To
Be or Not to Be, La Niña? -
Just last month, scientists were
predicting that current La Niña
conditions would persist, but now data
from Earth-orbiting satellites show that
it may be on the decline. May 18, 2000
-- The cold-water cousin of El Niño
appears to be nearing an end, according
to the latest spacecraft and ocean buoy
data reported by the NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center. The return of warmer
surface water temperatures in the
Pacific Ocean around the equator may
mean changes in winter weather patterns
all over the world and a milder
hurricane season in the U.S. this
fall...
America’s
death-penalty lottery - THIS year around
100 Americans will be poisoned, hanged, gassed,
shot or electrocuted. In a country where some
17,000 people a year are murdered, this would
not seem exceptional. But the killer in these
100 cases will be the state. The number of
executions in the United States has been rising,
spurred on by laws curtailing the number of
years felons can wait on death row. It is hard
to think of any well-known politician in America
who disapproves of a punishment that two out of
three Americans support...
The
Dangers of Smart Growth - One of the
major issues for this year's electoral season is
"smart growth," which to its advocates
is needed to combat current suburban residential
patterns. According to the "smart
growth" promoters, modern suburbia is a
nightmare from hell, with its congested traffic,
ugly strip malls, and "cookie cutter"
homes. Such willy-nilly development, they say,
not only destroys the American Dream, but also
creates pollution, despair, and even violence.
It is proof that unplanned private enterprise,
if left to its own devices, menaces the very
well being of people who originally had fled to
suburbia ostensibly to escape what now threatens
them...
Tampa:
Water Issues - When it comes to the
issue of water, Tampa wears a regional hat these
days. Faced with mandated stoppage of
groundwater pumping and the prospect of a water
shortage that the Southwest Florida Water
Management District says will hit the entire
region in 2003, Tampa has little choice but to
act regionally. Groundwater pumping in northern
Hillsborough and Pasco counties over the years
has caused significant environmental damage.
Tampa Bay Water, the governance board comprised
of representatives from Hillsborough, Pasco and
Pinellas counties, as well as the cities of
Tampa, New Port Richey and St. Petersburg, has
the task of identifying and bringing new water
sources online. It has three projects slated to
begin over the next two years...
