blog-heap o' links
from
2008-feb
Just random links galore. Latest on top.
Links load in a separate page.
Suggestions welcome.
FRI 2008-FEB-29
To Tell the Truth
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:14
Almost nothing Misha Defonseca wrote about herself or her horrific childhood during the Holocaust was true. She didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis. She didn't trek 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her deported parents, nor kill a German soldier in self-defense. She's not even Jewish...
International Incidents
reuters.com/ ... 22:39:53
Turkey pulled its troops out of northern Iraq on Friday, ending a major offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels that Washington had feared might destabilize the wider region...
Mystery
reuters.com/ ... 22:37:08
An unidentified man is in critical condition with suspected ricin poisoning after staying in a Las Vegas hotel room where the potentially deadly substance was found... not thought to be terrorism related... not clear where the ricin came from, or what is was doing in the room... castor beans, the basis for making ricin, were found in the hotel on Thursday and... the ricin was found in vials in the room...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:00
At least 35 people have been killed by a suicide bomber at a funeral in north-western Pakistan. The funeral was for one of three policemen killed by a roadside bomb earlier on Friday...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:41:46
Prince Harry has been withdrawn from Afghanistan after news of his secret deployment leaked out...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:40:28
The execution of Saddam Hussein's cousin and henchman "Chemical Ali" has been approved by Iraq's presidency...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:40:18
A worldwide security alert has been issued two days after a suspected Islamist militant leader escaped from jail in Singapore... Mas Selamat Kastari... thought to be a leader of the Jemaah Islamiah militant group... Police believe he planned attacks on the US embassy in Singapore and plotted to hijack and crash a plane at the city-state's international airport...
reuters.com/ ... 22:36:06
Gunmen kidnapped the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul on Friday
in the northern Iraqi city and killed his driver and two guards...
Fun can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:23:00
WAUSAU, Wis... Excessive chlorine levels in a pool sent more than 40 young children... kindergartners... to hospitals Friday, including one who remained in critical condition... started to have difficulty breathing after about 30 minutes in the water...
Korean War - still with us
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:20:15
U.S. and Chinese officials signed a document Friday morning in Shanghai, China to formalize research in Chinese archives on Korean War POW/MIA matters....
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:17:35
DES MOINES, Iowa... The robber of a convenience store left behind... a W-2 form...
Sex can be... disturbing
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:16:17
Victoria's Secret, the lingerie company that introduced the Very Sexy bra, the Fantasy Bra, and the Internet server-crashing fashion show, has become "too sexy" for its own good, its top executive said...
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:15:12
The death toll from Thursday's accident involving a ferry in Bangladesh has risen to 39... The ferry, carrying more than 100 passengers, collided with another vessel in the Buriganga river, near Dhaka, and capsized...
A recent study on ferry safety said that about 20,000 cargo and passenger vessels operate in Bangladesh, and about half of them fail to meet basic safety standards, or take on more than their legal quota of passengers...
Nature vs Infrastructure
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:14:16
A landslide has cut off Ecuador's main export oil pipeline but the state oil firm Petroecuador says it will try to use other routes...
Yuck!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:14:03
A restaurant cook is out of a job and facing a felony charge after being accused of hiding hairs in a ribeye because a customer complained the first steak served to him was overcooked...
Infrastructure Failure
sun-sentinel.com/ ... 00:13:22
It took only three minutes for an overheated switch and then a fire at a power substation near Miami on Tuesday afternoon to shut down a nuclear plant south of the city and trigger Florida's largest blackout in at least 20 years. Figuring out why is going to take longer...
Threats
miamiherald.com/ ... 00:09:48
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is purchasing "three or four times" more weapons than he needs, a top U.S. intelligence chief said Wednesday, but there is no evidence so far he is providing arms to Colombian guerrillas... Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the 100,000 AK-103s and AK-104 assault rifles purchased by Venezuela from Russia are going "into armories..."
It's All in Your Mind
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:35:34
Two University of Virginia researchers believe that humans are genetically predisposed to be deathly afraid of snakes... because snakes would have posed a significant threat to our ancestors...
Mars
reuters.com/ ... 22:34:34
It made a big splash when scientists announced in 2006 that images from a NASA spacecraft indicated water apparently had flowed on the surface of Mars in the past decade but new research casts doubt on that finding...
Healing Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:25:08
The government announced Friday that it has said goodbye to one of the world's greatest lifesavers - the oldest smallpox vaccine. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month made arrangements to dispose of the last of its 12 million doses of Dryvax, and notified other health departments and the military to do the same by Feb. 29... being replaced in federal vaccine stockpiles by a more modern product manufactured in laboratories. Dryvax was unusually dangerous for a vaccine, blamed in recent years for triggering heart attacks and a painful heart inflammation in some patients...
"It was a vaccine that eliminated smallpox from the United States..."
Food Recall
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:24:03
HARRISBURG, Pa... Gorton's Inc. recalled about 1,000 cases of frozen fish in 10 states on Friday after confirming that
items a Pennsylvania customer reported finding in her food were pills...
described... as beige and aspirin-size. "It's kind of frightening to not only find something in your mouth, a foreign object.... But then basically my heart stopped when my daughter said, 'I have one in my mouth, too,' and pulled it out..."
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:19:44
The Defense Department announced today that charges have been referred against Guantanamo detainee
Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi of Saudi Arabia.
...brother-in-law of the Flight 77 hijacker al Mihdhar... the plane that hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11... charges are: Conspiring with others to attack civilians, commit murder in violation of the law of war, destroy property in violation of the law of war, hazard a vessel and commit terrorism; and providing material support to terrorism. Al Darbi was allegedly involved in planning and procuring equipment for attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and off the coast of Yemen. The charges authorize a maximum sentence of confinement for life.....
It came from the sky
tcpalm.com/ ... 00:08:34
No one knows exactly what the mysterious "space debris" on the beach near Pebble Beach Condos is but residents removed the object that washed ashore earlier this month...
Reasons for Repeal
jacksonsun.com/ ... 23:00:42
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says it has dismantled a marijuana-growing operation that was housed in a buried metal tank... about 20 feet long and 8 feet tall... 1,000 marijuana plants, several guns, documents related to the marijuana operation and $4,000 in cash...
foxnews.com/ ... 23:00:15
A Hummer-driving Minnesota man claiming he was a student in need of extra cash was busted for allegedly receiving 213 pounds of marijuana shipped by UPS from California...
delawareonline.com/ ... 22:59:56
A 49-year-old New Jersey man was arrested Tuesday night after being found with more than 100 pounds of marijuana in his van when he was stopped for running a red light...
delawareonline.com/ ... 22:59:43
A rookie state trooper making a routine traffic stop near Harrington uncovered 140 pounds of marijuana Thursday stashed in three laundry bags hidden in the vehicle... saw a 1999 Chevrolet blazer bearing the registration belonging to a 1988 Mazda... troopers then noticed a green leafy substance believed to be marijuana in the center console...
[Stupid stupid pot smuggler....]
foxnews.com/ ... 22:59:00
WILMINGTON, N.C. A Wilmington high school student accused of giving her teacher drug-laced cookies is going to trial... marijuana...
foxnews.com/ ... 22:58:40
MONROE, La. A newborn was hospitalized after doctors discovered marijuana in his system shortly after his birth and Ouachita Parish
sheriff's investigators arrested the mother...
online.wsj.com/ ... 22:58:14
Mexico's Illegal Drug Problems and Our Own Are Tied Together...
ap.google.com/ ... 22:58:04
A Look at Major Drug-Producing Countries...
Unclear on the Concept
infoworld.com/ ... 22:51:33
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should allow broadband providers to manage their networks and slow "bandwidth hogs," despite concerns that such practices arbitrarily target some customers,
said a coalition of seven civil rights groups...
[??????]
Net neutrality rules for broadband providers would protect bandwidth hogs at the expense of other customers and civic organizations, said the coalition... includes the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association, League of Rural Voters, and National Council of Women's Organizations...
[OOOhhhh....]
Free Expression
news.com/ ... 22:51:52
Federal Communications Commission chief Kevin Martin on Monday targeted Comcast's contention that delaying peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic serves user interests, appearing to sympathize with the cable company's critics...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:41:24
A Berlin art gallery has temporarily closed an exhibition where one of the posters made fun of Islam's holiest shrine, the Kaaba in Mecca. The decision came after threats believed to be from Muslims...
Digital Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:30:25
A federal judge who shuttered the renegade Web site Wikileaks.org reversed the decision Friday and allowed the site to re-open in the United States...
Digital Privacy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:29:46
The use of material taken from personal profiles on social networks by newspapers is to be the subject of a major consultation undertaken by industry watchdog the Press Complaints Commission (PCC)...
Digital Past -- less with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:29:19
A web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear.
Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008,
the company has said... In the mid-1990s, as the commercial web began to take off, the browser was used by more than 90% of people online. Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6%...
Digital Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 22:22:06
Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news...
People Live
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:16:46
MIDDLETOWN, Ohio... two, unrelated women have turned 104 just three days apart...
Leap Year
indianasnewscenter.com/ ... 22:50:21
why do we have Leap Years? Well, according to the Royal Greenwich Obervatory...
deseretnews.com/ ... 22:49:49
In a perfect world, perhaps, everything would come out even. The Earth would move around the sun in exactly 360 days. The calendar would be divided into 12 months of 30 days each, months that would exactly coincide with the time it takes for the moon to rotate around the Earth. But that's not the way it is...
wptv.com/ ... 22:49:36
However, some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years which are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Going forward, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900, and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be. By this rule, the average number of days per year will be 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400 = 365.2425, which is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds...
actionfigureinsider.com/ ... 22:48:57
We do this because the Earth does not orbit the sun in a nice round 365 days, but rather in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds...
blogs.usatoday.com/ ... 22:48:30
BBC News points out that those of you who receive an annual salary are working an extra day without extra pay. (Where's the fairness in that?) The Washington Post says the leap gives zoos an excuse to celebrate "The Year of the Frog." Newseum examines how newspapers are covering the extra day. The people of Anthony, Texas/New Mexico, have anointed their town the "Leap Year Capital of the World..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:18:17
As Julie Austin of Galesville [Wis] prepared to observe her leap day birthday Friday... her daughter, Melissa Boudreau, gave birth to a girl at 3:23 a.m... "I never thought we'd have two leap day babies in our family, and to have a granddaughter on my birthday is so special..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:15:57
Tillie Iverson is observing her 24th birthday Friday - at the age of 96... born in 1912 on Feb. 29... she still feels a little cheated as a Leap Day baby. "I didn't enjoy it at all.... The day before, that's not my birthday. And the day after, that's not my birthday either. I've been shorted on birthdays..."
Theory of Sex Education
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:24:18
New research by a University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults...
stltoday.com/ ... 00:11:01
[27yo] teacher at Barat Academy in Dardenne Prairie e-mailed two topless photos of herself to [15yo] student...
Theory of Education
chron.com/ ... 00:10:12
The Houston school district is investigating allegations that a Memorial Elementary School teacher repeatedly called her 4- and 5-year-old students "stupid" and said she had a right to be mean to them...
Evolution Isn't Easy
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 00:09:00
A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution...
US Election 2008
ap.google.com/ ... 00:08:05
Barack Obama said he has successfully quit smoking cigarettes despite the pressures of a closely contested and lengthy presidential campaign. "I've been chewing on this Nicorette, which tastes like you're chewing on ground pepper but it does help..." His wife, Michelle, had used his smoking as leverage when the two were discussing whether he should run for president. She would agree only if Obama agreed to give up smoking...
THU 2008-FEB-28
Disturbing Family Patterns
thesun.co.uk/ ... 23:27:02
7-year-old 'bird boy' has spent his life in a flat filled with bird cages with a mum who treated him like one of her pets... can reportedly only communicate by 'chirping...' 31-year-old mum did not talk [to] him and treated him like a bird, forcing him to learn avian language... the boy becomes frustrated at not being able to communicate and flaps his arms...
nydailynews.com/ ... 23:20:04
Cops have released a photo of a little girl abandoned inside a livery cab in Queens this morning and investigators hope someone will come forward to ID her...
Violence
reuters.com/ ... 23:08:02
The father of an abandoned toddler, who is wanted in New Zealand in the killing of his wife, has been arrested in the United States... Nai Yin Xue was arrested in the town of Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta, after members of the local Chinese community recognized him from a picture in a Chinese newspaper and tied him up until police arrived... Xue made headlines in September after security camera footage showed him abandoning his 3-year-old daughter, Qian Xun Xue, at a railway station in Melbourne, Australia, before boarding a flight to Los Angeles... body of Xue's wife, Anan Liu, 27, was found in his car outside the couple's home in Auckland four days after Xue left...
War is Hell
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:48:15
Thursday, 28 Feb... Four Palestinian children have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip, local medics say. The boys were playing near the Jabaliya refugee camp. The Israeli army said it had targeted a rocket-launching cell. Later, two Hamas militants were killed by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun and on a security post near Hamas leader Ismail Haniya's home in Gaza City...
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:45:17
A police plane has crashed onto a playing field in the Chilean capital, Santiago, killing all six people on board and five on the ground. The five, including a mother and young child, were exercising in the playing field when the plane came down...
Opposing Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:44:55
Lesbians from across Africa have called on African governments to stop treating homosexuals like criminals. The demand came as about 75 activists gathered at a conference in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. The Coalition of African Lesbians called the conference to highlight discrimination across the continent...
Under Tyranny
in.reuters.com/ ... 23:25:37
China, worried about an ageing population, is studying scrapping its controversial one-child policy but will not do away with family-planning policies altogether...
reuters.com/ ... 20:57:55
The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world and for the first time in the nation's history,
more than one in every 100 American adults is confined in a prison or jail...
Tough sentencing laws,
record numbers of drug offenders
and high crime rates have contributed...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:43:46
The European Union has criticised the new penal code being drafted in Iran, particularly a section that
imposes the death penalty for giving up Islam...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:43:31
Russian freedom of speech is "shrinking alarmingly" under President Vladimir Putin, says Amnesty International...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:41:58
Raul Castro has been unanimously selected to succeed his brother Fidel as leader by Cuba's National Assembly...
Industrial Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:41:45
One person is missing after a blast tore through a shopping centre in the US state of Illinois, injuring six... gas leak... Mannequins strewn among debris from the blast were at first mistaken for the body of victims...
Earth Shakes
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:42:05
The
fault line that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
has ruptured nearly 20 times this month, causing three strong earthquakes. The activity shows the stress the seam is under and
could be a harbinger of worse to come
, scientists warn...
reuters.com/ ... 16:39:07
An earthquake with a magnitude of
5.2 shook parts of Britain
on Wednesday but officials said there were no reports of anyone being killed or serious damage...
Animals can be Deadly
reuters.com/ ... 16:38:15
An Austrian scuba diver died after a shark bit his leg in the Bahamas...
Out of Control Prosecutors
reuters.com/ ... 16:17:54
A Pennsylvania man who shot and wounded a police officer more than 41 years ago will stand trial for his murder following the officer's death last year... Prosecutors say the victim, Walter Barclay, died of injuries directly linked to the 1966 shooting... William Barnes, 71, who already served around 20 years in prison for the shooting and other offenses, was rearrested last year and charged with murder following Barclay's death.... Judge... sided with prosecutors, although he noted that he
had not found any other case in the United States in which a suspect had been charged with murder so long after causing an injury...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:07:01
Across the United Kingdom today, it was breaking news: Prince Harry has secretly been serving in Afghanistan since Christmas...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:50:35
Feb 28... A pre-dawn explosion demolished a house in Pakistan's wild frontier zone on Thursday, killing up to 12 suspected militants... explosion "ripped through heavy explosives stored at a house" in a village in South Waziristan...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:49:08
The chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Union died Wednesday of wounds suffered in an ambush described as a tragic example of the dangers still faced by the country's journalists...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:48:53
Feb 27... A roadside bomb killed two Polish soldiers patrolling in eastern Afghanistan... in the Sharan district of Paktika province...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:47:26
Swedish police say they have arrested three men in the capital, Stockholm, on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts and financing terror groups...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:45:35
An Israeli has been killed in a barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip. The Hamas militant group says it fired at least 20 rockets, including eight at the town of Sderot, a frequent target...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:44:15
Five members of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip, medics say...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:43:18
Tuesday, 26 Feb... Five policemen have been killed after a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in eastern Afghanistan... Among the dead was an officer, his two sons and two nephews. All five worked as policemen...
reuters.com/ ... 16:54:19
Sun Feb 24... A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with metal ball bearings in a refreshment tent full of Iraqi pilgrims heading to a Shi'ite festival on Sunday, killing 40 people and wounding 60...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:49:34
NATO soldiers on patrol in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday hit a roadside bomb that killed two of the troops...
NATO said it found and destroyed $400 million worth of opium in the south...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:42:31
Nearly 145,000 people have been left homeless by a cyclone that tore through Madagascar, killing 44 people... figures double previous estimates...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:48:59
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar... The death toll has risen to 44 and the number of homeless is up to 145,000 more than a week after a cyclone tore through this island in the Indian Ocean...
International Incidents
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:44:41
Turkey says it is not targeting civilians as it chases after separatist rebels in northern Iraq, but people in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region say they have lived in fear since the incursion began...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:56:28
A man found out that February in the East Tennessee mountains isn't the best time to try hiding from the law underwater... had to be "manually extracted." He was treated for hypothermia at a local hospital and released...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:42:52
SYDNEY, Australia... armed robber... raided an Australian bar... About 50 members of the Southern Cross Cruiser Club had just started a club meeting in another room... ended up hog-tied and in a hospital...
Lasting Contributions
amuniversal.com/ ... 17:04:59
Universal Press Syndicate Remembers Bill Buckley... I always had to prepare for a couple of hours before meeting with Bill, like I was cramming for a college exam. His intellect and insight were incredible and I'll never forget his talent... also gained acclaim as host of the long-running weekly debate program "Firing Line." The program, which ended its 33-year run on television in 1999, featured such distinguished guests as George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, John Kenneth Galbraith, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Barry Goldwater, Germaine Greer, Edward Heath, Henry Kissinger, the Dalai Lama, Norman Mailer, Groucho Marx, James Michener, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Theodore White and Tom Wolfe. Buckley has written more than 40 books, including God and Man at Yale, Saving the Queen, Up From Liberalism, Airborne and most recently, Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton. He has contributed articles to most major American publications, including Architectural Digest, Art & Antiques, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Foreign Affairs, Harper's, Life, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post and Yachting...
reuters.com/ ... 17:04:00
Writer and commentator William F. Buckley, the patrician intellectual credited with founding the modern conservative movement in U.S. politics, died on Wednesday at age 82... died early on Wednesday while writing in his study in Stamford, Connecticut, said Jack Fowler, publisher of National Review, the magazine Buckley founded in 1955... U.S. President George W. Bush said from the Oval Office. "He was so articulate and he captured the imagination of a lot of folks because he had a great way of defining the issues. It was erudite and yet a lot of folks from different walks of life could understand it..." in a 1968 television debate with writer Gore Vidal... Buckley said, "Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll knock you in the God-damned teeth..."
Only Natural
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:46:00
Study shows bacteria are common in snow... The focus on Pseudomonas in the past has been to try and eliminate it, Christner said, but now that it turns out to be a major factor in encouraging snow and rain, he wonders if that is a good idea. Would elimination of this bacteria result in less rain or snow, or would it be replaced by other nuclei such as soot and dust?..
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:57:01
Federal wildlife managers said Thursday they want to increase by more than 20-fold the amount of land designated as critical habitat for the threatened Canada lynx, to nearly 43,000 square miles in six states...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:47:43
At least 600 rare Himalayan goats that provide the soft wool for Kashmir's prized Pashmina shawls have died of starvation... thousands more goats face death after their desert habitat was blanketed with snow during the region's heaviest snowfall in 30 years...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:43:54
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas... When tourists found a 5-inch green sea turtle bloody and missing three of her flippers, the people who run a hospital for the endangered animals here gave her little chance of survival. But the turtle persevered, thanks to injections of antibiotics and a forced diet of squid. Somehow, she swam with just one flipper, even though she can only move in counterclockwise circles and has to push her now 10-pound body off the bottom with her head to breathe... Now, her caregivers hope to make her what's believed to be the first sea turtle fitted with a prosthetic flipper...
Animal Culture
reuters.com/ ... 16:41:25
Bats stay aloft by employing an aerodynamic trick previously thought unique to insects, researchers said on Thursday... a tiny cyclone of air over each wing called a leading edge vortex provided as much as 40 percent of the lift required to keep the animals in the air. "It wasn't known that vertebrates can do it too..."
Earth-Moon System
reuters.com/ ... 16:40:26
The moon's south pole region, a possible future landing site for human or robotic lunar missions, is far more rugged than had been thought, with towering peaks and deep craters, NASA said on Wednesday...
Dinosaurs -- still with us
reuters.com/ ... 16:40:04
The fossil of a 15 meter (50 ft) long "sea monster" found in Arctic Norway was the biggest of its kind known to science with dagger-like teeth in a
mouth large enough to bite a small car...
150-million year old dinosaur-era pliosaur, a fierce marine reptile, was about five meters (16 ft 5 in) longer than the previous pliosaur record holder found in Australia...
Antiquity - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 16:38:32
A ceremonial plaza built 5,500 years ago has been discovered in Peru, and archeologists involved in the dig said on Monday carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas...
Staying Healthy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:41:41
New generation anti-depressants have little clinical benefit for most patients, research suggests...
reuters.com/ ... 16:18:52
Dust mites and cockroach allergens can weaken defense mechanisms of the human skin, making it more permeable and vulnerable... important, especially for people with eczema, to protect themselves from such microscopic bugs and filth...
US Military
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:27:26
After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday... Now that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime...
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:56:42
National Guard... This week, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps announced an increase, while the Air Force announced a decrease. The Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is
786 more reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 96,014, including both units and individual augmentees...
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:55:34
The Defense Department announced today that three charges have been referred against Guantanamo detainee Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul. The first two charges are conspiracy and solicitation to commit: murder of protected persons, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, murder in violation of the Law of War, destruction of property in violation of the Law of War, terrorism, and providing material support for terrorism. The third charge is providing material support for terrorism. The charges authorize a maximum sentence of confinement for life. The charges allege that in about February of 1999, al Bahlul traveled to Afghanistan to attend military-type training and to join al Qaeda. Once a member of Al Qaeda, he allegedly served as the personal director and media director of Usama bin Laden. The charge sheet states al Bahlul created a propaganda video titled "The Destruction of the American Destroyer U.S.S. Cole," proposed propaganda declarations styled as martyr wills for Sept. 11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Ziad al Jarrah, researched the economic effects of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States for Usama bin Laden, and operated Al Qaeda's media communication equipment. The charges also allege al Bahlul armed himself to protect and prevent the capture of Usama bin Laden....
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:56:01
Army Spc.
Orlando A. Perez,
23, of Houston, died Feb. 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during dismounted operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:54:46
Army Spc.
Micheal E. Phillips,
19, of Ardmore, Okla., died Feb. 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:54:33
Army Spc.
Kevin S. Mowl,
22, of Pittsford, N.Y., died Feb. 25 at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., of wounds suffered in Baghdad, Iraq on Aug. 2, 2007, when the vehicle he was in encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis Wash.
Theory of Education
boston.com/ ... 23:28:24
HALLOWELL, Maine - Jonathan McCullum was in excellent health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt. But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager weighed a mere 97 pounds and was so weak that he struggled to carry his baggage or climb a flight of stairs. Doctors said he was at risk of a heart attack. McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians, who fast for more than 200 days a year, a regimen unmatched by other Christians...
People Live
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:46:59
A fisherman swam for more than 10 hours to find help for the two companions he left behind after their boat sank off the east coast of Australia. The exhausted swimmer was found on a beach, and coastguards were then able to find one of the men. He had spent 30 hours at sea, clinging to debris...
US Election 2008
weblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... 23:29:09
"They threw in the obvious, ultimate fear bomb," [Michelle] Obama said today of her husband's 2004 Senate race. "We're even hearing [that] now. 'When all else fails, be afraid of his name, and what that could stand for, because it's different.'" The senator's wife said that rivals use innuendo to play on fears. "Just as they're saying it now..."
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 23:27:55
In an interview with ABC News' Cynthia McFadden to air on this evening's "Nightline," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., says it's tougher for her to run as a woman than it is for her male opponent...
sfgate.com/ ... 23:19:44
Editorial... You can't be serious, Ralph... Ralph Nader sure knows how to marginalize his candidacy for president: He picked a brooding, far-left running mate who couldn't get elected mayor of San Francisco...
boston.com/ ... 23:09:17
Ralph Nader... announced his running mate... Matt Gonzalez... In 2000, he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first Green Party candidate to get elected in the city by the bay. The Texas-born activist and lawyer previously lost a race for district attorney in 1999, then lost a race for San Francisco mayor in 2003... Nader, whom many Democrats blame for costing Al Gore the White House in 2000, has insisted he did not swing that race... He has also criticized Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for voting to fund the war in Iraq and to increase the military budget opposing a single-payer, government-run healthcare system, supporting nuclear power, and for not advocating sweeping changes in US policy in the Middle East...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:46:34
Hillary Clinton has lost a prominent black supporter, Democratic Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, to her rival Barack Obama. The defection comes the day after the two main Democratic presidential candidates clashed in a TV debate...
Unclear on the Concept
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:46:02
The largest survey to date of Muslims worldwide suggests the vast majority want Western democracy and freedoms, but do not want them to be imposed...
[Just exactly how does one "impose" democracy and freedom?]
Sportsmanship
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:44:28
The diversion of water for the Beijing Olympics threatens the livelihoods of millions of people, a senior Chinese government official has said...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:42:48
Steven Spielberg's resignation from the Beijing Olympics because of China's policy in Sudan has put pressure on others associated with the event. British director Daryl Goodrich, who has just made a promotional film for the Olympics, admits he now questions his involvement in the games...
World Without Borders
reuters.com/ ... 17:06:35
U.S. immigration officials said on Thursday they had dismantled a Guatemalan human smuggling ring that brought more than 100 illegal immigrants a week into the Los Angeles area... 13 people, including two of the suspected ringleaders, face charges... "The human smuggling trade is a ruthless, greed-driven enterprise that puts communities at risk and generates billions of dollars in illicit proceeds..."
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:42:50
The concept of a comprehensive encyclopedia of life on the Internet proved too popular. Its computers were overwhelmed and couldn't keep it alive when it debuted Tuesday... Scientists at the Encyclopedia of Life sought help from experts at Wikipedia for keeping their fledgling Web site going despite massive - and anticipated - interest. The site went back up Tuesday afternoon, but with expectations of more problems, although only temporary ones...
reuters.com/ ... 16:31:11
Giles Martin, the Grammy Award-winning producer of the band's "Love" album, has teamed with a new site called iVideosongs to create teaching videos to the Web. Launched this month, the site shows clips of Martin teaching fans -- even the ones who can't read music -- how to play their favorite songs. Martin's music credentials are impressive. Beyond his award-winning work, he is the son of legendary British record producer Sir George Martin, often described as the 'fifth Beatle'...
Recall
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:24:02
Safety officials announced a recall of 24,000 cribs Thursday and also warned parents against putting their babies to bed with pillows and other soft bedding that could suffocate them. The 24,000 Indonesian-made cribs were recalled for putting children at risk of falling out...
People are Born
reuters.com/ ... 16:23:24
AHMEDABAD, India... a moving Indian train...
[33yo woman 7 months pregnant...]
relieving herself... Most toilets on Indian trains are filthy chutes emptying directly onto the tracks... fainted on the toilet seat... for a few minutes before waking up and alerting her family. "My delivery was so sudden... I did not even realize that my child had slipped from the hole in the toilet.... They stopped the train and ran on the tracks to find the baby..." Railway staff at a nearby station were alerted and soon
found the newborn girl lying uninjured on pebbles by the track...
Broadcast is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:53:27
ABC said Monday it will release hit shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" for free over video-on-demand cable services, with the hitch that viewers will have to sit through commercials without being able to fast-forward...
[SSSSSOOOOOOOOOOO unclear on the concept....]
Digital Liberty
blog.wired.com/ ... 23:21:16
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued a document late Thursday suggesting he might have erred last week when he signed an order that took down the WikiLeaks site and also locked "the WikiLeaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar." A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Friday morning in U.S. District Court in San Francisco...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:53:46
Government surveillance of personal computers would violate the individual right to privacy, Germany's highest court found Wednesday, in a ruling that German investigators say will restrict their ability to pursue terrorists...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:53:02
Federal regulators on Monday said they are ready to discipline Internet service providers who secretly favor certain types of data traffic, like Web surfing, over others, like file sharing...
Digital Sex can be Disturbing
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:52:42
Each week, about 100,000 sexually explicit images of children arrive on CDs or portable disk drives at Michelle Collins' office. They are sent by police and prosecutors who hope Collins and her 11 analysts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can verify that the graphic pictures are real, not computer-generated. When they can't, officials sometimes turn to outside experts. All this is being done - at an annual cost in the millions of dollars collectively in child-pornography cases alone - as software like Photoshop makes it easier to fake photos and as juries become more skeptical about what they see...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:26:21
A university in Devon is preparing to find out if a baby robot can be taught to talk...
reuters.com/ ... 00:46:08
Restaurants in Europe, the United States and Japan are testing technology to let diners order their food direct from a screen at their table instead of depending on a fellow human being to note their choice -- sometimes grumpily or erroneously...
Digital Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:49:56
A repairman discovered a confidential government computer disc hidden inside a laptop bought on eBay... disk was marked "Home Office" and "Private and Confidential." The Home Office - the government body responsible for maintaining law and order and fighting terrorism - confirmed the disk was genuine and said it was investigating the incident...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:27:09
Leading Internet scholars at Harvard University will convene a yearlong task force to explore how children can avoid unwanted contact and content when using MySpace and other popular online hangouts...
[Hmm... Parental supervision? Pull the plug?]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:53:58
A company that sells Internet addresses is being sued for its controversial practice of holding a domain name in reserve if someone checks for its availability but does not buy it right away...
reuters.com/ ... 00:45:28
A battery in a Samsung... notebook computer melted on Sunday, officials from the company and South Korea's fire department said... the P10 model, which was produced in 2002...
Digital Business
reuters.com/ ... 16:30:13
Microsoft Corp released the latest version of its Windows operating system for powerful servers on Wednesday, thrusting itself into the red-hot market for virtualization technology that allows one computer to act like many machines. Windows Server 2008 marks Microsoft's first major challenge against VMware Inc, the leader in virtualization, by building the technology into its core operating system...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:54:11
EU regulators approved the purchase of Netherlands-based PC maker Packard Bell BV by Taiwan's Acer Inc. on Wednesday...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:49:11
The latest version of web browser Firefox will make changes to the way people search for information online, says its developer...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:43:49
Adobe has launched software designed to make it easier for computer users to use online applications offline...
Virtual Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:44:25
the man behind Populous, Black and White and the three-million selling Fable says he has failed as a designer because he has not been able to attract a wider audience to gaming. That failure, he says, has sparked his passion to see the problem solved. "It's a failure borne out of myself as a games designer and creator and indeed the wider games industry. "For making games that only appeal to a small part of world. The number of people playing games is going up, but it's going up slowly. "The number of people who could potentially be playing games is huge..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:43:35
Virtual worlds are becoming increasingly rich and diverse environments with complex social and economic eco-systems. Science fiction trading game Eve Online is one of the most dynamic worlds, with its own economists helping players get to grips with the intricacies. More than 220,000 people pay a subscription to play Eve Online, a game set in a vast universe of more than 5,000 solar systems distributed over 66 regions...
WED 2008-FEB-27
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:11:14
PLAISTOW, N.H... same man tried to rob the same bank, wearing the same clothes and telling employees the same thing on Tuesday as he did two weeks ago... On his second attempt, tellers refused to give him money and he took off empty-handed...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:09:14
witnesses thought it was odd when they watched the man pull a stocking over his head before the heist. And a half-dozen people pointed to the apartment building and said, "He went there..."
reuters.com/ ... 22:06:30
An elderly German who hid a stolen suit under his clothes was caught because he forgot to take it off the hanger...
Iran
afp.google.com/ ... 21:57:34
A top Iranian cleric made a rare criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's verbal attacks on Israel on Wednesday, saying a foreign policy of "coarse slogans" was not in the national interest...
Disturbing Family Patterns
ketv.com/ ... 21:49:36
OMAHA, Neb. -- An Omaha-area mother is wanted by police on allegations child abuse and three child pornography charges after she allegedly posted child pornography on Web sites featuring images of her teenage daughter...
Theory of Sex Education
cbs2chicago.com/ ... 21:43:40
JOLIET, Ill... fourth-graders received an unwanted anatomy lesson during a field trip... [46yo male] arrested after allegedly fondling himself while driving naked next to a school bus for several miles... "The driver was still naked when he was taken into custody..."
Transport Tragedy
breitbart.com/ ... 21:42:07
An American Airlines passenger died after a flight attendant told her he couldn't give her any oxygen and then tried to help her with faulty equipment, including an empty oxygen tank...
Alcohol Was Involved
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:12:07
Now they're trying to determine if the weapon involved was a spork... [52yo] intoxicated and carrying a small pocketknife as well as a backpack containing a fast food bag and sporks...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:07:15
APPLETON, Wis... apparently drunk man... arrested... after he reportedly relieved himself in front of the police department...
tcpalm.com/ ... 21:39:19
he leader of a[n]... agency established to provide classes for people convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs was suspended from her job Wednesday in the wake of her DUI arrest Monday...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 22:18:21
Taking the herbal supplement ginkgo biloba may help delay the onset of cognitive impairment in normal elderly adults...
reuters.com/ ... 22:17:22
The best way to stop the next influenza pandemic in its tracks could be to shut down schools and keep students at home, according to the authors of a new study of social contact networks...
reuters.com/ ... 22:16:45
The use of vitamin E supplements appears to increase the risk of tuberculosis in some middle-aged smokers...
It's All in Your Mind
reuters.com/ ... 22:17:11
Aggression in some teenage boys may be linked to overly large amygdalas, a region in the brain involved in emotion and other functions... these boys may also be unable to control their emotions because other parts of the brain that normally control strong emotions don't mature till the early 20s...
reuters.com/ ... 22:16:32
Scientists have identified the part of the brain that may hold the key to why some cocaine users become addicts while others just take the drug socially... Brain scans of cocaine users while they performed simple computer tasks showed changes in the part of the brain responsible for controlling behavior and making appropriate decisions...
Why People Go Vegan
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:06:49
From sausages to stews, reindeer are usually a main dish in Alaska. But the antlered animals were the main event at Anchorage's first annual running of the reindeer...
Antiquity - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 22:06:17
Exterminators looking for termites in a monastery in Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo found a mummy and a skeleton believed to be at least 200 years old...
Animal Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:10:45
16-foot python stalked a family dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children in the Australian tropics... "The lady who was there threw some plastic chairs at the snake, but you've got to remember that this is about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of aggressive muscle..." will soon be relocated...
breitbart.com/ ... 21:59:03
for at least one species of male spider: playing dead... strategy that works best... to score with the ladies...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:08:43
Dayton [Ohio] police and U.S. marshals called for backup from animal control when they found two alligators instead of the suspected probation violator they were after...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 21:57:06
LOS ANGELES... Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday signed one of the nation's toughest laws on pet sterilization, requiring most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old...
World Energy
reuters.com/ ... 21:59:19
A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers...
iht.com/ ... 21:56:38
Gasoline prices, which for months lagged the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts fearing they could hit $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily and oil closed at an all-time high on Tuesday of $100.88 a barrel...
reuters.com/ ... 21:38:41
Nuts picked from Amazon rainforests helped fuel the world's first commercial airline flight partly powered by renewable energy on Sunday...
Big Nanny
reuters.com/ ... 22:17:49
All U.S. children aged from six months up to 18 should be immunized every year against influenza, a panel of federal vaccine advisers said on Wednesday...
reuters.com/ ... 22:17:41
Mexican lawmakers voted on Tuesday to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other enclosed public spaces across the country, which counts some 65,000 cigarette-related deaths each year...
Defending Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:13:13
HATLEY, Wis... Fed up that their mailbox was smashed four times in two weeks, Greg Fisher and his son set up a middle-of-the-night stakeout to catch the vandals - and it worked. Four teens were caught after a high speed chase... "This one ended peacefully, but taking the law into your own hands can have tragic results as well..."
Public Servants
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:08:06
ECONOMY, Pa... A school bus driver in Beaver County said he told students he was an undercover officer so they wouldn't misbehave on the bus. They didn't... [He's] charged him with impersonating a public servant...
signonsandiego.com/ ... 22:02:11
La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid told a City Council audience last night that an incident last week where police found him and a city employee apparently intoxicated on a city street was "unfortunate," and he promised it would never happen again...
katu.com/ ... 22:01:54
ARLINGTON, Ore. - The mayor of a small Oregon town who came under fire for racy pictures of her posted on the Internet was recalled in a close vote Monday...
Digital Future is Now
breitbart.com/ ... 21:59:40
Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP...
Theory of Education
wcbstv.com/ ... 22:02:27
Milford officials expelled a Jonathan Law High School student, who was accused of lighting her science teacher's hair on fire during class...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 21:58:25
PARMA, Ohio - A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school... mother of 6-year-old... said nothing in the... school handbook prohibits the haircut... school said the hair was a distraction...
People are Trashy
news.yahoo.com/ ... 21:56:14
Pollution turned part of a major river system in central China red and foamy, forcing authorities to cut water supplies to as many as 200,000 people...
Sportsmanship
seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 21:49:11
A Power Dancer of the Houston Rockets dunks the ball over four fellow dancers at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas...
US Election 2008
theaustralian.news.com.au/ ... 22:01:05
REPUBLICANS have pounced on the photo of Barack Obama in traditional Somali dress, using it in a slur to cast the Democratic candidate as an enemy of Jews. A statement by Tennessee Republicans headlined "Anti-Semites for Obama" has described the senator as a menace to Israel... A spokesman for Republican presidential front-runner John McCain had no immediate comment on the Tennessee statement, which spelt out Senator Obama's middle name Hussein...
woai.com/ ... 22:00:11
Longview, Texas... vandals spray-painted racial slurs outside the campaign headquarters... for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama...
nypost.com/ ... 21:46:58
The photo of a Muslim-garbed Barack Obama that appeared on the Internet likely won't have any negative impact on him - but could damage Hillary Rodham Clinton, experts said yesterday...
newsday.com/ ... 21:41:50
Hillary Rodham Clinton often invokes her "35 years of experience making change" on the campaign trail, recounting her work in the 1970s on behalf of battered and neglected children and impoverished legal-aid clients. But there is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas - using her child development background to help the defendant. The case offers a glimpse into the way Clinton deals with crisis. Her approach, then and now, was to immerse herself in even unpleasant tasks with a will to win, an attitude captured in one of her favorite aphorisms: "Bloom where you're planted..."
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 21:40:11
A video of French President Nicolas Sarkozy... Sarkozy offered his hand to a man who said: "Don't touch me, you are soiling me." In reply, Sarkozy said, without dropping his smile: "Get lost, dumb ass..." has become a hit on the Internet...
TUE 2008-FEB-26
Scary Times
ap.google.com/ ... 14:10:30
FERRUM, Va... Ferrum College... Classes were canceled and a small private college went on lockdown Tuesday as police searched for a man who was seen with a gun on campus... no reports of threats and no one on campus had been harmed...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 14:06:38
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian farmer near the Gaza Strip's border on Tuesday, his relatives and hospital officials said, but the Israeli army described the dead man as a militant...
International Incidents
voanews.com/ ... 14:06:03
The Iraqi government has demanded the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops, saying the five-day incursion is threatening their otherwise friendly relations... Ali al-Dabbagh, the spokesman for the Iraqi government... acknowledged the threat posed to Turkey by the rebels and said the government stands ready for dialogue... About 20 percent of Turkish citizens are Kurds and in the southeast, bordering Iraq, they make up the majority. But Kurds in Turkey say their culture and language are oppressed. Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, president of the Iraqi Parliament, says they have asked Turkey to resolve the situation peacefully. He says the Turks should hold a referendum in south Turkey to give the Kurds the rights they want...
Infrastructure Failure
cfnews13.com/ ... 14:03:18
Florida is experiencing a widespread power outage affecting schools, traffic lights, businesses and more after 2 nuclear generators in south Florida went down...
Under Tyranny
apnews.myway.com/ ... 10:26:55
President Hugo Chavez's government is taking its battle against U.S. "imperialism" into Venezuelans' dictionaries, urging state phone company workers to avoid English-language business and tech terms...
Nuclear is Nasty
news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:26:35
The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency presented documents Monday that diplomats said indicate Iran may have focused on a nuclear weapons program after 2003 the year that a U.S. intelligence report says such work stopped...
Violence
foxnews.com/ ... 14:09:23
BALDWIN PARK, Calif. Police arrested a man late Monday after two women and a 4-year-old girl were found dead and two other children wounded in a shooting at two Baldwin Park houses... "We believe the suspect who was detained got into some type of argument with his mother, shot and killed her, then went next door on some type of a shooting rampage and shot his neighbors..."
cbs3.com/ ... 10:25:37
Philadelphia teenager who was... shot in the head at point-blank range... and killed over an errant snowball... celebrating his 16th birthday... after a wayward snowball accidentally struck a passing neighbor. Police said the adult male became enraged and left the scene, returning moments later with a gun... "He didn't get a chance to get married, he didn't get a chance to have children," Teven's father Keith said. Philadelphia police detectives said they are actively searching for the gunman...
Nature can be Deadly
reuters.com/ ... 10:19:54
Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 14:25:00
Marine Lance Cpl.
Drew W. Weaver,
20, of St. Charles, Mo., died Feb. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 14:24:32
Army Spc.
Keisha M. Morgan,
25, of Washington, D.C., died Feb. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of a non-combat related cause. She was assigned to the Division Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The circumstances are under investigation.
Staying Healthy
efluxmedia.com/ ... 14:18:33
"Antibiotics exposure is extensive in nursing home residents with advanced dementia, and it increases as patients near death. We really need to determine if antibiotics should be given to patients at the end of life. Do they benefit from treatment..."
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 14:24:15
The Department of Defense announced... that based on debris analysis, officials are confident the missile intercept and destruction of a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite, achieved the objective of destroying the hydrazine tank and reducing, if not eliminating, the risk to people on Earth from the hazardous chemical. "By all accounts this was a successful mission...."
foxnews.com/ ... 14:16:51
An adult and two children were found dead inside family housing Monday following a domestic disturbance at Tinker Air Force Base [Oklahoma]... "At that point in time, the information that we received was that a member of the military and an ex-spouse had an altercation, that the ex-spouse had left the residence, and that she had heard gunshots upon her departure from the residence..."
ap.google.com/ ... 14:08:46
The Army's top general said Tuesday he wants to reduce combat tours for soldiers in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months this summer and hopes that sticks. Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, told a Senate panel he would not embrace going back to the longer tours even if President Bush decided to suspend troop reductions for the second half of the year. The Army is under serious strain from years of war-fighting, he testified, and must reduce the length of combat tours as soon as possible...
World Zookeeping
allafrica.com/ ... 14:08:22
Elephant culling
will be permitted for the first time in SA since 1994 to control growing herds and to halt environmental damage. The government estimates the elephant population of the Kruger National Park, SA's largest conservation area, is increasing 7% a year, and might reach 20000 by 2012 and 30000 by 2019. In neighbouring Botswana, the elephant population has now reached about 106000 from 34000 in 1983, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species...
Raising Ourselves
breitbart.com/ ... 10:27:38
Children feel under pressure to own the latest designer clothes and computer games and most adults believe the "commercialisation of childhood" is damaging young people's well-being, a poll said Tuesday...
It's All in Your Mind
breitbart.com/ ... 10:27:18
teens who regularly get into fights with their parents have significantly different brain structures than their more laid-back peers...
World Climate
nationalpost.com/ ... 10:21:15
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966... many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February... average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average..." China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century... And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past. The ice is back...
Animal Companions
news.com.au/ ... 10:13:00
PETS at risk of self-harm are increasingly being prescribed anti-depressants because they cannot discuss problems in their lives with others... Zoo and wildlife medicine specialist... more pets were being prescribed Prozac. Tropical birds such as parrots seemed to have been the most affected by depression...
Screwy Light Bubs
google.com/ ... 14:22:33
Google Search on High-Intensity LED lighting...
wmtw.com/ ... 14:21:05
In a new study, the DEP said people should consider
not using the bulbs where they can be easily broken or in places frequented by young children or pregnant women. People also are advised to not vacuum up shattered bulbs,
which could contaminate the vacuum cleaner and further spread the mercury into the air. DEP officials still are
encouraging people to use the bulbs, saying the benefits far outweigh the risks...
[see below]
blog.nj.com/ ... 14:20:18
...Unlike traditional light bulbs, each of the spiral ones contains a bit of mercury. An insignificant amount really, until you realize that
over 300 million fluorescent bulbs were sold in the United States last year and perhaps as many as 1 billion bulbs will be sold this year.
Suddenly, that's a lot of mercury. And where does the mercury go? It's a huge problem. In Ridgewood, for instance, Village officials have warned residents not the throw out fluorescent bulbs the way they routinely do with the old kind of light bulbs. Instead, the only means to properly dispose of the bulbs is to bring them to a household hazardous waste disposal day sponsored by the Bergen County Utilities Authority. There are seven such days a year, scattered throughout the county...
boston.com/ ... 14:19:32
Compact fluorescent lamps - those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming - can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday. But the reports, issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project, urged homeowners to keep using compact fluorescents because
their energy-saving benefits far outweigh the risk posed by mercury released from a broken lamp...
[On average for society, that is, not necessarily for the mercury-inhaling themselves...!!!]
Pareidolia
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 14:17:32
An American furniture maker claims to have discovered a likeness of Jesus Christ inside a tree trunk... uncovered the "holy" sap stain in a pine tree he had cut down for a friend...
Under Digital Tyranny
businessweek.com/ ... 14:15:24
Pakistan's telecommunications regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on YouTube that knocked out access to the video-sharing Web site in many countries for up to two hours over the weekend. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told Internet service providers to restore access to the site after the removal of what it called a "blasphemous" video clip... featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he planned to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals...
Digital Business
arstechnica.com/ ... 14:14:05
Google announced today that it plans to join five other international companies in building an additional undersea cable between the US and Japan. The need for the cable itself is unsurprising, given that trans-Pacific bandwidth needs grew by 63.7 percent between 2002 and 2007, but the fact that Google is joining the consortium of Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet, and SingTel is unusual. Google is insisting, however, that this new move does not signal a change in focus for the company...
Music industry is dead
macworld.com/ ... 14:13:22
The popularity of the iTunes Store has propelled Apple to the number two music retailer spot in the US, following only Wal-Mart...
Supernatural
christianpost.com/ ... 14:11:46
A massive religious study showing that a large number of Americans are religiously unaffiliated caused pollsters to question whether America is heading down the same religious path as that of Europe where people may consider themselves religious but dont belong to any institution...
Reasons for Repeal
reuters.com/ ... 14:07:40
The UK government finally axed controversial plans for Britain's first Las Vegas-style supercasino on Tuesday as it gave the green light to build a new generation of 16 smaller casinos...
[END GOVERNMENT TYRANNY OVER GAMBLING! REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL! Let fools and their money be soon parted!]
Business Culture
leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... 14:06:55
When Starbucks shuts down all of its nearly 7,100 national stores from 5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. (central time) this evening for employee retraining (some of the contracted Starbucks are on a different training schedule), Dunkin Donuts will hand out free small hot lattes in all of its 450 Chicagoland stores...
Sportsmanship
bloomberg.com/ ... 14:06:21
China's government said it's willing to resume a dialogue with the U.S. on improving human rights after a five-year halt, taking a step to prevent rights advocates from boycotting Beijing's Olympic Games in August...
Theory of Education
usatoday.com/ ... 10:28:58
Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job. Don't count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can't identify the books or historical events associated with them... "If you think it matters whether or not kids have common historical touchstones and whether, at some level, we feel like members of a common culture, then familiarity with this knowledge matters a lot," says American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess, who wrote the study...
In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover...
US Election 2008
ap.google.com/ ... 14:13:05
Republican John McCain quickly denounced the comments of a radio talk show host who while warming up a campaign crowd referred repeatedly to Barack Hussein Obama and called the Democrat a "hack, Chicago-style" politician...
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 10:23:18
[Regarding the NYT story on McCain] Huckabee said, "...In fact, if anything it's helped John McCain and I'm kind of hoping the New York Times will take me on and run a nasty front page story -- may be the best thing that could happen to me, certainly was to him..."
washingtontimes.com/ ... 10:21:55
Members of Washington's military and defense establishment are expressing trepidation about Sen. Barack Obama... But his backers, including a former Air Force chief of staff, say the rookie senator believes in a strong military, and with it, a larger Army and Marine Corps...
thesmokinggun.com/ ... 10:14:37
Pennsylvania man allegedly stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach after the pair quarreled about their respective support of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton...
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 10:10:57
During a Monday interview with ABC's Dallas affiliate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., did not flatly deny the DrudgeReport's charge that her campaign forwarded a photo of rival Barack Obama in traditional African dress.
She then turned the tables
[one of her favorite evasive tactics]
on her Democratic rival and accused him of using the controversy to distract the public's attention from deficiencies in his platform and experience...
"I know nothing about it," Clinton told ABC affiliate WFAA. "This is in the public domain. But let's just stop and ask yourself: 'Why are you -- why is anybody concerned about this?'..."
[Because of what it says about CLINTONS!]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:09:44
A photo of US presidential candidate Barack Obama wearing Somali clothing is causing a storm after it got released to the Drudge Report website... These are the normal clothes that nomadic people wear... The head turban is especially used by elderly people as a suggestion of respect. It is something that has no meaning whatsoever in Somalia culture... There is no religious significance to it whatsoever...
SAT 2008-FEB-23
International Incidents
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:45:15
Iraq's foreign minister has warned that any escalation of Turkey's operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq could destabilise the region...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:45:08
A Russian cargo ship has been detained and boarded by armed coastguard agents in North Korean waters, Russian maritime officials say...
Under Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:44:51
Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 21:43:43
The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S. telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate "for the time being" with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation. The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under the current law "at least for now..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:41:05
The family of a Hamas preacher who died in Palestinian custody alleged Saturday that the prisoner was tortured by interrogators from the rival Fatah faction...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:40:52
Extremists fired an explosive barrage Saturday into the capital's heavily protected Green Zone, targeting the heart of America's diplomatic and military mission in Iraq... no injuries...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:40:08
Scattered battles in the war-torn jungles of northern Sri Lanka killed 20 separatist guerrillas and a soldier, the military said Friday, while the rebels accused the government of killing eight civilians in an airstrike...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:03:14
Army Capt.
Nathan R. Raudenbush,
25, of Pennsylvania, died Feb. 20 in Busayefi, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.
US Military
reuters.com/ ... 21:42:22
A U.S. B-2 stealth bomber crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam just after taking off but the two pilots on board ejected safely...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 21:39:49
Picking up an E. coli bug from your pet might lead to a urinary tract infection...
reuters.com/ ... 21:39:37
People with very low cholesterol levels seem to be at increased risk of developing stomach cancer...
reuters.com/ ... 21:39:27
Men who want to avoid developing the benign but bothersome prostate enlargement that typically accompanies aging should cut their intake of fat and red meat, eat more vegetables, and have a couple of drinks a day...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:37:53
AZUSA, Calif... parked his pickup... leaving his 80-pound Boxer named Max in the passenger seat. When he came out, the truck and Max were gone... found the pickup across the street in a fast-food parking lot but had no idea how it got there... Max...
Digital Business
news.com/ ... 21:55:32
A U.S. District judge in Seattle has ruled that consumers can move ahead with a class-action suit against Microsoft over how it advertised computers with Windows XP as capable of running Vista, according to an article by the Associated Press. The suit claims that the labeling of computers as "Windows Vista Capable" misled consumers because many of the machines weren't powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, such as the Aero user interface, the AP said...
Reasons for Repeal
foxnews.com/ ... 21:50:42
OMAHA, Neb... Police say a 4-year-old girl demonstrated to them how to smoke marijuana from a joint, a pipe and a bong and learned the techniques from her [25yo] mother... charged with child abuse and could lose her daughter... Child Protective Services received a complaint that the 4-year-old and a 2-year-old son of Schuchard were dirty and living in a filthy home that had drug paraphernalia around. Police say the daughter told officers that Schuchard and her live-in boyfriend would offer her and her brother the marijuana, then laugh with friends when they smoked...
Woman's Right
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 21:48:55
Emma Beck was found hanging at her home in Helston, Cornwall, on Feb 1 2007. She was declared dead early the following day - her 31st birthday. Her suicide note read: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does.... I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum..." "She had a long history of anxiety and depression. Despite my best efforts, she was not willing to see a counsellor after the termination..."
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 21:43:27
"Shame on you, Barack Obama," Clinton said, speaking to reporters after a rally in Ohio, a state that is key to her struggling campaign. Brandishing a copy of the leaflet, Clinton said the Obama campaign was spreading "false, misleading, discredited information" about her health-care plan... Obama said the content of the leaflet was correct. He said he was puzzled by the sudden "change in tone" by his rival because the leaflets Clinton referred to were sent out days or weeks ago. He suggested there was something "tactical" about her attacks now...
Ummm....
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:40:25
Poland will only sign up to accept a U.S. missile defense base if Washington gives significant help to modernizing Poland's military, the Polish defense minister said in comments published Saturday...
Vinyl lives
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:38:52
A winning bid of $3 million for a huge record collection offered on eBay was apparently a fraud... nearly 3 million vinyl albums, singles and CDs being sold by Paul Mawhinney, 68, of Ross Township... began collecting the records when he opened his record shop, Record Rama, in 1968. He closed it Thursday, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family...
Digital Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:42:06
Want to break into a computer's encrypted hard drive? Just blast the machine's memory chip with a burst of cold air. That's the conclusion of new research out of Princeton University demonstrating a novel, low-tech way hackers can access even the most well-protected computers, provided they have physical access to the machines... encryption, long considered a vital shield against hacker attacks, can be defeated by manipulating the way memory chips work. The researchers say the ease of their attack raises fears about the security of laptop computers increasingly used to store sensitive information...
Freezing a dynamic random access memory [chip]... causes it to retain data for minutes or even hours after the machine loses power...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:36:33
LG Electronics Inc. halted sales of one of its laptop computer models after a report of a battery meltdown... The laptop is no longer produced and was sold only in South Korea...
FRI 2008-FEB-22
Peace 3000
ap.google.com/ ... 17:12:26
Powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr opted Friday to keep the cease-fire order for his Mahdi Army militia in place for another six months, a step that will hold down U.S. and Iraqi casualties while bolstering al-Sadr's importance as a political player as Iraqi factions jostle for power...
Transport Tragedy
ap.google.com/ ... 17:15:27
MINNEAPOLIS... The driver of a van that... failed to stop at a stop sign Tuesday before hitting... a school bus in a crash that killed four children... charged Friday with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide and two lesser charges... Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were trying to figure out her true identity...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:56:27
no chance of finding survivors from a commercial plane that crashed in Venezuela with 46 people on board... mountainous terrain has made reaching the wreckage difficult...
Nature can be Deadly
wcbstv.com/ ... 17:00:15
More than 1,000 flights were canceled between New York City's three major travel hubs after a winter storm dumped several inches of snow in the region... Numerous traffic accidents...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:55:35
eastern Philippines... tens of thousands of people forced from their homes by flooding... At least 20 people are now known to have died in landslides and floods...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 16:48:24
Turkish ground troops crossed into northern Iraq in their hunt for Kurdish rebels... Turkey's military said the cross-border offensive... would continue until they had eliminated the threat from PKK rebels... The United States on Friday urged Turkey... to limit its offensive to precise targets and to bring the operation to a swift conclusion... The European Union and the United Nations also urged restraint...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 17:27:53
Army Sgt.
Conrad Alvarez,
22, of Big Spring, Texas
Army Cpl.
Albert Bitton,
20, of Chicago
Army Spc.
Micheal B. Matlock, Jr.,
21, of Glen Burnie, Md.
died Feb. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device in Baghdad on Feb. 19. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
defenselink.mil/ ... 17:27:05
Army Staff Sgt.
Bryant W. Mackey,
30, of Eureka, Kan., died Feb. 20 in Mosul, Iraq, of wounds suffered when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
Evolution Isn't Easy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:53:05
Fossil hunters have found the remains of ancient mammals that were related to today's rabbits and hares. The 53-million-year-old specimens consist of small ankle bones unearthed in Gujarat, central India... The oldest lagomorphs known before this were from Central Asia and date to between 40 and 48 million years ago...
Anthropology
reuters.com/ ... 16:51:27
People indigenous to Siberia have strong genetic links to native peoples in the Americas, according to a study further supporting the theory that humans first entered the Americas over a land bridge across the Bering Strait...
In the Line of Duty
reuters.com/ ... 16:49:08
A Dallas motorcycle police officer in Hillary Clinton's motorcade was killed in a road accident on Friday while escorting the Democratic presidential contender to a rally ahead of the March 4 Texas primary... Senior Corporal Victor Lozada-Tirado, a father of two boys and two girls who had been on the force since December 1988... struck a curb, lost control of his motorcycle and went down at 9:15 a.m...
Reasons for Repeal
carthagepress.com/ ... 17:09:38
The Missouri State Highway Patrol, with assistance from a Joplin police drug-sniffing dog, found 1,100 pounds of marijuana in a tractor trailer Feb. 15 on Interstate 44...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 17:08:45
YAKIMA More than 600 pounds of marijuana valued at $5.4 million has been seized... simultaneous raids on two houses... Two brothers and a woman were arrested... Three children ages 2, 10 and 17 in Yakima and an infant from the Wenas-area house have been placed with relatives...
ketv.com/ ... 17:07:48
trooper seized nearly 84 pounds of marijuana from a vehicle... found in two black suitcases in the rear cargo area of the minivan... estimated street value of $84,000...
knbc.com/ ... 17:07:05
STANTON, Calif. -- A man was arrested Friday in Stanton when authorities responding to a hang-up 911 call discovered what they believe to be an indoor marijuana growing operation... 911 call... apparently made by a computer in the home... "What set the computer off, we don't know..."
stuff.co.nz/ ... 17:06:27
Police found cannabis plants and seedlings, methamphetamine, and a stun gun in a raid on an Upper Hutt house this morning...
ap.google.com/ ... 17:06:16
Marijuana is now the biggest source of income for Mexico's drug cartels and the U.S. is committed to cracking down harder on traffickers, U.S. drug czar John Walters said Thursday...
[And DOES this tell John that we need repeal... Repeal..! REPEAL!!!??? Of course not.]
World Without Borders
reuters.com/ ... 16:52:06
A high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is finally ready for service and the technology can fight illegal crossings all along the frontier, the Homeland Security chief said on Friday... so-called Project 28 "virtual fence" was built near Nogales, Arizona, by Boeing Co. The $20 million project of sensor towers and advanced mobile communications was supposed to be completed in mid-2007 but was delayed by software problems, drawing criticism from Congress...
Digital Threat
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:51:08
Microsoft is warning Windows Vista users that a forthcoming service pack for the operating system may stop some third-party programs working... Most of the software hit by the upgrade are security programs that prevent Windows users falling prey to viruses, trojans and booby-trapped webpages. The Windows Vista update will be released to the public in mid-March...
Digital Privacy Threat
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:50:40
Internet service providers must take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads or face legal sanctions, the government has said. The proposal is aimed at tackling the estimated 6m UK broadband users who download files illegally every year. The culture secretary said consultation would begin in spring and legislation could be implemented "by April 2009"...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:52:25
A computer does better than a doctor at diagnosing certain brain diseases, research has suggested. Experts taught a standard computer how to diagnose Alzheimer's from brain scans, and got a 96% success rate...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:50:07
Computers the size of blood cells will create fully immersive virtual realities by 2033, leading inventor Ray Kurzweil has predicted... He said a billion-fold increase in computing performance and capability over the next 25 years coupled with the 100,000 fold shrinking, would lead to "blood cell-size devices... that can go inside our bodies and keep us healthy and inside our brain and expand our intelligence". He said the blood cell computers would be able to "produce full immersion virtual reality from inside the nervous system"...
That's
Not Funny!
foxnews.com/ ... 17:13:12
It sounds like something the talking doll Chucky from the movies might say: "Kill James!" Instead, a Florida family says the threat to their toddler is coming from a talking Elmo doll...
reuters.com/ ... 16:47:35
[39yo] Japanese man.. arrested for trespassing this week after turning up at a high school dressed in a girl's uniform and a long wig... students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him...
US Election 2008
newsbusters.org/ ... 17:03:58
Yesterday's inflammatory story, which used anonymous sources to forward nine-year-old allegations from his first presidential run suggesting an improper relationship by John McCain with a female telecommunications lobbyist, received prominent front-page placement;
today's follow-up on McCain's press conference was relegated to page 20...
politico.com/ ... 17:03:11
Sen. John McCains presidential campaign claimed vindication Thursday night after a sophisticated 24-hour counterattack turned a potentially lethal story in The New York Times into a conservative call to arms... It was a vivid illustration of the power of the longstanding anti-media grievance among conservatives...
nypost.com/ ... 17:01:42
Hillary Rodham Clinton's free-spending campaign blew a whopping $95,000 at a low-end supermarket-deli chain last month in Iowa - a telling sign of why she can no longer cut the mustard financially against Barack Obama in critical states...
nytimes.com/ ... 17:01:12
Senator Hillary Rodham Clintons latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings. Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clintons spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 00:05:35
Hillary Rodham Clinton accused presidential rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism Thursday night, but drew boos from a Democratic debate audience when she ridiculed him as the candidate of "change you can Xerox." Obama dismissed the charge out of hand, then turned the jeers to applause when he countered, "What we shouldn't be spending time doing is tearing each other down. We should be spending time lifting the country up..."
THU 2008-FEB-21
Nature can be Deadly
usatoday.com/ ... 21:02:01
ST. LOUIS A winter storm packing a potential potpourri of everything from sleet to freezing rain and snow inched Thursday through Missouri and into Illinois, turning roads into ribbons of ice and forcing hundreds of schools to scrap classes for the day...
Sex can be... disturbing
kansas.com/ ... 20:54:12
Wichita... woman responding to a break-in in her garage found a man having sexual intercourse with her 4-year-old female rottweiler... had a prior conviction for the same crime less than six months ago...
Disturbing Family Patterns
local6.com/ ... 20:52:45
A [33yo] Central Florida mother of four boys was arrested on Tuesday after telling authorities that she went "on strike" more than a month ago, leaving the teens home alone for hours every day because they would constantly fight... ages 17, 16, 14 and 13...
Scary Times
wqad.com/ ... 21:02:32
Officials at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have banned the game "Assassin," worried that a harmless game could turn deadly... in the wake of deadly campus shootings including last week's at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (Illinois)... In "Assassin," each player gets another as a target. The players then try to "assassinate" their targets by ambushing them with foam darts or paperclip "bullets" or some other benign projectiles...
suncoastpinellas.tbo.com/ ... 20:51:51
A 21-year-old Clearwater man was arrested at Tampa International Airport this weekend after security personnel found a box cutter in a hollowed-out book... faces up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine... said he had hollowed it out himself to hide money and marijuana from his roommates... told officers he was moving to Las Vegas and forgot the cutter was in the book...
WW2 - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:46:16
A German lawmaker and part-time treasure hunter claimed Thursday he may have found where the Nazis stashed pieces of the storied Amber Room treasure plundered from the Soviet Union during World War II... buried in the mountains in the state of Saxony on the Czech border. "A scientific test of the soil has also proven that there is gold in the mountain," Haustein told The Associated Press. Haustein said he would give more details about his discovery at a news conference Friday...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:45:37
Morocco's government said it has dismantled a terrorist network that had plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers and members of the North African kingdom's Jewish community... believe the network has links to al-Qaida and local terror groups...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:45:20
Afghan and NATO-led troops killed two regional Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan, and an explosion in the same province claimed the life of a British soldier... The joint NATO-Afghan forces killed commander Mullah Abdul Matin and his associate, Mullah Karim Agha, in the southern province of Helmand on Monday... Matin and Agha were behind several suicide bombings in Helmand, the world's largest opium poppy producing region...
Transport Tragedy
reuters.com/ ... 21:01:04
A commercial plane carrying up to 46 people crashed in eastern Venezuela on Thursday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:44:46
A bus carrying garment workers heading for a picnic lost control and crashed into an electricity pole in southern Bangladesh on Thursday, killing at least 14 people... 15 were injured...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:44:29
At least three people have been killed and 20 are reported missing after a ferry sank as a result of a collision with a barge on the Brazilian Amazon...
Under Sexist Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:44:14
Two Saudi scholars have said there is nothing in Islamic law to prevent women from driving. The senior religious figures said the issue depended on the context. They say women would need to be protected from harassment and that steps would have to be taken to ensure there was no mingling of the sexes...
Pakistan
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:43:54
When the two parties that won this week's elections meet to discuss forming a coalition government, they will have to reconcile their different priorities including whether President Pervez Musharraf should remain in office...
Violence
ap.google.com/ ... 21:01:42
JOLIET, Ill... The death of a former suburban Chicago police officer's third wife has been ruled a homicide after a second autopsy showed she drowned...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:46:36
Angry Serbs broke into the U.S. Embassy and set fire to an office Thursday night as rioters rampaged through Belgrade's streets, putting an exclamation point of violence to a day of mass protest against Western support for an independent Kosovo...
reuters.com/ ... 20:43:18
Serb rioters enraged by Kosovo's secession stormed the U.S. embassy in Belgrade and set it on fire, leaving one person dead and drawing swift condemnation from Washington and the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. State Department said the lack of protection for its mission -- riot police were nowhere to be seen when the attack began -- was intolerable and demanded the Security Council respond...
Yuck!
local6.com/ ... 00:06:42
Swarms of fleas from an abandoned Central Florida home are spreading throughout a neighborhood, covering some homeowners' head to toe when they step outside...
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:38:36
Grey wolves in the Northern Rockies of the United States have been removed from the endangered species list, the US Department of the Interior has said... follows efforts over the last 13 years to protect the animals and allow their population to grow. There are now an estimated 1,500 grey wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming...
Dinosaurs -- still with us
reuters.com/ ... 20:38:09
Scientists have found the fossil of a new herbivorous dinosaur species that stood five meters (5.5 yards) high and lived 60 million years ago... long-necked sauropod...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 20:33:13
Swimming can significantly ease the debilitating pain of fibromyalgia, an ailment with no known cure...
reuters.com/ ... 20:32:56
Older people who have significant trouble staying awake during the day have more than four times the normal risk of having a stroke... also found a higher risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems...
reuters.com/ ... 20:32:37
consuming yogurt and lactic acid drinks was significantly associated with better periodontal health. "But, milk and cheese were not..."
Science Marches Onnnnnn
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:29:02
Seventy-two small fish were briefly launched into space by researchers Thursday, hoping their swimming patterns would shed some light on motion sickness...
Why People Go Vegan
reuters.com/ ... 20:28:25
In what they say is a last-ditch attempt to save Britain's pork industry, dozens of pig farmers gathered in London Thursday aiming for an Internet hit with their song "Stand by your Ham..."
Reasons for Repeal
salem-news.com/ ... 20:56:29
Experience with 4,000 Medical Marijuana Patients... This article will indicate some 25 or more diseases for which it is efficacious...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 00:09:35
Most senior citizens spend their birthdays surrounded by family, enjoying their grandchildren. Authorities say Rodell Cole spent his 72nd birthday Tuesday making a drug run, hauling nearly $1.4 million in marijuana in the trunk of a silver 2007 Toyota Camry along the Eastern Seaboard. "In today's society, people just do things that you'd never imagine," New Carrollton Police Chief David G. Rice said... was traveling from New York City to North Carolina with eight drug-filled garbage bags that were stuffed into two large black duffel bags... backed into a 1994 Nissan Sentra as he was leaving a 7-Eleven... has cataracts in his left eye... was driving on a suspended South Carolina license... 152.6 pounds of marijuana...
Digital Threat
eff.org/ ... 20:50:51
The researchers cracked several widely used disk encryption technologies, including Microsoft's BitLocker, Apple's FileVault, TrueCrypt, and dm-crypt. These "secure" disk encryption systems are supposed to protect sensitive information if a computer is stolen or otherwise accessed. However, in a paper and video published on the Internet today, the researchers show that data is vulnerable because encryption keys and passwords stored in a computer's temporary memory -- or RAM -- do not disappear immediately after losing power...
US Congress
breitbart.com/ ... 20:49:41
Helicopters carrying three senior U.S. senators made emergency landings Thursday in the mountains of Afghanistan because of a snowstorm. Sens. John Kerry, Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel...
Sportsmanship
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:43:33
China has expressed regret that the US has decided not to trust its food during this summer's Olympic Games. The US delegation has said it is planning to bring its own food for American athletes...
What's In a Name?
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:37:26
More than 50 years into the Information Age, computers are still getting confused by the apostrophe. It's a problem familiar to O'Connors, D'Angelos, N'Dours and D'Artagnans across America. When Niall O'Dowd tried to book a flight to Atlanta earlier this year, the computer system refused to recognize his name. The editor of the Irish Voice newspaper could book the flight only by giving up his national identity. "I dropped the apostrophe and ran my name as `ODowd,'..."
Digital Business
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:36:54
The so-called landrush for the latest domain name suffix - .asia - has begun. DotAsia, the organisation overseeing the registration, is expecting huge demand for the first domain name extension for the Asia Pacific region. But some in the industry are concerned about the proliferation of domain name suffixes in recent years...
Digital Privacy
reuters.com/ ... 20:33:45
"Smart" chips embedded in items ranging from pets to retail products will have to be deactivated at the point of sale to protect purchasers' privacy under draft guidelines proposed on Thursday by the European Commission...
Big Nanny
businessweek.com/ ... 00:10:12
Several state attorneys general have subpoenaed documents from Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. and Miller Brewing Co. as part of a probe into the companies' marketing of caffeinated alcoholic beverages...
Business Culture
nytimes.com/ ... 00:09:56
The Sharper Image, the 31-year-old purveyor of futuristic adult gadgetry like $5,000 massage chairs and $300 robotic vacuum cleaners, has filed for bankruptcy protection after years of slipping sales, stiffening competition and image problems over its Ionic Breeze air purifiers...
Broadcast is Dead
nytimes.com/ ... 00:08:08
It soon may be time to retire the phrase "fall television season." NBC Universal took a big step toward undoing one of the television industrys oldest traditions by announcing Tuesday that it would move to a year-round schedule of staggered program introductions. The move is intended to appeal to advertisers, who crave fresh content to keep viewers tuned in. And if it succeeds and leads other broadcast networks to shift from their focus on a mass introduction of new shows it could alter an American cultural cycle that extends all the way back to the days of radio, when families gathered around the Philco every September, as the school year began, to sample the new entertainment choices...
US Election 2008
washingtontimes.com/ ... 20:54:57
Barack has been crowned Name of the Year by Laura Wattenberg, creator of Baby Name Wizard, a popular online trend-tracking tool for parents-to-be at IVillage.com, offering instant advice in the crucial baby-name derby...
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 00:04:36
Sen. Hillary Clinton took a swipe at her daughter's profession today at an economic roundtable discussion at a restaurant in Parma, Ohio, suggesting wealthy investment bankers and hedge fund managers on Wall Street aren't doing real 'work.' The former first lady's daughter, Chelsea Clinton, works for New York-based hedge fund Avenue Capital Group. She previously worked in New York for McKinsey & Company, her first job after graduating with her master's degree from Oxford University...
WED 2008-FEB-20
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:46:09
A military helicopter has crashed in South Korea, killing seven people on board...
Theft
reuters.com/ ... 23:41:07
Swiss police have found two of the four oil paintings by 19th Century masters, which were stolen from a Zurich museum earlier this month... found on Monday in a car parked outside a Zurich psychiatric hospital...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:48:53
The U.S. military said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment but there is no indication they had Down syndrome as Iraqi and U.S. officials initially had claimed...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:45:54
Israeli troops have killed a 10-year-old boy during a raid into central Gaza... Israeli military officials said troops responded when a group of Palestinians opened fire on them, and only gunmen were identified as having been hit...
reuters.com/ ... 23:42:24
Drug hitmen have killed a popular Mexican singer along with his manager and assistant near the U.S. border, authorities said on Wednesday, the latest murder among musicians who sing "narcocorrido" ballads glorifying drug traffickers...
reuters.com/ ... 23:41:43
Australia's top military commander said on Wednesday
the job of the country's combat soldiers in southern Iraq was done,
bolstering a government decision to bring them home mid-year...
reuters.com/ ... 23:41:21
Iraqi officials said 15 policemen were killed and more than 45 wounded in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday as they tried to defuse rockets that had been prepared for launch from the back of a truck...
reuters.com/ ... 23:40:42
A remote-controlled car bomb blast on Tuesday shook the southern Afghan city of Kandahar... aimed at a police vehicle but missed it... One civilian was killed and three more were wounded...
Nuclear is Nasty
reuters.com/ ... 23:37:12
Radioactive cesium chloride found in medical and research equipment can be used as a deadly ingredient in a "dirty bomb," and U.S. leaders should try to curb its use, the National Research Council said on Wednesday...
Rage -- not a good idea
reuters.com/ ... 23:31:39
A virulent anti-smoker in Germany was so angry when his girlfriend lit up he emptied a fire extinguisher to put out the cigarette, caking her and their apartment in powder... "He said... he's through with his girlfriend..."
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
reuters.com/ ... 23:29:09
The typical online sexual predator is not someone posing as a teen to lure unsuspecting victims into face-to-face meetings that result in violent rapes, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Rather, they tend to be adults who make their intentions of a sexual encounter quite plain to vulnerable young teens who often believe they are in love with the predator, they said...
Hospitals can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:24:50
...The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m...
9/11 - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 23:21:55
A comparative analysis of dream images suggests how deeply the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks impacted Americans' emotions... Everyone experienced some sort of trauma, or at least emotional arousal by these events... "We found, surprisingly, even dreams could pick this up..."
Transport Incident
kitv.com/ ... 23:18:57
Hawaii... The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating
whether two go! Airlines pilots fell asleep during an interisland flight...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:15:56
ANDERSON, S.C.... Authorities say a man drove a stolen car to the Anderson County Sheriff's Office to demand the return of nearly $2,000 officers seized from him during a drug arrest last June...
Police Riot
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:15:38
ROGERS, Ark... Police are conducting an internal investigation into an allegation that a lieutenant used his stun gun to shock a cow and shared a videotape of the incident with other department employees...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:49:56
Army Spc.
Chad D. Groepper,
21, of Kingsley, Iowa
Army Spc.
Luke S. Runyan,
21, of Spring Grove, Pa.
died Feb. 17 in Diyala Province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their dismounted patrol using small arms fire. They were assigned to 2nd Battalion 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:52:43
This week, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps announced an increase, while the Air Force and Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is
256 more reservists mobilized
than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to
95,228,
including both units and individual augmentees....
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:47:19
A US military pilot has died after two F-15C fighter jets crashed into the Gulf of Mexico during a training mission...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:46:55
A US soldier has been convicted of aggravated assault in the killing of an Iraqi man near Kirkuk last year... A military jury in Hawaii found Army Specialist Christopher Shore not guilty of third-degree murder, but guilty of the lesser charge...
reuters.com/ ... 23:43:09
Two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter planes collided in midair on Wednesday over the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Florida, during a training mission... The U.S. Coast Guard recovered one pilot and a second was reported missing...
[I heard on the radio that both were recovered.]
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:38:10
Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths...
Mars
reuters.com/ ... 23:37:25
Sudden, tremendous gushes of water from underground most likely carved out unusual fan-shaped geological formations with steps like a staircase long ago on the surface of Mars, scientists said on Wednesday...
Orbiting Overhead
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:52:04
A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that
the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth's atmosphere.
At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force. The objective was to rupture the fuel tank to dissipate the approximately 1,000 pounds (453 kg) of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth, before it entered into earth's atmosphere. Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours. Due to the relatively low altitude of the satellite at the time of the engagement, debris will begin to re-enter the earth's atmosphere immediately. Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days. DoD will conduct a press briefing at 7 a.m. EST to provide further information related to the operation. The briefing can be viewed live on www.Defenselink.com through the Pentagon Channel.
reuters.com/ ... 23:36:51
Space shuttle Atlantis landed at its Florida home port on Wednesday after a mission that delivered Europe's first permanent space lab to orbit...
Antiquity - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 23:36:32
archeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:31:05
A material that is able to self-repair even when it is sliced in two has been invented by French researchers... a form of artificial rubber - is made from vegetable oil and a component of urine...
Researching the Obvious
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:25:37
Kids who load up on salty meals and snacks get thirsty, and too often they turn to calorie-filled sodas...
Evolution Isn't Easy
reuters.com/ ... 23:23:30
Two big genetic studies confirm theories that modern humans evolved in Africa and then migrated through Europe and Asia to reach the Pacific and Americas...
Staying Healthy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:25:18
New infectious diseases have been appearing more often, says a study that suggests "hot spots" where the next new germs are most likely to appear...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:25:04
Strokes have tripled in recent years among middle-aged women in the U.S...
reuters.com/ ... 23:23:16
Older Americans are having less trouble with their memories, and it may be because they spent more time in school...
reuters.com/ ... 23:23:01
...music helps people recover more quickly from strokes...
reuters.com/ ... 23:22:42
Infants with impaired growth in the womb, indicated by low birth weight or birth before full term, appear to have an increased risk of epilepsy in early childhood...
It's All in Your Mind
reuters.com/ ... 23:22:11
Teenage fans of TV wrestling are more likely than their peers to be aggressive or take chances with their health...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:17:09
2-year-old gray cat... named Meatloaf... took a 3-week cross-country ride locked in a storage container... is headed home to Florida...
Cosmology
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:12:53
The first stars to appear in the Universe may have been powered by dark matter, according to US scientists... when the Universe was still young, there would have been abundant dark matter, made of particles called Wimps: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. These would have fused together and obliterated each other long before nuclear fusion had the chance to start. As a result, the first stars would have looked quite different from the ones we see today, and they may have changed the course of the Universe's evolution - or at least held it up...
Animal Culture
news.nationalgeographic.com/ ... 23:18:25
Gorillas Photographed Mating Face-to-Face -- A First...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:10:49
A 70-million-year-old fossil of a giant frog has been unearthed in Madagascar by a team of UK and US scientists. The creature would have been the size of a "squashed beach ball" and weighed about 4kg (9lb)... nicknamed Beelzebufo or "frog from hell", was "strikingly different" from present-day frogs found on the island nation...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:10:04
The subterranean secrets of badgers have been revealed by a BBC film crew.... Never-before-seen behaviour was filmed, including the badgers diligently making their beds each evening before leaving the setts for a night of foraging...
Business Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:46:35
Confidential information stolen from Brazil's oil company Petrobras related to the recent discovery of a huge offshore gas field... The disappearance of four laptops and two hard drives is being treated as a case of industrial espionage...
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 23:42:09
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton ridiculed rival Barack Obama as all talk and little substance on Wednesday, trying to slow the momentum that has given him 10 straight victories in the race for the party's U.S. presidential nomination...
Supernatural
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:37:52
University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God...
Supernatural Threats
reuters.com/ ... 23:36:06
Florida education officials voted on Tuesday to add evolution to required course work in public schools but only after a last-minute change depicting Charles Darwin's seminal work as merely a theory...
Woman's Right
reuters.com/ ... 23:35:39
France's Roman Catholic Church has called for embryos to be given a clear legal status following a court decision that let parents of miscarried fetuses enter them with a name in the official civil registry...
[Unclear on le concept....]
Broadcast is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:31:56
A Federal Communications Commission plan to help owners of rural television stations survive the transition to digital broadcasting is great for station owners, bad for cable companies and of questionable value to viewers, according to critics...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:30:44
Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone. A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year...
Digital Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:32:41
A federal judge has set off a free speech tempest after shutting down a U.S. Web site for posting internal documents accusing a Cayman Islands' bank branch of money laundering and tax evasion schemes... "This is akin to seizing all the copies of the New York Times, locking the doors and ordering the landlords not to let anyone back in the building," said Julie Turner, a Palo Alto Internet attorney who briefly represented Wikileaks...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:30:27
The National Consumer Council (NCC) has accused 17 firms, including Microsoft, Adobe and Symantec, of using unfair "end user licence agreements" (EULAs). The NCC has asked the Office of Fair Trading to launch an investigation. The NCC said the firms' EULAs were misleading customers into "signing away legal rights"...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:29:56
Articles relating to high-profile court cases should be removed from online news archives, the former Lord Chancellor has told the BBC...
Digital Business
reuters.com/ ... 23:29:37
A start-up co-founded by famed Norwegian hacker "DVD Jon" is on Tuesday introducing a service that enables users to copy and use copy-protected Apple Inc... iTunes songs on many popular non-Apple devices...
US Executive Branch
d.yimg.com/ ... 23:19:36
Bush welcomed in Africa
Now
That's
Funny!
snopes.com/ ... 23:17:50
Claim: Mister Ed, the talking equine of television fame, was a horse.
Status: False.
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:14:33
A Danville [KY] family has received an $8,000 water bill for house they say they haven't lived in for more than two years... water company employee that the $8,000 bill was not a clerical error...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:13:58
A man was charged with withdrawing $2 million from an account after a bank confused him with a man who has the same name...
Reasons for Repeal
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:13:41
Students in a University of Michigan biology project had been assigned to grow herbs, vegetables, annuals and perennials. Police are trying to find out whether someone's green thumb also was being used to grow pot...
Lead line of the day
reuters.com/ ... 23:13:20
If it weren't for YouTube, a man wearing a little black dress and a pearl necklace would be unlikely to get a question in for the leader of the Spanish opposition...
Big Nanny
reuters.com/ ... 23:22:24
A siege of fast-food commercials on Spanish-language television channels in the United States may be helping drive an obesity epidemic among Latino youth...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:17:22
China's top Internet search engine, Baidu.com, has been censured by a government-sponsored watchdog for allegedly helping spread sexually explicit photos that appear to feature several Hong Kong stars...
reuters.com/ ... 23:13:04
Liquor makers in central China's Henan province are planning a legal challenge to fight a ban on Communist Party officials and civil servants drinking alcohol at lunch during work days...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:12:10
Sperm defects caused by exposure to environmental toxins can be passed down the generations, research suggests... Scientists say fathers who smoke and drink should be aware they are potentially not just damaging themselves, but also their heirs...
A team from the University of Idaho in Moscow tested the effects of a hormone-disrupting fungicide chemical called vinclozolin on embryonic rats...
MON 2008-FEB-18
Disturbing Family Patterns
foxnews.com/ ... 14:49:14
A Florida grandmother was arrested Saturday after police said she beat her [2yo] grandson at a busy intersection so badly that the child lost consciousness... beating the 2-year-old as she was pushing him in her stroller and slamming the child into the curb... As officers arrived at the scene, police said the woman was continuing the beatings...
Industrial Trouble
breitbart.com/ ... 14:31:19
BIG SPRING, Texas... explosion rocked an oil refinery Monday... shook buildings miles away and injured at least four people... fire sparked by the blast was under control Monday morning... Two elementary schools were evacuated, then classes were canceled at all nine campuses in the Big Spring school district... Interstate 20 was shut down...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:24:35
Gunmen in Guyana have killed 12 people, including three police officers, in an attack on a small town... Bartica, 80 miles (130km) south-west of the capital Georgetown...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:24:06
Funerals have been held in the Afghan city of Kandahar for the victims of Sunday's suicide attack that officials now say killed more than 100 people...
reuters.com/ ... 14:19:47
A suicide bomber targeting a foreign military convoy in Afghanistan killed 37 civilians in an attack near the Pakistan border on Monday...
reuters.com/ ... 14:18:38
In northern Iraq, residents fearful of al Qaeda militants hurry home before the sun sets. Cities are virtual ghost towns after dark. The U.S. military and Iraqi officials have hailed vastly better security in Baghdad, western Anbar province and areas south of the capital, which has allowed people to venture out at night to shop at markets and eat at restaurants. But in the cities of Samarra, Baquba and Mosul, the militants still sow fear...
Iraq
hosted.ap.org/ ... 14:18:25
Already a troubled system, Iraqi medical care has fallen to the brink of collapse since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago. Scores of doctors have been slain, cancer patients have to hunt down their own drugs - even IV fluid is in short supply. On Tuesday, a former deputy health minister and the head of the ministry's security force will stand trial, a year after they were accused of letting Shiite death squads use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings...
Transport Trouble
ap.google.com/ ... 14:13:18
No one is seriously injured after two U.S. Airways planes clipped each others' wings at Reagan National Airport... smaller jet was taxiing to the runway when it clipped the wing of the larger aircraft and became lodged there...
Nature can be Deadly
ap.google.com/ ... 14:12:43
Severe weather howled through much of the nation Sunday, producing damaging tornadoes in the South that injured nearly 30 people and treating winter-weary parts of the Midwest to freezing rain, snow and flooding. A tornado damaged or destroyed about 200 homes and businesses in Prattville, outside Montgomery... No fatalities were immediately reported, but two people were critically injured...
Under Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:08:41
Cuba has released four political prisoners arrested during a crackdown on the opposition in 2003...
Earth-Moon System
rockymountainnews.com/ ... 14:51:33
Wednesday night.. if it's night-time wherever you are on earth, and a clear shot of weather, you're all set to welcome a total eclipse of the moon... moon will start to darken about 6 p.m...
[MST?]
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 14:21:17
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M... A cat that fled a house fire is back home in Albuquerque, N.M., after turning up some 240 miles away... speculate that the cat, trying to keep warm, hopped a tractor-trailer and rode it to [Pueblo] Colorado...
shelter officials scanned the microchip in her neck and came up with her owner's name...
Cosmology
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:08:26
New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems. There may also be
hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System
, astronomers believe...
Why People Go Vegan
reuters.com/ ... 14:06:44
A California meatpacker accused of animal cruelty is making the largest U.S. meat recall on record -- 143 million lbs... Most of the meat, raw and frozen beef products, probably has already been consumed, said USDA officials at a briefing. Some 37 million lbs were bought for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs. USDA said there was only a minor risk of illness from eating the beef... violated rules against the slaughter of "downer cattle" -- that is, animals too ill to walk...
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
arstechnica.com/ ... 14:50:08
Toshiba has made no (zip, zero, nada) official announcements about killing off HD DVD. It had been widely reported or "blogged" that HD DVD was officially dead, but that simply isn't true. Today, Toshiba maintained its public face, which since Friday has emphasized that the company is considering its options... Toshiba was preparing for this day even before Netflix and Wal-Mart publicly disavowed their interest in the format... This is a slow moving train wreck...
Reasons for Repeal
thestarpress.com/ ... 14:43:57
Routine traffic stop leads to marijuana arrest...
[Routine? Probably a lie....]
failed to dim her headlights... [Driver] allegedly told police she had "weed" in her pocket after she failed sobriety tests...
baristanet.com/ ... 14:43:10
it was revealed that three students en route to school that morning, had eaten home-made bran muffins laced with marijuana...
eagletribune.com/ ... 14:42:32
N.H. debates marijuana decriminalization; Ex-Salem officer, Kingston rep. back bill...
If passed, people caught with a quarter ounce of pot would receive a ticket and a maximum $200 fine...
[DECRIM IS NOT STILLCRIM! REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!]
pr.cannazine.co.uk/ ... 14:41:38
Cannabis fixed penalty? 124,000 doctors disagree...
adaeveningnews.com/ ... 14:40:42
Ada [Oklahoma] police arrested eight people including one juvenile Thursday in connection with marijuana... Officer... responded to a call about possible marijuana use... arrived on scene and reportedly could smell marijuana smoke coming from a residence... knocked on the door and when a man answered, he smelled a strong odor of burnt marijuana coming from inside the house. He asked the man if he was smoking marijuana and his reply was yes...
theargus.co.uk/ ... 14:39:46
When police tried to smash their way into Britain's most fortified cannabis café for a fifth time on Thursday, nobody really expected it to be closed down. Why would they? During previous raids, only five arrests had ever been made, resulting in no prosecutions and only trace amounts of cannabis being recovered. Is it now time for the law to turn a blind eye, asks reporter MILES GODFREY, who has visited the café...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 14:39:08
Tens of thousands of people caught with a single joint of cannabis will get an unofficial criminal record that could blight their future employment prospects under new police proposals, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. The new powers are likely to form part of a summer crackdown on the drug amid concerns about the spiralling mental health toll from super-strength "skunk" cannabis, which now accounts for 80 per cent of the UK market...
[Another epidemic of Moral Hysteria sweeps the UK...]
aftenposten.no/ ... 14:38:08
Police found more cannabis greenhouse operations in otherwise ordinary Norwegian neighbourhoods over the weekend, and now they're following the scent of links among them all...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 14:37:10
Patients with fibromyalgia treated with a synthetic form of marijuana, nabilone, showed significant reductions in pain and anxiety in a first-of-its-kind study...
Marriage Today
startribune.com/ ... 14:32:18
A White Bear Lake [Minn] couple that marked their 83rd wedding anniversary Sunday may be headed for the Guinness Book of Records... Clarence, 101, and Mayme Vail, 99, celebrated their 83rd anniversary Sunday... family includes six children, 39 grandchildren, 101 great-grandchildren and 40 great-great grandchildren. Mayme Vail's "kid" sister was there, too. She's only 98...
Supernatural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:25:26
The Vatican has issued new rules making the route to sainthood more difficult...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:22:27
Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer. Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade. And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 14:23:54
From Monday, people all over the world can become virtual neighbors to the residents of a Sierra Leone slum, plagued by infant mortality and rampant disease, through an Internet campaign by the charity Save the Children...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:23:43
A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US. Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling... case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities...
Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:21:49
A new "sport" based around unravelling the mass of wires that can typically be found beneath computer desks the world over is taking off in the western US. The first
"speedcabling"
competition took place in an art gallery in Los Angeles and was won by LA-based web developer Matthew Howell...
US Executive Branch
reuters.com/ ... 14:12:09
Nancy Reagan... fell at her Los Angeles home on Sunday morning and is staying overnight at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica for observation... doing well...
People Die
apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:11:34
A woman who worked for the United Nations died Sunday after falling from the 19th floor of the U.N.'s Secretariat Building...
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 14:10:56
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama slipped away for a private meeting with former rival John Edwards on Sunday to seek his endorsement as the Illinois senator and Hillary Clinton battle for Wisconsin...
firstread.msnbc.msn.com/ ... 14:10:34
CANTON, OH... Throughout the event, as [Bill] Clinton made his case for his wife, Holemans dissenting voice could be heard. At times he simply shouted Obamas name. When Clinton would set up a sure applause line, Holeman could be heard heckling. As soon as Clinton finished speaking, the Canton native made a beeline to the ropeline to give Clinton a piece of his mind... "I asked the president to please stop the bickering between the campaigns..." Holeman said that Clinton responded by saying Obama came after him first. Holeman also described Clintons reaction to him as "irate." "I think he even hit me in the face with his hand," he said. "He did give me a little pop. It was okay, because I understand his tenacity for his wife." Clinton did engage Holeman for a few minutes, at times pointing directly at him. It was unclear whether he did make physical contact, however...
Democracy in Action
reuters.com/ ... 14:07:32
Fears of violence overshadowed Pakistan's general election on Monday with 80,000 troops backing up police to watch over a vote that could return a parliament set on driving President Pervez Musharraf from office...
"We are confused. We don't have good leaders and we don't know where our country is going,"
said Isa, a lecturer at a state-run college in Islamabad, reflecting despair felt by many of the 160 million people in a country that has alternated between civilian and army rule throughout its 60-year history...
SUN 2008-FEB-17
Nuclear is Nasty
sciencedaily.com/ ... 16:56:44
a group of 12 scientists with extensive nuclear expertise, headed by Stanford physicist Michael May, is urging an international push to improve the science of nuclear forensics... They say there is an urgent need for more nuclear detectives, armed with science PhDs and instilled with the instincts of an investigator. And those detectives will need training, advanced equipment and stronger ties to intelligence agencies, political leaders and law enforcement...
Nature can be Deadly
sun-sentinel.com/ ... 16:20:36
Four homes were destroyed when a tornado touched down Sunday in Escambia County [Fla]... Several other homes were damaged, but no injuries were immediately reported...
1960s - still with us
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 16:53:12
Mao: Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million...
reuters.com/ ... 16:03:52
A batch of old documents linked to the slaying of President John F. Kennedy has reportedly been unearthed, including a highly suspect transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer Jack Ruby... found in an old safe in a Dallas courthouse... Oswald and Ruby... discuss killing Kennedy to halt the mafia-busting agenda of his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy... The transcript resembles one published by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination and concluded Oswald acted alone. The FBI had determined the conversation between Oswald and Ruby -- this time about killing Texas Gov. John Connally -- was definitely fake...
Cold War - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 16:01:30
China is concerned
by U.S. plans to shoot down an ailing spy satellite and is considering what "preventative measures" to take... It will be the first time the United States has conducted an anti-satellite operation since the 1980s. Russia also has not conducted anti-satellite activities in 20 years.
China launched a ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007,
drawing international criticism and worries inside the Pentagon that Beijing has the ability to target critical military assets in space...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:06:09
East Timor... declared independence six years ago after centuries of harsh foreign rule and conflict, its people dreaming of a life of peaceful self-determination. The infant democracy was thrust back into upheaval when rebels attacked its newly elected leaders last Monday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:04:11
A military pickup truck struck a land mine that killed four troops and wounded two others Sunday in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest... A rebel group claimed responsibility...
reuters.com/ ... 16:01:44
The U.S. military said on Sunday it had evidence Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in Iraq were increasingly using secret weapons stores to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:59:31
At least 80 people have been killed in a suicide bombing outside the Afghan city of Kandahar - in what appears to be the deadliest attack since 2001. The massive blast hit a crowd of people watching a dog-fighting contest... "This suicide attack was the work of the Taleban," said Governor Assadullah Khalid...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:59:12
Heavy fighting is continuing between police and Maoist rebels hiding in a jungle in the Indian state of Orissa... two days after 13 policemen were killed when 500 Maoist rebels attacked a police compound in the eastern state's Nayagarh district. The rebels stole a huge amount of weapons and ammunition from the site's armoury during Friday night's attack...
Orbiting Overhead
reuters.com/ ... 16:23:15
After an emotional goodbye ceremony, astronauts closed the hatches between space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station on Sunday in preparation for the shuttle's Monday departure...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:21:48
A skittish [6mo] kitten that scampered out of its carrier on a subway platform has been found after 25 days in the underground tunnels... track workers Mark Dalessio and Efrain LaPorte went through the area making "meow" sounds. Georgia responded, and they found her cowering in a drain between two tracks...
Business Wisdom
forbes.com/ ... 17:01:11
While their peers were out making trouble, these young achievers were making bank. Forever in search of the secrets to entrepreneurial success, we peeked into the inspirational lives of five whiz kids who built million-dollar enterprises before the age of 20. They partnered with friends, siblings and mentors, or did the work on their own. Three are from the U.S., two from the U.K. All started at age 15 or younger--and one before he broke double digits. Their common thread: preternatural business sense and demon drive to turn ideas into reality...
Digital Future is Now
chicagotribune.com/ ... 17:00:38
Sunday marks the one-year countdown to the takeover by digital television... today, rabbit ears and other set-top antennas are back. Along with rooftop antennas, they are the way to receive high-definition TV programming for free... Not only will you receive free HD programming, the signal is likely to be higher quality than the HD signals you get via cable or satellite. That's because they are less compressed than signals from your pay-TV provider... There's no such thing as an HDTV antenna. An antenna is an antenna. Slapping an HDTV label on the box is just marketing. It's easier to pick up new digital signals than old analog signals. You shouldn't get "ghosts" or "snow" with digital signals. It's either perfect or unwatchably pixelated...
Sportsmanship
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 16:57:36
China has been accused of committing new human rights abuses ahead of this August's Beijing Olympics, while spending vast amounts on hi-tech surveillance and security systems... The crackdown is making a mockery of China's promise to the International Olympic Committee in 2001 that it would improve its dismal human rights record and allow greater media freedom if it were allowed to host the Games...
Political Theater
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 16:56:05
The Texas tycoon who claims to be John F Kennedy's secret love child had an affair with President Bush's sister-in-law...
Big Nanny
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 16:58:07
UK... Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking, according to a government adviser.
"We have to make people think that it's unfashionable just as we have with smoking.
We need a similar campaign to convince people that this is wrong," said Tim Lang, the Government's naural resources commissioner...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 16:54:28
Firework displays from the largest Guy Fawkes Night spectacle to the smallest back-garden show are under threat from European legislation... Tom Smith, the Confederation of British Industry spokesman for the pyrotechnics industry, said the new rules would make it impossible for firework-display firms to produce shows of variety and value. "Not a single person in Britain will be made safer by all this additional testing, but everyone will be affected by it becoming much more expensive and bureaucratic to import fireworks..."
Digital Threat
sfgate.com/ ... 16:53:45
An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind...
Reasons for Repeal
kansas.com/ ... 16:34:50
Some seem surprised that I advocate the legislation that is supportive of medical marijuana. Let me make it clear that I do not advocate the legalization of marijuana or any other controlled substances. This marks the 25th year since I first publicly supported medical marijuana and the reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 2 drug (Class I -- no medicinal value; Class II -- medicinal value)...
[Siiiiigh! Just another poor PuriTalibaNazi tyrant or dupe unclear on the concept of personal liberty....]
orange.yourguide.com.au/ ... 16:33:20
Headline:
Police seize cannabis worth $8000...
Article: About arresting a drunk.
tampabays10.com/ ... 16:31:26
Plant City, Florida...
[Ironically]
Deputies arrested 4 people and found over 1,000 pounds of marijuana...
montanasnewsstation.com/ ... 16:31:00
A pro-medical-marijuana group says a large-scale marijuana bust this month, that law officers in Dillon [Montana] touted as a major success, was instead the persecution of a terminally ill man, who needed the drug to help ease his suffering... Patients and Families United... says the police action won't stand up in court, thanks to Montana's 3-year-old Medical Marijuana Law... criticized law officers for making a terminally ill man's last days miserable, because of the worry that he would end up in prison...
jamaica-gleaner.com/ ... 16:30:12
Jamaica... ...The strong smell of marijuana (weed/ganja) hits the nostrils as we manoeuvre our way on the bumpy road. Further on, a group of 'spliff'-smoking young men stare suspiciously as the vehicle passes. We stop to ask a resident of the community about the lifestyle of the residents of Slipe. "Wi farm illegal things," she tells us without hesitation. "What kind of illegal things? Weed. Everybody do it and everybody know, all in the swamp dem plant it," she replies. "We just have to tek the risks, all if the police come cut it down, we nuh have nuh other choice..."
news.com.au/ ... 16:28:55
TWO men face drug trafficking charges today after police seized... 1025 hydroponic... cannabis plants during a raid in Melbourne's north...
World Without Borders
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:05:47
Russia denounced Kosovo's independence declaration Sunday, warning that the move threatened to ignite a new conflict in the Balkans and calling on NATO and U.N. officials in the territory to nix the decision...
Woman's Right
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:05:28
After same-sex marriage and fast-track divorce, Spain's social revolution has hit a roadblock - abortion... abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalized in 1985. But
abortion has become too easy to obtain, say its opponents...
At issue is a crackdown on five facilities accused of performing abortions in violation of the law that permits them in the first 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks in case of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychiatrist certifies that the mother's physical or mental health is endangered. Politically, it's a delicate matter...
US Election 2008
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 16:50:40
LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist... He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator... Obama is tainted by his long association with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Chicago property developer who is scheduled to go on trial for extorting kickbacks in return for political favours... Obama bought his family home in Chicago for $1.65m, $300,000 less than the asking price, on the day that Rezkos wife Rita bought an adjoining lot at the full price of $650,000. Obama later paid her $105,000 for a sixth of her yard in order to expand his garden. The seller insisted on both plots being sold together, which suggests that Rezko did Obama an enormous favour even if the deal was not illegal... Obama could run into further difficulties over his relationship with William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois and former member of the Weather Underground, a leftwing terrorist group that planted bombs in the Capitol and the Pentagon in the 1970s... [who] on the day of the September 11 attacks: "I dont regret setting bombs. I feel we didnt do enough..."
youtube.com/ ... 16:43:39
Minnesota man Larry Sinclair claims he took cocaine in 1999 and participated in homosexual acts with Barack Obama in a video posted on YouTube. According to World Net Daily, he has also filed a suit in Minnesota District Court, alleging threats and intimidation by Obama's staff...
boston.com/ ... 16:17:31
Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential front-runner, picked up a total of 50 GOP national convention delegates from Michigan and Louisiana yesterday... a majority of Michigan's presidential delegates also say they will support the Arizona senator... As a result, McCain has 903 total delegates nationally, according to an Associated Press tally. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has 245, while Romney's total dropped to 253. A total of 1,191 are needed to secure the nomination...
nypost.com/ ... 16:07:48
Barack Obama's primary-night results were strikingly underrecorded in several districts around the city -- in some cases leaving him with zero votes... including Harlem's 94th and other historically black areas... when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said yesterday... Initial results in the 94th, for example, showed a 141-0 sweep for Hillary Clinton, but the recount changed the tally to 261-136...
reuters.com/ ... 16:02:22
White House hopeful Hillary Clinton... is courting working-class voters with a new message of economic populism similar to the theme of John Edwards...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:00:29
JuicyCampus' endless threads of anonymous innuendo have been a popular Web destination on the seven college campuses where the site launched last fall, including Duke, UCLA and Loyola Marymount. It recently expanded to 50 more, and many of the postings show they've been viewed hundreds and even thousands of times. But JuicyCampus has proved so poisonous there are signs of a backlash. In campus debates over Internet freedom, students normally take the side of openness and access. This time, however, student leaders, newspaper editorials and posters on the site are fighting back - with some even asking administrators to ban JuicyCampus. It's a kind of plea to save the students, or at least their reputations, from themselves...
It's Only Money
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:23:44
One man's collection of rare American cents has turned into a $10.7 million auction windfall... collection of 301 cents featured some of the rarest and earliest examples of the American penny, including a cent that was minted for two weeks in 1793 but was abandoned because Congress thought Lady Liberty looked frightened... auction was the biggest ever for a penny collection...
What's in a Number?
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:23:02
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates... A license plate with nothing but the number "1" on it went for a record $14 million at a charity auction Saturday...
SAT 2008-FEB-16
Cold War - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:56:47
Russia has accused the US of using a plan to shoot down a broken spy satellite as a cover for testing an anti-satellite weapon...
[Cover? I thought it was obvious, and even reported as such....]
Supernatural Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:51:37
The trial of 18 men accused of dressing up as women has started in a Sharia court in northern Nigeria...
Betrayal
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:59
North Korea wants promised energy aid and removal from U.S. terrorism and sanctions blacklists before it will provide a complete declaration of its nuclear programs...
Transport Tragedy
reuters.com/ ... 22:45:14
Eight people were killed early on Saturday when a car plowed into roadside spectators watching an illegal high-speed street race in a town near Washington...
Violence
newsday.com/ ... 23:03:52
[34yo] Bronx building super killed his [14yo] daughter and stuffed her body in a furnace because he was angry that she was sending electronic messages to a boy...
[Yeah, way to protect her, Dad!]
has a history of mental illness...
wcbstv.com/ ... 22:58:19
The NYPD arrested... a "mentally disabled" 39-year-old Queens man, on Saturday for the murder of Upper East Side psychologist Dr. Kathryn Faughey...
reuters.com/ ... 22:43:16
A man who killed five students and himself during a shooting spree at an Illinois college had stopped taking medication and become erratic in the last two weeks...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:53:36
An explosion has rocked the centre of Mexico City, killing at least one man and injuring two other people. The device was set off near the city's police headquarters... No group has so far said it carried out the attack...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:48:12
Interrogators got intelligence from detainees that helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan attack Taliban fighters last summer - and they did it through casual questioning and not torture, the military's chief interrogator here said...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:24
Hundreds of Maoist militants stormed six police compounds in eastern India in carefully coordinated attacks Friday night, killing 13 police personnel and one civilian... Eleven more policemen were injured...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:46:45
GAZA CITY... powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad activist Friday... Witnesses reported seeing fragments of what looked like locally produced rockets at the scene, suggesting the house may have been used to store arms...
reuters.com/ ... 22:43:41
Eight people were killed, including a commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, and some 40 were wounded when an explosion destroyed a house in the Gaza Strip late on Friday... Israeli army denied any involvement... Islamic Jihad said an air strike caused the blast, which also killed three other militants as well as the wife and two young children of the commander, Ayman Fayed, better known as Abu Abdallah...
reuters.com/ ... 22:42:28
At least four people were killed and 13 wounded in northern Iraq when two suicide bombers with explosive vests blew themselves up at the entrance to a Shi'ite mosque during Friday prayers...
Industrial Tragedy
wtoctv.com/ ... 22:18:35
PORT WENTWORTH, GA... the body of a worker killed in last week's blast at Imperial Sugar was recovered Thursday night and identified about 11:30am. This was the last of the eight workers who lost their lives in the initial blast at the refinery. A ninth died this Thursday at the hospital in Augusta... plant's management suspects sugar dust ignited the explosion....
Pakistan
reuters.com/ ... 22:44:41
A suicide car bomb outside a Pakistani election candidate's office killed 37 people in the violent northwest on Saturday, the last day of campaigning for an election meant to complete a transition to civilian rule...
Separately, police in the south of the country said they had foiled another attack planned for polling day on Monday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:41:21
BADABER, Pakistan... A showdown is shaping up in Pakistan's turbulent northwest between secular-minded ethnic Pashtuns and those who support Taliban-style Islamists - a conflict that is likely to sharpen regardless of which side wins Monday's elections...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 22:03:39
Q & A: Pakistan elections...
Police Riot
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:51:08
NORTHGLENN, Colo... Undercover police officers posing as flower deliverymen on Valentine' Day arrested 23 people with outstanding warrants... "Honestly it didn't click with me until I heard, 'Northglenn police' and then he pulled out the badge and I thought, 'Damn you guys are good,'..."
Communication Breakdown
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:49:17
HAYWARD, Calif... Authorities have arrested a [45yo male] prolific 911 cell phone caller who is believed to have made more than 27,000 emergency calls... caller responded to emergency operators with bodily noises, muttering and pressing beep tones...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:07:01
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
US Army Air Force 2nd Lt.
John F. Lubben,
of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.
US Army Air Force Sgt.
Albert A. Forgue,
of North Providence, R.I.
US Army Air Force Sgt.
Charles L. Spiegel,
of Chicago, Ill.
will be buried on April 18 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.... On Dec. 12, 1944, these men crewed an A-20J Havoc aircraft departing from Coullomiers, France, to bomb enemy targets near Wollseifen, Germany. The aircraft was last seen entering a steep dive near Cologne, Germany. Several searches and investigations of this area and reviews of wartime documents failed to provide information concerning the incident. In 1975, a German company clearing wartime mines and unexploded ordnance near Simmerath, Germany, reported the discovery of a gravesite northeast of Simmerath where American servicemembers were buried. U.S. officials evaluated the remains and determined they represented three individuals, but they could not make identifications at that time. The remains were subsequently buried as unknowns in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium. In 2003, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was notified that a group of German citizens had information correlating the three servicemembers who were buried as unknowns with the crew from the 1944 A-20J crash. Based on that information, JPAC exhumed the three unknown graves from the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in 2005....
Mars
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:53:18
The Red Planet was too salty to sustain life for much of its history, according to the latest evidence gathered by one of the US rovers on Mars' surface... would have made it inhospitable to even the toughest microbes...
US Military
reuters.com/ ... 22:43:56
The United States will probably have more troops in Iraq this summer than it did before pouring in forces last year -- even after a planned drawdown, a U.S. general said on Friday...
It came from the sky
reuters.com/ ... 22:44:25
The United States will have the chance to shoot down a disabled U.S. spy satellite from next Wednesday, after the space shuttle Atlantis ends its current mission... Each missile costs about $10 million but the U.S. government did not yet have an estimate of the cost of the shootdown operation...
reuters.com/ ... 22:21:52
The United States pledged on Friday to compensate countries if debris lands on their territory from a dying U.S. spy satellite that the Pentagon plans to shoot down...
Staying Healthy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:07
Egyptian police have
stepped up arrests of persons suspected of having HIV,
detaining four men this month in a crackdown that violates basic human rights, two international rights groups said Friday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:21:27
Obesity is on its way to being deadlier than smoking as a cause of cancer...
In the Line of Duty
kesq.com/ ... 22:17:48
Thousands have gathered to pay an emotional farewell to slain Los Angeles SWAT Officer Randal Simmons. Simmons was remembered today as a deeply religious family man who went above and beyond the duties of a good cop, dedicating his life to protecting others as well as helping poor children escape inner-city streets... killed last week in a standoff-shootout at a San Fernando Valley home...
Why People Go Vegan
upi.com/ ... 22:17:23
A California prosecutor filed animal cruelty charges Friday against two former employees of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co... The U.S. Department of Agriculture shut down the Chino, Calif., slaughterhouse last week after a video from the Humane Society of the United States showed slaughterhouse workers at the Southern California facility forcing disabled cows to their feet using sticks, electric prods and water hoses...
World Water
washingtonpost.com/ ... 22:14:12
Human activities are affecting every square mile of the world's oceans, according to a study by a team of American, British and Canadian researchers who mapped the severity of the effects from pole to pole... details how humans are reshaping the seas through overfishing, air and water pollution, commercial shipping and other activities... The team of scientists analyzed factors that included warming ocean temperatures because of greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient runoff and fishing. They found that the areas under the most stress are "the North and Norwegian seas, South and East China seas, Eastern Caribbean, North American eastern seaboard, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Bering Sea, and the waters around Sri Lanka." Some marine ecosystems are under acute pressure, the scientists concluded, including sea mounts, mangrove swamps, sea grass and coral reefs. Almost half of all coral reefs, they wrote, "experience medium high to very high impact" from humans...
History - still with us
ap.google.com/ ... 22:13:05
Representatives for Australian Aborigines confirmed plans Friday to launch the first compensation lawsuits since a landmark government apology earlier this week for past abuses...
[They couldn't have just replied, "Oh, that's all right!"]
Animal Companions
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:56:02
A South Korean company says it has taken its first order for the cloning of a pet dog... A woman from the United States wants her dead pitbull terrier - called Booger - re-created... RNL Bio is charging the woman, from California, $150,000 (£76,000)... using tissue extracted from its ear before it died...
[Can we stand a scientific-commercial first named BOOGER the 2nd!??]
She is said to have been particularly attached to the dog, after it saved her life when another dog attacked her and bit off her arm.
[What she needs is a cloned arm...]
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:52:18
Burma's military government is moving hundreds of zoo animals from Rangoon to Naypyidaw, the country's new capital... In recent years, Burma's entire government has been moved from Rangoon to shiny new buildings in Naypyidaw. The city has been built in the middle of an area of tropical scrubland, away from the main centres of population. But the military leadership appears to have felt that something was missing. After all, what capital city would be complete without a zoo?.. One zookeeper said the elephants had howled and refused to eat when their herd was split up....
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:54:14
Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Orissa have rejected the results of a fresh count of the tiger population. It shows that Orissa has between 37 to 53 of the 1,411 tigers in India. But authorities say a 2005 local census found 192 animals in the state...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:40
New York... Police say a [45yo male] Parks Department employee took his city-issued golf cart on a rampage, running over and killing five birds in a public park... Three pigeons and two seagulls...
World of Cultures
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:54:40
I was bear-hugged at the station by a sky-blue pixie in a Phrygian bonnet... Scores of them had descended on Angouleme and they were marauding through the town like a medieval army, bopping people on the head with soft clubs and the like. High jinks indeed. Who were this tribe of cerulean leprechauns? And why did I find their cavorting both familiar and annoying?..
World Without Borders
washingtonpost.com/ ... 23:04:46
Border Fence Would Slice Through Private Land... Families on U.S.-Mexico Line Fighting Plan... In the 240 years since the Spanish Crown granted Eloisa Tamez's colonial ancestors title to this flat, grassy expanse along the Rio Grande's northern bank, her family has steadily lost its holdings to the Mexican War of Independence, the U.S. annexation of Texas and the Great Depression. Now Tamez faces what could prove the final blow: The Department of Homeland Security has proposed building a section of the U.S-Mexico border fence mandated by Congress
directly through the last three acres of the family's original 12,000-acre tract...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:39
Sean Connery thinks a Scottish nation is a bonnie notion. How about Spain's Basque country becoming a REAL country? And what's wrong with a People's Republic of Vermont? Kosovo's looming independence raises all those questions and more. For starters: Why is statehood OK for some people but frowned on for others? After all, isn't the right to self-determination the essence of democracy itself? There are at least two dozen secessionist movements active in Europe alone, and scores of others agitating for sovereignty around the globe. All of them, experts warn, will be emboldened by Sunday's expected proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo...
US Election 2008
breitbart.tv/ ... 22:58:55
String of Crowd Fainting Incidents Hits Obama Rallies... Los Angeles Times on one of the six recent fainting incidents: "Barack Obama's first and only rally on election day came to a sudden and lengthy stop when a young woman in the Dartmouth College gym fainted, and was eventually rolled off on a gurney by emergency medical technicians. At first Obama half-narrated the episode, saying soothing things like, 'She's OK,' 'She's talking.' But the longer she lay on the floor, the quieter Obama got, standing on the podium, arms folded, looking worried as the medical crew worked..."
reuters.com/ ... 22:43:01
U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain accused President Vladimir Putin of preparing to lead a puppet government in Russia in a blistering critique on Friday...
[McCain... doing his part to keep the Cold War going....]
Big Nanny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:00:31
Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way. No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health England... But smokers' rights group Forest described the idea as "outrageous", given how much tax smokers already pay...
He said it was the inconvenience of getting a permit - as much as the cost - that would deter people from persisting with the smoking habit. You've got to get a form, a complex form - the government's good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph. It's a little bit of a problem to actually do it, so you have got to make a conscious decision every year to opt in to being a smoker.... 70% of smokers actually want to stop smoking. So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference..."
[It's enough to make one want to light up a big fat stinky free-world cigar in protest!]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:11
An
over-arching policy on supermarkets is needed if the government is to meet targets on obesity, waste and climate change,
an independent report has said... Sustainable Development Commission... suggests the food chain contributes about one-fifth of total UK greenhouse gas emissions...
Digital Whoops
reuters.com/ ... 22:35:10
A Moroccan computer engineer appeared in court on Friday charged with setting up a Facebook account in the name of King Mohammed's brother...
Digital Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 22:34:58
A high-speed wireless technology that is still in development promises to make mobile Web surfing about four times faster, but its impact on the embattled network equipment industry will be much less dramatic, according to industry executives... Long Term Evolution... promises to make everything from mobile-video sharing to music downloads speedier, but it may not show a visible boost in sales for the network equipment industry any time soon as the first networks are not expected for two years and many operators will wait longer, until the technology matures...
reuters.com/ ... 22:33:04
producers of an all-women directed interactive mobile phone film say it will be a "cinematic symphony of women's voices from around the world"... Women across the world are being asked to make a short film -- a "quick flick" -- between 40 seconds and four minutes long on a mobile phone and then send it via the internet to a London-based film director who will pull them all together. Apart from the overall theme "Overheated", there is no restriction on content or subject matter. "If it's hot, we'd like to see it..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:31:46
Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029...
[What's taking them so long? We're not THAT intelligent.... Oh, yeah... WE'RE the ones giving them intelligence... so far...]
Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil... "We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons..."
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 22:27:42
Super Bowl XLII... halftime show stars Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, who performed four of their best-known songs in a well-received 12-minute set... finds itself at the summit of Billboard's Top Pop Catalog chart with its "Greatest Hits," which shot up 196 percent in the week following the Super Bowl...
reuters.com/ ... 22:26:55
When the Mars Volta put out its latest album, "The Bedlam in Goliath," in January, the act gave its hardcore fans an option that is becoming increasingly popular -- and creative. Instead of a CD or digital version of the Universal album, fans could buy a $30 USB drive designed like a Ouija board planchette. The device comes with a digital-rights-management-free version of the album and the promise of more bonus materials in coming months. Users simply plug it into their computer's USB drive and then listen to the album or download it into their music library...
Keeping Time
reuters.com/ ... 22:22:47
U.S. physicists have made a clock so accurate it will neither gain nor lose even a second in more than 200 million years...
Print is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:32:30
More than 1 million copies of Suze Orman's "Women & Money" were downloaded after the announcement last week on Winfrey's television show that the e-book edition would be available for free on her Web site, http://www.oprah.com , for a period of 33 hours...
bloomberg.com/ ... 22:18:06
Tribune Co., Gannett Co., New York Times Co. and Hearst Corp., facing an industrywide decline in newspaper advertising sales, created an online venture to sell ads for local news Web sites...
People Die
ktuu.com/ ... 22:19:49
TURNAGAIN PASS, Alaska -- Two men are dead after an avalanche Friday afternoon near Mile 69 of the Seward Highway... a group of six people had been snowmachining on the backside of Turnagain Pass Mountain when the snow gave way...
reuters.com/ ... 22:16:36
Missing millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett was declared legally dead on Friday by a Chicago court five months after the airplane he was flying disappeared over Nevada... his estate was "vast" and worth more than eight figures -- or multiple millions of dollars...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:32:10
An Internet committee investigating suspicious domain name transactions has found no evidence that insider information is being used to snatch desired Internet addresses to make money off the individual or business that actually wants to register them... said the 120 claims of "domain name front running" it reviewed generally resulted from misunderstandings about how the domain name industry works...
computerworld.com/ ... 22:15:50
Disappointed Mac users today confirmed that Apple Inc.'s latest Leopard update does not let them back up with Time Machine to drives plugged into an Airport Extreme router...
[As a DOS person... I have no idea what any of this means except "does not let them back up"....]
a feature that lets users attach an external USB drive to the router and access that disk via the wireless network...
theregister.co.uk/ ... 22:12:29
[No date on article... yesterday?]
Amazon Web Services was struck by a temporary outage today, dragging the thousands of web sites which rely on its hosted storage down with it... Hardest hit by the outage was the crowd of "web 2.0" startups that lean on hosted storage to keep costs down, such as the messaging service Twitter. But even the New York Times, which uses S3 to store articles from its historical archives, was spitting out internal server error messages...
Free Expression
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:56:22
Danish MPs have cancelled a trip to Iran after Tehran demanded they apologise for the republication of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:56:03
The Iranian government has intervened to try to stop the screening of a film in the Netherlands about the Koran... The Iranian justice minister, Gholam Hussein Elham... said
freedom of speech should not be used as a cover for attacking moral and religious values...
MindfulWebworks ... 22:10:22
Articles and cartoons repeated from the blog heap to give context to political cartoons from the days of the worldwide cartoon riots, Feb 2006...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:08:56
Hundreds of Danish Muslims have been demonstrating in Copenhagen against the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad they consider offensive. The cartoon depicts the Prophet with a bomb in his turban... Protestors marched in the capital's streets shouting "God is Great!" and
"Freedom of speech is like a plague!"...
[There you go folks... the evil enemy bastard spawn of Satan anti-human right monsters have made their position clear.]
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
reviews.cnet.com/ ... 22:30:31
CNET'S QUICK GUIDE: HD DVD vs. Blu-ray... March 21, 2006; updated February 6, 2008... Both display movies in full high-definition resolution... video and audio quality of both formats can be truly spectacular when shown on an HDTV with a quality home theater audio system... combo players that can handle both formats are available, but they currently cost more than actually purchasing two players...
reuters.com/ ... 22:28:50
Toshiba... is planning to give up on its HD DVD format... conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony...
reuters.com/ ... 22:01:47
Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Friday abandoned the flailing HD DVD format, potentially ending a war over next-generation DVDs as it joined Best Buy and Netflix in supporting rival Blu-ray technology...
Valentine!
reuters.com/ ... 22:01:14
Nearly 600 Mexican couples tied the knot in a mass Valentine's Day wedding by the U.S. border on Thursday, many of them undocumented migrants who met while working illegally in the United States...
Transport Pre-Automation
reuters.com/ ... 22:00:44
An advertisement on Beijing's subway proclaiming "Squeezed in?! Go and buy a car then!" has angered passengers who said it only encourages traffic jams...
Sportsmanship
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:41:37
As China prepares to dazzle the world at the Beijing Olympics, an uninvited guest is showing up early and threatening to mar the spectacle: free speech. A political row erupted in Europe when some Olympic committees and officials tried to muzzle athletes from speaking out about human rights and other sensitive issues at the games...
reuters.com/ ... 22:00:18
Hundreds of shirts and caps... proclaiming the victory of the New England Patriots -- when the American football team actually lost the latest Super Bowl -- have ended up in the hands of poor Nicaraguan children... "The children are the winners," said Miriam Diaz, of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization... World Vision has links with the National Football League, or NFL, and every year helps out poor children in Latin America and Africa with the unwanted "winners" shirts of the team that actually loses the Super Bowl...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:57:55
China is closing 10% of Beijing's petrol stations to improve air quality ahead of the Olympics in August. By the end of May, 144 will shut because they are not expected to meet higher environmental standards...
Reasons for Repeal
reuters.com/ ... 21:59:15
The
American College of Physicians,
the second-largest doctors group in the United States...
has endorsed using marijuana for medical purposes,
urging the government to roll back a prohibition on using it to treat patients and supporting studies into its medical applications. issued a policy statement on medical marijuana this week after it was approved by its governing body, the group said on Friday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:51:55
Cameron [Texas] police say a toilet confiscated in a drug investigation yielded bags of cocaine... back-hoe dug out the sewer line, which led to more bags of what police say is cocaine...
Unclear on the Concept
reuters.com/ ... 22:44:56
Democrats accuse Bush of fanning terrorism fears...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:46:39
CORSICANA, Texas... driver who apparently took her work rules very seriously abandoned a bus full of former prisoners along a highway because her hours for the day were over... "In 31 years in law enforcement I've never seen anything like this..." Officers arrived to find the former prisoners milling around the bus... "Their behavior was exemplary..."
Digital Liberty
reuters.com/ ... 22:34:03
Russia's president-in-waiting Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday media freedoms are guaranteed in Russia -- by the Internet... told journalists he went online to check news and views at the beginning and end of each working day. "There is news from the main channels, regional channels, there is news from foreign channels and finally there is news produced, so to say, on media sites which hold opposition views against the authorities.... They can post all their clips and all their speeches there, generally they say unpleasant things about the authorities.... This guarantees the independence of the mass media, in my opinion..."
[Hmmmm....]
Most Russians receive their news and information from television which is tightly controlled by the state...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:45:15
UK net firms are resisting government suggestions that they should do more to monitor what customers do online. The industry association for net providers said legal and technical barriers prohibit them from being anything other than a "mere conduit". The declaration comes as the government floats the idea of persistent pirates being denied net access. And in the US one net supplier has admitted to "degrading" traffic from some file-sharing networks...
THU 2008-FEB-14
Nature's Aftermath
tulsaworld.com/ ... 23:39:04
Like most Tulsans, Mike Moncrief expected storm debris crews to make a stop at his home, which fronts Riverside Drive near downtown. But what he and his girlfriend, Donna Rozensky, were unprepared for was the damage to their 75-year-old magnolia tree. "We feel like we got raped..." Councilor Maria Barnes said that the day after the tree was trimmed, it appeared that crews cut more than was needed. "What is puzzling me is what made them go up there and cut a tree that was still living..."
the contractor collecting the storm debris is charging by the cubic yard, which gives an incentive to cut as much as possible...
"The tree won't be the same in our lifetime, or probably not in the next generation's lifetime..."
1960s - still with us
seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 23:28:27
The man at the center of a John F. Kennedy mystery is revealing new details, including his name and his birthday -- an astonishing date should he indeed be related to the Kennedy clan. Jack Worthington agreed to this, but only after his name was revealed by a Vancouver, B.C., publication... The British Columbia man is asking the Kennedys to provide a DNA sample so tests can be run to determine whether there is a match with the 35th president of the United States... Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963 -- Worthington's second birthday... mother was from Texas and had been introduced to Kennedy by his vice president, Lyndon Johnson...
Theft
informationweek.com/ ... 23:05:00
A Washington, D.C., woman has sued Best Buy for $54 million, claiming the consumer electronics retailer lost her computer and then tried to cover up the disappearance... after trying for six months to find out what happened to the notebook she brought back to Best Buy for repairs... [says] the computer was stolen... employees fabricated records to hide the theft, and lied for weeks about the repair status of the computer... claims Best Buy was indifferent and insulting in its response...
Supernatural Threats
reuters.com/ ... 23:02:21
Chanting
"Death to the cartoonist",
dozens of Islamist students burned the Danish flag in southern Pakistan on Thursday after the republication of a caricature of Prophet Mohammad...
[SCREW THESE EVIL FANATICAL PSYCHORELIGOUS TYRANTS AND DEATHMONGERS!]
Fire
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:58:30
A restaurant fire in eastern China early Friday killed 11 people and injured at least four others...
Violence
myfoxny.com/ ... 23:18:06
attacker who hacked a Manhattan therapist to death and seriously hurt a colleague who came to her aid...
reuters.com/ ... 22:56:42
A black-clad man fired into a lecture hall packed with students at an Illinois university on Thursday, killing five people... four women and one man... and wounding 18... 4 were in critical condition... before shooting himself dead...
stepped onto the lecturer's stage near the end of a mid-afternoon geology class at Northern Illinois University and began shooting down the room... a former student... a sociology major.... no police record or previous contact with police...
Modern Medicine can be Dangerous
reuters.com/ ... 22:55:01
The lives of 22,000 patients could have been saved if U.S. regulators had been quicker to remove a Bayer AG drug used to stem bleeding during open heart surgery, according to a medical researcher interviewed by CBS Television's 60 Minutes program...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:52
WELCH, W.Va... allegedly robbed the Hillbilly Market... tried to hide his face with a pair of underwear... witnesses identified the suspect, despite the disguise...
Supernatural Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:24:27
Human Rights Watch has appealed to Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of a woman convicted of witchcraft...
The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read... was not even read out to her... Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent...
The US-based group is asking the Saudi ruler to void Ms Falih's conviction and to bring charges against the religious police who detained her and are alleged to have mistreated her...
Pakistan
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:23:12
A majority of Pakistanis say stability and security in Pakistan would improve if President Pervez Musharraf resigned...
Under Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:58:15
Iranian authorities banned five Web sites that comment on current events for "poisoning" public opinion ahead of the crucial mid-March parliamentary elections...
reuters.com/ ... 13:11:55
China has added ghosts, monsters and other things that go bump in the night to its list of banned video and audio content in an intensified crackdown ahead of the Beijing Olympics...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:08:39
The U.S. has shared new intelligence with the International Atomic Energy Agency that it claims is evidence Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon... also gave the IAEA permission to confront Iran with at least some of the information in an attempt to pry details out of the Islamic republic...
Iraq
reuters.com/ ... 13:06:29
Iran has postponed a fourth round of talks with the United States in Baghdad on improving security in Iraq, giving no reason for the delay... A U.S. embassy official said it increasingly appeared that Tehran did not want to hold the dialogue...
Iraq later said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would visit Baghdad on March 2 for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other senior officials in what would be the first visit by a president of the Islamic Republic...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:25:33
After suffering its worst winter in 50 years, Tajikistan has finally appealed to the United Nations for aid. But a total loss of electricity is still a possibility, and could have terrible consequences... Tajikistan is well versed in hardship. It is Central Asia's poorest nation. In the last decade alone, it lived through a civil war, has been shaken by several earthquakes, and been hit by severe avalanches. Energy has always been scarce here, life has always been hard and yet, for Ermukhmad and millions of others, this winter has simply been too much. It only took a few weeks of cold weather to throw this country decades back in time...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:17:39
The severe winter weather that has caused chaos in China in recent weeks has cost the economy more than $15bn (£7.6bn), says the Chinese government...
reuters.com/ ... 13:01:03
An earthquake shook southern Greece just after 12 p.m. (5 a.m. EST) on Thursday and was felt as far away as the Egyptian capital Cairo but there were no reports of casualties... 6.5 on the Richter scale... Some two hours later an aftershock, measured at 6.4, hit the same area... struck at a depth of 30 km (19 miles) which minimized the possibility of major damage. The aftershock further minimized the risk of more strong tremors... "It was not as strong as other times but we felt it," a local farmer in Kalamata said...
reuters.com/ ... 12:55:47
An earthquake shook the Lake Kivu region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, further damaging buildings hit by quakes earlier this month... magnitude 5.4, followed two quakes that hit Africa's Great Lakes region on February 3, killing more than 40 people and injuring hundreds, mostly in southern Rwanda...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 11:31:57
Smoking is killing nearly a million people a year in India, exacting a higher toll than previously thought, but allied problems are often different to those seen in the West... Indian smokers prefer traditional leaf-wrapped, hand-rolled "beedis" to manufactured filter brands; are more likely to die of tuberculosis than cancer; and, almost never quit... "The extreme risks from smoking that we found surprised us, as smokers in India start at a later age than those in Europe or America and smoke less..."
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:08:04
Security officials on Thursday reported uncovering plots to kill President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and bomb foreign embassies, just as opposition leaders were calling for more protests urging the unpopular Philippines leader to resign...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:07:48
The purported leader of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq called in a new posting on a militant Web site on Thursday for attacks on Israel and proposed that Iraq's territory be a "launching pad" to seize Jerusalem...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:07:12
When twin blasts ravaged crowded pet markets earlier this month, Iraqi authorities offered a chilling account: Mentally disabled women carried the hidden explosives perhaps as unwitting bombers for al-Qaida in Iraq. The U.S. military on Wednesday brought another stunning twist to the plot - that the acting director of a psychiatric hospital could have betrayed his ethics and turned over patient details to insurgents blamed for the attack, which killed nearly 100 people...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:06:54
KABUL, Afghanistan... Airstrikes and a gunbattle involving U.S.-led coalition forces killed at least four suspected Taliban insurgents, the military and an Afghan official said Thursday... targeted a group of insurgents on motorcycles and killed "a number" of militants, the coalition said...
reuters.com/ ... 11:07:30
Hezbollah leader Imad Moughniyah, on the United States' most wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday... Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah, who was head of the Hezbollah security network during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, by planting a bomb in his car.... Israel denied any involvement... "For the U.S. administration Imad was the most wanted terrorist before Osama Bin Laden appeared. For many years, many different teams were looking for him, trying to exact the price for the catalogue of attacks he allegedly carried out..."
Cold War - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:07:30
British police said Thursday that interim tests indicate Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, a presidential candidate in the ex-Soviet republic who claimed he was targeted for assassination, had died of natural causes...
reuters.com/ ... 11:06:07
Russia expressed surprise
on Tuesday that the United States had scrambled fighter jets at the weekend to intercept strategic Russian bombers, one of which flew over a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific...
Russian bombers have ramped up their flights near U.S. territory and U.S. naval assets over the past year, demonstrating their long-range strike capability...
Sex can be... disturbing
reuters.com/ ... 11:04:53
Alarmed by polls showing one in four Thai teens will celebrate St. Valentine's Day by having sex, police plan to swoop on motels, malls and parks to ensure youths behave themselves on the "Day of Love..."
Disturbing Family Patterns
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:46:46
ROCHESTER, Pa... A woman who is seven months pregnant is accused of smashing a beer bottle against a bartender's head after she was refused another drink... bartender's ear was partially detached... two staples and 28 stitches to reattach the top of the ear...
reuters.com/ ... 11:04:35
A woman in Germany who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who's the father...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:09
Army Sgt.
Corey E. Spates,
21, of LaGrange, Ga., died Feb. 10 in Diyala Province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:39:58
Army Staff Sgt.
Javares J. Washington,
27, of Pensacola, Fla., died Feb. 11 at Camp Buehring in Kuwait City, Kuwait, from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident. He was assigned to the 6th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. The incident is under investigation.
Orbiting Overhead
wesh.com/ ... 23:11:34
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun...
Cosmology
reuters.com/ ... 22:54:46
Astronomers and amateur stargazers have used an unusual technique to find a solar system that closely resembles our own and say it may be a new and more productive way to scour the universe for planets -- and life... microlensing... "Microlensing works by using the gravity of the star and the planet to bend and focus light rays from a star behind it..."
Evolution Isn't Easy
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:37
Genes that helped early humans adapt to cold climates may be driving metabolism-related diseases such as obesity or diabetes in many countries...
It came from the sky
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:12:29
The US military is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite due to crash land on Earth in the next few weeks...
Dinosaurs -- still with us
reuters.com/ ... 12:54:28
Fossils from two newly discovered meat-eating dinosaurs that lived in the Sahara Desert 110 million years ago paint a fearsome picture of life in Africa's Cretaceous period, which appears to have been teeming with unusual carnivores...
Kryptops palaios,
a short-snouted, hyena-like beast, and
Eocarcharia dinops,
a shark-toothed, bony-browed killer in a 2000 expedition... Both were about 25 feet in length -- and on the prowl for meat...
US Military
breitbart.com/ ... 23:11:59
More than 24,000 interrogations of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo prison camp were videotaped, though the US military has not confirmed the videos exist, a report said Thursday...
reuters.com/ ... 22:57:02
Four U.S. Marines based in southwest Japan have been charged with raping a Japanese woman last October... days after the arrest of another Marine for suspected rape of a schoolgirl on the southern island of Okinawa...
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:34:19
This week the Army and Air Force announced a decrease, while the Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard announced an increase. The net collective result is
352 fewer reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 94,972, including both units and individual augmentees....
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 12:52:27
Scientists have discovered a promising new method to fight a range of diseases by
boosting the body's natural defenses against viruses....
The researchers inactivated two genes in mice that repress production of interferon, a protein that serves as a cell's first line of defense against viruses. The mice produced much higher levels of interferon, which had the effect of preventing the viruses from reproducing... The process of inactivating genes -- known as "knocking out" genes -- cannot currently be done in people, but the scientists said they hope that drugs can be designed to affect the two genes in order to protect people from viral infection...
reuters.com/ ... 11:33:37
A new study adds to evidence that mercury-containing dental fillings do not harm children's brain development... researchers in Portugal and the U.S...
reuters.com/ ... 11:31:09
"Good" bacteria commonly found in probiotic yogurts and drinks may be fatal for people with severe cases of pancreatitis...
Humans normally carry several pounds of bacteria in their intestines, and they are key to digestion, immune system function and possibly play other beneficial roles. They can also out-compete "bad" bacteria that may cause disease...
reuters.com/ ... 11:30:08
Black pepper could lead to better treatments for a disfiguring skin condition that affects about 1 percent of the world's population... piperine -- the compound that gives black pepper its spicy, pungent flavor -- and its synthetic derivatives helped stimulate pigmentation in the skin of people with vitiligo... particularly effective when combined with phototherapy treatment using ultraviolet radiation...
The disease, to which pop star Michael Jackson has in the past attributed his gradual skin whitening, destroys the melanin which gives skin its color. Melanin protects from ultraviolet rays so victims run a much higher risk of skin cancer. Vitiligo is of particular concern in people with darker skins...
World Zookeeping
reuters.com/ ... 12:55:17
Sydney's premier zoo is celebrating the news that its 9-year-old Asian elephant is pregnant, but animal rights groups are shocked that the zoo has let a juvenile elephant fall pregnant... Erica Martin, Asia Pacific Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare... said that under captive breeding plans elephants should be at least 11-years-old before conceiving... birth would be the first by a captive elephant in Australia...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:27:36
Eighty-four spoon-billed sandpipers have been discovered in a coastal stretch of Myanmar, offering hope for saving the endangered birds, a conservation group said Thursday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:23:56
A tropical garden is opening in downtown Washington, brightly colored plants, warmth and humidity, and hundreds of butterflies fluttering around visitors. Best known for dinosaur bones and a giant stuffed elephant, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on Friday is opening a new, permanent, butterfly pavilion...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:23:24
CLEVELAND... Animal doctors are using human drugs on a pair of zoo gorillas with heart disease...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:23:07
A fossil found in Wyoming has apparently resolved a long-standing question about when bats gained their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night. The answer: after they started flying...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:20:28
Conservationists welcomed an Indian government plan to create eight new reserves to protect the country's dwindling tiger population...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:20:06
Firefighters from the South Florida city of Weston spent a sopping hour in pouring rain Tuesday trying to extract a kitten squeezed in the undercarriage of a stranger's Volvo... At some point, the cat escaped undetected... They finally gave up and headed back to the station, answering at least two more calls on their way. Five hours after the saga began, the elusive cat reappeared: At the station, in their fire truck's rear wheel well...
World Energy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:17:17
Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA has announced it is suspending sales of crude to Exxon Mobil, in response to legal action brought by the US firm... Exxon wants compensation following the nationalisation of a project in Venezuela's largest oil reserve - a demand the US has said it supports. The firm receives about 2% of its supply from Venezuela...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:16:49
Ukraine and Russia have reached an agreement over Kiev's huge unpaid gas bill... from Thursday Ukraine would start repaying its debt to Russia's Gazprom. Russia earlier threatened to switch off supplies at 1500 GMT if Kiev had not paid its $1.5bn (£770m) gas bill. Ukraine had disputed the bill, saying it was just over $1bn...
reuters.com/ ... 11:05:14
U.S. scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity, making enough current to recharge a cell phone or ensure that a small MP3 music player never runs out of power. If made into a shirt, the fabric could harness power from its wearer simply walking around or even from a slight breeze...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
afp.google.com/ ... 23:07:27
A Saskatchewan appeal's court upheld a decision that the smell of burnt marijuana is not evidence of illegal drug possession since by definition the proof has gone up in smoke...
canada.com/ ... 23:07:14
Police seized 353 marijuana plants after executing a search warrant at a home in Duhamel, northeast of Gatineau...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 23:07:03
A judge condemned politicians for downgrading cannabis yesterday as he jailed an "inspirational" teenager whose addiction to the drug turned him into a heroin dealer...
[ummmm... yeah, sure....]
ajc.com/ ... 23:06:45
Travel writer Rick Steves and the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington have formed a partnership to tackle a topic they call the equivalent of the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s: the criminalization of marijuana...
Print is Dead
reuters.com/ ... 22:53:54
The New York Times said on Thursday it will eliminate 100 newsroom jobs as the newspaper girds for a weaker economy and an overall decline in print advertising and circulation revenues...
Unclear on the Concept
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:16
A device that delivers Internet video on the TV...
People Die
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:19
Between 1995 and 2007, at least 82 children and adolescents in the United States died as a result of playing the "choking game..." also called the "pass-out game" or "space monkey," involves self-strangulation or strangulation by another with the goal of achieving a hypoxia-induced euphoric state... 82 deaths involved youth between 6 and 19 years of age with an average age of 13.3 years... Nearly 87% of the victims were male...
[Maybe it's just Darwinism at work....]
Theory of Education
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:46
A Swedish preschool has been criticized for banning its children from wearing striped and spotted clothing since the patterns give one of its teachers severe migraine attacks...
US Election 2008
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:26:02
The former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is expected to endorse his former rival John McCain...
Copy Rights
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:24:49
Music performers could see a big boost to their lifetime earnings under planned changes to music rights proposed by the European Commission. The Commission wants to extend the copyright period for music performers from 50 years to 95 years...
Socialism Threat
reuters.com/ ... 13:12:17
Most Democrats say "socialized medicine" would be better than the current U.S. health care system, while most Republicans say it would be worse, a poll by the Harvard School of Public Health showed on Thursday...
US Congress
reuters.com/ ... 13:05:41
The Congress defied a White House veto threat on Wednesday and voted to ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques...
reuters.com/ ... 13:05:31
In a victory for President George W. Bush, the House of Representatives on Wednesday defeated a Democratic bid to temporarily extend an expiring spy law instead of replacing it with a new measure that also would immunize telephone companies from lawsuits...
Mass Media is Dead
reuters.com/ ... 13:05:04
Film and television writers voted decisively on Tuesday to lift their 100-day-old strike against major studios and return to work on Wednesday, formally ending the worst labor clash to hit Hollywood in 20 years...
Big Brother
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:13:44
UK... The government is being urged to scrap a
database of all pupils' school records
amid data security fears. Every 14-year-old in England will have their
exam results and personal details
held on a central database. They will each be given a lifelong "learner number" - and employers will be able to check their exam results on a tamper-proof "online CV". Officials insist the system is secure but
critics say the government can not be trusted with personal data...
Transport Future
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:58:02
OK, so the Swiss have invented a car that runs on land and underwater. But did they REALLY have to make it a convertible?.. Swiss designer Rinspeed Inc... CEO Frank Rinderknecht, a self-professed Bond fan, said he has been waiting 30 years to recreate the car he saw Roger Moore use to drive off of a dock... James Bond's amphibious Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:12:44
An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car that runs on compressed air... producing no emissions at all in town...
["no emissions," except, of course, for whatever was involved in the production of the energy that compressed the air....]
five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500... carbon-fibre tanks... can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes - much quicker than a battery car... Alternatively, it can be plugged into the mains for four hours and an on-board compressor will do the job...
Transport Automated
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:10:13
A six-month trial that could revolutionise the way luggage is tracked and monitored has begun at London's Heathrow airport... uses radio frequency identification (RFID) to tag baggage...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 12:09:01
An underground movement of gay Orthodox Jews in Israel has created a Web site to help homosexuals cope with living in a strict, religious community that is often hostile to their lifestyle...
Valentine!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:40
Some greeting-card Web sites had trouble meeting demand on Valentine's Day, although one apparently prepared for the rush and did better than usual Thursday...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:22:19
...hyper inflation in the flower business, which occurs in the run up to Valentine's Day: an economic burden grudgingly borne by men. However, it makes Nadezhda, who owns a little florist's stall in the underground station near the coffee shop, a fan of the free market economy. She's expecting 2008 to be her most lucrative year. "In Russia we have a saying: every flower has its buyer..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:11:32
The odds are stacked against
Valentine's Day
in Hamas-ruled Gaza: The holiday is
considered "haram," or forbidden by Islam,
most residents don't have money for frills and the requisite red roses are grown only beyond a closed border with Israel...
Hamas police looked the other way despite the religious taboo, reflecting the Islamic militants' policy of not going against popular consensus when it comes to social norms...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:53:14
The official New York City condom has a different look and a sexy new slogan:
New Yorkers are being encouraged to "get some" on Valentine's Day...
reuters.com/ ... 12:08:17
Valentines Day in South Korea means chocolates, romantic dinners and a high-tech
mobile phone device that can secretly check the passion in the voice of a lover...
Digital Threat
reuters.com/ ... 11:38:33
Security systems can now block the first computer viruses attack on cell phones, but the mobile industry sees new risks stemming from upcoming open software platforms such as Google's Android...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:38:19
Mendacious machines controlled by hackers that reroute Internet traffic from infected computers to fraudulent Web sites are increasingly being used to launch attacks, according to a paper published this week by researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc...
Digital Business
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:14:25
Rules covering broadband firms could soon be scrapped in some UK regions. The European Commission has given permission for the regulations to lapse following a review of competition among broadband wholesalers in the UK. The review revealed that in 64% of UK markets competition was fierce enough to prevent any broadband wholesaler winning a dominant position...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:13:58
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is reportedly in talks with Yahoo about a possible deal that would stave off an approach from Microsoft...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:37:18
The race is on: A consortium of 32 companies has joined a classic battle for primacy with their demonstration of mobile phones to compete with devices that will run Google Inc.'s fledgling Android operating system... The LiMo Foundation - which includes such software companies as McAfee Corp. and Purple Labs and telecommunications giants such as Samsung - showed off 18 handsets Wednesday at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona. Some of the devices are ready for market. Just two days earlier, also in Barcelona, chip makers Texas Instruments Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. began demonstrating prototypes of handsets based on Android - for which no one offered a launch date...
reuters.com/ ... 11:33:59
Answers Corp, operator of online information site Answers.com, said it has scrapped plans for a stock offering, casting doubt on its ability to fund a proposed $100 million acquisition of reference Web site Dictionary.com's parent...
Digital Liberty
reuters.com/ ... 11:33:06
Legislation designed to prevent broadband Internet providers from unreasonable interference with subscribers' access to content was introduced on Wednesday by a senior U.S. lawmaker... Rep. Edward Markey... an issue that pits open-Internet advocates against some service providers such as Comcast Corp, who say they need to take reasonable steps to manage traffic on their networks... Massachusetts Democrat, said his bill was aimed at preserving the "open architecture" of the Internet and preventing content providers from being subjected to "unreasonably discriminatory practices by broadband network providers." "Our goal is to ensure that the next generation of Internet innovators will have the same opportunity, the same unfettered access to Internet content, services and applications that fostered the developers of Yahoo, Netscape and Google..."
would require regulators at the Federal Communications Commission to study the issue and hold public hearings...
Theory of Justice
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:30:09
A woman who
spent 13 years in prison
after being convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter has been
exonerated by forensic evidence
showing she died of a cocaine overdose... [mother] insisted that a former boyfriend was responsible... "...My daughter was not a drug user ... My daughter was murdered...." newly analyzed DNA evidence placed [mother's] former boyfriend... in the bedroom of her daughter around the time the girl died...
reason.com/ ... 11:17:10
...Mississippi District Attorney Forrest Allgood decided early on in both cases that he had his man, and little could convince him otherwise. One of those men is Kennedy Brewer, a mentally handicapped man who served more than a decade on Mississippi's Death Row, then served another five years even after DNA evidence had cleared him. Allgood insisted on retrying Brewer anyway, arguing that bite marks on the little girl's body matched Brewer's teeth. Curiously, Allgood resisted testing the DNA from the crime scene against that of a man he had earlier convicted of an eerily similar crimeanother rape and murder of a young girl in the same area. It now seems clear why Allgood resisted the test. As it turns out, the man he'd convicted for that crime, Levon Brooks, is innocent, too... Had Allgood not fixated on Brooks after the first murder, he may have been able to prevent the second. Instead, we have two little girls dead, one man wrongly incarcerated for nearly two decades, and another who came perilously close to execution. And of course, there's also the matter of a two-time child rapist and murderer running free for 15 years...
People Live
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:43:57
JERUSALEM... Mariam Amash... recently applied for a new Israeli identity card, said she was born 120 years ago - a claim, if confirmed, that would make her the oldest person in the world. The Guinness Book of Records currently lists 114-year-old Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Indiana, as holding that title... a spokeswoman for Israel's Interior Ministry, confirmed that Amash, from the Israeli Arab village of Jisr a-Zarka, is listed in the population registry as having been born in 1888. "We're just not sure it's correct..." listing was based on a birth certificate issued by Turkish authorities who ruled the region at the time... 10 sons and one daughter, her eldest, now in her late 80s... about 120 grandchildren, 250 great-grandchildren and 20 great-great grandchildren... is a "healthy, active woman. She walks each day and makes sure she drinks at least one glass of olive oil... People like to come to her house. She talks to us about the old days. She knows the history since the Turkish times..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:18:43
5-year-old kindergartner is being credited with saving his mother's life when he dialed 911 after she choked on a potato chip... An officer performed the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge the chip...
wcco.com/ ... 11:12:58
LAKE ELMO, Minn... loved ones were planning her funeral and saying their last goodbyes... The doctors told their family: "There's nothing we can do, the bleed is so bad and the pressure is so bad on her brain that she will never wake up and I'm sorry to tell you that. I mean those were his words exactly..." when the 65-year-old appeared to wake up from her coma... This week the Kupferschmidts are planning for Rae's homecoming from the hospital four weeks after they had planned her funeral... he and her family say they now see every day as a divine gift. "I still don't know what my task is here on this Earth, but I know God's not done with me yet. How else could you explain everything that has happened to me?.."
Snail Mail is dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:10:38
Nearly 79 years after it was sent, a postcard of Yellowstone National Park's Tower Falls arrived in a Boston mailbox recently with the one-word message, "Greetings..." intended recipient had long since left... sender was not identified by name... [Current homeowner] doesn't think there is anyone left in the family to pass the postcard to... somehow got into the mail and was sent with a one cent stamp from Seattle earlier this year...
Just Random Chance
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:09:32
...agitated when he found out he'd have to make the 150-mile trip to Lansing to collect his lottery winnings... $150... owner of the store... set him straight: It was worth not $150, but a cool quarter of a million...
Marriage Today
reuters.com/ ... 11:08:46
Martinez is a "honey trapper" -- or as he likes to call himself, an "integrity tester" -- one of a growing team of private detectives who are hired by wives, husbands or partners to test the loyalty of their loved ones. "It's growing all the time..."
Pop Culture
reuters.com/ ... 11:08:25
animated "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" in movie theaters in August... August 15, ahead of the fall debut of an animated TV series of the same name on cable television's Cartoon Network and TNT... "I felt there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell..."
[Alas....]
WED 2008-FEB-13
Broadcast is Dead
deadlinehollywooddaily.com/ ... 00:00:33
On Tuesday, members of the Writers Guilds East and West voted by a 92.5% margin to lift the restraining order that was invoked on November 5th. The strike is over...
TUE 2008-FEB-12
Crack is Crazy
miamiherald.com/ ... 19:05:51
A woman who had just smoked crack ran several red lights along a Miami street Sunday night before careening into an SUV and setting off crashes involving four other vehicles... four people were injured... smashed into a Nissan Pathfinder with a mother and her sons, ages 5 and 3, inside... flipped over, hitting a Toyota... That car hit another car, which then slammed into two cars in the westbound lanes...
Prison Sucks
cnn.com/ ... 15:02:03
Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago... "Corruption had gone to an extreme.... They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren't taking money and beating each other up..."
Police Riot
myfoxtampabay.com/ ... 15:00:07
A veteran Florida sheriff's deputy is in hot water after she was caught on video
dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair
while he was being booked on Jan. 29... then searching [him] as he lay on the floor... his arrest was due to charges of fleeing and attempting to elude a law enforcement officer from an incident on October 25, 2007...
[which, in retrospect, seems kinda understandable....]
Transport Trouble
wlos.com/ ... 14:57:37
WATERBURY, Conn... tractor trailer rig overturned and began leaking highly flammable hydrogen gas... on Interstate 84 in the Middlebury and Waterbury area... 60 to 70 people... evacuated from their homes...
Nature can be Deadly
chicagotribune.com/ ... 19:53:08
Chicago.... flight delays at the city's airports and traffic crashes on slippery roadways in the afternoon rush... "It was just a madhouse earlier... Rollovers, stalls, vehicles spinning out and facing the wrong way, you name it. It was a mess... no reports of any serious injuries...
suntimes.com/ ... 19:47:36
While the weekends sub-zero temperatures have passed, a storm... could drop up to 3 inches of snow on the Chicago area by noon Tuesday... temperatures will rise to about 22 degrees...
the seasonal snowfall total of 41.8 inches through Feb. 7 marked the seventh highest total in the area on record. Tuesdays storm could pass the 42.9 inches tallied in the winter of 1885-86. The most snow ever recorded in Chicago was 79 inches in the winter of 1978-79...
newsminer.com/ ... 19:06:53
48 degrees below zero at Fairbanks International Airport on Sunday, the coldest temperature recorded so far in Fairbanks worst cold snap in eight years... forecasters were calling for a significant warming trend beginning today...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:24:17
The temperature in International Falls fell to
40 below zero
Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the "Icebox of the Nation..."
apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:19:00
Snow and ice spread across wide sections of the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, closing schools, littering roads with cars that had spun out and canceling an appearance by first lady Laura Bush...
Iraq
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:11:17
Russia has agreed to write off $12bn (£6bn) of Iraqi debt built up by the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein to buy military supplies. In return, Russian companies, including oil giant Lukoil, will be given access to invest up to $4bn in Iraq...
Supernatural Threats
reuters.com/ ... 14:10:40
Sharia law is understood and applied in such varied ways across the Muslim world that it is difficult to say exactly what it is and how it could fit into a western legal context, according to experts on Islam. Full Islamic criminal law, the harsh code most non-Muslims think of when they hear the word sharia, is applied in very few countries, such as Saudi Arabia. Islamic "personal law" for issues like marriage and inheritance is much more common...
Cold War - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:13:19
Russia has said it may target its missiles at Ukraine
if its neighbour joins Nato and accepts the deployment of the US missile defence shield...
reuters.com/ ... 14:11:00
Washington is trying to gauge whether Russia's recent bomber mission near a U.S. aircraft carrier indicated
Moscow's return to a Cold War "mind-set"
and is considering how the Pentagon should respond...
reuters.com/ ... 14:09:34
Russian bomber aircraft approached a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific on Saturday and were intercepted by American fighter jets...
One of the Russian "Bear" bombers flew over the deck of the Nimitz... The U.S. fighters escorted the Russian bombers out of the area...
Under Digital Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:38:47
Seeking to ferret out online games considered overly violent or unhealthy, China has targeted illegal Web sites, computer markets and Internet cafes as part of a campaign to rein in juvenile crime... also aimed at Web sites offering unregistered playing platforms or services for gamers that can be downloaded...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 13:29:06
Cigarette smoking appears to promote the development of polyps in the colon, especially those that are more likely to progress to cancer...
Hang Those Who Betray Public Trust
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:14:03
Four people have been arrested in the United States for allegedly passing secret defence information to China... A 72-year-old former Boeing engineer... In a separate case, two men and a woman are accused of handing over US defence department documents about Taiwan. A US justice department spokesman said the cases represented serious breaches of national security...
Criminally Stupid
reuters.com/ ... 13:11:20
Police in central England are hunting for a badly scorched would-be copper power cable thief after finding a hacksaw embedded in an 11,000 volt power cable Saturday night... expected to be badly charred, spiky haired and not exactly the brightest bulb in the socket... "The sheer stupidity of cutting through power cables should be glaringly obvious to everyone.... At the very least putting the hacksaw through the cable would have created an almighty bang and the line would have burned for quite a few seconds, showering them with molten copper...."
Theft
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:01:37
Three gunmen in ski masks and dark clothes burst into a museum just before closing time. After a quick run through the building, they hustled out the door and sped off with paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet valued at $163.2 million...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:26:20
If six suspected terrorists are sentenced to death at Guantanamo Bay for the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. Army regulations that were quietly amended two years ago open the possibility of execution by lethal injection at the military base in Cuba, experts said Tuesday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:26:03
One of the United States' top judges said in an interview broadcast in Britain on Tuesday that interrogators can inflict pain to obtain critical information about an imminent terrorist threat. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that aggressive interrogation could be appropriate to learn where a bomb was hidden shortly before it was set to explode or to discover the plans or whereabouts of a terrorist group. "It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn't, I don't know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 14:13:58
Two CBS News journalists were missing in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Basra... not identified by the network...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:12:42
Two employees of Pakistan's atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country's restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border... were on a mission to map mineral deposits in the mountains... "We don't know if the abductors were militants or members of some criminal gang..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:01:20
Pakistani forces captured and critically wounded a senior Taliban militant on Monday... Also, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan was missing and feared kidnapped as he traveled in a volatile Pakistani tribal region...
Under Tyranny
bloomberg.com/ ... 15:00:27
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's policies have cut the South American country's oil output by 1.2 million barrels a day, enough to supply 80 percent of U.S. East Coast demand...
reuters.com/ ... 12:55:53
Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love... The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love...
Anthropology
reuters.com/ ... 21:24:05
People who migrated from Asia to the New World camped out for 20,000 years on land now submerged under the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia... a much longer migration than most other researchers have proposed... proposes that the people who left Central Asia to eventually populate the Americas passed quickly through Siberia, and then got stuck in Beringia -- a former land mass that now lies under the frigid Bering Sea. There they stayed for 20,000 years, until glaciers melted about 15,000 years ago, opening a route to the Americas. "The reason there is no archeological evidence for that occupation is that the area is under water..."
It's All in Your Mind
reuters.com/ ... 23:54:07
College students who reported they were in love were less likely to take careful notice of other attractive men or women... "Feeling love for your romantic partner appears to make everybody else less attractive, and the emotion appears to work in very specific ways in enabling you to push thoughts of that tempting other out of your mind..." "...It's almost like love puts blinders on people..."
reuters.com/ ... 21:22:48
Living near an airport isn't just irritating... loud noise instantly boosts a sleeping person's blood pressure...
Cosmology
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:24:42
Astronomers took pictures of a far-off lumpy galaxy just forming 13 billion years ago, putting it among the earliest and most distant cosmic objects ever photographed... To see that far away, astronomers needed a little luck and help from the cosmos. A cluster of much closer galaxies act as a natural zoom lens for Earth's telescopes. Strong gravitational forces bend light around that cluster of galaxies, magnifying the light from directly behind it...
Gardeners of Earth
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:23:38
Consumers must stop forest destruction VIEWPOINT John Nelson... Most DIY enthusiasts would be shocked to find that their new garden decking helped to increase the poverty of hunter-gatherer communities in the Congo Basin of Central Africa. What about the recently purchased hardwood table and chairs? Did these come from a 300-year-old tree that, until cut down for export to Europe, supplied a hundred poor people in Cameroon with oil, protein and medicine?..
It came from the sky
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:20:00
Seward Highway south of Anchorage... something big and black fell out of the sky about 20 feet in front of his patrol car... falling moose...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:10:49
Army Pfc.
Jack T. Sweet,
19, of Alexandria Bay, N.Y., died Feb. 8 in Jawwalah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:09:45
Army Spc.
Michael T. Manibog,
31, of Alameda, Calif., assigned to 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
Army Sgt.
Timothy P. Martin,
27, of Pixley, Calif., assigned to 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
Army Staff Sgt.
Jerald A. Whisenhunt,
32, of Orrick, Mo., assigned to 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
Army Sgt.
Gary D. Willett,
34, of Alamogordo, N.M., who was assigned to 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
died Feb. 8 in Taji, Iraq, of wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.
Only Natural
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 14:19:53
amazing photograph... world's biggest Christ... struck by lightning...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 15:21:50
The Defense Department announced today that charges have been sworn against six detainees at Guantanamo, alleged to be responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks upon the United States of America which occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Those attacks resulted in the death of nearly 3,000 people. The charges allege a long term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al Qaeda to attack the United States. The accused are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Mohamed al Kahtani.... the convening authority will review the charges and supporting evidence to determine whether probable cause exists to refer the case for trial by military commission. The chief prosecutor has requested that charges to be tried jointly and be referred as capital for each defendant.... The sworn charges are only allegations that each accused has committed a war crime under the Military Commissions Act. The accused are presumed innocent of any criminal charges unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at a military commission.
defenselink.mil/ ... 15:10:23
The Department of Defense announced today its recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for the month of January.... All services met or exceeded recruiting goals for the month of January (below) and have surpassed goals for fiscal 2008 to date... The Army and Marine Corps are exceeding their year-to-date retention missions. Navy is at 98 percent retention in the aggregate, Air Force is at 91 percent, and both are on track to meet the year end mission goals. Four of the six reserve components met or exceeded their accession goals for January 2008; however, all six have made their goals for fiscal 2008 to date...
reuters.com/ ... 14:08:14
The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted. The charges are the first from the Guantanamo war court alleging direct involvement in the 2001 attacks on the United States and the first involving the death penalty...
World Climate
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:27:57
The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says...
Dinosaurs -- still with us
reuters.com/ ... 19:22:35
U.S., Mexican and Canadian scientists on Tuesday announced the discovery of Velafrons coahuilensis, a duck-billed dinosaur... with a sail-shaped crest on the top of its head lived at a Mexican seashore... "Velafrons was probably a beach bum..." late Cretaceous...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:13:23
A new fossil species of flying reptile with a wingspan of less than 30cm (1ft) has been discovered in China... nearly complete articulated skeleton... one of the smallest pterosaurs known... has been named Nemicolopterus crypticus, which means "hidden flying forest dweller"... toothless, sparrow-sized... some of the foot bones are curved in a way not seen in other members of this reptile group. This, say the authors, indicates the pint-sized creature spent much of its time living in the trees...
World Zookeeping
reuters.com/ ... 19:17:47
A mythical and ghostly creature has appeared in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands -- and has been caught on camera. The rare white stag, from the red deer species, is believed to be among just a tiny handful living in Britain... "he does look like a ghost: you do a double-take..." location secret for fear of poachers... In Celtic traditions, white stags represent messengers from the afterlife. Arthurian legend has it that the creature can never be caught -- King Arthur's pursuit of the animal represents mankind's spiritual quest. It is also said that for those who set eyes on the animal, a momentous moment is near...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 19:11:51
Starring horse-riding lions, the Sickest Show on Earth... Just when it seemed that the Chinese had plumbed the depths of animal humiliation, along comes something even worse. The country which gave you bears riding bikes now proudly presents ... lions and tigers on horseback... rides around the ring while a trainer with a whip keeps it moving. After that, a 35-stone tiger climbs up on the same terrified steed for its turn in the limelight...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:14:53
A golden eagle who was blinded after flying into an electricity pylon... developed cataracts... has had her vision partially restored by a ground-breaking operation...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:00:40
PHILADELPHIA... Monday... Imagine finding 50 chickens running loose in your high school... "We don't know where the chickens came from or who they belong to.... I'm pretty sure there is a very upset poultry farmer somewhere who wants them back..."
Animal Companions
kfdm.com/ ... 19:04:58
Authorities believe... Price shot a goose... set his shotgun down on the bed of his truck while attempting to release his... tracking dog... chocolate lab... to retrieve the bird... [dog] stepped on [the] loaded shotgun... triggering a fatal blast into the man's thigh.... [Sheriff:] "We found muddy paw prints on the gun in the area of the trigger, indicating the dog accidentally caused the shotgun to discharge...."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:57:42
WINONA, Minn... Bella, a 3-year-old golden retriever/collie mix who was once rescued as an abused puppy, returned the favor to her owners by alerting them to a house fire. With help from Maddie, a 6-month-old golden retriever, Bella helped get Sue Feuling and her 9-year-old daughter, Mckenzie, out of the house last week. The dogs didn't make it... couldn't coax the dogs out of the house, even when she tried to run back in to yell for them... "Bella must have thought Mckenzie was still in the house..."
Big Brother
reuters.com/ ... 23:56:11
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday granting retroactive immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that took part in President George W. Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program... unclear whether the House of Representatives, also led by Democrats, would approve the measure to expand the government's spying powers and shield firms from potentially billions of dollars in civil damages...
World Without Borders
washingtonpost.com/ ... 21:20:24
Facing a rapidly growing backlog of immigration cases, the
Bush administration will grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of legal U.S. immigrants without first completing required background checks against the FBI's investigative files...
Sportsmanship
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:25:31
US film director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In a statement, he accused China of not doing enough to pressure its ally Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the troubled western Darfur region. "I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual..."
At least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in the five-year conflict...
Theory of Education
10news.com/ ... 19:06:25
OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- John Corcoran graduated from college and taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell...
floridatoday.com/ ... 19:06:15
Parents of all 2,550 students in the school received an automated call Friday reminding them that their student had to report for Saturday morning detention. Problem was, the message only should have gone to 16 homes...
Headline of the Day
reuters.com/ ... 19:01:31
Dolly Parton postpones tour, blames breasts...
"Hey, you try wagging these puppies around a while and see if you don't have back problems..."
Middle Earth
breitbart.com/ ... 19:01:05
The estate of "Lord of the Rings" creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing the film studio that released the trilogy based on his books, claiming the company failed to pay a cut of gross profits for the blockbuster films...
Snail Mail is dead
reuters.com/ ... 19:00:27
A merger between Delta... and Northwest Airlines... could be announced in the next few weeks... would create the largest passenger airline in the world...
breitbart.com/ ... 18:58:59
The cost of a first-class stamp will rise to 42 cents starting May 12, the U.S. Postal Service said Monday... The charge for other services, such as advertising mail, periodicals, packages special services will also change. Changes in the price for Priority Mail and Express Mail will be announced later...
Reasons for Repeal
leadercall.com/ ... 15:09:10
108 pounds of marijuana... street value of more than $75,000... during a traffic stop for careless driving on Interstate 59 Saturday morning... driver "was very nervous acting" so he called for another police unit to come assist him with the traffic stop... strong odor of a detergent... "Due to Officer Monks training and experience, he believed it could be used to conceal contraband and illegal drugs from a K-9..."
blogs.jsonline.com/ ... 15:07:54
One of the more interesting aspects of the fed's major marijuana case unsealed last week was the inclusion of a Butler skateboard park, called Cream City Skatepark, where authorities said large volumes of weed were sold. Since that article ran, several people including one of the park's owners, have contacted us to say there was no pot dealing going on at the business and has questioned what paperwork says there is a connection...
socialistworker.co.uk/ ... 15:07:03
announcement was part of an attempt to draw a line under some of Tony Blairs more controversial policy initiatives while establishing Browns "moral" credentials with conservative voters and the media. Cannabis classification has become a political football. Its symbolic importance vastly outstrips the policy relevance of what is a fairly minor tweak to enforcement practice. Unfortunately there has been a mistaken conflation of the debate around the harms of cannabis use and the debate around what the policy response to those harms should be. Away from the sensationalist media coverage, scaremongering and moral grandstanding, there is no evidence to show that increasing criminal penalties for a given drug is associated with a fall in use or overall harm...
canada.com/ ... 15:05:41
A lawyer for a marijuana-legalization advocate known as Daweedking is one step closer to what may become a legal first in Canada -- requiring police to provide proof that informants they use to obtain search warrants are reliable...
kansascity.com/ ... 15:05:13
Medical marijuana bill gets a hearing but is unlikely to advance in Kansas...
news.com.au/ ... 15:04:58
350 cannabis plants worth $1.5 million in Sydney's south-west...
Cartoons Count
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:12:58
Danish police have arrested three people suspected of planning to attack a cartoonist who drew caricatures satirising the Prophet Muhammad...
Population Booming
reuters.com/ ... 14:08:44
Non-Hispanic whites will become a minority in the United States by 2050, with immigrants and their children driving 82 percent of U.S. population growth in coming years, a new study said on Monday... U.S. population will grow to 438 million in 2050 from 296 million in 2005 if current population trends continue...
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 23:55:30
Barack Obama easily won three more Democratic nominating contests on Tuesday... in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia... Republican front-runner John McCain defeated his last major challenger, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia... exit polls indicated Obama cut dramatically into Clinton's core support groups... women, Hispanics and lower-income voters...
signonsandiego.com/ ... 19:40:12
Nearly 50,000 independent voters who tried to cast ballots in last week's Democratic or American Independent primaries won't have their presidential votes counted, the top elections official in Los Angeles County said Monday... improperly filled out ballots are impossible to count by hand because of the county's complicated voting system, which requires crossover voters to fill in two "bubbles": one to choose a political party and one to indicate their presidential choice... a potential blow to Democrat Barack Obama, who had the most appeal with independent voters...
voanews.com/ ... 19:30:31
With results starting to come in, U.S. media are projecting Democratic Senator Barack Obama will win his party's presidential primary election in Virginia...
online.wsj.com/ ... 14:22:50
The Clintons' Terror Pardons By DEBRA BURLINGAME... Mr. Clinton justified the clemencies by asserting that the sentences were disproportionate to the crimes. None of the petitioners, he stated, had been directly involved in crimes that caused bodily harm to anyone. "For me," the president concluded, "the question, therefore, was whether their continuing incarceration served any meaningful purpose." His comments, including the astonishing claim that the FALN prisoners were being unfairly punished because of "guilt by association," were widely condemned as a concession to terrorists. Further, they were seen as an outrageous slap in the face of the victims and a bitter betrayal of the cops and federal law enforcement officers who had put their lives on the line to protect the public and who had invested years of their careers to put these people behind bars. The U.S. Sentencing Commission affirmed a pre-existing Justice Department assessment that the sentences, ranging from 30 to 90 years, were "in line with sentences imposed in other cases for similar terrorist activity..."
latimesblogs.latimes.com/ ... 14:20:31
In a statement to supporters on his website, first mentioned here early Saturday, Paul admits, "With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get..."
reuters.com/ ... 14:07:23
Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro took on front-running U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday, accusing him of lying about Cubans torturing American prisoners of war in Vietnam. At a campaign stop in Miami last month, the Arizona senator told anti-Castro exiles that American POWs held with him in Hanoi were tortured by "a couple of Cubans..." McCain has vowed to keep up decades-old U.S. pressure for political change in Cuba's one-party state...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:37:30
People in the UK...
[
Six million people a year
]
who go online and illegally download music and films may have their internet access cut
[
Six million people a year
]
under plans the government is considering. A draft consultation suggests internet service providers would be required to take action over users
[
Six million people a year
]
who access pirated material via their accounts. But the government is stressing that plans are at an early stage and it is still working on final proposals.
Six million people a year
are estimated to download files illegally in the UK...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:35:32
A modular mobile phone that can add features and change its design could spell the end of costly upgrades. Israeli firm Modu has launched what it bills the world's smallest and lightest mobile phone. The 1.5 ounce phone can be augmented by adding "jackets", connecting a camera, or GPS, or a larger screen, or it can be plugged into other devices...
Digital Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:34:38
Safer Internet Day is being marked around Europe with events to educate children and parents about net dangers. Themed events will reveal the risks of sharing too much personal data and warn children that their virtual friends may not be who they say they are...
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:31:29
The backers of the Blu-ray high definition DVD system have received a twin boost in their ongoing format war with HD DVD. Best Buy... has announced it is to recommend that its customers choose Sony's Blu-ray format. Its shops will carry HD DVD but Blu-ray will be displayed more prominently. And online video rental company Netflix said it would phase out its HD DVD stock and exclusively offer Blu-ray...
Researching the Obvious
reuters.com/ ... 13:28:34
When it comes to alcohol, many teenagers may take a cue from their parents, new research suggests...
Business Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:09:17
England's commissioner for children and a civil liberties group joined in on a campaign Tuesday to ban high-frequency devices intended to drive misbehaving children away from shops and other areas. The so-called "Mosquito" device emits high-frequency noise which is audible - and annoying - to young ears, but generally not heard by people over 20. "This device is a quick fix that does not tackle the root cause of the problem and it is indiscriminate," English Children's Commissioner Al Aynsley-Green said...
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:08:50
BREMERTON, Wash... [18yo] woman who allegedly dropped an envelope containing money and a bag of meth at a... Credit Union...
People Die
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:05:58
A dried and decomposing body was found in a bathtub filled with dirt in a Phoenix apartment that was stacked to the ceiling with garbage and human waste. Owners of the small, standalone unit thought it had been abandoned in August, when they stopped receiving rent payments... body... had been there at least several years...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:23:17
Comcast Corp. told the Federal Communications Commission in formal comments Tuesday that hampering some file-sharing by its subscribers was a justifiable way to keep Web traffic flowing for everyone. The comments are the fullest accounting yet of how Comcast manages its network... Comcast's network management is the subject of formal complaints to the FCC from consumer groups and law professors. The groups say Comcast has breached the principle, known as "'Net Neutrality," of treating all Internet traffic equally. They also say the company was hampering movie downloading services because they might compete with Comcast's cable TV business...
reuters.com/ ... 19:36:33
Research In Motion... said late on Tuesday that a problem with
a routine upgrade
of an internal data-routing system appears to have caused the massive outage that left BlackBerry users across the Americas with spotty or nonexistent wireless e-mail service for three hours on Monday...
[Yeah... WHEN has an upgrade EVER ended up being "routine"?]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:21:27
Amazon.com is fighting Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to require out-of-state online companies to collect New York state sales tax on goods they send to addresses in New York - the most recent cash-strapped state to propose the tax...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:21:00
Undeterred by the threat of a hostile takeover, slumping Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc. completed an acquisition of its own Tuesday by buying online video service Maven Networks Inc. for $160 million... Yahoo's latest attempt to expand its online advertising network...
reuters.com/ ... 13:41:36
Canada has joined China and Russia on the U.S. software, music and movie industries' annual list of countries with the worst record of fighting piracy of copyright goods...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:41:05
In the basic configuration, each cable serves about 500 households, which share about 40 megabits per second of download capacity. If each household gets Internet service with a maximum download speed of 10 mbps, that means four of them downloading at full speed can saturate the connection. "Fundamentally, the cable companies have come at this from kind of a disadvantage," said Rob Malan, chief technology officer of Arbor Networks, which provides traffic-management equipment. "One greedy person on that network knocks the whole neighborhood offline..." solutions cost money...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:39:43
Starbucks Corp. and AT&T Inc. will start offering a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in most of the global coffee retailer's U.S. shops, beginning this spring... ends a six-year Starbucks partnership with T-Mobile, which did not include free Wi-Fi and charged higher fees than AT&T will... Starbucks said it will give customers who use a Starbucks purchase card two hours of free wireless access per day. More time than that will cost $3.99 for a two-hour session. Monthly memberships will cost $19.99 and include access to any of AT&T's 70,000 hot spots worldwide. Nearly all of AT&T's broadband Internet customers, about 12 million, will automatically have unlimited free Wi-Fi access at Starbucks, the companies said...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:33:58
Broadband speeds around the world...
[map]
Currently in the UK the big issue is the gap between advertised and actual speeds, so while 10Mbps might be available from a few suppliers, very few actually get this speed. According to speedtest.net - a global speed test created by actual users and approved by most of the major ISPs in the US - the real speed is closer to 3Mbps. Things get faster next year as ADSL2+ comes online promising speeds of up to 24Mbps, although as with all DSL technology, there are physical limits and only those close to the exchange will actually get the top speeds. Virgin Media is currently trialling a 50Mbps cable service and BT is also experimenting with fibre to the home, which could offers speeds of up to 100Mbps...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:30:53
Mobile firms from across the world have launched a new alliance which aims to block paedophiles using phones to send or receive child sexual abuse images... Among planned measures will be a block on mobile phone access to websites which host abusive content. There will also be hotlines to report services carrying inappropriate images...
reuters.com/ ... 13:30:12
The European Commission conducted antitrust raids against Intel Corp's Munich offices on Tuesday and against retailers selling products of the world's largest chip maker, the Commission and the chip maker said. The European Union watchdog's actions ratcheted up pressure on Intel and broke new ground by raiding Germany's huge Media Markt-Saturn and British electrical goods retailer DSG International Plc, which owns Dixons and Currys. Intel has been preparing for a Brussels hearing on March 11 and 12 to answer pending charges it abused its dominance of the market for central processing units (CPUs) at the heart of every PC...
reuters.com/ ... 13:04:15
Research In Motion's ubiquitous BlackBerry experienced a "critical severity outage" on Monday afternoon that left users stranded without wireless e-mail access, its maker said... By about 5:30 p.m. Eastern time -- more than an hour after RIM notified its customers of the problem -- some customers said a few e-mails were trickling through. Others, however, continued to be without service. Still others appeared to enjoy a respite from a device affectionately dubbed the "CrackBerry" by its more compulsive users...
reuters.com/ ... 13:03:26
Yahoo Inc rejected Microsoft Corp's unsolicited $41.6 billion takeover offer as too low on Monday, forcing the software maker to either sweeten the bid or adopt a hostile approach to clinch a deal...
People Live
hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:03:02
Living to 100 is easier than you might think. Surprising new research suggests that even people who develop heart disease or diabetes late in life have a decent shot at reaching the century mark...
Big Nanny
reuters.com/ ... 13:02:37
Italy's 2005 smoking ban has led to a sharp fall in heart attacks, researchers reported on Monday in a finding they said shows that such laws really do improve public health...
[hmmmmmMAYbe....]
Defending Ourselves
wfaa.com/ ... 19:08:06
A mob turned the tables on a man accused of raping a mother at knifepoint in her Red Bird-area apartment with her children present... beaten with a baseball bat and shot at least twice, apparently once in the head... "I would have to say this is unusual," Lt. Sally Lannom, commander of the assaults unit for the Dallas police, said of the melee. "It is outside the norm..." "He got what he deserved.... You don't go into [a] house ... do things to [a] momma and think it's all right. That was just a community watch..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:59:17
SPEAKE, Ala... [intruder] tried to use the Taser as the woman resisted. "She thinks she was hit.... Why it didn't put her down, we don't know. Then she used the telephone as a weapon and fought back. The man ran off." He said there have been several similar incidents in the area during the past few months. "This woman and her granddaughter were alone at the house, and they were scared," Mitchell said. "But like some of the others,
she just wasn't going to put up with it..."
Transport Pre-Automation
reuters.com/ ... 12:55:17
Indonesian commuters riding on the roofs of trains will be sprayed with colored liquid so that security officers can identify and arrest them...
Electric trains linking the Indonesian capital and its neighboring towns are packed with passengers during rush hours, with many sitting on the roofs due to a lack of space inside or to avoid paying...
MON 2008-FEB-11
Cartoons Count
toonopedia.com/ ... 00:02:52
Jimmy Hatlo was a sports cartoonist at The San Francisco Call-Bulletin when a package of cartoons failed to arrive from the syndicate, and he had to draw one to fill what would otherwise have been a hole in the page. As his topic, he chose the little ironies of everyday life. The first They'll Do It Every Time appeared on February 5, 1929, and it ran for decades after...
time.com/ ... 00:02:20
Cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo, a jovial, bigdomed man who explodes into mock-temper tantrums, makes more than $250,000 a year by illustrating his simple theory that things always happen at the worst possible moment...
[Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 10, 1952...]
mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/ ... 00:00:54
"'What I like most about being a cartoonist is starting with a fresh piece of paper and ending up with an idea.... You're the writer, the actor and the director. I never thought about retiring. I enjoy what I do.'" - The late Al ["They'll Do It Every Time"] Scaduto, from a February 11, 2007 Connecticut Post interview written by Dirk Perrefort...
SUN 2008-FEB-10
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:54:01
At least 33 people have been killed in a car bomb attack in the Iraqi town of Balad... near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the market town... caused by a suicide bomber driving a pick-up truck laden with six barrels of explosives...
Masses can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:52:31
Ten people have died while trying to escape a crush at a punk rock concert in Indonesia. The disaster occurred when music fans tried to leave a concert hall in the city of Bandung as hundreds of others were surging in...
Fire
reuters.com/ ... 23:50:08
Namdaemun, or "Great South Gate..." A 600-year-old gate in central Seoul listed as South Korea's number one national treasure has been destroyed by a likely arsonist...
Under Tyranny
iht.com/ ... 09:51:28
A Hamas-dominated court ordered a Palestinian newspaper on Sunday to halt distribution and publication in the Gaza Strip after a cartoon on its back page mocked legislators loyal to the militant group... published last November and poked fun at the Hamas-led Gaza government, and its leader, Ismail Haniyeh...
Missing
www2.tbo.com/ ... 09:42:19
CHARLOTTE COUNTY [Fla] - Relatives think wounded Iraq war veteran Eric W. Hall, missing for a week, may be wandering in the woods, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and under the impression that he is still fighting in Iraq... fear the 24-year-old is covering his tracks, thinking he is in a war zone... On Friday, thinking that Hall will respond to military authority, 10 former Marines joined Hall's brother, Justin Hall, who is in the Navy, and the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office in the search... before he disappeared, Hall was using his hand like a gun to shoot at imaginary people...
Scary Times
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:53:03
Police are making arrangements to fly a 23-year-old woman from a North Sea oil platform which was at the centre of a security alert... had made allegations about a possible suspicious device...
reuters.com/ ... 23:41:03
The operator of one of Britain's biggest gas fields shut down production and evacuated more than 160 workers from a North Sea platform on Sunday, after a suspicious object sparked a full-scale security alert...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:40:02
More than 500 workers were being airlifted from a North Sea rig today after a bomb threat said to have been made by a woman on the rig...
Supernatural Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:39:08
Pressure has mounted on the Archbishop of Canterbury after his comments about Islamic Sharia law were criticised by his predecessor. Lord Carey said Dr Rowan Williams's suggested acceptance of some Muslim laws was "a view I cannot share". But, writing in the News of the World, he said Dr Williams should not be forced to quit. Dr Williams has insisted he was not advocating a parallel set of laws, but has faced calls for his resignation...
World Climate
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:59:18
Clearing land to produce biofuels such as ethanol will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels, two scientific studies show...
US Military
reuters.com/ ... 23:51:25
[38yo] U.S. Marine was arrested on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:47:49
A military jury on Sunday convicted an Army sniper of murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison for killing an Iraqi civilian who wandered into the hiding place where six soldiers were sleeping. Sgt. Evan Vela, 24...
"When I came to Iraq, I didn't come to do anything wrong," Vela said, reading from a handwritten statement. "I failed my standards, your standards and the standards of the Army. All I can say is I'm sorry and ask for mercy..."
washingtontimes.com/ ... 09:54:09
Try to follow this logic: Berkeley, Calif., isn't "against the troops." But its city council told a Marine recruiting station that it "is not welcome in the city." The council also reserved special parking outside for radical activists CodePink, who chain themselves to the door to obstruct recruits. As the council sums up matters: "[I]f recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders." Right, right: We all support the troops. A public backlash ensued, with Washington lawmakers threatening to cut off federal funding to the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere. Sure enough, the council began to backtrack... As if on cue, council members began braying about their First Amendment rights. "I guess they've never heard of free speech..." This has things precisely backward. An official public act is at issue here, not the free speech of a private citizen...
foxnews.com/ ... 09:52:24
An Ohio mayor had a stern order for a company of Marine Corps Reservists: Get out. The Toledo Blade reports that Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner ordered the Marines out Friday as their buses were arriving for a three-day training mission in the city, where they have periodically trained since 2004... "The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people..." Toledo police knew of the plan days in advance, but Finkbeiner apparently didn't... The Marines turned around and went home to Grand Rapids...
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 23:52:08
British pop singer Amy Winehouse, whose rapid descent from promising newcomer to emaciated junkie played out in the full glare of the public eye last year, took home five Grammy Awards on Sunday... But jazz veteran Herbie Hancock was the shock winner of the coveted album of the year award, preventing Winehouse from enjoying a historic clean sweep...
song of the year for her hit tune "Rehab..."
Democracy in Action
reuters.com/ ... 23:50:32
Pakistani voters are expected to succeed where President Pervez Musharraf has failed, pushing back the Islamist tide and throwing out of power political clerics governing Pakistan's violent northwest.
"God forbid, I will never vote for mullahs..."
Blurring Lines of Reality
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:49:22
At the first Academy Award presentations of the year, 20 computer geeks graciously accepted honors for their work on particle flow simulation technology - stuff that makes water scenes in the movies look more realistic... Scientific and Technical Awards dinner Saturday night as charmingly unglamorous as ever. A magician provided the pre-meal entertainment, Jessica Alba showed up to present the awards - and be gawked at - and nerddom was held up as something to celebrate...
Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:40:47
Abu Dhabi has started to build what it says is the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste car-free city. Masdar City will cost $22bn (£11.3bn), take eight years to build and be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city will be mostly powered by solar energy and residents will move in travel pods running on magnetic tracks...
Abu Dhabi has one of the world's biggest per capita carbon footprints and sceptics fear Masdar may be just a fig leaf for the oil-rich Gulf emirate...
US Election 2008
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:54:50
Meanwhile, Mrs Clinton has appointed a new campaign manager after this weekend's setbacks...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:54:29
Illinois Senator Barack Obama has won the Democratic caucus in Maine, defeating Hillary Clinton...
reuters.com/ ... 23:42:25
Sen. Hillary
Clinton,
viewed last year as virtually unstoppable in her bid to become the U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, is now
seeking to portray herself as the underdog
against rival Sen. Barack Obama...
breitbart.com/ ... 16:36:05
Obama, who is vying to become the first black president in US history, "would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him," [British Nobel literature laureate Doris] Lessing, 88, told the Dagens Nyheter daily...
Reasons for Repeal
foxnews.com/ ... 10:50:11
An Indiana woman was arrested Wednesday on charges she gave her 11-year-old daughter alcohol and marijuana as a birthday gift... offered beer and pot to her daughter and three of her friends during a birthday party on Feb. 1... told police that she was smoking pot and drinking beer with her adult friends at the party, but denied giving them to her daughter...
alternet.org/ ... 10:47:39
Recent weeks have seen a rash of new studies of marijuana hitting the mass media, generating scary headlines like "Smoking Pot Rots Your Gums," "Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes" and "Pot Withdrawal Similar to Quitting Cigarettes." Most of this coverage can be boiled down to a fairly simple equation:
Flawed science + uncritical reporting = misinformation...
Mercifully, the U.S. mass media were so distracted by Super Tuesday, Heath Ledger's autopsy and the latest Britney Spears trauma that reports of these studies didn't get as much play as they might have. That's good, because the research had significant gaps, and the reporting ranged from slapdash to flat wretched...
ukpress.google.com/ ... 10:38:25
The charity Rethink says there is growing evidence that the health risks associated with cannabis use requires a similar approach to that taken with tobacco... Cigarette rolling papers should carry printed warnings about the dangers of cannabis...
[Have they done tests on what happens when you SMOKE THAT INK, you stupid $#!+s?]
abc.net.au/ ... 10:34:38
Police say a man has been charged over the discovery of a large amount of cannabis at a house at Helensburgh on Sydney's southern outskirts... two children were also living at the house... plants had an estimated street value of $64,000...
boston.com/ ... 10:33:53
Although Georgetown lawyer Steven Epstein is an emphatic and public supporter of legalizing marijuana, he gets a little evasive when asked about his own recreational use of the drug. "I have used marijuana in the past," he said. "And I have liked it..."
[Well, there you have it folks, he's used it so he's a psychotic drug abuser who should be locked up, not listened to....]
"It doesn't seem logical to me," he said. Possessing marijuana "should be a matter of choice." It may very well be - at least in Massachusetts - if three initiatives backed by local reform groups make it onto this year's ballot...
ap.google.com/ ... 10:32:09
Marijuana vending machines in Los Angeles violate international treaties and should be shut down, the U.N.-affiliated drug control board said Friday...
[REPEAL PROHIBITION! TO HELL WITH UNTIED NATIONS TYRANNY! LET'S SELL FINE WINE IN VENDING MACHINES, TOO!]
Digital Business
reuters.com/ ... 09:59:54
Services on two of three broken undersea cables providing Internet services to parts of the Middle East and Asia have been restored after both cables were repaired...
dailytech.com/ ... 09:58:24
With the $4.64 billion reserve price met on January 31st, the "open access" rules pushed for by Google have become part and parcel to the spectrum. The buyer of the spectrum will be "required to provide a platform that is 'more open to devices and applications' ... allowing consumers their choice in applications and devices to connect with." Regardless of who wins, Google stands to benefit from the "open access" rules to promote their mobile phone OS, Android...
Film is dead
blogs.pcworld.com/ ... 09:57:19
Polaroid has announced it's ceasing production of its instant film, which will become unavailable after 2009...
Polaroid in its heyday reminds me of Apple--it was a company led by a charismatic, long-serving leader (Edwin Land) that made slick, innovative, somewhat pricey gadgets. And in decidedly Apple-esque fashion, it marketed them really well. So looking at a few vintage Polaroid commercials is an entirely appropriate way to mourn the end of Polaroid photography. Thanks to YouTube, we can do that right here...
SAT 2008-FEB-09
Supernatural Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:56:32
Creationists Seek Foothold in Europe...
Supernatural Justice
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:55:56
An Egyptian court has ruled that 12 Christians who converted to Islam and then reverted to Christianity can have their faith officially recognised...
Cold War - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:54:00
Japan has accused Russia of violating its airspace over the Pacific Izu islands and demanded an explanation. A Russian Tupolev 95 bomber flew for about three minutes over the isle of Sofugan, 650km (400 miles) south of Tokyo... Japan responded by scrambling 22 jets and lodging an official protest with the Russian embassy... Russian air force denied...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:56:17
Israel has threatened to retaliate after two brothers were seriously injured in a rocket attack by Palestinian militants in Gaza... town of Sderot...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:55:38
The UK government has flown antidote medicine to the Middle East after some Iraqis became seriously ill from eating cakes laced with the poison thallium... Two... died... cake delivered to a military club in Baghdad... first time the deadly toxin has been used since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, whose regime used it to kill its opponents... At least two of the poison victims, the secretary of the Iraqi air force club and his daughter, are critically ill in Amman...
Thallium is a lethal poison much used by Saddam Hussein's regime against its opponents. It has not surfaced since his overthrow. It is an ideal assassin's tool, being tasteless and easy to administer, and its effects take some time to appear. It then causes a lingering and painful death. An antidote known as Prussian Blue can be effective if taken quickly...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:54:27
At least 18 people have died after a powerful explosion hit an opposition election rally in north-western Pakistan... in Charsadda... North West Frontier Province...
reuters.com/ ... 23:50:28
An Israeli air strike killed a Hamas militant in the Gaza Strip on Sunday... Hamas said the missile strike killed a local commander in the southern Gaza town of Rafah...
Under Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 23:47:23
Army-ruled Myanmar said on Saturday it will hold a referendum on a new constitution in May followed by elections in 2010, a move critics said was aimed at deflecting pressure after last year's crackdown on protesters...
travel.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:46:11
Britons heading to the United Arab Emirates have been warned that carrying some foodstuffs and common over-the-counter medications could warrant a four-year prison sentence. Among the banned substances are foods containing poppy seeds; melatonin, which is taken to ease the effects of jetlag; codeine, a common ingredient in pain relief medication, and any trace of drugs such as cannabis, however small...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:56:59
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class
Luis A. Souffront,
25,of Miami, Fla., died Feb. 7, from wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device while serving in combat operations in Iraq. He was assigned to an East Coast based SEAL team.
Orbiting Overhead
reuters.com/ ... 23:48:00
U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station on Saturday on a mission to deliver Europe's first permanent space research facility...
Feeding Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:47:41
The French government on Saturday suspended the use of genetically modified corn crops in France while it awaits EU approval for a full ban...
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 23:51:16
Barack Obama swept Democratic presidential contests in three states on Saturday... Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington...
Huckabee and McCain were running close in partial returns in Louisiana and Washington...
reuters.com/ ... 23:50:02
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the Republican presidential contest in Kansas on Saturday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:48:34
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view... could cost him more than $550...
reuters.com/ ... 23:46:53
Mike Huckabee vowed on Saturday to stay in the Republican Party's nominating race for the presidential election in November, despite trailing far behind rival John McCain. "Am I quitting? Let's get that settled right now. No, I'm not..."
FRI 2008-FEB-08
Violence
wxii12.com/ ... 23:34:05
a man has been charged with child abuse in Caldwell County for circumcising his two infant sons with a utility knife...
foxnews.com/ ... 23:33:28
OLATHE, Kan. A Kansas teen was charged with involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the death of a 16-year-old schoolmate who collapsed after a fight that was captured on a bystander's cell phone...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:09:26
[23yo] nursing student has killed two fellow female students in their US classroom before turning the gun on herself... Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana... No motive... immediately apparent...
Fire
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:08:15
A fire in an old people's home in Austria has killed 11 people and injured another six, three seriously... in the town of Egg...
WW2 - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:05:37
The French interior ministry has suspended three policemen who are alleged to have made Nazi-style salutes in a bar and shouted racist insults...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:40:40
An employee of a Valparaiso Wal-Mart has been charged with theft for repeatedly making purchases to get change from a self-service cash register that was dispensing $20 bills instead of $1 bills...
Prison Sucks
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:21:18
Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated Guantanamo detainees, the commander of the prison camps has instituted language classes, a literacy program and wants to open communal areas for men held in isolation 22 hours a day...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:37:30
The U.S. military said five soldiers were killed Friday in two separate incidents in Iraq... Four soldiers died... on a combat patrol northwest of Baghdad... In violence near Tikrit, another soldier and killed and three others wounded...
cbs5.com/ ... 23:33:48
Young people who visit social networking sites to download music and pictures glorifying criminal street gangs can unwittingly set themselves up to be recruited by those gangs, according to law enforcement officials and youth counselors...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:10:30
At least seven policemen have been killed in an ambush by suspected Islamist militants in Algeria...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:05:20
US troops in Iraq say they have arrested a suspected leader of a Shia militia group allegedly backed by Iran...
reuters.com/ ... 20:25:38
Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders are directing insurgency operations in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, while al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is operating from Pakistan's tribal areas, a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:20:49
Iraqi and American commanders are preparing for a prolonged - and possibly pivotal - fight against al-Qaida in Iraq in this vital northern hub. But they are missing an essential tool used to uproot insurgents elsewhere: groups of local Sunni fighters. The so-called Awakening Councils remain conspicuously absent in Mosul and efforts to stir a similar movement appear unlikely amid the region's pecking order of groups. Some military leaders even worry that seeking to enlist local allies could boomerang and bring more unrest...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:20:20
Palestinian militants launched nearly 20 rockets at Israel on Friday hours after Israel began cutting electricity to the Gaza Strip in an attempt to halt the barrages... One of the rockets damaged a factory...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:16:49
A suicide car bomber blew himself up near a convoy of Afghan troops on Friday, killing one soldier and a child who was nearby... Another four soldiers and a child... wounded...
A suicide car bomb targeting a NATO convoy left three soldiers lightly wounded in eastern Khost province Thursday...
a bungled suicide attack hurt two civilians in southwestern Nimroz province...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 20:15:20
A woman in her late teens died from an acute asthma attack triggered by secondhand cigarette smoke shortly after arriving at her job as a waitress in a bar in Michigan...
Theft
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:42:06
Two paintings by Pablo Picasso have been stolen from a Swiss exhibition... in the small town of Pfaeffikon, near Zurich...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:38:35
Well-dressed men at posh Dallas hotels and bars are being targeted by a ring of flirtatious women who may be drugging them before swiping their watches and other expensive items...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:34:59
After Adam Grove had his custom motorcycle helmet stolen, he turned to eBay. Turns out, so did the thief...
Sex can be... disturbing
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:27:05
Investigators have decided not to pursue criminal charges against Elkhart police employees involved in the photographing of a woman who climbed on a police station information desk and posed provocatively...
Evolution Isn't Easy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:40:30
ATHENS, Greece... Analysis of a 40,000-year-old tooth found in southern Greece suggests Neanderthals were more mobile than once thought.... Analysis of the tooth... showed the ancient human had spent at least part of its life away from the area where it died. "Neanderthal mobility is highly controversial..."
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:00
The Office of Military Commissions announced today that three charges have been sworn against Guantanamo detainee Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul. The first two charges are conspiracy and solicitation to commit: murder of protected persons, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects... and providing material support for terrorism. The third charge is providing material support for terrorism. The charges allege that in or about February of 1999, al Bahlul traveled to Afghanistan to attend military-type training and to join al Qaeda. Once a member of Al Qaeda, he allegedly served as the personal secretary and media secretary of Usama bin Laden....
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:39:09
The Defense Department has announced that charges were referred to a military commission in the case of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, aka "Abu Khobaib al Sudani...." charged with conspiring with Usama bin Laden and other al Qaeda members to target, attack and murder civilians and attack civilian objects.... and to commit and provide material support to terrorism. If convicted, the accused could be sentenced up to life in prison. The charges allege that in 1996 al Qosi personally served as an armed guard and driver for Usama bin Laden....
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:07:42
The US army has drafted a new manual which for the first time puts an equal emphasis on winning hearts and minds as it does on defeating enemies by force. The manual is expected to be published later this month...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:19:46
The former commander of a U.S. Army sniper team testified Friday that he ordered one of his soldiers to kill an Iraqi who had stumbled on their hiding place, saying that was the only way to ensure the safety of his men in hostile territory...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 17:41:45
Army Sgt.
Bradley J. Skelton,
40, of Gordonville, Mo., died Feb. 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1138th Engineer Company, 35th Engineer Brigade, Missouri Army National Guard, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
defenselink.mil/ ... 17:41:28
Army Spc.
Miguel A. Baez,
32, of Bonaire, Ga., who was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Army Sgt.
John C. Osmolski,
23, of Eustis, Fla., who was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Army Sgt.
Timothy R. Van Orman,
24, of Port Matilda, Pa., who was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
died Feb. 5 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered in Al Muqdadiyah when they encountered an improvised explosive device during combat operations.
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:37:35
Authorities say a... 65-pound... Labrador retriever named Jet... survived a six story leap from a Tampa airport parking garage...
World Climate
ibdeditorial.com/ ... 17:33:59
Climate Change:
Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV the sun... Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle. This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:41:10
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to designate 8.6 million acres in four western states as critical habitat for an endangered owl will stand, a federal judge has ruled... despite an effort by the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association to overturn it...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:35:57
The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle is auctioning two paintings on eBay that were created by an orangutan named Towan...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:26:42
A leatherback turtle has been tracked swimming from the coast of the Papua province in Indonesia to Oregon... in what may be the longest trip for marine vertebrae between breeding and feeding sites...
reuters.com/ ... 17:24:02
More than 160 feral cats and kittens have been rescued from the site of the London 2012 Olympics as demolition work continues at a pace...
Big Brother
local6.com/ ... 23:32:57
Police officers in Daytona Beach are swabbing the mouths of
persons of interests
during traffic stops with special DNA kits in the hunt for an elusive serial killer...
Defending Ourselves
chron.com/ ... 23:32:09
A southeast Houston business owner shot and killed a man who tried to run him over outside his office supply store earlier this week...
[apparent attempted burglary]
Theory of Education
tcpalm.com/ ... 23:29:18
Police arrested a 13-year-old boy on a battery charge after he threw a broken pencil in class that hit another boy in the back of the head... suspect said he was throwing pencils, crayons and marker caps at one of the witnesses and another student because "they were calling him names..."
World of Sexual Cultures
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 23:28:30
A brothel in Prague is offering its "services" for free, and the only catch is that you have to sign away your rights because the establishment's 58 high-resolution cameras will catch everything, and they mean everything, you do...
Just Random Chance
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:10:13
Six tickets in the UK have shared the record £95m rollover jackpot in the EuroMillions lottery with 10 winners in other European countries. Because no-one managed to match all the five main numbers plus the two lucky star numbers, the £95m will be shared among the next level of winners...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:18:10
The U.S. Justice Department has launched an inquiry into "Total Music," an approach for selling digital music that has been the subject of early discussions between major record labels and consumer electronics manufacturers... Universal Music has been floating the idea of selling digital music built into all sorts of electronic devices - from digital music players to personal computers - since last year. The plan hasn't materialized into anything concrete, but discussions between Universal and rival record companies may have raised the potential for antitrust issues at the Justice Department...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:17:26
An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea Internet cables severed last week, causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, the cable's owner said Friday... Weighing more than 5.5 tons, the anchor has been pulled to the surface. The company did not immediately explain whether the anchor moved and snapped the cable or whether the cable itself was drifting when it was sliced...
Sex can be Boring
reuters.com/ ... 20:16:01
Nearly half of British men surveyed would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV...
Star Trek -- still with us
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 17:32:31
William Shatner, who played Captain James Kirk, has admitted that he has never watched Star Trek... had seen neither the cult science-fiction television programme nor any of the films... hated watching himself perform on screen, saying "I suck"... also not watched any of his performances playing a lawyer in Boston Legal... did not have any memorabilia from Star Trek either...
Love is Strange
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 17:31:07
A 34-year-old Italian man who had sex with a 13-year-old girl has had his sentence cut by... two-thirds because a court decided there was "real love" between the pair... His lawyers argued... that there was a "deep tenderness" between him and the girl and that he had "fallen head over heels in love" after a sexual encounter in his car. They said the girl had consented to every action... Because of a general amnesty for anyone who receives a sentence of less than three years, [he] is unlikely to serve any prison time for his Lolita-esque romance...
US Election 2008
breitbart.com/ ... 17:29:06
In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had "pimped out" 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother's behalf. Wolfson called the comment "beneath contempt" and disgusting...
Transport Pre-Automation
reuters.com/ ... 17:26:00
Ireland should consider giving up driving on the left to reduce accidents by foreigners accustomed to right side motoring, a senior politician said Friday...
People Die
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:27:54
Workers responding to neighbors' complaints of a bad smell coming from an apartment in western England discovered a
body that lay decomposing on a couch for years while another resident lived there...
The occupant, also in his 70s, apparently failed to report the death because he suffers from mental health problems...
[Um... I'd SAY!]
reuters.com/ ... 17:25:42
LONDON... hearse overturned when the horses pulling it to a south London cemetery stampeded, dragging the carriage and coffin past appalled relatives and sending floral tributes flying. "It was dreadful..."
Sportsmanship
reuters.com/ ... 17:24:48
Less spitting, better queuing and cleaner streets
show Beijing has become more "civilized," but the city still has to fine-tune its etiquette to attain Olympic standards...
THU 2008-FEB-07
Under Sexist Tyranny
foxnews.com/ ... 22:45:53
Two weeks before Yara, an American businesswoman, was arrested by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at Starbucks, she said she strolled past the very same cafe with another businessman: Neil Bush... President George W. Bush's younger brother and CEO of the education software company Ignite!.. "I was boasting about Riyadh, telling him it doesn't deserve its bad reputation," she said. "I told him I never experienced any harassment. I'd had no trouble as a woman. It was business as usual..."
Industrial Trouble
foxnews.com/ ... 22:44:44
An explosion and fire at a sprawling sugar refinery rattled this Savannah suburb Thursday night, severely injuring dozens of people and sending authorities into a nearby river to search for possible victims... No deaths were immediately reported... no word on what caused the blast... unconfirmed number of injuries, "well over 50 to 100 at this point..."
Theft
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:57:30
A Puerto Rican militant suspected in a 1983 Connecticut robbery - among the country's largest cash heists at the time - was arrested Thursday in the U.S. territory, where he lived quietly under an assumed name...
Threats
eastvalleytribune.com/ ... 21:49:56
A distraught Tempe man was within sight of the Super Bowl on Sunday with an assault rifle, but a change of heart kept him from unloading 200 rounds of ammunition on the crowd, court records show... turned himself in Sunday to Tempe police and the FBI at the urging of family and confessed his plan, which he hatched in retaliation for the Tempe City Council rejecting a liquor license application for a restaurant and bar he owns...
Iraq
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:04:50
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has sharply reduced his workload in recent months, raising new questions about the health of the aged leader and the prospect of a dangerous power vacuum without a clear and dominant successor. Any change in al-Sistani's role or reach could have far-reaching consequences for both Iraq and the United States, which consider the Iranian-born cleric as perhaps the most powerful figure in Iraq and a vital stabilizing force in the oil-rich Shiite heartlands of southern Iraq...
Nicotine is a Drag
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:54:43
Tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people in the 21st unless governments act now to dramatically reduce it, the World Health Organization said in a report Thursday...
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:58:17
At least 29 people have been killed and 16 injured when nine cars and lorries slammed into each other on a fog-choked rural highway in Upper Egypt...
Under Tyranny
iht.com/ ... 09:48:41
The principal election-observation organization in Europe said Thursday it would not send observers to monitor Russia's remaining presidential campaign and the election on March 2, citing severe restrictions imposed on its work by the Russian government...
Violence
ap.google.com/ ... 22:39:18
PORTSMOUTH, Ohio... A teacher's husband went to her elementary school Thursday and shot her, but no children were injured... condition of the woman was not immediately known...
stltoday.com/ ... 21:46:37
Kirkwood, Mo.... Six people, including two Kirkwood police officers and the gunman, were killed tonight at Kirkwood City Hall... "He kept something about, Shoot the mayor and he just walked around shooting anybody he could..." man approached City Hall and shot one officer outside, then entered the building and shot and killed another officer. "He shot three other people who were attending the council meeting. They also are deceased.... One of the members attending the the board meeting was transported to an area hospital..." "Kirkwood police officer returned fire and killed him..."
foxnews.com/ ... 09:19:29
An 18-year-old North Andover [man] is accused of killing his therapist... then attempted to slit his own throat...
Nature can be Deadly
ap.google.com/ ... 09:18:50
A major snowstorm lumbered across the Midwest on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of schools and businesses to close and grounding hundreds of flights as snow piled more than 20 inches deep in some areas... near-whiteout conditions in southern Wisconsin... two traffic deaths... Snowplow operators were called off the roads shortly before noon in Green County... over 20 inches of snow fell in Saukville... Missouri, with 6 inches in places, but it was enough to form ice on bridges and highway ramps. A 12-car pileup near Springfield closed Interstate 44 for about an hour... Schools and universities canceled classes in parts of Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, where up to 14 inches of snow fell north of Detroit...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:04:17
U.S. and Iraqi troops raided Baghdad's largest Shiite slum early Thursday and arrested 16 people, American and Iraqi officials and witnesses said...
The U.S. military said one of the detainees later died. The military also announced the death of a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb a day earlier in western Baghdad...
reuters.com/ ... 15:56:58
Attacks by Iranian-backed groups in Iraq have increased
in recent months... David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator... said on Thursday, casting doubt on the view Iran might have reduced its support for violence in the war... believed Iran's strategy remained to force the United States to withdraw from Iraq at as high a price as possible...
reuters.com/ ... 11:58:02
Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his feared Mehdi Army on Thursday to maintain its six-month ceasefire as members of the militia clashed with U.S. and Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad...
nydailynews.com/ ... 09:17:37
The FBI struck a decapitating blow today to the Gambino crime family, taking out its leaders and the last vestiges of late boss John Gotti... Up to 60 mobsters are expected to be charged... including acting boss John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico... underboss Dominic Cefalu and consigliere Joseph (JoJo) Corozzo...
Pakistan
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:15:24
A leading militant group in the Pakistani region of South Waziristan... Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan... is reported to have declared a truce and be willing to enter peace talks. Few details have emerged... The group's leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is accused by the government of being behind the murder of Benazir Bhutto...
bloomberg.com/ ... 09:12:04
Pakistani investigators arrested two men in connection with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto... in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was assassinated...
Scary Times
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:57:21
[33yo] woman passenger on a small commuter plane in New Zealand stabbed at least one of the two pilots and threatened to blow up the aircraft... was restrained after being forced out of the cockpit...
reuters.com/ ... 08:53:01
CANBERRA... A drunken man's threat to blow up half a city with his television remote control forced Australian police to declare a state of emergency at a luxury golf resort... "One push of the button will blow up half of Brisbane..." police... opened fire with rubber bullets... lawyer told the Brisbane District Court that his client lost control after losing much of his life savings in a fraud carried out by his finance broker... accepted probation, but said he was concerned it could interrupt plans to travel overseas to do humanitarian aid work... "Let's get you right before we send you off to a third world country," the judge said...
Hospitals can be Dangerous
reuters.com/ ... 08:51:30
new rules issued by [Serbia]'s Health Ministry... say... hospital... staff are not allowed to criticize their hospital or their superiors, and should not accept gifts for their services... ban on grumpiness, gossiping, mini-skirts and rudeness...
Dinosaurs -- still with us
foxnews.com/ ... 22:50:34
By mimicking the guts of the biggest dinosaurs, scientists now find the animals' diets of evergreens and ferns were more nourishing than previously thought. These new findings help solve the mystery of how such dinosaurs reached huge sizes off seemingly poor food... gingkoes, horsetails and some ferns and conifers packed surprisingly reasonable amounts of energy, performing roughly as well as grasses and temperate foliage...
Animal Culture
foxnews.com/ ... 22:48:49
Barnacles can radically change the size and shape of their penises to fight the waves and have sex... they have evolved the longest penises of any creature for their size up to eight times their body length... Most barnacles are hermaphrodites that alternate between male and female sexes over time...
It came from the sky
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:41:36
Calgary, Alberta... A Canadian woman narrowly avoided getting hit by several chunks of ice that crashed through her bedroom ceiling Thursday, likely dropped from a passing airplane...
Orbiting Overhead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:56:11
The space shuttle
Atlantis has been successfully launched
from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The orbiter is taking Europe's Columbus science laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS)...
World Energy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:55:17
Researchers have developed a device that generates electrical power from the swing of a walking person's knee...
Staying Healthy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:21
South Africa's health minister took another controversial foray into the AIDS debate Thursday by questioning international medical studies that say circumcision helps reduce HIV infections in men. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who frequently clashes with foreign experts on how to deal with this nation's world-worst AIDS epidemic, said there wasn't "enough information" to justify the government running roughshod over some local communities whose traditions frown on circumcision...
reuters.com/ ... 15:54:25
People who have trouble exercising on a treadmill are at increased risk of suffering a heart attack or other heart-related event and of dying, according to results of a study.
World Climate
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:57:50
Two scientists have claimed that climate change was not the only cause of the collapse of a 500bn tonne ice shelf in Antarctica six years ago... claim in a new study that it had been on the brink for decades. They argue that glaciological and atmospheric factors were also invoved...
Animal Companions
local6.com/ ... 09:38:16
Kissimmee [Fla] firefighters on Tuesday revived several dogs by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the animals, which were rescued from a structure fire...
In the Line of Duty
ap.google.com/ ... 09:16:29
A man barricaded himself in a house after telling police he had killed three relatives, then exchanged gunfire with a SWAT team, police said Thursday. One officer was killed and another wounded... undergoing surgery, but was expected to survive...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:43:01
WICHITA, Kan... Two Komodo dragons have hatched at the Sedgwick County Zoo, apparently without the fertilization of a male...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:57:12
A previously unknown sub-species of bird has been discovered in the southern grasslands of Nepal... a warbler with a very long tail and slender beak... has been named the Nepal Rufous-vented Prinia... its tiny population means the sub-species is endangered...
smh.com.au/ ... 09:14:38
The Australian Government has released evidence challenging Japan's claims that its [whale] hunt is the most efficient and humane possible. The images show "scientific research" that needed multiple rifle shots to finish off the mammal...
[It's really creepy that we as a planet are still debating whether or not to kill whales in the 21st Century!]
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:54:57
Army Staff Sgt.
Donald T. Tabb,
29, of Norcross, Ga., died Feb. 5 in Sangin, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 6th Military Police Detachment, 1st Battalion, 13th Aviation Regiment, Fort Rucker, Ala.
Blurring Lines of Reality
foxnews.com/ ... 22:47:49
According to the Ledger colleague and pal, the actor's role as the Joker in the upcoming "Batman" movie, "The Dark Knight," is in large part to blame for his insomnia. "He said that ever since filming 'Batman,' he was having massive sleeping issues," the friend said. "He became so into that role that it really messed with his head, on top of what he had to go through in terms of the paparazzi and missing [his daughter] Matilda. He just kept saying that nothing he tried helped him sleep and it was stressing him out like crazy. But I really feel like it was 'Batman' that tipped him over the edge..."
Unclear on the Concept
jpost.com/ ... 22:38:35
The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, sparked controversy on Thursday when he said the introduction of Shari'a (Islamic law) for British Muslims was "unavoidable..." Dr. Rowan Williams said that Muslims should be able to choose whether to have matters such as marital disputes dealt with under Shari'a law or the British legal system... He said that the introduction of Shari'a law would mean that British Muslims would no longer have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty..."
World Without Borders
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:56:08
Amy Winehouse will not perform at this year's Grammy awards ceremony because her US visa application has been rejected by the embassy in London. The singer was arrested for marijuana possession in Norway last year...
Human Right
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:55:16
When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing child pornography. But when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, authorities were stymied by a password-protected encryption program. Now Boucher is caught in a cyber-age quandary: The government wants him to give up the password, but doing so could violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by revealing the contents of the files. Experts say the case could have broad computer privacy implications for people who cross borders with computers, PDAs and other devices that are subject to inspection... For now, the law's on Boucher's side...
It's Only Money
reuters.com/ ... 21:47:02
some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise. "We had decided that money is money and we'll take it and just do the exchange whenever we can with our bank..."
Theory of Education
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:42:32
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa... Officials at a junior high school spiked an edition of the student newspaper because it contained a recipe for hot chocolate that included peppermint schnapps... student who submitted the recipe thought schnapps was a type of candy...
[ummm... jr high? Okay, MAYbe....]
Theory of Justice
reuters.com/ ... 21:55:42
The U.S. military has lost a year's worth of records describing the Guantanamo confinement of Osama bin Laden's driver, a prosecutor said at the Yemeni captive's war court hearing on Thursday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:40:50
A traffic judge apologized to a man who had been hounded for 17 years by officials trying to get his similarly named twin brother to resolve $1,800 in unpaid tickets and fines... After the column ran Monday, a different traffic judge, Bernice DeAngelis, caught wind of the story. She apologized and said the court would give Edward Harris a refund...
Digital Future is Now
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:56:34
Online banking service provider CheckFree Corp. is rolling out technology that could mean consumers will no longer have to go to a bank branch to deposit checks. Called Remote Deposit Capture, the technology lets people scan checks through their home computers and deposit them electronically has been around for several years, but it has been used mainly for businesses...
Sportsmanship
news.bostonherald.com/ ... 09:52:30
The Patriots... downward spiral took a Pat-thetic turn with yesterdays bust of defensive back Willie Andrews on a drug distribution charge in Lowell... was allegedly driving around with marijuana crammed in his crotch and $6,808 bound in rubber bands in the console of his black 2007 Ford Crown Victoria with tinted windows...
Reasons for Repeal
yorkshirepost.co.uk/ ... 22:41:07
Grahame Stowe... FINALLY, it seems the Government has recognised David Blunkett's folly in relaxing drug laws in January 2004...
[ssiiiiggghh....]
Amid growing concern that stronger strains of the drug were flooding British streets and emerging evidence on the long-term effects of use...
[Can you say Political Year spin? Can you say PuriTalibaNanny State?]
news.theage.com.au/ ... 22:39:58
Two men have been arrested after police stopped a car east of Adelaide and found 16 kilograms of dried cannabis, equal to more than 5,300 street deals...
canada.com/ ... 09:51:54
A Surrey pot grower's Charter rights were violated when police used a battering ram to break down his door and find more than 700 plants in his basement, a B.C. Supreme Court judge just ruled. Police are unhappy with the ruling, and hope the Crown will appeal it... acquitted of all charges...
sfgate.com/ ... 09:50:59
Medical marijuana in San Francisco may be going up in smoke... In late December, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sent letters to landlords of buildings that housed medical cannabis dispensaries in the city, telling them they face the loss of their property and possibly prison if the businesses stay open. Now, less than two months later, seven of the city's 28 dispensaries have closed or are on the verge of closing... Dispensary owners are being guarded about the closures, as they are fearful that speaking publicly will draw attention to their individual businesses and put them at greater risk...
[More proof that we live under a PuriTalibaNazi Tyranny! REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!]
US Election 2008
nolanchart.com/ ... 16:02:54
How Romney's Departure Equals Victory for Paul With the unexpected concession of Mitt Romney, Ron Paul is suddenly thrust into serious contender status... Today Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. Remember what just happened in West Virginia? Ron Paul delegates threw their support to Huckabee to knock Romney out of contention. Eliminating Romney from the race was part of the West Virginia strategy to win delegates. Romney lost WV and went on to lose many other Conservative votes to Ron Paul throughout the country on Super Tuesday. Romney had hundreds of delegates going to the national convention that were committed to him. Many of these delegates are now free to vote for an alternate candidate. Does anyone really believe that Romney's supporters want to vote for McCain after the savage attacks that McCentury levied on Romney? They will be looking for a Conservative alternative to McCain. Right now that means either Huckabee (if he can keep going) and Paul. We are back in play!..
dailypaul.com/ ... 15:59:07
February 7th, 2008 by GiveMeLibertyOr... Just when it looked like all was lost,
WE'RE BACK IN BUSINESS WITH ROMNEY OUT!!!
Very soon Huckabee will also drop out and that will make it a 2 man race. With only 2 candidates left people will at least notice Ron Paul, and when they finally notice him and look into him, he should be able to garner losts of support and maybe start tons of momentum. People only need to know about him and his message, and when they are informed that's when he gets his support...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:57:48
Senator McCain congratulated Mr Romney and invited his supporters to join him. "You are welcome to join my campaign, and it will be a campaign based on conservative principles and a consequential election about the country's future," he said. "I'd be deeply humbled to receive the nomination of my party as we continue to move forward in this campaign..."
reuters.com/ ... 15:57:19
Mitt Romney ended his struggling U.S. presidential bid
on Thursday, clearing the way for John McCain to become the all-but-certain Republican nominee and begin mending fences with disgruntled party conservatives...
online.wsj.com/ ... 09:50:03
Mrs. Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, which Mr. Obama has now had the nerve to expose for its inevitable government coercion. Mrs. Clinton's proposal requires everyone to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. Mr. Obama likes all that but his mandate would only apply to children...
[Creepy creeping socialism...!]
apnews.myway.com/ ... 09:40:07
Republican presidential candidate John McCain skipped a difficult Senate vote Wednesday on whether to make 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans eligible for rebate checks as part of a proposed economic stimulus package. The Arizona senator's decision to miss the vote appeared to come at the last minute, after his plane had landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington just before the proceedings opened on the Senate floor...
World of Sexual Cultures
dailycamera.com/ ... 09:36:59
Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Larry Liston... "In my parents day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are.... There was at least a sense of shame. Theres no sense of shame today.... Society condones it. ... I think its wrong.
Theyre sluts. And I dont mean just the women. I mean the men, too.
" Rep. Stella Garza Hicks, who was at the meeting, said Liston should apologize...
Digital Threat
foxnews.com/ ... 22:51:09
A Detroit-area seventh-grader suffered burns to his leg Wednesday after a Sony PlayStation Portable video game overheated in his pocket during band class... battery leaked...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:37:17
Spending hours on a cell phone each day may affect the quality of a man's sperm, preliminary research suggests...
news.com/ ... 09:31:19
On Wednesday, Apple released QuickTime 7.4.1. The update is for users of Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.7, Mac OS X v10.5 or later, and Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2. It addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-0234...
Digital Business
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:39:16
...AOL had 9.3 million paying subscribers as of Dec. 31, a third of its peak of nearly 27 million in 2002. Selling off the dial-up business in the U.S. as it already has done in Europe could make AOL more attractive to potential bidders, including Google Inc., which already owns 5 percent of AOL and has a right to trigger an initial public offering of that stake in July. Roger Kay, who heads the market research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates, called AOL's access business "lead weight," while its ad business is "undernourished (but) has value..."
news.com/ ... 09:30:39
In a move to curtail retaliation by vengeful sellers in its feedback system, eBay plans to prohibit sellers from posting negative feedback about their customers. Beginning in May, sellers will not be able to leave negative or even neutral comments about their customers, only positive feedback... Sellers are crying foul, saying the policy change isn't fair...
[Such solutions seem like Prohibition, a worse overkill that affects everyone instead of response that targets the specific problems....]
computerworld.com/ ... 09:29:21
Microsoft Corp.'s debacle with Windows Vista device drivers malfunctioning after an upgrade to Service Pack 1 is an expected, almost inevitable result of the strategic path it took with Windows' initial release more than two decades ago... has long relied on partners to create an unparalleled selection of applications and hardware devices that has become one of Windows' chief attractions. But in trying to preside over this huge ecosystem of partners, Microsoft often more resembles a beleaguered parent than an iron-fisted ruler. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of device drivers... The problem is that hardware vendors hate writing drivers because of the difficulty and lack of reward... any large vendor (think Logitech or HP) has hundreds of discontinued products that are still new enough that there will be customers wanting to run them on Windows Vista...
People Die
reuters.com/ ... 08:53:28
An estate agent who took a prospective buyer to view a house in central England found the owner hanging dead in a closet...
Digital Democracy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:50:07
how many US states are going back to traditional voting methods after serious problems with electronic voting machines... "Technology has gone wrong in almost every way possible.... You have inevitable human error - just last week, in the Florida presidential primaries, a lead poll worker accidentally turned off all the machines, which then took a long time to restart. In other places you have had screens freeze, power failures due to bad weather and there have also been allegations of 'vote flipping', where people are trying to press the screen to vote for one candidate and the machine wants to keep registering votes for another"...
Virtual Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:47:08
While skills will improve as monsters are slaughtered and quests are completed, the scarcity of cash can be a brake on progress for many gamers. Many fix the problem by turning to a gold seller and buying a chunk of in-game cash, using real world money, to fund their advancement. This is despite the fact that the terms and conditions of many games ban the buying and selling of in-game gear for real money. Being found out can mean a player is banned and their account is closed... As games rack up more and more players the numbers turning to the money sellers and those who only play to amass, or farm, gold that they can then sell have rocketed...
WED 2008-FEB-06
Violence
abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:20:55
An Arizona judge threw the book at a two-time convicted drunk driver who killed a bicyclist and then laughed about it in a jailhouse phone call with a friend... Judge... "breathtaking in it's inhumanity..."
palmbeachpost.com/ ... 22:16:50
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said during a taping of America's Most Wanted in suburban Delray Beach that "all the signs are there" linking the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter, who were found bound and shot to death in an idling SUV outside the upscale shopping center, and the killing of Randi Gorenberg, a wife and mother shot to death after visiting the Town Center mall on March 23. The sheriff also pointed to an Aug. 7 robbery in which a 31-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son were also bound and held at gunpoint and said all three crimes might be the work of the same killer...
Supernatural Sexism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:46:20
Lawmakers voted early Thursday to approve a constitutional amendment allowing female students to enter universities wearing Islamic head scarves - a move some Turks see as a threat to the traditional separation of church and state...
Threats
apnews.myway.com/ ... 17:54:19
The military's top uniformed officer says U.S. forces are "significantly stressed" by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously trying to stem the tide of violent extremism elsewhere. "The pace of ongoing operations has prevented our forces from fully training for the full spectrum of operations and impacts our ability to be ready to counter future threats," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday...
washingtontimes.com/ ... 17:53:55
Senior al Qaeda leaders have diverted operatives from Iraq across the globe and are increasing preparations to strike the United States, senior intelligence officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday. They said the terrorists had plans to attack the White House as recently as 2006...
Under Sexist Tyranny
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 17:52:56
A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh...
Fire
cnn.com/ ... 17:36:15
"I took the child from my sister, the mother," he said. "She and the father were screaming: 'Don't do it! Don't do it!' But I didn't listen.... I looked into the eyes of the policeman below, and I knew I could trust him.... If the cop wouldn't have been standing down there.... I would have just taken the boy and jumped down with him in my arms to save him..." " the parents are still grieving because Onur's 2-year-old brother, Ilyas, was [one of nine] killed in the blaze... father was also badly injured in the fire and remains hospitalized...
Rebuilding
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:30:30
Iraqi and U.N. officials toured a bomb-damaged Shiite shrine in northern Iraq on Wednesday as workers took the first steps in a long-delayed reconstruction - nearly two years after the attack on the famed golden dome became a rallying point for Shiite rage...
Under Digital Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:43:03
China has eased new Internet controls that had limited video-sharing to state companies, saying private competitors already operating in the fast-growing arena may continue...
Missing
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:40:41
PASCO, Wash... discovery of an apparent piece of human scalp... "At this point it appears to be human.... We're taking a leap that the person it belongs to probably is not alive..."
Civilization vs Gangsterism
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 22:03:24
Egyptian forces yesterday caught [4] terrorists associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization attempting to infiltrate Israel with explosive belts... [also] six Hamas... carrying explosive devices purportedly for use in suicide bombings... unclear whether the Fatah terrorists arrested by Egypt yesterday included two potential suicide bombers Israel says are attempting to infiltrate the Jewish state...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:45:52
The leader of al-Qaida in Afghanistan... Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed... praised a top commander who was killed last month by a U.S. missile strike and vowed that the fight against America and other enemies would continue, according to a video released Wednesday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:32:32
It was not long after the gruff man with darting eyes demanded a cup of coffee at her restaurant that Revital Biton heard the blast. In retrospect, the 29-year-old owner of Revital's World Class Pizza said Tuesday she wished she had called police when the jittery Arab man came in...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:31:50
Hamas militants fired a rocket into an Israeli border village, [lightly] wounding two young sisters... ages 12 and 2... as they played outside their home... mother was taken to a hospital for shock...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:30:47
Neo-Nazi graffiti was found scrawled on the entrance to a Turkish cultural center at a building where nine people - including five children - were killed in a fire... The deaths called to mind racially motivated attacks in western Germany in the 1990s...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:29:54
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba... Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded - a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7... for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack... 15 "high-value detainees..." Red Cross representatives have visited Camp 7 and all the other detention facilities at Guantanamo...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:26:48
The Algerian interior ministry says six men suspected of carrying out bomb attacks in Algiers in December have been arrested...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 13:55:48
...Brigades leader provided WND with the names of the two bombers... Israeli forensic experts who coordinated with Palestinian security officials discovered [they] were not the bombers who exploded themselves... Israeli security officials realized the Al Aqsa Marytrs Brigades after hearing of yesterday's successful suicide operation mistakenly thought it was their bombers who had reached Israel and detonated their explosives and, in a rush to take responsibility, the Brigades released the names of their two bombers. Thanks to the Brigades' mistake, Israeli security agencies now have the identities of two potential Brigade suicide attackers...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:36:19
The Somali port of Bossaso has been hit by deadly twin blasts as grenades planted in a building housing mainly Ethiopian migrants exploded overnight. More than 20 people were killed in the explosions and more than 100 are seeking treatment for severe wounds...
Getting a Clue?
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:35:54
Russia thinks the launch of an Iranian rocket into space raises suspicion over the true aim of its nuclear programme...
Transport Tragedy
reuters.com/ ... 16:39:23
A Romanian train driver... forgot to put the hand brake on the engine... flagged down a taxi and chased it for six km (3.7 miles) before catching up with it. He jumped aboard the moving engine but slipped and fell under its wheels... The engine traveled another 26 km until it was stopped by rail workers.
"If you panic, you pay with your life,"
railway police officer Constantin Nut told Reuters...
[Real nice reaction to the guy's effort....]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:34:50
A senior Pakistani army officer is among eight people killed in a helicopter crash in the restive South Waziristan region... two brigadiers are also among the dead...
Nature can be Deadly
apnews.myway.com/ ... 21:56:45
At least
55 people were killed
and hundreds injured Tuesday and Wednesday by dozens of tornadoes that plowed across Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. It was the nation's
deadliest barrage of twisters in almost 23 years.
"We had a beautiful neighborhood. Now it's hell..." At least 12 people died in and around... Hartsville, a community about an hour from Nashville... The conditions for bad weather had lined up so perfectly that the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., put out an alert six days in advance...
reuters.com/ ... 17:25:53
Tornadoes and thunderstorms shattered parts of the U.S. South on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 52 people and injuring more than 150... "My husband and I got into the bathtub with our little girl. I remember flying through the air. It was very scary. Then it was real quiet and we saw our house was gone. Our baby was unhurt..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:36:45
Two people were killed and five more were missing after heavy rainfall triggered a landslide on the Indonesian island of Java...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:34:19
Severe flooding caused by weeks of heavy rain is now known to have left 48 people dead and some 40,000 families homeless... Two rivers in one of the worst-hit provinces, Beni, have broken their banks and are threatening to cut off the main city in the region, Trinidad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:33:49
At least 45 people have been killed and dozens injured by violent tornadoes in... Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky... 24 people in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and one in Alabama... dozens of tornadoes... upturned vehicles, destroyed buildings... uprooted trees. Hundreds of thousands... without power... Flames shot hundreds of feet in the air after the Columbia Gulf Natural Gas pumping station near Green Grove, Tennessee, caught fire... struck by a tornado... "It just took the house and everything and my horses and my dog," Dara Reasonover told CNN. "I don't know if they're alive or dead, but we'll make it..."
Modern Medicine can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:49:32
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that a mother who didn't like the way her baby's circumcision looked cannot sue a Fridley hospital for medical malpractice... claiming the doctor removed "the most erogenous tissue" after the boy was born on Jan. 21, 2000 - without consulting either parent. Nelson and the boy's father, David Nelson, were unhappy with the result. But the Appeals Court noted in its Tuesday decision that the mother indicated on a prenatal form that the baby should be circumcised...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:05:59
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico... Thirteen of the 20 best-selling drugs in the United States come from plants on this island. But an investigation by The Associated Press has found dozens of examples over four years of lapses in quality control in the Puerto Rican pharmaceutical industry, which churns out $35 billion of drugs each year, most of it for sale as part of the $300 billion market in the U.S. An AP review of 100 pages of Food and Drug Administration reports shows even modern drug plants here under the watch of U.S. regulators have failed to keep laboratories sterile and have exported tainted pills...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:48:56
GOLDONNA, La... A man was arrested for allegedly breaking into a home and trying to use the computer there to make counterfeit money...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:33:28
...homeless, walked into the Integrity Bank in York on Thursday evening wearing a hood. He handed a teller a note demanding money, and the teller told him to remove the hood. He did, giving the bank surveillance cameras a crystal-clear view of his face...
Theft
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:58
Two different armed robbers hit a Grand Rapids convenience store... a little more than two hours apart on Sunday night...
Disturbing Family Patterns
chron.com/ ... 22:15:58
GALVESTON An Alvin man... admitted taking... 3-month-old son... out of his car seat... that the only way to stop [him] from crying was to kill him..."
abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:14:45
[24yo] Indiana mother was arrested and jailed this morning after her toddler son was found trapped and unconscious underneath the passed-out woman and was declared dead an hour later...
newsoftheweird.blogspot.com/ ... 13:47:17
Tip o'the BlogHeaper visor to News of the Weird Wednesday...
news4jax.com/ ... 13:45:55
Update & correction: St. Augustine woman pulled over when a deputy saw her
run a red light
had a case of beer belted in her front seat, but a young child unrestrained in the back...
[Mom was driving, 19yo in back seat with child.]
had bloodshot and watery eyes and staggered when she got out of the vehicle. Asked if she'd been drinking, she told the deputy, "I had a few...." suspected drug paraphernalia...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:27:04
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla... had a 24-pack of beer strapped in with a seat belt but had a 16-month-old girl unrestrained in the back seat with the toddler's mother...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 16:48:17
Army Sgt.
Rafael Alicearivera,
30, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, died Feb. 5 in Tallil, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 307th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. The incident is under investigation.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 16:47:23
National Guard... February 6, 2008... This week the Army and Navy announced an increase, while the Marine Corps announced a decrease. The Air Force and Coast Guard numbers did not change. The net collective result is
843 more reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to
95,324,
including both units and individual augmentees....
World Energy
reuters.com/ ... 17:53:33
U.S. drivers could enjoy a drop of up to 50 cents per gallon in gasoline prices by this spring as high fuel prices and the threat of a recession force them to conserve, experts said on Wednesday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:46:26
The Philippines will phase out incandescent bulbs by 2010 in favor of more energy-efficient fluorescent globes to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and household costs...
[and, hey, what's a little mercury poisoning as long as we're saving miniscule amounts of energy, eh?]
Gardeners of Earth
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:45:25
A "barcode" gene that can be used to distinguish between the majority of plant species has been identified... has a slightly different code between species but is nearly identical within a species...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:47:19
The death of a [6yo] hippopotamus who spent nearly 29 hours in a crate as she was transferred from Denver to Canada was an accident that no one could have reasonably foreseen, an independent veterinarian concluded this week...
reuters.com/ ... 16:44:51
Thousands of goats that provide fine wool for Kashmir's famous Pashmina shawls are facing death because of heavy snow in India's mountainous Ladakh region... Nearly 100,000 Pashmina goats have been affected by a shortage of food because winter pastures near the Chinese border have been covered after unexpected heavy snowfall...
Solar System
reuters.com/ ... 16:44:21
...how one of Saturn's moons can spew out a giant plume of water vapor... the temperature at the bottom of surface cracks on Enceladus has to be about 0 degrees Celsius, the so-called triple point of water where vapor, ice and liquid water all can coexist. "This makes this moon very interesting for further study because there is a connection between liquid water and life..."
Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa and Enceladus are the only places in the solar system with direct evidence of water...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:42:22
Holograms could soon be helping monitor surgical procedures after a faster way to make the 3D images is discovered... researchers,,, developed a novel material in which holographs can be created in minutes...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 21:45:15
The babies of teenage fathers are at higher risk for problems such as premature birth, low birth weight and neonatal death...
reuters.com/ ... 21:45:03
work on mice showed that tattooing was a more effective way to deliver a new generation of experimental DNA vaccines than standard injections into muscle...
reuters.com/ ... 21:44:36
A previously unknown virus killed three women who got organ transplants from an Australian donor... researchers say the technique they used to identify it could lead them to many more new infectious agents. The as-yet-unnamed virus appears to be related to a bug called lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, which usually causes only a minor flu-like illness. But this one killed the three transplant patients by causing encephalitis...
reuters.com/ ... 21:44:07
Doctors say they have developed a screening test for deadly Menkes disease so patients with the genetic defect can receive life-saving copper injections... rare condition... causes seizures, stunted growth, mental retardation and kinky hair... Historically, fewer than 13 percent are alive after two years if treatment has been delayed. Menkes disease is often missed because normal newborns also can have low copper blood levels. In addition, affected infants appear healthy at birth and they do not begin to develop symptoms for six to eight weeks. By then it can be too late for daily copper injections to be effective...
aboutconstipation.org/ ... 09:59:31
Developed at the University of Bristol, U.K., the Bristol stool form scale is a recognized, general measure of stool consistency or form. Using this scale, you can help your physician sort out patterns or changes in bowel habit. Remember, this is intended as a general, not exact, measure...
Feeding Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:26:13
Tajikistan is in the grip of emergency food shortages, the UN's World Food Programme is warning. The deteriorating food situation is part of the energy crisis which hit the mountainous nation in the middle of its coldest winter for five decades...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:41:46
For the first time, health officials report that the AIDS virus can be spread by a mother pre-chewing her infant's food, a practice mainly seen in poor, developing countries...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:01:37
Several outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning have been confirmed in consumers who ate fish harvested in the northern Gulf of Mexico... fish such as grouper, snapper, amberjack and barracuda represent the most significant threat to consumers. They feed on fish that have eaten toxic marine algae. The toxin is stable in the tissue of living fish and does them no harm. But larger carnivores have higher concentrations of the toxin in their tissues. As a result, the greatest risk of poisoning for humans comes from the largest fish... Symptoms of ciguatera poisoning include nausea, vomiting, vertigo and joint pain...
reuters.com/ ... 09:34:16
Activists opposed to Chinese government ties with Japan may have contaminated Chinese-made dumplings that caused 10 people in Japan to fall ill, Japanese media quoted a senior Chinese food safety official as saying on Wednesday...
It's All in Your Mind
reuters.com/ ... 09:33:58
Brain scans of people in chronic pain show a state of constant activity in areas that should be at rest, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, a finding that could help explain why pain patients have higher rates of depression, anxiety and other disorders... chronic pain seems to alter the way people process information that is unrelated to pain...
Lasting Contributions
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:00:36
The Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who is credited with introducing the Beatles and other stars to ancient Hindu meditation methods, has died... thought to have been 91 years old, died in his sleep on Tuesday evening at his home in the Netherlands... announced his retirement and retreat into silence... last month, saying his work was done and that he wanted to dedicate his remaining days to studying ancient Hindu Vedas texts...
editorandpublisher.com/ ... 09:26:37
"They'll Do It Every Time"
-- which humorously looks at human foibles -- was created in 1929 by Jimmy Hatlo and entered syndication in 1936...
Ending After Almost 80 Years
... last daily [was] Feb. 2 and the last Sunday Feb. 10. The comic panel's cartoonist,
Al Scaduto
, died last month at the age of 79.
The reader-contribution comic was... drawn by Bob Dunn before Scaduto took over...
Human Right
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:22:57
Canada's lower house Wednesday passed a revised anti-terrorism law that remains one of the country's most contentious,
allowing the government to detain foreign terror suspects indefinitely without disclosing evidence against them...
Big Whoops Cascade
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 22:18:54
BBC apologises for 'offensive' Gardeners' Question Time debate about plant called 'black man's willy'...
People Live
katu.com/ ... 22:13:13
BATTLE GROUND, Wash. - A bizarre accident left a woman with a knife lodged deep in her head and what is so amazing is that she actually survived... was pulling weeds... when she set a knife down with the blade pointing up and then tripped when she went to turn around, landing right on the knife... said it didn't hurt... "No pain at all..." knife just missed her brain stem and also just missed the main artery to her brain... "We took it out and nothing happened..."
Sportsmanship
mcall.com/ ... 22:11:10
The Palmerton Area School District wanted nearly $2 million for a downtown Palmerton ball field. Their only offer was for $5... scrawled in pencil on an unlined piece of white paper... signed... [by] a kindergartner at Towamensing Elementary School... $1,949,995 less than the minimum sought... School Board will not consider it when it meets later this month... not worried that his bid lost. He has other plans for his $5. "I guess I'll buy candy..."
Theory of Education
miamiherald.com/ ... 22:09:04
Top state legislators say they're ready to join the fight over putting the word "evolution" in Florida's public-school science standards to ensure that it's taught as just a theory and not as fact. Rep. Marti Coley, future House Speaker Dean Cannon and state Sen. Stephen Wise, all Republicans, say they're considering filing legislation this spring that would specifically call evolution a "theory" if the state Board of Education approves the proposed science standards Feb. 19 as currently written...
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 21:51:33
attacking her ex-husband at a childrens basketball game... faces charges of domestic assault in the presence of a minor child, obstructing an officer and assault and battery on a police officer... alleged victim... reported that he and his ex-wife... had gotten into a physical altercation while watching their 11-year-old son play basketball... the action caught the attention of the basketball players including the pairs son. The boy reportedly stopped mid-game and began crying and shouting for "mom and dad to stop fighting..."
Digital Privacy
reuters.com/ ... 21:47:52
A California appeals court on Wednesday said an anonymous Internet poster does not have to reveal his identity after being sued for making "scathing verbal attacks" against executives at a Florida company on a Yahoo! Inc message board. The Sixth Appellate District in Santa Clara County reversed a trial court ruling that would have allowed a former executive at SFBC International Inc to subpoena Yahoo! for the names of her critics...
Unclear on the Concept
businessandmedia.org/ ... 17:53:16
Sen. Kerry Blames Tornados on Global Warming...
Reasons for Repeal
borderfirereport.net/ ... 17:50:44
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers here seized 555 pounds of marijuana discovered below a truck floor during a routine examination last Saturday...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 17:50:11
Drug dealers are preying on patients in mental health units by pretending that they are friends and selling them cannabis...
blogs.independent.co.uk/ ... 17:49:48
...Should people be jailed for damaging their own health? Doesn't jailing them damage their health further? It is about time that policy makers woke up to the fact that a single mechanism linking damage to health with criminal punishment, as enshrined in the Misuse of Drugs Act, is entirely illogical. By all means reclassify cannabis. Reclassify all drugs. legal and illegal, according to the harm they can do. That's one debate and of itself it is hardly straightforward. But deal with the criminal justice implications separately...
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ ... 17:48:34
Gardai have arrested four men following what is believed to have been a multi-million euro cannabis seizure in Co Kildare... radio reports this morning say the drugs seized are worth more than 10m... Five hundred kilos were reportedly found in a car on the Naas Road and another 1,000 kilos on land near Newbridge...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 17:47:26
A more potent "skunk" form of cannabis now accounts for 70-80% of the British market for the drug, but
many users are cutting down and only smoking enough to get high,
the initial results of a Home Office study show...
[Smoking less and enjoying it more; sounds like more potent weed is a better thing....]
Digital Business
news.com/ ... 17:45:38
...At this point, the companies suggest the most likely culprit is Mother Nature... But the official explanation has been drowned out by a more cynical take in the blogosphere and some regional news outlets...
it.slashdot.org/ ... 17:45:01
[Sample of the rumor mill (read articles below, too):]
Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 06, @10:16AM... You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline...
ap.google.com/ ... 17:43:32
a new, more resilient cable is being laid in the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt and France, a spokesman for the cable-owner FLAG Telecom said Wednesday. The new line known as the FLAG Mediterranean Cable will provide a different route from the severed cables and be "fully resilient" against cuts like last week's...
dailytech.com/ ... 17:43:27
Reports are coming in this morning that a fifth undersea fiber optic cable was severed in the Middle East. However, by several accounts, the fifth cable cut is actually a second cut on a different segment of the FALCON cable...
blog.wired.com/ ... 17:42:49
Then two more cables failed in the same area, one in a segment connecting Qatar to an island in the United Arab Emirates, and another in a link between Oman and the UAE. The former wasn't even a cut -- it was a power failure, but you can't keep a good conspiracy theory down; some news sites are even reporting incorrectly that Iran is cut off from the internet, and claiming that there's a fifth cut, which turns out to be an unexceptional cable failure from weeks ago...
Theory of Sex Education
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 22:05:22
Six Indian professors have been arrested on suspicion of gang-raping a student and molesting several dozen other women at a teacher training college... More than 90... young women at the college have... accused the same professors of molesting them and demanding sexual favours.... said that they were forced to tolerate the abuse because the teachers controlled the marking system that could make or break their academic careers... As word of the allegations spread a crowd of more than 100 enraged students and parents attacked the college building and beat up three of the professors before the police arrested all six of them... One was almost lynched.... government... promised to replace them with women teachers...
reuters.com/ ... 16:41:37
NEW YORK... A sizable minority of sex education teachers does not cover all of the basics... many lack training to teach sex ed at all...
Theory of Justice
philly.com/ ... 13:56:11
judge threatened a man with arrest if he didn't pay twin's 17-year-old traffic tix...
US Election 2008
reuters.com/ ... 17:25:08
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton looked ahead on Wednesday to a long and bruising presidential battle, and Clinton said she had pumped $5 million of her own money into the costly fight to keep pace. Republican John McCain, still facing conservative opposition, promised to unite his party as his coast-to-coast "Super Tuesday" wins in key states put him on the verge of clinching his party's nomination and capping a stunning political comeback...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 10:08:23
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won victories over Sen. Barack Obama in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York last night, giving her presidential campaign a crucial boost. But Obama countered by winning a string of states, including the general election battleground of Missouri...
Transport Pre-Automation
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:08
arrested on misdemeanor driving under the influence charges for allegedly running into a power pole and short-circuiting TV reception for 8,300 customers in Brentwood during the final minutes of the Super Bowl... Football fans missed the final two touchdowns that led to the New York Giants' upset of the New England Patriots...
TUE 2008-FEB-05
Nature can be Deadly
ajc.com/ ... 23:13:48
A statewide tornado drill scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed because of the actual threat of severe weather as a storm system building in Texas moves eastward...
foxnews.com/ ... 23:13:11
Tornadoes have been blamed for five deaths in Arkansas and for looting at a mall in Memphis, as parts of the South were hit by severe storms Tuesday. About a half million dollars in merchandise has been stolen from Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis that was hit by a possible tornado, according to a report by MyFOXMemphis.com...
reuters.com/ ... 23:12:32
Eight people were reported killed and dozens injured as tornadoes and lethal thunderstorms tore through areas of the U.S. South on Tuesday, causing widespread damage. Local media reports said there were seven deaths in Arkansas and one in Tennessee... CNN reported as many as 86 injuries and an unknown number of fatalities from the storm system, which swept through Arkansas before moving into Tennessee...
WW2 - less with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:02:46
Raymond Jacobs died of natural causes at the age of 82 last week... believed to be the last survivor of a group of marines pictured raising the US flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in 1945....
The battle of Iwo Jima saw 100,000 US troops attack 22,000 entrenched Japanese soldiers. The island was the first Japanese territory attacked directly by ground troops in the war. Most of the Japanese soldiers died in battle rather than be taken prisoner. The Americans occupied the island after the war, and returned it to Japan in 1968... The island has now been renamed Iwo To, as it was known before the war, to reflect the wishes of its original inhabitants...
Iraq
reuters.com/ ... 10:58:07
Iraq's temporary new national flag was raised over the country's parliament for the first time on Tuesday, trumpeted by the government as a break with the past and a step towards reconciliation. In another symbolic move, the government said it had started to rebuild a revered Shi'ite shrine which was bombed two years ago... Last month, parliament agreed to adopt the new flag, which is very similar to the old one, in a move long demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who said the old banner was a reminder of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's rule... Some ordinary Iraqis were far from impressed...
Fire
cbsnews.com/ ... 10:35:54
A German photographer caught the heart-stopping moment when a
father decided there was no other way to save his 2-year-old son from a blazing apartment fire than to drop him out of fourth-story window...
caught safely by an off-duty police officer who just happened to be in the neighborhood... nine people - including five children - died in the blaze... not known whether the baby's parents survived...
Disturbing Family Patterns
efluxmedia.com/ ... 10:09:06
Like mother, like daughter! Brenna Stewart, 46, daughter of civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted in 2006 to 28 months in prison for illegally helping her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, to communicate with his Jihad followers, was arrested yesterday and faces felony and falsifying business records charges and nine counts of misdemeanor theft...
Love is Strange
foxnews.com/ ... 10:08:56
A Michigan man convicted of murdering and dismembering his wife sent flirtatious letters to an inmate convicted of stabbing her daughters to death, including one note that suggested an encounter in the county jail's broom closet...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:58:38
At least three Iraqis were killed and one child was injured after American soldiers stormed a tiny one-room house north of Baghdad and opened fire... Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds late Monday. But the U.S. military said soldiers came under fire and killed two suspected members of a terrorist cell in self-defense. It said it did not know who shot the woman or the child... The U.S. military reported only three dead, but Iraqi police said two young girls were wounded and one died Tuesday at a hospital...
news.monstersandcritics.com/ ... 10:06:24
Israel killed at least seven Palestinians in an airstrike and a gunbattle in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:17:46
Navy Chief Petty Officer
Michael E. Koch,
29,of State College, Pa.
Navy Chief Petty Officer
Nathan H. Hardy,
29, of Durham, N.H.
died Feb. 4, from wounds suffered from small arms fire during combat operations in Iraq. Both were assigned to East Coast-based SEAL teams.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:17:06
Army Spc.
Christopher J. West,
26, of Arlington, Texas, died Feb. 4 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered on Feb. 3 in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:16:51
Army Staff Sgt.
Chad A. Barrett,
35, of Saltville, Va., died Feb. 2 in Mosul, Iraq, as a result of a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 64th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo. The incident is under investigation.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:16:39
Army Spc.
Matthew F. Straughter,
27, of St. Charles, Mo., died Jan 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle was struck by a rocket propelled grenade. He was assigned to the 1138th Engineer Company, 35th Engineer Brigade, Missouri National Guard, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
Feeding Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:00:26
Chinese dumplings which were laced with pesticide and made at least 10 Japanese people ill were probably poisoned on purpose, Japan's health minister says. The frozen dumplings were contaminated with a highly toxic organophoshate pesticide methamidophos. "Judging from the circumstantial evidence, we'd have to think that it's highly likely to be a crime..."
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:53:43
A rare sea turtle is being looked after at an aquarium in Cornwall after becoming stranded on a beach in Devon. The 20cm (8in) juvenile loggerhead turtle was discovered on Putsborough Beach, near Woolacombe, and taken to the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay. It is the second such turtle to be found in the South West in a week...
Staying Healthy
livescience.com/ ... 10:36:32
Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the
frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 10:19:19
...Swallowing magnets can be very dangerous. In fact the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports 27 cases of intestinal injuries and one death from ingesting Magnetix magnets alone. Dutta took an X-ray and saw that the magnets were stuck together not directly but through the walls of two different parts of Braden's intestine...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
reuters.com/ ... 10:15:57
British scientists have created
human embryos with three parents
in a development they hope could lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases within five years...
History - still with us
www2.ljworld.com/ ... 10:13:28
San Francisco It would literally take an act of Congress before a city ballot proposal to turn Alcatraz into a global peace center could become reality. The measures purely symbolic, given that the legislative branch would have to formally switch the island prison from federal to city hands, and that the proposal faces a host of other obstacles, including a lack of funding or legal force... "VOTE NO ON THIS RIDICULOUS PROPOSAL," the San Francisco Republican Party thundered in a voters pamphlet...
History - less with us
foxnews.com/ ... 10:11:43
WORCESTER, Mass. Two men are accused of
burning down the birthplace of the woman made famous by the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb..."
a vacant house in Sterling where town officials say Mary Elizabeth Sawyer was born in 1806... Sarah Josepha Hale reportedly published a poem in 1830 about Sawyer, as a child, bringing her lamb to school with her. Other accounts, however, claim the original writer was a young man who was inspired by the incident...
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 23:15:03
Two proposals by then-Mayor Ron Nikkel to form separate task forces to probe into matters dealing with recent controversies fell to the wayside during Mondays politically-charged and highly vocal Bartlesville City Council meeting. The task force issues were overshadowed by the councils action to remove Nikkel from his mayoral office...
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 23:14:25
The Bartlesville City Council ousted its mayor Monday night on the basis that Ron Nikkel had not fulfilled his obligations as the ceremonial head of the city... angry spectators at last nights City Council meeting threatened retaliation... citizens shouting down council members and asking to be allowed to comment...
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:56:54
DOVER, Ohio... 4-year-old boy got stuck when he climbed into his family's top-loading washing machine, and firefighters had to use a metal cutter to slice into the appliance to get him out... wasn't hurt...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:53:20
Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags are getting smarter and more communicative as bigger memory, basic processing power and wireless technologies are added to them. "We are trying to embed a little more intelligence beyond location by adding sensors and by networking these objects together..." working on a project that combines smart tags and personal identifiers to keep an eye on people working on construction sites using heavy machine tools. "It's to keep track of how long they are used, to figure out vibrations generated by these tools," he said. "It's for health and safety. We create personalised health and safety records for every worker..."
Reasons for Repeal
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:39:13
The world needs to invest more than $2 billion in irrigation, roads and other rural development to wean Afghanistan off booming opium cultivation...
[OORRRRRR... and I'm just speculating here... MAYBE you could destroy the profit incentive with REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!]
mercurynews.com/ ... 10:28:35
Four more people are in jail for alleged participation in a network of marijuana grows inside homes across Santa Cruz County...
nationnews.com/ ... 10:28:21
IT IS SETTLED that much of the crime in Barbados is drug-related, whether the drug of choice is cocaine or marijuana; and that among the young people, marijuana use is accounting for most of their delinquency...
[MORE absurd 1930s-style Disinformation Propagand and Lies by the PuriTalibaNazi oppressors to keep their alcohol- and tobacco-fueled economies safe....]
Our tolerance of alcoholic use tends to place the onus on the user for not being able "to hold his drinks", if and when the worst results from its use. The fear is that smoking "pot" could see us adopting a similar approach if we are not careful...
news.theage.com.au/ ... 10:26:34
Dope smokers are not just damaging their lungs and their memory, but are also
giving themselves gum disease,
according to new research into the illicit habit... affected the heaviest smokers worst, with one in four having the chronic condition by the age of 32...
[MORE absurd 1930s-style Disinformation Propagand and Lies by the PuriTalibaNazi oppressors to keep their alcohol- and tobacco-fueled economies safe....]
politics.guardian.co.uk/ ... 10:25:22
Cannabis users are smoking more of the stronger stuff as skunk marijuana pushes traditional pot to the sidelines of the British drugs market, a government advisory panel heard today. The highly potent sinsemilla, or "skunk" as it's known on the street, is now used by up to 70% of cannabis users, jumping from just 15% six years ago...
[Disinformation Propagand and Lies by the PuriTalibaNazi oppressors to keep their alcohol- and tobacco-fueled economies safe....]
Digital Business
reuters.com/ ... 10:52:30
Repair work has started on one of three broken undersea cables providing data services to parts of the Middle East and Asia... repair ship was expected to reach a second cable on Tuesday... Indian-owned cable network operator FLAG Telecom said on Tuesday a ship had reached the location... [of] third undersea cable, FALCON... and repair work had started...
abc.net.au/ ... 10:33:05
When two cables in the Mediterranean were severed last week, it was put down to a mishap with a stray anchor. Now a third cable has been cut, this time near Dubai. That, along with new evidence that ships' anchors are not to blame, has sparked theories about more sinister forces that could be at work... Egypt's Transport Ministry says video surveillance shows no ships were in the area at the time of the incident. Online columnist Ian Brockwell says the cables may have been cut deliberately in an attempt by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access. Others back up that theory, saying the Pentagon has a secret strategy called 'information warfare'. But [Telecommunications analyst Paul] Budde says it is far more likely to be a coincidence...
computerworld.com/ ... 10:14:54
...Sinchak's is an example, admittedly an extreme one, of the driver problems that forced Microsoft to take the unusual step of holding SP1's availability to users until March even while announcing its release to manufacturing (RTM) on Monday. Not even the hundreds of thousands of people who have already been testing Vista SP1, nor the many Windows developers accustomed to being able to download software on Microsoft's MSDN or TechNet Web sites immediately after RTM, will be able to get SP1 for another 6-8 weeks. And if you are one of the unlucky Vista users using a driver known to break and need reinstallation after the upgrade to SP1, Windows Update will quarantine you from getting SP1 until the driver is fixed...
Theory of Justice
kansascity.com/ ... 10:12:13
A federal judge in Baltimore has upheld the October jury verdict in the lawsuit brought against a Kansas-based fundamentalist church group for its anti-gay protest at the 2006 Maryland funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq. The judge reduced by more than half the total amount of damages awarded to the plaintiff, the Marine's father...
US Election 2008
nytimes.com/ ... 10:31:26
Forty-three presidential nominating contests in 24 states... The biggest prize of the night California being decided well after most viewers have headed for bed. A total of 3,156 delegates allocated under arcane rules on what could be the most significant night of the 2008 campaign to date...
youdecide08.foxnews.com/ ... 10:13:52
The remaining members of the Grateful Dead probably the most prolific and enduring psychedelic rock band have gotten together once again, but this time to endorse Barack Obama for president...
[Would this have happened if Jerry were still alive...?]
ap.google.com/ ... 10:05:58
An enormous cache of delegates was at stake Super Tuesday not enough to clinch a nomination but plenty enough to mint a runaway favorite, or even two. That seemed more likely on the Republican side, where McCain hoped to bury his chief opponent's presidential aspirations. But Romney put up a spirited fight in California, the day's biggest prize, and said a strong performance by him there would prove "the conservatives in our party are not at all comfortable with Senator McCain leading us." McCain rallied in Manhattan on Tuesday morning and took shots at Romney on the talk shows, accusing him of having a "terrible record as governor" and pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking him. Romney said McCain is "so making up facts that it's really quite extraordinary..." Rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama agreed on one thing Tuesday that the coast to coast balloting would not settle their pitched struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination...
MON 2008-FEB-04
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:40:24
Iran launched a research rocket and unveiled its first major space center, state television reported Monday, the latest steps in a program many fear may be cover for further development of its military ballistic missiles...
Policing Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:37:32
A new service on CrimeReports.com, launched last year and expanding nationwide, overlays police reports on maps, so people can view where arrests and other police calls have been made. Users can configure e-mail alerts to notify them of crimes in locations of interest within a day...
Under Digital Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:36:29
A blogger... Nay Phone Latt... who was apparently picked up in an Internet crackdown by the Myanmar military government has been seen in detention at a government office... Reporters Without Borders said last week that Myanmar authorities have stepped up their surveillance of the Internet since the beginning of the year, pressuring Internet cafe owners to register all users' personal details and to
program screen captures every five minutes on each computer...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 18:26:29
Researchers who tracked the brain activity of smokers while they slept found that they spent less time in deep sleep than nonsmokers. Smokers were also about four times as likely to complain that their sleep did not leave them well rested...
Criminally Stupid
naplesnews.com/ ... 10:07:27
broke into an East Naples beauty salon to get a refund for an alleged botched hairdo... broke into the wrong salon... Deputies searched the salon and found [72yo F] crouched behind the cash register, wearing a housecoat, pajamas, slippers, and yellow dishwashing gloves. A jacket she wore over her housecoat had shards of glass on it. She was holding a hammer, squeegee and small flashlight...
Fun can be Fatal
breitbart.com/ ... 10:11:51
MARKSVILLE, La... A driver towing a float in a Carnival parade ran over his 16-year-old brother, killing him...
sunherald.com/ ... 09:41:57
longtime community activist and son of a ranking Mississippi state legislator, died Saturday in a New Orleans Mardi Gras accident. Joseph P. "Jody" Compretta Jr., 39, was pronounced dead at the scene after being run over by part of a float in the Krewe of Endymion parade. The accident occurred just before the parade disbanded near the Superdome...
Violence
newsherald.com/ ... 09:42:59
[25yo] Fountain man killed both his parents with a hunting rifle Sunday night, then called 9-1-1 and confessed the slayings... was ordered last year to live with his father as a condition of probation on a firearms charge...
ap.google.com/ ... 09:36:59
COCKEYSVILLE, Md... Police say a 15-year-old Boy Scout charged with killing his parents and two younger brothers shot them as they slept, then returned a day later after spending time with friends to stage the discovery of their deaths...
chron.com/ ... 09:34:49
Police in Kansas City, Kan., are searching for a 3-year-old boy taken from a home where a woman and her infant daughter were found shot to death Sunday morning... believed to be with his father... the 1-year-old girl had a different father...
nydailynews.com/ ... 09:34:13
One of the five women shot dead in suburban Chicago woman's clothing store may have known the killer... for the first time, it was revealed that a sixth woman may have survived the murderous attack...
Nature can be Deadly
kgw.com/ ... 09:18:44
In Idahna, Ore., there is so much snow, residents' roofs are starting to collapse... Eighteen inches of snow fell in the last 24 hours on top to 6 feet of snow already there... "We have buildings with snow on them in danger of collapsing. Snow around doors in danger of bursting, some homes have already sustained damage..."
Supernatural Justice
breitbart.com/ ... 09:16:48
Two Iranian sisters
convicted of adultery face being stoned to death
after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them...
Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty -- almost always by hanging -- than any other country apart from China...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:23:56
Afghan and foreign troops conducted two raids on the homes of suspected Taliban militants Monday, leaving 10 people dead... including two women and two children... A separate clash in southern Uruzgan province left nine suspected militants dead...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:20:21
Turkish warplanes attacked dozens of Kurdish rebel targets in Iraq on Monday as part of a U.S.-backed campaign to chip away at guerrilla strength while avoiding the risks of a ground-based offensive across the border. The planes hit 70 targets that were "detected and verified by intelligence sources..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:20:01
Hundreds of thousands of Colombians wearing white T-shirts marched in their homeland and abroad Monday to demand the country's largest rebel group stop kidnapping people and release those it holds. The idea of the protests against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, was born less than a month ago on the social networking Web site Facebook, and nearly 100,000 people in 165 cities around the world confirmed their participation...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:14:11
Palestinian suicide bombers struck in Israel for the first time in a year today, attacking a crowded shopping parade in the desert city which hosts the country's secretive nuclear programme... killed one civilian and wounded 11, one seriously... Two bombers were believed to have been involved. However... the first bomber detonated his device before his accomplice, wounding the second man before his explosives could detonate... A passer-by rushed to help the injured accomplice, wrongly believing he was a civilian, but then noticed his explosives vest and scrambled away. The second bomber was then shot four times in the head by senior police officers who happened to be in the area carrying out a drugs raid...
Gardeners of Earth
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:41:31
As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks...
Across the Universe
hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:41:08
A telescope arms race is taking shape around the world. Astronomers are drawing up plans for the biggest, most powerful instruments ever constructed, capable of peering far deeper into the universe - and further back in time - than ever before. The building boom, which is expected to play out over the next decade and cost billions of dollars, is being driven by technological advances that afford unprecedented clarity and magnification. Some scientists say it will be much like switching from regular TV to high-definition. In fact, the super-sized telescopes will yield even finer pictures than the Hubble Space Telescope, which was put in orbit in 1990 and was long considered superior because its view was freed from the distorting effects of Earth's atmosphere. But now, land-based telescopes can correct for such distortion...
Animal Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:40:56
female baboons in Kenya raised in groups with their fathers matured earlier and had a longer reproductive life than other baboons...
World Climate
reuters.com/ ... 18:43:42
"Tipping point" on horizon for Greenland ice...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:40:07
Many of Earth's climate systems will undergo a series of sudden shifts this century as a result of human-induced climate change, a study suggests. A number of these shifts could occur this century, say the report's authors... "Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements..."
[hmmmm.....]
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:39:17
A female Indian rhino and her calf have been killed for their horns in Kaziranga National Park, India. The female survived for 35 hours after the attack, but slowly bled to death after her horn was sawn off and she was shot twice by poachers...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 18:18:22
President George W. Bush today sent to Congress his Defense budget for Fiscal Year 2009. The budget provides
$515.4 billion in discretionary authority for the Department of Defense (DoD),
a $35.9 billion or 7.5 percent increase over the enacted level for Fiscal Year 2008. The Fiscal Year 2009 budget reflects the President's priorities and sustains his commitment to prevail in the Global War on Terror; increase ground combat capabilities; improve force readiness; develop the combat capabilities needed to meet future threats; and improve the quality of life for Service members and their families....
Feeding Ourselves
gizmag.com/ ... 14:33:27
Swiss-based company Katadyn... [introduces] the worlds first cheeseburger in a can... simply throw the can into a water container over a fire, give it a minute or two, fish it out, open the lid, and eat...
[Thnx2 NotW]
Staying Healthy
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:46:58
Parents who want to reduce their infants' exposure to phthalates, chemicals suspected of impairing male reproductive function, should not apply baby lotions or powders -- except for medical reasons...
medicalnewstoday.com/ ... 09:46:18
A new study by researchers in the US suggests that the human papillomavirus (HPV) causes as many cases of oral cancer in men as tobacco and alcohol and will overtake the latter within the next ten years. They suggest the main reasons are changes in men's sexual behaviour and the decline in oral cancers not caused by HPV... There are about 40 sexually transmitted HPV strains, of which 13 or so are known to cause cancer in men and women. Gardasil does not "cure" infection once it occurs, but it can block 4 of the strains known to cause the vast majority of cervical cancer cases from infecting the body. That is why HPV vaccination programmes are aimed at girls before they become sexually active...
World Energy
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:17:53
Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britains energy needs from offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere with its radar... The same objections are likely to apply to wind turbines in the North Sea, part of the massive renewable energy project announced by John Hutton, the Energy Secretary, barely two months ago. They would be directly in line with the three principal radar defence stations...
Print is Dead
forbes.com/ ... 18:47:50
CHICAGO - Sun-Times Media Group Inc., parent of the Chicago Sun-Times, put the city's second-largest daily and "any or all" of the company's assets up for sale Monday amid a crippling decline in advertising and revenue at its newspapers. The company said its board of directors also is looking at other strategic alternatives to increase shareholder value, including joint ventures or strategic partnerships. But a sale has been, and remains, widely expected...
Digital Future is Now
hosted.ap.org/ ... 18:34:41
A new "dot-post" Internet address in the works aims to set apart the electronic services increasingly offered by postal agencies around the world. Backers say restricting the ".post" domain name to postal agencies or groups that provide postal services would instill trust in Web sites using such names. By contrast, popular suffixes such as ".com" and ".org" are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis...
[hmmmm....]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:34:17
The first chip to pack more than two billion transistors has been launched by silicon giant Intel. The quad-core chip, known as Tukwila, is designed for high-end servers rather than personal computers. It operates at speeds of up to 2Ghz, the equivalent of a standard PC chip...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:31:46
The upper limit of addresses possible with IPv4 is 4,294,967,296... How many addresses can IPv6 support? The short answer is: lots. The long answer is: an unimaginably huge amount. It has been calculated that the IPv6 address space can handle about 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. That's enough for every person on the planet to have trillions of IP addresses without any fear of that pool being exhausted...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:30:17
The first big steps on the road to overhauling the net's core addressing system have been taken. On Monday the master address books for the net are being updated to include records prepared in a new format known as IP version 6. Widespread use of this format will end the shortage of addresses that sites can be given. The net's current addressing scheme is expected to exhaust the pool of unallocated addresses by 2011... "We're down to 14% of the unallocated addresses out of the whole pool for version 4..." For a long while, he said, the effects on consumers would be minimal though eventually home routers may have to be upgraded or swapped so they can use the longer addresses...
Transport Pre-Automation
reuters.com/ ... 18:24:06
Motorists in northern Mexico who are caught dabbing on lipstick, shaving or carrying a pet at the wheel will now face hefty fines as authorities try to cut down on traffic accidents...
Transport Future
reuters.com/ ... 18:14:07
Dutch inventors unveiled on Monday a 75,000 euro ($111,100)
car-fuelling robot
they say is the first of its kind, working by registering the car on arrival at the filling station and matching it to a database of fuel cap designs and fuel types.... "I was on a farm and I saw a robotic arm milking a cow. If a robot can do that then why can't it fill a car tank, I thought..."
Cascading Weirdness
newsoftheweird.blogspot.com/ ... 17:06:37
News of the Weird
Monday: Another beauty queen goes nuts. The blind acupuncturist goes for a license. Two words: "rogue taxidermy." Dining out at the city dump. Who says Wesley Snipes can't act?.. more!
World of Cultures
discovermagazine.com/ ... 10:18:11
Milgrams study made headlines and resonated in the publics imagination. Were each of us really only six people removed from a long-lost childhood friend, a lower-caste field worker in India, or any celebrity? Could we really find our way to, say, Stephen Hawking or Brad Pitt or even Osama bin Laden in just six steps? Of course, this raises the question: If were only six people away from bin Laden, why hasnt he been tracked down and captured? The answer, as Kleinfeld discovered, is complicated. It involves the misleading reporting of statistical data, the seductive power of a pleasing idea, and the vagaries of human behavior...
Reasons for Repeal
reuters.com/ ... 18:43:32
The raid was one success in a multibillion-dollar U.S. effort to sharpen Colombia's campaign against the drug-funded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is fighting Latin America's longest-running insurgency. But "Plan Colombia" is under tougher scrutiny as U.S. Democrats who now control Congress worry about the government's human rights record and ask why cocaine exports have not been more dramatically cut from the world's top producer...
reuters.com/ ... 18:26:09
Quitting marijuana can cause withdrawal symptoms as severe as those from quitting tobacco, a
small study suggests...
irritability, anxiety, sleep problems and difficulty concentrating... "Marijuana is not as innocuous as some people would lead you to believe," said lead researcher Dr. Ryan Vandrey, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore...
[See article in left column re nicotine smokers & sleep]
canadianpress.google.com/ ... 09:48:54
HALIFAX - Four people are facing drug-related charges after a weekend police bust in central Nova Scotia... 17 kilograms of marijuana and some cannabis resin...
allafrica.com/ ... 09:48:30
A seventy year old Inuwa Isah and his eighteen year old son, Babangida of Kude village are presently cooling their heels in detention at the Jigawa Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), after their arrest in connection with alleged sale of hard drugs in the state... major dealers in Indian Hemp in the area...
Theory of Education
tulsaworld.com/ ... 21:44:00
All students at Bishop Kelley High School [Tulsa OK] will be tested for drug use beginning in the 2008-09 school year. The school's advisory council and administration recently approved the new policy that will use hair testing to reveal illegal drug use by students. The test identifies cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, Eve and phencyclidine...
knox.villagesoup.com/ ... 09:33:18
CAMDEN... Camden-Rockport Middle School eighth-grade boys are taking it to new heights and making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus... the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention...
US Election 2008
washingtonpost.com/ ... 18:17:13
In a chamber once known for cordiality if not outright gentility, McCain has battled his fellow senators for more than two decades in a fashion that has been forceful and sometimes personal. Now, with the conservative maverick on the brink of securing his party's presidential nomination, McCain's Republican colleagues are grappling with the idea of him at the top of their ticket. "There would be a lot of people who would have to recalibrate their attitudes toward John..." "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), also a senior member of the Appropriations panel, told the Boston Globe recently. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." A former colleague says McCain's abrasive nature would, at minimum, make his relations with Republicans on Capitol Hill uneasy...
embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/ ... 09:50:49
And as for that "bastard reference," Hillary smiled as the woman continued her question a diatribe about whether Mexico and the US were conspiring to create a super-country but never said a word for or against the statement. Instead, she said if such an agreement were in place, when shes president shell end it in "a bird-dog minute..."
latimesblogs.latimes.com/ ... 09:21:24
...Then the woman
called the president "Bush the bastard." The Democratic crowd immediately roared its approval. Sen. Clinton nodded her head slightly and smiled.
Then, she proceeded to.... answer the question, saying "there's not a lot of truth to it..."
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:12:57
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday
she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance
to achieve coverage for all Americans...
SUN 2008-FEB-03
Violence
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 22:59:23
BUFORD, Ga. - Two off-duty officers from different police departments wounded each other in a gun fight in the middle of a road in an Atlanta suburb... Both officers suffered non-life-threatening wounds... "It's been confirmed that the Duluth police officer was the aggressor in this case..."
abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:56:18
In surveillance recordings aired on a Dutch TV special this evening, Joran van der Sloot, a former suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, said the American teen appeared lifeless on an Aruban beach three years ago during a romantic tryst, and "she'll never be found..." "I know what happened to that girl..." Her body, van der Sloot said, had been dumped in the ocean by a friend with a boat... "I didn't even feel bad about it," he said at one point. "I didn't lose a night of sleep over it. I thought, 'I have to go on.'..." Van der Sloot now claims he was lying in the secretly recorded conversations with Patrick van der Eem, a person he thought was a friend, but who was secretly working undercover for de Vries and his team of Dutch crime reporters...
Supernatural Violence
apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:54:40
ODESSA, Texas... man accused of killing his wife says he was trying to exorcise a demon from her when the devil entered his body and caused her to die...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:11:46
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has urged people to "have faith" that some of the worst snow storms in 50 years can be overcome, state media says...
[Faith... hmm... where have we heard that word before....]
One woman has been trampled to death in the southern city of Guangzhou, in a stampede to board a train...
southern city, Chenzou, has reportedly had no power for a week, and many of its 4m resident have also been without a stable water supply for days...
reuters.com/ ... 09:09:46
two quakes struck close together in Africa's Great Lakes region hours apart along the western Great Rift Valley fault... Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday... killing at least 30 people and seriously injuring 350 more... "..Many buildings have been hit. Lots of houses have completely collapsed...
Transport Near-Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:04:02
More than 150 passengers on board a Bolivian-operated Boeing 727 have survived
a crash landing in a swamp... A number of passengers were reportedly injured... A flight engineer said the engines had failed because of a mechanical fault...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:10:56
The U.S. military said Monday that it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq south of Baghdad. The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital... Three more civilians were wounded and taken to U.S. military hospitals nearby... as U.S. forces pursued suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants in the area...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:07:42
At least three people have died in a blast which hit a military bus in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi... Several... injured...
reuters.com/ ... 09:10:08
Chadian army helicopters and troops loyal to President Idriss Deby struck back at rebels besieging the presidential palace in N'Djamena on Sunday in a second day of clashes after the insurgents pushed into the city. The helicopters bombed the rebels who, armed with pickup trucks mounted with cannon and machine guns, fought tanks and foot soldiers in a bid to dislodge the president from his heavily-defended palace in the west of the city...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:02:08
A female suicide bomber attacked the main railway station in the Sri Lankan capital Sunday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 93 others...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:01:41
A senior Interior Ministry official... Lt. Col. Mohammed Ibrahim, director of Iraq's police commandos, an elite special forces group... and his bodyguard were wounded and his driver was killed Sunday by a bomb planted on his car...
a mortar round slammed into a street in a northeastern section of the capital, killing an Iraqi soldier on foot patrol... Three civilians and another soldier were also wounded...
South of Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday near Kut...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:00:30
A roadside bomb killed eight civilians and wounded nine others when it exploded near a minibus full of passengers in the war-ravaged Somali capital on Sunday...
Supernatural Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:54:25
Thousands of Turks have rallied in Ankara to protest against a government plan to allow women to wear the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities. The protestors fear such a move would usher in a stricter form of Islam in Turkey, which is a secular state...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
news.yahoo.com/ ... 22:59:44
Scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created a "tear-free" onion using biotechnology to switch off the gene behind the enzyme that makes us cry...
Why People Go Vegan
businessweek.com/ ... 09:32:26
The hamburger chains Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out as well more than 150 school districts around the nation have banned meat from a Chino slaughterhouse after a video showed workers brutalizing sick and crippled cows... The New York City public school system -- the nation's largest with 1.1 million students -- pulled all hamburgers from its menus...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:08:05
workers at the Oakland Zoo are having a custom-fit coat made to keep the giraffe... Tiki... cozy this winter. At age 18, venerable for giraffes, Tiki is subject to the vicissitudes of age. She already gets regular visits from a chiropractor, a masseuse and an acupuncturist... At 13 feet tall, Tiki is too big to be herded into a stall, and regular horse blankets are too ill-fitting to be left on without supervision lest she get in a tangle... The zoo staff got in touch with a horse-blanket designer who agreed to donate her services to tailor a coat for Tiki. The jacket will be a tasteful forest green and feature a removable liner for those in-between days...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:22:10
Army Cpt.
Michael A. Norman,
36, of Killeen, Texas, died Jan. 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:21:49
Army 1st Lt.
David E. Schultz,
25, of Illinois, died Jan. 31 of wounds suffered when the Convoy Support Center at Scania, Iraq, was attacked by indirect enemy fire. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Sportsmanship
reuters.com/ ... 23:09:43
The New York Giants achieved one of the biggest upsets in NFL history with a 17-14 victory over the previously undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl on Sunday...
Long Underwear Heroes are Dead
abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:57:58
Beloved comic book hero Captain America is back in action, armed and ready to fight for freedom in the 21st century. The uniform is the same -- stars and stripes in tights. The shield is the same, too. But the man is different... Bucky Barnes, Captain America's longtime sidekick has taken his mentor's mantle. What's more, Bucky is packing heat... It's rattling the world of comics with disgruntled fans arguing that superheroes shouldn't need guns in the first place...
Transport Without Borders
brenhambanner.com/ ... 22:57:14
Waller County officials are calling for the Texas Department of Transportation to hold another public meeting in their county on a proposed "superhighway," after a Jan. 22 meeting was so packed that some people couldnt squeeze into the meeting hall...
US Election 2008
apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:55:12
Mitt Romney coasted to a win in presidential preference voting by Maine Republicans on Saturday, claiming his third victory in a caucus state and fourth overall... 52 percent of the vote with 68 percent of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain trailed with 21 percent, Ron Paul was third with 19 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 6 percent. Undecided votes accounted for 2 percent...
Reasons for Repeal
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:10:11
A Lebanese man has been shot dead and another wounded in south Lebanon by Israel forces, Lebanese security sources have said. The incident happened near the divided border village of Ghajar... believed to be connected to drug-smuggling rather than a clash with militants...
upi.com/ ... 23:00:37
Alaska is one of 12 U.S. states considering making salvia, a potent natural hallucinogen which is a species of sage, illegal... The hallucinogenic
salvia divinorum
is not banned by the federal Controlled Substances Act and is only illegal in six states... A user said the drug made her and her boyfriend "melt to the wall..."
[Oh good grief....]
burlingtonfreepress.com/ ... 09:38:31
From stationhouses to lawyers' offices to courtrooms to prisons, many of the legal system's workers say handling small-time marijuana cases leaves plenty of opportunity to address more pressing matters. That consensus differs from an argument by proponents of a bill to decriminalize possession or sale of less than 4 ounces of the drug as a necessary time-saver for law enforcement...
[Ummm... isn't the convenience or inconvenience of handling PURITALIBANAZI TABOO laws beside the point? REPEAL! REPEAL! Total and complete REPEAL!]
ukpress.google.com/ ... 09:37:02
A man has been arrested after gardai seized around 200,000 euro worth of herbal cannabis... detained at Dublin airport on Saturday morning...
theglobeandmail.com/ ... 09:36:18
SAULT STE. MARIE, ONT... Two American teens who allegedly travelled 800 kilometres and crossed a frozen Northern Ontario river to retrieve their stashed pot are facing drug charges after they fell through the ice just metres from shore...
news.scotsman.com/ ... 09:35:33
SCOTTISH
doctors have started prescribing cannabis
on the NHS before it is officially licensed in a bid to relieve the pain of multiple sclerosis sufferers...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:35:12
Simon Byrne, who speaks for ACPO on cannabis and is assistant chief constable of Merseyside Police, will say that cultivation of cannabis plants in the UK has soared since the reclassification at the end of 2003. More than 2,000 cannabis farms in England and Wales have been raided by police in the past year. Mr Byrne will claim that cannabis has become a "cash machine" for organised crime. Experts from the Forensic Science Service will warn that cannabis now accounts for about three-quarters of all drug-driving cases. Since 2004, more than 2,070 drivers have been confirmed as having taken cannabis before driving. Scientists will tell the advisory council that even small amounts of cannabis can impair driving ability...
[BEWARE THE PURITALIBANAZI NANNY STATE!]
mlive.com/ ... 09:34:08
Seven men have been charged in a scheme to bring more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana from Mexico to Michigan in 193 pieces of pottery... destined for a business in Elkhart, Ind...
independent.co.uk/ ... 09:33:31
David Blunkett has criticised a government plan to take a tougher line on cannabis, saying that reversing his decision to downgrade the drug to class C would send mixed legal signals. The former home secretary said: "Rather than affecting practice on the ground, classifying cannabis back to class B now would simply cause confusion... Classifying cannabis as class C is a much more honest approach both politically and in terms of how the drug is policed, rather than tackling what was a class B drug with a class C approach, as happened in the past..."
Big Ent is dead
blog.wired.com/ ... 09:24:00
Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of the four Swedes charged in Sweden on Thursday, said in a telephone interview that the site has set up a clandestine, double-blind operation with its servers spread throughout the world -- and out of reach of the Swedish authorities. "The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden...
It's a distributed system.
We don't know where the servers are. We gave them to people we trust and they don't know it's The Pirate Bay..."
iht.com/ ... 09:21:49
The Pirate Bay, on its blog, called for a "celebration," adding that it had hit some "magic numbers." The site, which lets people search for songs, films and video games, some of them legal but many of them pirated, said it now had links to more than a million such files. Coming as four people allegedly connected with the site were charged with aiding illegal online copying, the claim highlighted why the entertainment industry was so eager to shut down the service. Not only do these self-proclaimed pirates flout any legal threats, but they are probably right about one thing, analysts say: Unauthorized copying is sharply on the rise...
World Without Borders
chron.com/ ... 22:56:55
a new rush of illegal immigrants are driving down Interstate 35 from Oklahoma or heading east to Texas from Arizona to flee tough new anti-illegal immigrant laws in those and other states... community activists say immigrants have arrived in Houston and Dallas in recent months, and they expect hundreds more families to relocate to the Bayou City soon...
reuters.com/ ... 09:10:36
Egyptian forces sealed the last breach in the border with the Gaza Strip on Sunday, stopping an influx of Palestinians into Egypt across a frontier blown open by Hamas Islamists defying an Israeli-led blockade. "It is closed. Go home..."
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:09:24
Google Inc. raised the specter of Microsoft Corp. using its proposed $42 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc. to gain illegal control over the Internet, underscoring the online search leader's queasiness about its two biggest rivals teaming up. The critical remarks, posted online Sunday by Google's top lawyer, represented the Mountain View-based company's first public reaction to Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo since the offer was announced Friday...
reuters.com/ ... 23:08:55
Yahoo Inc would consider a business alliance with
oogle Inc as one way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft...
reuters.com/ ... 09:08:27
Yahoo Inc said it may take "quite a bit of time" to weigh its strategic options, including keeping the company independent, following Microsoft Corp's $45 billion offer to buy the company...
Yawn
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:03:03
A breakthrough has reportedly been reached during informal talks between striking Hollywood writers and production companies... bridged the gap over the key issue of payment for projects distributed on the internet...
Population Booming
hosted.ap.org/ ... 08:56:57
Running out of space in its crowded capital, this republic of 1,200 islands thought it had a can't-miss solution: build another island... Flash-forward a decade... "We built it, but the people, they are not coming..." Most of the Maldives' 360,000 people are scattered among some 200 islands, often fewer than 1,000 to an island with little to do apart from fishing. The young and ambitious head for Male - the little country's big city, a mini-metropolis that can be crossed on foot in about 30 minutes beach-to-beach...
SAT 2008-FEB-02
Violence
suntimes.com/ ... 21:35:56
An armed robber killed five women including at least one customer this morning at a Lane Bryant clothing store in south suburban Tinley Park before fleeing the scene and launching a manhunt... police were "pretty sure he acted alone... Why it turned deadly is also unknown...
Transport Trouble
news.rgj.com/ ... 21:36:13
Nearly 400 people remained trapped Friday in two Amtrak passenger trains that were stranded in the snowy Sierra Nevada after a large snowplow fell through the tracks...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:51:08
A passenger plane carrying about 100 people has made an emergency landing at Leeds Bradford International Airport... problem with one of the engines... nobody was hurt...
Rage -- not a good idea
wcbstv.com/ ... 10:28:19
NEW YORK... There have been a number of reports of cab drivers balking at customers who try to pay with credit cards, but a woman is accusing a cabbie of actually punching her after she tried to charge a ride...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:19:31
China's government has warned people to brace for more bad weather as the country struggles to cope with the worst snow storms in over 50 years...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:20:04
The death toll from two Baghdad market bombs allegedly carried by mentally disabled women and set off remotely has risen to nearly 100... up to 200 wounded... Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the use of disabled people underlined the "terrorists' moral degradation"...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:19:14
At least 18 people died after an explosion hit a civilian bus in the central Sri Lankan town of Dambulla.... at least 50 people had also been injured... The attack comes amid increased security ahead of celebrations on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence from Britain...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:18:27
Colombia's most-wanted drugs baron has been found dead in a holiday cabin in the Venezuelan city of Merida. Officials confirmed the body is that of Wilber Varela, alias "Soap", a man with a long and bloody history as leader of the Norte del Valle drug cartel... had a $5m (£2.5m) bounty from the US on his head... evidence suggests he was killed by his own men... believed that Varela's cartel moved thousands of tonnes of cocaine into the US and Europe...
[REPEAL will of course never end gangsterism. But Repeal will remove their easy soft black market profits!]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:12:13
Hundreds of rebels penetrated the capital of Chad on Saturday, clashing with government troops and moving on the presidential palace after a three-day advance through the oil-producing central African nation...
Chad, a French colony until 1960, has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence, and the recent discovery of oil has only increased the intensity of the struggle for power in the largely desert country. The rebel force is believed to be a coalition of three groups, including the biggest led by former diplomat Mahamat Nouri, who defected 16 months ago, and a nephew of Deby's, Timan Erdimi. They long have been fighting to overthrow Deby, whom they accuse of corruption. The rebels also have said they were unhappy with the president not providing enough support to rebels in Sudan's Darfur region, some of whom are from Deby's own tribe, the Zaghawa, who are found both Chad and Sudan...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:11:23
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch has spent years thinking about the war in Iraq, both as a senior strategist in 2005 and now as a division commander. He has seen strategies, missions and buzzwords come and go, but he now believes U.S. commanders finally have a feel for the battlefield... "The surge gave us the combat power to take the fight to the enemy..." "Once you're there, the local citizens come forward and ask two questions: `Are you gonna stay?' If the answer is yes, they say: `How can we help?'..."
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:09:27
A police raid in Pakistan's northwest Saturday triggered a shootout that killed two officers and three militants and led the insurgents to use women and children as human shields...
Fun can be... just Fun!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:08:07
To the sound of blasting samba, men dressed as nuns swilled beer and danced down the cobblestoned streets of a Rio hillside Friday night to kick off five days of uninhibited carnival madness...
Big Nanny
thesmokinggun.com/ ... 10:31:08
Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons... proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail... penalties...
Geology
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:14:41
Heavy sediment deposited in the Mississippi River delta in the last ice age has caused New Orleans to sink and will continue to drag down coastal Louisiana bit by bit for hundreds of years, according to a new study by NASA and Louisiana State University scientists...
It came from the sky
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:14:19
NACOGDOCHES, Texas... The bronze medallion embedded in the pavement behind the Commercial Bank of Texas is easy to overlook. About the size of a DVD... engraved with the name of the space shuttle Columbia and the date five years ago Friday that the spacecraft exploded over the skies of eastern Texas... a quiet tribute to the spot where a piece of the shuttle's wing crashed to Earth in downtown Nacogdoches... Inside hotels, homes and offices - everywhere that pieces of the shuttle rained down from the heavens - reminders of that day remain. Some are tucked away meticulously in private memory, others displayed in public memorials... "It is something that is still a part of my life, and probably everybody else who had part in this particular mission. And I think it always be," said Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss, who helped lead the recovery efforts after the disaster. "Regardless of how long I live, I will always have a keen awareness of what we had to go through, and the obstacles we overcame to accomplish some of what we did..."
Antiquity - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 10:07:47
A study of DNA from 165 Black Rat specimens from 32 countries has found six distinct family groups, with each group coming from a different part of Asia... revealed how people and certain diseases migrated around the ancient world. "...our work raises the possibility that the different lineages of black rats each carry a different set of diseases..."
World Climate
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:45:07
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Saturday, leading the groundhog to forecast six more weeks of winter... pulled from his stump by members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle...
Animal Companions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:33:20
BONHAM, Texas... 209 cats and three dogs from a home apparently overrun by the animals... 40 cats in one bedroom... Owner [said] they started with just 13 cats, but the animals quickly bred... said it's expensive to spay and neuter so many cats, plus feed them...
[Ummm.... Let's take this economic calculation up with Prof. Malthus....]
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:10:28
A BBC film crew has captured footage of a rare frog waving, wrestling and courting for the first time. The Panamanian golden frog communicates with other frogs by semaphore in the form of gentle hand waves. It has evolved the mechanism to signal to rivals and mates above the noise of mountain streams. Shortly after filming for the BBC One series Life In Cold Blood, the frogs had to be rescued from the wild, due to the threat of chytrid fungus...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:09:54
A new species of mammal has been discovered in the mountains of Tanzania... bizarre-looking creature, dubbed Rhynochocyon udzungwensis, is a type of giant elephant shrew, or sengi... cat-sized animal... looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small anteater... a grey face, a long, flexible snout, a bulky, amber body, a jet-black rump and it stands on spindly legs. "This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career," said Galen Rathbun, from the California Academy of Sciences...
reuters.com/ ... 09:14:18
A German medical student got some unexpected practical experience at the zoo when she gave the kiss of life to a baby tiger choking on a piece of meat... "We got the piece out but he wasn't breathing so I tried mouth-to-mouth and heart massage," she added. "After 3-5 minutes he came to, thank God..."
Healing Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 10:06:36
Giving a woman an infusion of Epsom salts when she goes into premature labor can help protect her baby from cerebral palsy...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:48:23
Flu season is in full swing, with wide outbreaks in 11 states - and a new strain is starting to emerge that this year's vaccine doesn't specifically target... Every year, the flu infects up to 20 percent of the population, causes the hospitalization of 200,000 people and kills 36,000...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:47:24
hundreds of Puerto Ricans... have a rare type of albinism that leads to a deadly lung disease... roughly five years to live once they've been diagnosed with the lung condition, known as pulmonary fibrosis... The island has the world's highest incidence of this often fatal type of albinism, which was likely brought by a colonizer centuries ago and proliferated as the isolated population intermarried...
reuters.com/ ... 09:06:59
Scientists in Finland said they had
replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen...
"There have been a couple of similar-sounding procedures before, but these didn't use the patient's own stem cells that were first cultured and expanded in laboratory and differentiated into bone tissue..."
Staying Healthy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:36:34
A researcher inspired by a famous "Seinfeld" episode has concluded that double dipping is just plain gross... That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!.." three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from an eater's mouth to the remaining dip sample...
reuters.com/ ... 09:07:44
Blacks get severe sepsis -- a rampant infection of the bloodstream that causes organ failure -- at nearly twice the rate of whites, and they are far more likely to die from it... poverty and hospital quality play a role, but it may also be that blacks are more susceptible to sepsis...
reuters.com/ ... 09:05:52
Portable media players such as iPods are unlikely to interfere with heart pacemakers...
Gardeners of Earth
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:05:36
The first consignment of seeds bound for the "doomsday vault" on Svalbard has arrived in Norway. Twenty-one boxes containing 7,000 seed samples from 36 African nations were sent by the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture... During January, other national seed banks supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) began packing and shipping duplicate collections that will be stored at Svalbard. These included collections from Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Syria...
[Still possibly the most forward-thinking material planning of humankind ever....]
Theory of Education
breitbart.com/ ... 10:30:03
West Virginia is considering a bill to teach schoolchildren how to handle a gun and hunt safely its
proponent hopes will increase state revenues from hunting licenses...
[Good idea... bizarre motivation....]
Theory of Justice
biz.yahoo.com/ ... 10:27:04
Action star Wesley Snipes was found not guilty of federal tax-fraud and conspiracy charges Friday, but was convicted on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file a tax return... Co-defendants Eddie Ray Kahn, the founder of a tax protest group, and Douglas P. Rosile, a delicensed accountant, were convicted by the same jury of tax fraud and conspiracy...
US Election 2008
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:22:00
...Sadly the quaint, small-scale encounters of New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina - when the candidate might chat or answer hecklers or even in the case of Hillary Clinton, cry - are a thing of the past for the rest of this campaign. The name of the game now is paid TV and internet adverts and what they call free media - stunts designed to get the candidate on the evening news... The result is a flight to safety - Mr Romney really did tell an audience the other night that this election was about "our children and their future". Gosh. How startling...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:04:14
The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor... cables are broken all the time, usually by fishing lines and ship anchors, and few of us notice... takes a confluence of factors for a cable break to cause an outage...
By an accident of geography and global politics, Egypt is a choke point in the global communications network, just as it is with global shipping. The reasons are the same: The country touches both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, which flows into the India Ocean...
[Good details on the politics & tech]
Egypt is not the only choke point in the global network. The ocean just south of
Taiwan
proved to be one in December 2006, when an earthquake cut seven of eight cables passing through the area, slowing down communications in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia for months. Another possible vulnerability is the U.S. island of
Guam
in the Pacific Ocean. It is the spider at the center of a web cables from the United States, Japan, Australia, the Philippines and China. Both cables that connect the United States to Australia and New Zealand run over Hawaii, creating another choke point. These bottlenecks are likely to go away, however, as telecoms build more and more lines... it will be years before the network across Asia is as resilient as the trans-Atlantic network, where multiple high-capacity lines over different routes provide a connection that's almost impossible to disrupt. And the factors that make the Suez Canal a vulnerable point now will likely remain...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:00:37
Terry Semel stepped down as Yahoo Inc.'s chairman Thursday, severing his ties with the slumping Internet icon 7 1/2 months after he resigned as chief executive under shareholder pressure...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:00:12
[ANOTHER! ]
... The Falcon cable... submarine cable in the Middle East has been snapped, adding to global net problems caused by breaks in two lines under the Mediterranean on Wednesday... led to a "critical" telecom breakdown... Wednesday's incident caused disruption to 70% of the nationwide internet network in Egypt on Wednesday, while India suffered up to 60% disruption...
The first cable - the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) - was cut at 0800 on 30 January... a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable that links Australia and Japan with Europe via India and the Middle East...
A second cable thought to lie alongside it - SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable - was also split... a submarine cable linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East...
The two cable cuts meant that the only cable in service connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt was the older Sea-M-We 3 system...
reuters.com/ ... 09:55:56
ahoo Inc employees fretted on Friday that their fun-loving culture, summed up by early company ads featuring a cowboy yodel, could get quashed by the comparatively stodgy software behemoth that wants to gobble it up...
Yeah, Sure!
reuters.com/ ... 09:52:44
It may be wishful thinking, but a Canadian government ministry has sent out a directive to its employees urging them to relax and not to use their BlackBerry smartphones at night or on weekends and holidays...
Sportsmanship
MindfulWebworks ... 10:35:34
[FOUR YEARS AGO THIS WEEKEND IN THE BLOG:]
...what happened at the Super Bowl half-time raised a far more important issue than a bare breast. In all this rush to condemn Jackson for an exposed breast, I've yet to hear the same level of outrage aimed at Timberlake. Jackson didn't just flash the audience. Timberlake, in a mock-display of lust, ripped off part of her clothing. It's not that a breast was bared, it was how the breast was bared that was truly offensive.
[dead link] http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2004/02/09/news/news9.txt
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:42:33
[92yo] Leo Fiyalko... been golfing for 60 years, but his 110-yard shot with a five iron on Jan. 10 was his first hole-in-one... on the fifth hole at the Cove Cay Country Club [Clearwater, Fla]... blind... only has peripheral vision in his right eye... "I was just trying to put the ball on the green..."
Transport Pleasures
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:39:56
Frank Oresnik... took the 1991 Chevrolet Silverado to the Oil Ex-Change Quick Lube in Medford on Thursday for what he expects will be its last oil change and tuneup before hitting... the 1 million mile mark... once he hits the mark he will retire the vehicle... credits proper maintenance and a good measure of luck... 300 oil changes and tuneups... every 3,000 miles... four radiators, three gas tanks, five transmissions and six water pumps, but the engine has never been overhauled...
Defending Ourselves
breitbart.com/ ... 10:31:25
Poland said Friday it has reached an agreement in principle with the United States on plans to install a missile defense system on Polish territory...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:30:45
a couple of suburban St. Louis purse snatchers picked the wrong women to attack.... One of the women grabbed a [snow] shovel from the suspects' pickup and smacked one of the men upside the head. The other woman jumped into the cab and attacked the other suspect, then grabbed the keys so he couldn't drive away...
Reasons for Repeal
reuters.com/ ... 09:25:09
The Dutch interior minister wants police officials to stop using soft drugs when they are off-duty as it
tarnishes the image of the force...
[and where will Big Nanny think such oversight of "drugs" should stop? Coffee? Sugar? Iced Tea? Red meat?...]
What's In a Name?
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:29:24
BUFFALO, N.Y... A collection agency tried to collect a $16.96 debt... "Dear $#!+" began the letter attempting to collect from an old record club membership.... envelope addressed to "$#!+ Face." ...Under U.S. law, debt collectors are not allowed to use profanity to collect a debt... nor are they supposed to threaten legal action over such a small amount... Nationwide Collections Inc. of Fort Pierce, Fla... President Phillip McGarvey said the October 2007 letter was automatically generated after his company bought about 350,000 Columbia House accounts. "$#!+ Face" is the name under which the account was opened and the way the coupon to start the club was filled out...
reuters.com/ ... 09:21:35
A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of
beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls
after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens. Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection... "What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either.... We had to look it up on (online encyclopedia) Wikipedia. But
we certainly know who she is now..."
FRI 2008-FEB-01
Theft
abcnews.go.com/ ... 12:58:43
Cyril H. Wecht, one of the country's most prominent pathologists... Robert F. Kennedy... Sharon Tate... O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson... Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith's son to Jon Benet Ramsey and Chandra Levy... most famous for disputing the single-bullet theory in the assassination of President Kennedy... finds himself on trial for the second time in his life, facing 41 criminal counts that could put him in jail for more than 20 years... accused of using his government employees to walk his dog, buy nose plugs for his swimming exercise, chauffeur him to Pittsburgh Steelers games and help perform autopsies for his private business...
Police Riot
seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 12:55:59
The Seattle Police Department hasn't disciplined any officers for unnecessary force in the past 18 months, during a time when it ruled on at least 161 force cases. During that same period, 12 other excessive-force complaints resulted in supervisory intervention with officers...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
adnkronos.com/ ... 12:55:09
US secret service agents operating in the remote border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan claim to have found five letters signed by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden... appear to have been sent last December to some of Bin Laden's followers in the region...
breitbart.com/ ... 12:53:25
Remote-controlled explosives strapped to
two mentally retarded women
detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday... had Down syndrome... explosives were detonated by remote control... the woman in the first attack sold cream in the morning at the market and was known to locals as "the crazy lady..." "There is nothing they won't do if they think it will work in creating carnage and the political fallout that comes from that..."
reuters.com/ ... 12:30:31
Gunmen opened fire on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania on Friday, wounding three bystanders including a French woman, days after anti-Israeli protests calling for the government to sever diplomatic ties...
time.com/ ... 12:29:57
If confirmed, the death of Abu Laith al-Libi, believed to be one of the highest-ranking leaders of the terror group after Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, would be a coup in the war on terror. But it is also an embarrassment for President Pervez Musharraf, who has repeatedly said that he will not sanction U.S. attacks against al-Qaeda targets thought to be regrouping in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal lands along the border with Afghanistan...
independent.co.uk/ ... 12:29:03
Two women suicide bombers killed more than 60 people in separate attacks in Baghdad today. The first came at the main pet market in the city centre where at least 46 people died and dozens were wounded... About 20 minutes later, a second woman struck another bird market in a predominantly Shiite area in south-eastern Baghdad. That blast killed as many as 18 people and wounded 25... shortly before the weekly Islamic call to prayer resounded across the capital...
Involving women in fighting violates religious taboos in Iraq,
but the US military has warned al Qaida in Iraq is recruiting women and youths to stage suicide attacks as the insurgents become increasingly desperate to thwart stepped up security measures...
Nature can be Deadly
suntimes.com/ ... 12:32:39
Snow will continue to fall in Chicago Friday morning, bringing the total accumulation
near 12 inches
by early afternoon... winter storm warning remains in effect for northern Illinois and northwest Indiana until 6 p.m. Friday... significant amounts of snow, sleet and ice are expected, and strong winds are possible... has already caused more than 600 flights to be canceled at OHare Airport, where delays averaged two hours. At Midway Airport, only 10 flights were canceled and delays averaged about 90 minutes...
breitbart.com/ ... 12:22:39
China's gridlocked transport system rumbled back to life Friday but millions of angry travellers remained stranded all around the country, unable to return home for annual holidays...
Across the Universe
breitbart.com/ ... 12:26:31
The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way. NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star... first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space... celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network... and the 50th anniversary of NASA.... will take 431 years... to reach its final destination... 2.5 quadrillion miles away... Apple was happy to approve the idea because is "always looking for new markets..." "Send my love to the aliens," Paul McCartney told NASA...
US Military
foxnews.com/ ... 13:00:17
In the demonstration Thursday, engineers fired the electromagnetic railgun at what they said was a record power level: 10 megajoules...
Railguns use electromagnetic energy to launch projectiles long distances more than 200 nautical miles... when fully developed, will be able to launch solid projectiles at Mach 5, or about 3,700 mph... Because the railgun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it eliminates the possibility of explosions on ships...
The Navy hopes the railgun will eventually replace the standard 5-inch gun on its ships. The weapon isn't expected to be deployed until at least 2020...
A joule is defined as the energy needed to produce one watt of electricity for one second...
contracostatimes.com/ ... 12:20:59
Berkeley [Yes, that Berzerkeley] City Council... voted 6-3 Tuesday night to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders..."
It's All in Your Mind
comics.com/ ... 12:06:45
"Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." -Friedrich Nietzche
Reasons for Repeal
abclocal.go.com/ ... 12:40:52
NEW YORK... Two men [26yo & 25yo]... arrested after police say they found 234 marijuana plants in the basement of their Long Island home... high intensity growing lights, water circulation pumps, fertilizers, two pounds of packaged marijuana, hypodermic needles, and a semiautomatic rifle...
[dang, kids! Don't you know needles and rifles are dangerous?]
pr.cannazine.co.uk/ ... 12:39:22
A cannabis seed breeder from Amsterdam has forewarned Europe to expect a bumper crop of Afghani-hashish this year as poppy eradication carries on in Helmond province...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 12:38:49
A smuggler who is believed to have imported drugs with a street value of up to £350m, much of it hidden in garden furniture, was today jailed for 26 years...
icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/ ... 12:38:20
There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that... Canada cannabis factories... in the Vancouver area... 95 per cent owned by Vietnamese crime gangs... is having a significant effect on the strength of the marijuana being smoked by young people in Britain today...
newsday.com/ ... 12:36:52
STAMFORD, Conn... Bridgeport man...
posted an ad... on Craigslist... selling high grade marijuana...
search of his apartment turned up three bags of marijuana and one bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms...
[Ah, mushrooms... perhaps that explains his lack of discretion?]
ap.google.com/ ... 12:35:11
Two North Dakota farmers who received the nation's first state licenses to grow industrial hemp have been granted renewals, though forces outside the state will largely decide whether the farmers will ever get a crop in the ground... "We just wanted to keep the licenses going..." $150...
Digital Business
bloomberg.com/ ... 12:20:18
Google Inc... declined the most in two years in Nasdaq trading after fourth-quarter profit missed analysts' estimates and Microsoft Corp. offered to buy rival Yahoo! Inc...
biz.yahoo.com/ ... 12:19:57
Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc.
with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets...
US Election 2008
nydailynews.com/ ... 12:54:21
part of Rudy Giuliani's presidential flameout can be traced back to his Judi - the woman he fell for in a cigar bar in 1999 while he was the married mayor with a wife and two young children at home. "She was a major part of the reason for Giuliani's collapse," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "Rudy wanted to head up the 'family values' party, and Judi didn't fit that label. Even worse, Giuliani was estranged from his children. Their refusal to campaign for him spoke volumes to voters..."
kcbs.com/ ... 12:22:02
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was heckled by protestors during a speech in San Francisco Thursday. Members of the anti-war group Code Pink shouted down the former Arkansas governor during an address before the Commonwealth Club. They were eventually hustled out... Huckabee took note of the disruption... "The beauty of America is that a person can come and even make a disruption, and you know what, that person is not going to be taken out and shot..."
images.ucomics.com/ ... 12:05:11
Danzinger's "Possibly Last Giuliani Cartoon - At Home with Donna Hanover and the Kids" 2008 Jan 27
Cascading Weirdness
newsoftheweird.blogspot.com/ ... 12:03:10
News of the Weird Friday has some good stuff
Marriage Today
press-citizen.com/ ... 12:01:19
A Minnesota National Guardsman is suing his estranged wife and her boyfriend after she allegedly squandered his Active Duty pay while he was serving in Iraq... were married on March 10, 2006. Five days later, Andrew Scullen was deployed to serve in Iraq. While serving, Scullen granted his wife power of attorney at her request...
You can support blog heaping of links by making donations via
2008-aug
2008-jul
2008-jun
2008-may
2008-apr
2008-mar
2008-feb
top
2008-jan
2007-dec
2007-nov
2007-oct
2007-sep
2007-aug
blog-heap o' links