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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch

I bring this up every time hydrogen as a fuel source is discussed, but for some reason it never gets any love.

The short of it is, this process produces synthetic fuels (that we can use in our cars now) and hydrogen (that we can use in cars in the near future) and allows for a bridge between the two fuel sources.

It also has the potential to be carbon neutral, although currently the main source of material for the process is coal.

From wiki "biomass gasification technology offers a carbon-neutral alternative. Biomass-powered synthetic fuel plants are one of the most technologically and economically convincing energy possibilities for a carbon-neutral economy, according to the paper Carbon cycle management with increased photo-synthesis and long-term sinks, from a recent climate change conference sponsored by the Royal Society Of New Zealand."

The Governor of Montana proposed building a refinery a couple years ago as well, but I don't think it wen anywhere.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/10/ 05/news/wyoming/a1e43e1a89d9fab0872571fc00012378.t xt
http://governor.mt.gov/hottopics/faqsynthetic.asp

"This black list was nothing to joke about. People lost their lives, lost their businesses, lost their homes, and were falsely jailed."

"Give one example?"

Only one?

Suicide:
"On Feb. 9, 1950, in Wheeling, W.Va., McCarthy claimed that there were 205 known communists in the State Department. Later on the Senate floor, he reduced this number to 57. That led to the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and McCarthy's continued attacks.
In 1951, Hunt noted that "there have been many suicides due to the smearing received either in Committee hearings or from remarks made in the United States Congress." He introduced a bill providing for lawsuits against the United States for those who were defamed by members of Congress. The bill did not receive enough support."
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/11/ 01/news/wyoming/8cf263f85d4be99387256f3e0020f92f.t xt [casperstartribune.net]

Lost Jobs:
"Yale Law School professor Ralph Brown, who conducted the most systematic survey of the economic damage of the McCarthy era, estimated that roughly ten thousand people lost their jobs. Such a figure may be low, as even Brown admits, for it does not include rejected applicants, people who resigned under duress, and the men and women who were ostensibly dismissed for other reasons. Still, it does suggest the scope of the economic sanctions."
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schreck er-blacklist.html [upenn.edu]

Frightened Students:
"In the late 1950s a group of graduate students at the University of Chicago wanted to have a coffee vending machine installed outside the Physics Department for the convenience of people who worked there late at night. They started to circulate a petition to the Buildings and Grounds Department, but their colleagues refused to sign. They did not want to be associated with the allegedly radical students whose names were already on the document."
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/mccarthy/schrecke r6.htm [uiuc.edu]

More:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyis m.htm [schoolnet.co.uk]

Not convinced?
Do a google search on McCarthism + Blacklist

You can move the situation along by investing in a company that might have a solution:
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/11/ 10/news/special/2a6faf69b9cd57ee872570ac005c05b8.t xt

i.e. Vical has already been contracted by the US government to run trials of DNA vaccines.

So, do your part, help the government out as well and invest in companies that are working towards a solution.

Follow the ultimate geek, Bill Gates, in his example. Money talks!!!!
He's trying to stamp out malaria. What's your favorite bug that needs squashing????

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

For a low bandwidth election results page I have created at this reader's request the following:

This covers only the Presidential race with both electoral and nationwide popular vote. We will be posting the results from returns collected by the AP and Reuters as well as the Lee News Service which covers several battleground states.

The Casper Star-Tribune http://www.casperstartribune.net/ also has a link to AP election results in realtime meaning you can read the results of the election at the same time that CNN, FOX, etc do. With the demise of the Voter News Service after the 2000 election the AP is they sole collector of nationwide results.

I hope this is a help.

For a low bandwidth election results page I have created at this reader's request the following:

This covers only the Presidential race with both electoral and nationwide popular vote. We will be posting the results from returns collected by the AP and Reuters as well as the Lee News Service which covers several battleground states.

The Casper Star-Tribune http://www.casperstartribune.net/ also has a link to AP election results in realtime meaning you can read the results of the election at the same time that CNN, FOX, etc do. With the demise of the Voter News Service after the 2000 election the AP is they sole collector of nationwide results.

I hope this is a help.

Non-allies tend to have governments that are Socialist, Communist, militant Islamic, and/or dictatorial, or no real government at all. (Hmmm, that might somehow have something to do with why they're not allies!) As a result, their societies are not conducive to independent media enterprises. Yes, enterprises are necessary here. If, say, Djibouti has a newspaper but doesn't have a decent, consistently-updated website too, Google won't link to it. It takes capital to fund these things. The media outlet(s) in most of these second/third world countries are limited and either highly regulated (censored) or completely state-run. How many news sources are based in Syria? North Korea? Libya? Hint: you don't need all your fingers to count them. Compared to the UK? Too many to track them all down. Heck, compared to the city of Orlando? The non-ally nation news sources are probably outnumbered 1 to 500.

And size does count. The Syria Times, for example, is quite pitiful. The Syria Daily looks pretty snazzy, but notice that over half the headlines actually link to news sites in - surprise - America or American ally countries. These examples don't constitute worthy competitors of, say, the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, much less the NY Times.

Having said that, I think Google does a fantastic job of consistently pulling news from every part of the globe. I've frequently seen news from Pakistan, "pan-Arab" regions, and many small countries you hardly ever hear anything about.