Doom Freakout Roundup - World Edition, August 6, 2010

Moscow, baked and smoked. This sounds fun: In the first five days of August, four record high temperatures have been registered in Moscow; in July, ten. This, in a city where entire summers slip by unnoticed as such, with interludes of eighty-degree days followed by cool showery weeks, if without much snow. Come to think of it, I've seen it snow here in June. Russians take justifiable pride in how they face the rigors of their extreme climate -- but every extreme they know relates to cold, not heat. A Siberian adage has it that, "Forty degrees below zero is not a frost, and forty-proof vodka is not real vodka." But is forty-degree-centigrade (104 Fahrenheit) heat not real heat? No one has bothered to devise a proverb for it, because in northern or central Russia it almost never happens. Heat waves and even smoke from wildfires (often from burning peat bogs) have engulfed the city before, but never like this.

U.S. issues Israel travel warning in wake of Eilat rocket attack

You ever get the feeling the rest of the world gets a way different current-events storyline?

Another fish kill fuels debate over what's causing wildlife deaths

Dong Feng 21D, Chinese Missile, Could Shift Pacific Power Balance Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America's virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

Speaking of China.. Three Gorges Dam is in a new, interesting, but not at all nice situation. The BIG questions? Will it work and will it hold?

Obama's Top Economic Advisor Resigns. I wonder in what country she'll end up?


Pakistan floods: 'By the time I had got the children, the water was waist high' Red Cross says 2.5 million people affected as death toll rises to 1,500

Lebanese and Israeli troops clash on border "in the most serious clashes since a fierce war four years ago, authorities said."

The Oil Spill's all better, right?

For your visiting pleasure, Peru offers not only Pneumonic, but Bubonic plage, also.. Book your hospital holiday now!