At Alternet, Alex Kane writes
Major Flight 370 Discovery: Our Oceans are Filled With Trash:
| The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet has not turned up a definitive answer to what happened to Flight 370. But what the searchers have turned up is an ocean full of trash, which is frustrating the planes swooping over the area west of Australia to try to find clues on the plane.
If the missing plane is in the ocean, it will be one piece of debris out of millions. “It isn't like looking for a needle in a haystack," scientist M. Sanjayan told CNN. "It's like looking for a needle in a needle factory.”
The most glaring example of the problem came when a satellite saw two objects floating in the Indian Ocean. It was called the best lead to date. But it turned out the bigger item of the two was likely a shipping container.
As the Associated Press reports, trash spews out of “hundreds of shipping containers lost overboard from cargo ships each year...The containers themselves can become hazards as they float around for months, buoyed by plastic objects inside or the air trapped behind watertight doors.” [...]
As the Inter Press Service’s Stephen Leahy reported in 2012, plastic in the ocean is negatively affecting marine animals with no backbone, which could mess up the entire ocean food chain.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Anti-war GOP emboldened:
The clearest sign that the war hasn't gone according to plan? Bush's advisers are m[i]red in a virtual civil war—with the anti-war camp suddenly emboldened to challenge the administration's Chickenhawk Brigade.
| The first 11 days of the war have brought back with a vengeance the deep splits that have long existed within the Bush administration and the Republican Party over policy toward Iraq.
Already there is a behind-the-scenes effort by former senior Republican government officials and party leaders to convince President Bush that the advice he has received from Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz—a powerful triumvirate frequently at odds with Secretary of State Colin L. Powellhas been wrong and even dangerous to long-term U.S. national interests.
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It's a fascinating read. |
Tweet of the Day:
Number of US troops who died in combat over the last month: 0. First time in years that can be said.
— @ksieff
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, Sheldon Adelson holds his own personal auditions for Gop contenders.
Greg Dworkin joined us for a Last Day of Open Season ACA round-up. But success in getting people covered isn't the same thing as success in getting people to support the new law, for many reasons. After a little chit-chat tour of Iceland, we move on to last night's
60 Minutes story on how high-frequency stock traders rigged the market. Yet another instance in which "economic inequality" isn't just about somebody having more money than you, but rather about having the system tailored to keep it that way, no matter what.
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