The Tiny Mad Idea Science Blog

Colloidal Silver & Zinc for Swine Flu

2009-04-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL INFLUENZA 'SWINE FLU' NOTICE
for all Colloidal Therapy users: Latest News updated April 29, 2009

Important Facts:
This particular strain of 'swine influenza' is a multi-strain or combination virus and even the CDC has never seen this strain before. Use of standard potency or older colloidal therapy methods may only lesson the severity simply may not work at all on this particular strain.

For advanced colloidal therapy users who have already been taking a daily supplement to help strengthen their immune system, there is still a significant chance of being exposed to this new influenza strain.

If you believe you have already contracted some form of the flu, some homeopathic remedies, such as Colloidal Silver ingestion should NOT be your only course of treatment and you should immediately seek emergency medical attention.

Oseltamivir (Tamiflu), Zanamivir, Amantadine and Rimantadine are the only FDA approved prescription medications that have been verified to lesson the effect of this particular multi-strain influenza virus, but only if you can start the treatment within 24-48 hours after the first signs of getting ill.

Because we here at Organix Labs are honest and believe in sending out accurate information, it should be noted that regardless of what other colloidal companies are currently stating, colloidal silver by itself, has never been medically proven to lesson the severity of cure colds or flu.

The FDA did approve in 2007, several forms of Zinc nutritional supplemenst that have shown to lesson the severity and/or reduce the symptoms of most cold and flu virus.

Do not be fooled by companies like SilverEdge, who are attempting to sell 'fly-by-night' battery operated, outdated colloidal silver generators. Their products come with saline packets, which create silver chlorides, which is actually TOXIC to the entire bodies system, rather than helpful.

Some of these companies are making untrue and actually unlawful medical statements. Don't be fooled. Read on!

For those people who have written in over the past three days asking about what to take, we believe, based upon our clients testimonials who have had past flu strains, that our Hydrophasic Silver/Zinc Combo is the best nutritional supplement we can currently recommend to add additional support to the immune system.

It is further hoped, that as we have seen with past strains, that our Silver/Zinc Combo will help lesson the severity of this multi-strain influenza. Unfortunately, nobody can be sure right now and you should be seeking immediate medical attention if you feel any of the flu symptoms.

Please DO NOT RELY on our products alone to keep you safe. Follow current CDC recomendations, wash your hands, stay home if you are sick and avoid groups.

To learn more about this strain of swine flu, please visit this very important link

Must Read:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm
Background Info:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

SPECIAL LOW COST EMERGENCY SUPPLIES OF SILVER/ZINC COMBO'S ARE AVAILABLE TODAY!

Organix Labs is offering a specially brewed, highly potent Hydrophasic Colloidal Silver & Zinc Combination High Potency Immune System Booster

Buy a bottle at real dealer cost throughout this entire emergency.

www.pacific-organix.com/flu.htm

This product in it's regular potency is used to help support your immune system before getting the flu and/or lessoning the severity of the overall flu systems in otherwise healthy adults and children.

With the scary 'flu news' all over CNN and the crisis getting worse each day, we began to make these ultra strong batches for our close friends and family a couple days ago. We have now made enough to supply a couple dozen more families today and are brewing batches all day long to meet your families needs.

BUY THE REAL STUFF!

We wanted to get a jump on SHIPPING these bottles out before ALL SHIPPING is stopped during a full Pandemic Alert. If shipping gets stopped, we will refund all orders that have not already been shipped! Because of the potency of these supplements, there is a no return policy on any unused bottles.

This latest batch is close to triple potency over our normally sold combination.

History of Colloidal Use on the Flu Colloidal Silver and Zinc is a broad spectrum natural occurring antibiotic/antiseptic and should only be used with your Doctor's permission if you already have the flu.

Please seek immediate medical attention if you believe you have this current strain of 'swine' flu.

What Organix Labs is doing to stave off the flu; we have been working hard over these past couple of days producing fresh bottles of a special run of very potent Silver/Zinc combo in our extra-large 17.5 ounce bottles. This is as potent as we can push the batch (30-50 ppm u/S) without causing wasteful expense or side-effects for you or your family.

Emergency Shipping to your Door!

We will 2-3 day Priority Airmail your bottles to you anywhere in the mainland US and will offer this Internationally where allowed.

Each Member of the Family should have their OWN full bottle during this crisis.
During any flu breakout, If a bottle is shared, make sure you are washing down the outside of the bottle after each use.

Please, even if you don't buy a single item from us, feel free to write us and ask our scientifc opnions about some of these dishoinest colloidal producers.

Don't be suckered into buying something and believing it will help you or your family!

It's almost Springtime

2009-02-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Soon, the birds will be singing and the shit will be piling up on the hood of your nice clean car.

I can't really blame the birds for wanting to shit on my nice & shiny white hood of my car because if I was a bird I'd be using these bright objects to shit bomb as well, wouldn't you???

Happy Freakin Holidays My fans

2008-12-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays.

My buddy sent this to me and in his own sarcastic way, he made me think:

So, it's been awhile but I wanted to check up on you.

1- Have you been laid off yet or has your company folded?

2- Does your house have little or no heat or you can't afford to heat it this year?

3- Are you figuring out how to NOT buy Christmas Presents this time around?

4- Has your past Anxiety and/or Depression popped it's little head out yet?

If you answered 'YES" to any of these questions, you're pretty fucked.

However, you may look at this a different way. Maybe you're not as fucked as I am this year!

You see, I answered 'Yes' to every question, but thankfully I already lost my house, my main job, one of my vehicles and my health last year (in the start of the real recession).

So I am a few steps ahead of all you other folks out there.

When you are told you have a incurable, terminal disease, things such as houses, possesions and even trips home, aren't important anymore.

I was lucky, I got a few years of retirement savings I was able to cash in (at a huge penalty) to pay off about $8000 worth of medical bills just in 2008.

Thankgod for for foodstamps and extra 'extended' unemployment benifits, or I'd be homeless as well.

Many folks see these programs as a 'give-away' or 'spreading the wealth around' as stupid republican fools; such as 'Joe the dumbass plumber' believes, but in my case...it helped allot.

Signed, Buddy

Well, there was more to his story, but alas, I wanted to bitch and moan that I'm stuck going to spend a week in Utah with all my ignorant Mormon fools for Christmas.

Funny, some are out of work now too, they are finally seeing the error of their ways for supporting an endless war started by a moron named George Bush.

Maybe they can go work for Mitt Romney, since he's such a good Businessman. HA!

If they were smart, they would have saved that hundered dollar check instead of mailing it off to support the anti-gay 'No On 8 campaign' in California!

Have a Happy Holiday Season. I hope and Pray we'll survive the oncoming crap!

Women Lead men in Bacteria on their HANDS!

2008-11-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

Study: Women lead men in bacteria, hands down

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Mon Nov 3, 9:25 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.
"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women.
Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.
Women also may have more bacteria living under the surface of the skin where they are not accessible to washing, Knight added.
Asked if guys should worry about holding hands with girls, Knight said: "I guess it depends on which girl."
He stressed that "the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our body are either harmless or beneficial ... the pathogens are a small minority."
The researchers took samples from the palms of 51 college students — that's 102 hands — and tested the samples using a new, highly detailed system for detecting bacteria DNA.
They identified 4,742 species of bacteria overall, only 5 of which were on every hand, they report on Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The average hand harbored 150 species of bacteria.
Not only did individuals have few types of bacteria in common, the left and right hands of the same individual shared only about 17 percent of the same bacteria types, the researchers found.
The differences between dominant and non-dominant hands were probably due to environmental conditions like oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual, Fierer said.
Knight said the researchers hope to repeat the experiment in other countries where different hands are assigned specific tasks.
While the researchers stressed the importance of regular hand washing, they also noted that washing did not eliminate bacteria.
"Either the bacterial colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as practiced by the students included in this study) does not remove the majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface," the researchers said in their report.
While the tests could determine how many different types of bacteria were present, they could not count the total amount of bacteria on each hand.
The research was funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Ten Myths about Colds & Flu

2008-10-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

Ten Misconceptions About Cold and Flu

Fact From the Fiction in These Common Myths
By CARI NIERENBERGABC News Medical UnitOct. 28, 2008

Perhaps because most all of us have had firsthand experience with colds and flu, there's no shortage of misconceptions and old wives' tales that get passed along about them.

Dr. Brownfield answers the question: 'How Long Am I Contagious With The Flu?'But simply because we're well acquainted with these familiar bugs -- and have come to expect getting the sniffles or a scratchy throat when the weather turns nippy -- it doesn't mean that we're always well informed about how to prevent or treat them.

In fact, many people remain unclear on the exact difference between a cold and the flu. While the lines are often blurred by preconceived notions, colds are known to be pretty common occurrences in adults and children every year. The flu, on the other hand, happens less frequently and affects 5 percent to 20 percent of Americans annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

So, do you think you're up to date on your cold and flu knowledge? We've run some common cold and flu myths by the experts and asked them to set the record straight. See if you can spot the true from the false statements below.

There's no need to get a flu shot after November because it won't do you much good.
Verdict: False
Although most people get vaccinated between October and November, it's not too late to get a flu shot in December, January, and February, said Curtis Allen, a CDC spokesman for the national immunization program. In most years, he said, influenza peaks in February or later, and it takes about two weeks for the vaccine to become effective.

When Should You Get A Flu Vaccine?
Catching A Cold/Flu From A Co-worker?
Allen said that most people probably get vaccinated before the end of November because afterward they start thinking about the holidays.
And some of the retail stores or pharmacies with flu clinics might shut them down by early December to free up space for holiday shopping.
Allen noted that December or beyond is still a good time to get your flu shot because many people are traveling, or out of school, or on vacation, and they may come in close contact with others who have the flu and can then bring it home with them. The flu shot can still be protective whether you get it in October or February.

If you catch a cold, it means your immune system is weak.
Verdict: False
"Anybody with a healthy immune system can develop a cold or the flu," explained Dr. Erica Brownfield, an associate professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Coming down with a cold means that you've been exposed to the virus -- which enters your body through the nose, mouth, or eyes -- and your immune system wasn't successful at resisting the infection.

Oldest Human Footprints are 345,000 yrs old!

2008-10-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

'Devils' Trails' Are World's Oldest Human Footprints
Oldest Footprints Are 345,000 Years Old
By CATHERINE BRAHIC Oct. 14, 2008

It's official: the oldest human footprints ever found are 345,000 years old, give or take 6000. Known as the "devils' trails", they have been preserved in volcanic ash atop the Roccamonfina volcano in Italy.

File photo of the fossilised footprints of primitive humans are seen on the side of the Roccamonfina...

File photo of the fossilised footprints of primitive humans are seen on the side of the Roccamonfina Volcano in southern Italy March 18, 2003. The fossilised prints known locally as "devils trails", belong to three early humans who were probably climbing down the side of the Volcano about 385,000 to 325,000 years ago. Scientists in Italy have said that these prints are the oldest footprints found so far of primitive humans.

The archeology site will be open tomorrow October 6 for visit. (Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters)More Photos

The prints were first described to the world by Paolo Mietto and colleagues of the University of Padova in Italy in 2003 after amateur archaeologists pointed them out.
At the time, the team estimated that the prints were anywhere between 385,000 and 325,000 years old, based on when the volcano was thought to have last erupted.

Now, Stéphane Scaillet and colleagues at the Laboratory of Climatic and Environmental Sciences, France, have used argon dating techniques to verify the prints' age.

"Their more rigorous methods confirm that these are the oldest human footprints ever found," says Mietto. The new findings also confirm that the owners of the footprints were Homo heidelbergensis.

UFO's are real, at least underwater ones are

2008-10-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

Under the Sea Census
Off of the Wassteri reef on Heron Island, researchers found the Ctenophore or comb jellyfish.(Courtesy Census of Marine Life/Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum)

14 Babies Sickened With Kidney Stones After Drinking ‘Cheap’ Powdered Milk

2008-09-10T08:51:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Fourteen infants in China have been hospitalized with kidney stones after drinking a reduced-price powdered milk, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday.

The babies, who are all under the age of 11 months, are being treated in a hospital located in northwest China’s Gansu province.

“It was rare for babies to get kidney stones, let alone so many babies at the same time,” said Dr. Zhang Wei, who is treating the babies, in a report.

The infants are all from remote farms. They had been fed the same powdered milk, which is known as Sanlu, and is manufactured by a leading Chinese dairy products company.

The Sanlu Group said its product was produced by market pirates illegally using the group’s name and they are investigating the incident.

It is possible other children became sick by the powder but did not seek medical attention because of the high cost of health care.

Asian Girls ARE NOT Prepubescent Gymnasts!

2008-08-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Underage Chinese Athlete Allegations Surge
BEIJING, Aug. 22, 2008

Chinese gymnast He Kexin was born Jan. 1, 1994, according to the 2005, 2006 and 2007 registration lists. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)
This adds up to 14 1/2 years old in my math

Gymnast Age Controversy
The International Olympic Committee is investigating allegations that five of China's six Olympic female gymnasts are underage. The age requirement is 16. Manuel Gallegus reports. | Share/Embed

Bloggers note: I started to report on the obvious visual age discrepency BEFORE the Chinese Gymnasts won even their first gold medal. Having lived in Asian Countries for almost year, I admit that Asian Girls are more youthfull looking than most 12-14 year old girls, but almost all of the Chinese Gymnastic Team really looked young and below the age of 16.

(CBS/ AP) China was asked to provide additional documents proving that five of the six members of its gold medal women's gymnastics team were old enough to compete in the Beijing Olympics, in hopes of ending persistent questions about the girls' ages.

The International Olympic Committee said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated, but it asked gymnastics officials to investigate "what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies," spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. The International Gymnastics Federation asked China to submit documents that will further substantiate the ages of He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan.

The federation said it would forward its conclusions to the IOC. If it finds evidence that the gymnasts were underage, it could affect four of China's six medals. In addition to the team gold and He's gold on uneven bars, Yang won bronze medals in the all-around and bars.

"It is in the interests of all concerned, not least the athletes themselves, to resolve this issue once and for all," the FIG said in a statement.

Chinese government Web pages once published - apparently now adjusted or removed - had shown at least half of China's women's gymnastics team may be as young as 14, a contradiction of what's on passports supplied by the Chinese government, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor.

So far, however, all the information the Chinese gymnastics federation has presented supports its insistence that its athletes were old enough to compete.

"We believe the matter will be put to rest and there's no question ... on the eligibility," Davies said. "The information we have received seems satisfactory in terms of the correct documentation - including birth certificates."

With the games wrapping up Sunday, the IOC wants to quickly end any lingering doubts about underage competitors.

No one would be happier to finally have closure on the controversy than the gymnasts' parents.

China coach Lu Shanzan said the parents are "indignant" over persistent questions about their daughters' ages.

"It's not just me. The parents of our athletes are all very indignant," Lu said. "They have faced groundless suspicion. Why aren't they believed? Why are their children suspected? Their parents are very angry."

In an interview with The Associated Press, Lu said Asian gymnasts are naturally smaller than their American and European rivals.

"At this competition, the Japanese gymnasts were just as small as the Chinese," he said. "Chinese competitors have for years all been small. It is not just this time. It is a question of race. European and American athletes are all powerful, very robust. But Chinese athletes cannot be like that. They are by nature that small."

He said the governing body of gymnastics was given additional documents Thursday night to try to dispel lingering questions. Those documents included He's current and former passport, ID card and family residence permit. Lu said the documents all say she was born in 1992, which would have made her eligible to compete. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible.

"Surely it's not possible that these documents are still not sufficient proof of her birth date?" Lu asked. "The passports were issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The identity card was issued by China's Ministry of Public Security. If these valid documents are not enough to clarify this problem, then what will you believe?

"The Chinese government and the Chinese athletes must be respected," he added.

The coach dismissed Chinese media reports and online records that suggested that He, Yang and a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan, might be as young as 14.

"If you trust every Web site but not a government...," he said. "There are so many Web sites, so much hearsay. These are not official. It is possible that all news on the Internet is accurate?"

The federation has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that China's gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The IOC also checked the girls' passports and deemed them valid before the games began.

Neither the IOC nor the FIG gave details on what new information prompted it to act now, three days after the gymnastics competition ended.

"With some questions still remaining, we asked the federation to take a closer look," Davies said.

The U.S. Olympic Committee said it sent a letter to the IOC and the FIG on Friday, asking that the matter be resolved.

"We certainly believe that it's important for the IOC and the international federation to review the issue and hopefully lay it to rest because the questions surrounding the age of some of the athletes have been out there for quite a while and it's unfair to them and unfair to the other athletes to continue to linger," USOC chief executive Jim Scherr said.

"So we have sent a letter to the IOC and to the international federation asking them to review the matter and see if they can't resolve it for the good of the competition, the integrity of the competition and the good of all the athletes."

The Chinese women won six medals, including the team gold and He's gold on uneven bars. Media reports include a Nov. 3 story by the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, that suggest He is only 14. Asked again earlier this week about her age after winning the uneven bars title, beating American Nastia Liukin in a tiebreak, she said:

"I was born in 1992, and I'm 16 years old now," Gymnast He said. "The FIG has proved that. If I'm under 16, I couldn't have been competing here."

Earlier this month, the AP found registration lists previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China that showed both He and Yang were too young to compete. He was born Jan. 1, 1994, according to the 2005, 2006 and 2007 registration lists. Yang was born Aug. 26, 1993, according to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 registration lists. In the 2007 registration list, however, her birthday has changed to Aug. 26, 1992.

JUST MORE CHINESE FAKERY!

"We played fair at this Olympic Games," Liukin's father and coach, Valeri, said after they arrived back in the United States. "... If somebody cheated, shame on them."

Added Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics: "USA Gymnastics has always believed this issue needed to be addressed by the FIG and IOC. An investigation would help bring closure to the issue and remove any cloud of speculation from this competition."

Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to protect young athletes from serious injuries. The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997. Younger gymnasts are considered to have an advantage because they are more flexible and are likely to have an easier time doing the tough skills the sport requires. They also aren't as likely to have a history of injuries or fear of failure.

North Korea was barred from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered Kim Gwang Suk, the gold medalist on uneven bars in 1991, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. Romania admitted in 2002 that several gymnasts' ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu.

Even China's own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 during the 2000 Games.

© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

China is being busted by IOC! Finally!!

2008-08-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

Are they old enough?

IOC seeks probe into China gymnasts' ages

There have been persistent questions that some Chinese gymnasts are underage
The IOC said previously it had verified the passports of all Olympic athletes
But it requested the probe Friday, saying "more information has come to light"

Online records and media reports suggest three Chinese gymnasts -- Jiang Yuyuan (above), He Kexin and Jang Yilin -- may be as young as 12.

BEIJING (AP) -- The International Olympic Committee has asked gymnastics officials to investigate whether the Chinese women's gymnastics team that won the gold medal at the Beijing games had underage athletes, saying that more information had come to light.

"We've asked the gymnastics federation to look into it further," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said Friday. "If there is a question mark and we have a concern, which we do, we ask the governing body of any sport to look into it."

It was not immediately clear what new information prompted the IOC to act now, three days after the gymnastics competition ended.

Messages for the International Gymnastics Federation were not immediately returned.

A gymnast must be 16 in an Olympic year to compete at the games. But questions about the ages of at least three of the athletes have persisted. Online records and media reports suggest three Chinese gymnasts -- He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Jang Yilin -- may be as young as 12-14.

The gymnastics federation has said repeatedly that a passport is accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility to compete, and that China's gymnasts have presented ones showing they are age eligible.

The IOC had said previously that it had verified the passports of all athletes competing at the games.

"We are not in a position to say `It's good, it's not good.' It's a government document," FIG president Bruno Grandi said earlier this week in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Chinese women won six medals, including the team gold and a gold on uneven bars by He. Online records and media reports -- including a Nov. 3 story by the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhau -- have suggested He is only 14. She was asked about her age again after winning the uneven bars title, beating American Nastia Liukin in a tiebreak.

"I was born in 1992 and I'm 16 years old now," He said Monday. "The FIG has proved that. If I'm under 16, I couldn't have been competing here."

Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to protect young athletes from serious injuries. The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997.

North Korea was barred from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered that Kim Gwang Suk, the gold medalist on uneven bars in 1991, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. Romania admitted in 2002 that several gymnasts' ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu.

Even China's own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 in 2000

U.S. is Under Attack (again)

2008-08-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

The US is under Attack - again!

Just a quick blog today, as I spend many hours scanning the newswires, watching CNN, MSNBC and of course my favorite news outlet Faux News (oops I meant Fox News) we are seeing that the Republican Party just pulled out their FMM or ‘Fear Mongering Machine’ and it has begun an all out assault on the simpler minds of the American people.

With the US Presidential race heating up, we are seeing the first wave of attacks using this newly updated FMM weapon. Our intelligence unit has received data and deciphered chatter about the updated FMM weapon and its terrible effects on simple minds.

Please make sure that you tell your friends and neighbors to watch for this weapon and to be aware of its use in the upcoming 90 days. Often times one cannot discern from the supposed truth called ‘reality’ propagated by this GOP FMM Weaponry.
The weapon is easily recognizable on most networks and news organizations, but FOX NEWS has contractually agreed to use the FMM to enhance EACH and every news story during the next 120 days!

Be aware that when you hear news stories about the US coming under potential attack, or that there is a larger terrorist attack planned, or that the we are now going to have to go to war with Russia, please help your family, friends and neighbors fully understand that this in fact in not the true reality of the moment, nor even of the future.

Please help them discern and comprehend that in most cases, these reports and ‘scare tactics’ only and simply the ammunition delivered by the Republicans, by advanced use of the FMM.

Be logical, open-minded and understanding and ask for discernment when you hear outrageous claims made by the current administration, or John McCain, as almost everything that is coming out of their mouths are being enhanced by the FMM psychological mind control unit.

In reality, just BE AWARE that some information that will come out to try to scare you into thinking that hiring your 72 year old grandpa (who does NOT know how to even use a computer or email) was (or is) a good idea. In the long run, regardless of any faked FMM military threat, the US will learn hiring this old coot is not such a good idea.

If you truly want to know what Brother McCain is really about and some of the shenanigans he pulled (in his dementia moments of course) while being a Governer in Arizona ask any REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBER who lives there for a reality check!

Principal’s outing of gay student roils Florida town

2008-08-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

PONCE DE LEON, Fla. - When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district on behalf of a girl who protested against Principal David Davis, and a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a "witch hunt" against gays. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.

And despite all that, many in this conservative Panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong.

"We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong," said Steve Griffin, Holmes County's school superintendent, who keeps a Bible on his desk and framed Scriptures on his office walls.

Holmes County, on the Georgia line, has about 20,000 residents. There is some agriculture, but most people are employed either by prisons or schools; some commute to the Gulf Coast to work in tourism. Ponce de Leon, with fewer than 500 residents, has a cafe, a post office and an antique store.

Many in the community support Davis and feel outsiders are forcing their beliefs on them. Griffin, who kicked Davis out of the principal's office but allowed him to continue teaching at the school, said high schoolers here aren't exposed to the same things as kids in Atlanta or Chicago.

"I don't think we are that different from a lot of districts, at least in the Panhandle, that have beliefs that maybe are different from societal changes," Griffin said.

Gay rights activists said that's no excuse for what Davis did.

'Witch hunt'
The problems began last fall when Davis, who did not return phone messages from The Associated Press, admonished the senior, who is identified only as "Jane Doe" in court records and whose friends say she doesn't want to talk about the experience.

The friends donned gay pride T-shirts and rainbow-colored clothing when they found out how Davis had treated her, and he questioned many of them about their sexuality and association with gay students. Some were suspended.

"Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a 'witch hunt' to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire," U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak recounted in his ruling. "He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to insure the letters 'GP' or the words 'Gay Pride' were not written on their bodies."

Heather Gillman, an 11th-grader who took part in the protests, complained to her mother, Ardena, a 40-year-old corrections officer and mother of three. Ardena Gillman called the ACLU, even though she knew people would be angry.

"I just felt like I had to stand up for the kids. Heather wanted to do this, and I had to back her," she said.

Ardena hoped to protect the students' freedom of speech — whether it was the freedom to wear Confederate flag T-shirts to show Southern pride or the freedom to wear rainbow T-shirts to support gay rights.

Courts have repeatedly ruled that similar student protests are constitutional as long as they are not disruptive.

"I think a shirt that says 'I support gays' is very different from a shirt that says 'Gays are going to hell,'" said Benjamin Stevenson, an ACLU attorney. "One can be very disruptive for a child's self-esteem; the other supports other people and their ideas."

Even more Chinese Olympic Fakery!!!

2008-08-12T12:59:00.001-07:00

Young Olympics singing star didn't really sing
Official ruled true singer, 7, wasn't cute enough, so rival lip-synched instead

Lin Miaoke, left, is shown during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games on Friday. An official ordered her to lip-synch 'Ode to the Motherland' because seven-year-old singer Yang Peiyi, right, wasn't deemed cute enough.

BEIJING - A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched "Ode to the Motherland," an official said.

In the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games, a member of China's Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl's face with another's voice, the ceremony's chief music director said in an interview with Beijing Radio.

"The audience will understand that it's in the national interest," Chen Qigang said in a video of the interview posted online Sunday night.

In other Chinese Fakery news: following reports that some footage of the fireworks exploding across China's capital during the ceremony was digitally inserted into television coverage, apparently over concerns that not all of the 29 blasts could be captured on camera and fears over Beijings terrible smog problem.

China has been eager to present a flawless Olympics image to the world, shooing migrant workers and so-called petitioners who come to the central government with grievances from the city and shutting down any sign of protest.

'Instant star'
The country's quest for perfection apparently includes its children.

Lin Miaoke's performance Friday night, like the ceremony itself, was an immediate hit. "Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke becomes instant star with patriotic song," the China Daily newspaper headline said Tuesday.

But the real voice behind the tiny, pigtailed girl in the red dress who wowed 91,000 spectators at the National Stadium on opening night really belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Her looks apparently failed the cuteness test with officials organizing the ceremony, but Chen said her voice was judged the most beautiful.

"The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen," Chen said. "Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi's voice was the most outstanding."

During a live rehearsal soon before the ceremony, the Politburo member said Miaoke's voice "must change," Chen said in the radio interview. He didn't name the official.

So Peiyi's voice was matched with Miaoke's face.

"We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi," Chen told Beijing Radio. "We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance."

Chen couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

Crooked teeth
A photo of Peiyi posted Tuesday on popular Web site Sina.com shows a smiling girl with bangs and crooked teeth. A China News Service story posted with the photo says a China Central Television reporter asked Peiyi whether she felt regret over the opening ceremony.

Peiyi responded that just having her voice used for the opening ceremony was an honor.

Whether the move was unethical, or unfair to both girls, has become a hot topic among Chinese and is racing across the country's blogosphere.

"The organizers really messed up on this one," said Luo Shaoyang, 34, a retail worker in Beijing.

"This is like a voice-over for a cartoon character," Luo said. "Why couldn't they pick a kid who is both cute and a good singer? This damages the reputation of both kids for their future, especially the one lip-synching. Now everyone knows she's a fraud. Who cares if she's cute?"

Zhang Xinyi, 22, who works in marketing in Beijing, disagreed.

"I can understand why they picked the prettier girl. They need to maintain a certain aesthetic beauty during the opening ceremonies. This situation is not so bad, especially since it gives two people an opportunity to shine rather than just one. Adding, We Chinese need to place our best foot forward, even if this is an illusion to the rest of the world, it is real to us."

Peiyi is a first-grader at the primary school affiliated to Peking University. Her tutor, Wang Liping, wrote in her blog that Peiyi is both cute and well-behaved, with a love for Peking opera.

"She doesn't like to show off. She's easygoing," Wang wrote. She and other school officials couldn't be reached Tuesday.

Miaoke, however, was a minor celebrity even before the opening ceremony. The third-grader appeared in a television ad last year with China's biggest gold medal hope, hurdling champion Liu Xiang, and she was in an Olympics ad just before Chinese New Year, China Daily reported.

Miaoke has her own blog, and one of the latest photos posted since the ceremony shows her looking up nervously at the ceremony's director, film director Zhang Yimou. "Giving the child encouragement," the caption says.

Her father, Lin Hui, told China Daily he learned Miaoke would be "singing" only 15 minutes before the opening ceremony began. The newspaper wrote Lin "still cannot believe his daughter has become an international singing sensation."

IN A FAKE Chinese Idol contest...or right Kareoke is a new Asain sport

It was the second straight Olympics where the opening ceremony involved lip-synching.

Luciano Pavarotti's performance at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin was prerecorded because he was so sick, but it was also advertised beforehand that this would occur. The maestro who conducted the aria, Leone Magiera, said earlier this year that the bitter cold made a live performance impossible for Pavarotti, who was in severe pain months before his cancer diagnosis. Pavarotti died in September 2007 at age 71.

Power to the Tailpipe!

2008-08-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Power From Your Tailpipe? It's Possible

Not Useless After All?

Aug. 11, 2008 -- The stinky, steaming air that escapes from a car's tailpipe could help us use less gas.

Researchers are competing to meet a challenge from the U.S. Department of Energy: Improve fuel economy 10 percent by converting wasted exhaust heat into energy that can help power the vehicle.

General Motors Corp. is close to reaching the goal, as is a BMW AG supplier working with Ohio State University. Their research into thermoelectrics -- the science of using temperature differences to create electricity -- couldn't come at a better time as high gas prices accelerate efforts to make vehicles as efficient as possible.

GM researcher Jihui Yang said a metal-plated device that surrounds an exhaust pipe could increase fuel economy in a Chevrolet Suburban by about 5 percent, a 1-mile-per-gallon improvement that would be even greater in a smaller vehicle.

Reaching the goal of a 10 percent improvement would save more than 100 million gallons of fuel per year in GM vehicles in the U.S. alone.

"The take-home message here is: It's a big deal," Yang said.

The DOE, which is partially funding the auto industry research, helped develop a thermoelectric generator for a heavy duty diesel truck and tested it for the equivalent of 550,000 miles about 12 years ago.

John Fairbanks, the department's thermoelectrics technology development manager, said the success of that generator justified the competitive search in 2004 for a device that could augment or replace a vehicle's alternator. Three teams were selected to participate in the program, with GM and thermoelectrics manufacturer BSST separately working on cars and a team from Michigan State University focusing on heavy-duty trucks.

Fairbanks said thermoelectric generators should be on the verge of production in about three years.

"It's probably the biggest impact in the shortest time that I can think of," he said.

China: Beijing Olympics show faked 'fireworks'

2008-08-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

OH, THOSE SILLY CHINESE FAKERS!

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Not all was what it seemed during the spectacular opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Beijing Olympic organizers say their opening-ceremony fireworks were enhanced by prerecorded footage and faked digital (photoshopped) imaging.

Beijing organizers confirmed Tuesday that some of the fireworks display featured prerecorded footage and (photoshopped) imaging.

Fireworks that burst into the shape of 29 gigantic footprints were shown trudging above the Beijing skyline to the National Stadium near the start of the ceremony.

Though the footprint-shaped fireworks were real, some of the footage shown to television viewers around the world and on giant screens inside the "Bird's Nest" stadium featured a computer-generated three-dimensional image.

"It was confirmed that previously recorded footage and faked scene was provided to the broadcasters for convenience and theatrical effects -- as in many other big events," Beijing organizing committee spokesman Wang Wei said. "On the day of the ceremony there were actual footprints of fireworks from the south to the north of the city.

"However, because of the poor visibility (due to Beijing awefull SMOG problem) of the night, some previously recorded footage may have been used."

The computerized images were produced by Crystal Digital Technology Co. of Beijing, most likely using stolem American made imaging software, they downloaded for free off Napster file sharing services.

"We did our best to create a rendering that would look like the shot was taken live," company spokesman Lei Ming told the Beijing Times. "Most people could not tell the difference. But then again, we Chinese are masters at fakemanship, illusion and deception."

NBC said broadcasters Bob Costas and Matt Lauer told viewers the display was faked through cinematic means.

"This is actually almost animation," Lauer said on the air.

The ceremony won rave reviews around the world and was watched by more than 1 billion people.

In the United States on NBC, the ceremony averaged 34.2 million U.S. viewers, making it the biggest American television event since the Super Bowl.

Unfortuanetly, like the Chinese, most of the 'cool' 300' wide led screens, where in actuality all computer generated and photoshopped effects.

Russia & China are blacklisted by US Corporations

2008-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a free and democratic government elected by its people.
Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century"
"Россия вторглась в суверенные соседние государства и ставит под угрозу свободное и демократическое правительство, избранное путем своего народа. Такие меры неприемлемы в 21 веке "
Pride Companies LLC does not, nor has ever knowingly done trade or business with customers who are from the Human Rights Watch Dog list countries.

With the latest attacks on Georgia (a US ally and free state break off of the old USSR) it is still very apparent that Communism and thugary are still alive and well. Regardless of the 'good intentions' of many of these countries (China, Russia, North Korea) we see on the latest Olympic media, communism is still alive and thriving in many nations.

Because of human rights issues and unlawful trade or business attempts, we have chosen to halt any trade with those countries our their citizens.

Over the past 12 years, it has always been our policy to limit support, consulting, trade and outright business with many countries that are communist or follow fanatical religious beliefs that attck or otherwise hinder a persons individual right to grow.
As a U.S. based International company, Pride Companies LLC has ran into many situations with both Chinese and Russian business men or their representatives (buyers) who we have seen attempted to increase their unlawful attempts to 'glean' or actually outright steal, duplicate, or circumvent our copyrights, proprietarily licensed colloidal discoveries and or equipment. In our several year investigation, we have actually seen our colloidal generation systems reproduced or 'cloned' by nefarious Chinese corporations.

We have been in contact with many other technology companies and businesses over the years and each have many 'Chinese and Russian infiltration' stories of their own to tell. It is a fact that the Chinese in particular, are a 'hunger force' to be reckoned with and their unlawful attempts to steal, copy and reproduce American products and discoveries will continue at an exponential rate.

Pride Scientific wants to reiterate our current policy of NOT ALLOWING ANY TRADE OR BUSINESS
with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Egypt, Venezuela, India and any other country or territory which is on the Human Rights Watch Dog list.
When these blacklisted Countries finally grow up and evolve as fellow humans and begin to take real measurable steps to enter the global, evolving world of equal rights and free democracy, only then will we carefully evaluate the possibility of trade with those blacklisted countries or individual customers from within them.
M. Peterson, Pride Companies, USA

MIT Announces Major Solar Farce!

2008-08-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
I call shenanigans on MIT and the plagiarist and ‘wannabe’ solar scientist; Daniel Nocera

I received a news story from one of our subscribers today and was excited to read the title that MIT researchers have made a major discovery in the solar revolution.
To my complete and absolute astonishment, I found the article about Daniel Nocera’s work with solar power, to be inaccurate and completely false.
SHAME ON MIT

While Daniel and his ten million dollar grant, may look good on paper, he is regurgitating many common, known processes and methods.

Even the actual experiment and parts that are discussed in the news article have already been tried and proven by other lay scientists for years.

You can read the full MIT NEWS ARTICLE below, just make sure you read my rebuttal letter I sent off to MIT NEWS today as well!

MIT NEWS JULY 31st, 2008
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system
Anne Trafton, News Office
July 31, 2008

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy’
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.

OUR RESPONSE:

Dear MIT News,

This ‘new discovery' you are reporting about is not new at all or even a major one for that matter.

Why is it that University Scientists are just now catching up with those lay scientists and engineers that were branded as QUACKS just 5 -10 years earlier?

We here at Pride Labs have been doing EXACTLY THIS same procedure as written about in your 'news' report for several years.

In the 1970's, home inventor Stan Meyer actually created and patented an identical process. Since then, there have been thousands of experimenters of fuel cells and production of the HHO gas to power engines, fuel cells, etc.

Unfortunately for MIT, this is not a 'Major Discovery' nor is it new technology, or even a NEW Solar Energy storage system as your article purports.

Do a web search for 'HHO GAS, Brown’s gas or even Cars that run on water' and SEE that the experiment and methods have already been perfected and accomplished, long before your MIT people did this and much more efficiently than your MIT staff is currently doing.

Please tell your 'SCIENTISTS' at MIT to do some web research first, before exclaiming and professing a "major discovery" as you wrote about.

Your newspaper should have also checked their facts as well. A simple web check would have showed you 100's of sites, videos, webpages that use this exact method for storage, and for creating simple hydrogen gas -oxygen fuel cells. There are several patents of experimentation for this exact process already in place as well.

Furthermore, your article asserts the fact that the "sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases" this is in fact incorrect, as you later state in your article that it actually takes REGULAR SOLAR CELLS that convert sun into electricity and then has to charge your ELECTROLYSES experiment using a cobalt electrode, in water, with electricity to actually produce the Oxygen, Hydrogen gas (Its actually called HHO, or Browns gas since the early 1900's) to make the process happen.

While your team may have some fancy variation on the earlier patented methods and you may have gained some further knowledge about the experiment in general, the entire theory and project stinks of plagiarism on both Daniel Nocera and MIT's part.

Marc Peterson
Scientific Engineer
Pride Laboratories
Portland, Oregon

Wierd 812 degfree 'ground hot spot' melts shoes off

2008-08-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts
Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Firefighters arrive on the scene of the 'hot spot' after reports of a blaze in rural Ventura County, Calif.
The ground is so hot in one part of Southern California it can melt the shoes right off your feet.

An unexplained "thermal anomaly" caused a patch of land in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, to reach a temperature of over 800 degrees on Friday, baffling experts who have been monitoring the area for weeks.

The anomaly was discovered after the land got so hot that it started a brush fire and burned three acres last month.

Firefighters were brought to the scene after reports of a blaze, but by the time they arrived only smoldering dirt and brush remained.

Firefighters took no chances with the smoking ground, clearing brush near the fumes and cutting a fire line around the area to prevent a blaze from igniting.

"We are a little perplexed at this point, to tell you the truth," the Ventura County Star quoted geologist David Panaro as saying. "This is not your usual geological detective story."

Biggest Earthquakes in Recent California History San Andreas Fault Longer Than Thought 5.4 Quake Shatters Nerves, but Little Real Damage in Southern California Ancient Rock Reunites Antarctica, North America River of Crystals 'Flows' Through New Mexico Cave The area has recorded high temperatures at least five times since 1987, Allen King, a retired geologist with the U.S. Forest Service told the newspaper.

The hot spot is located in steep, rugged terrain a few miles north of the town of Fillmore on land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and leased by Seneca Resources Corp.

Officials who are familiar with the patch of land, which is near the large Sespe Oil Field, have come up with a few theories as to why the ground soared to 812 degrees fahrenheit on August 1.

One theory is that natural hydrocarbons, such as oil or gas, are burning deep in the earth and seeping out through cracks in the area, causing the surface to rapidly heat and generate smoke.

According to the Star, Allen King, a former geologist with the U.S. Forest Service recently stuck a thermometer into the ground and got a reading of 550 degrees — so hot that it melted the glue holding the sole of his boots together.

"After that we were more cautious about standing in one place for too long," he said.

Reality Check On Offshore Drilling

2008-07-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

Most Americans Support Lifting The Ban, But Experts Say Gas Prices Wouldn't Change

Debate Over Offshore Drilling
With gas prices still around $4 a gallon, many Americans believe that Congress should permit drilling on the outer continental shelf. But would the extra oil lower gas prices?

(CBS) With gasoline hovering around $4.00 a gallon, a new poll shows two out of three Americans now agree with President Bush - that Congress should permit drilling on the outer continental shelf, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

"Experts believe that currently restricted areas … could eventually produce up to 18 billion barrels of oil," Mr. Bush said in a recent speech.

Even in Santa Barbara, Calif., where a huge oil spill from an ocean rig blowout in 1969 turned most Californians against offshore drilling, some people are having second thoughts.

"Well, if it doesn't hurt the environment too bad and it lowers gas prices, I'm all for it," said driver Sean Scott.

According to the federal government's own Department of Energy, drilling off America's coasts would not have a significant impact on domestic oil production or prices before 2030. And off-shore leasing wouldn't even begin before 2012.

Why? Because the leasing process is cumbersome. And currently, there aren't enough rigs or workers or refineries to handle more oil.

Then there's this. Most of the U.S. offshore oil, almost 10 billion barrels, lie off the coast of California. But at the current rate of U.S. consumption - about 20.7 million barrels a day - that would be burned up in 16 months.

"It would have a pretty modest effect even when it did start flowing," said U.C. Berkeley energy researcher Severin Borenstein.

Borenstein says it might drop pump prices as much as 25 cents a gallon in 10 years or more, but: "I think it is very unlikely that we will ever see oil prices that get us back to $2 a gallon or even $3 a gallon."

Opponents of the drilling say what's off our shores is a drop in the bucket.

Supporters say when the bucket is running dry, any little bit helps.

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

2008-07-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

EARTH—Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.

"I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen," said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. "They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn't they heed me before it was too late?"

Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity's hubristic folly.

"There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race," Gore said. "I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home."

As the rocket soared through the Gore estate's retractable solar-paneled roof—installed three years ago to save energy and provide emergency rocket-launch capability in the event that Gore's campaign to save Earth was unsuccessful—the onetime presidential candidate and his wife, Tipper, stood arm-in-arm, nobly facing their end while gazing up in stoic dignity at the receding rocket, the ecosystem already beginning to collapse around them.

In the final moments before the Earth's destruction, Gore expressed hope that his son would one day grow up to carry on his mission by fighting for truth, justice, and the American way elsewhere in the universe, using his Earth-given superpowers to become a champion of the downtrodden and a reducer of carbon emissions across the galaxy.

"Perhaps he will succeed where I have failed," Gore said.

Despite the child's humble beginnings, experts predict the intergalactic journey may have some extraordinary effects on Kal-Al's physique, eyesight, and, potentially, his powers of quiet, sensible persuasion.

"On his new planet, Kal-Al's Earth physiology will react to the radiation of a differently colored sun, causing him to develop abilities far beyond those of mortal men," political analyst Sig Schuster said. "He will be faster than a speeding Prius, stronger than the existing Superfund program, and able to leap mountains of red tape in a single bound. These superpowers will sustain him in his never-ending battle against conservatives, wealthy industrialists, and other environmental supervillains."

Although Gore and his wife voiced regrets that they could not accompany their son on his journey, they tried their best to equip Kal-Al for life on his new planet, providing the infant with a Keynote slide-show presentation of all human knowledge, a self-growing crystal fortress from which to monitor glacier shrinkage, and a copy of Al Gore's 1992 bestseller, Earth In The Balance.

The baby was also wrapped in a blanket emblazoned with the Gore family crest, which, because it is made of Earth materials, will be invulnerable on the new planet. It is hoped that one day it will be fashioned into a colorful costume for the boy to wear while fighting wrongdoers.

"In brightly hued tights, it will be harder for people there to ignore him when he takes on his new planet's lobbyists, auto manufacturers, and enemies of justice," Schuster said. "A bold and eye-catching unitard will give Kal-Al, last son of Earth, a formidable tool for protecting his new planet, a power more awesome than any his father could have dreamed of: the power of charisma."

ET is "totally real" and NASA "totally knows about it man!"

2008-07-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — claims aliens exist.

He says extraterrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions — but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview in Birmingham, England, that sources at NASA who had had contact with aliens described the beings as "little people who look strange to us."

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a "small gray" — short, slight frame, large eyes and large head.

Mitchell also claimed human technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as the aliens' and "had they been hostile," he warned "we would be been gone by now."

Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder

2008-07-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

SO The Surge worked? John McCain and Bush brought DEMOCRACY and EQUAL RIGHTS to IRAQ, EH?? I call SHENANIGINS on the whole F'in thing!

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house. But the real terror was about to begin.

The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and they saw his chest was shaved.

"They told me to take off my clothes to rape me or they would kill me immediately. This moment was the worst moment in my life," he told CNN, weeping as he spoke of the 2005 ordeal.

"I was watching them taking off their clothes, preparing to rape me. I did not know what to do, so I started shouting loudly, 'Please do not do that! I will ask my family to give you whatever you want.'"

His pleas went unheeded. "The other two kidnappers took off my clothes by force and, at that time, I saw them as three dirty animals trying to tear my body apart."

He was held for 15 days, released only after his family paid a $1,500 ransom. He was raped every day. Only once, he said, was he allowed to talk to his family during captivity. "I told my family that I was beaten by them, but I did not dare to tell my family that I was raped by them. I could not say it, it's too much shame."

CNN spoke with Kamal, now 18, and his 21-year-old friend, Rami, about what it's like to be gay in Iraq. Coming out as gay is not easy in any country, but to do so in Iraq could mean a death sentence or torture.

The two men rarely show feelings toward each other in public. They spend a lot of time in Internet cafes in Baghdad, surfing gay chat rooms and seeking contacts with other gay men in Iraq and elsewhere.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the situation for gays and lesbians in Iraq has deteriorated. Ridiculed under Hussein, many now find themselves the targets of violence, according to humanitarian officials.

Lesbians are also victims of harassment and violence, but not nearly as often as gay men.

It's unknown how many homosexuals have been killed by militias in the lawless streets of Iraq's cities, but some Web sites post pictures of Iraqis they say were killed for being gay.

One photo on the Iraqi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender site shows a group of men standing around three male bodies sprawled on a street, blood pouring from their heads. "Gay Iraqi victims of the police and death squads," the site says.

A U.N. report on human rights in Iraq reinforces the accusations of violence. Although gays are supposed to be protected by law in Iraq, it says, they face extreme brutality.

"Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them," the report said, adding that homosexuals have been murdered.

"Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family," it said.

The report was issued at the end of 2006 and is the last U.N. study to touch on the subject.

Human rights experts say homosexuals are targeted for cultural reasons as well.

"Gay men and lesbians in Iraq face a lot of risks right now, because homosexuality is sometimes interpreted by people in Iraq as being a Western import," said Scott Portman with the Heartland Alliance, a group that promotes human rights worldwide. "So they can sometimes be targeted by insurgent groups or militias, in part, because of animosity toward the West and, in part, because homosexuality is not well-accepted in Iraqi society."

He added, "The biggest threats right now are from militia organizations, who will attack and actually sometimes kill gay men and women."

Kamal and Rami say the dangers are all too real in Baghdad -- and they live in secrecy not to shame their families.

"I would rather commit suicide than allow my family to find out I am gay," Rami said.

Kamal said he often pretends to have girlfriends in social settings and tells his friends he's dating girls. "I am also careful with the way I dress -- not to show them that I am gay, especially my family."

What would his family do if they found out?

"They will force me to give it up, and I cannot do that," he said. "The 'normal' people cannot live in Iraq. Imagine how the life is for gays."

Rami added, "I do not know why people hate gays even though so many have this tendency. But still they hate it."

Homosexuality is a touchy subject for many Iraqis. When CNN asked Iraqis in Baghdad how they felt about homosexuals, we found intolerance to be widespread.

One man said he considers gays no different from "criminals and terrorists." Another claimed homosexuality was "illegal under Islamic law, and they [gays] should be punished by law like criminals."

Rami said he once fell in love with a man who was part of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite insurgent group loyal to the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Their relationship eventually soured.

"One day he told me he would come over to my house and kill me in front of my family," Rami said. "I told him I would come outside and be killed in the street because I do not want my family to find out I am gay."

Both men hope to escape Iraq. They say their ideal destination would be San Francisco, California. For now, both of them keep their feelings secret.

Kamal is still tormented by what happened to him nearly three years ago.

"During my sleep, I only see nightmares and I start crying. My family thought it was because they were beating me."

He paused, "Only my close friend Rami knows about this secret."

Watchdog Web Site Draws Legal Threats from Scientologists, Mormons

2008-07-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 19, 2008
By Michael Park

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A scrappy Web site that's built a reputation for taking on Goliath-sized corporate and government corruption is now fighting a holy war over copyright infringement.

Wikileaks.org — a watchdog Web site that leaks corporate and government documents — hasn't officially launched, yet it has already uncovered human-rights violations in China, claimed to have swayed Kenya's Dec. 2007 elections and exposed the inner workings of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

So many were surprised when it recently turned its sights on two lawyer-heavy religious groups: the Mormons and the Scientologists.

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Founded in December 2006, Wikileaks boasts of an archive of 1.2 million released documents, sent in by thousands of sources and posted so the public can help debunk, verify or publicize them.

Wikileaks The site is run by a scattered worldwide community of journalists, activists and Chinese dissidents and funded mainly by "people who have made a lot of money in the Internet boom," according to Wikileaks advisory board member and unofficial spokesman Julian Assange.

Still technically in "beta" or testing mode, the group has taken the "Wiki" name, but it has no connection to the popular on-line Wikipedia encyclopedia, having borrowed only the latter's open-contribution format, which allows users to submit and edit entries.

In March, Wikileaks published a document detailing behind-the-scene workings of the Church of Scientology — a 612-page manual commonly referred to as the secret "bible" of Scientology, containing writings by L. Ron Hubbard on the eight different Operating Thetan levels, a basic principal of the religion.

The public had never seen the entire document before it appeared on Wikileaks; the church views them as secret and had sued CNN and Time magazine for releasing small parts of them in the past.

Three weeks after posting the manual, Wikileaks received a notice from the Church of Scientology warning that the material was copyrighted and that the Web site was infringing upon the church's intellectual-property rights.

Wikileaks refused to take down the documents. And soon after, Sunshine Media, which operates the site, released a statement saying that Scientology is a "cult" that "aids and abets a general climate of Western media self-censorship."

Church of Scientology International spokeswoman Karin Pouw wrote in an e-mail to FOXNews.com: "I can only assume that religious bigotry and prejudice is driving their activity, as there is no altruistic value in posting our copyrighted scriptures, despite Wikileaks' self-serving statements to the contrary.

"Posting entire books and hundreds of pages of published works is not 'Sunshine Policy' but wholesale copyright infringement."

Assange said the reaction to the Scientology leak took people at Wikileaks by surprise.

"We thought it was a small issue, and our normal fare is government corruption and military secrets, so it seemed that this nutty religion organization was pretty inconsequential in terms of what we normally do," he said in a telephone call from London.

"But after receiving these legal threats from them ... it was time for us to make a stand."

In mid-April, Wikileaks took on the Mormon church, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, releasing the secret version of the church's Handbook of Instructions.

The materials, not available even to most Mormons, included information on how the church hierarchy deals with matters of discipline, excommunication and apostasy.

The church issued legal warnings demanding that the information be taken down, and even sent threats to the Wikimedia Foundation — the not-for-profit that operates WikiNews and Wikipedia — for linking to the material in a WikiNews article.

LDS church spokesman Michael Purdy wrote in an e-mail that there is nothing particularly newsworthy in the material and said it is used as "a reference guide to assist local Church leaders in managing Church affairs.

"However," he wrote, "the material is copyrighted. Copyright infringement is a concern for many organizations."

The Wikimedia Foundation — which has no relation to the watchdog group — removed the documents. Wikileaks refused.

Wikileaks is no stranger to legal tussles; it says it thrives on them, mainly because the First Amendment makes it nearly bulletproof in the U.S.

In March, after the group leaked documents that purportedly showed that Swiss bankers Julius Baer & Co. helped customers launder money illegally through the Cayman Islands, a U.S. federal judge ruled that efforts to shut down the site violated constitutional rights to free speech.

In China, the government bans Wikileaks outright, forcing the Web site to adopt an array of shifting aliases so that Chinese Internet users can access it.

If it were to come to a legal battle in the U.S. with either the Scientologists or the Mormons, Columbia University intellectual-law professor Jane Ginsburg said, Wikileaks likely would claim strong protections under U.S. fair-use laws, which give leeway for whistle-blowing groups that use even copyrighted materials to back up their claims of corruption or abuse.

So far, neither religious group has taken its copyright complaint to the courts.

"I suspect the Mormons are smart enough not to take the next step," Assange said.

But Assange said if they do move forward, Wikileaks would welcome a lawsuit.

"The lawsuits validate the documents we released and bring attention to other people who are revealing incriminating information about these or other organizations," he said.

"It also brings further attention to our organization as a whole, and it's possible to create a situation where the lawsuit itself brings out the material in public and is a revealer of truth."

In September 2007, the site published evidence of massive corruption in the Kenyan government prior to the country's national elections, a move the group said may have helped shape the election's disputed outcome.

In November 2007, it released day-to-day operating instructions for the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay. In February 2008, it revealed that U.S. forces in Iraq were permitted to pursue enemies into Syria and Iran, prompting a warning from Tehran to Washington.

Just this week, it posted what it claims is the Pentagon's secret counterinsurgency combat manual — and then quickly became inaccessible, possibly due to overloaded servers.

While some have voiced concerns about the authenticity of the documents on Wikileaks, the site says it has a vetting process that has resulted in very few fakes.

"We've had maybe seven or eight altogether," Assange said.

He said that if a trusted source sends in a document, it's likely go up immediately. New or unknown sources will find their materials reviewed by some of the site's 1,200 volunteers and 30 core members, who judge the documents on their relevance, probable validity, whether they're verifiable, the likely motivations of the leakers, and other factors.

Some have called the group's decision to leak sensitive material dangerous and irresponsible, particularly when it involves U.S. military strategy. Others say Wikileaks sometimes falls short — not in identifying and distributing sensitive material, but in interpreting it.

"I've noticed the analysis of the leaks isn't always 100 percent accurate," said Erin Halasz, a journalism graduate student at Northwestern University who created a supportive blog about Wikileaks for a class project.

But the group defends its motives, saying that exposing secret information empowers people, as in the case of the Mormon church document.

"The document is not available to the public or to women in the Mormon church. In fact, a number of Mormon women wrote us describing how happy they were to see this information listed," Assange said.

Pittsburgh Cancer Center Warns of Risk From Cell Phone Use

2008-07-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

PITTSBURGH — The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between increased tumors and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early, unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now — especially when it comes to children.

"Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," Herberman said.

Herberman's advice is sure to raise concern among many cell phone users and especially parents.

In the memo he sent to about 3,000 faculty and staff Wednesday, he says children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.

Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cell phones in public places like a bus because it exposes others to the phone's electromagnetic fields.

The issue that concerns some scientists — though nowhere near a consensus — is electromagnetic radiation, especially its possible effects on children. It is not a major topic in conferences of brain specialists.

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies — including some Herberman cites — with thousands of brain tumor patients and concludes "we found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone users. The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies."

Studies last year in France and Norway concluded the same thing.

"If there is a risk from these products — and at this point we do not know that there is — it is probably very small," the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.

Still, Herberman cites a "growing body of literature linking long-term cell phone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer."

"Although the evidence is still controversial, I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use," he wrote in his memo.

A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, the director of the university's center for environmental oncology.

"The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain," she said in an interview that she did from her cell phone. "I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe."

Of concern are the still unknown effects of more than a decade of cell phone use, with some studies raising alarms, said Davis, a former health adviser in the Clinton Administration.

She said 20 different groups have endorsed the advice the Pittsburgh cancer institute gave, and authorities in England, France and India have cautioned children's use of cell phones.

Herberman and Davis point to a massive ongoing research project known as Interphone, involving scientists in 13 nations, mostly in Europe. Results already published in peer-reviewed journals from this project aren't so alarming, but Herberman is citing work not yet published.

The published research focuses on more than 5,000 cases of brain tumors. The National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., which isn't participating in the Interphone project, reported in January that the brain tumor research had "selection bias." That means it relied on people with cancer to remember how often they used cell phones. It is not considered the most accurate research approach.

The largest published study, which appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2006, tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including thousands that had used the phones for more than 10 years. It found no increased risk of cancer among those using cell phones.

A French study based on Interphone research and published in 2007 concluded that regular cell phone users had "no significant increased risk" for three major types of brain tumors. It did note, however, that there was "the possibility of an increased risk among the heaviest users" for one type of brain tumor, but that needs to be verified in future research.

Earlier research also has found no connection.

Joshua E. Muscat of Penn State University, who has studied cancer and cell phones in other research projects partly funded by the cell phone industry, said there are at least a dozen studies that have found no cancer-cell phone link. He said a Swedish study cited by Herberman as support for his warning was biased and flawed.

"We certainly don't know of any mechanism by which radiofrequency exposure would cause a cancerous effect in cells. We just don't know this might possibly occur," Muscat said.

Cell phones emit radiofrequency energy, a type of radiation that is a form of electromagnetic radiation, according to the National Cancer Institute. Though studies are being done to see if there is a link between it and tumors of the brain and central nervous system, there is no definitive link between the two, the institute says on its Web site.

"By all means, if a person feels compelled that they should take precautions in reducing the amount of electromagnetic radio waves through their bodies, by all means they should do so," said Dan Catena, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society. "But at the same time, we have to remember there's no conclusive evidence that links cell phones to cancer, whether it's brain tumors or other forms of cancer."

Joe Farren, a spokesman for the CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group for the wireless industry, said the group believes there is a risk of misinforming the public if science isn't used as the ultimate guide on the issue.

"When you look at the overwhelming majority of studies that have been peer reviewed and published in scientific journals around the world, you'll find no relationship between wireless usage and adverse health affects," Farren said.

Frank Barnes, who chaired a recent National Research Council report looking into what studies are needed to assess the health effects of wireless communications, said Wednesday that "the jury is out" on how hazardous long-term cell phone use might be.

Speaking from his cell phone, the professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder said he takes no special precautions with his own cell phone. And he offered no clear advice to people worried about the matter.

It's up to each individual to decide what if anything to do. If people use a cell phone instead of having a land line, "that may very well be reasonable for them," he said.

Susan Juffe, a 58-year-old Pittsburgh special education teacher, heard about Herberman's cell phone advice on the radio earlier in the day.

"Now, I'm worried. It's scary," she said.

She says she'll think twice about allowing her 10-year-old daughter Jayne to use the cell phone.

"I don't want to get it (brain cancer) and I certainly don't want you to get it," she explained to her daughter.

Sara Loughran, a 24-year-old doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, sat in a bus stop Wednesday chatting on her cell phone with her mother. She also had heard the news earlier in the day, but was not as concerned.

"I think if they gave me specific numbers and specific information and it was scary enough, I would be concerned," Loughran said, planning to call her mother again in a matter of minutes. "Without specific numbers, it's too vague to get me worked up."

The bodies of two drowned Gypsy girls were laid out on the sand under beach towels

2008-07-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

"Why should we move? This is the best spot on the beach. The sun is .000001 % brighter and happier in this spot!"

(CNN) -- Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Gypsy girls were laid out on the sand.

The bodies of two drowned Gypsy girls were laid out on the sand under beach towels.

1 of 2 Italian news agency ANSA reported that the incident had occurred on Saturday at the beach of Torregaveta, west of Naples, southern Italy, where the two girls had earlier been swimming in the sea with two other Gypsy girls. Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.

Local news reports said the four girls found themselves in trouble amid fierce waves and strong currents. Emergency services responded 10 minutes after a distress call was made from the beach and two lifeguards attended the girls upon hearing their screams.

Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them.

The Web site of the Archbishop of Naples said the girls were cousins named Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13.

Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels to await collection by police. Photographs show sunbathers in bikinis and swimming trunks sitting close to where the girls' feet can be seen poking out from under the towels concealing their bodies. A photographer who took photos at the scene told CNN the mood among sunbathers had been one of indifference.

Other photos show police officers lifting the bodies into coffins and carrying them away past bathers reclined on sun loungers.

"While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few meters away," Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported.

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Corriere della Sera said that a crowd of curious onlookers that had formed around the bodies quickly dispersed.

"Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away between bathers stretched out in the sun."

The incident also attracted condemnation from the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe. "Indifference is not an emotion for human beings," Seppe wrote in his parish blog. "To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur."

Recent weeks have seen heightened tensions between Italian authorities and the country's Gypsy minority amid a crackdown by Silvo Berlusconi's government targeting illegal immigrants and talk by government officials of a "Roma emergency" that has seen the 150,000-strong migrant group blamed for rising street crime.

That has provided justification for police raids on Gypsy camps and controversial government plans to fingerprint all Gypsies -- an act condemned by the European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Gypsies has also seen Gypsy camps near Naples attacked and set on fire with petrol bombs by local residents.

In a statement published on its Web site, the Italian civil liberties group EveryOne said Saturday's drowning had occurred in an atmosphere of "racism and horror" and cast doubt on the reported version of events, suggesting that it appeared unusual for the four girls to wade into the sea, apparently casting modesty aside and despite being unable to swim.

"The most shocking aspect of all this is the attitude of the people on the beach," the statement said. "No one appears the slightest upset at the sight and presence of the children's dead bodies on the beach: they carry on swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting."

SPACE Waste Management

2008-07-20T09:39:00.001-07:00

Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of frozen russian poop, urine, food cartons, bags of trash

ESA have released information on the incredible content of the skies above our heads. In their press release they outline what exactly is littering orbital space around the Earth.

The image here shows the view from above the North Pole of all low Earth orbit objects as of January 2008. To observe the Earth, satellites must be in low orbits. At higher latitudes, the density of such objects increases.

Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit, of which only 400 lie beyond near orbits or on interplanetary trajectories. Today, it is estimated that only 800 satellites are operational. About 50 percent of all trackable space debris are due to in-orbit explosion or collision events.

We are adding around 200 objects a year into this picture!

Not to worry, most of the lower Earth orbit material will eventually fall back to earth at some 17,000 mph, stiking homes, cars and joggers alike. In reality, there have been only a few dozen cases of this actually happening, however, the reality exists that it could and will.

Two in a Million: Twins Born - One Black, One White

2008-07-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Happy parents Florence Addo-Gerth and Stephan Gerth with their newborn twins Ryan (right) and Leo (left).
Twins with different skin colors — one black and the other white — have been born in Berlin, Germany.

Doctors say it is an extremely rare occurrence, but it is possible if genes combine in a certain way.

The twin boys, named Ryan and Leo, are the offspring of a mixed-race couple.

The mother, Florence, hails from Ghana in western Africa, and dad, Stephan, is from Potsdam in Germany.

"Ryan came first, and everything was as usual," said the hospital's doctor, Birgit Weber. "But when Leo was born, I couldn't believe my eyes."

"Both kids have definitely the same father," the doctor added.

Click here to read more and see video of the twins from Sky News.

Al says we need to get off our butts and really do something NOW!

2008-07-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday urged the United States to wean the nation from its entire electricity grid to carbon-free energy within 10 years, warning that drastic steps were needed to avoid a global economic and ecological cataclysm.

Like a modern Jeremiah, Mr. Gore called down thunder to justify the spending of trillions of dollars to remake the American power system, a plan fraught with technological and political challenges that goes far beyond the changes recently debated in Congress and by world leaders.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” he said in a midday speech to a friendly crowd of mostly young supporters in Washington. “And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”

Mr. Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his environmental advocacy, said in an interview that he hoped to raise the alarm so that the next president, whether Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain, could rally Congress and the nation to action. He disavowed any interest in returning to elective office.

His approach, which would require abandoning old-fashioned, coal-fired power plants, goes beyond what even the most audacious scientists and entrepreneurs have proposed, as a means, he said, of jolting the world out of old ways of thinking. Without great dreams, he said, great deeds are never achieved, citing the quest for the Moon in the 1960s.

“I see my role as enlarging the political space in which Senator Obama or Senator McCain can confront this issue as president next year,” Mr. Gore said.

He said the United States and the rest of the world were facing unprecedented problems, including growing demand for electricity, dangerous changes in the climate driven largely by emissions of carbon dioxide and political instability in regions that produce much of the world’s oil.

“When we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges — the economic, environmental and national security crises,” Mr. Gore said. “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

His solution was to do away with all carbon-emitting forms of electricity production in the United States within 10 years, replacing them with alternatives like solar, wind and geothermal power, conservation and so-called clean-coal technology in which all carbon emissions from the burning of coal are captured and stored. It is a bold, and some say, unrealistic goal given the tremendous cost and the nation’s fractious politics.

Mr. Gore admitted his plan would, at least initially, drive energy prices higher. But he proposed a payroll tax cut to offset higher prices for fuel and electricity.

He said he envisioned nuclear power retaining its current share of domestic electricity generation, about 20 percent. Coal, which now produces about half of American electricity, would dwindle, while renewable sources, now producing less than 3 percent of the nation’s electricity, would rapidly grow. (Natural gas and hydroelectric dams provide most of the remainder of the nation’s electricity, relatively little of which comes from burning oil.)

Mr. Gore, who was awarded the Nobel Prize last October, is the most vocal in a growing chorus calling for a green energy revolution. The Texas oilman Boone Pickens has proposed converting a large portion of the American transportation fleet to run on compressed natural gas while spending billions on new wind farms to produce electricity. Even those who share Mr. Gore’s ideals expressed skepticism that his goal could be achieved in 10 years.

“Mr. Gore is continuing his talent of identifying the key challenges, emphasizing urgency and translating it to a broad audience. That’s terrific,” said Ernest J. Moniz, director of the energy initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former under secretary at the Department of Energy in the Clinton administration. “Everyone agrees that the solution to the climate challenge is decarbonization and the first place to go is the electricity sector. Can we get there that fast? Obviously it’s very, very tough.”

Last winter, the House failed to enact legislation to require utilities to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Last month, supporters could not even get a Senate vote on a climate change plan that would cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 70 percent by 2050. Mr. Gore was undeterred.

“To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider seriously what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in less than 10 years,” he said.

He noted that the United States uses only a tiny fraction of the wind, solar and geothermal power available. He said entrepreneurs were investing billions of dollars in new technology and rapidly bringing down the cost of all alternative energy sources.

Mr. Gore said he had spoken about his plan this week with Senators Obama and McCain, the likely Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, but declined to detail their responses. Mr. Gore noted that Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia and the Libertarian Party candidate for president, attended the speech on Thursday.

Mr. Obama, in a written statement, said: “For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat. I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels, and those are the investments I will make as president.”

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said: “John McCain has been a leader in the fight against global climate change, working with Democrats on this issue since 2003, but no one has more successfully recruited Americans into this effort than Al Gore. This is a key issue, and John McCain has put solutions over partisanship to pursue meaningful, market-driven cap and trade legislation aimed at drastically reducing harmful carbon emissions.”

Russian Researchers Rescued As Arctic Ice Camp Melts

2008-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Moscow, Russia (AHN) - Russian scientists cut short their research in the Arctic this year because the ice floe they were camped on melted more than a month earlier than usual this year.

"The 20 polar researchers and their two dogs climbed on board the 'Mikhail Somov'" research ship late Sunday, Sergei Bolyasnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute, told Agency France Press. "All scientific programs at the station have been stopped."

Researchers, their dogs, winterized huts and equipment had to be rescued from their floating, shrinking ice floe in the western Arctic Ocean on Sunday by a research ship.

North Pole-35 station was established in early September on a 1.2- by 2.5-mile ice floe near the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The scientists were scheduled to stay on the floe doing research until late August.

But the floe shrank to only 1,000 by 2,000 feet as it drifted westward more than 1,550 miles from near the Wrangel Island west across the North Pole. It was melting so rapidly that it was becoming too small to hold the researchers.

MAYDAY! Alaska Volcano Erupts With Little Warning

2008-07-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

Alaska Volcano Erupts With Little Warning
Saturday, July 12, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A volcano has erupted with little warning on an island in Alaska, sending an ash cloud at least 30,000 feet high.

The Okmok Caldera erupted late Saturday morning. Seismologists at the Alaska Volcano Center detected a series of small tremors hours before.

Okmok is located on one of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, 60 miles west of the busy fishing port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island.

Two planned flights from Unalaska were canceled in response to the eruption, said Jerry Lucas, a spokesman for PenAir, the primary airliner serving the area.

Geophysicist Steve McNutt says the 3,500-foot volcano last erupted in 1997. He says the volcano has shown signs of increased activity during the last few months.

Columbus, Ohio Assholes - and we thought rednecks lived in the deep south??

2008-07-11T09:02:00.001-07:00

Bunch of f'in racists!

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.

Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.

The money covers both monetary losses and the residents' pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don't have public water.

Coal Run residents either paid to have wells dug, hauled water for cisterns or collected rain water so they could drink, cook and bathe.

"As a child, I thought it was normal because everyone done it in my neighborhood," said one of the plaintiffs, Cynthia Hale Hairston, 47. "But I realized as an adult it was wrong."

Colfax described the verdict as unique among civil rights cases nationally, both in the nature of the ruling and the size of the award.

The jury in U.S. District Court found that failing to provide water service to the residents violated state and federal civil rights laws. The lawsuit was not a class-action. Colfax said 25 to 30 families live in Coal Run now.

The water authority must pay 55 percent of the damages, while the county owes 25 percent and the city owes 20 percent, plaintiffs' attorney Reed Colfax said. The water authority no longer exists, and the county would be responsible for paying that share of the judgment.

Zanesville attorney Michael Valentine said in court that he intended to appeal but declined to comment further. The county commission also plans to appeal.

Attorney Mark Landes, who represented the county and water district, called the verdict disappointing. He said jurors were not allowed to hear defendants' testimony that neighborhood residents were offered water service years ago and refused it.

Colfax said he was unaware of any evidence that was excluded from the trial.

"This was a case that was started and fired by out-of-town lawyers who saw an opportunity for a cash settlement," Landes said.

The plaintiffs' attorneys will receive a separate amount to be decided later by a judge, Colfax said.

John Relman, a civil rights attorney based in Washington, D.C., who represented the residents, said the jury heard hours of testimony and saw hundreds of pages of documentation over the seven-week trial.

"This verdict vindicates that this (treatment) was because of their race," he said. "The jury agreed with that and issued a verdict based on a full airing of the facts."

Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers said she was pleased.

"This decision speaks firmly about the importance of treating citizens with equal respect, regardless of race," she said in a statement.

Plaintiff Frederick Martin said the long wait was worth it.

He and his nine siblings shared two tubs of water between them on bath nights when he was growing up. He left Coal Run, built on a former coal mine, in 1970 so his children wouldn't have to endure the same living conditions, he said.

"Today I feel that we are really blessed, to know and to see justice being met," Martin said. "And to see, regardless of who we are, there is a price to pay if you discriminate against people."

The plaintiffs' attorneys successfully argued that the decision not to pipe water to the plaintiffs was racially motivated, painting a picture of a community with a history of segregation. Black residents of Coal Run Road were denied water over the years while nearby white neighbors were provided it, they said.

Landes countered that about half of Muskingum County residents are not tied into the public water system even today. Among those without it are county commissioners, judges and other prominent officials, he said.

Zanesville has about 25,000 residents on the edge of the state's Appalachian region. One in every five families is below the federal poverty level, and the unemployment rate in Muskingum County in May was 7.4 percent. The national unemployment rate that month was 5.5 percent.

Whiney Ass American's 'The Whaa! Report'

2008-07-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

McCain Adviser Refers to ‘Nation of Whiners’
By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: July 11, 2008

BELLEVILLE, Mich. — Senator John McCain has spent the week trying to tell people that he feels their economic pain. So it was more than a little unhelpful when one of his top economic advisers was quoted Thursday as saying that the United States was only in a “mental recession” and that it had become a “nation of whiners.”

Also, the republicans (most of them) are SO OUT OF TOUCH with the real world and state of the US, another McCain camp said this as well....
Phil Gramm, a co-chairman of the McCain campaign, said in an interview that the nation was in a “mental recession.” Blogger Marc says that the Republican Party, including John McCain are in a 'mental recession' twenty-four seven!

Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press:

At a factory in Belleville, Mich., John McCain told workers Thursday: “America is hurting today. Michigan is hurting today.”
The adviser, former Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, sought to clarify his remarks Thursday by saying he had been referring only to some of the nation’s leaders.

But it was too late to keep from complicating things for Mr. McCain, who has been trying to strike a more empathetic tone after sometimes struggling to maintain a balance between displays of optimism about the nation’s future and demonstrating an understanding of Americans’ economic hardships.

Senator Barack Obama, noting that Mr. McCain had previously said an expansion of offshore oil drilling might have a “psychological” benefit for the country, seized on Mr. Gramm’s remarks, made in an interview with The Washington Times.

“You know, America already has one Dr. Phil,” Mr. Obama said at a campaign stop in Fairfax, Va. “When it comes to the economy, we don’t need another.”

YOU GO BARRACK!

Mr. McCain himself repudiated Mr. Gramm’s comments.

“The person here in Michigan that just lost his job isn’t suffering a mental recession,” he told reporters after a town-hall-style meeting at a factory in this city west of Detroit.

And when he was asked whether Mr. Gramm — McCain campaign co-chairman, UBS Investment Bank vice chairman and former economics professor — might serve as treasury secretary in a McCain administration, the candidate replied with a flash of his sometimes tart humor.

“I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus,” he said, “although I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that.”

Mr. McCain has been spending the week in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan pushing his economic proposals and trying to show a grasp of workers’ financial struggles.

During the gathering here Thursday, held at Bayloff Stamped Products, which provides metal components to car manufacturers, he tried to fend off the skepticism of some Michigan workers about his support for free trade and said more than half a dozen times that people were “hurting.”

“America is hurting today,” he said. “Michigan is hurting today. The automotive industry is hurting. And we’ve got big problems, and we’ve got big challenges.”

Questioned about manufacturers’ moving their plants elsewhere because of free trade, he replied, “I have to tell you — and I know that it’s not popular — I do believe in the overall benefits of free trade.”

In recent months Mr. McCain has recalibrated the way he talks about the economy, often noting that it does not matter whether the technical definition of a recession has been met, given that so many people feel as if they are in one. The tone is in contrast with the one he struck during the primaries, when he sometimes placed more emphasis on optimism.

His struggle to find a balance was on vivid display at a Republican debate in January, when he was asked whether the country was better off now than it was eight years ago.

“I think you could argue that Americans over all are better off,” he replied, “because we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment and low inflation, and a lot of good things have happened, a lot of jobs have been created.” Then he added: “But let’s have some straight talk. Things are tough right now.”

At the factory gathering Thursday, Mr. McCain repeated a statement that was used against him to great effect in the Michigan primary, which he lost to Mitt Romney.

“I’ll look at you in the eye again and I’ll tell you that there are some jobs that won’t come back,” he said.

But, the optimism hardly out of reach, he added that the lost jobs would be replaced with new ones to create more environmentally friendly technologies and other innovations.

“I have to tell you that the innovation and the technology and the entrepreneurship of the world still lies in the United States of America,” he said. “Every technological advance we’ve made in the 21st century and throughout the 20th has come from the United States of America.”

"Oh my gawd, I've got Measles!"

2008-07-10T15:37:00.001-07:00

At least 127 people in 15 states have come down with the measles, the biggest outbreak in the United States in more than 10 years, Reuters reported.

Cases started springing up in May, when more than 70 people in a dozen states became ill. According to federal health officials, most of the victims were not vaccinated against the highly contagious virus.

In a statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak has been traced to travelers who became sick overseas, returned to the United States and infected others.

The news comes on the heels of public health officials' stressing the importance of immunizing children.

Click here to watch related video.

"What concerns me is the trend of more and more people not vaccinating their children because of fears that vaccines cause autism — although no studies have proven this to be true," Dr. Joseph Rahimian, an infectious disease specialist at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, told FOXNews.com in May.

Last month British health officials said measles had become an epidemic in that country for the first time since the mid-1990s due to parents not getting their children vaccinated.

"With the whole debate about vaccines — and now parents due to their personal beliefs not vaccinating their children — what we are seeing now is that we are going to have these epidemic outbreaks throughout the country," said Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing editor of health at FOXNews.com.

"If this continues, we will see outbreaks throughout the entire developed world — something we have never seen before," he added.

The MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) is the safest protection you can give your child against this virus, according to the CDC.

The agency recommends that children should be given their first dose of the MMR vaccine around 12 to 15 months of age. The second dose is recommended before the start of kindergarten, between the ages of 4 to 6.

The National Institutes of Health also recommends all adults 18 years or older born after 1956 should receive an MMR vaccine if they are uncertain of their immunization status or if they have only had one shot prior to entering school.

Measles is caused by a virus that normally grows in cells that line the back of the throat and the lungs.

"This is a very contagious disease," Alvarez said. "It's very difficult to eradicate once you have it."

Typical symptoms include:

— Coughing

— Runny nose

— High Fever

— Rash (which usually starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body)

FAST FACTS: The Measles and Outbreaks

Measles remains a leading cause of death among children in poor countries.

"What you have to remember is that 250,000 children die from this virus every year," Alvarez added. "So, vaccinations have to be a priority for parents because at the end of the day if you get measles, you can live through it, but in some particular cases you're going to have complications."

About one in five measles sufferers experiences more severe illness, which can include diarrhea, ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis, chronic neurological deficits and even death.

States with cases now include Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington state, as well as Washington, D.C., according to the CDC.

This latest outbreak comes eight years after the virus was declared practically dead in the United States, thanks to a vaccination program that began in the 1960s.

Mount St. Helens eruption is officially over, experts say...or DO THEY???

2008-07-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

By TERESA BLACKMAN, kgw.com Staff

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- It shook, steamed and shot out lava on and off for about three years, but now the experts believe Mount St. Helens is going back to sleep, for the most part.

KGW Photo

Steam and smoke rise from the crater at Mount St. Helens during a past volcanic event.
A statement released by the U.S. Geological Survey team Thursday said “the more than three-years-long, lava-dome eruption of Mount St. Helens that began in autumn 2004 and paused in late January of this year appears to have ended.”

USGS also announced Thursday that it had lowered the alert level for the volcano to "normal," signaled by the color green.

Geologists studying the lava dome said that five months have passed with no signs of renewed eruptive activity and earthquakes, volcanic gas emissions, or ground deformation.

They added that they had watched the rate of lava-dome growth gradually decline throughout the eruption, which accounted for at least 93 million cubic meters of new lava, or a volume that would cover seven lanes of highway from New York City to Portland.

Related material:
Time lapse slideshow

St. Helens dome grows

Mt. St. Helens for 27th anniversary

2005: Large ash and steam plume rises

Mount St. Helens live cam

Eyewitnesses recall Mount St. Helens' silent fury
But now that the eruption is over, that doesn’t mean the mountain will remain entirely at rest.

“Even with the end of lava dome growth, some hazards persist,” the press release warned. “The new lava dome remains hot in places-capable of producing small hot avalanches or minor explosions that could dust areas with ash up to tens of miles downwind.”

It went on to say that rock fall from the crater walls coulc produce clouds of dust that rise above the crater rim and heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt could send small debris flows onto the Pumice Plain north of the crater.

The U.S. Geological Survey team and University of Washington researchers said they will continue to monitor the situation closely and will issue additional updates if necessary.

The eruption started in the fall of 2004 and pushed 125 million cubic yards of lava into the crater.

In the past 28 years, lava has replaced about 7 percent of the mountaintop that was removed in the 1980 blast.

"I'm Karl Rove...will somebody please tar and feather my ass!"

2008-07-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Rove ignores subpoena, refuses to testify on Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House adviser Karl Rove defied a congressional subpoena and refused to testify Thursday about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department, including whether he influenced the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, chairman of a House subcommittee, ruled with backing from fellow Democrats on the panel that Rove was breaking the law by refusing to cooperate — perhaps the first step toward holding him in contempt of Congress.

The White House has cited executive privilege as a reason he and others who serve or served in the administration should not testify, arguing that internal administration communications are confidential and that Congress cannot compel officials to testify. Rove says he is bound to follow the White House's guidance, although he has offered to answer questions specifically on the Siegelman case — but only with no transcript taken and not under oath.

Lawmakers subpoenaed Rove in May in an effort to force him to talk about whether he played a role in prosecutors' decisions to pursue cases against Democrats, such as former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, or in firing federal prosecutors considered disloyal to the Bush administration.

Rove had been scheduled to appear at the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. A placard with his name sat in front of an empty chair at the witness table, with a handful of protesters behind it calling for Rove to be arrested.

A decision on whether to pursue contempt charges now goes to the full Judiciary Committee and ultimately to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

House Republicans called Thursday's proceedings a political stunt and said if Democrats truly wanted information they would take Rove up on an offer he made to discuss the matter informally.

The House already has voted to hold two of President Bush's confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with its inquiry into whether the administration fired nine federal prosecutors in 2006 for political reasons.

The case, involving White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, is in federal court and may not be resolved before Bush's term ends in January.

Democrats have rejected the offer from Rove to talk with them informally because the testimony would not be sworn and, they say, could create a confusing record.

Rove has insisted publicly that he never tried to influence Justice Department decisions and was not even aware of the Siegelman prosecution until it landed in the news.

Siegelman — an unusually successful Democrat in a heavily Republican state — was charged with accepting and concealing a contribution to his campaign to start a state education lottery, in exchange for appointing a hospital executive to a regulatory board.

He was sentenced last year to more than seven years in prison but was released in March when a federal appeals court ruled Siegelman had raised "substantial questions of fact and law" in his appeal.

Siegelman and others have alleged the prosecution was pushed by GOP operatives — including Rove, a longtime Texas strategist who was heavily involved in Alabama politics before working at the White House. A former Republican campaign volunteer from Alabama told congressional attorneys last year that she overheard conversations suggesting that Rove pressed Justice officials in Washington to prosecute Siegelman.

The career prosecutors who handled Siegelman's case have insisted that Rove had nothing to do with it, emphasizing that the former governor was convicted by a jury.

There's water on the moon, so please leave and go there!

2008-07-09T19:08:00.000-07:00

Evidence of moon water found
Scientists test the interior of tiny rocks collected by astronauts in the 1970s and find hydrogen. The discovery challenges theories on how the moon formed.
By Wendy Hansen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A new analysis of volcanic glass recovered from the moon decades ago found the rocks contain traces of the constituents of water, challenging a long-held notion that the moon is perfectly dry.

Using a technique that was not available when Apollo astronauts collected the minuscule rocks in the early 1970s, scientists were able to detect telltale signs of water trapped inside the pebble-like glass. Their discovery suggests that water was present deep within the moon when the pebbles were formed during violent lunar eruptions 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion years ago.

The analysis, published today in the journal Nature, may cause scientists to rethink theories on how the moon was formed.

"The water that these guys have discovered is a scientific gold mine for us to figure out the history of . . . the moon,"said Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who was not involved in the research.

The pebbles, about the size of a period on this page, are made of magnesium-rich green volcanic glass and iron-rich orange glass that solidified moments after eruption. They were recovered from the moon's equatorial region during the Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 space missions.

Earlier studies of the pebbles detected the presence of sulfur and carbon, indicating the volcanic glass was formed in a fiery eruption.

For the latest study, scientists measured the composition of the diminutive rocks molecule by molecule, using a technique 10 times more sensitive than that used in previous work.

They didn't search for water directly because when water is incorporated into any rock it naturally separates into smaller components. So researchers looked for one of those components, hydrogen, which would signal the presence of water.

Testing the interior of the pebbles to avoid surface contamination, scientists found trace amounts of hydrogen along with chlorine and fluorine, which, like carbon and sulfur, are found in rocks from explosive eruptions. The discovery of hydrogen alongside the other elements suggested to scientists that the water came from inside the moon and not from an external source, such as a comet.

Based on the amount of hydrogen found in the pebbles, scientists estimated the lunar magma contained 260 to 745 parts per million of water, similar to what is found in the Earth's upper mantle.

"Up until our study, there was really no evidence for [indigenous] water on the moon," said Erik Hauri, a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science and an author of the report.

The finding throws at least a little water on the currently favored hypothesis concerning the moon's origin. Many scientists think the moon was formed when a large proto-planet slammed into Earth, sending into space molten debris that eventually became the moon. Scientists have long assumed that the heat created by the collision would have vaporized any water present and that the small gravitational field of the primeval moon would not have been strong enough to recapture the vapor.

"We are somehow missing a key part of the physics of this giant impact that would allow the moon to retain some of this water," Hauri said.

Researchers said they eliminated solar wind as a possible source of the hydrogen found in the tiny rocks. Solar wind is a stream of charged particles, including hydrogen ions, that continually bombard the surface of the moon. If hydrogen from the solar wind seeped into the pebbles, it could give a false reading of water.

But in such a case, "you would expect high concentration on the surface which decreased toward the core," said Alberto Saal, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown University and lead author of the report. When Saal and colleagues analyzed a glass bead from its edge to its core, "what we found was exactly the opposite," he said.

Some scientists think water may exist elsewhere on the moon. Ice may have been deposited by external sources such as comets, Hauri said. NASA plans to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter this year to map the moon and look for surface water that could be hidden in permanently shadowed areas near the poles.

Screen Actor's Guild is whining now too? WHAAAA!

2008-07-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

Screen Actors Guild determined to seek better deal

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after losing a bid to scuttle a rival union's new labor contract with Hollywood's studios, Screen Actors Guild leaders insisted on Wednesday they were determined to negotiate a better deal, despite the studios' assertion that bargaining is over.

Negotiators for SAG and the studios planned to meet on Thursday to discuss the "final offer" management presented the union when contract talks broke off in stalemate last week, hours before SAG's old labor agreement expired.

That contract covers work performed by 120,000 SAG members in prime-time TV and movies, an industry still recovering from a 14-week writers strike that ended in February.

SAG's contract talks have foundered on some of the same issues that led to the Writers Guild of America strike, including disagreements over how union talent should be paid for work created especially for the Internet.

The studios' bargaining agent, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, gave its latest offer Monday as a take-it-or-leave-it proposal, saying it was done talking.

But SAG's executive director and chief negotiator, Doug Allen, suggested on the eve of his union's formal response that the door to further deal-making remained open.

"I don't know that those categorical statements are always to be taken at face value," he told Reuters. "In fact, somebody from the WGA told me they got a total of 10 final offers from the AMPTP (during their talks). So we'll see."

SAG's deputy executive director, Pamm Fair, sounded a similar note in a statement issued by the union in response to an open letter from the studios to state lawmakers and local politicians accusing the union of foot-dragging.

Teen boys sodomize the Dead, charges against the now twenty year olds are reinstated

2008-07-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

Defendants: "But she never said no... she never attempted to stop us, nor did she protest our sexual advances"

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in reinstating charges against three men accused of digging up a corpse to have sex with it.

The court waded into the grisly case after lower court judges ruled nothing in state law banned necrophilia. Those decisions prompted public outrage in Wisconsin and on the Internet, where one blogger wrote: "Doing the dirty with the dead OK in Wisconsin."

Not anymore, the court ruled in a 5-2 decision.

Justice Patience Roggensack, writing a majority opinion with three other justices, said state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent whether a victim is dead or alive at the time. Dead bodies obviously can't give consent, she said.

"A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

The decision brings Wisconsin's law in line with more than 20 other states who prohibit necrophilia or the abuse of a corpse, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California joined that group in 2004 after prosecutors said they couldn't bring charges in some cases without an official ban.

The law in Wisconsin had been murky, and two dissenting justices insisted Wednesday that lawmakers did not mean to ban necrophilia but to allow assault charges when someone was raped and then killed.

The ruling reinstates attempted sexual assault charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 22. They face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Armed with shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms, the men went to a cemetery in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to remove the body of a 20-year-old woman killed the week before in a motorcycle crash, police said.

One of them had seen an obituary photo of the pretty nursing assistant and asked the others for help digging up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors said. They used the shovels to reach her grave but were unable to pry the concrete vault open and fled after a car drove into the cemetery.

The men were discovered by a police officer responding to reports of a suspicious vehicle in the cemetery and charged with attempted sexual assault and theft.

A judge dismissed the assault charges, saying Wisconsin law does not criminalize necrophilia. An appeals court upheld that decision, ruling state law was ambiguous on that point but the most reasonable explanation was that it did not.

Those decisions were wrong, Roggensack wrote, because the law clearly says assault victims can be dead or alive.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office represented prosecutors in the appeal, praised the decision.

"Words matter and the Legislature chose its words carefully to extend the sexual assault law to those heinous circumstances where a dead person is sexually assaulted, whether or not the defendant killed the victim," he said. "Necrophilia is criminal in Wisconsin."

In a dissent, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley called the conduct heinous and said it should be banned for public policy reasons. But she said lawmakers did not do that when they wrote the law in question in 1986.

She said the law was meant to allow prosecutors to bring sexual assault charges in rape-murder cases when they could not prove whether the victim was alive at the time of the rape. That's the same conclusion reached by the lower court judges, who she noted were "reasonably well-informed."

Jefren Olsen, a public defender who represented Radke, said he agreed with Bradley's dissent and the majority opinion was "dead wrong."

"Obviously, the facts are rather notorious and not the easiest to deal with," he said. "I assume that had some impact."

Suzanne Edwards, a lawyer representing Nicholas Grunke, said she was disappointed in the decision. The men will be arraigned on the charges and have a chance to plead not guilty, she said, emphasizing the prosecutors' contentions were only allegations right now.

Mt. Shasta Glacier has a boner!

2008-07-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

MOUNT SHASTA, Calif. — Global warming is shrinking glaciers all over the world, but the seven tongues of ice creeping down Mount Shasta's flanks are a rare exception: They are the only known glaciers in the continental U.S. that are growing.

Reaching more than 14,000 feet above sea level, Mount Shasta is one of the state's tallest peaks, dominating the landscape of high plains and conifer forests in far Northern California.

Nearby Indian tribes referred to its glaciers as the footsteps made by the creator when he descended to Earth. Hikers flock to Shasta's peak every summer to scale them.

With glaciers retreating in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, Mount Shasta — the southernmost volcano in the Cascade range — is actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean.

"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led a team studying Shasta's glaciers. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean."

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

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Growing Glaciers Climate change has cut the number of glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park from 150 to 26 since 1850, and some scientists project there will be none left within a generation.

Lonnie Thompson, a glacier expert at Ohio State University, has projected the storied snows at Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro might disappear by 2015.

But for Shasta, about 270 miles north of San Francisco, scientists say a warming Pacific Ocean means more moist air.

On the mountain, precipitation falls as snow, adding to the glaciers enough to overcome a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature in the last century, scientists say.

"It's a bit of an anomaly that they are growing, but it's not to be unexpected," said Ed Josberger, a glaciologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Tacoma, Wash.

By comparison, the glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, more than 500 miles south of Mount Shasta, are exposed to warmer summer temperatures and are retreating.

The Sierra's 498 ice formations — glaciers and ice fields — have shrunk by about half their size over the past 100 years, said Andrew Fountain, a geology professor at Portland State University. He inventoried glaciers in the continental U.S. as part of a federal initiative.

He said Shasta's seven glaciers are the only ones scientists have identified as getting larger.

Glaciologists say most glaciers in Alaska and Canada are retreating, too, but there are too many to study them all.

Although Mount Shasta's glaciers are growing, researchers say the 4.7 billion cubic feet of ice on its flanks could be gone by 2100.

For the glaciers to remain their current size, Shasta would have to receive 20 percent more snowfall for every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, Tulaczyk said.

The Shasta glaciers have been advancing since the end of a drought in the early 20th century. The mountain's smallest glaciers — named Konwakiton, Watkins and Mud Creek — have more than doubled in length since 1950.

Hikers seeking to cross Shasta's glaciers — marked with crevasses as deep as 100 feet — say they are much larger than the boundaries drawn on geological maps.

"I noticed I was traveling down farther than the maps were showing it," said Eric White, a U.S. Forest Service ranger who has climbed Shasta for 23 years.

Four glaciers at Washington's Mount Rainier are staying about the same size. Those glaciers — shielded from the sun on the mountain's north and east sides — have received just enough snow to keep them from shrinking.

The added ice on Mount Shasta might be good for the state's water supplies. Hydrologists believe the glaciers feed springs and aquifers, though they say it's unclear precisely how the water travels underground.

Until recently, the same phenomenon that is benefiting Shasta's glaciers was feeding glacier growth in southern Norway and Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and northern Pakistan, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In each area, scientists say, more snowfall temporarily offset warming temperatures in the 1990s and early 2000s. But rising temperatures since then have begun to shrink the ice.

Climate change is causing roughly 90 percent of the world's mountain glaciers to shrink, said Thompson, the Ohio State glacier expert.

"Best that we keep our eye on the big picture," Thompson said in an e-mail about Shasta's unique position. "The picture points unfortunately (to) massive loss of ice on land, which has huge implications for future sea level rise."

Global forecasts show temperatures warming from 2 degrees to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century if no major efforts are undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At that rate, California's snowpack and its remaining glaciers are among the most vulnerable of its natural resources.

Even without global warming, another threat to Shasta's glaciers could come far more quickly: a volcanic eruption could melt them, creating mud flows that could bury the surrounding small communities.

Over the last 4,000 years, Shasta has erupted about every 250 to 300 years, and did so most recently about 200 years ago, said William Hirt, a geology instructor at the College of the Siskiyous.

You go Girl!!

2008-07-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

New study: Gays should be allowed to serve

By Cristian Hernandez - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 8, 2008 16:57:21 EDT

A new study by a group of retired military officers says gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military because their presence does not interfere with combat operations.

Released Tuesday, the study represents the work of four retired military officers, one from each branch of the service, based on interviews with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, military personnel policy experts, and members of the Clinton administration who helped to implement the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — among them retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Minter Alexander, who in 1993 was in charge of the effort.

The current policy states that the presence of gay service members would present an “unacceptable risk” to troop morale and discipline. The policy and its supporters claim that gays serving openly in the military would make it difficult for service members to trust their fellow troops on the battlefield.

In the study, officers write that allowing gays to serve openly “is unlikely to pose any significant risks to morale, good order, discipline and cohesion” because tolerance among military members to the presence of gays has “grown dramatically.”

Banning gays may actually harm the military because it deprives it of a valuable talent pool, the study says. It cites a government report that said nearly 800 men and women with skills deemed “mission-critical” by the Pentagon have been dismissed because of the ban.

The study was sponsored by the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California Santa Barbara.

“Officers reached their findings independently and required a written pledge that the Center would publish their recommendations regardless of the political implications,” the center said in a statement.

The study comes as the presidential election has thrown a new spotlight on the military’s ban on gays.

In a recent interview with Military Times, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the likely Democratic presidential candidate, said anyone willing and able to risk his or her life for the United States should have the opportunity to do so openly, regardless of sexual orientation.

In a similar interview with Military Times in 2007, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said that he sees no reason to change the policy at this time.

Navy Vice Adm. Jack Shanahan told The Associated Press that he had no opinion on the matter before joining the panel but was struck by the “loss of personal integrity required by individuals to carry out “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Tuesday’s study also marks the first time a Marine, Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitke, has officially supported a repeal of the ban.

You are generating TOO MUCH power from your wind generators!

2008-07-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Surge in wind power causes spike in NW power grid

Blogger Marc's note: It is unbelievable that in a day and age where we are seeing BROWN-OUTS on the West Coast (more specifically in California) that Oregon's small Wind farms in the Columbia River Gorge, are working so well that the local power companies CANNOT HANDLE all the extra power the little wind farms generate on windy days! When there are places BEGGING FOR electricity, why can't our Pacific Power Company either re-route the almost free - 100% eco-friendly clean power' to other grids, like California's system that so desperately needs it right now?

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The wind huffed, and it puffed, and it nearly caused major problems in the Northwest's electrical grid last week.

Power managers say they have some fixing to do.

A surge of wind last Monday afternoon jumped far beyond levels forecast by operators of Oregon's burgeoning wind-farm industry, sending more power into the regional grid than it could handle.

The Bonneville Power Administration is responsible for adjusting hydropower generation levels to accommodate the power from wind turbines so the system isn't overloaded.

It realized by Monday evening that it could no longer handle the surge without increasing spills of water through hydroelectric dams to levels dangerous to fish. Spilling the water keeps it from the hydropower generators.

Generally, spills are needed to help juvenile salmon make their way downriver, although too much water can prove lethal.

So, for the first time, BPA power managers began calling wind-farm operators with orders to curtail power generation.

But calls to some wind farms reached only answering machines, and at another the operators misunderstood and kept generation steady. One wind-farm, which BPA wouldn't name, did reduce generation.

As it turned out, water the BPA had to spill wasn't heavy enough to do damage.

But a BPA official said it demonstrated a need to make sure that the growth of wind power in the Columbia Basin doesn't cause more such problems.

"It was a wake-up call," said Brian Silverstein, a BPA transmission vice president.

The agency can sanction wind companies that disobey pullback orders. In this case, penalties were unnecessary, Silverstein said, but fine-tuning of protocols definitely is.

Oh those fiscal & smart Mormons in Utah!

2008-07-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

Utah goes to 4-day workweek to save energy
Starting next month, thousands of government employees will only work 4 days per week, in an effort aimed at reducing energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses.

Marc's Blogger note: When I was a Deputy Sheriff in SLC, we always worked a 4 day (10 hr shift) work week. Since Mondays seem to be the busiest time for governement Offices, I'd PICK the close day to be FRIDAY too! What day would you pick and why?

Oh... those ficscally Smart Mormons.... (I'm a staunch OBAMA supporter - however, MITT ROMNEY could have been a real ASSET to our National area)

Now, to the actual story...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Starting next month, it will be "TGIT" for Utah state employees. As in: "Thank God It's Thursday."

In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state's energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.

They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancy. They will get paid the same as before.

"One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses," said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director. He said he is looking forward to tackling items on his long-neglected "honey-do" list (As in: "Honey, do this" and "Honey, do that"); camping; and traveling more around the state.

The order issued by Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman will affect about 17,000 out of 24,000 executive-branch employees. It will not cover state police officers, prison guards or employees of the courts or Utah's public universities. Also, state-run liquor stores will stay open on Fridays.

The compressed workweek in Utah - whose motto is "Industry" and whose official symbol is the beehive, representing thrift and perseverance - could prove inconvenient to those who need to use state services and find certain offices closed on Fridays.

Also, some parents may have to rearrange their child care to accommodate their longer hours, and bus and commuter train schedules might have to be adjusted.

But many are excited about the idea.

"I'm thrilled," said Rose Kenworthy, 58, an executive secretary at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "Now I can do anything I want. I can have lunch with my friends, spend time with my grandchildren or just chill out."

Sheldon Wood, 48, who writes property tax software, plans on using his three-day weekends to go into the mountains to hike and bike with his wife, also a state employee.

Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion, according to the governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley. The state will also save on gasoline used by official vehicles, but authorities have not figured out how much.

The Department of Environmental Quality estimated employees in six buildings alone will save themselves more than $300,000 spent on gas to commute to work.

The four-day workweek could also be good for the environment.

"We feel like we can reduce the CO2 or the ozone by around over 3,000 metric tons, as well as have an impact on our air pollution," said Kim Hood, executive director of the Department of Administrative Services.

In addition, the governor said the new schedule could help recruit younger workers who prefer a three-day weekend.

State officials will evaluate the program after a year and decide whether to extend it.

Because of the downturn in the economy and $4-a-gallon gasoline, many states are looking at cost-saving measures, including expanded telecommuting, compressed workweeks and more flexible schedules.

"Everyone's going to keep a close eye on it and see what happens in Utah and whether they can demonstrate employee effectiveness and the energy savings, too," said Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives, based in Lexington, Ky.

Many Utah state offices will extend their hours and stay open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. so people can use government services before or after work. And residents are being encouraged to use the Internet for hundreds of ordinary services, such as automobile registration renewals.

As for such things as hazardous spills and calls from Medicaid recipients who need approval for medical procedures, "certainly there are people who are on call 24-7 now, and those people will continue to be on call 24-7," the governor's spokeswoman said.

Natalie Smith, 38, who works on a state arthritis program, supports the governor's push to make government more environmentally friendly, but said the change will mean juggling schedules with her husband to take care of their two young children.

"We're not exactly sure how we're going to do it," she said. But she added that it will be nice to have Fridays to visit the library or the zoo or run errands.

Debra McBride, a Medicaid specialist who has been working four 10-hour shifts a week for about 20 years, said it is harder to make doctor's appointments and do other errands Monday through Thursday, and working longer hours can be rough.

"After working 10 hours in a day," she said, "I don't do anything after I get home."

What’s Really Up With North Pole Sea Ice?

2008-06-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

By Andrew C. Revkin

The Arctic Ocean lost much of its old thick sea ice by the 1990s. This animation shows the change from 1981 through 2007, with red designating the oldest (and thickest) ice and dark blue the freshly-formed “first year” ice. Light blue is open water (OW).More background is online. (Credit: Animation from NSIDC courtesy of C. Fowler and J. Maslanik; Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research)The Drudgeosphere was all pumped up today about the “shock claim” in the (UK) Independent that the sea ice that normally persists year-round at the North Pole (I stood on it in March, 2003) will be replaced by open water later this summer.
Given the unpredictable short-term dynamics up there, which make the ice subject to vagaries of Siberian winds and a mix of currents, a lot of polar ice experts tell me it’s pretty much impossible to make such a prediction with high confidence. In fact, the Independent’s story — the opening sentences and headline at least — go way beyond what Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center tells the reporter. As early as May, ice experts were putting good odds on having open water at the North Pole.

One way or the other, it’s clear that, by the end of the 1990s, the veneer of ice on the Arctic Ocean had shifted to a far more tenuous state, with ever less thick, years-old ice like the floes I camped on when I went with the team setting up the annual North Pole Environmental Observatory. The animation above shows that the ice was flushed out, not melted.

Most of the seasoned Arctic ice experts I’ve canvassed for recent stories see the region exhibiting a mix of natural variability in the ice (like the flushing process) and a long-term trend toward less of it in summer, and more of it being fresh-made each season, and thus thin and easy to melt. Most also are convinced the change is now at least partly driven by human-caused global warming.
Their various projections are laid out in monthly Sea Ice Outlook reports. Right now the odds are essentially even on a 2008 match for the dramatic ice loss last year.
Here’s what trends looked like leading to last year’s remarkable ice vanishing act:

Many foes of greenhouse-gas restrictions and skeptics on the strength of climate science have pointed out that the world’s total sea-ice area hasn’t changed appreciably when you add up the ice in the Arctic and the sheath of sea ice that annually forms in winter around Antarctica (but disappears in austral summers). The Antarctic sea ice (distinct from the massive ice shelves fringing the continent and ice sheets inland) has, in fact, been expanding in recent years. You can compare the differences by clicking here for Arctic and Antarctic trends.

But scientists studying trends at both poles say there is nothing inconsistent with the intensifying greenhouse effect. William Chapman, who maintains the helpful Cryosphere Today Web site at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, sent me an email this morning reminding me of a 2005 study that projects more Antarctic sea ice (by volume) in a warming world.

“Yes, sea ice seems to behaving as the consensus of the climate models have been projecting - more rapid and larger response in the northern high latitudes than anywhere else, flat to possible increase in [southern hemisphere] sea ice as warming takes hold,” he wrote.

Here’s where the extent of sea ice in the Arctic stands now in relation to the average tracked between 1979 and 2000, and the remarkable ice loss in 2007:

The extent of Arctic Ocean sea ice is declining at a pace nearly matching last year’s unforeseen plunge.

205 comments so far...
1.June 27th,
2008

1:22 pm “Yes, sea ice seems to behaving as the consensus of the climate models have been projecting - more rapid and larger response in the northern high latitudes than anywhere else, flat to possible increase in [southern hemisphere] sea ice as warming takes hold,” he wrote.

And this also is perfectly in line with global warming not caused by humans as well. In fact, I have yet to see a serious cause of global warming mentioned where this doesn’t manage to fit the prediction. Note I am not including Hansen as a serious source of science in this, as he predicted that both poles would be melting at once.

The things to watch for: If the ice starts to melt and keeps melting. If warmers are right, then the Antarctic is going to start melting soon enough and won’t stop. If the skeptics are right, then the arctic might actually freeze over in a few years.

Incidentally, if a report I read from one scientist is right, then the antarctic is not to be relied on for any measurements. It won’t start melting for another 10k years no matter who’s right according to that guy.

— Posted by Lilith Taveril
2.June 27th,
2008
1:23 pm Surprise volcanoes and heat vents in the Arctic!

But I am sure our intrepid climate modelers have that included right?

http://www.scienceandthesea.org/index.php?option=com_co ntent&task=view&id=30&Itemid=10

[ANDY REVKIN says: No real surprise these days. The volcanic activity beneath the Arctic Ocean there been known for awhile now. Keep in mind it’s two miles below the sea ice, with thick intervening layers of water that don’t exchange much heat.]

— Posted by Bob B
3.June 27th,
2008
1:23 pm Andy, thanks for a balanced article. It looks like we’re tracking last year closely to this point. The Drudge article startled me yesterday because I hadn’t heard anything at all recently about the Arctic ice. I don’t understand, though, how any of this is consistent with the AGW models. Isn’t it just weather, like the below average temperatures in North America this past winter, which certainly didn’t disprove AGW?

— Posted by E. O'Neal
4.June 27th,
2008
1:28 pm As a matter of fact, the climate experts who have long predicted global warming and loss of Arctic ice also predicted… as long as 20 years ago!… that Antarctic sea ice would NOT be decreasing around now. People who make successful predictions are worth listening to.

— Posted by Spencer
5.June 27th,
2008
1:44 pm the earth is pretty much doomed now.

— Posted by noob1
6.June 27th,
2008
1:46 pm “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”

Washington Post, Nov 2, 1922

Nothing new.

[ANDY REVKIN suggests: Please re-read my earlier coverage of this question to get a solid view that things now are quite new, even in the context of the Arctic warmup in the early 20th century.]

— Posted by Jepe
7.June 27th,
2008
1:57 pm Other sources cite significant volcanic eruptions on the sea floor below the North Pole (erupted in the last 15 years). There obviously COULD be a correlation between volcanic eruptions and melting ice.

Can we all just investigate this and search for THE TRUTH, instead of trying to prove what you already believe to be true?! I’m really tired of all the poitics in “scientific” reporting.

— Posted by Drewbie3939
8.June 27th,
2008
1:57 pm That graph is VERY misleading in the context of the story! In today’s fear about global warming, it is criminal for the NY Times to use this graph to suggest the years 2007 and 2008 indicate a definite and prolonged warming trend. Anyone with any brains knows the “AVERAGE” of the years 1979 through 2000 will have a significant number of years below the average. That’s why it’s called and average! The NYT editor for allowing this graph to be published should be prosecuted for attempting to generate fear among his readers.

[ANDY REVKIN says: Wow, a lot of recommendations for prosecution this week. I think you’ve misread the (potentially confusing) labels provided by NSIDC. Those averages are for each month. In other words, the reading for May 2008 is compared to the ice extent from May 2007 and also to the average, for the month of May, from 1979-2000. That’s why it’s significant. ]

— Posted by Bob ODonnell/Woodstock

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

2008-06-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

By SETH BORENSTEIN – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."

Lesbians Like Straight Men, hate most gay men!

2008-06-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

Lesbians like straight men, researchers find.

Bloggers note: Most Lesbian want to BE straight men, that's why!

Why? Asymmetric brain structure
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Tuesday 17th June 2008 10:26 GMT

A study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has provided strong evidence that sexuality is a biologically fixed trait demonstrated in physical brain differences, New Scientist reports.

Specifically, key brain structures in homosexuals which govern "mood, anxiety and aggressiveness" resemble those in heterosexuals of the opposite sex - something likely to have been "forged" in the womb and not the result of later learning processes.

Ivanka Savic and Per Lindström chose to probe these specific brain parameters to avoid the pitfalls of previous studies which, while demonstrating "differences in brain architecture and activity" between gays and straights*, mostly relied on "sexuality-driven cues" which could have been "altered by learning or cognitive processes", as Savic put it.

Savic and Lindström put a group of 90 volunteers through the MRI scanner - 25 heterosexuals and 20 homosexuals of each gender - to determine their overall brain shape and volume. The results showed that straight chaps boasted asymmetric brains, "with the right hemisphere slightly larger", something they shared with lesbians.

Gay men, however, demonstrated symmetrical brains, in common with straight women.

The guinea pigs were then subjected to PET scans to "measure blood flow to the amygdala, part of the brain that governs fear and aggression". The resulting snaps (see below) showed how the amygdala "connected to other parts of the brain, giving clues to how this might influence behaviour".

Amygdala activity in heterosexual men and women (HeM and HeW) and homosexual men and women (HoM and HoW)

Sure enough, in straight men and lesbians, the amygdala sent signals "mainly into the sensorimotor cortex and the striatum, regions of the brain that trigger the 'fight or flight' response". For gay men and straight women, meanwhile, "the connections were mainly into regions of the brain that manifest fear as intense anxiety".

Savic described the former as "a more action-related response than in women", while noting that in the latter, "regions involved in phobia, anxiety and depression overlap with the pattern we see from the amygdala".

This is significant, Savic noted, because it "fits with data showing that women are three times as likely as men to suffer from mood disorders or depression". Savic added that while homosexual men also suffer higher rates of depression, she cautioned that "it's difficult to know whether this is down to biology, homophobia or simply feelings of being 'different'".

Qazi Rahman, a sexual orientation researcher at London's Queen Mary college, said of the findings: "This study demonstrates that homosexuals of both sexes show strong cross-sex shifts in brain symmetry. The connectivity differences reported in the amygdala are striking."

Savic concluded by admitting it remained to be seen whether the brain differences are "inherited, or result from abnormally high or low exposure in the womb to sex hormones such as testosterone". The research is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ®

2008-06-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: To all those that said the video was faked, or photo shopped "Just to make the Marines in Iraq look like cold blooded killers"

GUESS WHAT? The VIDEO turned out to be factual and the Marines are really 'cold blooded killers' without HONOR. This is NOT an isolated case, in fact, our young men and women are suffering from PTSD, doing 2nd and third 'stop-loss' tours of duty.

THE ONLY GOOD THOUGHT I GET out of this whole ordeal, is FANTASIZING that the
PUPPY is George Bush, getting tossed over a cliff to his own demise!

Marine Expelled, Another Penalized for Iraq Puppy Video

The video shows a soldier appear to pick up and then throw a stray puppy off a cliff. The Marines are examining whether the video is authentic.

HONOLULU — The Marine Corps is expelling one Marine and disciplining another for their roles in a video showing a Marine throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq.
The 17-second video posted on YouTube drew sharp condemnation from animal rights groups when it came to light in March.

Click here to watch the video (WARNING: GRAPHIC).

The clip shows two Marines joking before one hurls the puppy into a rocky gully. A yelping sound is heard as it flips through the air.

Marine Corps Base Hawaii said in a news release Wednesday that Lance Cpl. David Motari received unspecified "non-judicial punishment" and "is being processed for separation" from the Marine Corps.
The second Marine, Sgt. Crismarvin Banez Encarnacion also received unspecified "non-judicial" punishment.

Used Furniture Sale... SNAKE included for free!

2008-06-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

When her daughter Isabella awoke in the middle of the night, Cari Abatemarco probably thought the infant needed a bottle or a diaper change, but the New York woman was instead shocked to find a snake in the 7-month-old's crib, Newsday reported Tuesday.

Abatemarco of Troy, N.Y., says she was visiting family on Long Island, in Brentwood, last week when she discovered the snake coiled around Isabella's leg.

The mother told Newsday that she lifted her daughter out of the crib and the snake fell off. Her uncle then used a back-scratcher to lift the hissing snake and place it in a bucket until animal control officers arrived.

"Once I lifted her up and the snake fell off of her, she stopped crying," Abatemarco said. "But then I was the one crying all night."

The reptile has been identified as a 1-foot-long California king. While non-venomous, it is still a constrictor commonly kept as a pet.

Officials said they don't know where the snake came from, but Abatemarco told the paper that the reptile may have been in a mattress recently bought by her parents.

IF YOU READ MARC'S BLOG - READ THIS PREDICTION!

2008-06-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Venezuala just stopped doing business with the USA.

Marc's prediction:

People hate the USA and more and more OIL producing nations WILL SOON slow or STOP selling OIL to the USA!

The US will counter with more and more funds, greater financial incentives, etc, BUT NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE BEG and try to buy their friendhip 'back into business' it will not happen.

These smaller South American & Arab countries will CUT US OFF very soon!

It's not a matter of how much we will pay, it is a matter of how we have treated them unfairly over the last 3 decades, but worse since the BUSHIES have been in office.

Obama nor John McCain are OUR SAVIORs, as they both came 8 years too late!

ARAB countries peaked their production back in the late 70's and their wells (some are being run dry) are pumping less and less.

My prediction is you will see a $5.00 a gallon gas cost by August and a $7.50 dollar per gallon by summer 2009!

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela's state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude oil to Exxon Mobil Corp. and has suspended commercial relations with the U.S.-based oil company.
State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, said in a statement that it "has paralyzed sales of crude to Exxon Mobil." It said the decision was made "as an act of reciprocity" for the company's "judicial-economic harassment."
President Hugo Chavez has shaken oil markets this week with broader threats to cut off oil supplies to the United States. His threats came in response to a drive by Exxon Mobil to seize Venezuelan assets through U.S. and European courts in a dispute over the nationalization of its oil ventures in Venezuela.
The impact of the decision on Exxon Mobil was not immediately clear. Both Chavez and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez previously said the Irving, Texas-based company is no longer welcome to do business in Venezuela.

Baby gets born and gets shoved back in and BORN AGAIN!

2008-06-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

Baby With Rare Tumor Born Twice, Now Healthy 4-Week-Old
Monday, June 09, 2008

Little Macie McCartney was welcomed into the world not once — but twice.
Four months into Keri McCartney's pregnancy, doctors reportedly noticed a tumor growing on the baby's tailbone.

Doctors discovered that the tumor was stealing blood from the fetus and weakening her heart. So, at 25 weeks, surgeons at Texas Children's Fetal Center cut into McCartney's abdomen in an effort to remove the life-threatening mass, according to a CBS News report.
“Prenatal surgery is still done in very few select areas in the United States,” Dr. Manny Alvarez, FOXNews.com's managing health editor, said Monday. “And there are a limited number of medical conditions where prenatal surgery is indicated and this is one of them.”
Click here for photos. (Warning: graphic).
Click here to watch related video.
Once the abdomen was open, doctors pulled out the entire uterus — and then half of the baby.
At that point, surgeons carefully cut away the non-cancerous tumor, which reportedly was the size of a grapefruit.

“This operation is similar to a Caesarean section,” said Alvarez, who is chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.

“Half of the baby is extracted — only the part that needs to be operated on. And then she is put back into the womb," he said. "The womb is then closed and carefully monitored for signs of premature labor and other complications.”

And fortunately there were no other complications. The baby grew for another 10 weeks inside her mother.

"We definitely had hope, but at the same time there are those times things don't go your way and God has other plans," McCartney told CBS News.
After spending a month in the hospital, Macie "Hope" McCartney was expected to go home with her parents on Saturday.

This type of tumor is a rare and a sometimes fatal condition affecting one in 35,000 babies.
Other conditions such as diaphragmatic hernia, renal obstruction and vascular abnormalities of the placenta also require prenatal surgery, Alvarez said.
On a related note, Australian surgeons were credited Monday for saving the leg of an unborn baby by operating on her while her mother was just 22 weeks pregnant.
Marrecca Fiore and Karlie Pouliot contributed to this report.

Obama is a White man!!

2008-06-09T13:59:00.001-07:00

By Jason CarrollCNN's American Morning

Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. CNN's Jason Carroll explores the issue of race.
(CNN) -- The 2000 U.S. Census was the first time Americans were allowed to identify themselves as "multiracial," and more than six million people checked more than one box in the race and ethnicity category.

Barack Obama's father was from Kenya; his white mother was from Kansas.

Included in the multiracial category is the Democratic presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. With a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, Obama is the nation's first biracial candidate for president. The media, however, have continually called Obama the nation's first major party "black candidate," saying he could make history as the first "black president." But is that accurate?
A columnist examining Obama's background summed up his racial identity into one equation: white + black = black.
For me, that said it all.
There are some who point out Obama is just as white as he is black. He may be the nation's first black president, but he would also be the nation's 44th white president. Is Obama black or biracial? »
"He can't say, 'I'm a white guy named Barack Hussein Obama,' nobody's going to buy that," says cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis. "We're not ready for that."
This is an issue that has sparked debate not only in our newsroom, but also among my friends and family. Most Americans see Obama as a black man, and he identifies himself as a black man. But there are some who will argue that by labeling Obama as a "black candidate," we are all ignoring a vital and legitimate side of his life. Does Obama's race really matter? »
Don't Miss
'American Morning' In Depth: Black in America
I spoke with a group of young professionals who are part of a biracial support group called Swirl. Swirl was started by a woman named Jen Chau whose father is Chinese and mother is white. Chau says this debate over Obama's racial identity is very familiar and she's been dealing with this issue her whole life.
Chau identifies herself as a mixed-race person as do the other members of Swirl we spoke with. Lynda Turet says she could never identify herself as a white person in America because she is also half-Filipina. Both women support Obama's choice to identify himself as a black candidate, but they also understand why he emphasizes his white roots.
David Mendell, author of "Obama: From Promise to Power" says there's an idea of a "post-racial" candidate, a candidate who transcends the labels of race to appeal to all races. He says though most Americans view Obama as black, he has been able to use his own experiences to appeal to both black and white audiences and that has translated into political success.
This is a debate that will continue as we watch the presidential race. It seems with an issue like this there's no right or wrong answer. As Michaela Angela Davis says, it's a step in the right direction that we are even having this discussion as all.

GAY KISS SPARKS UP SEATTLE BALL GAME!

2008-06-05T10:57:00.001-07:00

SEATTLE — Most of the time, a kiss is just a kiss in the stands at Seattle Mariners games. The crowd hardly even pays attention when fans smooch.
But then last week, a lesbian complained that an usher at Safeco Field asked her to stop kissing her date because it was making another fan uncomfortable.
The incident has exploded on local TV, on talk radio and in the blogosphere and has touched off a debate over public displays of affection in generally gay-friendly Seattle.
"Certain individuals have not yet caught up. Those people see a gay or lesbian couple and they stare or say something," said Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington. "This is one of the challenges of being gay. Everyday things can become sources of trauma."
As the Mariners played the Boston Red Sox on May 26, Sirbrina Guerrero and her date were approached in the third inning by an usher who told them their kissing was inappropriate, Guerrero said.
The usher, Guerrero said, told them he had received a complaint from a woman nearby who said that there were kids in the crowd of nearly 36,000 and that parents would have to explain why two women were kissing.
/**/

"I was really just shocked," Guerrero said. "Seattle is so gay-friendly. There was a couple like seven rows ahead making out. We were just showing affection."
On Monday, Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale said that the club is investigating but that the usher was responding to a complaint of two women "making out" and "groping" in the stands.
"We have a strict non-discrimination policy at the Seattle Mariners and at Safeco Field, and when we do enforce the code of conduct it is based on behavior, not on the identity of those involved," Hale said.
The code of conduct — announced before each game — specifically mentions public displays of affection that are "not appropriate in a public, family setting." Hale said those standards are based on what a "reasonable person" would find inappropriate.
Guerrero denied she and her date were groping each other, saying that along with eating garlic fries, they were giving each other brief kisses.
On Tuesday, Guerrero said a Mariners director of guest services had apologized to her. The team spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that.
After the story broke, the Mariners were blasted by the sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, who wrote about the incident on the blog of the Stranger, an alternative weekly paper.
"I constantly see people making out," Savage said. "My son has noticed and asked, `Do they show the ballgame on women's foreheads?"'
Savage called for a "kiss-in" to protest against the Mariners.
Web sites have been swamped with blog postings for and against Guerrero and her date. And the story has people talking in Seattle.
"I would be uncomfortable" seeing public displays of affection between lesbians or gay men, said Jim Ridneour, a 54-year-old taxi driver. "I don't think it's right seeing women kissing in public. If I had my family there, I'd have to explain what's going on."
"It all depends on the degree," Mark Ackerman said as he waited for a hot dog outside Safeco Field before Wednesday's game. "Even for heterosexual couples."
Since the incident, Guerrero's job and her past have come under scrutiny. She works at a bar known for scantily clad women and was a contestant on the MTV reality show "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila," in which women and men compete for the affection of a bisexual Internet celebrity.
"People are saying it's 15 more minutes for my career," Guerrero said of the ballpark furor, "but this is not making me look very good."
In 2007, an Oregon transit agency chief apologized after a lesbian teenager was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained about her kissing another girl.
Also in 2007, a gay rights group protested a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant they said ejected four women because two of them kissed, and a Texas state trooper was placed on probation in 2004 for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.
"There's a double standard. That's the bottom line," said Pat Griffin, director of the It Takes a Team! Education Campaign, an initiative from the Women's Sports Foundation to eliminate homophobia in sports.

David Archuleta signed Major Recording Contract!

2008-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

So what if he didn’t win American Idol! David Archuleta has inked a record deal with 19 Recordings/Jive Records, the same label winner David Cook is signed to.

“Signing a record contract with 19 Recordings/Jive Records is truly a dream come true,” Archuleta said in a statement. “I’m really excited to start working on everything.”

The 17-year-old Utah native already has three songs on the Hot 100 chart, including his memorable rendition of “Imagine” and “In This Moment,” the song he performed at the Idol finale.

Simon Fuller, the mastermind behind Idol and the chief executive of 19 Entertainment Label Group, called Archuleta a “genuine pop star” and said he “has a great future ahead of him.”

Still, Archuleta remains humble and cautious, telling PEOPLE last month that “school is really important, especially after all this ends. It would be nice to make a living off of it but you never know.”

Fans of Archie, as Cook affectionately calls him, should expect his debut album later this year. Up first: The Idols Live Tour, which starts July 1 in Arizona. –Shari Weiss

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Video Purportedly Showing Space Aliens to Be Released

2008-05-29T11:28:00.001-07:00

Thursday, May 29, 2008

DENVER — A man wants Denver city voters to set up a commission to prepare for visits from space aliens, and he plans to release a videotape Friday that convinced him there is life on other planets.

Jeff Peckman proposes an 18-member Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. He said his footage shows 4-foot-tall gray aliens.

"You could see them blink as they looked in a window and panned a room," Peckman said as he met Thursday with city officials for a required review of his ballot proposal.

David Broadwell, an assistant city attorney, asked Peckman if he was really serious.

Seven high school students from Littleton watched the hearing, wearing tin foil hats they had seen in "Signs," the M. Night Shyamalan movie about aliens.

Peckman, who makes his living selling a new technology he says reduces "the chaos of electromagnetic fields," talked about UFOs landing in Los Angeles and hovering near the White House. He said he's never seen an alien himself.

RelatedStories
Vatican: It's OK for Catholics to Believe in Aliens Britain Opens Up Secret UFO Files Peckman needs to gather 4,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Even if he fails, Peckman said, the effort will educate people about the existence of aliens.

"I just did a radio interview with a South Africa talk show, and the discussion is all the same," he said. "People call in. They say, 'Yes, I've had this experience. We know the government has been hiding this information.' It's time to bring it out."

LIKE DURR! Pentagon: Army Suicides at 20-Year High

2008-05-29T11:22:00.001-07:00

Thursday, May 29, 2008

WASHINGTON — The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

An Army official said Thursday that 115 troops committed suicide in 2007, a nearly 13 percent increase over the previous year's 102. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday.

About a quarter of the deaths occurred in Iraq.

The 115 confirmed deaths among active duty soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops that had been activated was a lower number than previously feared. Preliminary figures released in January showed as many as 121 troops might have killed themselves, but a number of the deaths were still being investigated then and have since been attributed to other causes, the officials said.

Suicides have been rising during the five-year-old war in Iraq and nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan.

The 115 deaths last year and 102 in 2006 followed 85 in 2005 and 67 in 2004. The only Army records immediately available go back to 1990, and show no year with a higher number of suicides than 2007. The figure in 1990 was 102.

More U.S. troops also died overall in hostilities in 2007 than in any of the previous years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Overall violence increased in Afghanistan with a Taliban resurgence and overall deaths increased in Iraq, even as violence there declined in the second half of the year.

Increasing the strain on the force last year was the extension of deployments to 15 months from 12 months, a practice ending this year.

The increases in suicides come despite a host of efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by the long and repeated tours of duty.

The efforts include more training and education programs, such as suicide prevention programs and a program last year that taught all troops how to recognize mental health problems in themselves and their buddies. Officials also approved the hiring of more than 300 additional psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals and have so far hired 180 of them. They also have added more screening to measure the mental health of troops.

Earlier this year, Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the deputy chief of staff for personnel, directed a complete review of the Army's suicide prevention program, according to the Army's Web site. He called for a campaign that would make use of the best available science, and would raise awareness of the problem.

"Since the beginning of the global war on terror, the Army has lost over 580 soldiers to suicide, an equivalent of an entire infantry battalion task force," the Army said in a suicide prevention guide to installations and units that was posted in mid-March on the site.

"This ranks as the fourth leading manner of death for soldiers, exceeded only by hostile fire, accidents and illnesses," it said. "Even more startling is that during this same period, 10 to 20 times as many soldiers have thought to harm themselves or attempted suicide."

The numbers kept by the Army only show part of the picture because they don't include guard and reserve troops who have finished their active duty and returned home to their civilian jobs.

The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks the number of suicides among those who have left the military. It says there have been 144 suicides among the nearly 500,000 service members who left the military from 2002-2005 after fighting in at least one of the wars.

The true incidence of suicide among veterans is not known, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. Based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their own lives, but that number includes vets from all wars.

Human Farts cause GW (Global Warming)

2008-05-14T21:54:00.001-07:00

Global-Warming Study Weighs
Impact of Human Action
By GAUTAM NAIK
May 15, 2008; Page A10

A new study says humans have changed the world's environment more by warming the climate than by directly encroaching on habitats.

The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, also establishes a link between climate change and narrower, continental changes such as the earlier spring flight of butterflies in California, the earlier release of pollen in the Netherlands and the increased growth of pine trees in Mongolia.

Also, the research could guide policy makers as they tussle with different approaches to fighting global warming. In an article accompanying the study, two scientists not involved with the paper say more such studies are needed "to allow decisions about adaptive measures to be based on a firmer footing."

The localized focus provides more evidence of global warming's impact on the planet's ecology and terrain.

"It's not necessarily a surprise, but the studies had not previously been done on a continental scale," said Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University in New York, who is lead author of the Nature paper. "Our research shows that the signals are strong." Her co-authors included an international team of more than a dozen scientists.

It is hard to draw clear-cut links between human activity -- which increases the atmospheric presence of global-warming gases such as carbon dioxide -- and its role in raising planetary temperatures, and thereby affecting physical and biological systems. The scales are vast and the time horizon stretches for decades.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could conclude only that human-induced climate change was "likely" behind the shifts seen in biological and physical systems since 1970. The group estimated there was a 66%-to-90% probability of such a link.

The latest effort uses data from scores of on-site measurements noted in previous research papers. Dr. Rosenzweig and her colleagues used nearly 30,000 data sets to statistically establish that higher recorded temperatures -- on a global and continental basis -- are the result of human activity rather than any natural variation. They then statistically linked the warming trend to observed physical and biological changes, such as the faster melting of glaciers and the earlier flowering of 89 plant species in Washington, D.C.

The conclusion: In about 90% of the cases, such trends were consistent with the predicted effects of warmer climes.

The paper has limitations. Because of a lack of available data, it didn't explore the continental impact of climate change in Africa and South America.

The Nature study also mainly relied on site data from 1970 to 2004. Many scientists ideally prefer data sets over a longer period -- say, 50 or even 100 years -- when drawing conclusions about climate change.

Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com

'Crazy' Ants Swarm Houston Area, Ruin Electronic Devices

2008-05-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

May 13: Tom Rasberry, an exterminator, lets 'crazy rasberry ants', named after him, crawl on his arm.

DALLAS — In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants — formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" — have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.

But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.

They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.

Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants — which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season — appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

"The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good," said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.

It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.

At the same time, the ants aren't taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

"It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms," said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents' home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.

The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.

"This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger," said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc

Catcalling-- creepy or a compliment?

2008-05-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

BOYS JUST NEED TO GROW UP, I ougtta know, I'm a boy!

Here's a GREAT CNN story by my friend HOLLY KEARL! You go Girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(LifeWire) -- When Holly Kearl was researching her master's thesis on street harassment last winter, she was pleasantly surprised that lewd remarks were few and far between. Then spring rolled around.

"Suddenly it was April, and I was getting yelled at everywhere by men in cars," says Kearl, who has since completed a degree in women's studies and public policy from George Washington University.

As part of her research, Kearl conducted an anonymous, informal e-mail survey of 225 women on the subject. She found that 98 percent of respondents experienced some form of street harassment at least a few times, while about 30 percent reported being harassed on a regular basis.

"For me, anyone who interrupts my personal space to objectify me or make me feel uncomfortable or threatened is harassing me," she says.

Women take both sides

As the weather warms each spring, women -- especially in cities with active sidewalk traffic -- once again face catcalls from men. It's a situation some find unnerving and an invasion of their space, while others ignore or are even flattered by.

"I call it street abuse," says New York City filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West, 49. "It's unwanted attention and invasion of space."

In her 1998 documentary "War Zone," Hadleigh-West confronted catcallers and filmed their responses. Many of the men literally ran away to avoid talking to her about why they whistled or made a provocative comment. The Department of Defense has used the film since 2002 to train branches of the military about issues surrounding sexual harassment and sexism in general, she says.

"Being in a public space with a strange man who is being sexually aggressive is potentially dangerous," Hadleigh-West adds.

On the other hand, some women appreciate the attention in certain cases, like Jessica, a 31-year-old health-care educator in Los Angeles, who declined to use her last name to protect her privacy. "Yeah, it's objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn't have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I'd think, 'Boy I must really be getting old and dumpy'," she says.

She's gotten catcalls just walking her parents' dog in baggy sweats. "I thought it was hysterical, like, 'Boy, doesn't take much to impress you, does it?'"

But Kimberly Fairchild, 29, an assistant professor of psychology at Manhattan College in New York City, says that catcalling can take a larger emotional toll than many women realize.

"There seems to be some evidence that it increases self-objectification," says Fairchild, who surveyed a total of 550 women both online and at Rutgers University in 2006 and 2007. The women -- who ranged in age from 15 to 64 in the international online component, and from 18 to 24 in the Rutgers survey of women from central New Jersey -- were asked about their experiences with street harassment.

"[Catcalling] encourages women to look at themselves as body parts instead of as full, whole, intelligent human beings" and can cause women to fear for their safety, Fairchild says.

"When a man catcalls you, you don't know if it will end at that point, or if it could escalate to assault," she adds.

Biting back via blog

Most women tend not to respond to the hoots and hollers, according to Kearl's research. A vocal minority, however, is fighting back online, especially when name-calling progresses to lewd behavior or even physical contact.

The site HollaBackNYC.blogspot.com encourages New Yorkers to snap pictures of street harassers and then post them.

Emily May, 27, and six of her friends were inspired to create the site in 2005 after a young New York woman used her camera phone to take a photo of a man who was looking at her while touching himself on the subway. The picture led to his arrest. (Such behavior is, according to New York state law, a misdemeanor offense). The blog has spawned similar sites in other major cities such as Chicago and San Francisco.

The site is a way to encourage dialogue, says May. "I think sites like ours can help women see that they're not alone, that it happens to women in all walks of life by men in all walks of life, and that it's not okay."

Some guys just don't know

According to existing studies and her own findings, Kearl says, some men are simply ignorant about how their behavior is perceived. Kearl, who completed her thesis, "Direct Action, Education, Consciousness-Raising, Activism and the Internet: Methods for Combating Street Harassment," last year, thinks posting on Web sites like HollaBackNYC is preferable to resorting to anger and violence.

"A lot of men have no idea that women don't like being talked to in this way," she says. "It never crosses their mind, and yelling doesn't educate them. If you yell, they often don't understand why you are upset and so they take it personally."

Often, Kearl says, an assertive, clear response can illicit a kinder reaction than one expects.

"A lot of the time, I find guys will just say, 'Oh, okay, I didn't realize it made you feel that way. Thanks'."

Global Cooling now?

2008-05-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Jason oceanographic satellite, La Nina
New Jason Satellite Indicates 23-Year Global Cooling
By Dennis Avery Thursday, May 1, 2008

Now it’s not just the sunspots that predict a 23-year global cooling. The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a “cool” La Nina year—but Jason also says something more important is at work: The much larger and more persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has turned into its cool phase, telling us to expect moderately lower global temperatures until 2030 or so.

For the past century at least, global temperatures have tended to mirror the 20-to 30-year warmings and coolings of the north-central Pacific Ocean. We don’t know just why, but the pattern of the last century is clear: the earth warmed from about 1915 to1940, while the PDO was also warming (1925 to 46). The earth cooled from 1940 to 1975, while the PDO was cooling (1946 to 1977). The strong global warming from 1976 to 1998 was accompanied by a strong and almost-constant warming of the north-central Pacific. Ancient tree rings in Baja California and Mexico show there have been 11 such PDO shifts since 1650, averaging 23 years on length.

Researchers discovered the PDO only recently—in 1996—while searching for the reason salmon numbers had declined sharply in the Columbia River after 1977. The salmon catch record for the past 100 years gave the answer—shifting Pacific Ocean currents. The PDO favors the salmon from the Columbia for about 25 years at a time, and then the salmon from the Gulf of Alaska, but the two fisheries never thrive at the same time. Something in the PDO favors the early development of the salmon smolts from one region or the other. Other fish, such as halibut, sardines, and anchovies follow similar shifts in line with the PDO.

The PDO seems to be driven by the huge Aleutian Low in the Arctic—but we don’t know what controls the Aleutian Low. Nonetheless, 22.5-year “double sunspot cycles” have been identified in South African rainfall, Indian monsoons, Australian droughts, and rains in the United States’ far southwest as well. These cycles argue that the sun, not CO2, controls the earth’s temperatures.

Dr. Henrik Svensmark’s recent experiments at the Danish Space Research Institute seem to show that the earth’s temperatures are importantly affected by the low, wet clouds that deflect more or less solar heat back into space. The number of such clouds is affected, in turn, by more or fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth. The number of earthbound cosmic rays depends on the extent of the giant magnetic wind thrown out by the sun.

All of this defies the “consensus” that human-emitted carbon dioxide has been responsible for our global warming. But the evidence for man-made warming has never been as strong as its Green advocates maintained. The earth’s warming from 1915 to 1940 was just about as strong as the “scary” 1975 to 1998 warming in both scope and duration—and occurred too early to be blamed on human-emitted CO2. The cooling from 1940 to 1975 defied the Greenhouse Theory, occurring during the first big surge of man-made greenhouse emissions. Most recently, the climate has stubbornly refused to warm since 1998, even though human CO2 emissions have continued to rise strongly.

The Jason satellite is an updated and more-accurate version of the Poseidon satellite that has been monitoring the oceans since 1992, picking up ocean wind speeds, wave heights, and sea level changes. Jason is run by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a French team.

How many years of declining world temperature would it take now—in the wake of the ten-year non-warming since 1998—to break up Al Gore’s “climate change consensus”?

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and is the Director for the Center for Global Food Issues. (http://www.cgfi.org) He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 2442 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

Tag, YOU DIE OLD NON-TAXPAYERS!!!!!

2008-05-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Government Report Answers Who Lives, Who Dies in Flu Pandemic
Monday, May 05, 2008

Should doctors be allowed to play God?

In the case of a flu pandemic — yes, say government officials in a new report.

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

Who will die in the event of a pandemic? The very old, seriously hurt, severely burned and those with severe dementia, according to an influential group of physicians.

The group has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.

The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources — including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses — are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.

Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing," the report states.

To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:

— People older than 85.

— Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.

— Severely burned patients older than 60.

— Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.

— Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.

Dr. Kevin Yeskey, director of the preparedness and emergency operations office at the Department of Health and Human Services, was on the task force. He said the report would be among many the agency reviews as part of preparedness efforts.

Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also "a political minefield and a legal minefield."

The recommendations would probably violate federal laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, said Gostin, who was not on the task force.

If followed to a tee, such rules could exclude care for the poorest, most disadvantaged citizens who suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and disability, he said. While health care rationing will be necessary in a mass disaster, "there are some real ethical concerns here."

James Bentley, a senior vice president at American Hospital Association, said the report will give guidance to hospitals in shaping their own preparedness plans even if they don't follow all the suggestions.

He said the proposals resemble a battlefield approach in which limited health care resources are reserved for those most likely to survive.

Bentley said it's not the first time this type of approach has been recommended for a catastrophic pandemic, but that "this is the most detailed one I have seen from a professional group."

While the notion of rationing health care is unpleasant, the report could help the public understand that it will be necessary, Bentley said.

Devereaux said compiling the list "was emotionally difficult for everyone."

That's partly because members believe it's just a matter of time before such a health care disaster hits, she said.

"You never know," Devereaux said. "SARS took a lot of folks by surprise. We didn't even know it existed."

— The Associated Press

Don't let the Doctor or Hospital Kill you!

2008-05-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Don't let a hospital kill youStory Highlights
CDC: 99,000 people die annually from hospital-acquired infections

By Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Correspondent

Empowered Patient, a regular feature from CNN Medical News correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, helps put you in the driver's seat when it comes to health care.

Josh Nahum, right, died at 27 from a bacterial infection he got while being treated for skydiving injuries.

1 of 3 ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Like many young men, Josh Nahum loved a thrill. That's why he took up skydiving. But on Labor Day weekend in 2006, he had an accident while skydiving in Colorado, fracturing his femur and skull.

Josh spent six weeks in the intensive care unit. Slowly, his condition improved, and his doctors predicted that with rehabilitation, he could fully recover in a year or two.

But instead of recovering, Josh developed a bacterial infection. He died two weeks later at the age of 27.

"One nurse, who was trying to be comforting, said, 'These things happen,' " says Victoria Nahum, Josh's stepmother. "That's true, but they happen way more often than they need to happen."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Josh is one of 99,000 people who die each year because of infections acquired in the hospital. As Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York, put it, "You don't often come across such a big problem that you can prevent."

After being contacted by families like the Nahums, McCaughey started the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. After Josh died, the Nahums started the Safe Care Campaign.

These groups, and others, have advice about what you can do to keep yourself safe in the doctor's office and hospital, from the waiting room to the operating room.

1. Bring your own toys

At the pediatrician's office, don't let your child play with the toys or books in the waiting room. "They're covered with bacteria," McCaughey says. Also, don't let your child crawl on the floor; bacteria there could get into cuts on their knees or hands. "This is one place you ought to keep your child sitting still or on your lap," she says.

2. Heat up your car

Yes, we know that sounds strange. But studies show staying warm before and during surgery can help you fight infection. So the Institute for Healthcare Improvement suggests that in cold weather, you heat up the car, wear warm clothes on the way to the hospital, ask the hospital staff to give you plenty of blankets while you wait for surgery, and ask how they plan to keep you warm during surgery.

3. Want to touch me? Wash your hands first.

Many people feel uncomfortable asking this. Nahum suggests putting it like this: "I didn't see you wash your hands. Do you mind doing it in front of me?"

Dr. Vicki Rackner, a patient advocate, also has a few ideas for lightening things up. "In the hospital, you can have the grandkids make a sign that says, 'Please wash your hands and keep Grandma healthy.' "

Another suggestion: Put a dish of wrapped candy near the sink and say 'Could you please wash your hands, and oh, please take some candy with you when we're done.' "

If the doctor or nurse has gloves on, are you safe? "Don't be falsely assured by gloves," McCaughey says. "If they put on gloves without washing their hands first, those gloves are immediately contaminated."

4. Ask where that syringe has been

Doctors offices sometimes reuse syringes -- it's unusual, but it happens. In fact, there have been 14 documented outbreaks of hepatitis since 1999 because of reused syringes. The recent outbreak in Nevada, where 50,000 people will be notified that they might have been infected at a colonoscopy clinic, is one example.

It's not an easy question to ask, but when someone's heading at you with a syringe, ask if this is the first time it's been used.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health, suggests phrasing it like this: "I read in the paper that some doctors are reusing syringes. I can't imagine anyone would do that. Do you?"

5. Having surgery? Speak up!

A week or so before surgery, ask your doctor whether you should wash your skin daily with a disinfectant such as chlorhexidine to prepare.

Also, ask whether you should have a nasal or skin swab for MRSA, the superbug that causes many hospital infections. If you've got it, you can be treated with antibiotics.

The day of surgery, if the surgical site needs to be shaved, ask to be clippered, not shaved with a razor, which can create nicks where bacteria thrive.

Also on the day of surgery, if your doctor has ordered IV antibiotics just before surgery, make sure you get them, as they're sometimes forgotten.

MayoClinic.com: Hospital infections
One last note: If you or a loved one has a urinary catheter in the hospital, be extra vigilant -- they can become breeding grounds for bacteria. First, ask if one is truly necessary. "If the patient is awake and oriented and alert and can use a bedpan, it may not be needed," says Dr. John Jernigan, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC. If you get one, make sure it comes out ASAP, since the longer it's in, the riskier it becomes.

Ask the same questions about central venous catheters, (also called central lines), another potential host for bacteria. "My brother was in the hospital and needed a central venous catheter for his procedure," Jernigan says. "The day after surgery, I asked the nurse, 'Are you all still using this? Do you still need it?' And she checked and came back and said, 'We don't need it anymore, we'll take it out.' "

Nahum says it all boils down to this:

Passivity kills. "People need to start participating instead of just being spectators when it comes to their medical care," she says. "You need to do your due diligence." E-mail to a friend

Whaaa Too Freakin' Bad Mommy & Daddy

2008-05-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

WHAAA! Too freakin bad. Your Son or Daughter's name is PUBLIC RECORD when they sign up and throughout their carreer.

Too bad the tee shirts are an INSULT TO YOUR LAME EXCUSE for a President and worse, this crazy war. Yes, I'm upset, I lost a Son, Daughter, Brother and Father in this war! (We are all brothers and sisters!)

The same asshole who put your KID into HARMS WAY without a real reason, is the same asshole you probably supported for President the past two elections!

Mr. & Mrs. Reed, your KID signed up on his own free will, so again, too bad, I'm deeply sorry for your loss, but he or she made their INFORMED CHOICE and decided to be in the Military. MAYBE we as TRUE PARENTS, should get up off our asses and knock some sense into our kids while they are younger. This includes saving along with your kid, for COLLEGE, where they should REALLY be!

Now you are trying to make money off the Anti-war protesters and the 'Funny Tee Shirt' maker at the rate of 40 Million??? Who's RAPING WHO NOW?

Instead of trying to get money for yourself and others, WHY DON'T YOU GET BUSH to give our VETS extended VA Coverage, PTSD Therapy, money for rent and funds to live on when they come back all wrecked!

The Story:
PHOENIX — A MORONIC Tennessee couple named Robin and Michael Read , who UNFORTUNATELY lost their son in Iraq, wants an Arizona merchant to pay more than $40 billion in damages to survivors of soldiers whose names are on the anti-war shirts he is selling online. WHAATTTTTT?

A complaint seeking class-action status for the lawsuit by Robin and Michael Read says Dan Frazier of Flagstaff has no right to profit from commercial sale of products that use the dead soldiers' names without permission.

The change, requested Tuesday in federal court in Tennessee, would cover the heirs of all U.S. service members killed in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, and seek $4 billion in compensatory damages and $36.5 billion of punitive damages.

The Reads' original lawsuit named only themselves as plaintiffs and sought $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Frazier's "Bush lied — They died" T-shirts, sold at his site CarryaBigSticker.com, list Iraq war casualties' names, and Frazier contends he is covered by First Amendment free-speech protections.

"We think it will be clear that this is political expression and not done for profit," said Lee Phillips, Frazier's attorney.

The Reads' amended complaint says Frazier has no right to make a profit from the commercial sale of products using the casualties' names without permission.

Frazier will ask that the lawsuit be transferred to the federal court in Arizona, which has already begun considering his challenge to an Arizona law barring use of slain service members' names for commercial purposes without permission, Phillips said.

A federal judge in Arizona said in a preliminary ruling that a portion of that state's law making violations a misdemeanor crime violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and the press Arizona is among several states that have enacted similar laws.

The Reads' attorney, Frank Santore, said in an e-mail that court rules barred him from comment.

OUR TAKE, just have them CEASE AND DISIST making the shirts with the names until the teeshirt makers gets permission to use the names! SIMPLE!

YOU GO MIKE HUCKABEE! YOU GO!

2008-04-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

Huckabee says Obama's former pastor needs him to lose

BILLINGS, Montana: Former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Wednesday Barack Obama's bid for the White House is not being derailed because he is black, but because his former pastor does not want him to show the country's race relations have progressed.

Obama, a Democrat, has struggled in recent weeks to distance himself from incendiary comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"His (Obama's) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it's being derailed by a person who doesn't want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country," Huckabee told reporters.

Wright has claimed AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill "people of color" and that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State's "terrorism" against minorities at home and abroad.

"Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," Huckabee said.

Today in Americas
Obama picks up support; Wright remains a worryAgainst odds, New Orleans schools fight backFewer Latino immigrants sending money homeOn Tuesday, Obama, an Illinois senator, said he was outraged by Wright's comments and denounced the remarks as "giving comfort to those who prey on hate."

Terms of Use

Phoenix Lights

2008-04-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Residents Report Mysterious Red Light Sightings in Skies Over Phoenix
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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MyFOXPhoenix

April 21: Photograph of mysterious lights spotted over Phoenix.
PHOENIX — Red colored lights that formed a square and then a triangle were seen floating over north Phoenix late Monday, a sight reminiscent of an unexplained 1997 sighting that has become part of the area's lore.

There was no immediate word where they came from.

The Air Force said the lights weren't from any of their flight operations and officials at Deer Valley airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport could not explain it.

The lights were visible for about 13 minutes around 8 p.m. Monday.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Space Center.

A Luke Air Force Base official said the base wasn't flying any aircraft in the sky Monday night and that the lights are not part of any Air Force activities.

KSAZ-TV, a local Fox affiliate in Phoenix, reported that officials from Phoenix Deer Valley Airport saw the lights approximately 4 miles south of the airport and that the lights were rising as they watched.

Airport officials said the lights were not from any aircraft at that airport.

RelatedStories
Report: Soyuz Crew Almost Burned Up During Re-Entry Pentagon's Unmanned, Stratospheric Aircraft Would Fly 5 Years Non-Stop Primitive Alien Life May Exist, Stephen Hawking Says Man: Aliens Bombard My House With Meteorites Life-From-Space Theory Gets Unexpected Boost Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor also witnessed the lights, but do not know the cause.

On March 13, 1997, thousands of residents reported seeing a mile-wide, v-shaped formation of lights over the Phoenix area. In that case, the lights appeared about 7:30 p.m. and lasted until 10:30 p.m.

Click here for more on this story from MyFOXPhoenix.com.

Scientist: Forget Global Warming, Prepare for New Ice Age

2008-04-23T08:56:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

An iceberg floats near Greenland.
Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.

Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun.

He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

[Critics quickly pointed out that Chapman may have been "cherry-picking" the data. A strong La Nina formation in the Pacific pushed down January temperatures over much of the Northern Hemisphere from where they had been a year earlier, but average global temperatures are still much higher than the 20th-century average, and the NOAA said last week that last month was the warmest March on record.]

RelatedStories
How Global Warming Brings Heavier Snows Think Tank: Climate Change May Spark Global Conflicts NOAA: Last Month Was Warmest March on Record Study: Jet Stream Seems to Be Shifting North Study Disputes Cosmic-Ray Link to Global Warming The Bureau of Meteorology says temperatures in Australia have been warmer than the 1960-90 average since the late 1970s, barring a couple of cooler years, and are now 0.3 degrees Centigrade higher than the long-term average.

A sunspot is a region on the sun that is cooler than the rest and appears dark.

An alternative theory of global warming is that a strong solar magnetic field, when there is plenty of sunspot activity, protects the Earth from cosmic rays, cutting cloud formation, but that when the field is weak — during low sunspot activity — the rays can penetrate into the lower atmosphere and cloud cover increases, cooling the surface.

But scientists from the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Bolder, Colorado published a report in 2006 that showed the sun had a negligible effect on climate change.

The researchers wrote in the journal Nature that the sun's brightness varied by only 0.07 percent over 11-year sunspot cycles, and that that was far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.

Chapman proposes preventive, or delaying, moves to slow the cooling, such as bulldozing Siberian and Canadian snow to make it dirty and less reflective.

"My guess is that the odds are now at least 50:50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades," he writes.

• Click here to read Chapman's opinion piece in The Australian.

Masturbation May Prevent Prostate Cancer

2008-04-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Study:
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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Men who frequently masturbate appear to have a lower risk of developing prostate cancer, Australian researchers reported.

Researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria found that men who masturbated more than five times each week were one-third less likely to develop the cancer.

The study surveyed 1,000 men who developed prostate cancer and 1,250 who did not, and all were between the ages of 20 and 50, according to a report on Monday on the gay and lesbian news site PlanetOut.

Click here to comment on this story.

Researchers told the BBC last week that the prostate produces one of the fluids involved in ejaculation and that frequent masturbation appears to flush out carcinogens.

Sexual intercourse may not have the same effect because it increases the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, which could raise the risk of cancer, the Web site reported.

Oh those crazy Russians at Russian Mission Control

2008-04-22T14:52:00.001-07:00

Russian news agency says Soyuz crew was in danger on descent
MOSCOW (AP) — The crew of the Soyuz space capsule that landed hundreds of miles off target in Kazakhstan was in serious danger during the descent, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday.
Interfax quoted an unidentified Russian space official as saying the capsule entered Earth's atmosphere Saturday with the hatch first instead of its heat shield leading the way. As a result, the hatch sustained significant damage.
The official said a valve that equalizes pressure within the TMA-11 capsule with the outside also was damaged.
In addition, the capsule's antenna burned up, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control, the official said.
Interfax said another official at the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan reported that the U.S. military tracked the Soyuz's landing 260 miles from its planned touchdown and directed Russian searchers to the site.
The Soyuz crew included American astronaut Peggy Whitson, South Korea's first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko.
"The fact that the entire crew ended up whole and undamaged is a great success. Everything could have turned out much worse," said the space official, described by Interfax as being involved in the investigation of the improper landing. "You could say the situation was on a razor's edge."
Alexander Vorobyov, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, confirmed the descent had problems, but said it was common for a Soyuz hatch and antenna to have heat damage during re-entry into the atmosphere
He said investigators looking into the landing classified it as a "3" on a 5-point scale of seriousness, with a "5" being a critical situation. Officials were still studying what went wrong, he said.
The crew returning from the international space station endured severe gravitational forces because of the steeper-than-usual re-entry.
On Monday, Yi said during a news conference at the Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow that she was frightened. "At first I was really scared because it looked really, really hot and I thought we could burn," she said.
The incident was the second time in a row — and the third since 2003 — that a Soyuz landing has gone awry. The space official quoted by Interfax said that signaled problems with the Russian space program.
"Considering that this situation has repeated itself, it is obvious that the technological discipline in preparing space equipment for a flight is declining," the official said.
A NASA spokesman said the space agency was in communication with the Russians about the capsule's off-target landing. John Yembrick said NASA was reserving comment until the Russians determine what happened.
"We're being cautions and waiting until the Russians gather the data," he said.
The single-use Soyuz and Progress vehicles have long been the workhorses of Russia's space station program, regularly shuttling people and cargo to the orbiting outpost. They took on greater importance with the grounding of the U.S. space shuttle fleet after the 2003 Columbia disaster.

PHOENIX UFO's are at it again!

2008-04-22T13:41:00.001-07:00

Aviation officials: Source of strange red lights unknown
124 commentsby Claudia Koerner and Erin Kozak - Apr. 22, 2008 10:02 AMThe Arizona Republic
Civilian and military aviation organizations said Tuesday the source of the strange red lights spotted over Phoenix Monday night remained unknown. An official with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which monitors the skies for security threats, said Tuesday the organization did not know where the lights came from.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said that though air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor Airport witnessed the lights, they do not know the cause. Nothing appeared on radar and Gregor said the FAA will not be investigating.
“There's nothing to look into,” Gregor said.
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Several Valley residents reported seeing strange red lights in the sky on Monday night .
Arizona Republic reporter Anne Ryman, who lives in Deer Valley, reported seeing four lights in a square shape that eventually became a triangular shape. The lights were moving to the east and they disappeared one by one. She said the lights were visible for about 13 minutes at about 8 p.m..
One north Phoenix resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said he saw four or five red lights lined up in a straight line and spaced apart evenly. The lights slowly moved east and became dimmer as the witness watched. He said the last light remained in the sky the longest. Then three jets came from the west and traveled in the direction of the red lights.
An official from Luke Air Force Base stated that they did not have any aircraft in the sky Monday night and that the lights were not part of any Air Force activities.
The Deer Valley airport officials said that the lights were not from any aircraft at that airport.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said that air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor Airport also witnessed the lights, but they do not know the cause.
The incident is similar to the "Phoenix Lights" seen on March 13, 1997. Thousands of residents reported seeing a mile-wide, v-shaped formation of lights over the Valley. In that case the lights appeared about 7:30 p.m. and lasted until 10:30 p.m.

Citizen cites Police Officer in Oregon!

2008-04-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Citizen cites officer for parking violations
12:37 PM PDT on Monday, April 21, 2008
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. -- An attorney who watched a police officer park illegally in front of a restaurant, then wait around while his meal was prepared, issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated violations.
Eric Bryant said he was sitting at the restaurant March 7 when Officer Chad Stensgaard parked his patrol car next to a no-parking sign and walked inside to wait for his food, the Portland Mercury reported Thursday.
Bryant told the weekly paper that when he asked Stensgaard about his car, the officer asked Bryant, "If someone broke into your house, would you rather have the police be able to park in front of your house or have to park three blocks away and walk there?"

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Bryant filed a complaint as a private citizen alleging several violations, including illegal parking and illegal operation of an emergency vehicle.
Stensgaard was issued a summons to appear in traffic court in May. The fines could total $540.
"Citizens should be concerned that he used his status as an officer of the law as justification for breaking the law," Bryant said.
Cathe Kent, a spokeswoman for the Portland Police Bureau, said Stensgaard would fight the complaint in court, "as he rightfully should."
Parking is limited on city streets, especially with many construction projects downtown, she said, and officers remain on duty even when they are picking up food.
"We are emergency responders and need to be ready to take an emergency call," Kent said Saturday.
Discuss/Read: Different rules for police?

RUSSIA's 'so-called' technology

2008-04-19T17:04:00.001-07:00

Almost killed three astronauts today!

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying a three-member crew, including South Korea's first astronaut, landed Saturday in Kazakhstan about 420 kilometers from the planned landing area, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

A South Korean bioengineer was on board the Soyuz capsule.

Interfax reported that the spacecraft's landing was rough. Earlier, Sergei Puzanov, the NASA representative at Russian Space Mission Control, said that all the crewmembers were fine.
The Soyuz capsule was originally supposed to land 80 kilometers north of the Kazakh community of Arkalyk, Interfax said.
A helicopter carrying a rescue team intercepted a radio signal from the landing capsule and was heading toward it, Russian Space Mission Control told Interfax.
This is not the first time a spacecraft veered from its planned trajectory during landing.
In October 2007, the Soyuz capsule landed 70 kilometers from the planned area because of a damaged control cable. The capsule was carrying two Russian cosmonauts and the first Malaysian astronaut.
The three crewmembers who landed Saturday included biosystems engineer Yi So-Yeon, South Korea's first astronaut in space. She blasted off this month for a mission to conduct scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station.
Yi returned to earth along with U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, who arrived at the space station in October. E-mail to a friend

Ahmadinejad Says Oil at $115 a Barrel is Too Low, Calls for Higher Prices

2008-04-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ahmadinejad Says Oil at $115 a Barrel is Too Low, Calls for Higher Prices
Saturday, April 19, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted Saturday as saying crude oil prices at $115 a barrel are too low, and that oil must "discover its real value."
Oil prices have hit all-time highs above $115 a barrel in recent weeks, amid reports that oil and gasoline stocks in the United States were lower than expected and as the dollar sinks to record lows.
"The oil price of $115 a barrel in today's global markets is a deceiving figure. Oil is a strategic commodity that needs to discover its real value," the Web site of Iran's state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
The Iranian president made the remarks during a visit to an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran late Friday.
Crude oil futures surged to a new trading record of $117 a barrel Friday following an attack on a key pipeline in Nigeria. The rise capped a week of record highs fueled by supply woes and the dollar's weakness relative to other major currencies.
Ahmadinejad said despite the surge in oil prices, the economic value of crude oil is currently less than what it was in 1980.
"While the price of other commodities have increased, the economic value of the current oil price is even less than 1980," he said.
/**/

Ahmadinejad accused Western industrialized nations of "selfishness" in their quest for cheaper oil.
"When they get hold of oil, they assume that oil is a free commodity and belongs to them and has wrongly been placed in other territories... This is the spirit of selfishness and arrogance," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
A host of supply and demand concerns in the U.S. and abroad, along with the dollar's weakness, have bolstered oil prices, even as record retail gasoline prices in the U.S. appear to be dampening demand.
A stronger dollar makes commodities such as oil less attractive to investors as a hedge against inflation, and it makes oil more expensive to investors overseas. Analysts believe the weaker dollar is the primary reason oil has soared well past $100 a barrel this year. But the effect tends to reverse when the greenback gains ground.
Ahmadinejad called the U.S. currency "a handful of paper" without any global support.
Iran has stopped using the U.S. dollar in its oil transactions with the outside world, switching to other non-dollar currencies such as Euro.
"The dollar is not money any longer but a handful of paper distributed in the world without commodity support," the Web site quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

1 in 5 troops has mental problems

2008-04-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

Nearly 1 in 5 troops has mental problems after war service
By PAULINE JELINEK – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more.
As many or more report possible brain injuries from explosions or other head wounds, said the study, the first major survey from outside the government.
Only about half of those with mental health problems have sought treatment. Even fewer of those with head injuries have seen doctors.
Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker said the report, from the Rand Corp., was welcome.
"They're helping us to raise the visibility and the attention that's needed by the American public at large," said Schoomaker, a lieutenant general. "They are making this a national debate."
The researchers said 18.5 percent of current and former service members contacted in a recent survey reported symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress. Based on Pentagon data that more than 1.6 million have deployed to the two wars, the researchers calculated that about 300,000 are suffering mental health problems.
Nineteen percent — or an estimated 320,000 — may have suffered head injuries, the study calculated. Those range from mild concussions to severe, penetrating head wounds.
"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, the project's co-leader and a researcher at Rand. "Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation."
The study, the first large-scale, private assessment of its kind, includes a survey of 1,965 service members across the country, from all branches of the armed forces and including those still in the military as well veterans who have completed their service. The Iraq war has been notable for the repeat tours required of many troops, sometimes for longer than a year at a time.
The results of the study appear consistent with mental health reports from within the government, though the Defense Department has not released the number of people it has diagnosed or who are being treated for mental problems.
The Department of Veterans Affairs said this month that its records show about 120,000 who served in the two wars and are no longer in the military have been diagnosed with mental health problems. Of those, about 60,000 are suffering from post-traumatic stress, and depression runs a close second.
Veterans Affairs is responsible for care of service members after they have leave the military. The Defense Department covers active duty and reservist needs.
The lack of numbers from the Pentagon was one motivation for the Rand study, Tanielian said in an interview.
The most prominent and detailed Pentagon study on the military's mental health that is released regularly to the public is the Army's survey of soldiers, taken annually at the battle zones since 2003.
The most recent one, last fall, found 18.2 percent of Army soldiers suffered mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or acute stress in 2007, compared with 20.5 percent the previous year.
Other studies have variously estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of troops had symptoms of mental health problems.
Col. Loree Sutton, who heads a new Pentagon center on brain injury, said the Rand study will add to the work defense officials are doing. That includes researching best practices used inside the military and out, improving and expanding training and prevention programs, adding mental health staff and trying to change a military culture in which many troops are afraid or embarrassed to get mental health treatment.
"We've got to get the word out that seeking help is a sign of strength," Sutton said.
She said officials have been working to add thousands more mental health professionals to help the uniformed psychiatrists, psychologists and others struggling to meet the wartime demands of troops and their families. Across the services, officials are trying to hire over 1,000 additional staff. Also, companies providing health care by contract to the Pentagon have added over 3,000 in the past year, and the U.S. Public Health Service has provided some 200, she said. Veterans Affairs has added some 3,800 professionals in the past couple of years, officials there said.
In other survey results:
_About 7 percent of those polled reported both a probable brain injury and current post-traumatic stress or major depression.
_Rates of post-traumatic stress and major depression were highest among women and reservists.
_About 53 percent of service members with post-traumatic stress or depression sought help over the past year, and 43 percent reported being evaluated by a physician for their head injuries at some time.
_They gave various reasons for not getting help, including that they worried about the side effects of medication, they believed family and friends could help them with the problem, or they feared seeking care might damage their careers.
The Army's own warfront survey found the stigma associated with getting help has been decreasing slowly but steadily in recent years.
Thursday's report was titled "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery." It was sponsored by a grant from the California Community Foundation and done by researchers from Rand Health and the Rand National Security Research Division. The division also has done work under contracts with the Pentagon and other defense agencies as well as allied foreign governments and foundations.
On the Net:
Rand Corporation: http://www.rand.org

That aint my Lab!

2008-04-16T12:21:00.001-07:00

Man thinks his dog is an impostor

LAKE OSWEGO, Oregon - Ken Griggs likes his new dog, but he preferred the old one. Then again, it might be the same dog.In a possible case of mistaken identity, Griggs said the black Labrador named Callie that he left at a Dundee kennel before spring break was not the same dog he picked up a week later. Allison Best, owner of the Tail Wag-Inn boarding kennel, said Griggs has the right dog. But Callie's vet examined the dog Griggs brought home and found evidence that it's not Callie.

Gay Divorce

2008-04-16T12:18:00.002-07:00

Gay couples are having trouble obtaining divorces

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Gay couples had to struggle mightily to win the right to marry or form civil unions. Now, some are finding that breaking up is hard to do, too. In Rhode Island, for example, the state's top court ruled in December that gays married in neighboring Massachusetts can't get divorced here because lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man and woman

Our Military as a whole is quite STUPID

2008-04-16T12:18:00.001-07:00

Soldier forced to leave the combat zone after his two brothers died in the Iraq war - Military cuts family benefits and wants sign-up bonus back

FRESNO, California - Army Spc. Jason Hubbard was forced to leave the combat zone after his two brothers died in the Iraq war, but once at home the soldier faced another battle: The military cut off his family's health care, stopped his G.I. educational subsidies and wanted him to repay his sign-up bonus. It wasn't until Hubbard petitioned his local Congressman that he was able to restore some of his benefits.

Recent News

2008-04-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Meditation can help....
Meditation Can Wish You Well, Study SaysTHURSDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that qualities the world desperately needs more of -- love, kindness and compassion -- are indeed teachable.Imaging technology shows that people who practice meditation that focuses on kindness and compassion actually undergo changes in areas of the brain that make them more in tune to what others are feeling."Potentially one can train oneself to behave in a way which is more benevolent and altruistic," said study co-author Antoine Lutz, an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.How far this idea can be extrapolated remains in question, though."I think there's no question that people can benefit from these practices," said Dr. Louis Teichholz, medical director of complementary medicine and chief of cardiology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "I think the question is how easy is it to get trained enough so that it will make a clinical difference, and I don't think this study answers that."The findings were published in the March 26 issue of the Public Library of Science One.Recent brain-imaging studies have suggested that the insula and the anterior cingulate cortices regions are involved in the empathic response to other people's pain. But not much is known about how cultivating compassion might affect brain circuitry.And previous research has indicated that meditation may reduce the brain's reaction to pain, and that it may actually improve cardiovascular health by decreasing the risk of metabolic syndrome."The main research question was to see whether some positive qualities such as loving-kindness and compassion or, in general, pro-social altruistic behavior, can be understood as skills and can be trained," Lutz explained.In the same way that training in sports or chess or music produces functional and structural changes in the brain, the Wisconsin researchers wanted to see if cultivating compassion through the practice of meditation also produced brain changes -- suggesting that compassion could be viewed as a learned skill.The study involved 32 people: 16 Tibetan monks and lay practitioners, who had meditated for a minimum of 10,000 hours throughout their lifetime (the "experts"); and 16 control subjects, who had only recently been taught the basics of compassion meditation (the "novices").The senior author of the paper, Richard Davidson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on imaging the effects of meditation, has been collaborating with the Dalai Lama since 1992, studying the brains of Tibetan monks.For the study, individuals in the control group were instructed first to wish loved ones well-being and freedom from pain, then to wish such benefits to humankind as a whole."We looked at whether there were any differences between experts and novices in generating compassion with the idea that a central practice in this tradition [of meditation] is to cultivate these positive emotions," Lutz said. "We wanted to see if there were any differences in the way the brain was reacting."Each participant was hooked up to a functional MRI both while meditating and not meditating. During each state, the participants heard sounds designed to produce responses: the negative sound of a distressed woman, the positive sound of a baby laughing, and the neutral sound of background noise from a restaurant."We showed altered activation in brain circuitry that was previously linked to empathy and perspective-taking or the capacity to understand other's intentions and mental states and, more precisely, the insula was more activated, particularly in response to negative emotional sounds," Lutz said.In the monks, especially, these areas of the brain were activated even more when they hard the cries of the distressed woman, she said.The study authors hope the findings might one day help with a range of problems, including reducing the incidence of bullying in schools or helping people with depression."The next step is to see if this works," Lutz said. "If it works, then it can be applied to selective populations -- for instance, depressed people or, more broadly, in education."More informationThe U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more about meditation and health.SOURCES: Antoine Lutz, Ph.D., associate scientist, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Louis E. Teichholz, M.D., medical director, complementary medicine, and chief, cardiology, Hackensack University Medical Center, New Jersey; March 26, 2008, Public Library of Science One
Posted by -ARC- at 10:46 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Austin Miller's latest article before it really happened
'Please do not run me over' by Austin Miller11:08 AM PST on Tuesday, February 26, 2008The following is a column that Austin Miller wrote for his school newspaper, The Savant, a year before he was run over and killed while riding his bike home from school:Austin's column was titled: "Please do not run me over" and he used the pen name, Charlie ElsewhereIt is well known that these days, the roads and parking lots of our public places are growing with numbers of bikers. With wild peddling racers zipping down the road and through intersections, it is apparent that drivers would need to have an increasing awareness for how they turn the wheel.Long ago, I lived in a place called Vortex Sorrows. In this town, leagues of bikers ruled the streets-hardly a car was there to be found. When the ever growing and popular motorcar came to town, there was an outrage. “Too fast!” said Vortex residents. “And loud and polluting!” it seemed for the drivers of the town there would be no sympathy. And yet, more and more people found an easy escape to the time consuming, expensive and difficult task of biking, which was to buy cars which pollute their environment, loose the aspect of exercise all together and spend over four times as much on gas. I remained constant. I did not succumb to the new, hip trend of car buying. I eyed no sedan dealership, no gas station-only bike galleries and shops. It never occurred to me that I might get more pleasure out of having less money and more weight for the simple exerting exercise of peddling five miles to school and back.Within a time span of about two weeks, what was once a league of bikers which would join me on my morning route became nothing but me, that strange kid Logan who no one liked to talk to, and a road packed full of red brake lights. Every day, I would hop aboard my bicycle, clip on the helmet and take off toward home, and on my way I would often see red, frustrated faces of the motorcar drivers as they slammed on their brakes and honked their horns. Me? I was smooth sailing, begin the juices flowing and the chemical reactions reacting to push a cloud of good feelings into my mind and body.And yet soon, even Logan took to the big yellow school bus, and I was left alone. I later petitioned to bring back the art of cycling to Vortex Sorrows-in full. I put up posters, ran for town jr. mayor, and petitioned for new laws restricting the amount of driving that could be engaged in during weekdays. Just when the future of Vortex’s residence began to seem brighter, a revolution happened against me and I was run from the town.A lot of drivers seem to get frustrated by myself, and other bike loving pedalists. Usually I wouldn’t think so, but attempted hit and runs and getting chased through Mrs. Higden’s Hydrangea garden by an SUV crazed Blackberry loving business man was a slight indication that there may be ridged feelings over the way we ride. Now, to set the record straight, I give no excuses for bikers-or drivers-who brake laws and endanger their and other people’s lives. Anyone who shares the road with me and the rest of us needs to be aware that they are not the only ones, and their lives depend on everybody working together. Unfortunately, in this day and age, I see more drivers whining and complaining about biking behavior than actually trying to do something about it. If I spent all my waking hours crying over every time a driver cut me off, nearly hit me, did hit me, or any other offense, would anything be done about it? No. Talking about how much you hate bikers is not going to solve the fact that they are here-they are here to bike, to bike safely, and they are not going anywhere.How would we solve this biking problem? Well for starters, why don’t all major roads have bike paths? With an increasing number of adults who choose the healthier way to get there and back again, they too travel on the same roads as any driver would on his or her way to work. Instead of complaining about having to share a road with a biker, why not ban together to get bike paths made standard, so that they can stay out of your way. There are so many things that can be done, and are so obvious it just makes one want to scream. And yet there are some things that have no solution.Bikers will always be here; as long as it costs less than driving, helps us stay fit and pumps those feel-good chemicals throughout our body, we will remain on the early morning pavement, and that will not change. There is no excuse for a driver who does not pay attention and mind not only other cars but bikes. You cannot control other people’s actions, but you can control your own. Why anyone would rather sit inside a massive metal death trap for their commute is beyond me, but there are those with family, disabilities and other impairing things keeping them from biking. There will never again be a society 100% dedicated to driving or biking. It is like all other integration that had to happen in history-it takes time, patience, and a great deal of compromise.There will always be hard feelings about this subject-we can only hope that no one will get hurt or loose a loved one due to a lack of responsibility and respect for the road. These are dangerous times, and especially for bikers, our fate lies not only in our hands, but in the hands of the drivers of which we share the road. I am glad for every day I reach the X point unscathed, but besides doing everything I can for myself, I cannot control you, I can only mutter these few words in a hope that it might do good: please do not run me over.(This article will be re-published in The Savant's next issue, which will also be dedicated to bike safety with articles on how to get involved in bike advocacy, tips for motorists, a diagram of turn signals for cyclists, and a spread of Miller’s artwork and poetry. The issue will be distributed throughout the Art and Communication Magnet Academy next week.)
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Sunday, February 24, 2008

First Commercial Flight powered by BIOFUEL
World's First Commercial Flight Powered by BiofuelSunday, February 24, 2008LONDON — Virgin Atlantic carried out the world's first flight of a commercial aircraft powered with biofuel on Sunday in an effort to show it can produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels.• Click here for video.Some analysts praised the jumbo jet test flight from London to Amsterdam as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt and noted scientists are questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels."This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected," Sir Richard Branson, the airline's president, said before the Boeing 747 flew from London's Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.He said the flight would provide "crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint," he said.Sunday's flight was partially fueled with a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil in one of its four main fuel tanks. The jet carried pilots and several technicians, but no passengers./**/Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles predicted this biofuel would produce much less CO2 than regular jet fuel, but said it will take weeks to analyze the data from Sunday's flight."It's great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation," said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London stockbroker Dawnay Day Lochart."But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming," he said.The flight is the latest example of how the world's airlines are jumping on the environmental bandwagon by trying to find ways of reducing aviation's carbon footprint.These efforts have included finding alternative jet fuels, developing engines that burn existing fuels more slowly, and changing the way planes land.The experiment by Virgin Atlantic and its partners -- Boeing, General Electric and Imperium Renewables -- also comes at a time when high oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown are promoting consolidation in the airline industry.Aircraft engines cause noise pollution and emit gases and particulates that reduce air quality and contribute to global warming and global dimming, where dust and ash from natural and industrial sources block the sun to create a cooling effect.About a year ago, the European Commission, the executive of the European Union, said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation account for about 3 percent of the total in the EU and have increased by 87 percent since 1990 as air travel cheapened.Charles said Virgin's Boeing 747-400 jet and its engines did not have to be redesigned to use biofuel on the test flight.He said CO2 emissions on a normal flight are generally three times the fuel burned, and that technical engineers on the test flight would take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions.
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Saturday, February 23, 2008

'Negative Energy Attacks'

My Negative Energegy Attacks paper was published last month on NEWAGEARTICLES.COm and has been read by over 1000 people!
The story is about my research into Energy, Electrical, RF and AF waves that can adversly affect humans, especially women and children.
It's only a few pages long, so take a momemnt to read it by clicking or going here:
http://www.newagearticles.com/Article/The-Negative-Energy-Attacks/400
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Thursday, January 31, 2008

फॉक्स न्यूज़ इस एंटी-GAY
From MSNBC's Live with Dan Abram.The church Abr... (more)Added: January 28, 2008From MSNBC's Live with Dan Abram.The church Abrams refuse to name is the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, a bunch of lunatics that consist mostly of the Phelps family. They are not recognized by any other denomination, including Baptists. In fact, some of their biggest critics are conservatives and hosts on the Fox network. I love the church because they're a major embarrassment to the Religious Right. They're so over-the-top homophobic that even homophobes are forced to condemn them. Among their most hateful acts is picketing the funerals of [hetero] soldiers killed in Iraq. The church believes that the deaths (as well as 9/11) are God's punishment for our acceptance of gays. They're also antisemitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, among other things. Picketing the Holocaust Memorial, they said that the Jewish victims' cause "has been drowned in sodomite semen."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3PyoU...You can read more about their lunacy here. Included are photos and their many slogans.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro...There are also plenty of videos on YouTube, including the one of Australian comic, Charles Firth, flirting with male church members.A great humorous summary of the Westboro Church and a funny gay stunt against them by Char;es Firth:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8cN2p...I'm no fan of Fox "News," but here's the famous confrontation againsr Phelpshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3PyoU...Keith Allen exposes that Shirley Phelps-Roper, Westboro spokeswoman, has a son out of wedlockhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAawK...=============From GLAAD:Jan. 24, 2008In the wake of Heath Ledger's death, people around the world are mourning the gifted actor's passing and are expressing their appreciation for how he changed hearts and minds with his Oscar-nominated role as a gay cowboy in 2005's Brokeback Mountain.In a stark and disturbing contrast, Fox News Radio host John Gibson cruelly mocked Ledger's death and his role in Brokeback Mountain during his Jan. 22 John Gibson Show radio broadcast. During the show, Gibson played an audio clip from the film of Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Jack, telling Ennis (played by Ledger), "I wish I knew how to quit you." Gibson then coldly quipped, "Well, he found out how to quit you." Then, after playing another audio clip from the movie of Ledger's character saying, "We're dead," Gibson mockingly said, "We're dead" and played the clip again."Gibson's remarks are vulgar and disgusting," said Rashad Robinson, GLAAD's Senior Director of Media Programs. "It's sickening that Gibson would exploit Heath Ledger's tragic death to promote such hurtful intolerance. And to do so at a time when family and friends are grieving shows a level of insensitivity that is beyond the pale."Beyond his mockery of Ledger's role in Brokeback Mountain, Gibson called the actor a "weirdo" with "a serious drug problem," and callously speculated on the reasons Ledger might have committed suicide. Gibson had previously mocked Brokeback Mountain--calling it a "gay agenda movie" on his Fox News TV program in 2006.Gibson's Past Comments on Brokeback Mountain:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180499,00.htmlTAKE ACTION NOW!GLAAD strongly urges you to contact Fox News and ask its representatives why they continue to provide a platform for John Gibson's cruel and tasteless comments.Please contact:Mr. Mitch DavisVice PresidentFox News Radio Network1211 Avenue Of The Americas18th FloorNew York, NY 10036-8701Direct Phone: *212-301-5800Outlet Fax: *212-301-5455Outlet Phone: 212-301-3000Email: mitch.davis@foxnews.comMr. Robert FinnertySenior Vice PresidentFox News Radio Network1211 Avenue Of The Americas18th FloorNew York, NY 10036-8701Direct Phone: *212-301-5800Outlet Fax: *212-301-5455Outlet Phone: 212-301-3000Email: robert.finnerty@foxnews.comMs. Irena BrigantiVice President of Public RelationsFOX News Channel1211 Avenue Of The AmericasNew York, NY 10036Direct Phone : *212-301-3608Outlet Fax : *212-382-1411Outlet Phone : 212-301-3000Email: irena.briganti@foxnews.comContact by: E-mailMs. Suzanne ScottVice President, ProgrammingFOX News Channel1211 Avenue Of The AmericasNew York, NY 10036Direct Phone : *212-301-8558Outlet Fax : *212-382-1411Outlet Phone : 212-301-3000Email: suzanne.scott@foxnews.comfoxnewsradio@foxnews.comgibsonradio@foxnews.comJOHN GIBSONjohn.gibson@foxnews.com212-301-3000 (less)
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Our Troops are killing themselves.... Suicide is Rampant
WASHINGTON — As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of some 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday.The rise comes despite numerous efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by a longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the most deadly year yet in the now six-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.Internal briefing papers prepared by the Army's psychiatry consultant early this month show there were 89 confirmed suicides last year and 32 deaths that are suspected suicides and still under investigation.More than a quarter of those — about 34 — happened during deployments in Iraq, an increase from 27 in Iraq the previous year, according to the preliminary figures.The report also shows an increase in the number of attempted suicides and self-injuries — some 2,100 in 2007 compared to less than 1,500 the previous year and less than 500 in 2002.The total of 121 suicides last year, if all are confirmed, would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch its counter-terror war. The toll was 87 by 2005 and 102 in 2006./**/Officials said the rate of suicides per 100,000 active duty soldiers has not yet been calculated for 2007. But in a half million-person active duty Army, the 2006 toll of 102 translated to a rate of 17.5 per 100,000, the highest since the Army started counting in 1980, officials said. The rate has fluctuated over those years, with the low being 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.That toll and rate for 2006 is a revision from figures released in August because a number of pending cases have since been concluded. Officials earlier had reported 99 soldiers killed themselves in 2006 and two cases were pending — as opposed to the 102 now confirmed. It's common for investigations to take some time and for officials to study results at length before releasing them publicly.Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, has said that officials found failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs have been main factors in soldiers' suicides. Officials also have found that the number of days troops are deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries contributes to that stress.With the Army stretched thin by years of fighting the two wars, the Pentagon last year extended normal tours of duty to 15 months from 12 and has sent some troops back to the wars several times. The Army has been hoping to reduce tour lengths this summer. But the prospect could depend heavily on what Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, recommends when he gives his assessment of security in Iraq and troop needs to Congress in April.A succession of studies on mental health in the military have found a system that might have been adequate for peacetime has been overwhelmed by troops coming home from war. Some troop surveys in Iraq have shown that 20 percent of Army soldiers have signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which can cause flashbacks of traumatic combat experiences and other severe reactions. About 35 percent of soldiers are seeking some kind of mental health treatment a year after returning home under a program that screens returning troops for physical and mental health problems, officials have said.Officials have worked to set up a number of new programs and strengthen old ones for providing mental health care to the force. The Army also has been working to stem the stigma associated with getting therapy for mental problems, after officials found that troops are avoiding counseling out of fear it could harm their careers.
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Friday, January 25, 2008

PRIDELABS.US Slashed it's whole price during this reccession
LATEST PRICE DROPNEWS01/23/08 A Letter from ourOwnerOnline businesses like ours have seen sales decrease by about 80% already over the last year, it's not because people don't love our products, but preventative supplemental health care and emergency preparedness all take a back seat to keeping your job so you can simply provide food and heat in your home and gas to your car. The US and many Countries around the world are in severe economic crisis and the forecast is looking worse. I fully understand the personal difficulties each of my customers & friends are going through, and yet I still see your continued support for our products. My family and I appreciate your continued patronage and because of this fact, I went through and LOWERED PRICES to assist burdened families, all across the board. MY PROMISE TO HELPIf you have a life threatening disease or disorder and you can't continue your colloidal therapy because of limited funds, please contact me for DEEP DISCOUNTED (sometimes even free) bulk refills of our therapeutic colloidal minerals. Don't be shy, just write and tell me your story and I'll do my best to assist you. No other Colloidal Company offers such help.M Peterson, Ownerwww.pridelabs.us
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

2007 WAS HOTTEST YEAR ON THE PLANET!
By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY2007 was another sizzling year for the planet — the warmest year ever recorded for the Earth's land areas, federal scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported Tuesday, with an average temperature about 1.84 degrees above the long-term average. Global weather records began in 1880.For the entire Earth's surface, including the oceans, scientists report that the global temperature was the 5th-warmest on record.
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Silly Mit Romney and his Cult
Added December 12, 2007:
Question: Is Mitt RomneySatan?
Answer: No, but he ishis brother!
Unfortunately, Mitt shows his truecolors everyday. He is admittently a bigoted, very anti-gay Mormon who cut healthcare toexisting HIV/AIDSpatients over 38% as Governor of his state. (See CNN November 23 article)
While other politicians have seen thelight & truth about the lies and deception of the Bushadministration, Mitt actually supports Bush and his current agendaof warat this time.
PoorMisguided Mitt!
Ipersonally know many Mormons who are not anti-gay and who believein tolerance, kindness and equality, unlike Misguided Mitt.
Are Mormons a Cult? Decide foryourself! by Beckie WeinheimerDisclaimer: I looked up several websites thatdefined Cults. The one I have quotes from in my article is calledIdentifying a Cult, Copyright 1985, 1991 Jan Groenveld. I have cuta sentence here and there from Jan Groenveld’s original text forlength reasons only, not for content. Everything listed under cultis taken from this article. Everything listed under Mormons waswritten by me, a fifth generation Mormon who ironically as stillnot been excommunicated!I am not an expert on cults. I don’t even know if Jan Goenveld is,but of the sites I visited this one seemed the most informative.However, since I have had so many emails over the past day sinceMitt Romney’s speech, December 5, 2007, asking me what I thoughtabout whether Mormons are a cult or not, I felt I should answerright away.Why? So I would sell more books? No.Because I am passionate about educating people to the darker sideor Mormonism--what lies behind the friendly smile that greets aneighbor on the street. I do think Mormonism is cult like. And Iam bold enough to say that I do think religious background shouldbe a deciding factor in who I vote for. Obviously someone whobelongs to an institution that supports anti gay legislation hassome big questions to answer. Someone who belongs to a church withan all Male hierarchy also has something to answer. Someone whobelongs to a church that professes it is the only true church onthe face of the earth really has some big questions to answer.As this is a first draft, please excuse typos, grammar (those arenot my best talents) and hopefully you can still come away withsome answers to Mormonism and Cults.I am glad to hear from anyone who would like to discuss this more.
Thank you. Beckie WeinheimerBeckieweinheimer58@yahoo.com
CULT - Any group which has a pyramid type authoritarianleadership structure with all teaching and guidance coming fromthe person/persons at the top. The group will claim to be the onlyway to God;
Mormons – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is ledby a prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley and his twelve apostles. Thehierarchy is all male. In the past when the prophet has died, thesenior member of the 12 apostles has always been elected by thetwelve as the new prophet. This began with Joseph Smith who wasthe first prophet and founder of the church.Cults- Their leader/s may claim a special, exclusive ministry,revelation or position of authority given by God. They believethey are the only true church and take a critical stance regardingthe Christian church while at the same time praising and exaltingtheir own group, leader/s and work..
The Mormons- They believe Joseph Smith restored the true church ofJesus Christ. All other religions are deluded. Only through beinga member of the Mormon faith can you obtain a place in Heaven.Cults- They will promote their cause actively, and in doing so,abuse God-given personal rights and freedoms. This abuse can beTHEOLOGICAL, SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL.
The Mormons- Each 19 year old male is commanded and expected toserve a two year mission for the church, where they put off theworld, no dating, no media of any kind, and are to proselytizefull time going door to door to bring people of the world (lostsheep) to the true fold of Christ.Cults- They use intimidation or psychological manipulation tokeep members loyal to their ranks. This could be in the form ofthreats of dire calamity sent by God if they leave; certain deathat Armageddon; being shunned by their family and friends etc. Thisis a vital part of the mind control process.
The Mormons- Members who speak out against any church doctrine, oractively disobey any church principle or affiliate withanti-Mormon groups are eventually excommunicated. (My time I’msure will come). One female professor was excommunicated just forbeginning her prayers to Dear Heavenly Mother instead of DearHeavenly Father.Cults- Members will be expected to give substantial financialsupport to the group. This could be compulsory tithing (which ischecked); signing over all their property on entering the group;coercive methods of instilling guilt on those who have notcontributed; selling magazines, flowers or other goods for thegroup as part of their "ministry".
The Mormons- Members are commanded to tithe ten percent of their annualgross income to the church. Every December an assessment is madeof a member’s tithing worthiness. You are called in to settle upwith your local bishop. Anyone who has any type of leadership rolemust pay a full tithing, and anyone who is to enter a MormonTemple must pass several codes of obedience including paying afull tithing.
Cults- There will be great emphasis on loyalty to the group andits teachings. The lives of members will be totally absorbed intothe group's activities. They will have little or no time to thinkfor themselves because of physical and emotional exhaustion. Thisis also a vital part of the mind control process.There will be total control over almost all aspects of the privatelives of members. This control can be direct through communalliving, or constant and repetitious teaching on "how to be a trueChristian" or "being obedient to leadership". Members will look totheir leaders for guidance in everything they do.
The Mormons- Unlike JFK’s Catholic religion, where at most there isprobably a daily mass service, and most faithful people attend aone hour mass on the weekend, Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion is allinclusive.Mormons are taught to read scriptures as a family in the morningand to kneel in family prayer. Every Monday evening is set aside as Family Night where eachfamily uses the same Family Home Evening Manual to provide lessonsand learning for the family.Teens are sent off to early morning seminary classes beforeschool, for their four years of high school.Mormons are commanded only to date among their own faith.To be married in the Mormon Temple you must marry another Mormonwho pays a full tithing, agrees to wear the temple garments(underwear) both day and night and to be a faithful member of thechurch.Women visit each other two by two every month.Women have their own group where they learn homemaking skills.Men visit assigned families every month, to bring them a spiritualmessage and report any problems back to their male leaders.Male, female, and teens are encouraged to join church sport teams.The church encourages members to join in dance festivals, plays,musical presentations and choirs.Church service on Sunday is at least three hours with several morehours for those in leadership. The church no matte if you are inHong Kong or Little Rock, Arkansas uses the same Sunday School,Relief Society, Priesthood and Primary teaching manuals whetherthe words are printed in Chinese or English.Teens have fireside lectures, dances, and youth conferences, togive them a social life without having to reach out into theworld.Mormons are commanded to have a year’s supply food on hand, andhave many workshops on emergency preparedness.Mormons believe that someday Christ will come and they will allmarch to Missouri where the Garden of Eden was and where Christwill come to reign again.I could go on, and on, and on….
Cults- Bible-based cults may proclaim they have no clergy/laitydistinction and no paid ministry class - that they are all equal.
The Mormons- Although the Prophet and the Twelve apostles do receive aliving allowance, all other members of the male hierarchy, StakePresidents, Bishops, Mission Presidents, Temple Presidents, andmissionaries, receive no salary. Most keep their day job, exceptfor Mission Presidents, who are usually independently wealthy andmissionaries who are most often supported financially by theirimmediate family.
Cults- Any dissent or questioning of the group's teachings isdiscouraged. Criticism in any form is seen as rebellion. Therewill be an emphasis on authority, unquestioning obedience andsubmission. This is vigilantly maintained.
The Mormons- see above. I could be excommunicated just for writing thisarticle. Decent is punished. Verbal decent is grounds forexcommunication. Excommunication means one must take off the HolyGarments, cannot speak, pray or take the sacrament in a worshipservice. And basically on a more social level, everyone knows youhave done something “really bad,” and are watching you and talkingabout you and it is a miserable position to be in, and still tryto actively pursue the faith. I have known many people whodisagree with church policies but only whisper about it to trustedfriends. To go public like I am, well you are going to end up inOuter Darkness, which is worse than Hell in Mormon theology; it’sthe bottom of the bottom.
Cults- Members are required to demonstrate their loyalty to thegroup in some way. This could be in the form of "dobbing" onfellow members (including family) under the guise of looking outfor "spiritual welfare".
The Mormons- Mormons are taught to pray for those lost sheep. I am oneof them. I am sure family members and friends put my name on the“temple roll,” which is prayed over at each temple service.Mormons are taught to reach out to lost sheep and their neighborsin kindness and fellowship. Have you ever been invited over todinner or to do something with a Mormon family? Most likely thereis a second agenda going on. Not only did they hand pick you to befriends with, but they have hand picked you to fellowship andbring to Christ’s true faith.
Cults- Attempts to leave or reveal embarrassing facts about thegroup may be met with threats. Some may have taken oaths ofloyalty that involve their lives or have signed a "covenant" andfeel threatened by this.
The Mormons- Members are taught that what happens in the temple issacred and is never to be revealed outside the temple.What happens in the temple?
The first thing is you take off all your clothes in the dressingroom and put on a white cover shield much like what you would wearfor a doctor’s exam. Females go to a part of the female dressingroom where Temple workers (usually elderly women) all dressed inwhite bless the attendee’s body parts with oil. They put theirhands under the shield and rub oil over your breast and loins andamong other things bless you to be fruitful and multiply.Then you dress all in white and take a packet with other clothingitems to be put on during different parts of the temple service.Men sit on one side of this ceremony room while women sit on theother. Many oaths and covenants are taken and the one that was thehardest for me was when all the women stood, bowed their head andrepeated after the Male leader of the service that they wouldagree to follow their husbands in righteousness, as he followedChrist. Bow your head and say yes. Women all do say yes, evensingle women who have no husband to follow in righteousness. Thereare observers at the edge of the rows to make sure you raise yourhand properly, have your sacred apron tied on the correct way, andto make sure you bow your head and say yes. There are several moreoaths and covenants that I will not get into. The ceremony takesabout two hours.
Another part I really hated is at the end. At the end you go tothe veil. On the other side of the veil is an elderly man, atemple worker who you must reach out and touch, shake hands withput your arm on his shoulder, all through holes in the veil andrepeat certain oaths, the guy is basically hugging you andtouching you in a way that wouldn’t be appropriate at a regularchurch meeting. It’s very scary. But called sacred and never to berevealed. He is the one who symbolically brings you into heaven,or in the temple, the Celestial Room. This room is so beautiful,filled with expensive chandeliers, draperies and furniture itcould feed a third world country. In this room you are allowed towhisper and sit next to your spouse.
It is in the temple that a member first receives their templegarments, which ironically have identical symbols to those on thetemple veil sewn into the breast and belly and knee, to remind youalways of your covenants. These garments are like white long johnswith half sleeves and legs to the knee, and of course are to neverbe revealed or spoken about.Cults- ABUSE OF INDIVIDUALITY They adopt a "groupness" mentality.They are not permitted to think for themselves apart from thegroup and only accept what they are told.
The Mormons- Since I was a child I was taught to follow the prophet,“Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, in this there is safetyin this there is peace.” (These are words from a well known songsung by Mormon children). I was always taught that the Prophetwould never lead us astray. When I was a young mother there was apopular saying among Mormons “When the Prophet speaks the debateis over.”
Cults- ABUSE OF INTIMACY Relationships with friends, relatives,spouses, children, parents etc are broken or seriously hampered.
The Mormons- As long as your family are all believers, there is noabuse of intimacy unless you define the yearly one on oneinterview with your Bishop where he asks you intimate questionsabout your sexual life with your partner as abuse. Otherwise it isonly when you have relatives like me, someone who has decided tospeak out against the church. It puts relatives in a hardposition; they cannot support the church, their life and me. Sothey support the church.Cults- ABUSE OF FINANCES Pressure to give all you can to thegroup. In non-communal groups, members usually live at the lowersocio-economic strata, not because of a lower income level, butbecause they are always giving money to the group for some reason.
The Mormons- In general Mormons are well educated, have good payingjobs and live a middle to upper middle class life. Beyond the tenpercent tithing, there is a strong push to donate for the pooronce a month in a fast offering. The worst abuse I witnessed wasin California when Prop 22 was up on the ballet a few years back.The Mormons in the area set a goal to raise 40 million dollars tosupport this bill that would have stopped gay couples fromreceiving medical benefits. Each family was called in by theirlocal bishop and assessed a certain dollar amount. The propositiondid pass.Cults- "US VERSUS THEM" MENTALITY Isolation from the community ingeneral. Anyone and everything outside the group is seen as "ofthe devil" or "unenlightened" etc.
The Mormons- Because Mormons are commanded to date and marry within thechurch and because of the hours of activity (I used to spend 20-30hours a week in church related activities) while trying to raisethree young girls, the eldest with multiple medical problems, theyare exclusive. And although they do see “others,” asunenlightened, they are encouraged and commanded to bring theenlightened to the fold. That is probably why Mormons are thoughtof as “such nice people,” they see everyone, black, white, Muslim,or Jew as a potential Mormon, who just needs to see their love andfeel the spirit they carry to bring them to the only true churchon the face of the earth.CONVERTING KATE Viking Bookswww.beckieweinheimer.org
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2008-04-16T11:58:00.001-07:00

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the United States' version of the September 11 attacks on Wednesday, calling them a pretext used to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again publicly questioned the reality of the 9/11 attacks.

Although Iran has condemned the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington in the past, this was the third time in a week that Ahmadinejad questioned the death toll, who was behind the attacks and how it happened.
"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
Under this pretext, the U.S. "attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then a million people have been killed only in Iraq," Ahmadinejad said in the speech broadcast live on state-run television.
On the last anniversary of the attacks, the names of 2,750 victims killed in New York were read aloud at a memorial ceremony.
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In Washington, the State Department rejected the comments out of hand, calling them "another example of misinformed, misguided rhetoric" from the Iranian leader.
"I am not sure what one says about a statement like that," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
"It leaves one speechless. It is misguided, misinformed rhetoric. I can't tell you whether or not it is something he truly believes or if this is just a warped attempt to try to shape public opinion in Iran or elsewhere."
Last year, Ahmadinejad raised questions over the attacks, saying "what caused it, what were the conditions that led to it, who truly was involved" needed to be examined.
Ahmadinejad has said the attacks were a result of "mismanaging and inhumane managing of the world by the U.S." and should not be turned into another Holocaust "used for slaughtering people."
Although Iran has condemned the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the campaigns toppled the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, two regional threats to Iran.