Death and mayhem in Iraq; Sinking stock market; Toxic toys; Killer Climate......

[marmar]

It's all gone wrong, hasn't it? :cry:



By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Four suicide bombers hit Kurdish Yazidi communities with nearly simultaneous attacks on Tuesday, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 others, said Iraqi military and local officials in northwest Iraq.
The death toll was the highest in a concerted attack since Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City.
The bombs tore through the districts near Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, said Abdul-Rahman al-Shimiri, the top government official in the area, and Iraq army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed.
They said at least 30 homes were destroyed in the bombings. .........
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070814/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

........

By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer
11 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Wall Street pulled back sharply Tuesday as investors worried about fundamental economic problems as well as the ongoing fallout from credit market problems and stocks' own volatility. The Dow Jones industrials skidded more than 200 points.
The downturn in stocks was first triggered by a report from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that profit will fall below expectations this year as consumers rein in spending. Home Depot Inc., the world's biggest home improvement chain, added to the slide when it said weakness in the housing market caused quarterly profit to slide.
Confirmation that Sentinel Management Group Inc., which oversees $1.6 billion in assets, is seeking to halt investor redemptions exacerbated the selling. Other funds are said to have similar problems as they face withdrawal demands at a time it has become difficult to value low-quality debt. .......
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070814/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street;_ylt=ArgyQ0VnY0XjTbrDSMIHrR6s0NUE


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By NATASHA T. METZLER, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Mattel announced recalls Tuesday for 9 million more Chinese-made toys, including popular Barbie, Polly Pocket and "Cars" movie items, and warned that more could be ordered off store shelves because of lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed.
The recalls came nearly two weeks after Mattel Inc., the nation's largest toy-maker, recalled 1.5 million Fisher-Price infant toys worldwide, which were also made in China, because of possible lead-paint hazards for children.
The government warned parents to make sure children are not playing with any of the recalled toys.
Nancy A. Nord, acting Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman, said no injuries had been reported with any of the products involved in Tuesday's recalls. She said the recalls were intentionally broad to prevent injuries. .......
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070814/ap_on_bi_ge/toy_recall;_ylt=AkMCILQSBWil_8pF2njvn3Ks0NUE


.........


By BETH RUCKER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 21 minutes ago



NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A heat wave continued to bake parts of the South on Tuesday, raising the number of heat-linked deaths in Tennessee to at least five and buckling roads in Mississippi.
The temperature in Memphis hit at least 100 degrees again Tuesday, the fifth consecutive day of triple-digit highs, as hot air blanketed the south-central portion of the nation. Monday's top reading in the city was 105.
"This is unusual. Last summer we had two (heat-related deaths) all summer. This is five deaths over a six-day period," Shelby County Medical Examiner Karen E. Chancellor said.
The latest two deaths were a 75-year-old man found in a home with no air conditioning and a 77-year-old woman found in her backyard, where she apparently had been gardening, Chancellor said. Both were found Monday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070814/ap_on_re_us/heat_wave;_ylt=ArqM8mms8xYi_az6ujR0CdNI2ocA

[babylonsister]

1. A lot of it planned, I'm afraid. nt

[marmar]

3. Agreed.....

n/t

[C_U_L8R]

2. When all is done

it will be clear for everyone to see (even the twenty percent deadender freepazoids)
that Bush has accomplished NOTHING.
Not a thing.

[Karenina]

4. Are we having FUN yet???

:silly:

[KittyWampus]

6. Oddly, there's been 'real' news this summer. Not the normal shark attack pablum

[scarletwoman]

9. That's true. And Bill Moyers is back for an hour every week PBS -- that's ONE good thing! (nt)

[scarletwoman]

5. I don't like this century very much. I'd like to go back to 1999 for a do-over.

I think the 20-oughts have been sucking mightily almost from the beginning.

I vehemently resent that a few power-mad and greedy elites have been able to fuck up our world in so many ways. That these delusional and malefic egoists have been able to impose THEIR twisted and bloody vision of profit and control on everyone on this planet. ALL our lives are being circumscribed by the vast scope of the villainy going on; all our dreams of a free and just future are being rendered flightless and smothered like seabirds in an oil spill.

It really ticks me off.

I started out January 1, 2000 in a state of warm, fuzzy optimism; brought on by watching the ABC/Peter Jennings New Years Eve 2000 special global broadcast. I thought it was way cool -- they started on Fiji, near the International Dateline, and kept the broadcast moving in real time from one location to the next -- literally circling our planet -- showing each locale's celebration as *their* clock struck midnight.

I thought it was an amazing and historic piece of television -- it brought tears to my eyes often. Between cuts from the various remote feeds, Jennings was doing interviews with interesting people -- NOT politicians and pundits, iirc. I remember finding most of the interviews (Al Franken was one of the guests), and Peter's own running commentary, to be interesting and often uplifting. My favorite of all was Cornel West.

Think about that -- Professor Cornel West on broadcast TV! It was SUBLIME!

Just the whole one-world paradigm; showing people all over the globe CELEBRATING! Singing and dancing and full of flash and color and smiles and common humanity and JOY! Wow, thought I, if something THIS COOL is showing up on our telescreens, maybe there really IS hope for our world! Maybe this is a good omen that humanity is going to pull together and understand that we're all the same, that we all want the same things -- a chance to live in peace, to be free of oppression, the recognition that we all have dignity and worth.

I pretty much watched the entire 23 hour long broadcast. And for that 23 hours I found myself feeling a lovely glow of hope, of thinking that here was an auspicious beginning to the new millennium. I thought that the cosmic pendulum was swinging toward Light, I thought that the collective mind of the world was getting strong enough and mature enough to overcome its enslavement to the basest urges of the reptilian brain.

But then along came the master reptiles... And we all know the rest...

:cry:
sw

[wicket]

7. Oh god

:cry: :cry:

[rockymountaindem]

8. Yeah, I've just gotten out of college and I keep thinking "what kind of planet am I inheriting?"

It's not a good feeling.

[marmar]

13. So true.....I've been out of college for a decade.....

and I WANT TO GO BACK!

[scarletwoman]

10. Oh yeah -- k & r (nt)

[hatrack]

11. Here's another one: "Analysts See 'Simply Incredible' Shrinking Of Floating Ice in Arctic" - NYT

The area of floating ice in the Arctic has shrunk more this summer than in any other summer since satellite tracking began in 1979, and it has reached that record point a month before the annual ice pullback typically peaks, experts said yesterday. The cause is probably a mix of natural fluctuations, like unusually sunny conditions in June and July, and long-term warming from heat-trapping greenhouse gases and sooty particles accumulating in the air, according to several scientists.

William L. Chapman, who monitors the region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and posted a Web report on the ice retreat yesterday, said that only an abrupt change in conditions could prevent far more melting before the 24-hour sun of the boreal summer set in September. “The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”

Mark Serreze, a sea-ice expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said his center’s estimates differed somewhat from those of the Illinois team, and by the ice center’s reckoning the retreat had not surpassed the satellite-era record set in 2005. But it was close even by the center’s calculations, he said, adding that it is almost certain that by September, there will be more open water in the Arctic than has been seen for a long time. Ice experts at NASA and the University of Washington echoed his assessment.

Dr. Serreze said that a high-pressure system parked over the Arctic appeared to have caused a “triple whammy” — keeping away clouds, causing winds to carry warm air north and pushing sea ice away from Siberia, exposing huge areas of open water.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/science/earth/10arctic.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

[marmar]

12. It just gets better and better.....

:(