Global Hoax

SPACE.com has learned that NASA has discovered evidence of water on the Red Planets surface. The finding, made by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, fuels hopes that there may be life on Mars.

NASA Chief: Mars Troubles Not Due to Lack of Funding: Daniel S.Goldin told the House Science Committee Tuesday that the space agency's recent loss of two missions to Mars was not the result of a tight budget at the space agency. Want to Learn More?

Study Shows Public Supports Mars Trip: A healthy majority of the public is ready to give the thumbs-up on sending U.S. astronauts to Mars. Theyare also backing the building of a space station. Those are among the findings of a wide-ranging survey released by the National Science Board, a governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Sources close to the agencys Mars program said the discovery involves evidence of seasonal depositsthat could be associated with springs on the planets surface.

NASA plans to make the blockbuster announcement during a press conference scheduled for June 29,sources said.

The discovery, if confirmed, would mark the achievement of a primary goal in NASAs program to explore Mars.

NASAs ambitious plans forMars focus on gaining an understanding of the potential for either past or present life on the planet. The program also aims to improve sciences understanding of Mars climate and its resources.

Key to all three themes iswater: Where and when it may have flowed in the past, where it might lurk todayand in which forms and what quantities.

NASA scientists on the MarsGlobal Surveyor team declined to comment, pending the press conference andsubsequent publication in the journal Science of a paper on thediscovery.

Ed Weiler, NASA associateadministrator for space science, told the National Academy of Sciences SpaceStudies Board on June 14 that the Mars program needs a clear-cut vision. Thereal reason to go is to find out if life is there or not, he said.

"To meet that long-term mission requires that you follow the water. Without water there is no tlife there was not life," Weiler said. "By following the water, it all fits together. So for the first time, we have a really good, clear,long-term vision for Mars."

Water most likely flowed inthe distant past on Mars, carving channels and other features clearly visible on its surface. But other than in the form of clouds and ice, liquid water cannot exist on the planets surface today, thanks to the thinness of its atmosphere.

Scientists have hypothesized that vast stores of water could still persist beneath the surfaceof Mars.

Relatively youthful F-117 fighter to make room for other, pricier aircraft
By Russ Britt, MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:16 AM ET Nov 25, 2006


LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Less than two decades after the world first got a look at the F-117 stealth fighter, the first aircraft built specifically to elude radar is scheduled for retirement by the Air Force -- and some wonder whether the plane's mothballing is a bit premature.
The reasons for shelving the plane that played a key role in the first Iraqi war are to make room for such aircraft as the F-22 Raptor, which has been under fire for being too expensive. But the Air Force has reasoned that the F-22 can do what the F-117 does, and more. Air Force officials did not return phone calls.
Pentagon analysts point out, though, that the F-117's lifespan will wind up being much shorter than most other Air Force aircraft. It's due to come out of service in 2008.
"It's probably the fastest retirement since the 1960s," said Bill Sweetman, technology and aerospace editor for Jane's Information Group. "I think the Air Force is trying to cast off older planes."

The decision is puzzling to some, as not all the Air Force's older aircraft are headed for the scrap heap. Other fighter planes that were conceived prior to the F-117 -- including the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-18 Hornet -- still are flying and are expected to endure well into the 2020s.
There also are such durable aircraft as the B-52 bomber, which debuted in the early 1950s and is expected to keep flying for several more decades.
"It is premature," said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information. "The Air Force is scrounging for bill payers to help pay for the F-22."

There are a number of other reasons, though, that could be behind the decision to retire the F-117 -- many of which the Air Force is unwilling to discuss, analysts say.
One key is that no follow-up versions of F-117 have ever been commissioned. While the B-52 is working on its sixth decade in service, it remains in the fleet because the Air Force has commissioned several versions of the plane over the years. Its first production model was the B-52A; its newest is called the B-52H. So far there have been 744 B-52s built.

High-maintenance
Only 59 F-117s were produced, and there may be several reasons for that. Sweetman says upkeep for the F-117 can be demanding.
"It's a high-maintenance aircraft, always has been," he said.
Also, it was proven in the Kosovo War that the plane can be vulnerable. One F-117 was detected and shot down there in 1999 while another was damaged. Reports say the top-secret technology may have been compromised after the crash as Russian inspectors were believed to have been invited by Serbian troops to view the aircraft's remains.
Detecting the plane has gotten easier over the years. There are indications that when it gets wet, it can be picked up on radar. Certain types of systems, known as long-wavelength radar, sometimes can detect the plane; that's believed to be the case in the Kosovo incident. And it's always been vulnerable to detection when its bomb bay doors are open.

Furthermore, the plane may not have performed as well as initially claimed in Operation Desert Storm. Wheeler, who evaluated weapons performance for the General Accounting Office shortly after that brief conflict, said that while the F-117 did well, its performance was "grossly overstated" by the Pentagon.
The fighter purportedly was used to take out Iraqi radar defenses in the first hours of the war, but those defenses were not completely down until several days later, Wheeler said. Only three of the F-117's 15 targets were destroyed in the first hours of Desert Storm.
Throughout Desert Storm, the Air Force claimed the plane hit 80% of its targets, but it actually was closer to 40% to 50%. It also was billed as a plane that didn't need radar-jamming aircraft accompanying it, but several were used alongside the F-117 in Iraq, he said.
"It was false advertising by the Air Force," Wheeler said. "It was not a silver bullet."
Conceived in 1973

The F-117 was conceived in secret during the Cold War, in an era when tensions between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union ran high. Stealth technology had been an obsession for U.S. scientists since the 1950s, but remained a pipedream prior to the development of carbon-fiber material for aircraft in the 1960s.
When that became possible, the F-117 contract was awarded in 1973 to Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, also known as the "Skunk Works," in Burbank, Calif. The group now is part of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT).

Known by the code name "Have Blue," the program was kept classified until 1988, when production of the aircraft was almost complete. It made a first flight in 1977, the delivery of the first production jet took place in 1982 and it was fully operational by 1983.
All those milestones took place in secret. Meanwhile, the plane was tested at the remote Groom Lake region outside Las Vegas, and housed at the nearby Tonopah Test Range.
"It's going to go down in history as a pioneering aircraft," said Jane's Sweetman. "It was the quickest way to get a stealth aircraft into service."
Unlike its more expensive sister aircraft, Northrop Grumman's (NOC) B-2 stealth bomber, the F-117's costs were kept down, allowing the program to swoop in under the radar of the American public.
The cost for research and development, plus the entire lot of 59 planes was $7 billion, Sweetman says. That's about the cost of three B-2 bombers.
The F-117 was used from parts from other, existing planes, which the Air Force reportedly claimed would be used for spares in order to hide the program.
One knock against the facet-shaped plane, which resembles a cut diamond, was that it was unstable due to the radar-evading design. An airplane's tail is used to keep the craft stable, but the F-117's tail was more swept than upright. Pilots were said to have called the plane the "Wobblin' Goblin."

Not invisible
One misconception about the F-117 and other "stealth" aircraft are that they are invisible, Wheeler said.
"It is never invisible. It is always 'reduced detectable,'" he said.
If this stealth plane is being mothballed, does that mean the end could be near for such aircraft as the B-2, which struck Congress with a severe case of sticker shock after its first flight in 1989? Twenty-two B-2s were built at a cost of $2.2 billion each.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, says the computers that designed the F-117 and those that built the B-2 and the F-22 are miles apart in sophistication. The F-117 was built with 1970s technology while the other two were created in the 1980s and 1990s.
That becomes apparent on first glance, as the F-117 is marked by sharp angles. Conversely, the other two have smooth, curved surfaces that required more computer power to create. Stealth technology now is being incorporated into all new aircraft, including the upcoming F-35 Lightning, Pike said.
"We're approaching an era where stealth is normal," he said.
Wheeler says, however, that there is a gap left by the F-117's retirement. The F-22, which costs about $69 billion for 183 planes, has only half the payload capacity of the F-117. That won't be made up until the F-35 comes on line.
That aircraft, also being built by Lockheed, remains in development and is not scheduled for delivery until the next decade, he said.
But Loren Thompson, chief operating officer at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank, said the F-117 now is far inferior to the B-2 and F-22 in terms of stealth capabilities.
"In its day it was impressive. But not by today's standards," Thompson said. End of Story
Russ Britt is the Los Angeles bureau chief for MarketWatch.

By BRAD FOSS, AP Business WriterTue Nov 21, 1:20 PM ET

America's most finicky coffee drinkers tout their caffeine connoisseurship in many, often contradictory, ways. They spend a bundle at Starbucks, or refuse to patronize big chains. They only drink espresso, or decline any cup of joe they didn't brew themselves.

Then there are people like Chris Becker of Arlington, whose coffee worship involves a ritual that places him at the outer edge of the country's java culture.

Becker roasts coffee beans at home.

"Even my less-than-good batches are fresher than any (beans) I'd buy in a store," said Becker, a 30-year-old government employee who uses a gas grill to transform flavorless green coffee beans into savory dark-brown kernels that he then grinds and brews within a few days, if not hours.

It doesn't require a lot of time, money or equipment to roast coffee beans at home — less than 10 minutes in an air popcorn popper does the trick — but enthusiasts devote plenty of each to the craft.

Home roasters congregate at Web sites such as coffeegeek.com, where they exchange techniques; they get together in person to sample, or "cup," each other's beans; and many maintain log books, where they record details such as the amount of time and heat applied to each batch they roast.

"Some guys are over the top," said Dave Borton of Monroe, Wis., who has been roasting at home since January, belongs to an Internet-based bean buyers club and gives away about two pounds of freshly roasted beans every week to co-workers and members of his church. "My wife would tell you I am over the top."

To cater to this tiny-but-growing market, a cottage industry that exists mostly online has blossomed over the past decade, selling countertop electric roasters that cost anywhere from $75 to $500 and green coffee beans from the world's best growing regions priced at around $5 a pound. These items can also be found at some brick-and-mortar specialty shops, such as Fante's Kitchen Wares Shop of Philadelphia and Zaccardi's of Scarsdale, N.Y.

Perhaps the most popular purveyor of green coffee beans is Oakland, Calif.-based sweetmarias.com, which sells around 400,000 pounds a year, according Maria Troy, who has run the business for nine years with her husband Thompson Owen, the founder and something of a folk hero in the home-roasting community.

Sweet Maria's offers customers more than 60 varieties from Central America, Africa and Asia. Prices range from $4.45 to $29.90 a pound.

There are also plenty of smaller distributors of green beans.

Dean's Beans, a 12-year-old Orange, Mass.-based seller of organic roasted beans began selling green beans about 18 months ago after customers requested them. Without any advertising, the company now sells a couple hundred pounds a week and owner Dean Cycon said "if we put the pedal to the metal on green beans, we could actually support an entirely separate company."

Dennis Robbins of Kernersville, N.C., meanwhile, launched thecaptainscoffee.com in 2003 and now sells about 18,000 pounds a year. Robbins first learned about home roasting a few years earlier while listening to a radio program about coffee.

"Some guy calls in and says he roasts his own ... in an old popcorn popper," recalled Robbins, who at the time was getting regular deliveries of Starbucks coffee for about $15 a pound. After a quick search on the Internet, Robbins found green beans that could be purchased for about a third of that price and pretty soon he was hooked.

"It was like the difference between a tomato bought in the supermarket and one grown in your garden," he said.

And just like vegetables grown in the backyard, there is often variability between each batch of home-roasted beans — a quality that makes them quite unlike the mass-produced coffee sold at retail chains or the supermarket.

One of the big complaints among home roasters about the country's large coffee chains is that they tend to produce very dark roasts, masking the subtle flavor differences, or "origin character," of beans grown in different countries.

"They want you to have the same taste in Milwaukee that you found in Los Angeles and you do that by over-roasting," said Borton, who will not drink Starbucks but owns the company's stock because he thinks it's a great business.

Starbucks spokesman Andy Fouche said the Seattle-based company "believes that a darker roast produces a better quality flavor and allows the true flavor of the bean to resonate in the cup. We don't do dark roasts simply for consistency."

Spend time talking with any home-roasting aficionado and it quickly becomes clear that, as with many hobbies, the pleasure comes from the process as much as it does the end product. To be sure, even the most ornery of coffee snobs knows in a pinch where to find freshly roasted beans and high-quality coffee right in their neighborhood. But that misses the point.

To Borton, a human resources manager at a community college, the appeal of roasting beans is that "it's tactile."

"I work with ideas and abstract material all day," he added. "This is something I can take from my hands and give to another person."

Similarly, Becker said that what got him hooked on roasting just as much as the quality of the coffee was "the creation." Then, after considering his initial response, Becker smiled and conceded there was another attraction: "the gadgets."

Becker began roasting about a year ago with an inexpensive cast-iron skillet, which required constant stirring to avoid burning the beans. He soon upgraded to a motorized stainless steel "roasting drum" purchased at rkdrums.com for $350, and his coffee-making toolkit also includes a $99 infrared thermometer and a $350 bean grinder.

Despite all the fun, Becker warns that a home-roasting habit is not without its pitfalls.

"At the end of a meal at a restaurant I'd like a cup of coffee. But it's pretty rare that I'll order it anymore," he said. It just won't taste right.

___

On the Net:

http://www.sweetmarias.com

http://www.coffeegeek.com

http://www.deansbeans.com

http://www.thecaptainscoffee.com

http://www.coffeereview.com

Fri Nov 17, 3:24 AM ET

Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

It is one of several weapons being developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include super gloves that would give the user the strength of a "bionic man" and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers.

The research integrates nanotechnology into Israel's security department and will find creative solutions to problems the army has been unable to address, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Yedioth Ahronoth.

"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry. It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons," Peres said.

The 34-day war in Lebanon ended with a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in mid-August. The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Prototypes for the new weapons are expected within three years, he said.

· Nasa evokes Hollywood in effort to avoid catastrophe
· Mission would bridge gap between moon and Mars
David Adam

Friday November 17, 2006

Guardian
It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs.

To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.

Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: "There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids ... to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid.

"The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities."

A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough warning, would be to gently nudge the object into a safer orbit.

"A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile," Dr McKay said. "There could be testing of various approaches. We don't know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation."

Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days.

Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. "You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction."

Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet.

Dr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid.

But with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts.

Dan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said an asteroid landing mission would be a good way test the new Constellation programme spacecraft, the Apollo-style planned replacements for the space shuttle with which Nasa hopes to return to the moon.

He told Space.com: "A very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle's architecture would be a "quick-dash" near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission."

Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut, said: "After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission. An asteroid mission could take us immediately into deep space, sustaining programme momentum, adding public excitement and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission."

Europe has its own efforts to tackle asteroids. Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path.


'Not if, but when...' Hits and near misses

At Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, scientists monitor all "potentially hazardous asteroids" that might one day end up on a collision course with Earth. So far they number 831. The next close-ish shave - at a mere 17 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth - will be asteroid 2004QD14 on November 29.

The Earth has a long history of asteroid strikes. Thirty five million years ago, a 5km-wide asteroid ploughed into what is now Chesapeake Bay, in the US, leaving an 80km crater. In 1908, an asteroid devastated swaths of Siberia when it exploded mid-air with the force of 1,000 Hiroshimas. The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid striking Mexico 65m years ago is controversial since scientists uncovered rocks from the crater predating the extinction of the dinosaurs by 300,000 years.

A near miss, when asteroid QW7 came within 4m km of Earth in September 2000, led Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik to declare: "It's not a case of if we will be hit, it is a question of when. Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend's lottery."

In January 2002, the former science minister, David Sainsbury, announced the government's response to the threat from hurtling asteroids: a new information centre based in Leicester.

guardian.co.uk/space

National Overview:

October

* 52nd coolest October on record (1895-2006).
* All regions near to or below normal temperature (first time since February 2003 with no regions above average temperature).
* Only 2 states above normal temperatures in October: New Hampshire and Texas.

* 12th wettest October for U.S.
* Fourth wettest October on record for the Northeast Region.
* Maine ranked 2nd wettest October.
* Regionally, wet in Southwest, South, Central, Southeast and Northeast

For information on local temperature and precipitation records during the month, please visit NCDC's Extremes page.

* Drought conditions persisted in the South and northern Plains. October rainfall helped to eliminate the extreme drought which was located in parts of northeast Texas. For more information on drought during October, please visit the U.S. Drought page.

* No tropical storms or hurricanes developed in the Atlantic Basin during October.

* In the East North Pacific Basin, Tropical Storms Norman and Oliva formed. Hurricane Paul was a strong category 2 storm which made landfall in Mexico as a tropical depression.

* El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions remained in a warm phase (El Niño) in the tropical Pacific basin as SSTs in the Equatorial Pacific continued to warm and expand throughout October. As of the beginning of November, SST anomalies are between 1.0°C and 1.2°C in all of the Niño regions. El Niño conditions are expected to intensify over the next several months. For more information on ENSO conditions, please visit the NCDC ENSO Monitoring page and the latest NOAA ENSO Advisory.

For additional details, see the Monthly and Seasonal Highlights section below and visit the October Climate Summary page. For details and graphics on weather events across the U.S. and the globe please visit NCDC's Global Hazards page.

Monthly and Seasonal Highlights:

National:

For additional national, regional, and statewide data and graphics from 1895-present, for October, the last 3 months or other periods, please visit the Climate At A Glance page.

* October 2006 was the 52nd coolest October in the 1895-2006 record. The preliminary nationally averaged temperature was 54.6°F (12.6°C), which was -0.15°F (-0.08°C) less than the 1901-2000 (20th century) mean.

* October had above-average precipitation nationally, ranking as the 12th wettest October in the 1895-2006 record. An average of 2.82 inches (72 mm) fell over the contiguous U.S. in October, 0.7 inches (18 mm) above the 20th century mean for the month.

* The 3-month period (August-October) was the 38th warmest in the 1895-to-present record and 0.3°F (0.2°C) above the 20th century mean. The preliminary nationally averaged August-October temperature was 64.6°F (18.1°C). A total of 8.47 inches (215 mm) of precipitation fell during this 3-month period, which corresponds to a ranking of 9th wettest.

* The 6-month (May-October) national average temperature was the 5th warmest such period on record. The nationally-averaged temperature was 67.6°F (19.8°C), which was 1.3°F (0.7°C) above the 20th century mean. At 15.90 inches (404 mm), May - October precipitation was near average and ranked as the 57th driest such period in the 1895-2006 record.

* January to October has been the 3rd warmest such year-to-date period on record. The nationally averaged year-to-date temperature was 57.9°F (14.4°C), or 2.2°F (1.2°C) above the mean. The year-to-date period was the 49th driest January-October in the 112-year record, receiving a national average of 24.54 inches (623 mm) of precipitation during the period, or 0.24 inches (6 mm) below the 20th century mean.

* November 2005 - October 2006 was the 4th warmest such period in the 1895-2006 record. The preliminary nationally-averaged 12-month temperature was 54.9°F (12.7°C), which was 2.1°F (1.1°C) above the mean. Precipitation was slightly below the mean for the November 2005 - October 2006 period, ranking it as the 49th driest November-October in the 111-year record. The nationally-averaged 12-month precipitation accumulation was 28.83 inches (732 mm), or 0.32 inches (8 mm) below the 20th century mean.


Regional and Statewide:

* October precipitation across Maine was 2nd wettest on record and 3rd wettest in Louisiana. Most of the central U.S., Great Lakes states and parts of the Northeast and Southeast experienced below average temperatures during this period. Above average temperatures occurred in Texas and New Hampshire.

* August-October precipitation across Kentucky was the wettest on record and 3rd wettest in Indiana. Colorado ranked 11th coolest during this period. Above average temperature ranks were present in 5 states across the U.S. Below average temperatures were centered around the Great Lakes and the central U.S.

* In the Southwest region, August-October precipitation was 4th wettest on record. The Northeast and Central regions both experienced their 8th wettest such period. The Northwest ranked 11th driest during this 3-month period.

* The past 6-months (May-October) were above- to much-above-normal across 6 of the 8 standard regions, with the West having its 3rd warmest such period on record. Precipitation across the Northeast region was the wettest May-October period on record.

* May - October temperatures were much above normal across most of the western half of the contiguous U.S. Nevada was 3rd warmest and California was 4th warmest on record for this period. Twenty-eight states had temperatures which were either above or much above average during the May to October period. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont each experienced their wettest such period on record in 2006. The new precipitation record in Rhode Island broke the previous one set in 1989 by more than 2.5 inches (63 mm). The former Vermont record, set back in 1990, was eclipsed by 4.31 inches (109 mm) in 2006. Much of the eastern Great Lakes states, Mid-Atlantic and the Southwest were also wet during the May-October period.

* During the Year-to-Date period (January-October), temperatures were 2nd warmest for Montana, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Fourty-seven of the 48 contiguous states were either above or much above average during this period. Vermont had its wettest such period on record while Indiana, New Hampshire and New York were 2nd wettest. Seven additional states (Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine) from the Great Lakes to the Northeast were among the top ten wettest during this period. In stark contrast to the wet conditions in the northeastern U.S., Florida was 2nd driest during the January-October period.

* The January-October regional temperature across the West North Central region was 3rd warmest in the 1895-2006 record. The South was 4th warmest. Every other region was either above or much above average during this period. The Northeast region was 2nd wettest during the year-to-date period.

* November 2005 - October 2006 was either warmer, much-warmer-than-average or record warm for all but four states in the contiguous U.S. North Dakota was warmest on record for this period. Twenty-five states, covering most of the central U.S. and Northeast, were much above average during this period. Three states (Indiana, New Hampshire and New York) had the wettest such period on record. Seven additional states ranked among the top ten wettest such periods on record.

* Regional temperature ranks for the November to October period were all above to much above average in 2006. The Northeast region was 2nd wettest on record during this period.


* Data for Alaska should be available online by November 13th.

See NCDC's Monthly Extremes web-page for weather and climate records for the month of October.

Kerry makes direct apology to troops
Wed Nov 1, 2006 4:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry apologized directly to U.S. troops on Wednesday for comments about Iraq that had prompted a firestorm of criticism from Republicans and President George W. Bush.

"I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement.

Kerry said earlier in the day he was sorry for a "botched joke" about Bush that was interpreted as a slam on the U.S. military. Republicans demanded a more direct apology and seized on Kerry's comments to students as a sign of Democratic weakness on national security.

Kerry told students in California on Monday that if they study hard they could do well but if they did not, "you get stuck in Iraq." His office said he misread his remarks and intended to say "You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."