tech mashed together, the sharp tails of known carcinogens mixing with the soft end of Suntory in a highball glass and the scent of a young executive assistant's Chanel No 5. Now it's mostly Suntory and Chanel, the carcinogens banished to the outskirts of town. There's a boom in China, and Foxconn's executives see a way out of many of the messes, real or imagined, that plagued the company. Foxconn is pinning their future success on their employees' future success. While this may seem like uncessary largesse, it is an interesting bet on the future of a working class that has been transformed into a middle class. And those workers, once forced by circumstance to stand for ten hours a day, are workers that no longer need or want what seemingly meager financial benefits Foxconn has to offer.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/yMmUECGJysc/

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Bill Looman, Georgia Business Owner, Draws Fire For 'Not Hiring ...

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WACO, Ga. (AP) -- A west Georgia business owner has been deluged with calls and emails after posting signs on his company's trucks that say he's not hiring anyone until President Barack Obama leaves office.

Waco-based U.S. Cranes LLC owner Bill Looman tells WXIA-TV that reaction has been so intense he's had to disconnect his phones and temporarily shut down the company's website.

He posted the signs on his company's trucks for other motorists to see on roads and interstates across the South. The signs proclaim "New Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone."

Looman says he's not refusing to hire employees to make a political point. He told WXIA he can't afford to hire anyone because of the economy, and he blames the people in power.

Video below via WXIA.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/bill-looman-georgia-obama_n_1113167.html

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Court restores federal protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears

Conservationists touted a major victory Tuesday in their battle to protect Yellowstone grizzly bears when a federal appeals court ruled that wildlife managers erred when they removed Endangered Species Act protection from "one of the American West's most iconic wild animals."

The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2007 decision to remove the bears from the endangered species list. The court cited climate change as having accelerated a beetle infestation that destroys the bears' vital white-bark pine food source, making the grizzly only the second wildlife species, after the polar bear, to earn protection in recognition of harm caused by global warming.

The three-judge panel took note of conservationists' warnings that the loss of trees in the upper elevations in and around Yellowstone National Park would probably drive the grizzlies to forage in more populous areas, increasing confrontations between the omnivorous bears and the people and livestock in the lowlands.

Grizzlies have killed several tourists and hikers in recent years, forcing parks and wildlife officials to euthanize the bears in record numbers. About 75 grizzlies were killed or removed from the wild in 2010, according to a multi-agency study team.

The appellate panel said the wildlife agency "failed to adequately consider the impacts of global warming and mountain pine beetle infestation on the vitality of the region's white-bark pine trees." The jurists noted that warmer temperatures in recent years had allowed the beetles to survive a seasonal die-off, leaving them to destroy 16% of the trees and damage more than 25%.

"It could not reasonably be denied that white-bark pine loss presented at least a potential threat to the Yellowstone grizzly population," said the 9th Circuit opinion written by Seattle-based Judge Richard C. Tallman, who called the bears "both revered and feared as a symbol of wildness, independence and massive strength."

The extent of the white-bark damage is a point of debate for the Fish and Wildlife Service, but scientists studying the problem describe the infestation in apocalyptic terms.

"It's unprecedented in its intensity and scale," said Diana Tomback, a white-bark pine expert at the University of Colorado at Denver. "Studies show that the majority of watersheds in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem have been ravaged and there are lots of places where there is 90%-plus mortality of beetle-ravaged mature trees."

Beetles attack trees by boring under the bark and dredging internal canals that host thousands of larvae. The carving eventually stresses the pines, turning them a vivid red.

"The practical effect of this ruling is that the Yellowstone grizzly bears retain their protections," said Douglas Honnold, the Earthjustice lawyer in Bozeman, Mont., who argued the case for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a nonprofit conservationist group. A federal judge in Montana and all three appellate judges agreed, Honnold said, that the federal agency "was acting irrationally in delisting in the face of this significant threat to the bears."

Chris Servheen, the Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly coordinator, was pleased that the panel, despite overturning the delisting, upheld the agency's conservation strategy for the bears, which he called a "gold-plated management plan."

Under the protections of the Endangered Species Act and the recovery strategy, the number of grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone region has tripled over the last 35 years to an estimated 600. The population growth has leveled in recent years.

Servheen said the agency intended to resubmit its arguments for removing endangered species protections for grizzlies, this time providing the white-bark pine analysis the court requested.

"We feel pretty comfortable with our science, but we will do a complete review of the data," he said.

Those who challenged removal of the Yellowstone grizzlies from protected status said the scientific data on the pine stocks had become dramatically more persuasive in the last few years.

"Since delisting, the Fish and Wildlife Service has said itself that white-bark pine should be listed independently as an endangered species," said Andrew Wetzler, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which was among the conservation groups to challenge the bears' removal from "threatened" status.

"I think it reflects the growing recognition, not just by the courts but by the executive branch as well, that global warming is completely transforming natural places across the West," Wetzler said. "Grizzlies are very large canaries in the coal mine, as are the trees that are dying across the West."

carol.williams@latimes.com

julie.cart@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/z-KTlIWhoL4/la-na-1123-yellowstone-grizzlies-20111123,0,854348.story

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?Leaked? Facebook Law Enforcement Guides Already Available, Still Bad For PR

Facebook Law Enforcement Guidelines DoneSeveral news outlets today wrongly reported that Anonymous Antisec hackers had leaked "newly available" Facebook law enforcement guidelines that explain how and what data can be obtained by officials with a subpoena, warrant, or court order. In fact, many versions of the outdated guides were already widely available thanks to an Electronic Frontier Foundation Freedom of Information Act request, as well as other sources. Though previously available and out of date, the new coverage about how Facebook provides user information when obliged by law could stoke fears about data privacy and Big Brother. As of press time, Facebook declined to confirm that it plans to publicly release a revised version of the law enforcement guide next week. Such a guide could fuel or quell discontent depending on how much data it releases and what hoops officials must jump through.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ewgD8srWOkc/

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