A Grim Milestone in Iraq

Among the 61 people killed in Iraq yesterday were four American soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad ... pushing the total American death toll there to 4,000 or more in the last five years.

Jeff McCausland, a retired Army colonel, now a CBS News Military Consultant said, "No one --- even the strongest supporters or the largest critics of the war at the invasion back in March of 2003 --- ever anticipated it would go on this long or cause this many casualties."

"We just reflect for a moment on the sacrifice of these young people --- every one of which had a father, had a mother, had spouses, had brothers and sisters..." said McCausland.

To another CBS News Military Consultant, Mike Lyons, the 4,000 American troops killed in Iraq does not seem so great a number.  We spent nine years in Vietnam and more than 50,000 were killed.
 
"For what's happened in the last five years --- for the amount of combat operations, the amount of troops that have been rotating there --- and if you look at history --- it will show that the four-thousand casualties are in fact a small number, with regard to combat operations over a five-year period," said retired Army Major, Lyons.

"Four thousand's clearly a milestone, as it looks on a number --- as it looks on a board.  But it's likely that the parents of the last soldier to die in Iraq are not even born yet.  I think we're going to be in Iraq for many years to come.  And unfortunately, that number is still going to continue to grow," said Lyons.

Robert Sweeney can't speak for all of the four thousand, only for one:  his son, a Louisiana National Guardsman killed in Iraq in January of 2005. "There's no doubt in my mind that he was doing what he believed in.  He gave his life for a cause that he believed in, that he thought was going to help bring peace to the world."

Cause and Effect For Rising Feul Prices

The price of oil is down off its highs, but the price of gasoline just keeps going up.

Trilby Lundberg, publisher of The Lundberg Survey, said, "In these two weeks, gasoline prices moved up seven cents; regular grade is 3.26.  And, it is another all-time inflation-adjusted high."

"Let's say crude oil prices gained back two or three dollars of what they've just lost.  This would add another five or ten cents to what we can expect at the pump.  Therefore, probably gasoline prices will be moving up five, ten, 15 or 20 cents in the near future," said Lundberg.

The price of anything goes up when the medium of exchange goes down. The high price of gasoline has nothing to do with gasoline, according to Peter Beutel.
 
As President of Cameron Hanover, Beutel said, "One-hundred percent of the reason why prices are higher is the weak dollar, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the supply and demand of gasoline."

At some point, seasonal supply and demand should kick in.  But this time, said Beutel.

"It's very hard to tell whether prices should be going higher like they normally do, from say middle of March through the middle of May --- or whether the fundamentals are just so plentiful, that we have so much gasoline that prices should not go higher," said Beutel

But strangely enough, he says it's better for us if it does go higher, because we will be competing for it.

"For us to get the oil we need, we need to push the price higher, so that it reaches a higher level in terms of euros --- so that the Europeans don't buy it first," said Beutel

We'll soon find out, said Beutel, "What's really going to be critical:  what happens here in April in May.  Because those are months that we normally do start to see people drive more, as the weather becomes nicer."

Control The Weather At Beijing Olympics?

With four months to go before the Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese are pulling out all the stops to impress the world.

They are taking no chances, spending 40 billion dollars to remake the infrastructure of the ancient capital. And they're already spending an estimated 100-million dollars a year and putting 50,000 people to work to make sure that even the rain is controlled.

Beijing officials say they will set up several banks of rocket launchers outside to seed any threatening clouds to that make them drop their rain before they get to capital, so that it won't fall on the opening or closing ceremonies or anything crucial in between.  The story after this...

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

However, at several places throughout China, including an installation called Fragrant Hills outside Beijing, the authorities have set up anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers.   The people manning these are wearing military fatigues and helmets.  But they are not really military; they are civilian peasants charged with shooting down any rain that may come and threaten the Games.  They are already practicing, shooting silver iodide into the clouds for this purpose.

According to the state run Xinhua news agency, the China Meteorological Administration has 6,781 artillery guns and 4,111 rocket launchers dedicated to this cloud-seeding effort.  The agency says they've succeeded in increasing rainfall in needed agricultural areas by 210 billion cubic meters, enough to meet the water needs of 400 million of their 1.3 billion people.

American scientists are skeptical about this, to say the least.  Dr. Andy Detweiler of South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the editor of the Journal of Weather Modification, has looked at clouds from both sides now ... and doubts the Chinese can either make clouds or drive them away either.

A Message in a Bottle

One day, Merle Brandell and his black lab Slapsey were beachcombing along the Bearing Sea waterfront near the Alaskan fishing village of Nelson Lagoon, when they spied a plastic bottle that had washed ashore.

Inside, he could see there was an envelope.  Blackwell sliced open the bottle pulled out the envelope, and inside was a message...

The message read:  "This letter is part of a science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands.  Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address.  I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean.  Your friend, Emily Hwaung, 4th Grade, North City School in the Shoreline District near Seattle."

...It wasn't eternity, only 21 years.

Nobody answered the phone when Merle Brandell called the North City School.  So, he called the school district and was told that school building was closed more than a year ago.

But they looked it up and found out that Emily had been a 4th Grade student in 1986 and '87.  She's 30 years old now and married.  Her name is Emily Shih.  She's an accountant, living in Seattle.

She doesn't remember the elementary school bottle project 21 years ago.  But it embarrasses her now that all the kids in Miss Aguayo's class had signed the typed note and each went into a separate plastic bottle.

We'd never put a plastic bottle in the ocean now, she says --- and we'd never offer to send our pictures to a stranger now.  Times sure have changed...