WcP.TomorrowsHistory's blog

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The century-old Christian Science Monitor announced Tuesday that it will become the first nationally distributed newspaper to stop publishing a daily print edition, and focus on publishing online, succumbing to the financial pressure squeezing its industry harder than ever. The Boston-based paper is not forsaking print altogether - it will offer a weekly print version in addition to daily e-mail editions - but editors acknowledged shifting the focus to CSMonitor.com will save millions in addition to widening its audience.

The Boston-based general-interest paper, winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes, has long since established an extraordinary reputation for high-quality journalism. It was founded a century ago in 1908 by a religious visionary, Mary Baker Eddy, who "discovered" Christian Science and founded the paper in response to critical coverage of her in the New York World. She declared in the first edition that the role of the paper would be to "injure no man, but bless all mankind."

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Two Russian strategic bombers have landed in Venezuela as part of military maneuvers, the Interfax news agency reported today, at a time when US-Russian relations are at their most strained since the cold war. Interfax cited a Russian defense ministry statement as saying the two Tu-160 strategic bombers landed today to carry out training flights over neutral waters in the next few days before returning to Russia.

The arrival of the Russian strategic warplanes in what the US considers its backyard followed a statement at the weekend by the Venezuelan government saying that four Russian ships would participate in joint exercises in the Caribbean this year. Venezuela said a taskforce including four Russian naval ships and 1,000 Russian military personnel would take part in mid-November exercises with Venezuelan frigates, patrol boats, submarines and aircraft. Confirming a visit would be made, Russia said its ships would include the heavy cruiser Peter the Great and the anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko. Anti-submarine planes would also be sent to Venezuela temporarily, it said.

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Fears were raised as Russian troops opened a second front by pushing deep into the west of Georgia. Yesterday other former Soviet bloc countries warned that the Kremlin was becoming ever more aggressive and authoritarian and could try to restore control to more of its former territories.

Czech Republic foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg compared Russia’s incursion into Georgia to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the so-called Prague Spring uprising against Communist rule.

Schwarzenberg said the Czech Republic supports Georgia and added that “it is a sad coincidence” that the fighting in Georgia takes place at the moment when the country is marking the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968. And the presidents of Poland and three Baltic states, formerly members of the Soviet bloc, labeled Moscow’s approach “imperialist and revisionist.”  read more »

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Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared that "war has started."

Shortly before dawn on Sunday, Georgia’s Interior Ministry said that Russian bombers had begun striking military facilities adjacent to the civilian airport at Tbilisi. The explosions could be heard in the city, said Shota Utiashvili, a ministry official. He said that Russia had built up large forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia — breakaway regions that have support from Moscow — including as many as 300 artillery pieces in South Ossetia alone. Russian forces, he said, were also poised just over the border at Larsi, a checkpoint, where they could open a third line of ground attack. As Russia moved more forces into the region and continued aerial bombing, it appeared determined to occupy both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said Russia’s ambitions were even more extensive. He declared that Georgia was in a state of war, and said in an interview that Russia was planning to seize ports and an oil pipeline and to overthrow his government.

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Imagine filling up your gas tank for less than $15. Some Americans are doing it — and they're doing it on two wheels.

Motorized scooters have emerged as the new transportation of choice for some Americans fed up with gas prices that have surged past $4 a gallon. Though the small, zippy vehicles aren't ideal for every purpose, some owners say they're great for short trips and running errands.

Chris Maxwell recently purchased a Yamaha Majesty scooter to ride around the small town of Natchez, Miss. His wife, Emily Maxwell, appreciates how much the couple saves on gas purchases. "It gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon in town and a full tank lasts two to three weeks," she said. "Right now it costs under $12 to fill it up, so we immediately get a $200 a month 'pay raise' from the lower fuel costs."

Shawn Pointer, of Kenosha, Wis., said he often straps in his four-pound Chihuahua, Missy, for rides down to a local river on his 2007 Honda Metropolitan. Pointer bought the blue and white scooter for $1,600 but pays only about $10 a month to fill its 1.2 gallon tank. The scooter gets roughly 100 miles a gallon so he can travel 120 miles for $4. The same trip in the typical car would cost nearly $18.

New York resident Austin Rommett fills his scooter with fuel at a gas station in New York on Sunday, June 8, 2008. "It's very cheap to ride," he said. "The only downfall is that you can't take it out on the freeway or highway. But, to take it out on the town is one of the best investments I ever made. I could ride that thing forever and the gas gauge barely moves."

Joel Metter, 51, the general manager at the New York Motorcycle shop and a scooter owner himself, says that these days, people who walk into his store are "totally green" – they're new to scooter purchases and are excited about saving some money. "Everyone's coming in complaining about gas prices," he said. Crystall Hadjimina, general manager and co-owner of a family-run New York Vespa dealership, said that since gas prices began surging, sales have at least doubled to about five scooters a day.

Overall sales of Vespas and other name-brand scooters such as Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki rose 24 percent in the first quarter of the year, said Mike Mount of the Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade group.

Hadjimina said her most popular scooter is a Piaggio three-wheel model known as the MP3. Customers like it, she said, "… because you don't have to put your feet down at the street light." The scooter sells for $7,199. With prices on most scooters in the four-figure range, buyers usually have to wait before they see their fuel savings match their scooter's purchase price. Errol Kody, 60, says he doesn't mind.

Kody, who works on boats in San Francisco, purchased his Vespa GTS 250 for $5,800. Now, instead of taking out his 1990 Nissan Stanza, he rides the scooter to work — a 58-mile roundtrip — and enjoys some fresh air on the way. "People are always interested in the scooter. They wave at me while I drive," he said. "It's going to take me a while to get my money back, but it's a lot of fun to drive." The best part of owning the scooter? Kody said it's the feeling he gets when he finally has to pull into a gas station after getting about 75 miles per gallon.

Soon some scooter riders won't even have to go to the gas station. Metter, of New York Motorcycle, said consumers should be on the lookout for electric scooters, a potential alternative to their gas-powered relatives. "They're just starting to emerge," he said. "Zero gas. Zero pollution. It's like an appliance. You can park it on the carpet and not worry about oil dripping."

Mount recommended that riders wear bright colors. "Conspicuity is key," he said. Each state has different restrictions and procedures for scooters or mopeds. In some cases, motorcycle training and tests are required. In others, all you need is a regular motor vehicle license. Scooters that have engine sizes exceeding 50 cubic centimeters and travel 30 miles per hour or higher require a motorcycle license. Contact your state's motor vehicles office for details.

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Photos courtesy of ABC News Photo Illustration

Original Source: ABC News

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The world's thirst for oil is growing so quickly humanity will consume more of it this decade than over the previous hundred years. Production can't possibly keep up. And the consequences will be dire. "This surge of demand will soon begin to send shock waves through the American economy and transportation system," wrote one expert. The American interior secretary agreed.

A massive oil shortage was coming in the 1980s. Everyone knew that. But before the predicted crisis could arrive, the world was hit with one that wasn't predicted: The Iranian revolution of 1979 turned a major American ally into a major American enemy. Oil prices soared. Economies slipped into recession.

Experts were certain the age of scarcity had arrived ahead of schedule. "The cardinal issue is how vicious the struggle for energy supplies will become," the head of the CIA told a Senate committee. In the summer of 1980, the journal Foreign Affairs captured the dismal mood in an article headlined "Oil and the Decline of the West."

Then a funny thing happened. The price of oil stopped rising. Instead, it fell. And fell some more. High prices had encouraged oil companies to explore like never before and producers to open their spigots. Supply gushed onto the market.

In 1985, the price of oil collapsed.

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Images courtesy of AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan, Speciality Sites 24-7

Original Source: Montreal Gazette

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered its third consecutive rebuff to the Bush administration’s handling of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, ruling 5 to 4 that the prisoners there have a constitutional right to go to federal court to challenge their continued detention.

The court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that, at the administration’s behest, stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their designation as enemy combatants.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the truncated review procedure provided by a previous law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, “falls short of being a constitutionally adequate substitute” because it failed to offer “the fundamental procedural protections of habeas corpus.”

Justice Kennedy declared: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

'Habeas corpus' (Latin: [We command] that you have the body) is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

On Oct. 17, 2006, President Bush signed a law suspending the right of habeas corpus to persons "determined by the United States" to be an "enemy combatant" in the Global War on Terror. President Bush's action drew severe criticism, mainly for the law's failure to specifically designate who in the United States will determine who is and who is not an "enemy combatant."

To President Bush's support for the law -- the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- and its suspension of writs of habeas corpus, Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University stated, "What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."

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Photos Courtesy of Todd Heisler/NY Times, Wikipedia, and elcivics.com

Original Source: The New York Times and About.com

Related Article: Why This Court Keeps Rebuking This President

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BEIJING (AP) — An Olympic flame reached, and was lit up on, the top of the world Thursday. The 19-member mountaineering team was comprised of both ethnic Han Chinese and Tibetan members and also included university students - the team captain, Nyima Cering, is a Tibetan, while deputy Luo Shen is Han Chinese. All dressed in red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp before dawn and reached the top of the 29,035-foot mountain a little more than six hours later.

The Everest torch is separate from the main Olympic flame, which was not taken up the mountain because of weather concerns. A delay due to bad weather would have thrown the schedule off for the whole torch relay. The Olympic flame had been carried in a special metal canister during the ascent. As the team neared the top, they used a wand to pass the flame from the canister to the torch, which had been designed to withstand the strong winds and low oxygen levels at the top of Everest.

A colorful Tibetan prayer flag lined the path and fluttered in the wind. The climbers could be heard struggling for breath (live television) as five torchbearers each inched a few feet before passing on the flame to the next person. The final torchbearer, a Tibetan woman named Cering Wangmo, stood on the peak with the torch while other team members unfurled flags Chinese and Olympic flags. They then clustered together, cheering "We made it," and "Beijing welcomes you." One person was heard breathing heavily, murmuring "not enough oxygen." The head of the Everest leg of the relay, Li Zhixin, was overcome with emotion as the flame reached the top. "It's so hard," he said at the CCTV studio set up at base camp, choking on tears.

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Photos courtesy of Xinhua News

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"MOSCOW (Reuters) - A diminutive, softly-spoken former corporate lawyer, Russia's new president Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is an unlikely figure to lead the biggest country on earth.

The first Russian leader in generations to have worked in the private sector, Medvedev, 42, was to be sworn in as president on Wednesday in a lavish televised ceremony in the Kremlin.

He secured the post after the popular outgoing leader Vladimir Putin endorsed him as his preferred successor, ensuring an overwhelming victory at the polls in March.

Medvedev has repeatedly cast himself as a continuity candidate who will follow the course set by Putin -- a popular line in Russia, where most of the population has benefited from rapid economic growth and rising incomes under Putin.

Further underlining continuity, Putin will stay on as Medvedev's prime minister and as leader of the United Russia party, which holds a big majority in the lower house of parliament.

But the two men differ radically in background, upbringing and style.

Putin was proud of his past as a KGB agent in former East Germany and loved posing for pictures flying fighter jets or standing aboard nuclear submarines. Medvedev has no known link to the secret services and has never served in the army.

A bookish child born to two university professors, Medvedev grew up in a modest, middle-class household. His speeches reflect his educated, lawyerly background and are laced with long, complex sub-clauses."

Photos courtesy of AP

Original Source