AN EXCERPT:  When NASA’s newest rover, Curiosity, reaches Mars in about three weeks, it will not be the first to set its wheels on the Red Planet, but it will be the largest and most advanced robotic explorer that has ever been sent to our planetary neighbor.

The Curiosity rover, also called the Mars Science Laboratory, was launched in late November 2011, and is expected to land on Mars on the night of Aug. 5 PDT (early Aug. 6 EDT). The $2.5 billion rover will touch down at Gale Crater, and is designed to search for clues that Mars could be now, or in the ancient past, a habitable planet for microbial life.

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http://www.space.com/16633-mars-rover-curiosity-red-planet-comparison.html

Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is

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AN EXCERPT:   Grebenkemper was just one of a team of dog handlers commissioned to find potential cremation sites in what is the latest effort to preserve sensitive areas throughout the construction of the Ocotillo Wind Express facility.   The project’s developers, Pattern Energy, agreed Tuesday afternoon to hold off construction near three of the project’s towers after a number of additional potential cremation sites were discovered, said a spokesman with one of the area tribes. ..The tribes have long maintained cultural and archaeological resources will be permanently affected by the project.

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http://www.ivpressonline.com/news/ivp-dogs-search-for-ancient-remains-on-wind-farm-project-site-near-ocotillo-20120717,0,2447573.story

AN EXCERPT:   On July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They’d marked the spot “Ground Zero. Population 5” on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them….As we watch, directly overhead, two F-89 jets roar into view, and one of them shoots off a nuclear missile carrying an atomic warhead….They wait. There is a countdown; 18,500 feet above them, the missile is detonated and blows up. Which means, these men intentionally stood directly underneath an exploding 2-kiloton nuclear bomb. One of them, at the key moment (he’s wearing sunglasses), looks up. You have to see this to believe it.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/07/16/156851175/five-men-agree-to-stand-directly-under-an-exploding-nuclear-bomb

AN EXCERPT:   A new study finds that constantly being online can affect your mental health.  Researchers at the University of Gothenburg  recently studied more than 4,100 Swedish men and women between the ages of 20 and 24 for a year and found that a majority of them who constantly use a computer and mobile phones can develop stress, sleeping disorders and depression….Sara Thomee, lead author of the study, said there was a “central link” between computers and mental disorders.

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http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/07/17/study-people-who-are-constantly-online-can-develop-mental-disorders/

Harold Ford Jr., sleazy corporatist and nepotist, offers up a particularly grotesque defense of U.S. aggression

By Glenn Greenwald

AN EXCERPT:   Harold Ford, Jr. is the walking, breathing embodiment of virtually everything rotted and corrupt about the American political class…This morning, Ford, as he often is, was on Morning Joe (independently significant is that fact that one of the most prolific NBC/MSNBC political commentators — a Democrat — is also a senior Wall Street executive). The show devoted a six-minute segment to Esquire‘s Tom Junod, who — as I noted earlier today — has just published a worthwhile and heartfelt article entitled “The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama,” which examines in depth the multiple ways the President has seized the power to kill; in one section, Junod reports on the U.S. killing of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki in Yemen, and Esquire has published that section separately under this headline: “Obama’s Administration Killed a 16-Year-Old American and Didn’t Say Anything About It. This Is Justice?” In the Morning Joe segment, Junod repeatedly documented the numerous innocent Muslims — including children — that are continuously killed by Obama’s attacks, such as the 16-year-old Denver-born son of the Islamic preacher, a mere two weeks after his father was killed.

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http://www.salon.com/2012/07/09/harold_ford_jr_smirking_sociopath/

AN EXCERPT:    The vast wildfires of this summer and last represent a new normal for the western United States. They may signal a radical landscape transformation, one that will make the 21st century West an ecological frontier.

Unlike fires that have occurred regularly for thousands of years, these fires are so big and so intense as to create discontinuities in natural cycles. In the aftermath, existing forests may not return. New ecosystems will take their place.

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/western-fire-transformation/#more-119368

The August-September Issue:

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AN EXCERPT:   “According to Interior’s estimates, the 1,000 giant wind turbines are expected to kill up to 64 golden eagles and 150-210 other raptor species each year. Beyond raptors, the wind turbines are expected to kill up to 5,400 birds of various other species and 6,300 bats each year, according to the final environmental impact statement. The bat mortality probably would mostly affect hoary and silver-haired bats. Because bats have a slow reproductive rate, the loss of so many bats would be considered significant, according to the environmental impact statement.”

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http://www.mojavedesertblog.com/2012/07/sierra-club-endorses-wyoming-wind-farm.html