Sometimes, it's hard to start the day off with a bit of sunshine.

Typhoon Fengshen Sinks Princess of Stars,
700-plus Missing, Presumed Dead

Bad news from the Philippines, via Reuters:

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Philippine ferry sinks; 700-plus passengers missing
By Manny Mogato and Rosemarie Francisco, Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:41am EDT

MANILA, June 22 (Reuters) - Rescuers braved rough seas on Sunday searching for survivors of a Philippine ferry that capsized with more than 700 passengers and crew during a typhoon that has killed scores and left a trail of destruction.

So far, only four people are known to have survived and they said many passengers did not make it off the MV Princess of Stars in time.

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Click the link before the excerpt for the full story.

"Though the weather outside is frightful..."

The news of the disaster in the Philippines comes right on the back of this piece, which in and of itself isn't exactly full of warmth and promise:

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Extreme floods, storms seen increasing in North America
Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Chris Wilson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Floods, droughts and severe storms are likely to ravage North America more frequently as emissions of planet-warming gases rise, according to a U.S. government study.

Extreme weather events, "could seriously affect" human health, agricultural production, and the availability and quality of water in the future, according to the report, issued by the Climate Change Science Program on Thursday.

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Click the link before the excerpt for the full story.

Looking Back At Prior Dire Predictions and Misconstrued News

With all this hullabaloo, it calls to mind an interesting story from the 2004 timeframe -- two stories, in fact.

1. From The Observer:

   Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
   by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York, The Observer, Sunday February 22, 2004

   The piece tells of a March 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon to study to worst-case potentials of Climate Change / global warming, and created quite a stir when news of the report got out. But the news may have been misconstrued.

2. From the The San Francisco Chronicle:

   Pentagon-sponsored climate report sparks hullabaloo in Europe
   But new ice age unlikely, Bay Area authors of study say
   by Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer, Wednesday, February 25, 2004

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   All that Schwartz and Randall did was to investigate the "worst-case" possible events, those that are highly unlikely to happen but, if they did happen, would be catastrophic, especially in their impacts on U.S. military operations -- "low probability, high impact" events, as they are known in the futurological world.

   [...snip...]

   It isn't even a Pentagon report in the strict sense of the word. It does not constitute an official DOD position paper or policy statement, conducted by scientists and military experts. Rather, all the work was done by Schwartz and Randall -- neither of whom is an atmospheric scientist -- based on their review of what real atmospheric scientists have done.

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Well, it's good thing we got all that settled. We wouldn't want to leave people thinking that things could get much worse.

This is an Open Thread.

Once again the old say "A picture speaks a thousand words" can pop into ones mind.

Thomas, over at G.I. Special - Military Project starts out his latest News Letter with the following recent photo of 'The War pResident'.

He captions the above with the following:

I just received the latest MoJo {Mother Jones} newsletter. Always interesting commentary can certainly be found at MoJo.

The subject title, above, was used as their leadin to the commentary linked below.

The following was their question in the newsletter:

Has anyone seen $15 billion in reconstruction funds? If so, the Pentagon's Inspector General is looking for them.

Donald Rumsfeld’s short lived Office of Strategic Influence spawned a termites’ nest of truth ministries; the Office of Special Plans, the Information Operations Task Force and the Iran Directorate are just a few of the ones we know about.

The Pentagon’s latest information warfare effort involves a network of foreign language web sites that promote U.S. interests. I doubt whether anyone at the Pentagon seriously thinks foreign language web sites are going to win over any foreign hearts and minds, but foreign language web sites could be neat placea to plant covert propaganda that can migrate into the domestic press without anyone knowing it originated at the Pentagon, huh?

AP reporter Anne Flaherty "http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Pentagon_biggest_obstacle_to_Democr_05132008.html">updates lobbying effort by Pentagon to defeat Jim Webb's bill to enable Vets to attend in-state public universities and colleges free of charge.

Veterans groups say it's time to expand college aid for GIs, and Democrats want to use an election year to do it. Their biggest obstacle? The Pentagon.

“The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war.” – Quadrennial Defense Review Report (February 6, 2006)

“No nation has ever profited from a long war.” – Sun Tzu (long ago)

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report noted that it was “imperative” for the Department of Defense to “hedge against uncertainty over the next 20 years.” The DoD will have to hedge a sight longer than 20 years if John McCain gets himself elected in November. McCain has “no objection” to American troops staying in Iraq for a hundred, a thousand, or heck, make it an even million years. He’s not likely to meet a lot of resistance to that policy from the Pentagon. Ten thousand centuries’ worth of job security doesn’t grow on trees.

Our old playmates Russia and China won’t object to McCain’s plans for a million-year replay of the Cold War either. The only concern they have on that score is McCain’s penchant for either changing his mind or forgetting what he said in the first place.

-- promoted-- cho

Greyhawk had this posted at ePluribus about the Military breaking ranks with the White House on the propaganda about the Successful Surge with only this one snippet

"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."

And just a few sentences, so I followed the link. Here's abit more to hopefully get you to drop over to the Asia Times online and read the rest.

From here:

"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."

It must suck for the WH and their pundits to have the walls of false reality come crashing down around their heads.