/
/
blog-heap o' links
from
2007-apr
Just random links galore. Latest on top.
Links load in a separate page.
Suggestions welcome.
FRI 2007-APR-27
Yuck!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:31:58
WELLINGTON, New Zealand... A grandmother was alarmed to find a condom in a happy meal gift pack bought for her 7-year-old granddaughter at a McDonald's restaurant in New Zealand... Grandpa Rowan Hutch [said]... it was lucky his wife was first to look inside the small sports bag that came with the meal... "...It would be difficult to explain, she's only seven..."
[But... was it sealed in its packaging or loose and used? We need more details!]
Infrastructure Failure
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:18:12
Colombia has been hit by a nationwide power cut, hitting commercial centres and causing chaos on the roads. Ten people were trapped in lifts and the stock exchange was forced to suspend trading... caused by an undetermined technical failure at a substation in the capital, Bogota... More than 80% of Colombia was affected. Power returned to most parts of the country after several hours...
Iraq
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:12:58
Iraqis divided on Friday along sectarian lines over the U.S. congressional vote pushing for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, with many Sunnis welcoming the call and Shiites and Kurds fearful it would increase the bloodshed... "A pullout of U.S. soldiers would create even bigger problems than we have now," said Ghiath Ali Souji, 35, a Kurdish high school teacher in Mosul. "Iraqi forces are not ready to deal with the insurgents and militiamen, and this will lead to even more chaos and killings..."
Civilization vs Gangsterism
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 12:37:51
Army chiefs fear that a fatal attack on two British soldiers in Iraq last week was a dry run for an attempt on Prince Harrys life... The attack was made on a type of vehicle that the Prince will use, and took place in a part of the country where he is due to be deployed as early as next month. The two died when their Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb the first time that British soldiers had been killed in a Scimitar as a result of enemy action...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:35:22
Saudi Arabia says it has foiled a plot by militants to carry out suicide air attacks on oil installations and military bases. Foreign nationals were among 172 terror suspects held in a series of raids... Large amounts of weapons and $32.4m (£16.21m) in cash were also seized...
breitbart.com/ ... 12:35:03
The Pentagon announced Friday the capture of one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured... Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi... was received by the Pentagon this week from the CIA... spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom... described... as an associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and as someone who may have been targeting Westerners outside of Iraq...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:16:27
A top member of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebel group has been arrested in the US for supporting "terror" activities on the island... Prosecutors say Karunakaran Kandasamy is the main US representative of the insurgent group, responsible for raising money and supplying arms. They say he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Tigers. If convicted, Mr Kandasamy faces up to 15 years in prison and the possibility of deportation...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:14:31
Hundreds of Afghan soldiers and police retook a district outside the capital from the Taliban on Friday, pushing out militants who had seized the area in fierce fighting a day earlier...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:13:42
three U.S. Marines were killed Thursday in fighting in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad...
U.S.-led forces also detained nine suspected insurgents in raids aimed at al-Qaida in Iraq, including five in the northern city of Mosul who allegedly made car bombs and attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:11:30
Somalis who fled the government's offensive against Islamic insurgents in Mogadishu began returning to the shattered capital Friday, following the prime minister's claim of victory in fierce fighting that killed hundreds. But some began to question the claim when gunmen attacked a hotel housing government officials hours later...
Industrial Incident
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:17:18
26 April 2007, 22:06 GMT... Rescuers at the site of a multi-storey building that collapsed in Istanbul are still checking that no one else is trapped beneath the rubble. Earlier a man in his thirties was pulled out from the wreckage, injured but otherwise in good health...
chron.com/ ... 12:03:01
An apartment building collapsed Thursday on a crowded street in Istanbul, and rescuers pulled two people from the rubble... not immediately clear how seriously they were injured... As dusk fell, it was unclear whether anyone else was trapped beneath the debris... Mayor Kadir Topbas said the collapse was the result of "serious negligence" by a contractor hired to tear down a building next door...
Threats
chron.com/ ... 12:01:50
AUSTIN A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death... Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:41:46
Army Spc.
Jeremy E. Maresh
, 24, of Jim Thorpe, Pa., died Apr. 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident. His death is under investigation. Maresh was assigned to C Battery, 1st Battalion, 213th Air Defense Artillery, Spring City, Pa.
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:41:21
Army 1st Lt.
Kevin J. Gaspers
, 26, of Hastings, Neb.
Army Staff Sgt.
Kenneth E. Locker Jr.
, 28, of Wakefield, Neb.
Army Staff Sgt.
William C. Moore
, 27, of Benson, N.C.
Army Sgt.
Randell T. Marshall
, 22, of Fitzgerald, Ga.
Army Sgt.
Brice A. Pearson
, 32, of Phoenix, Az.
Army Sgt.
Michael L. Vaughan
, 20, of Otis, Ore.
Army Spc.
Jerry R. King
, 19, of Browersville, Ga.
Army Spc.
Michael J. Rodriguez
, 20, of Sanford, N.C.
Army Pfc.
Garrett C. Knoll
, 23, of Bad Axe, Mich.
died Apr. 23 in As Sadah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their location. All were assigned to the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:39:56
The Department of Defense announced today the
transfer of one detainee from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Afghanistan and the transfer of one detainee to Morocco...
The Department of Defense has determined -- through its comprehensive review processes -- that approximately 80 detainees at Guantanamo are eligible for transfer or release. Departure of these detainees is subject to ongoing discussions between the United States and other nations....
Animal Companions
orlandosentinel.com/ ... 12:37:07
Meet tiny Dancer, a rust-colored, long-haired Chihuahua that may just be the
world's smallest dog
, weighing 18 ounces and standing
not much more than 4 inches tall...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 12:27:49
California regulators adopted new standards on Thursday to slash the amount of formaldehyde allowed in wood products, a move they say will save hundreds of people from getting cancer every year. Over objections from some businesses, the California Air Resources Board approved new rules they say will reduce the total amount of formaldehyde released into the air in the state to 150 tons annually, down from the current 650 tons...
Formaldehyde is used in resins to bind together composite wood products...
reuters.com/ ... 12:26:58
People suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy...
reuters.com/ ... 12:26:43
Statin before bypass surgery may boost survival...
reuters.com/ ... 12:26:33
Black cohosh may cut breast cancer risk...
reuters.com/ ... 12:26:24
Omega-3 may fight Alzheimer brain changes...
Feeding Ourselves
forbes.com/ ... 12:05:22
Some 6,000 hogs have been quarantined across eight U.S. states because they may be eaten contaminated salvage pet food... meat from 345 hogs that ate tainted feed has already entered the U.S. food supply... farms in California, New York, South Carolina, North Carolina, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma and Ohio... swine from slaughterhouses in Kansas and Utah may have entered the food supply...
consider the threat to human health to be very low...
Digital Future is Now
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 12:01:22
n Japan, they work as carers and look eerily lifelike ... but what would happen if the robots turned against us?.. The truth is that we can dismiss - at least for now - talk of giving machines the vote. Instead, we should worry just where the technology of robotics is leading us humans, because, in the future, the dark side of machine intelligence will make itself felt with increasing force... in real life, no one has yet made a sentient machine. We have no idea how phenomena such as consciousness, morality, love or anger are generated in human brains. And far less idea how to impart these things into computer software and silicon chips. Hence the scepticism about "robot rights"...
In our genes
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 11:59:14
A genetic mutation called the
"after-hours gene" may explain why some people are night owls...
Afh is a variant of a gene called Fbxl3, which had not been linked to the body clock... scientists noticed that instead of following the typical 24-hour pattern some animals had body clocks that stretched to a 27-hour day... their DNA had the after-hours version of the Fbxl3 gene, one of a large family that controls the breakdown of specific proteins within body cells... could also hold clues for pharmacologists working to develop drugs to help people adjust to shift work or jet lag...
[Oh, yes, it's always important to develop more profit-generating pharmeceuticals!!]
Theory of Education
suntimes.com/ ... 12:36:40
Police Thursday released portions of an essay used to charge a Cary-Grove High School student with disorderly conduct, leaving several experts puzzled at an arrest based on such schoolwork. Asked to write about whatever he wanted in a creative writing class, would-be Marine and honors student Allen Lee, 18, described a violent dream in which he shot people and then "had sex with the dead bodies..."
Digital Threat
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 12:36:09
the walls are lined with a special paper that contains a layer of tin-foil; and upstairs, the windows are hung with a fine, silvery gauze. These aren't idiosyncratic decorating decisions, though. All these silvery layers are here for a purpose: to keep the 21st century at bay. Sarah, 51, is one of a growing band of people who claim to be experiencing extreme - and incapacitating - sensitivity to electrical appliances, as well as to certain frequencies of electromagnetic waves...
Digital Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:29:21
Travelers looking for Ozark Mountain Resort must be disappointed when they pull up to Tish and Lyle Ashley's place. It's a three-bedroom ranch-style home, not a 150-acre vacation spot, and it's on the wrong side of Table Rock Lake... For the past two years, a lot of visitors have pulled travel trailers and boats up the Ashleys' one-way street - and gotten stuck - thanks to wayward directions from the computer search engine MapQuest...
Reporting Science
reuters.com/ ... 12:23:27
Climate change is affecting the growth of fish, with those living in warmer, shallow waters growing faster and species in cooling deep ocean waters growing slower...
[So, considering the depleted-fish-stocks crisis, does this mean global warming is a good thing?]
"...global climate change has enhanced some elements of productivity of shallow-water stocks but at the same time reduced the productivity and possibly the resilience of deep-water stocks..."
reuters.com/ ... 12:22:06
Ancient volcanoes may have caused a dramatic warming of the Earth's atmosphere that raised sea temperatures and killed off many marine species, resulting in a "planetary emergency," U.S. and European scientists said on Thursday. The discovery shows the impact of the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and may shed light on planetary changes wrought by more recent causes of global warming...
[Wait... isn't there SOME way we can blame this on humans?]
Unclear on le Concept
reuters.com/ ... 12:20:23
The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them...
Headline of the Day
reuters.com/ ... 12:20:11
Headline:
Democrats want end to war, differ on details...
[Um... like anybody but the rabid, insane, and criminally profiteering want ANY war to continue....]
World Without Borders
kvoa.com/ ... 12:38:43
Just after 7:00 Thursday morning, a woman called 911 saying her husband had been kidnapped. Police came to the house in the 10,000 block of South Epperson Lane. That's near Nogales Highway and Summit Street. Fourty-one illegal immigrants were taken for questioning from the home...
reuters.com/ ... 12:19:17
Tightening security on the U.S.-Mexican border has sharply cut arrests of illegal immigrants but scores are still dying as they attempt the perilous crossing through deserts and raging rivers...
Human Right
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:17:39
Lawmakers in New Hampshire have approved same-sex civil unions, giving legal recognition to gay partnerships in the north-eastern US state. The bill was passed by a 14-10 vote in the Democratic-held state senate. State Governor John Lynch would sign the bill into law within days, his spokesman said...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:16:05
The European Parliament has called on Poland to stop public leaders inciting discrimination against homosexuals. The resolution follows a statement by a deputy education minister that Poland was drafting a law to punish teachers who "promoted" homosexuality...
Democracy in Action
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:14:15
The Philippines election campaign erupted in more bloodshed Thursday as police protecting for rival politicians clashed north of Manila, killing four people and wounding 12 others... The nighttime shootout at a roadblock in Nueva Ecija province came on top of 22 deaths reported earlier in connection with frenzied campaigning for the May 14 local and legislative elections. Violence accompanies every election in the Philippines, where many politicians maintain private armies for protection as well as intimidation...
Sportsmanship
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:11:55
China's grandiose plans for the torch relay, the high-profile prelude to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, have been engulfed in conflict by an old political rival - Taiwan. Within hours of Beijing's announcement Thursday of what would be the longest torch relay in Olympic history - an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mount Everest - Taiwan rejected its inclusion...
Reasons for Repeal
kob.com/ ... 12:09:48
LORDSBURG, N.M... The Border Patrol says it has seized more than a half-ton of marijuana and 26 pounds of cocaine in southern New Mexico... found 1,160 pounds of marijuana after an Air and Marine Operations pilot spotted a pickup truck driving off road and through fences south of Animas on Wednesday... 60 bundles of marijuana
[ludicrously over-]
valued at more than 928-thousand dollars in the truck. The cocaine
[which without prohibition would not really be]
worth $832,000was seized at a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces on Wednesday after a drug-sniffing dog alerted agents...
freenewmexican.com/ ... 12:08:25
CLOVIS, N.M... A Curry County Adult Detention Center guard has been fired after being accused of smuggling marijuana and tobacco into the jail... [23yo] was hired in October and was on probationary status when he was fired... investigation stemming from a tip from an informant... told investigators he was having financial problems when a prisoner offered to pay him to smuggle contraband into the jail...
[¡muy estupido!]
thejakartapost.com/ ... 12:06:41
The Tangerang [Indonesia] Police said Thursday that they had confiscated 800 kilograms of marijuana and arrested three men believed to be part of a drug syndicate operating in Tangerang. Estimated to have a
[prohibition-supported absolutely absurd if-sold-by-gram]
street value of Rp 1.76 billion (about US$ 18 million) the marijuana was seized at three separate rental houses...
Don't drink the water
news.bostonherald.com/ ... 12:04:09
SPENCER, Mass. - Officials lifted a water ban Thursday and pressed residents to flush their water lines and boil supplies before using the water following the accidental over-release of a chemical into the town supply that sickened dozens of people... excessive levels of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye... Nearly 100 people were treated at hospitals for burning sensations and skin rashes...
Sodium hydroxide is put into water to reduce water acidity and limit pipe corrosion...
Age is No Barrier
apnews.myway.com/ ... 12:02:14
HAYS, Kansas... When 95-year-old Nola Ochs graduates next month, she will be the world's oldest college graduate. The record Ochs will break, according to Guinness World Records, belongs to Mozelle Richardson, who at age 90 in 2004 received a journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma...
Big Nanny
philly.com/ ... 12:38:12
Alerted to a forgotten state ban, Phila. authorities have closed at least 16 storefront fortune-tellers. One alleged discrimination... Philadelphia's fortune-tellers didn't see it coming...
reuters.com/ ... 12:26:06
Legislation that would lift an online gambling ban imposed by Congress last year was introduced on Thursday by the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Calling the Internet gambling prohibition "imprudently adopted," Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts outlined a bill to make it legal again for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites...
"The fundamental issue here is a matter of individual freedom..."
thelocal.se/ ... 11:56:57
A group of local politicians from Sollefteå in northern Sweden have lodged a complaint to the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) after viewing an advert that promotes shopping. The three-member consumer delegation -- consisting of Micael Melander from the Social Democrats, Tonny Molander of the Greens and Left Party representative Niklas Lind... took exception to the ad on the basis that it fosters the development of retail therapy... "It's an ad where a young girl is really depressed because her boyfriend has just broken up with her. Goldie Hawn, who is an actress, encourages her to indulge in some comfort shopping..."
US Election 2008
newsday.com/ ... 11:55:41
A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season... No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions...
THU 2007-APR-26
Transport Tragedy
southbendtribune.com/ ... 12:26:37
At least eight people are dead in a crash on the Indiana Toll Road involving three semis and four cars. The westbound lanes of the Toll Road by mile marker 102 near Bristol have been shut down... four of the deceased were from LaGrange County, two were from New Hampshire and one was from Michigan. One person has been taken to Memorial Hospital and is listed in serious condition. No children were involved in the accident... witnesses saw a semi rear-end one vehicle, which started a chain-reaction accident. Witnesses are also reported the semi did not appear to slow down. Ten people were in the seven vehicles involved in the accident...
Prison Sucks
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:08:54
BALTIMORE... A [29yo] woman pleaded guilty to using a false ID badge to enter a corrections facility while posing as an attorney so she could have sex with an inmate... serving a 30-year sentence for manslaughter... Corrections officials... witnessed the two having sex once they were alone. The corrections officers ended the meeting...
Violence
chron.com/ ... 12:25:40
The charred body of a man suspected of killing a state trooper and wounding two others was removed Thursday from the smoldering wreckage of a farm house that caught fire as police closed in on him... wasn't immediately clear if Trim died in the shootout with troopers earlier Wednesday or in the fire that broke out when police fired tear gas canisters into the house later in the day...
reuters.com/ ... 01:35:46
Seung-Hui Cho took just nine minutes to fire more than 170 rounds of ammunition as he gunned down dozens of his fellow students and staff at Virginia Tech last week, police said on Wednesday... "It took the officers about 3 minutes to arrive in the area of Norris Hall from the first 911 call... Five minutes later, the ... officers had breached the doors, breached the chains and made it to the second floor... As the officers were going up to the second floor, they heard the last gunshot..."
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 01:34:38
A Florida doctor accused of swearing allegiance to al Qaeda and agreeing to treat wounded militants has been unfairly ensnared in the scheme of a longtime friend, a defense lawyer argued on Wednesday...
Under Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 01:31:25
In China you will soon be able to check on a nationwide registry of marriage details, designed to stamp out bigamy...
Meth is Murder
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:26:58
Methamphetamine abusers in rural areas have more medical and psychiatric problems that may inhibit recovery than their urban counterparts...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:24:41
A man wearing a mask robbed an Orlando Hess station Monday, stealing $75 and two cartons of cigarettes... robber had left a gun case against a display rack. Inside the case, deputies found a receipt for a new AK-47 assault rifle... Sheriff's deputies tracked down a suspec... with a receipt he left at the scene of the crime...
Alcohol Was Involved
reuters.com/ ... 01:22:23
A German man called on his bank for an unusual service when he was too tired and drunk to go home -- he bedded down there for the night with his horse...
World Zookeeping
theage.com.au/ ... 12:23:13
A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the US... new findings represent the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause. But the results are "highly preliminary..." w
reuters.com/ ... 11:05:26
Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather... Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone... about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan... A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:04:15
A tiny mite that has devastated mainland honeybee populations showed up in Honolulu hives for the first time this month and has now been confirmed in bee colonies across Oahu. The infestation by varroa mites has led the state to ask beekeepers to restrict transport of bees around the islands. There are concerns it could threaten the Big Island's thriving queen bee export industry, which has so far tested free of the mites...
US Military
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:02:38
The commander of a major US military prison in Iraq has been arrested for offences including aiding the enemy. Lt Col William Steele is accused of giving detainees free use of a mobile phone at Camp Cropper and fraternising with the daughter of a detainee...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:37:24
Marine Lance Cpl.
Dale G. Peterson
, 20, of Redmond, Ore., died April 23 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Peterson was assigned to 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Extraterrestrial
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:34:14
Swiss scientist Michel Mayor, who heads the European team that announced the discovery of a new potentially habitable planet, has his sights set on an even bigger target, detecting signs of extraterrestrial life... predicts that top researchers are less than two decades away from being able to detect real signs of such life - if it exists...
Healing Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:33:50
Pregnant women in Africa can reduce their risk of miscarriage or still birth by up to a third by sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets...
Animal Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:33:34
Robins in urban areas are singing at night because it is too noisy during the day...
Antiquity - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:28:32
Experts are "lost for words" to have found that a medieval prayer book has yielded yet another key ancient text buried within its parchment. Works by mathematician Archimedes and the politician Hyperides had already been found buried within the book, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest. But now advanced imaging technology has revealed a third text - a commentary on the philosopher Aristotle...
Feeding Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:26:41
More than 50 children were poisoned by a kindergarten breakfast in central China... Thirty had been released and the others remained under observation... Doctors believe soybean milk given to the children was not boiled properly...
Digital Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 01:23:01
Ever wished you could be in two places at one time? A Japanese researcher has managed it, through a robot that looks and moves exactly like him... When you poke its face, the robot grimaces like a real human, thanks to the more than 50 sensors and motors that are implanted beneath its lifelike skin. It appears to breathe when compressed air is pumped through its body...
Reporting Science
standard-freeholder.com/ ... 12:34:33
The current debate about global warming is "completely irrational," and people need to start taking a different approach, say two Ottawa scientists. Carleton University science professor Tim Patterson said global warming will not bring about the downfall of life on the planet. Patterson said much of the up-to-date research indicates that "changes in the brightness of the sun" are almost certainly the primary cause of the warming trend since the end of the "Little Ice Age" in the late 19th century.
Human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas of concern in most plans to curb climate change, appear to have little effect on global climate
, he said...
Digital Threat
itwire.com.au/ ... 12:24:09
The QuickTime/Java vulnerability that earned Dino Dai Zovi a $10,000 prize in a Mac hacking contest at the CanSecWest security conference also affects Windows... the vulnerability was seated in the interaction between Java and QuickTime... "We strongly believe at this point that any Java-enabled browser that has the vulnerable QuickTime Java extension installed is affected by this issue..." Until Apple releases an update, computers may be protected by disabling Java support in every browser used on the system...
World Energy
edmontonsun.com/ ... 12:08:19
The federal government is pulling the plug on Thomas Edison's most famous invention as of 2012. Environment Minister John Baird yesterday announced a ban on the sale of conventional, incandescent light bulbs within five years as part of a plan to cut greenhouse pollution by 6 million tonnes annually... "Using more energy-efficient light bulbs is a great example of a concrete action Canadians can take at home to reduce harmful greenhouse emissions and save energy," Baird said at a news conference in Ottawa...
[I tried one of these Al Gore lightbulbs at home with a dimmer on my X10 home-control system and they DON'T TURN COMPLETELY OFF! I replaced it with a good old incandescent right away.]
Sexual Equality??
reuters.com/ ... 11:09:40
Chinese tourism authorities are seeking investment to build a novel concept attraction -- the world's first "women's town," where men get punished for disobedience... based on the local traditional concept of "women rule and men obey," a tourism official told Reuters...
World Without Borders
breitbart.com/ ... 12:35:47
Residents of a predominately Hispanic Chicago neighborhood took to the streets in protest after heavily armed U.S. immigration agents raided businesses. "Soldiers bombarded our neighborhood," Baltazar Enriquez told the Chicago Sun-Times. "It looked like they were marching into Iraq." Heavily armed federal officers in bullet-proof vests, locked down a strip mall Tuesday in a Southwest Side neighborhood known as Little Village, Enriquez said. The raid triggered a protest of 250 to 300 people that lasted into the evening... The federal agents were searching for sellers of fake Social Security and resident alien green cards, authorities said, refusing to say how many people were arrested in the search...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:07:38
Internet law professor Michael Geist says countries should resist US bullying tactics over copyright and intellectual property... This week the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the U.S. government department responsible for international trade, will release its annual report card on intellectual property protection around the world... historically had a significant impact in many countries who fear potential trade sanctions... a virtual certainty that Canada will receive special attention... While the report will generate media headlines and cries for immediate action, the reality is that Canada meets all of its international copyright obligations...
Unclear on the Concept
breitbart.com/ ... 12:29:44
A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1... The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto...
[They know it won't be law, but they can all claim brownie points with the peaceniks... Playing politics with the troops and giving comfort to the enemy...]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:03:41
Attempts by US
Democrats
to hasten the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq are
"damaging to security"
in the country, Iraq's foreign minister... Hoshyar Zebari... says... The Senate votes on the bill later on Thursday. President George W Bush has promised to veto it...
Monarchy is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:02:09
Malaysia's 13th king formally ascended the throne Thursday, pledging to reign wisely and safeguard the sanctity of Islam in a ceremony marked by traditional Malay rites and imperial pageantry...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:30:06
NeuStar Inc., the operator of ".biz," said it would raise fees 7 percent to $6.42, starting Oct. 19...
Recall
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:29:43
Acer Inc... launched a recall Wednesday of about 27,000 laptop batteries... faulty Sony-made lithium-ion batteries that could overheat and cause a fire... More than
10 million notebook batteries have been recalled worldwide
since the problem was traced to Sony Corp. last year...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 01:30:56
British rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalized tracks at the click of a button... with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new "Method" software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star...
reuters.com/ ... 01:30:31
A large English cheddar cheese has become a star of the Internet, attracting more than 1 million viewers to sit and stare at it as it slowly ripens...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:29:01
A provider of Internet addressing services hopes to unify how you navigate the Web when using different browsers and computers. This week, OpenDNS introduced "shortcuts" - settings you may use to reach certain Web sites when typing in specific alphanumeric combinations in the address bar...
[so w?]
Language Culture
reuters.com/ ... 01:28:06
The rising popularity of text messaging on cell phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an education commission says...
[who r they 2 say what s lang? R they th xprts or r they th forces of anti-growth?]
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
reuters.com/ ... 01:26:14
The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug,
government drug experts
on Wednesday...
[and if you can't believe GOVERNMENT DRUG EXPERTS, who CAN you believe...!!]
Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said...
[Thank goodness for quality assurance!... REEEEEPPPPEEEEAALALLLLLLLLLL!!!!]
Ummm....
reuters.com/ ... 01:23:32
British firefighters said on Wednesday they had come to a boy's rescue after he got a toilet seat stuck on his head...
Reasons for Repeal
news.com.au/ ... 12:22:20
Marijuana would be prescribed by doctors in South Australia for medicinal purposes under planned legislation... Democrats MP Sandra Kanck... said some doctors already were advising patients to use marijuana to help manage their pain...
reuters.com/ ... 01:33:23
A single dose of morphine was found to lower the inhibitions of rats, even after the drug had left their systems... the painkiller blocked the brain's ability to strengthen connections, or synapses, that ratchet down reward or pleasure... "What we have found is that the inhibitory synapses can no longer be strengthened 24 hours after treatment with morphine, which suggests that a natural brake has been removed..." adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting a link between learning and addiction and may help in the development of
drugs to treat addiction...
[DRUGS to fight DRUGS? Naturally including pharmeceutical company profits based on religio-government taboos]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:22:02
Nato forces in Afghanistan say that they have withdrawn paid adverts on a radio station which implied it was acceptable to grow opium poppies...
WED 2007-APR-25
Nature can be Deadly
reuters.com/ ... 11:31:43
A tornado killed 10 people and injured more than 80 when it slammed into towns on Texas-Mexico border overnight... Seven people were killed when the tornado passed through the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, and three people died in Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the border... Five of the Eagle Pass dead were in a single home... all members of the same family whose mobile home was picked up and thrown down by the storm... about 250 people were in shelters after the storm...
Transport Near-Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:22:07
Abigail told police her [diabetic] mother had started driving erratically at about 80 mph. The [11yo] girl said she climbed from the rear seat of the van onto the woman's lap and managed to stop the vehicle before calling 911...
Disturbing Family Patterns
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:16:58
...The 42-year-old Lincoln mom was miffed about her daughter's poor play on Saturday. On their drive home the girl flubbed the lines her mom had drilled into her on how to improve her game, so the mother slapped her daughter. The girl told her mom to pull over. The mom did... yelled at the girl to get out. When she did, her mom drove off...
[Mother was] ticketed for neglect...
[that's ALL???]
Crack is Crazy
reuters.com/ ... 11:02:57
Cardiac arrest is a serious consequence faced by crack cocaine users, who tend to be younger and are more likely to survive than cardiac arrest patients who don't use the drug... Twelve cocaine users experienced a complete neurological recovery, compared with three of the older patients and seven of the younger patients. Cardiac arrest was fatal for 10 cocaine users, while 15 of the older patients and 32 of the younger patients died... The cocaine users likely fared better because their cardiac arrests were due to drug use, not underlying health conditions...
Alcohol Was Involved
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:17:22
A drunken driver veered onto a sidewalk and crashed into a police station, knocking bricks loose from the building... had been arguing with a woman in another car before the crash...
reuters.com/ ... 11:02:10
Women with drinking problems may show it in different ways than men, which could make their alcohol abuse harder to detect... men more often reported problems like bingeing or getting into fights, but women were more likely to report feeling depressed or guilty about their drinking... Traditionally, the rate of drinking problems and overt alcohol dependence has been higher among men than women. However, researchers have suggested that one reason could be a potential "male slant" in the criteria used to diagnose these problems -- criteria developed largely from studies of men...
reuters.com/ ... 10:59:44
...heavy drinking by college students increases levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease... Male drinkers had higher average CRP levels than did female drinkers, although the difference was not statistically significant...
reuters.com/ ... 10:59:08
The more alcoholic drinks that men have at any time of day -- not just before bedtime -- the greater are the risks of breathing problems during sleep... effect was not seen among women...
Data Threat
reuters.com/ ... 10:53:52
A Chinese college has introduced
fingerprint scanners
to stop students playing truant... but
not everyone is pleased
about it...
[imagine that!]
"Students are now required to 'check in' to each class by pressing their thumbs against the scanner..." first-year student, said she would never skip class, regardless of whether there was a scanner. "We are adults. Is it really necessary to control us in this way?.." Other students said they feared the fingerprint data could be leaked out of the college and used for other purposes...
Violence
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:52:03
A Peace Corps volunteer found buried in a shallow grave in a Philippine mountain village was killed by blows to the head and there were signs that she had tried to ward off an attack, police said Saturday... Julia Campbell, a [40yo] freelance journalist who had been teaching English in the Philippines since October 2006... police recovered a bloodstained pole used to pound rice made of hard wood near the home of a suspect, who has gone into hiding...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
guardian.co.uk/ ... 11:51:48
The head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said yesterday that al-Qaida had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain. Deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, the national counterterrorism coordinator, warned in a lecture last night that terrorists "have momentum" and were on an "inexorable trend to more ambitious and more destructive attack planning"...
chron.com/ ... 11:38:00
A suicide bomber wearing a hidden belt of explosives attacked a police station in Iraq's volatile province of Diyala on Wednesday, killing at least four policeman just days after a double suicide bombing in the same province left nine U.S. soldiers dead. Wednesday's explosion... also injured at least 16 people...
reuters.com/ ... 11:30:29
Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior commander of Afghan Islamist group Taliban said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:50:38
Gangsters with automatic weapons shoot it out with police in broad daylight near downtown. Parents use their bodies to shield children on their way to school. Passengers on buses stuck in traffic hit the floor as bullets shatter windows. A day after terrorizing gunbattles left at least 19 criminals lying dead in the streets, Brazilians grappled Wednesday with a shocking image of how far Rio de Janeiro has sunk into violence...
Extraterrestrial
reuters.com/ ... 11:30:11
European astronomers have spotted what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures that could support water and, potentially, life... orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581... measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it... "We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees F), and water would thus be liquid... Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans..."
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:12:45
A decline in the amount of leaves on the ground could be behind the rapid demise of frog species, a study of a rainforest in Costa Rica has suggested. Until now, the prime suspect for the amphibians' population crash was a deadly fungal infection...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:12:29
A national drive to help boost the number of bumblebees in Britain has been launched... Researches said the decline was largely down to changes in the countryside with a reduction in flowers, hedges and marshland. Mr Darvill said bee numbers could be increased by simply changing the plants grown in gardens...
Feeding Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 11:00:37
A Pennsylvania beef company is recalling about 259,230 lbs of beef products due to possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7... several illnesses tied to steak products produced by HFX Inc. for Hoss's Family Steak and Sea Restaurants, a chain based in Pennsylvania... believed to be the result of eating rare or medium-rare steak at the restaurants March 24-March 29. Four of five people have been hospitalized, but none has developed kidney failure...
Healing Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 10:58:48
An experimental rabies treatment that saved the life of a teen-ager in 2004 has failed to help two other children infected with the deadly virus... A 10-year-old Indiana girl and an 11-year-old boy in California both died despite getting the treatment that involves putting patients into a drug-induced coma and giving them antiviral drugs... This means it is critical for parents and doctors to recognize quickly if a child may have been exposed to rabies and get treatment as quickly as possible... Quick vaccination after exposure -- usually via a bite or some other contact with the saliva of an infected animal -- can save lives. But if a person begins showing symptoms, which are vague enough to be confusing, it is usually too late...
Rabies kills 55,000 people a year globally and affected 24 people in the United States in 2006...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:46:38
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced April 24 that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors
Air Force Col.
Norman D. Eaton
, of Weatherford, Okla.
Air Force Lt. Col.
Paul E. Getchell
, of Portland, Maine
Eaton will be buried April 25 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., and Getchell will be buried later this spring at Arlington. On Jan. 13, 1969, Eaton and Getchell crewed a B-57B Canberra bomber participating in a nighttime attack on targets in Salavan Province, Laos. The target area was illuminated by flares from a C-130 aircraft; however, the flares dimmed as the B-57 began its third bombing run on the target. The crew was low on fuel, but decided to continue the attack run without illumination. The C-130 crew received a radio transmission indicating that the B-57 was off target and seconds later, the plane crashed. Eaton and Getchell could not be recovered at the time of the incident. In 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the incident and interviewed a Laotian citizen who recalled the crash. Another joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team surveyed the site and found wreckage and crew-related materials consistent with the citizens report. In 2003, a joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team excavated the crash site and recovered Eatons identification tag. The team was unable to complete the recovery and subsequent teams re-visited the site five more times between 2004 and 2005 before the recovery was complete. As a result, the teams found Getchells identification tag, human remains and additional crew-related items....
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:39:26
Army Staff Sgt.
Steven R. Tudor
, 36, of Dunmore, Pa., died Apr. 21 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using indirect fire during combat operations. Tudor was assigned to the 210th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:39:01
Army Pfc.
Jeffrey A. Avery
, 19, of Colorado Springs, Colo., died April 23 in Muqudadiyah, Iraq, from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during checkpoint operations. He was assigned to the 571st Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:38:38
Army Cpl.
Ray M. Bevel
, 22, of Andrews, Texas, died Apr. 21 in Yusifiyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat patrol operations. Bevel was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:36:29
Army Staff Sgt.
Marlon B. Harper
, 34, of Baltimore, Md.,died Apr. 21 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when he came in contact with enemy forces using a rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire during combat operations. Harper was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:35:54
Army Sgt.
William W. Bushnell
, 24, of Jasper, Ark., died Apr. 21 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle was struck by a rocket propelled grenade during combat operations. Bushnell was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Bliss, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:35:23
Army Pfc.
Christopher M. North
, 21, of Sarasota, Fla., died Apr. 21, in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire during combat operations. North was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:34:50
Army Pvt.
Michael J. Slater
, 19, of Scott Depot, W. Va., died Apr. 21 in Taji, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle rolled over during combat operations. Slater was assigned to the 407th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:34:27
Army Cpl.
Wade J. Oglesby
, 27, of Grand Junction, Colo.
Army Cpl.
Michael M. Rojas
, 21, of Fresno, Calif.
died Apr. 18 in Taji, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:33:50
Army Chief Warrant Officer
Dwayne L. Moore
, 31, of Williamsburg, Va., died Apr. 19 in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when he came in contact with enemy forces using indirect fire. Moore was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:33:25
Marine Lance Cpl.
Jeffery A. Bishop
, 23, of Dickson, Tenn., died April 20 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Bishop was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:33:02
Army Sgt.
Alexander Van Aalten
, 21, of Monterey, Tenn., died Apr. 20 in Sangin, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when a land mine detonated near his unit during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:32:18
Army Pfc.
Jason M. Morales
, 20, of La Puente, Calif., died April 18 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, and Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:31:53
Army Pfc.
Richard P. Langenbrunner
, 19, of Fort Wayne, Ind., died Apr. 17 in Rustamiyah, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident. His death is under investigation. Langenbrunner was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:31:29
Army Staff Sgt.
Robert J. Basham
, 22, of Kenosha, Wis., died Apr. 14 at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, as a result of injuries from a non-combat incident. His death is under investigation. Basham was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery 1st Battalion, 126th Field Artillery Regiment, Kenosha, Wis.
US Military
mercurynews.com/ ... 11:41:48
The brother of Pat Tillman, the soldier who saw Tillman die and the naval officer who eulogized him told Congress in emotional testimony Tuesday that the military misled the nation and betrayed Tillman's family with false stories about how the former NFL star and San Jose native died... The Defense Department's inspector general, Thomas Gimble, defended his investigation into the handling of Tillman's death. He noted that his March report found fault with nine officers - including four generals - and that they face possible punishment. Tillman's case "was not well handled, but I don't see a cover-up," Gimble said. Waxman, a Los Angeles Democrat, disagreed. "Even now, there seems to be a cover-up to prevent us from knowing what happened..."
cbsnews.com/ ... 11:39:28
On Tuesday, former Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch testified in Washington, D.C., about the real story of her capture and rescue while serving in Iraq in 2003. She spoke before the House Government Reform Committee along with the family of fallen Army Ranger Pat Tillman... At the hearing, the chairman of the House panel, Henry Waxman, accused the government of inventing "sensational details and stories" about Tillman's death and Lynch rescue... Lynch, whose brother also serves in the Army, isn't sure why the stories were made up because her capture occurred so early in the war. But she was the first POW rescue since World War II, which was big news. She wants America to understand that the real heroes were those who died in the fight and those who risked everything to save her...
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:40:17
National Guard April 25, 2007 -- This week, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps announced a decrease, while the Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is
612 fewer reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to
80,291
, including both units and individual augmentees....
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:38:05
DoD and DEA Team Up on Personnel Recovery
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced April 20 that Ambassador Charles A. Ray, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/missing personnel affairs, and Michael A. Braun, the assistant administrator, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, signed a memorandum of agreement concerning mutual support in personnel recovery. This is the first such MOA on personnel recovery signed by the DoD and the DEA. Similar agreements are being coordinated with other organizations within the U.S. government.
This memorandum is implemented to protect the lives and well-being of employees from both agencies who participate in U.S.-sponsored activities or missions outside the country.
Through this partnership, personnel recovery policy, planning, training, operations, and research and development will be coordinated to mutually support both agencies. For example, DEA has patterned the escape and evasion training given to its agents after similar training for DoD personnel who may go into harm's way. Additionally, this agreement sets guidelines for the common development of command and control procedures where DEA agents and DoD personnel may find themselves operating in the same region. As a result, research and development of personnel recovery-associated equipment may now be shared between DoD and DEA where common interests dictate. Partnership between the DoD and DEA demonstrates the U.S. government's efforts to expand personnel recovery capabilities through interagency cooperation.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:31:02
National Guard April 18, 2007 -- This week, the Army, Navy and Air Force announced an increase, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard had a decrease. The net collective result is
85 fewer reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to
80,903
, including both units and individual augmentees....
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:30:03
DoD Announces Program to Recognize Frequent Deployment
The Department of Defense announced today a program to recognize service members who deploy or mobilize beyond the established rotation policy goals. The goals for the Active and Guard/Reserve units are one year deployed to two years at home station (1:2) and one year mobilized to five years demobilized (1:5) respectively. Administrative absence will be granted to service members when these goals are not met and can be used at their convenience. This is provided to enhance the service member's quality of life and will be done on the following basis: - One day for each month a service member is deployed over 12 of 36 consecutive months of active duty or over 12 months of a 72 month period mobilized for the guard/reserves. - Two days will be granted when thresholds of more than 18 of 36 consecutive months for active duty or 18 of 72 months for the guard/reserve are exceeded. - Four days will be provided when thresholds of more than 24 of 36 consecutive months for active duty or 24 of 72 months for the guard/reserve are exceeded. Administrative absence is authorized by the commander. It is separate and distinct from normal leave accrued by a service member.
Big Whoops Cascade
reuters.com/ ... 11:27:38
An explosion set fire to a Miami house being used to grow marijuana hydroponically on Wednesday and the force of the blast sent the occupant flying into the yard... may have been using propane gas near the high-intensity lamps used to grow the plants indoors...
Love is Strange
reuters.com/ ... 11:26:38
An Israeli woman accidentally bit off part of her boyfriend's tongue during a heated French kiss, an Israeli hospital that reattached the tongue said Thursday...
Under Liberty
reuters.com/ ... 11:26:23
Could a smoking ban spell the end of Amsterdam's world famous coffee shops, where smoking cannabis is one of the main attractions? No chance, says local conservative politician and coffee shop owner Michael Veling. The Dutch may well follow other European countries in banning tobacco smoking in restaurants, cafes and bars, but Veling says it should still be possible to smoke dope...
Sportsmanship
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:21:02
...national title bout - in Rock, Paper, Scissors. Ray Scott won the New Hampshire title by advancing through eight rounds of tournaments at Manchester bars and pubs. With his white beard and spectacles, fans cheered "Go Santa Go" during the New Hampshire finals earlier this month...
Age is No Barrier
reuters.com/ ... 11:28:20
A British man celebrated his 100th birthday with 25,000 pounds ($50,000) in winnings on Tuesday after he beat the bookmakers with a wager that he would live for a century... had placed a 100 pound bet with bookmaker William Hill almost 10 years ago that he would live to be 100 years old... said a daily diet of porridge and playing chess was the key to his longevity -- as was remembering to keep breathing...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:23:34
SHELBYVILLE, Ind... Two of the oldest people in the United States met Saturday. A relative drove 113-year-old Bertha Fry of Muncie to a Shelbyville nursing home to visit Edna Parker, who celebrated her 114th birthday Friday... The women's combined age is more than that in any other meeting of two humans on record. Together, they accounted for 227 years and 142 days as of Saturday, breaking the previous record of 219 years... A representative of Guinness World Records also was on hand to confirm the event...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:20:19
Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder. Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment. Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave..." She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun...
Just Random Chance
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:19:16
CONOVER, N.C... A store clerk's slip-up at the cash register has paid off big time... accidentally rang up two duplicate Powerball tickets for a customer... At the end of the day, after she was unable to sell the second ticket, Allen paid for it herself... matched all five numbers - earning her a $200,000 jackpot...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:18:02
A couple picking up trash along a roadside found a winning scratch-off lottery ticket that led them to a $1,000 jackpot... found a lottery ticket worth $15... cashed in that ticket at a local store and bought one that turned out to be a $1,000 winner. "It does pay to pick up trash..."
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
dailycollegian.com/ ... 11:49:28
Throngs of people gathered in the Amherst Common Saturday afternoon for the 16th annual
Extravaganja.
The event, organized by the University of Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (CRC), is centered on the message that the social cost of the war on drugs outweighs the benefits, and drug laws, specifically those pertaining to marijuana, need to be changed...
John Werner, the president of the UMass CRC... cited some of the problems marijuana laws cause college-aged people. A law in Massachusetts states that if a student has a single narcotics offense on record, he/she is ineligible for financial aid...
sun-herald.com/ ... 11:48:23
[51yo man] was charged with marijuana cultivation on Tuesday after Charlotte County detectives raided a house in which they found about 50 plants growing in it... were in pots and kept in a room that had separate air conditioning, covered windows and elaborate electrical hydroponics irrigations systems... also seized a blue F-150 pickup truck... eighth instance of the sheriffs office finding an indoor growing operation in Charlotte County in the last eight months...
[and these are ONLY the ones they've found...!]
naplesnews.com/ ... 11:47:18
Lee County sheriff's deputies have arrested one man in connection with a marijuana grow operation in Lehigh Acres and seized 100 plants with a street value of more than $200,000....
[$2000 per easily-cultivated weed is a price only PROHIBITION could have created! REPEAL!]
...the family was renting the home and, because of the "grow rooms," all family members, including two children aged 5 and 1, had to sleep together in the master bedroom...
kpho.com/ ... 11:45:54
PHOENIX -- Customs and Border Protection officers seized almost $3.8 million in illicit drugs at the U.S.-Mexico border last week... 30 packages of heroin... [in] a hidden compartment underneath the car... valued at almost $2 million... almost $1.8 million in cocaine and marijuana in six incidents over a one-week period... 49 pounds of marijuana hidden in the gas tank of a 1992 Ford Explorer... 59 pounds of marijuana hidden in the sides of a 1992 Plymouth van... 78 pounds of cocaine hidden in a compartment under the back seat of a 2000 Ford Focus... 54 pounds of marijuana inside the bumper of a Ford Taurus... 67 pounds of marijuana hidden inside the gas tank of a GMC pickup... 67 pounds of marijuana in the tires of a 1989 Ford F-150...
[and remember, these are ONLY the ones they catch...!]
midhudsonnews.com/ ... 11:44:04
Highland State Police at Highland have arrested a Plattekill man on charged of marijuana possession, criminal use of drug paraphernalia and unlawfully growing marijuana... he had turned the attic into a grow room, equipped with grow lights and several plants being cultivated. A large quantity of marijuana and an amount of cocaine were seized at the residence...
news-journalonline.com/ ... 11:43:39
Firearms and 118 marijuana plants were seized this morning during a raid just west of New Smyrna Beach at [a] Timber View Drive home... 55 year-old was found outside his home hiding in bushes with night vision equipment... agents found 2.7 pounds of cultivated marijuana divided into plastic bags, approximately $4,500 in cash, growing equipment, scales, hypodermic needles and several marijuana growing magazines and handbooks...
newsday.com/ ... 11:42:38
MALONE, N.Y... State police arrested 14 people on drug charges, ending a family run drug-trafficking ring they said moved more than $4 million in marijuana from Canada into New York... seized a home, a motor home, two boats, a handgun, numerous vehicles, stainless-steel appliances, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles and as much as $130,000 in cash...
[All this profiteering & bother from an easily-grown weed. REPEAL!]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:15:36
An Arkansas State Police trooper suspected monkey business when he spotted a large stuffed animal perched atop the dashboard of a pickup truck on the interstate... When the trooper pulled over the driver, he could smell what he suspected to be marijuana and he searched the vehicle... found more than 2,100 hydrocodone pills, 70 Xanax pills and 85 Soma pills...
[hhmmm.. but no mention of finding marijuana? Don't suppose it could be another bogus search excuse...?]
Wild Oklahoma
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:13:48
Oklahoma... Senate cleared the way Tuesday to declare the watermelon the state vegetable...
World Water
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:11:23
Large parts of China's longest river, the Yangtze, have been irreversibly polluted
... Around one-tenth of the 6,200km-long river is in a "critical condition" and nearly 30% of major tributaries are seriously polluted... Even a huge reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam has become heavily polluted...
Big Nanny
reuters.com/ ... 11:01:31
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last week that outlawed a certain abortion procedure could be a first step of greater government intrusion into private medical decisions, doctors said on Monday. The ruling will also almost certainly intimidate doctors who provide any type of abortion services, according to a series of commentaries in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"With this decision the Supreme Court has sanctioned the intrusion of legislation into the day-to-day practice of medicine..."
Researching the Obvious
reuters.com/ ... 11:00:52
Puberty, risky behaviors go hand-in-hand...
Theory of Justice
reuters.com/ ... 11:26:58
A Canadian man who admitted shoplifting C$106 in razor blades has been awarded C$12,000 ($10,645) for injuries he suffered when he was tackled by store security guards...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:57:52
The
drugs used to execute prisoners
in the United States sometimes
fail to work as planned, causing slow and painful deaths
that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes. Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some inmates to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated...
Digital Threat
reuters.com/ ... 10:51:12
Microsoft
Corp., trying to meet its
goal of doubling the number of computer users to 2 billion by 2015
, promised to cut its software prices to governments in developing countries that provide free computers to school children...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:24:49
Wikipedia's advocates like to tout its dynamic nature... it may seem odd that Wikipedia volunteers are now working on a static version on CD, a preliminary version of which was released earlier this month. The goal is to extend Wikipedia to those with limited or no Internet access. Success with the CD could ultimately lead to Wikipedia in book or other forms...
TUE 2007-APR-24
Under Digital Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 16:34:42
A Beijing court has ordered Yahoo China to delete links to free Web sites offering music-downloads and to pay about 200,000 yuan ($27,200) for facilitating distribution of unlicensed songs by other sites... said Yahoo China should bear some responsibility for the copyright infringement, although the music was downloaded from servers of third-party Web sites...
reuters.com/ ... 16:25:21
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine...
Alcohol Was Involved
reuters.com/ ... 15:46:47
Berlin -- A drunken [19yo] man who fell under a train after being jolted out of a nap at a railway station emerged unscathed from beneath the locomotive...
Transport Incident
reuters.com/ ... 15:45:50
Hungary's busiest highway, connecting Budapest with the Austrian capital Vienna, was closed early on Monday after
a truck carrying rabbits crashed, letting 5,000 of the animals loose
on the road... "they're not using their newfound freedom well; they're just sitting around, eating grass and enjoying the sun..."
Under Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:32:07
A veteran dissident leader who wrote a book about Cuban prison conditions while behind bars was freed over the weekend after serving his entire 17-year sentence... Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, widely known by the nickname "Antunez," was released Sunday morning from prison in the central province of Villa Clara... Originally arrested on charges of engaging in enemy propaganda and attempted sabotage in 1990, Garcia Perez was among the prisoners Pope John Paul II had asked the government to release. But he was not among the 14 people the Cuban government said it had freed in conjunction with the January 1998 papal visit...
Violence
reuters.com/ ... 16:33:59
The gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University did not purchase ammunition used in the rampage on eBay's online auction site, eBay said on Monday, refuting published reports... said Cho Seung-Hui... did in recent months buy empty ammunition clips and a gun holster on eBay. He also sold other items including books and tickets to sporting events...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:30:30
An Indian-born man was among those killed in the shooting at a US university which left 33 people dead, his family and colleagues say. Professor GV Loganathan was teaching at Virginia Tech when a gunman went on the rampage on Monday. His brother said he heard of the death from the professor's wife, who had identified the body...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:29:15
Relatives of the student who committed a massacre at Virginia Tech university have described their shock and sorrow over his "horrible and senseless act"... the family said it had been "living a nightmare" since the attack... In a statement Cho's sister, Cho Sun-Kyung, spoke of the family's pain following the massacre. "Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," she said. On behalf of her family Ms Cho, a 2004 Princeton University graduate who works as a contractor for the US state department, expressed grief for the friends and family of her brother's victims... "We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced... Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act..."
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:37:40
Relatives of one of three sailors missing from an abandoned yacht found drifting off Australia's coast believe the crew may have been kidnapped...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:28:17
Rescuers searching for the missing crew of a yacht found deserted off Australia's Great Barrier Reef think it may have been drifting since Sunday. One theory is that members of the three-man crew fell overboard in bad weather conditions, greatly diminishing the chances of finding them alive...
Nature vs Infrastructure
reuters.com/ ... 15:27:21
More than 250,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Tuesday after a rare spring Nor'easter hit on Sunday and Monday, knocking out electric service to more than 1.3 million customers from the Carolinas to Maine and Quebec...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:38:31
At least 15 people have been killed and 25 wounded in a suicide bomb attack on the outskirts of Ramadi... The truck bomb exploded as an Iraqi police patrol passed a street market... both police and civilians were among those killed... In other violence, at least four people were killed and 10 wounded in a mortar attack in the south-eastern Baghdad suburb of Zafaraniya... Elsewhere in the capital, two roadside bombs exploded on Palestine Street, killing one person and wounding two others. Another died at a dentistry college in Baghdad, when a bomb exploded in the locker of the son of Iraq's electricity minister, Karim Wahid...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:33:45
Afghan and international forces clashed with Taliban insurgents in two separate gun battles in the south and west, leaving 13 militants dead and four other people wounded... The latest violence came as Afghan officials claimed their forces have trapped up to 200 Taliban in a southern village, possibly including the militia's military commander, Mullah Dadullah, a claim later denied by the Taliban...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:31:02
Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of Baghdad... An Iraqi civilian was also wounded... Of the 20 wounded, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi were evacuated to a medical facility for further care...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:29:50
Nineteen people have been killed in gun battles between rival drug gangs and in a separate incident involving police in Brazil's city of Rio de Janeiro... battles are said to have involved drug dealers trying to gain control in the Morro da Mineira shantytown...
[With repeal, there is no drug profit...]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:27:04
The Taleban in Afghanistan have used a boy of around 12 to behead a man they accused of spying for the US. Parts of a video of the beheading were broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV network...
[sickos -- beheading isn't sick enough...!]
reuters.com/ ... 15:26:30
Palestinian militants blew up parts of the American International School in Gaza on Saturday, causing damage but no injuries...
reuters.com/ ... 15:25:10
Congressional Democrats, ignoring a promised veto by President George W. Bush, on Monday pushed ahead with a war funding bill that sets March 31 as the goal for pulling most U.S. troops out of Iraq...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:15:27
As Chen Shui-bian's term as president of Taiwan winds down, so does the island's long-held and vehement insistence that it is independent from mainland China. Improved relations with China have long been advocated by Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party, which favors eventual unification. But in a potentially crucial shift, the two leading presidential candidates from Chen's own Democratic Progressive Party - Premier Su Tseng-chang and ex-Premier Frank Hsieh - seem to be dropping pro-independence rhetoric and pushing instead for warmer ties...
Prehistory - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 15:47:55
Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi, a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century... chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago... was thought to be a conifer. Then some believed it was a lichen, or various types of algae...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:41:40
The discovery of a vast fossil forest hundreds of metres underground has provided an extraordinary picture of some of Earth's earliest plants. The exquisitely preserved remains were unearthed in a US coalmine in Illinois, and date back to 300 million years ago... Covering a 1,000-hectare (10 sq km) site, it represents the largest fossil rainforest yet discovered...
Healing Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:40:24
An experimental drug may be able to compensate for the genetic error responsible for some cases of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy... works by allowing cells to read through certain mistakes in the genetic code for a protein - dystrophin - missing in 15% of patients with DMD...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:39:56
US scientists have opened the way for the development of a "bionic eye". They used electrodes to stimulate an area of the brain that processes visual information... The results in monkeys increase the chance that people with conditions such as glaucoma will one day have their vision restored with a prosthetic eye...
Lasting Contributions
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:31:27
Boris Yeltsin
, who kicked the props out from under the tottering Soviet empire and then struggled to build a nation from its wreckage, died Monday after seeing many of his democratic reforms rolled back. The former Russian president was 76...
World Zookeeping
reuters.com/ ... 15:47:26
Hunters in Russia's Far East have shot and killed one of the last seven surviving female Amur leopards living in the wild... only between 25 and 34 Amur leopards -- described as one of the most graceful cats in the world -- still living in the wild...
reuters.com/ ... 15:47:05
A flock of robotic falcons has been dispatched to tackle an influx of obese pigeons who are increasing in number and size thanks to an unnatural diet of fastfood. The mechanical birds -- called 'Robops' -- have been placed on rooftop locations around the British city of Liverpool, and will flap their wings and squawk loudly to scare the problem pigeons away...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:41:00
Hundreds of whales and dolphins could be saved thanks to a new listening system designed by Plymouth University. The equipment, which is towed behind a ship, scans for calls and songs to pinpoint their exact location... hope that the equipment will become integral to seismic survey equipment. Conservationists think underwater explosions used in surveying could be behind the beaching of whales...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:23:28
Authorities in India's remote northeastern Assam state launched a crackdown on rhinoceros poachers on Monday, rushing in armed paramilitary soldiers to a sprawling game reserve... The government action follows the killing of six rare one-horned rhinoceros at the Kaziranga National Park, 145 miles east of the state capital Gauhati...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:21:53
About 430 acres of forests and limestone bluffs at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers will become a scenic nature area that preservationists say will be a haven for endangered or threatened species. The Palisades Preserve - along Illinois Route 100, or the Great River Road - will comprise the region's largest chunk of privately owned, undeveloped land, said Alley Ringhausen, head of the nonprofit Great Rivers Land Trust...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:21:32
Eight tigers are missing from a reserve in western India, raising new concerns about the country's dwindling big cat population... The rare adult tigers have vanished from the Ranthambore National Park, which covers 60 square miles in the western state of Rajasthan...
Gardeners of Earth
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:18:28
One million new trees will join the urban landscape of New York City by the year 2017 to reduce air pollution, cool temperatures and help improve the city's long term sustainability, officials said Saturday...
Cosmology
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:18:08
Early results from a Nasa mission designed to test two key predictions of Albert Einstein show the great man was right about at least one of them... One of these effects is called the geodesic effect, the other is called frame dragging. A common analogy is that of placing a heavy bowling ball on to a rubber sheet... the Earth drags local space and time around with it - ever so slightly - as it rotates. Over the course of a year, these effects would cause the angle of spin of the gyroscopes to shift by minute amounts...
Digital Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 15:24:05
Canadian scientists and engineers have developed a robot with a keen sense of touch that will let doctors perform microscopic operations on the brain using the most vivid visuals yet... A melding of brain surgery and rocket science, the neuroArm allows neurosurgeons to do their riskiest work on patients within a magnetic resonance imaging machine, or MRI, giving a clear 3-D picture of even the smallest nerves...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:06:55
Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous decision-making robots, particularly for military use. As they become more common, these machines could also have negative impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the roboticists warn... Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely ill-informed so far, they argued... "If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?.." The researchers criticised recent research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre and released in December 2006... [which] predicted that robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even "robo-healthcare"... "I think that concerns about robot rights are just a distraction," said Professor Winfield. "The more pressing and serious problem is the extent to which society is prepared to trust autonomous robots and entrust others into the care of autonomous robots..."
Digital Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:36:39
Internal Revenue Service offices across the nation that use wireless technology are still vulnerable to hackers, according to the latest assessment of the agency's security policies released Tuesday. Despite efforts to improve wireless security the past four years, the Inspector General's assessment of 20 buildings in 10 cities discovered four separate locations at which hackers could have easily gained access to IRS computers using wireless technology...
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 16:24:49
By now the practice has become old hat: an eagerly anticipated album gets distributed and devoured by MP3 bloggers before it ever hits stores. But when Columbia Records released Beyonce's "B'Day Anthology Video Album" on April 3, it marked a rare instance of a similar phenomenon happening with a music DVD... A new breed of music bloggers, focused as much on downloadable music videos as on audio files, had gotten hold of clips ripped from an advance version of the video "album" and were posting them in the iPod Video-friendly MPEG-4, or MP4, format...
reuters.com/ ... 16:24:18
The continuing sales drop of music compact discs accelerated to nearly 13 percent in 2006 while fast-growing digital download sales failed to make up for the sales shortfall, according to figures published by the Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday...
World of Cultures
reuters.com/ ... 15:46:16
Muslim cab drivers at Minnesota's biggest airport will face new penalties including a two-year revocation of their taxi permits if they refuse to give rides to travelers carrying liquor or accompanied by dogs, the board overseeing operations ruled Monday...
Big Whoops Cascade
reuters.com/ ... 15:45:07
Toto Ltd., known for its high-tech toilets with bidets that have blow-drying, air purification and seat-warming functions, apologized to consumers and offered free checks and repairs after some of its toilets with bidets and heated seats sent up smoke and three caught fire...
People are Born
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:35:53
A doctor in Saudi Arabia who led a team to separate Cameroonian conjoined twins has said he is hopeful about their recovery after their 16-hour surgery... Thirteen-month-old sisters Pheinbom and Shevoboh were joined at the chest, abdomen and pelvis and shared a leg...
Business Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:35:26
Japan's Toyota has overtaken US rival General Motors to become the world's biggest carmaker...
World Without Borders
hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:33:18
Students in Baghdad, where universities have been hard-hit by violence, said they were saddened by last week's massacre at Virginia Tech and hung up a banner to express their solidarity with
"our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge..."
Reasons for Repeal
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:37:06
Nato forces in Afghanistan have been criticised for paid adverts on a radio station implying it is acceptable for farmers to grow opium poppies... The controversial announcement, paid for by Nato forces, appeared on a local radio station in Helmand province... It told farmers growing opium poppies that their fields would not be destroyed by Nato or the Afghan National Army. It appeared to imply that it was alright to grow the illegal crop... The advertisement said troops from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) understood that most Afghan people had no other source of income and troops are there not to eradicate opium poppies but to bring security and kill foreign militants...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:26:13
The US Coast Guard says it has seized nearly 20 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of $600m, in the biggest maritime drugs bust in US history. The drugs haul, unloaded in California on Monday, was seized in a raid last month off the coast of Central America. Officials said they intercepted a cargo ship sailing under the Panamanian flag, and that the 14 crew - Panamanians and Mexicans - put up no resistance... following a tip-off from an intelligence source... 20 tonnes of contraband...
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:37:24
Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax and other software that caused delays and headaches for an untold number of tax filers earlier this week, issued an apology Thursday and promised improvements to prevent a reoccurrence... A flood of last-minute electronic tax return submissions swamped the Mountain View-based company's servers Tuesday, leading to problems that blocked some customers from filing or from getting confirmation that their returns were retrieved in time to meet the Internal Revenue Service deadline... the company's servers were prepared to handle the large capacity of filings, but an intermittent problem with the database in the company's e-filing system caused the painful processing delays...
reuters.com/ ... 15:24:40
U.S. cable television service providers are looking to new technologies to help upgrade their networks, hoping to avoid expensive capital outlays that could spook investors... One such supplier is BigBand Networks Inc... which offers a technology called switched digital video, used by operators to gain more bandwidth by only delivering channels to homes when a viewer tunes in to them...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:17:11
US webcasters will face sharp rises in royalty fees that could be "fatal" to the nascent industry, a coalition of web broadcasters has claimed. The increases will start on 15 May and will eventually charge royalties every time an online listener hears a song. The decision to impose the fees was made by a panel of judges who threw out requests to overturn an earlier ruling. Public and commercial broadcasters claim it will force cuts to services used by an estimated 50 million people... A broad coalition of internet broadcaster, headed by the US broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR) and including Yahoo and AOL, objected to the increases... But the copyright judges on the board said that they had not shown any new evidence which would influence their original decision...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:38:07
unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands. So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call.After posting a video with his cell phone number on YouTube on Friday, the 20-year-old told The Boston Globe he has received more than 5,000 calls and text messages...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:36:12
Horrible, real-world happenings are unfolding almost simultaneously in the virtual world, as Virginia Tech students and people from all over the world gather online to grieve and vent. From blogging to cell phone video, technology has forever changed the way we process and communicate about tragedy - in good ways, and perhaps bad. Almost immediately after Monday's deadly shootings, Virginia Tech students created an "I'm OK" page on Facebook to let one another and their loved ones know that they survived. Other students posted photos and cell phone video on their own sites, or shared it just hours after the shootings with news organizations... Some of the hateful postings were removed, likely after other Facebook users flagged them - a process of communal self-editing used on some sites. Those kinds of entries are a product of the open nature of the Internet, where rumors and inaccuracies also can linger. Such was the case for 23-year-old Wayne Chiang, who was mistaken by some as the shooter - partly because his Facebook profile includes references to graduating from Virginia Tech and several photos of him with his gun collection...
reuters.com/ ... 15:23:05
Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed on Tuesday. A tiny 0.16 percent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch... Similarly, only two-tenths of one percent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo Inc., are to upload new photos... The vast majority of visitors are the Internet equivalent of the television generation's couch potatoes -- voyeurs who like to watch rather than create... Wikipedia, the anyone-can-edit online encyclopedia, is the one exception cited in the Hitwise study: 4.6 percent of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site... But despite relatively low-user involvement, visits to Web 2.0-style sites have spiked 668 percent in two years...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:13:42
Two people have been cautioned for using people's wi-fi broadband internet connections without permission. Neighbours in Redditch, Worcestershire, contacted police on Saturday after seeing a man inside a car using a laptop while parked outside a house. He was arrested and cautioned. A woman was arrested in similar circumstances in the town earlier this month...
[The wrong people are being cautioned. It's the Wi-Fi operators who are responsible for their own security!]
Blurring Lines of Reality
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:11:18
Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia... Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns. The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite..."
MON 2007-APR-23
The Blog Healer regrets missing this past week. So much is always happening.
Hope you kept up on it all... without the blog-heap!
TUE 2007-APR-17
Supernatural Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:28:27
Pakistan's tourism minister says she fears for her life after clerics at a radical mosque issued an edict accusing her of sinning by hugging her French parachute jumping instructor...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
news.enquirer.com/ ... 23:22:46
11 from three states arrested since Thursday in an online child predator sting. It was all caught on tape by "Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator" with the help of the nonprofit group Perverted Justice...
[What an appropriate name for an entrapment TV show...!]
Sick, Sick, Sick
baltimoresun.com/ ... 23:21:28
Two 16-year-olds were arrested and charged last night in the chemical burning of a 2-year-old boy on Saturday, Baltimore County... Police said they believe the motive for the incident was to break into the storage building by kicking in the door. When the suspects found the bottles of the chemical, they poured it on the plastic slide, experimenting to see if the chemical would burn the plastic, police said. When they saw it did nothing, they left, leaving the chemical on the slide...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:29:47
A survivor of the Norwegian vessel which capsized off the coast of Shetland has spoken about the accident which killed eight of his colleagues. Fighting back tears, Egil Hafsas said it took less than five minutes for the Bourbon...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:29:09
Police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried beneath two schoolyards in a district that until recently was under the control of al-Qaida fighters...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:28:48
A powerful remote-controlled bomb destroyed a U.N. vehicle in southern Afghanistan's main city on Tuesday, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver...
mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/ ... 23:20:11
The six cabinet ministers loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government Monday in a major political upheaval that separates the powerful Shiite religious leader from the U.S.-backed prime minister. It could signal a return of the Mahdi Army militia to the streets for an open confrontation with the U.S. troop surge.
The U.S. military said three soldiers and two Marines died on Monday and two soldiers were killed on Saturday.
In Mosul, in the far north of Iraq, a university dean, a professor, the son of a city policeman and 13 soldiers were killed in separate attacks that bore the signs of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Nationwide at least 51 people were killed or found dead Monday...
Violence
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:57
Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities, high schools and middle schools in at least 10 states on Tuesday...
nydailynews.com/ ... 23:35:37
Virginia Tech University Prof. Liviu Librescu, described as a family man who once did research for NASA, sacrificed his life to save his students in the shooting rampage yesterday. "When he heard the gunfire, he blocked the entrance and got shot through the door..."
apnews.myway.com/ ... 23:35:12
The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service. News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids,""debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus...
boston.com/ ... 23:19:17
The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died early on Wednesday after being shot by a member of a criminal syndicate... Itcho Ito, 61, seeking re-election for a fourth term on Sunday, was shot at least twice in the back... Police arrested Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, a senior member of a local gang affiliated with Japan's largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi Gumi... public broadcaster NHK said Shiroo was upset at the city's handling of a traffic accident four years ago in which his car was damaged as it passed a public works construction site...
People can be deadly
canada.com/ ... 23:18:13
The Chicago Tribune has reported on its website that the Virginia Tech gunman left a note in his dorm room... several pages long... "You caused me to do this....."
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:45:58
Army Sgt.
Mario K. De Leon
, 26, of San Francisco, Calif., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:45:24
Army Pfc.
Steven J. Walberg
, 18, of Paradise, Calif., died April 15 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:44:55
Army Pfc.
Aaron M. Genevie
, 22, of Chambersburg, Pa., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:44:15
Army Sgt.
Joshua A. Schmit
, 26, of Willmar, Minn.
Army Sgt.
Brandon L. Wallace
, 27, of St. Louis, Mo.
died Apr. 14 in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 1451st Transportation Company, 13th Support Command, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:43:37
Army Pfc.
Lucas V. Starcevich
, 25, of Canton, Ill., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:42:55
Marine Lance Cpl.
Jesse D. Delatorre
, 29, of Aurora, Ill., died April 16 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Delatorre was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:42:08
Marine Lance Cpl.
Daniel R. Scherry
, 20, of Rocky River, Ohio, died April 16 from a non-hostile accident in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Scherry was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:41:42
Marine 1st Lt.
Shaun M. Blue
, 25, of Munster, Ind., died April 16 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:41:14
Army Spc.
Ryan A. Bishop
, 32, of Euless, Texas, died April 14 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated while he was on dismounted patrol. He was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:50
Army Cpl.
Cody A. Putnam
, 22, of Lafayette, Ind.
Army Pfc.
John G. Borbonus
, 19, of Boise, Idaho
died Apr. 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, when their patrol encountered an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:02
Army Sgt.
Larry R. Bowman
, 29, of Granite Falls, N.C., died April 13 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. Bowman was assigned to the 513th Transportation Company, 57th Transportation Battalion, 593rd Corps Support Group, Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:37:35
Marine Lance Cpl.
Daniel J. Santee
, 21, of Mission Viejo, Calif., died April 14 from a non-hostile vehicle accident in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Santee was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Extraterrestrial
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:31:11
NASA paid $26.6 million to family members of the astronauts who died on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, a newspaper reported Sunday, citing recently released documents...
Modern Culture
breitbart.com/ ... 23:36:40
Hollywood is banking that good things really do come in threes as it ...prepares to unleash an unprecedented series of blockbuster sequels on the summer box-office...
Unclear on le Concept
spiegel.de/ ... 23:34:42
European newspapers are blaming the lack of gun control measures in the United States and implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings...
Just Random Chance
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:31:55
Friday the 13th turned out to be lucky for one Wisconsin woman. Sara Wrobel narrowly missed a 15-to-20 ton piece of construction equipment that became unhinged from a dump truck and fell in front of her as she backed out of her driveway...
Democracy in Action
reuters.com/ ... 23:30:30
Residents of the District of Columbia, which is not legally a state, have had to fight for the limited voting rights they have since Congress relocated here from Philadelphia in 1800. It took until 1961 to gain the right to vote in presidential elections, and they still have no full-fledged member of Congress -- either in the House of Representatives or the Senate -- despite having to pay federal taxes like everyone else. But a determined grass-roots movement, a Democratic-controlled Congress, a weakened Republican president and a compromise involving far-away Utah has raised hopes that D.C. residents eventually might discard the "Taxation Without Representation" protest messages many carry on their car license plates...
Digital Culture
blogs.pcworld.com/ ... 23:20:43
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday his company is just weeks away from activating a new system that will filter out copyright-protected videos on the Google Video and YouTube sites...
[yeah, sure...!]
Reasons for Repeal
citynews.ca/ ... 23:17:09
The price patients are paying for their pot is what's causing the uproar - as new documents indicate
the federal government is marking up prices fifteen-fold from what they're paying their supplier...
[Why should Big Brother be any different from the Black Market dealer?]
theeagle.com/ ... 23:16:17
A Bryan man was arrested in College Station late Sunday night after police reported finding more than 2.5 pounds of marijuana and a gun in his car... He faces a state jail felony possession of marijuana charge and misdemeanor charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon and driving with an invalid license...
[So having some vegetable matter is a felony and an unlawful weapon is a misdemeanor...? THAT's how f***ed up is PROHIB!]
insidebayarea.com/ ... 23:12:33
About 150 marijuana plants in various stages of maturity were seized from a home on West Clover Road late Monday afternoon after an employee from Pacific Gas and Electric reported being threatened. There were also two children, both under the age of 3, inside the house, which was littered with dangerous objects and unclean... The children didnt have beds and slept in sleeping bags...
[None of which would have been bad enough to take the kids away if it hadn't been for the prohibited vegetables growing there. Still, degenerates in the news are bad for the cause of repeal! Repeal! REPEAL!]
forbes.com/ ... 23:10:54
While smoking marijuana
[or anything]
is never
[or usually not necessarily]
good for the lungs,
the active ingredient in pot may help fight lung cancer,
new research shows....
[confirming previous research, as well as why pot smokers are not as cancerous as nicotine addicts...!]
denver.yourhub.com/ ... 23:08:55
On April 16, 2007, detectives from the West Metro Drug Task Force executed a search warrant on the 9500 block Yegge Road in Morrison in reference to alleged drug activity. Seized from the home were 65 marijuana plants at varying stages of growth and several pounds of harvested and dried product which appeared to be ready for use or sale. The two adult males who reside at the home were both arrested at the scene...
wbir.com/ ... 16:18:52
"I've smoked 10 to 12 marijuana cigarettes a day for 25 years," says Rosenfeld, adding he gets no euphoric effect from the drug. "All my clients know I use it. Without it, I wouldn't be able to work." His firm, Newbridge Securities, supports his use of marijuana and says it hasn't hurt his performance. In Florida, Rosenfeld is an exception to state law that bans marijuana's use in any situation. But at a time when the use of medical marijuana is expanding - this month, New Mexico became the 12th state to allow it - the issue is raising a range of ethical and liability questions for employers across the nation. Some companies, wary of marijuana's impact on employee performance, continue to fire those who test positive for the drug, even when its use is sanctioned by their state for medical purposes... Donald Abrams, chief of hematology and oncology at San Francisco General Hospital... says it's unusual for patients to smoke as much as Rosenfeld, but the drug supplied by the U.S. government has relatively low potency. He also says marijuana smoking is associated with a lower risk of developing lung cancer...
Out of Control Prosecutors
canada.com/ ... 16:12:28
Midnight blogger exposes a scandal... Online journal credited with breaking case against Duke lacrosse players...
charlotte.com/ ... 16:07:24
Duke lacrosse: How the case unravelled... defense lawyer Joseph B. Cheshire V... didn't know that Nifong harbored a visceral dislike for him... procedure violated Durham Police Department policy... Records show that Mangum had given a half-dozen or more accounts that conflicted. She had picked out four attackers April 4 but had told police and doctors that three men attacked her. She said Evans, who was clean-shaven, had a mustache. And her April responses differed from all of her March responses. Mangum had said that no condoms were used and that at least one, if not all, of her attackers ejaculated. The SBI found no semen, blood or saliva from what she said was a vicious 30-minute assault. She had told a nurse at Duke she had one drink that evening, but she told doctors at UNC Hospitals that "she was drunk and had a lot of alcohol that night." All this could have prompted a lot of questions...
gopusa.com/ ... 16:03:43
What a difference a year makes. A year ago, there was a lynch mob atmosphere against the accused students -- from the Duke University campus to the national media, and including the local NAACP and the ever-present Jesse Jackson... This year, after all the charges have collapsed like a house of cards, the campus lynch mob -- including Duke University president Richard H. Brodhead -- are backpedalling swiftly and washing their hands like Pontius Pilate...
SUN 2007-APR-15
Sick, Sick, Sick
chron.com/ ... 11:43:59
MIDDLE RIVER, Md. A 2-year-old boy was severely burned Saturday after he went down the slide at an elementary school playground. Someone had broken into the school, stolen several bottles of industrial-strength drain cleaner and splashed it all over the playground equipment... suffered second- and third-degree burns, mostly on his legs... scheduled for surgery Sunday morning and likely will be hospitalized for several weeks...
nypost.com/ ... 11:35:10
Filmmaker Michael Moore's production company took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba in a stunt aimed at showing that the U.S. health-care system is inferior to Fidel Castro's socialized medicine, according to several sources with knowledge of the trip. The trip was to be filmed as part of the controversial director's latest documentary, "Sicko," an attack on American drug companies and HMOs that Moore hopes to debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month... the sick sojourn, which some say uses ill 9/11 workers as pawns, has angered many in the responder community. "He's using people that are in a bad situation and that's wrong, that's morally wrong," railed Jeff Endean, a former SWAT commander from Morris County, N.J., who spent a month at Ground Zero and suffers from respiratory problems...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:23:32
The death toll in a flash flood that swept away holidaymakers in southern Thailand has reached 35. About 100 people were swimming in the Prai Sawan and Sairung waterfalls, about 5km (3 miles) apart in Trang province, when the flash flood hit. At least 10 other people are still missing... at least 13 of the dead were children...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:20:46
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico... A speeding bus crashed into a tractor-trailer outside this border city early Saturday, killing at least 23 people and injuring 11 others... The tractor-trailer's gas tank exploded in the wreck, engulfing the bus in flames and trapping many... The driver, who was speeding, was among the dead...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
turkishpress.com/ ... 11:45:18
Insurgent bomb attacks massacred 35 people in Shiite shopping areas of Baghdad on Sunday... Eighteen people died... 35 wounded... As the skeleton of burnt wreckage still smouldered, a bus rigged with bombs exploded in a downtown shopping district in Karrada, killing at least 11 people and wounding 18...
two British helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision that killed two crew members... seriously wounded a third...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:19:49
Three explosions hit Gaza City early Sunday, damaging two Internet cafes and a Christian bookstore. No one was hurt and no group claimed responsibility... Several similar attacks on Internet cafes and music stores in recent months have been claimed by a little-known extremist Islamic organization calling itself the "Swords of Truth..."
Animal Culture
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 11:34:04
some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops... The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems... The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left"...
It's All in Your Mind
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:22:54
The cause of high blood pressure may lie within the brain, rather than with problems relating to the heart, kidneys or blood vessels, research suggests... The scientists isolated a protein, JAM-1, which appeared to trap white blood cells, obstructing blood flow. This can cause inflammation and result in poor oxygen supply to the brain...
US Military
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:29:22
...Koa the bottlenose dolphin and others like her may still be the Navy's best line of defense against terrorists in scuba gear.... About 75 dolphins and 25 sea lions are housed at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Harbor as part of a Navy program to teach them to detect terrorists and mines underwater. The base briefly opened its doors to the media Thursday for the first time since the start of the war in Iraq.... a few weeks after the Navy announced plans to send up to 30 dolphins and sea lions to patrol the waters of Washington state's Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which is home to nuclear submarines, ships and laboratories. Both species can find mines and spot swimmers in murky waters.
Working in unison, the dolphins can drop a flashing light near a mine or a swimmer. The sea lions carry in their mouths a cable and a handcuff-like device that clamps onto a terrorist's leg. Sailors can then use the cable to reel in the terrorist...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:22:17
US marines violated international humanitarian law by using excessive violence in reaction to a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan... reaction was disproportionate and indiscriminate force used... At least 12 civilians died and 35 were injured during the incident which took place on 4 March in Nangarhar province... A preliminary US investigation agreed with the report that the unit did not come under small-arms fire after the bombing...
Sportsmanship
tsn.ca/ ... 11:56:01
Jackie Robinson: Remembering 1947...
The candidate for Rickey's "Great Experiment" had to be perfect. The organization needed a player who could not only play the game, but also carry the weight of the bigotry he would face. Robinson was the choice...
Reasons for Repeal
greenbaypressgazette.com/ ... 11:54:48
...Ashwaubenon Public Safety Department officers were called to a residence in the 2300 block of Canter Lane at 3:24 p.m. Thursday to investigate what was thought to be the scent of marijuana.
When officers got to the apartment in question, they found the smell was incense, not marijuana...
wnep.com/ ... 11:54:03
Police arrested one man on drug charges and are looking for another after searching a home in Monroe County. Officers say both suspects have ties to the "Bloods" street gang... Police report finding marijuana, scales and packaging material during a search of the home...
[Don't make it so easy for gangsters to profit on so-called vice crimes: repeal! Repeal! REPEAL!]
thestate.com/ ... 11:53:01
...Much of the marijuana grown in South Carolina can be found not mixed in with the tomato gardens of users but on large-scale farms often planted under tall pine trees and run by illegal immigrants working for Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Last year, State Law Enforcement Division agents seized 35,142 plants more than in the past three years combined and the most since 1992... To find the marijuana fields, law enforcement agencies call on SLED spotters, who use Vietnam War-era helicopters to find the plants distinguished by their blue-green color and spiked leaves. In July in Chester County, agents spotted nearly 17,000 plants spread over three fields...
[One reason some narcs want prohib to continue is they get the employment and to play with all their little toys instead of the need to be going after real crime or finding worthwhile jobs...]
postchronicle.com/ ... 11:50:59
Police in Fort Worth, Texas, said officers seized an estimated
864 pounds of pot
after an undercover investigation... inside a tractor-trailer that was also carrying a variety of produce... being transporting from Laredo, Texas, to St. Louis...
[So, the prohibition agents are ENCOURAGING the black market...!]
herald-review.com/ ... 11:49:48
...So when a classmate invited him to her house and offered him a marijuana cigarette a few months ago, [B] turned her down.
"Marijuana can get you killed," [B] said he told her. "I'm just not down with that."
Of course, there are many young people who respond to invitations to use marijuana by taking the joints and inhaling. That is why Heritage Behavioral Health Center sponsored an event to educate parents and community members of the dangers of marijuana...
[The only way marijuana can get you killed is by getting caught in violence perpetrated by the prohibitionist thugs or the black market gangsters!]
Vivian Goodman, prevention team leader for Heritage, said many parents do not know how harmful marijuana is... marijuana is more potent than the kind smoked a generation ago, and sometimes it is also laced with other drugs...
[Again, deadly "bathtub gin" is a result of prohibition, and has nothing to do with marijuana... and if it's more potent, you can smoke less, which is good....]
"...It affects their learning ability and academic achievement. It's been associated with violence and risky behavior..."
[As Penn & Teller might say, this is bull$#!+.... Studies show little to no affect on learning or achievement, and it's primarily prohibition and the underground it creates which causes the violence. Many folks are LESS prone to risky behavior because they're mellowed out!...]
Theory of Justice
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 11:43:08
North Carolina attorney general, Roy Cooper... did not just find "insufficient evidence," as prosecutors usually do when they drop a criminal charge. Cooper declared that the three players were innocent, that no rape had taken place, that a "rogue prosecutor" had overreached and that, "in the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly..." After the A.G.'s announcement, Finnerty and Seligmann, as well as their parents, some siblings and Finnerty's girlfriend, spoke to NEWSWEEK about the experience. The magazine also obtained the handwritten statements given by Evans and the other two team captains, Daniel Flannery and Matthew Zash, to the Durham police two days after the alleged rape. The statements, never before made public, and interviews with defense attorneys familiar with the evidence, tell the real story of what happened that night...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:25:39
Emerson Spartz remembers the good old days. It was Fall 1999, Spartz was 12 and he decided to create a little Web site about a hot new series of fantasy books. The Harry Potter craze was just beginning... Like J.K. Rowling herself, Potter fan sites didn't start out to make history. They popped up like so many variations of "Wayne's World," operated on the cheap by "teenage kids out of their basements," Spartz recalls... Spartz and his many fellow Webmasters are looking back at their own place on this record-breaking ride. The story of Potter has all along been a story of its fans, and, like everything else about Potter, the fan sites are in a special class, for their size, and for their influence...
SAT 2007-APR-14
Theft
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:01:28
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla... A gunman robbing a convenience store allowed the clerk to call 911 and apologized after the woman said she might be having a heart attack. But he still took $30 and cigarettes...
WW2 - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:00:12
Felix Muller, 20, was born long after the Holocaust ended, but that doesn't diminish his sense of obligation to the victims. "As a German, it's part of my history whether I want it or not," Muller said. Last summer, he and two dozen other German volunteers arrived in Israel for a year of service through a group called Ot Hakapara, Hebrew for "Sign of Atonement," working at libraries, nursing homes and community centers around the country...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:46:44
A bus full of second-graders crashed into a truck in central Turkey on Saturday, killing at least 32 people, most of them children... on a highway near the city of Aksaray... unclear how it happened... Thirty other people were injured...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:18
A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:59
Japan's lower house of parliament has approved guidelines to amend the country's post-war pacifist constitution for the first time. The bill now goes to the upper house and if passed, a referendum on changing the constitution to allow greater use of military force will be held...
A military was formally banned when US occupation authorities drew up Japan's constitution in the wake of World War II. But the document has been interpreted to allow a self-defence force which has been deployed in some peacekeeping and humanitarian missions abroad...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:51:28
The Israeli army said Friday that it was suspending the commander of troops seen using two Palestinian youths as human shields...
activist is heard shouting, "You can't use them as human shields, it is against the law!" "We are not using them as a human shield," the soldier replied. "They are standing in front of your jeep. How is that not a human shield? You are using them to protect you from stones," the activist retorted. "We asked them to speak to their friends and ask them to stop throwing stones at us..."
reuters.com/ ... 22:49:51
In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people, wounding 15 and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past three days...
In the volatile southern city of Basra, British forces on Friday killed eight gunmen laying landmines in an area where four British soldiers and their translator were killed by a roadside bomb that destroyed their armored vehicle earlier this month...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:31
Iraqi civilian deaths have fallen in Baghdad in the two months since the Feb. 14 start of the U.S.-led offensive, according to an Associated Press tally... Outside the capital, however, civilian deaths are up... the sweeps have taken a heavy toll on U.S. forces: Deaths among American soldiers climbed 21 percent in Baghdad compared with the previous two months...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:06
A suicide bomber blew himself up next to several Afghan border policemen in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, leaving at least seven officers dead and six others wounded... One civilian was also killed...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:40
Two brothers strapped with explosives blew themselves up near an American cultural center in Casablanca Saturday... killing themselves and wounding a woman... and police arrested another three suspects - including one wearing an explosives belt - hours later...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:56
A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday, killing at least 37 people... 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala... 168 wounded...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:21
A suicide bomber has blown himself up outside a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least eight people... More than 10 others were injured...
Nature can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:50:34
Ambushing locals as they return home from work, foreign invaders are dismembering French natives and feeding them to their young.
This horror scenario is playing out in France's beehives, where an ultra-aggressive species of Asian hornets - who likely migrated in pottery shipped from China - may be threatening French honey production...
reuters.com/ ... 22:41:05
Wheat fields ruined by freezing temperatures, snowed-out baseball games in Cleveland and Chicago, and shivering vacationers have made this spring one to forget across much of the United States. After the warmest winter ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere and much talk of global warming, weather watchers say occasional snowstorms in the Midwest and Northeast, and unseasonable cold gripping much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, is rare though not unprecedented...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:07:26
Army Staff Sgt.
Casey D. Combs
, 28, of Auburn, Wash.
Army Sgt.
David A. Stephens
, 28, of Tullahoma, Tenn.
died April 12 in Miri, Afghanistan, when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device during combat operations. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:06:24
Army Spc.
James T. Lindsey
, 20, of Florence, Ala., died April 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:06:01
Army Sgt.
Edelman L. Hernandez
, 23, of Hyattsville, Md., died April 11 in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, while on combat patrol. The incident is under investigation. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:05:18
Army 1ST Lt.
Gwilym J. Newman
, 24, of Waldorf, Md., died April 12 in Tarmiyah, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire while on dismounted patrol. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:04:56
Army Cpl.
Jason J. Beadles
, 22, of La Porte, Ind., died April 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, of a non-combat related injury. The incident is under investigation. He was assigned to the 887th Engineer Company, 326th Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
History - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 23:02:36
The names, ages and professions of passengers listed on the Titanic's fateful journey have gone online for the first time, 95 years after the luxury ocean liner sank on its maiden voyage... revealing the cabin class of passengers. They poignantly show the emigration plans of many hopefuls setting sail from Southampton for a new life in America in 1912...
Healing Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 22:49:04
Children who suffer a head injury are quite likely to have a similar injury subsequently... "We do not really understand the mechanism behind repetitive head injuries in children.... These results support anecdotal evidence of the phenomenon.... It is reasonable that children with a head injury who do not regain their pre-injury state of health could be at risk for another injury...."
Free Expression
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:03:39
what do you do if you want to escape detection from authorities who might not like your work as much as you do? The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents is pretty technical but it also contains some simple tips, so you can say what you think without having to worry the censors or cyber-police too much...
Taxes Suck
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:03:03
Most people file their tax returns electronically now because it's convenient, despite lingering concerns about the security of their most sensitive financial information, according to a new AP-AOL Money & Finance poll. And they have more time than usual this year to file. The tax filing deadline is Tuesday, April 17, because April 15 falls on a Sunday this year and April 16 is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in Washington, D.C. Only 19 percent of the public knew early this month about the two-day grace period, the poll found...
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:00:42
BOISE, Idaho... City streets got an unscheduled cleaning as a sudsy citrus-scented foam erupted from manhole covers like geysers... American Linen accidentally released detergent into the municipal sewer lines. The combination of gravity and churning water whipped the soap into a sudsy foam...
Modern Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:57:12
When it comes to wacky titles, a book on rogue shopping carts goes straight to the express lane for winners. "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" was named the winner Friday of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title... a mock-scientific taxonomy of the varieties of lost shopping carts, from the simply discarded to the elaborately vandalized... Runner-up was "Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan..."
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 23:02:01
Enter the video game accessory as date killer... Although video game playing has strained relationships since the 1970s, a new generation of games that require fancy and hard-to-hide controllers just make it worse...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:55:39
The university researchers who began construction on the Internet some four decades ago never imagined the power their creation would have today... That won't be the case with a next-generation Internet envisioned as an ultimate replacement for the current one... Commercial and policy interests will likely play a bigger role this time as researchers explore "clean slate" designs that scrap the Internet's underlying architecture to better address security, mobility and other emerging needs... Will the greater attention on these efforts ultimately be their undoing? "The success of the Internet can be largely credited to the fact that it began in a backwater..."
Supernatural Threats
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:15
Two conservative organizations and other groups have asked a court to overturn U.S. regulators' decision to allow nonprescription sales of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s "morning-after" contraceptive...
Supernatural Consequences
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:59
Some 300,000 Turks protested against their pro-Islamic prime minister Saturday, draping themselves in flags and pouring into streets and squares in a demonstration of the intense secular opposition he will face if he runs for president...
Supernatural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:03
For some a battle between science and religion is being fought for the soul of America. The Creationists argue God created the world in six days and want their beliefs given equal status to evolutionary science... picked as the site for a new museum, due to open in a couple of months... the dream of Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry that promotes the idea that the Biblical book of Genesis should be taken literally in describing the creation of the world, life and humans as carried out by God over a six-day period a few thousand years ago...
FRI 2007-APR-13
Theory of Sex Education
edweek.org/ ... 23:50:19
Students who participated in sexual-abstinence education programs partially funded by the federal government were just as likely to have sex, and had the same number of sexual partners, as those who did not take part in the programs... median age of first intercourse of 14 years and 9 months... those students who participated in the abstinence programs were just as likely to use contraception as those who did not...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:00:59
Brazil's police say they have broken up a gang suspected of carrying out about 1,000 contract killings in five years. At least 20 people, including police officers, businessmen and hired gunmen, were arrested in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco...
Modern Medicine can be Dangerous
reuters.com/ ... 09:32:48
Medicine abuse is making about 10,000 Chinese children deaf each year... "The improper use of antibiotics is the main culprit..." Parents had "blind faith" in antibiotics and doctors, who often take kickbacks from drugs middlemen, were more than willing to prescribe them...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:16:31
A Norwegian oil rig support vessel carrying 15 people capsized off northern Scotland on Thursday and five crew members were missing...
Prison Sucks
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:21:49
MANKATO, Minn... A jail guard has been suspended after allegedly thumping an inmate with [the inmate's own] Bible... grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against steel bars on Feb. 8...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:12:12
PITTSBURGH... Officials at the 16-story jail, which holds about 2,500 inmates, said some inmates have been dropping weighted strings out of small openings that let air into indoor-outdoor recreation areas in each pod of the facility. People on the outside then tie contraband, including tobacco and marijuana, to the strings, which are then reeled in by the inmates...
Animals can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:11:19
Nibbles the elephant seal is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern California coast. The 2,000-pound lone male is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal's aggression...
Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:28:59
An Indonesian passenger jet was forced to turn round in Indian airspace to avoid a nuclear-capable missile test flight... received no advance notice of the test...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:03
The head of Turkey's powerful military has s
aid Ankara should launch a military operation in northern Iraq
to target Kurdish guerrillas based there... Turkey accuses the outlawed Kurdish group PKK of using bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks on Turkey...
The PKK has been fighting since 1984 to achieve autonomy for Turkey's Kurds...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 09:09:00
The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has told the Guardian he is
plotting the violent overthrow of President Putin
from his base in Britain after forging close contacts with members of Russia's ruling elite... claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup...
Nature can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:28:38
A strong earthquake hit Mexico early Friday, knocking out power in parts of Mexico City and Acapulco... magnitude-6... strongly felt from the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco to the mountain capital of Mexico City... because it was centered inland, 40 miles northwest of Acapulco, and just 18 miles below the earth's surface... knocked out power to about 20 percent of the homes in the [Mexico City's] downtown district, and there were reports of blackouts in parts of Acapulco...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 09:07:33
More snow fell on parts of the Midwest Thursday, a day after a deadly storm grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game, iced up roadways and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring. A jet trying to land in heavy snow skidded 50 feet off a runway in Traverse City, Mich., early Thursday. The plane remained upright, and the 46 passengers and three crew members were unhurt...
Six deaths
elsewhere were also blamed on the slick conditions...
suntimes.com/ ... 09:06:47
Chicago... a record 2.9 inches of snow, topping the mark of 2.3 inches for April 11 set in 1957... Traffic was ridiculous, the Cubs were snowed out and the heavy wet stuff brought down power lines and trees across the city...
bismarcktribune.com/ ... 09:05:58
A slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped a record amount of snow on Bismarck and even more on Mandan on Tuesday... total snowfall amounts in the area ranged from 2.8 inches in Linton to 7 inches in Mandan... Bismarck received a total of 6.2 inches, 5.5 of those coming Tuesday and eclipsing the single-day snowfall amount of 4.2 inches set in 1945...
Sex can be Dangerous
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:51:51
A woman charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories as a regular customer in court documents Thursday... Harlan K. Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies... declined to talk about the claim in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press Thursday night, saying "the allegations are beneath the dignity of a comment..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:05:03
Gonorrhea in the United States is now resistant to all but one class of antibiotic drugs... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will no longer recommend antibiotics called fluoroquinolones to combat the bacterial disease because of the emergence of drug-resistant strains in recent years that thwart them...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:31:57
The Department of Defense announced today that
James R. Clapper Jr.
has assumed the duties of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Clapper, who most recently served as the chief operating officer for Detica DFI, was nominated to be the Pentagon's intelligence under secretary by President Bush on January 29, 2007, and confirmed by the senate on April 11, 2007. Prior to his position at DFI International, Clapper served as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency director from September 2001 to June 2006; he was the first civilian director of the NGA. He retired as a lieutenant general from the U.S. Air Force in 1995, after a 32-year career. Prior to his appointment as director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in September 2001, he worked in industry for six years as an executive in three successive companies. His business focus was on the intelligence community. Clapper's last military assignment was as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His earlier assignments included a variety of intelligence-related positions such as assistant chief of staff, intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and as director of intelligence for three war-fighting commands: U.S. Forces, Korea; Pacific Command; and Strategic Air Command. Clapper has served as a consultant and advisor to Congress and the Departments of Defense and Energy, and as a member of a wide variety of government panels, boards, commissions and advisory groups. He was a member of the Downing Assessment Task Force that investigated the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, and was vice chairman of a commission chaired by former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia on the subject of homeland security. He earned a bachelor's degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland, a master's degree in political science from St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas, and an honorary doctorate in strategic intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College. His awards include three National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medals, the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Coast Guard's Distinguished Public Service Award, the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award and a host of other U.S. military and foreign government awards and decorations. He served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict and flew 73 combat support missions in EC-47s over Laos and Cambodia. He was named as one of the Top 100 Information Technology Executives by Federal Computer Week in 2001 and has received the NAACP National Distinguished Service Award, and the Presidentially conferred National Security Medal.
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:30:24
Army Spc.
Ismael G. Solorio
, 21, of San Luis, Ariz.
Army Pfc.
Brian L. Holden
, 20, of Claremont, N.C.
Army Pvt.
Brett A. Walton
, 37, of Hillsboro, Ore.
died Apr. 9 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:29:20
Army Sgt.
Raymond S. Sevaaetasi
, 29, of Pago Pago, American Samoa, died April 11 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 15th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:34:33
Army Pfc.
Kyle G. Bohrnsen
, 22, of Philipsburg, Mont., died April 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
Feeding Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:27:24
The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact:
China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern...
Evolution Isn't Easy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:19:19
Protein extracted from 68 million-year-old T. rex bones has shed new light on the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds... similar to chicken protein... also similarities with frog and newt protein... The discovery of protein in dinosaur bones is a surprise - organic material was not thought to survive this long...
Virtual Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 09:15:53
Brazil's TAM said it is about to become the first airline to promote itself in the Second Life online virtual world by offering cyberspace flights that correspond to its real-world international service...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 09:14:14
...women who eat apples while pregnant may protect their child from developing asthma and related symptoms...
Animal Companions
reuters.com/ ... 09:20:50
Contaminated dog and cat food is still being sold at some U.S. stores and more products could be added to the widening recall, a top health official told lawmakers on Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration has inspected about 400 stores nationwide since the problem emerged last month and has found recalled products still on sale...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:10:39
DAWSON, Texas... It took a backhoe and a team of rescuers to dig through the muck and haul the 1,200-pound horse to safety Thursday afternoon. Champ had worn himself out trying to escape the mud that sucked him in up to his belly by the time his owners discovered him in the morning...
Digital Threat
pcworld.com/ ... 23:49:09
A huge virus surge of a new Storm Worm variant is flooding e-mail inboxes and evading many antivirus programs. In my tests of 31 programs, only four reported a virus...
reuters.com/ ... 10:02:11
Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of
a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones...
[The virus is people who believe such nonsense...!]
some mosques in the country's biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God's wrath...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
allheadlinenews.com/ ... 23:56:19
Roseville, CA... Firefighters responding to a call for electrical fire in the garage of a Roseville neighborhood on Thursday discovered what might be a part of an extensive marijuana growing operation... small fire coming from the electrical panel on the side of the house by neighbors who thought the house was unoccupied... fire crews presented the need to go inside the house... sophisticated marijuana growing system... bypassed electrical system...
keyt.com/ ... 23:55:02
Police found a pot growing operation inside a Lompoc home... 100 marijuana plants...
[insanely inflated]
street value is
[not really worth]
more than $166,000.
lasvegassun.com/ ... 23:54:15
LAS VEGAS... A judge revoked probation and ordered a self-described medical marijuana advocate to prison for 12 to 34 months following his arrest on new charges of selling the drug... [35yo] offered no argument before sentencing Thursday, while his lawyer... acknowledged [he] violated terms of his probation when police found marijuana plants in a house he was leasing... 96 marijuana plants... had a license to grow pot to treat his bipolar disorder, has maintained that he was entitled to grow marijuana and provide it to other medical marijuana users... [Lawyer] acknowledged in court Thursday that Werner is
no longer eligible for a medical marijuana license because he has a felony conviction...
weau.com/ ... 23:52:09
Police in Hokah, Minnesota raided a drug house and found sixty marijuana plants, psychedelic mushrooms and growing materials... 300 feet away from an elementary school and city park... [27yo] faces several
years in prison and thousands of dollars
in fines...
cbs5.com/ ... 23:51:28
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told a federal judge today that following "a thorough and careful review" he's decided to go forward with a second trial of marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal on illegal marijuana cultivation charges... prosecutors have decided not to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer's ruling on March 14 dismissing five tax evasion and money laundering counts...
[even yet more absurd prosecutorial harrassment]
argusleader.com/ ... 09:58:32
South Dakota's Supreme Court rejected a landscaping company's claim that an employee seeking workers' compensation was injured because he smoked marijuana the night before the accident. The high court sided with the state Labor Department and Minnehaha County Circuit Court, each of which concluded that the illegal drug use wasn't the reason for the accident at work...
[One tiny (and rare) victory for good sense.]
orlandosentinel.com/ ... 09:57:41
Investigators are looking for the anyone involved in an illegal grow operation in which hundreds of marijuana plants were found flourishing in a detached garage... more than 200 marijuana plants growing in a home near DeLand yesterday, including
a "monster plant" that towered more than nine feet high
...
ktar.com/ ... 09:56:54
It's sung about and it's talked about a lot on MySpace.com. What is it? It's chronic. "Chronic is essentially a generic name for high-grade marijuana." says Poenix Police Drug Enforcement Detective Matthew Shay. He says it also goes by the street names of bubble gum, afghanny and skunk... "The T.H.C. level we had in marijuana back i the '60s was estimated at two to sometimes five percent. Now I have recently had a T.H.C. level of chronic, high grade marijuana, at 28 percent." Shay says it also costs about 10 times more. He's finding it in the more affluent parts of town like Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and in clubs...
[lies, bull$#!+, propaganda, disinformation, and nonsense]
The profit margin is turning even teenagers into armed drug dealers and violence is escalating...
[Here's a clue for the clueless prohibitionists to resolve that little dilemma: REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!!!!]
kten.com/ ... 09:55:07
EL RENO, Okla. Members of a drug interdiction team seized more than 400 pounds of marijuana and arrested a New Mexico man following a traffic stop on Interstate 40 near El Reno...
[which the prohibition propagandists would like ignorant readers to believe but is not really]
worth about 400-thousand dollars... hidden in the floor paneling of a sport utility vehicle...
ocala.com/ ... 09:53:50
MARION OAKS - A raid by deputies early Wednesday netted 325 pounds of high quality marijuana... with a
[absurdly unrealistic ]
street value of $728,000, in the bed of a Ford F-150 truck... Florida Highway Patrol Interdiction Team conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle on Interstate 75 late Tuesday. There were two men inside who were later discovered to be illegal immigrants...
Unclear on the Concept
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 09:42:53
...But perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced. They got special treatment in the justice system--both negative and positive. The conduct of the lacrosse team of which they were members was not admirable on the night of the incident, to say the least...
Supernatural Whoops
reuters.com/ ... 09:33:57
A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction...
Digital Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:32:19
The Department of Defense's Iris project will put an internet router in space by the start of 2009. It will allow voice, video and data communications for US troops using standards developed for the internet. Eventually Iris could extend the net into space, allowing data to flow directly between satellites, rather than sending it via ground stations...
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:31:44
Windows XP will stop being available on new PCs from the end of January 2008... Microsoft is keeping to a plan to stop selling the operating system even though surveys show a lukewarm response to Windows Vista among consumers... A poll... found that only 10% of those questioned were planning to upgrade to Vista in the near future...
Digital Whoops Cascade
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:30:47
A British diplomat's blog offering his thoughts on Thailand has been withdrawn after insults and accusations were posted on it by members of the public. Ian Proud, 38, whose four-year tenure with the British Embassy in Bangkok ends in May, wrote reflections on Thailand for the website of the country's The Nation newspaper...
Missing
reuters.com/ ... 09:30:01
A former FBI agent is being held by Iranian authorities, the Financial Times on Friday quoted an associate of the missing American as saying... The Financial Times quoted Dawud Salahuddin -- himself a U.S. citizen wanted by U.S. authorities for an alleged murder in 1980 -- as saying he and Levinson had shared a hotel room on the Gulf island of Kish on March 8. Iranian officials in plain clothes came to the room and detained and questioned Salahuddin about his Iranian passport, Salahuddin said. On his release a day later Levinson had disappeared, and the Iranian officials told Salahuddin he had left Iran... Tehran says it is trying to find out what happened to him...
Broadcast is Dead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:24
US TV network CBS is to launch a video sharing internet channel after agreeing deals with 10 online distributors. Among the companies signed up to deliver content are newcomer Joost, Microsoft, ComCast and Time Warner. Viewers will be able to watch shows like crime drama CSI, with free content supported by advertising revenues which will be split between CBS and partners...
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 09:15:34
Warner Music Group on Thursday demanded that online retailer AnywhereCD remove its digital albums from the site, saying the start-up had violated their agreement by selling Warner's music without copy protection software...
Oh! The Irony!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:13:43
Famed crime-fighter
Eliot Ness' plaque is missing, stolen right from the Cleveland police headquarters
... His plaque, worth about $225, was in the police museum on the first floor of the city's Justice Center...
Ness, who earned his tough-on-crime reputation by taking on the mob and successfully prosecuting gangster Al Capone in Chicago, came to Cleveland in the 1930s to be the city's public safety director...
[A broken-down has-been in a post-prohibition world. May we see the same for the drug warriors of today!]
Recall
local6.com/ ... 09:10:05
claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup... recalling 4 million bottles of the recently launched Listerine Agent Cool Blue plaque-detecting rinse, marketed primarily for use by children. The recall affects the Glacier Mint and Bubble Blast flavors... tests showed contamination, despite the use of preservatives...
Post-Racist World
breitbart.com/ ... 09:04:23
It was only 40 years agoon June 12, 1967that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned similar bans in 15 other states. Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America's 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970. Coupled with a steady flow of immigrants from all parts of the world, the surge of interracial marriages and multiracial children is producing a 21st century America more diverse than ever, with the potential to become less stratified by race...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 09:17:21
About 97 million women in the United States will use the Internet this year compared with 91 million men, according to a study by eMarketer. But... only 66 percent of those women are watching videos online compared to 78 percent of men...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:15:11
around the beginning of April, I started using Twitter - and realized I'm just a neophyte in the fraternal order of constant communication. Twitter is meant for keeping tabs on friends, who can post notes on what they're up to for you to receive on its Web site, a cell phone or through instant messages. I post messages, too, so they can keep up with me. I can add several friends, even strangers, to my circle, and others can do the same unless I restrict my updates to friends only. Launched in July by San Francisco-based Obvious Corp., the service is free and has even spawned some cool mash-ups, like the mesmerizing and sometimes nauseating Twittervision.com, which zooms across a world map to show where updates are coming from...
thisislondon.co.uk/ ... 09:03:25
The City of London will become Europe's biggest wireless internet hotspot next week. The network will span the entire Square Mile, giving its estimated 350,000 workers internet access via their laptop or mobile phone. It will use a new "mesh" technology to transfer users automatically from base station to base station as they walk by, allowing uninterrupted web use...
Why People Go Vegan
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:02:06
The price of meat is set to rise in America as the nations helter-skelter dash to convert corn into road fuel begins to take its toll on the supply of food...
THU 2007-APR-12
Transport Threat
reuters.com/ ... 10:02:42
...Guns N Roses, Meat Loaf and Bruce Springsteen... are among the artists featured on a top 10 of tracks that get people's blood pumping and in the mood to drive aggressively... shortlist of tracks that get people revved up -- and that drivers should avoid listening to in the real world -- spans more than 30 years of chart favorites, although none of them actually reached number 1...
Theft
reuters.com/ ... 09:57:16
U.S. border police found 1,000 wedding gowns stolen from a cancer charity and crammed into a truck trying to get into Mexico... The donated dresses were on their way to Los Angeles to a fundraiser for the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation in November when they were stolen in Scottsdale, Arizona... an estimated value of $3 million...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 09:52:29
Mental health problems, such as anxiety disorders and depression, are common in women who smoke during pregnancy and may be part of the reason they do so...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:51
India test-fired a
new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East...
Uniting Nations
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:28
A Syrian-American businessman making an extraordinary appearance before an Israeli parliamentary panel said
Syria and Israel ignored his efforts
to turn informal talks into official negotiations on ending their conflict... Ibrahim Suleiman was the first Syrian to address lawmakers in Israel...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
latimes.com/ ... 10:08:31
The U.S. military on Wednesday renewed its accusations that Iran is providing arms, training and other unspecified "support" to Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions in this country's ongoing civil war... leveled by top-ranking spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV at his weekly news briefing, and were based on recent raids that he said uncovered weapons bearing Iranian markings and dates that suggested they were delivered after the fall of Saddam Hussein...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:35:00
U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces clashed with suspected Taliban insurgents Thursday in southern Afghanistan and called in an airstrike that killed at least 35 militants... The U.S. and Afghan security forces were ambushed by the militants and fought them for about an hour in southern Zabul province's Shahjoy district...
NATO military leaders assembled in Canada, meanwhile, to discuss more resources for their fight in the volatile south...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:34:15
The death toll from al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombings in Algeria rose Thursday to 33... Another 57 people remained hospitalized from injuries suffered in Wednesday's blasts that struck the prime minister's office and a police station... Some 222 people were wounded in all...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:33:39
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding 10 other people...10 people were wounded - eight lawmakers and two workers... hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River... At least 10 people were killed...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:31:14
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that tribesmen have killed about 300 foreign militants during a weekslong offensive near the Afghan border and acknowledged for first time that they received military support... targeted mainly Uzbek militants with links to al-Qaida who have sheltered in the tribal region since escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001...
US Military
nysun.com/ ... 10:09:02
An American military commander has determined that Marines accused of killing civilians after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last month used excessive force, and he has referred the case to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for a broader inquiry...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 09:53:18
a study... of middle-aged British men for 10 years... those who got regular vigorous exercise were less likely to develop depression or an anxiety disorder over time. The effect was modest, and there was no evidence of a benefit from other forms of activity, including physical labor at work...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:52:06
Stacks of chips, one on top of the other, will power the next generation of superfast PCs, IBM has announced. Laying chips vertically, instead of side by side, reduces the distance data has to travel by 1,000 times, making the chips faster and more efficient...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:51:48
A free service that provides automatic Braille conversion is proving popular despite still being in test phase. RoboBraille was started by a Danish organisation and now has partners in five other European countries. Anyone wanting to use the service, which is partly funded by the EU, can send plain text, rich text, html or Word documents by e-mail. Within a few minutes they receive their document either as an MP3 audio file or as electronic Braille...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:50:38
Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. plans to start selling small televisions this year using a screen technology that is a contender for the next-generation screen of flat-screen TVs... using an organic electroluminescent screen... OEL screens are already used in smaller applications such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and camcorders. Sony believes their product would be the first such television to come to market... They use less power than comparable liquid crystal display screens because they don't use a backlight, and are also much thinner...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:49:24
IRobot Corp., the maker of robots to clean carpets and hard floors, has decided the water is warm enough in the pool-cleaning market to take a swim there, too...
Extraterrestrial
reuters.com/ ... 09:42:43
The same rules that make Earth plants green may make non-Earth plants yellow, red or green -- but likely not blue, NASA scientists said on Wednesday. They said their findings -- which look at how plants absorb and reflect different types of light -- may help narrow the search for life on planets beyond our solar system... [And] "We've uncovered maybe the best explanation of why plants are green..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:41:15
Water has been detected for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System. The planet, known as HD 209458b, is a Jupiter-like gas giant located 150 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:54:33
Four-year-old Bernas isn't the computer wizard his mom is, but he's learning. Just the other day he used his lips and feet to play a game on the touch-screen monitor as his mom, Madu, swung from vines and climbed trees. The two Sumatran orangutans at Zoo Atlanta are playing computer games while researchers study the cognitive skills of the orange and brown primates. The best part? Zoo visitors get to watch their every move...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:40:28
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has declared the Galapagos Islands, home to dozens of endangered species, at risk and a national priority for action... suffering an environmental and social crisis, he said...
The Galapagos Islands were made a World Heritage Site 30 years ago for their unique plant and animal life...
"We are pushing for a series of actions to overcome the huge institutional, environmental and social crises in the islands..." the result of years of neglect by previous governments...
The islands, located some 1,000km (620 miles) off Ecuador's mainland, are home to an array of species, including giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:39:16
...On Wednesday, the keepers at the [Chicago Shedd Aquarium] started rolling out the rocks for the Gentoo and Rockhopper penguins who call the aquarium home. For these types of penguin,
nothing says romance like a pile of rocks
...
Lasting Contributions
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:05
Kurt Vonnegut
, has died aged 84 in New York... He suffered brain injuries after a fall at his home in Manhattan and died on Wednesday... His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951. The story, which describes a world in which machines have taken over, led to the author being dismissed as a science fiction writer... Critical acclaim came 11 years later, in 1963, with the publication of Cat's Cradle... But he will be best remembered for Slaughterhouse Five - which draws directly on Vonnegut's own experience of the firebombing of Dresden, Germany during World War II...
Theory of Justice
theage.com.au/ ... 10:15:29
THERE were two quite distinct reactions to the dismissal of sexual assault charges against three Duke University lacrosse players, a racially charged case that roiled America. The players wondered what would have happened to them if they had not come from well-off families who could afford the best legal advice. They said they never realised that such an injustice could happen in America. The second reaction, from one of the player's lawyers, was to name and shame the woman who made the accusations... One of the players, Reade Seligmann, said his experience had opened his eyes to a "tragic world of injustice" that he never knew existed.
"If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves..."
Digital Beatles
smh.com.au/ ... 10:13:48
THE Beatles have settled a £30 million ($72 million) row over royalty payments with the record company EMI, clearing the final obstacle to the release of the band's entire back catalogue over the internet... The highly anticipated internet release is likely to net millions and propel Beatles hits to the top of the download charts... Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of John Lennon and George Harrison had alleged that EMI underpaid £30 million in royalties on sales of Beatles records between 1994 and 1999...
Reasons for Repeal
kcentv.com/ ... 10:12:59
AUSTIN, Texas... The Texas Department of Public Safety reports its troopers have seized
four-and-a-half tons of marijuana
in a roadside bust in South Texas.... troopers stopped a tanker truck Monday afternoon on State Highway 285 about three miles east of Hebbronville.... inspection disclosed 846 plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana inside the truck, totaling 89-hundred pounds... truck bore fictitious markings. They suspect the truck was carrying the cargo from Starr County in the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Houston... [and] the driver was taking a back route to bypass a Border Patrol checkpoint...
kptv.com/ ... 10:11:31
SALEM, ORE. -- A teacher at Chemawa Indian School was cited on marijuana charges Tuesday... sheriff's deputies said they found a small baggie of marijuana at [her] home... Deputies said they were contacted by Jon Claymore, the school's administrator...
[A. How did he know? B. What business is it of anyone's what she possesses or smokes in the privacy of her own home?]
chron.com/ ... 10:09:53
An off-duty Matamoros, Mexico, police officer was one of four people arrested Wednesday during a drug raid where more than 600 pounds of marijuana were seized in a home in Brownsville [Tx]...
1960s - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 10:00:17
Two fans have asked Florida to pardon rock bad-boy Jim Morrison, the late lead singer for The Doors, who was convicted of exposing himself during a Miami concert nearly 40 years ago... in 1969... sent a letter to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist last month asking him to issue a full pardon to Morrison on two misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure and using profanity... Police said Morrison rolled down his leather pants and simulated masturbation on stage. Some witnesses disagreed, saying Morrison had only simulated exposing himself... The Miami Herald noted that both Morrison and Crist attended Florida State University, where sports teams are nicknamed the Seminoles. "He's a 'Nole? Well, given that fact, I'm certainly willing to review it," Crist was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Herald. The newspaper said Crist then sang a few lines of "Light My Fire..."
Modern Culture
reuters.com/ ... 09:56:16
The writer of one of Germany's best known fictional characters, an imp called Pumuckl, is heading to court to battle his illustrator over whether the red-headed mischief maker can marry or should stay chaste... illustrator Barbara von Johnson... says Pumuckl deserves a girlfriend after more than 40 years of fooling around in books and on the radio and television. However... Writer Ellis Kaut... says the cheeky imp must stay true to his spirit nature...
"Fundamentally, spiritual beings have no discernable gender. They are not born ... they do not grow old. They take part in good or bad frolicking, but frolicking without sexuality..."
Being Human
reuters.com/ ... 09:45:06
People taking part in a game designed to explore egalitarian impulses in human nature consistently robbed from players assigned the most money while giving money to those with the least... saw as a "Robin Hood impulse" in people who took part in the experiment... "In essence, what we found is that our taste for equality is one of the important reasons why we cooperate with each other, much more so than, say, other species of primates..."
carried out last year using 120 paid student volunteers...
[Right. Try the experiment again on 120 life-experienced wage-earners...]
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:48:33
MGM has become the latest major film studio to offer downloadable movies on Apple's iTunes Store... builds the iTunes catalog to more than 500 movies...
reuters.com/ ... 09:41:54
LIVERMORE, California... In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for $5 apiece. Soon he had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk. Years later, his collection of early computers, printers, and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money...
Woman's Right
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:18
The Indian government says it will review new appraisal forms requiring female civil servants to reveal details of their menstrual cycles...
Monarchy is Dead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:35:49
Thailand's king has pardoned a Swiss man who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for defacing images of him... expected to be deported as soon as possible...
The king is widely loved in Thailand and often treated as a virtual god. Analysts say that this act of compassion against a now contrite foreigner will only enhance his image still further...
WED 2007-APR-11
Data Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:03:51
A computer disk containing the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 2.9 million Medicaid and children's health care recipients is missing, Georgia health officials said Tuesday. The state said the security breach was reported by Affiliated Computer Services, a private vendor with a contract to handle health care claims for the state...
Transport Incident
irishexaminer.com/ ... 10:40:10
Turkish authorities today detained a man who threatened to blow up a passenger plane to divert it to Iran... entered the cockpit and threatened to blow up the plane, claiming to have an explosive device on board... was not armed and did not have explosives... no information as to why the man wanted to divert the plane to Iran...
Digital Threat
news.zdnet.com/ ... 10:38:07
Microsoft on Tuesday issued five security bulletins with fixes for eight flaws, including a "critical" zero-day vulnerability in Windows that also affects Vista. Four of the security bulletins released as part of Microsoft's monthly patch cycle address problems in Windows. Three are tagged "critical," Microsoft's highest severity rating, while the other is pegged "important," a notch lower...
Prison Sucks
mysanantonio.com/ ... 10:37:09
Sex abuse charges were filed this afternoon against the two [41yo] former administrators of a West Texas juvenile lockup whose molestation case sparked the current scandal rocking the Texas Youth Commission... indicted on multiple sex abuse-related charges involving six students, ages 16-19...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:57:25
Israeli authorities on Tuesday said they have arrested 19 Palestinian militants for planning to set off a huge car bomb in Tel Aviv over the Jewish holiday of Passover. The suspects are all were Hamas members from the West Bank town of Qalqiliya...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:57:07
A suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, wounding seven civilians, while a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed 13 suspected militants...
alertnet.org/ ... 10:35:24
U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by attack helicopters fought gunmen in Baghdad on Tuesday, witnesses said, in what appeared to be the heaviest battle in the capital since a security crackdown was launched in February... Two witnesses in Baghdad said they saw U.S. helicopters fire on buildings where gunmen had holed up in the Sunni stronghold of Fadhil. Police and witnesses said there had been casualties. The U.S. military said there was an operation in the area and that an Apache attack helicopter had been hit by small arms fire. It returned to base...
Northeast of Baghdad, a woman suicide bomber strapped with explosives under an Islamic gown killed 17 recruits outside a police station in the town of Muqdadiya, police officials said...
The Baghdad offensive is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into all-out civil war...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:10:38
Army Spc.
Clifford A. Spohn III
, 21, of Albuquerque, N.M., died Apr. 9 in Karmah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when the enemy attacked his location with indirect fire. Spohn was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:10:13
Army Staff Sgt.
Jesse L. Williams
, 25, of Santa Rosa, Calif., died April 8 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire while conducting combat operations in Baqubah, Iraq. Williams was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:09:53
Army Capt.
Jonathan D. Grassbaugh
, 25, of East Hampstead, N.H.
Army Spc.
Ebe F. Emolo
, 33, of Greensboro, N.C.
Army Spc.
Levi K. Hoover
, 23, of Midland, Mich.
Army Pfc.
Rodney L. McCandless
, 21, of Camden, Ark.
died Apr. 7 in Zaganiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit. They were assigned to the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:09:05
Army Staff Sgt.
Harrison Brown
, 31, of Prichard, Ala.
Army Pfc.
David N. Simmons
, 20, of Kokomo, Ind.
died April 8 in Baghdad, Iraq, when their unit came in contact with enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:06:33
Navy Cmdr.
Philip A. Murphy-Sweet
, 42, of Caldwell, Idaho, died April 7, as a result of enemy action in the vicinity of Baghdad. He was operationally assigned to Joint Contracting Command, Multi-National Force, Iraq, and was deployed from his permanently assigned command of Naval Inventory Control Point, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:03:25
Tasmanian devils - the marsupial made famous as a snarling cartoon character named Taz - are being relocated to an island off Australia to avert their extinction by a contagious cancer... Some scientists fear the move could endanger rare birds and other animals on the island, but other experts say it is a last resort and should pose no problem since the devils are scavengers, not predators...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:11:22
National Guard....
This week, the Army, Navy and Air Force announced an increase, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard had a decrease. The net collective result is
1,030 more reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to
80,988
, including both units and individual augmentees.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:08:06
The Department of Defense announced today its recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for the month of March.... All services met or exceeded their recruiting goals in March.... Retention in the services remains solid. The Army, Marine Corps and Air Force are meeting or exceeding overall retention missions. The Navy missed its first-term target, but achieved 99 percent overall.... Three of the six reserve components met or exceeded their accession goals for March 2007.... For March, Army National Guard retention was 94 percent of the goal of 3,593, and Air National Guard retention was 111 percent of its goal of 829. The Army National Guard is currently at 100 percent of its end strength, while the Air National Guard is at 99 percent. Losses in all reserve components for February are well within acceptable limits. Indications are that trend will continue into March....
reuters.com/ ... 10:58:37
A U.S. soldier who goes on trial in absentia next week in Rome for murder caused a furore in Italy on Tuesday for defending his fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq. Mario Lozano, of the U.S. Army's 69th Infantry Regiment, is charged in Italy with voluntary homicide for killing Nicola Calipari as the agent was escorting a newly freed hostage, reporter Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport in 2005.... "You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line... Anyone inside 100 meters is already in the danger zone ... and you gotta take them out... If you hesitate, you come home in a box -- and I didn't want to come home in a box. I did what any soldier would do in my position..."
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
reuters.com/ ... 11:05:30
Suicide rates among people of all ages are higher in states where more homes have guns... Twice as many people committed suicide in the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership, compared with the six states with the lowest levels, even though the population in all the states was about the same...
[I can't help but suspect this statistical correlation is not necessarily suggesting what it's meant to...]
While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time. People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 11:03:03
Two out of three British Internet users lose significant portions of their time to irrelevant web browsing... Workers confronted with the almost unlimited pool of online information become distracted and begin
"wilfing," short for "What Was I Looking For?"
... Wilfers lose two working days a month to aimless browsing, with men being the worst offenders... Shopping sites are the most distracting... A third of men quizzed said wilfing through tempting adult entertainment sites had damaged relationships with their partners...
Marriage Today
reuters.com/ ... 10:59:40
A Saudi man lost a bit of his nose in a joint assault by his two wives after he jokingly threatened to marry a third woman...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
mpp.org/ ... 10:48:44
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND The House Health, Education and Welfare Committee passed legislation today to prevent Rhode Island's medical marijuana law from expiring on June 30... The committee had previously heard testimony from several patients who have benefited from the program, including Craig Paquette of Richmond, who suffers severe pain from spinal injuries suffered in a 1992 accident, and who endured serious side effects from narcotic painkillers...
wyff4.com/ ... 10:47:45
ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. -- The Anderson County Sheriff's Office said that a baby was removed from his home Monday after the child was found in what they described as a filthy home just feet away from a marijuana plant... room was filled with smoke, infested with roaches, and littered with food refuse and dog feces...
[Okay, great prohibitionist propaganda. Filth plus pot plant. It's not likely any baby is going to be chewing on a leaf, but it's still really gross and of course bad for the cause.]
[Parents and another person were] charged with unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia...
[Parents were] charged with child endangerment, but that charge was dropped by a magistrate
. They were released on $1,087.50 personal recognizance bond...
[So, filth, smoke, roaches, food refuse and dog feces are not a problem, but one marijuana plant is serious business. THE LAW IS VERY CONFUSED.]
ksby.com/ ... 10:43:58
The Morro Bay pot dispensary raided by federal agents is back in business... Compassionate Caregivers Medical Marijuana Co-op has re-opened its doors just over a week after being cleaned out by federal agents... The facility was able to reopen because its business license is still valid with the city of Morro Bay and the state... Many of the patients... were relieved to hear the dispensary was open again, but the San Luis Obispo county sheriff's department said their relief may be short lived...
myfoxtwincities.com/ ... 10:43:06
A Burnsville man is charged in a marijuana smuggling ring after the Dakota County Drug Task Force learned he was receiving 350 pounds of pot, with a
[by-the-joint prohibition-inflated drug-warrior-propagandizing high-end possible]
street value of over $700,000...
theage.com.au/ ... 10:41:42
Boroondara Police this afternoon attended Xavier College, where they have taken possession of a small quantity of cannabis after this morning's reports of a student dealing drugs on the premises. News Limited reported that a former student was expelled after allegedly selling marijuana in the school grounds in February. Three students who bought the drug were reportedly suspended from the school...
abc.net.au/ ... 10:39:05
Police will push to extend their drug protocol policy to Victoria's private schools after a report of drug problems at a Catholic secondary school in Melbourne. It is reported that a Year 11 student was expelled for selling marijuana to students on the college grounds last term. Under the protocol, all government schools must notify police when they encounter a drug problem with their students...
TUE 2007-APR-17
Supernatural Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:28:27
Pakistan's tourism minister says she fears for her life after clerics at a radical mosque issued an edict accusing her of sinning by hugging her French parachute jumping instructor...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
news.enquirer.com/ ... 23:22:46
11 from three states arrested since Thursday in an online child predator sting. It was all caught on tape by "Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator" with the help of the nonprofit group Perverted Justice...
[What an appropriate name for an entrapment TV show...!]
Sick, Sick, Sick
baltimoresun.com/ ... 23:21:28
Two 16-year-olds were arrested and charged last night in the chemical burning of a 2-year-old boy on Saturday, Baltimore County... Police said they believe the motive for the incident was to break into the storage building by kicking in the door. When the suspects found the bottles of the chemical, they poured it on the plastic slide, experimenting to see if the chemical would burn the plastic, police said. When they saw it did nothing, they left, leaving the chemical on the slide...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:29:47
A survivor of the Norwegian vessel which capsized off the coast of Shetland has spoken about the accident which killed eight of his colleagues. Fighting back tears, Egil Hafsas said it took less than five minutes for the Bourbon...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:29:09
Police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried beneath two schoolyards in a district that until recently was under the control of al-Qaida fighters...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:28:48
A powerful remote-controlled bomb destroyed a U.N. vehicle in southern Afghanistan's main city on Tuesday, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver...
mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/ ... 23:20:11
The six cabinet ministers loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government Monday in a major political upheaval that separates the powerful Shiite religious leader from the U.S.-backed prime minister. It could signal a return of the Mahdi Army militia to the streets for an open confrontation with the U.S. troop surge.
The U.S. military said three soldiers and two Marines died on Monday and two soldiers were killed on Saturday.
In Mosul, in the far north of Iraq, a university dean, a professor, the son of a city policeman and 13 soldiers were killed in separate attacks that bore the signs of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Nationwide at least 51 people were killed or found dead Monday...
Violence
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:57
Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities, high schools and middle schools in at least 10 states on Tuesday...
nydailynews.com/ ... 23:35:37
Virginia Tech University Prof. Liviu Librescu, described as a family man who once did research for NASA, sacrificed his life to save his students in the shooting rampage yesterday. "When he heard the gunfire, he blocked the entrance and got shot through the door..."
apnews.myway.com/ ... 23:35:12
The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service. News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids,""debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus...
boston.com/ ... 23:19:17
The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died early on Wednesday after being shot by a member of a criminal syndicate... Itcho Ito, 61, seeking re-election for a fourth term on Sunday, was shot at least twice in the back... Police arrested Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, a senior member of a local gang affiliated with Japan's largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi Gumi... public broadcaster NHK said Shiroo was upset at the city's handling of a traffic accident four years ago in which his car was damaged as it passed a public works construction site...
People can be deadly
canada.com/ ... 23:18:13
The Chicago Tribune has reported on its website that the Virginia Tech gunman left a note in his dorm room... several pages long... "You caused me to do this....."
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:45:58
Army Sgt.
Mario K. De Leon
, 26, of San Francisco, Calif., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:45:24
Army Pfc.
Steven J. Walberg
, 18, of Paradise, Calif., died April 15 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:44:55
Army Pfc.
Aaron M. Genevie
, 22, of Chambersburg, Pa., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:44:15
Army Sgt.
Joshua A. Schmit
, 26, of Willmar, Minn.
Army Sgt.
Brandon L. Wallace
, 27, of St. Louis, Mo.
died Apr. 14 in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 1451st Transportation Company, 13th Support Command, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:43:37
Army Pfc.
Lucas V. Starcevich
, 25, of Canton, Ill., died April 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:42:55
Marine Lance Cpl.
Jesse D. Delatorre
, 29, of Aurora, Ill., died April 16 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Delatorre was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:42:08
Marine Lance Cpl.
Daniel R. Scherry
, 20, of Rocky River, Ohio, died April 16 from a non-hostile accident in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Scherry was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:41:42
Marine 1st Lt.
Shaun M. Blue
, 25, of Munster, Ind., died April 16 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:41:14
Army Spc.
Ryan A. Bishop
, 32, of Euless, Texas, died April 14 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated while he was on dismounted patrol. He was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:50
Army Cpl.
Cody A. Putnam
, 22, of Lafayette, Ind.
Army Pfc.
John G. Borbonus
, 19, of Boise, Idaho
died Apr. 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, when their patrol encountered an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:40:02
Army Sgt.
Larry R. Bowman
, 29, of Granite Falls, N.C., died April 13 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. Bowman was assigned to the 513th Transportation Company, 57th Transportation Battalion, 593rd Corps Support Group, Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:37:35
Marine Lance Cpl.
Daniel J. Santee
, 21, of Mission Viejo, Calif., died April 14 from a non-hostile vehicle accident in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Santee was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Extraterrestrial
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:31:11
NASA paid $26.6 million to family members of the astronauts who died on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, a newspaper reported Sunday, citing recently released documents...
Modern Culture
breitbart.com/ ... 23:36:40
Hollywood is banking that good things really do come in threes as it ...prepares to unleash an unprecedented series of blockbuster sequels on the summer box-office...
Unclear on le Concept
spiegel.de/ ... 23:34:42
European newspapers are blaming the lack of gun control measures in the United States and implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings...
Just Random Chance
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:31:55
Friday the 13th turned out to be lucky for one Wisconsin woman. Sara Wrobel narrowly missed a 15-to-20 ton piece of construction equipment that became unhinged from a dump truck and fell in front of her as she backed out of her driveway...
Democracy in Action
reuters.com/ ... 23:30:30
Residents of the District of Columbia, which is not legally a state, have had to fight for the limited voting rights they have since Congress relocated here from Philadelphia in 1800. It took until 1961 to gain the right to vote in presidential elections, and they still have no full-fledged member of Congress -- either in the House of Representatives or the Senate -- despite having to pay federal taxes like everyone else. But a determined grass-roots movement, a Democratic-controlled Congress, a weakened Republican president and a compromise involving far-away Utah has raised hopes that D.C. residents eventually might discard the "Taxation Without Representation" protest messages many carry on their car license plates...
Digital Culture
blogs.pcworld.com/ ... 23:20:43
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday his company is just weeks away from activating a new system that will filter out copyright-protected videos on the Google Video and YouTube sites...
[yeah, sure...!]
Reasons for Repeal
citynews.ca/ ... 23:17:09
The price patients are paying for their pot is what's causing the uproar - as new documents indicate
the federal government is marking up prices fifteen-fold from what they're paying their supplier...
[Why should Big Brother be any different from the Black Market dealer?]
theeagle.com/ ... 23:16:17
A Bryan man was arrested in College Station late Sunday night after police reported finding more than 2.5 pounds of marijuana and a gun in his car... He faces a state jail felony possession of marijuana charge and misdemeanor charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon and driving with an invalid license...
[So having some vegetable matter is a felony and an unlawful weapon is a misdemeanor...? THAT's how f***ed up is PROHIB!]
insidebayarea.com/ ... 23:12:33
About 150 marijuana plants in various stages of maturity were seized from a home on West Clover Road late Monday afternoon after an employee from Pacific Gas and Electric reported being threatened. There were also two children, both under the age of 3, inside the house, which was littered with dangerous objects and unclean... The children didnt have beds and slept in sleeping bags...
[None of which would have been bad enough to take the kids away if it hadn't been for the prohibited vegetables growing there. Still, degenerates in the news are bad for the cause of repeal! Repeal! REPEAL!]
forbes.com/ ... 23:10:54
While smoking marijuana
[or anything]
is never
[or usually not necessarily]
good for the lungs,
the active ingredient in pot may help fight lung cancer,
new research shows....
[confirming previous research, as well as why pot smokers are not as cancerous as nicotine addicts...!]
denver.yourhub.com/ ... 23:08:55
On April 16, 2007, detectives from the West Metro Drug Task Force executed a search warrant on the 9500 block Yegge Road in Morrison in reference to alleged drug activity. Seized from the home were 65 marijuana plants at varying stages of growth and several pounds of harvested and dried product which appeared to be ready for use or sale. The two adult males who reside at the home were both arrested at the scene...
wbir.com/ ... 16:18:52
"I've smoked 10 to 12 marijuana cigarettes a day for 25 years," says Rosenfeld, adding he gets no euphoric effect from the drug. "All my clients know I use it. Without it, I wouldn't be able to work." His firm, Newbridge Securities, supports his use of marijuana and says it hasn't hurt his performance. In Florida, Rosenfeld is an exception to state law that bans marijuana's use in any situation. But at a time when the use of medical marijuana is expanding - this month, New Mexico became the 12th state to allow it - the issue is raising a range of ethical and liability questions for employers across the nation. Some companies, wary of marijuana's impact on employee performance, continue to fire those who test positive for the drug, even when its use is sanctioned by their state for medical purposes... Donald Abrams, chief of hematology and oncology at San Francisco General Hospital... says it's unusual for patients to smoke as much as Rosenfeld, but the drug supplied by the U.S. government has relatively low potency. He also says marijuana smoking is associated with a lower risk of developing lung cancer...
Out of Control Prosecutors
canada.com/ ... 16:12:28
Midnight blogger exposes a scandal... Online journal credited with breaking case against Duke lacrosse players...
charlotte.com/ ... 16:07:24
Duke lacrosse: How the case unravelled... defense lawyer Joseph B. Cheshire V... didn't know that Nifong harbored a visceral dislike for him... procedure violated Durham Police Department policy... Records show that Mangum had given a half-dozen or more accounts that conflicted. She had picked out four attackers April 4 but had told police and doctors that three men attacked her. She said Evans, who was clean-shaven, had a mustache. And her April responses differed from all of her March responses. Mangum had said that no condoms were used and that at least one, if not all, of her attackers ejaculated. The SBI found no semen, blood or saliva from what she said was a vicious 30-minute assault. She had told a nurse at Duke she had one drink that evening, but she told doctors at UNC Hospitals that "she was drunk and had a lot of alcohol that night." All this could have prompted a lot of questions...
gopusa.com/ ... 16:03:43
What a difference a year makes. A year ago, there was a lynch mob atmosphere against the accused students -- from the Duke University campus to the national media, and including the local NAACP and the ever-present Jesse Jackson... This year, after all the charges have collapsed like a house of cards, the campus lynch mob -- including Duke University president Richard H. Brodhead -- are backpedalling swiftly and washing their hands like Pontius Pilate...
SUN 2007-APR-15
Sick, Sick, Sick
chron.com/ ... 11:43:59
MIDDLE RIVER, Md. A 2-year-old boy was severely burned Saturday after he went down the slide at an elementary school playground. Someone had broken into the school, stolen several bottles of industrial-strength drain cleaner and splashed it all over the playground equipment... suffered second- and third-degree burns, mostly on his legs... scheduled for surgery Sunday morning and likely will be hospitalized for several weeks...
nypost.com/ ... 11:35:10
Filmmaker Michael Moore's production company took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba in a stunt aimed at showing that the U.S. health-care system is inferior to Fidel Castro's socialized medicine, according to several sources with knowledge of the trip. The trip was to be filmed as part of the controversial director's latest documentary, "Sicko," an attack on American drug companies and HMOs that Moore hopes to debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month... the sick sojourn, which some say uses ill 9/11 workers as pawns, has angered many in the responder community. "He's using people that are in a bad situation and that's wrong, that's morally wrong," railed Jeff Endean, a former SWAT commander from Morris County, N.J., who spent a month at Ground Zero and suffers from respiratory problems...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:23:32
The death toll in a flash flood that swept away holidaymakers in southern Thailand has reached 35. About 100 people were swimming in the Prai Sawan and Sairung waterfalls, about 5km (3 miles) apart in Trang province, when the flash flood hit. At least 10 other people are still missing... at least 13 of the dead were children...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:20:46
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico... A speeding bus crashed into a tractor-trailer outside this border city early Saturday, killing at least 23 people and injuring 11 others... The tractor-trailer's gas tank exploded in the wreck, engulfing the bus in flames and trapping many... The driver, who was speeding, was among the dead...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
turkishpress.com/ ... 11:45:18
Insurgent bomb attacks massacred 35 people in Shiite shopping areas of Baghdad on Sunday... Eighteen people died... 35 wounded... As the skeleton of burnt wreckage still smouldered, a bus rigged with bombs exploded in a downtown shopping district in Karrada, killing at least 11 people and wounding 18...
two British helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision that killed two crew members... seriously wounded a third...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:19:49
Three explosions hit Gaza City early Sunday, damaging two Internet cafes and a Christian bookstore. No one was hurt and no group claimed responsibility... Several similar attacks on Internet cafes and music stores in recent months have been claimed by a little-known extremist Islamic organization calling itself the "Swords of Truth..."
Animal Culture
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 11:34:04
some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops... The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems... The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left"...
It's All in Your Mind
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:22:54
The cause of high blood pressure may lie within the brain, rather than with problems relating to the heart, kidneys or blood vessels, research suggests... The scientists isolated a protein, JAM-1, which appeared to trap white blood cells, obstructing blood flow. This can cause inflammation and result in poor oxygen supply to the brain...
US Military
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:29:22
...Koa the bottlenose dolphin and others like her may still be the Navy's best line of defense against terrorists in scuba gear.... About 75 dolphins and 25 sea lions are housed at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Harbor as part of a Navy program to teach them to detect terrorists and mines underwater. The base briefly opened its doors to the media Thursday for the first time since the start of the war in Iraq.... a few weeks after the Navy announced plans to send up to 30 dolphins and sea lions to patrol the waters of Washington state's Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which is home to nuclear submarines, ships and laboratories. Both species can find mines and spot swimmers in murky waters.
Working in unison, the dolphins can drop a flashing light near a mine or a swimmer. The sea lions carry in their mouths a cable and a handcuff-like device that clamps onto a terrorist's leg. Sailors can then use the cable to reel in the terrorist...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:22:17
US marines violated international humanitarian law by using excessive violence in reaction to a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan... reaction was disproportionate and indiscriminate force used... At least 12 civilians died and 35 were injured during the incident which took place on 4 March in Nangarhar province... A preliminary US investigation agreed with the report that the unit did not come under small-arms fire after the bombing...
Sportsmanship
tsn.ca/ ... 11:56:01
Jackie Robinson: Remembering 1947...
The candidate for Rickey's "Great Experiment" had to be perfect. The organization needed a player who could not only play the game, but also carry the weight of the bigotry he would face. Robinson was the choice...
Reasons for Repeal
greenbaypressgazette.com/ ... 11:54:48
...Ashwaubenon Public Safety Department officers were called to a residence in the 2300 block of Canter Lane at 3:24 p.m. Thursday to investigate what was thought to be the scent of marijuana.
When officers got to the apartment in question, they found the smell was incense, not marijuana...
wnep.com/ ... 11:54:03
Police arrested one man on drug charges and are looking for another after searching a home in Monroe County. Officers say both suspects have ties to the "Bloods" street gang... Police report finding marijuana, scales and packaging material during a search of the home...
[Don't make it so easy for gangsters to profit on so-called vice crimes: repeal! Repeal! REPEAL!]
thestate.com/ ... 11:53:01
...Much of the marijuana grown in South Carolina can be found not mixed in with the tomato gardens of users but on large-scale farms often planted under tall pine trees and run by illegal immigrants working for Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Last year, State Law Enforcement Division agents seized 35,142 plants more than in the past three years combined and the most since 1992... To find the marijuana fields, law enforcement agencies call on SLED spotters, who use Vietnam War-era helicopters to find the plants distinguished by their blue-green color and spiked leaves. In July in Chester County, agents spotted nearly 17,000 plants spread over three fields...
[One reason some narcs want prohib to continue is they get the employment and to play with all their little toys instead of the need to be going after real crime or finding worthwhile jobs...]
postchronicle.com/ ... 11:50:59
Police in Fort Worth, Texas, said officers seized an estimated
864 pounds of pot
after an undercover investigation... inside a tractor-trailer that was also carrying a variety of produce... being transporting from Laredo, Texas, to St. Louis...
[So, the prohibition agents are ENCOURAGING the black market...!]
herald-review.com/ ... 11:49:48
...So when a classmate invited him to her house and offered him a marijuana cigarette a few months ago, [B] turned her down.
"Marijuana can get you killed," [B] said he told her. "I'm just not down with that."
Of course, there are many young people who respond to invitations to use marijuana by taking the joints and inhaling. That is why Heritage Behavioral Health Center sponsored an event to educate parents and community members of the dangers of marijuana...
[The only way marijuana can get you killed is by getting caught in violence perpetrated by the prohibitionist thugs or the black market gangsters!]
Vivian Goodman, prevention team leader for Heritage, said many parents do not know how harmful marijuana is... marijuana is more potent than the kind smoked a generation ago, and sometimes it is also laced with other drugs...
[Again, deadly "bathtub gin" is a result of prohibition, and has nothing to do with marijuana... and if it's more potent, you can smoke less, which is good....]
"...It affects their learning ability and academic achievement. It's been associated with violence and risky behavior..."
[As Penn & Teller might say, this is bull$#!+.... Studies show little to no affect on learning or achievement, and it's primarily prohibition and the underground it creates which causes the violence. Many folks are LESS prone to risky behavior because they're mellowed out!...]
Theory of Justice
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 11:43:08
North Carolina attorney general, Roy Cooper... did not just find "insufficient evidence," as prosecutors usually do when they drop a criminal charge. Cooper declared that the three players were innocent, that no rape had taken place, that a "rogue prosecutor" had overreached and that, "in the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly..." After the A.G.'s announcement, Finnerty and Seligmann, as well as their parents, some siblings and Finnerty's girlfriend, spoke to NEWSWEEK about the experience. The magazine also obtained the handwritten statements given by Evans and the other two team captains, Daniel Flannery and Matthew Zash, to the Durham police two days after the alleged rape. The statements, never before made public, and interviews with defense attorneys familiar with the evidence, tell the real story of what happened that night...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:25:39
Emerson Spartz remembers the good old days. It was Fall 1999, Spartz was 12 and he decided to create a little Web site about a hot new series of fantasy books. The Harry Potter craze was just beginning... Like J.K. Rowling herself, Potter fan sites didn't start out to make history. They popped up like so many variations of "Wayne's World," operated on the cheap by "teenage kids out of their basements," Spartz recalls... Spartz and his many fellow Webmasters are looking back at their own place on this record-breaking ride. The story of Potter has all along been a story of its fans, and, like everything else about Potter, the fan sites are in a special class, for their size, and for their influence...
SAT 2007-APR-14
Theft
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:01:28
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla... A gunman robbing a convenience store allowed the clerk to call 911 and apologized after the woman said she might be having a heart attack. But he still took $30 and cigarettes...
WW2 - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:00:12
Felix Muller, 20, was born long after the Holocaust ended, but that doesn't diminish his sense of obligation to the victims. "As a German, it's part of my history whether I want it or not," Muller said. Last summer, he and two dozen other German volunteers arrived in Israel for a year of service through a group called Ot Hakapara, Hebrew for "Sign of Atonement," working at libraries, nursing homes and community centers around the country...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:46:44
A bus full of second-graders crashed into a truck in central Turkey on Saturday, killing at least 32 people, most of them children... on a highway near the city of Aksaray... unclear how it happened... Thirty other people were injured...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:18
A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:59
Japan's lower house of parliament has approved guidelines to amend the country's post-war pacifist constitution for the first time. The bill now goes to the upper house and if passed, a referendum on changing the constitution to allow greater use of military force will be held...
A military was formally banned when US occupation authorities drew up Japan's constitution in the wake of World War II. But the document has been interpreted to allow a self-defence force which has been deployed in some peacekeeping and humanitarian missions abroad...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:51:28
The Israeli army said Friday that it was suspending the commander of troops seen using two Palestinian youths as human shields...
activist is heard shouting, "You can't use them as human shields, it is against the law!" "We are not using them as a human shield," the soldier replied. "They are standing in front of your jeep. How is that not a human shield? You are using them to protect you from stones," the activist retorted. "We asked them to speak to their friends and ask them to stop throwing stones at us..."
reuters.com/ ... 22:49:51
In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people, wounding 15 and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past three days...
In the volatile southern city of Basra, British forces on Friday killed eight gunmen laying landmines in an area where four British soldiers and their translator were killed by a roadside bomb that destroyed their armored vehicle earlier this month...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:31
Iraqi civilian deaths have fallen in Baghdad in the two months since the Feb. 14 start of the U.S.-led offensive, according to an Associated Press tally... Outside the capital, however, civilian deaths are up... the sweeps have taken a heavy toll on U.S. forces: Deaths among American soldiers climbed 21 percent in Baghdad compared with the previous two months...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:06
A suicide bomber blew himself up next to several Afghan border policemen in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, leaving at least seven officers dead and six others wounded... One civilian was also killed...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:40
Two brothers strapped with explosives blew themselves up near an American cultural center in Casablanca Saturday... killing themselves and wounding a woman... and police arrested another three suspects - including one wearing an explosives belt - hours later...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:44:56
A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday, killing at least 37 people... 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala... 168 wounded...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:21
A suicide bomber has blown himself up outside a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least eight people... More than 10 others were injured...
Nature can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:50:34
Ambushing locals as they return home from work, foreign invaders are dismembering French natives and feeding them to their young.
This horror scenario is playing out in France's beehives, where an ultra-aggressive species of Asian hornets - who likely migrated in pottery shipped from China - may be threatening French honey production...
reuters.com/ ... 22:41:05
Wheat fields ruined by freezing temperatures, snowed-out baseball games in Cleveland and Chicago, and shivering vacationers have made this spring one to forget across much of the United States. After the warmest winter ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere and much talk of global warming, weather watchers say occasional snowstorms in the Midwest and Northeast, and unseasonable cold gripping much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, is rare though not unprecedented...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:07:26
Army Staff Sgt.
Casey D. Combs
, 28, of Auburn, Wash.
Army Sgt.
David A. Stephens
, 28, of Tullahoma, Tenn.
died April 12 in Miri, Afghanistan, when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device during combat operations. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:06:24
Army Spc.
James T. Lindsey
, 20, of Florence, Ala., died April 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:06:01
Army Sgt.
Edelman L. Hernandez
, 23, of Hyattsville, Md., died April 11 in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, while on combat patrol. The incident is under investigation. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:05:18
Army 1ST Lt.
Gwilym J. Newman
, 24, of Waldorf, Md., died April 12 in Tarmiyah, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire while on dismounted patrol. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:04:56
Army Cpl.
Jason J. Beadles
, 22, of La Porte, Ind., died April 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, of a non-combat related injury. The incident is under investigation. He was assigned to the 887th Engineer Company, 326th Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
History - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 23:02:36
The names, ages and professions of passengers listed on the Titanic's fateful journey have gone online for the first time, 95 years after the luxury ocean liner sank on its maiden voyage... revealing the cabin class of passengers. They poignantly show the emigration plans of many hopefuls setting sail from Southampton for a new life in America in 1912...
Healing Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 22:49:04
Children who suffer a head injury are quite likely to have a similar injury subsequently... "We do not really understand the mechanism behind repetitive head injuries in children.... These results support anecdotal evidence of the phenomenon.... It is reasonable that children with a head injury who do not regain their pre-injury state of health could be at risk for another injury...."
Free Expression
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:03:39
what do you do if you want to escape detection from authorities who might not like your work as much as you do? The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents is pretty technical but it also contains some simple tips, so you can say what you think without having to worry the censors or cyber-police too much...
Taxes Suck
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:03:03
Most people file their tax returns electronically now because it's convenient, despite lingering concerns about the security of their most sensitive financial information, according to a new AP-AOL Money & Finance poll. And they have more time than usual this year to file. The tax filing deadline is Tuesday, April 17, because April 15 falls on a Sunday this year and April 16 is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in Washington, D.C. Only 19 percent of the public knew early this month about the two-day grace period, the poll found...
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:00:42
BOISE, Idaho... City streets got an unscheduled cleaning as a sudsy citrus-scented foam erupted from manhole covers like geysers... American Linen accidentally released detergent into the municipal sewer lines. The combination of gravity and churning water whipped the soap into a sudsy foam...
Modern Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:57:12
When it comes to wacky titles, a book on rogue shopping carts goes straight to the express lane for winners. "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" was named the winner Friday of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title... a mock-scientific taxonomy of the varieties of lost shopping carts, from the simply discarded to the elaborately vandalized... Runner-up was "Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan..."
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 23:02:01
Enter the video game accessory as date killer... Although video game playing has strained relationships since the 1970s, a new generation of games that require fancy and hard-to-hide controllers just make it worse...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:55:39
The university researchers who began construction on the Internet some four decades ago never imagined the power their creation would have today... That won't be the case with a next-generation Internet envisioned as an ultimate replacement for the current one... Commercial and policy interests will likely play a bigger role this time as researchers explore "clean slate" designs that scrap the Internet's underlying architecture to better address security, mobility and other emerging needs... Will the greater attention on these efforts ultimately be their undoing? "The success of the Internet can be largely credited to the fact that it began in a backwater..."
Supernatural Threats
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:15
Two conservative organizations and other groups have asked a court to overturn U.S. regulators' decision to allow nonprescription sales of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s "morning-after" contraceptive...
Supernatural Consequences
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:59
Some 300,000 Turks protested against their pro-Islamic prime minister Saturday, draping themselves in flags and pouring into streets and squares in a demonstration of the intense secular opposition he will face if he runs for president...
Supernatural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:43:03
For some a battle between science and religion is being fought for the soul of America. The Creationists argue God created the world in six days and want their beliefs given equal status to evolutionary science... picked as the site for a new museum, due to open in a couple of months... the dream of Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry that promotes the idea that the Biblical book of Genesis should be taken literally in describing the creation of the world, life and humans as carried out by God over a six-day period a few thousand years ago...
FRI 2007-APR-13
Theory of Sex Education
edweek.org/ ... 23:50:19
Students who participated in sexual-abstinence education programs partially funded by the federal government were just as likely to have sex, and had the same number of sexual partners, as those who did not take part in the programs... median age of first intercourse of 14 years and 9 months... those students who participated in the abstinence programs were just as likely to use contraception as those who did not...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:00:59
Brazil's police say they have broken up a gang suspected of carrying out about 1,000 contract killings in five years. At least 20 people, including police officers, businessmen and hired gunmen, were arrested in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco...
Modern Medicine can be Dangerous
reuters.com/ ... 09:32:48
Medicine abuse is making about 10,000 Chinese children deaf each year... "The improper use of antibiotics is the main culprit..." Parents had "blind faith" in antibiotics and doctors, who often take kickbacks from drugs middlemen, were more than willing to prescribe them...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:16:31
A Norwegian oil rig support vessel carrying 15 people capsized off northern Scotland on Thursday and five crew members were missing...
Prison Sucks
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:21:49
MANKATO, Minn... A jail guard has been suspended after allegedly thumping an inmate with [the inmate's own] Bible... grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against steel bars on Feb. 8...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:12:12
PITTSBURGH... Officials at the 16-story jail, which holds about 2,500 inmates, said some inmates have been dropping weighted strings out of small openings that let air into indoor-outdoor recreation areas in each pod of the facility. People on the outside then tie contraband, including tobacco and marijuana, to the strings, which are then reeled in by the inmates...
Animals can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:11:19
Nibbles the elephant seal is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern California coast. The 2,000-pound lone male is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal's aggression...
Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:28:59
An Indonesian passenger jet was forced to turn round in Indian airspace to avoid a nuclear-capable missile test flight... received no advance notice of the test...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:03
The head of Turkey's powerful military has s
aid Ankara should launch a military operation in northern Iraq
to target Kurdish guerrillas based there... Turkey accuses the outlawed Kurdish group PKK of using bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks on Turkey...
The PKK has been fighting since 1984 to achieve autonomy for Turkey's Kurds...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 09:09:00
The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has told the Guardian he is
plotting the violent overthrow of President Putin
from his base in Britain after forging close contacts with members of Russia's ruling elite... claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup...
Nature can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:28:38
A strong earthquake hit Mexico early Friday, knocking out power in parts of Mexico City and Acapulco... magnitude-6... strongly felt from the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco to the mountain capital of Mexico City... because it was centered inland, 40 miles northwest of Acapulco, and just 18 miles below the earth's surface... knocked out power to about 20 percent of the homes in the [Mexico City's] downtown district, and there were reports of blackouts in parts of Acapulco...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 09:07:33
More snow fell on parts of the Midwest Thursday, a day after a deadly storm grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game, iced up roadways and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring. A jet trying to land in heavy snow skidded 50 feet off a runway in Traverse City, Mich., early Thursday. The plane remained upright, and the 46 passengers and three crew members were unhurt...
Six deaths
elsewhere were also blamed on the slick conditions...
suntimes.com/ ... 09:06:47
Chicago... a record 2.9 inches of snow, topping the mark of 2.3 inches for April 11 set in 1957... Traffic was ridiculous, the Cubs were snowed out and the heavy wet stuff brought down power lines and trees across the city...
bismarcktribune.com/ ... 09:05:58
A slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped a record amount of snow on Bismarck and even more on Mandan on Tuesday... total snowfall amounts in the area ranged from 2.8 inches in Linton to 7 inches in Mandan... Bismarck received a total of 6.2 inches, 5.5 of those coming Tuesday and eclipsing the single-day snowfall amount of 4.2 inches set in 1945...
Sex can be Dangerous
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:51:51
A woman charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories as a regular customer in court documents Thursday... Harlan K. Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies... declined to talk about the claim in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press Thursday night, saying "the allegations are beneath the dignity of a comment..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:05:03
Gonorrhea in the United States is now resistant to all but one class of antibiotic drugs... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will no longer recommend antibiotics called fluoroquinolones to combat the bacterial disease because of the emergence of drug-resistant strains in recent years that thwart them...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:31:57
The Department of Defense announced today that
James R. Clapper Jr.
has assumed the duties of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Clapper, who most recently served as the chief operating officer for Detica DFI, was nominated to be the Pentagon's intelligence under secretary by President Bush on January 29, 2007, and confirmed by the senate on April 11, 2007. Prior to his position at DFI International, Clapper served as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency director from September 2001 to June 2006; he was the first civilian director of the NGA. He retired as a lieutenant general from the U.S. Air Force in 1995, after a 32-year career. Prior to his appointment as director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in September 2001, he worked in industry for six years as an executive in three successive companies. His business focus was on the intelligence community. Clapper's last military assignment was as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His earlier assignments included a variety of intelligence-related positions such as assistant chief of staff, intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and as director of intelligence for three war-fighting commands: U.S. Forces, Korea; Pacific Command; and Strategic Air Command. Clapper has served as a consultant and advisor to Congress and the Departments of Defense and Energy, and as a member of a wide variety of government panels, boards, commissions and advisory groups. He was a member of the Downing Assessment Task Force that investigated the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, and was vice chairman of a commission chaired by former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia on the subject of homeland security. He earned a bachelor's degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland, a master's degree in political science from St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas, and an honorary doctorate in strategic intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College. His awards include three National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medals, the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Coast Guard's Distinguished Public Service Award, the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award and a host of other U.S. military and foreign government awards and decorations. He served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict and flew 73 combat support missions in EC-47s over Laos and Cambodia. He was named as one of the Top 100 Information Technology Executives by Federal Computer Week in 2001 and has received the NAACP National Distinguished Service Award, and the Presidentially conferred National Security Medal.
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:30:24
Army Spc.
Ismael G. Solorio
, 21, of San Luis, Ariz.
Army Pfc.
Brian L. Holden
, 20, of Claremont, N.C.
Army Pvt.
Brett A. Walton
, 37, of Hillsboro, Ore.
died Apr. 9 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:29:20
Army Sgt.
Raymond S. Sevaaetasi
, 29, of Pago Pago, American Samoa, died April 11 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 15th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:34:33
Army Pfc.
Kyle G. Bohrnsen
, 22, of Philipsburg, Mont., died April 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
Feeding Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:27:24
The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact:
China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern...
Evolution Isn't Easy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:19:19
Protein extracted from 68 million-year-old T. rex bones has shed new light on the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds... similar to chicken protein... also similarities with frog and newt protein... The discovery of protein in dinosaur bones is a surprise - organic material was not thought to survive this long...
Virtual Future is Now
reuters.com/ ... 09:15:53
Brazil's TAM said it is about to become the first airline to promote itself in the Second Life online virtual world by offering cyberspace flights that correspond to its real-world international service...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 09:14:14
...women who eat apples while pregnant may protect their child from developing asthma and related symptoms...
Animal Companions
reuters.com/ ... 09:20:50
Contaminated dog and cat food is still being sold at some U.S. stores and more products could be added to the widening recall, a top health official told lawmakers on Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration has inspected about 400 stores nationwide since the problem emerged last month and has found recalled products still on sale...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:10:39
DAWSON, Texas... It took a backhoe and a team of rescuers to dig through the muck and haul the 1,200-pound horse to safety Thursday afternoon. Champ had worn himself out trying to escape the mud that sucked him in up to his belly by the time his owners discovered him in the morning...
Digital Threat
pcworld.com/ ... 23:49:09
A huge virus surge of a new Storm Worm variant is flooding e-mail inboxes and evading many antivirus programs. In my tests of 31 programs, only four reported a virus...
reuters.com/ ... 10:02:11
Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of
a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones...
[The virus is people who believe such nonsense...!]
some mosques in the country's biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God's wrath...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
allheadlinenews.com/ ... 23:56:19
Roseville, CA... Firefighters responding to a call for electrical fire in the garage of a Roseville neighborhood on Thursday discovered what might be a part of an extensive marijuana growing operation... small fire coming from the electrical panel on the side of the house by neighbors who thought the house was unoccupied... fire crews presented the need to go inside the house... sophisticated marijuana growing system... bypassed electrical system...
keyt.com/ ... 23:55:02
Police found a pot growing operation inside a Lompoc home... 100 marijuana plants...
[insanely inflated]
street value is
[not really worth]
more than $166,000.
lasvegassun.com/ ... 23:54:15
LAS VEGAS... A judge revoked probation and ordered a self-described medical marijuana advocate to prison for 12 to 34 months following his arrest on new charges of selling the drug... [35yo] offered no argument before sentencing Thursday, while his lawyer... acknowledged [he] violated terms of his probation when police found marijuana plants in a house he was leasing... 96 marijuana plants... had a license to grow pot to treat his bipolar disorder, has maintained that he was entitled to grow marijuana and provide it to other medical marijuana users... [Lawyer] acknowledged in court Thursday that Werner is
no longer eligible for a medical marijuana license because he has a felony conviction...
weau.com/ ... 23:52:09
Police in Hokah, Minnesota raided a drug house and found sixty marijuana plants, psychedelic mushrooms and growing materials... 300 feet away from an elementary school and city park... [27yo] faces several
years in prison and thousands of dollars
in fines...
cbs5.com/ ... 23:51:28
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told a federal judge today that following "a thorough and careful review" he's decided to go forward with a second trial of marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal on illegal marijuana cultivation charges... prosecutors have decided not to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer's ruling on March 14 dismissing five tax evasion and money laundering counts...
[even yet more absurd prosecutorial harrassment]
argusleader.com/ ... 09:58:32
South Dakota's Supreme Court rejected a landscaping company's claim that an employee seeking workers' compensation was injured because he smoked marijuana the night before the accident. The high court sided with the state Labor Department and Minnehaha County Circuit Court, each of which concluded that the illegal drug use wasn't the reason for the accident at work...
[One tiny (and rare) victory for good sense.]
orlandosentinel.com/ ... 09:57:41
Investigators are looking for the anyone involved in an illegal grow operation in which hundreds of marijuana plants were found flourishing in a detached garage... more than 200 marijuana plants growing in a home near DeLand yesterday, including
a "monster plant" that towered more than nine feet high
...
ktar.com/ ... 09:56:54
It's sung about and it's talked about a lot on MySpace.com. What is it? It's chronic. "Chronic is essentially a generic name for high-grade marijuana." says Poenix Police Drug Enforcement Detective Matthew Shay. He says it also goes by the street names of bubble gum, afghanny and skunk... "The T.H.C. level we had in marijuana back i the '60s was estimated at two to sometimes five percent. Now I have recently had a T.H.C. level of chronic, high grade marijuana, at 28 percent." Shay says it also costs about 10 times more. He's finding it in the more affluent parts of town like Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and in clubs...
[lies, bull$#!+, propaganda, disinformation, and nonsense]
The profit margin is turning even teenagers into armed drug dealers and violence is escalating...
[Here's a clue for the clueless prohibitionists to resolve that little dilemma: REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!!!!]
kten.com/ ... 09:55:07
EL RENO, Okla. Members of a drug interdiction team seized more than 400 pounds of marijuana and arrested a New Mexico man following a traffic stop on Interstate 40 near El Reno...
[which the prohibition propagandists would like ignorant readers to believe but is not really]
worth about 400-thousand dollars... hidden in the floor paneling of a sport utility vehicle...
ocala.com/ ... 09:53:50
MARION OAKS - A raid by deputies early Wednesday netted 325 pounds of high quality marijuana... with a
[absurdly unrealistic ]
street value of $728,000, in the bed of a Ford F-150 truck... Florida Highway Patrol Interdiction Team conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle on Interstate 75 late Tuesday. There were two men inside who were later discovered to be illegal immigrants...
Unclear on the Concept
blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 09:42:53
...But perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced. They got special treatment in the justice system--both negative and positive. The conduct of the lacrosse team of which they were members was not admirable on the night of the incident, to say the least...
Supernatural Whoops
reuters.com/ ... 09:33:57
A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction...
Digital Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:32:19
The Department of Defense's Iris project will put an internet router in space by the start of 2009. It will allow voice, video and data communications for US troops using standards developed for the internet. Eventually Iris could extend the net into space, allowing data to flow directly between satellites, rather than sending it via ground stations...
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:31:44
Windows XP will stop being available on new PCs from the end of January 2008... Microsoft is keeping to a plan to stop selling the operating system even though surveys show a lukewarm response to Windows Vista among consumers... A poll... found that only 10% of those questioned were planning to upgrade to Vista in the near future...
Digital Whoops Cascade
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:30:47
A British diplomat's blog offering his thoughts on Thailand has been withdrawn after insults and accusations were posted on it by members of the public. Ian Proud, 38, whose four-year tenure with the British Embassy in Bangkok ends in May, wrote reflections on Thailand for the website of the country's The Nation newspaper...
Missing
reuters.com/ ... 09:30:01
A former FBI agent is being held by Iranian authorities, the Financial Times on Friday quoted an associate of the missing American as saying... The Financial Times quoted Dawud Salahuddin -- himself a U.S. citizen wanted by U.S. authorities for an alleged murder in 1980 -- as saying he and Levinson had shared a hotel room on the Gulf island of Kish on March 8. Iranian officials in plain clothes came to the room and detained and questioned Salahuddin about his Iranian passport, Salahuddin said. On his release a day later Levinson had disappeared, and the Iranian officials told Salahuddin he had left Iran... Tehran says it is trying to find out what happened to him...
Broadcast is Dead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:24
US TV network CBS is to launch a video sharing internet channel after agreeing deals with 10 online distributors. Among the companies signed up to deliver content are newcomer Joost, Microsoft, ComCast and Time Warner. Viewers will be able to watch shows like crime drama CSI, with free content supported by advertising revenues which will be split between CBS and partners...
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 09:15:34
Warner Music Group on Thursday demanded that online retailer AnywhereCD remove its digital albums from the site, saying the start-up had violated their agreement by selling Warner's music without copy protection software...
Oh! The Irony!
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:13:43
Famed crime-fighter
Eliot Ness' plaque is missing, stolen right from the Cleveland police headquarters
... His plaque, worth about $225, was in the police museum on the first floor of the city's Justice Center...
Ness, who earned his tough-on-crime reputation by taking on the mob and successfully prosecuting gangster Al Capone in Chicago, came to Cleveland in the 1930s to be the city's public safety director...
[A broken-down has-been in a post-prohibition world. May we see the same for the drug warriors of today!]
Recall
local6.com/ ... 09:10:05
claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup... recalling 4 million bottles of the recently launched Listerine Agent Cool Blue plaque-detecting rinse, marketed primarily for use by children. The recall affects the Glacier Mint and Bubble Blast flavors... tests showed contamination, despite the use of preservatives...
Post-Racist World
breitbart.com/ ... 09:04:23
It was only 40 years agoon June 12, 1967that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned similar bans in 15 other states. Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America's 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970. Coupled with a steady flow of immigrants from all parts of the world, the surge of interracial marriages and multiracial children is producing a 21st century America more diverse than ever, with the potential to become less stratified by race...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 09:17:21
About 97 million women in the United States will use the Internet this year compared with 91 million men, according to a study by eMarketer. But... only 66 percent of those women are watching videos online compared to 78 percent of men...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:15:11
around the beginning of April, I started using Twitter - and realized I'm just a neophyte in the fraternal order of constant communication. Twitter is meant for keeping tabs on friends, who can post notes on what they're up to for you to receive on its Web site, a cell phone or through instant messages. I post messages, too, so they can keep up with me. I can add several friends, even strangers, to my circle, and others can do the same unless I restrict my updates to friends only. Launched in July by San Francisco-based Obvious Corp., the service is free and has even spawned some cool mash-ups, like the mesmerizing and sometimes nauseating Twittervision.com, which zooms across a world map to show where updates are coming from...
thisislondon.co.uk/ ... 09:03:25
The City of London will become Europe's biggest wireless internet hotspot next week. The network will span the entire Square Mile, giving its estimated 350,000 workers internet access via their laptop or mobile phone. It will use a new "mesh" technology to transfer users automatically from base station to base station as they walk by, allowing uninterrupted web use...
Why People Go Vegan
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:02:06
The price of meat is set to rise in America as the nations helter-skelter dash to convert corn into road fuel begins to take its toll on the supply of food...
THU 2007-APR-12
Transport Threat
reuters.com/ ... 10:02:42
...Guns N Roses, Meat Loaf and Bruce Springsteen... are among the artists featured on a top 10 of tracks that get people's blood pumping and in the mood to drive aggressively... shortlist of tracks that get people revved up -- and that drivers should avoid listening to in the real world -- spans more than 30 years of chart favorites, although none of them actually reached number 1...
Theft
reuters.com/ ... 09:57:16
U.S. border police found 1,000 wedding gowns stolen from a cancer charity and crammed into a truck trying to get into Mexico... The donated dresses were on their way to Los Angeles to a fundraiser for the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation in November when they were stolen in Scottsdale, Arizona... an estimated value of $3 million...
Nicotine is a Drag
reuters.com/ ... 09:52:29
Mental health problems, such as anxiety disorders and depression, are common in women who smoke during pregnancy and may be part of the reason they do so...
Threats
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:51
India test-fired a
new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East...
Uniting Nations
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:32:28
A Syrian-American businessman making an extraordinary appearance before an Israeli parliamentary panel said
Syria and Israel ignored his efforts
to turn informal talks into official negotiations on ending their conflict... Ibrahim Suleiman was the first Syrian to address lawmakers in Israel...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
latimes.com/ ... 10:08:31
The U.S. military on Wednesday renewed its accusations that Iran is providing arms, training and other unspecified "support" to Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions in this country's ongoing civil war... leveled by top-ranking spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV at his weekly news briefing, and were based on recent raids that he said uncovered weapons bearing Iranian markings and dates that suggested they were delivered after the fall of Saddam Hussein...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:35:00
U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces clashed with suspected Taliban insurgents Thursday in southern Afghanistan and called in an airstrike that killed at least 35 militants... The U.S. and Afghan security forces were ambushed by the militants and fought them for about an hour in southern Zabul province's Shahjoy district...
NATO military leaders assembled in Canada, meanwhile, to discuss more resources for their fight in the volatile south...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:34:15
The death toll from al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombings in Algeria rose Thursday to 33... Another 57 people remained hospitalized from injuries suffered in Wednesday's blasts that struck the prime minister's office and a police station... Some 222 people were wounded in all...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:33:39
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding 10 other people...10 people were wounded - eight lawmakers and two workers... hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River... At least 10 people were killed...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:31:14
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that tribesmen have killed about 300 foreign militants during a weekslong offensive near the Afghan border and acknowledged for first time that they received military support... targeted mainly Uzbek militants with links to al-Qaida who have sheltered in the tribal region since escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001...
US Military
nysun.com/ ... 10:09:02
An American military commander has determined that Marines accused of killing civilians after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last month used excessive force, and he has referred the case to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for a broader inquiry...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 09:53:18
a study... of middle-aged British men for 10 years... those who got regular vigorous exercise were less likely to develop depression or an anxiety disorder over time. The effect was modest, and there was no evidence of a benefit from other forms of activity, including physical labor at work...
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:52:06
Stacks of chips, one on top of the other, will power the next generation of superfast PCs, IBM has announced. Laying chips vertically, instead of side by side, reduces the distance data has to travel by 1,000 times, making the chips faster and more efficient...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:51:48
A free service that provides automatic Braille conversion is proving popular despite still being in test phase. RoboBraille was started by a Danish organisation and now has partners in five other European countries. Anyone wanting to use the service, which is partly funded by the EU, can send plain text, rich text, html or Word documents by e-mail. Within a few minutes they receive their document either as an MP3 audio file or as electronic Braille...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:50:38
Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. plans to start selling small televisions this year using a screen technology that is a contender for the next-generation screen of flat-screen TVs... using an organic electroluminescent screen... OEL screens are already used in smaller applications such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and camcorders. Sony believes their product would be the first such television to come to market... They use less power than comparable liquid crystal display screens because they don't use a backlight, and are also much thinner...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:49:24
IRobot Corp., the maker of robots to clean carpets and hard floors, has decided the water is warm enough in the pool-cleaning market to take a swim there, too...
Extraterrestrial
reuters.com/ ... 09:42:43
The same rules that make Earth plants green may make non-Earth plants yellow, red or green -- but likely not blue, NASA scientists said on Wednesday. They said their findings -- which look at how plants absorb and reflect different types of light -- may help narrow the search for life on planets beyond our solar system... [And] "We've uncovered maybe the best explanation of why plants are green..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:41:15
Water has been detected for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System. The planet, known as HD 209458b, is a Jupiter-like gas giant located 150 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:54:33
Four-year-old Bernas isn't the computer wizard his mom is, but he's learning. Just the other day he used his lips and feet to play a game on the touch-screen monitor as his mom, Madu, swung from vines and climbed trees. The two Sumatran orangutans at Zoo Atlanta are playing computer games while researchers study the cognitive skills of the orange and brown primates. The best part? Zoo visitors get to watch their every move...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:40:28
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has declared the Galapagos Islands, home to dozens of endangered species, at risk and a national priority for action... suffering an environmental and social crisis, he said...
The Galapagos Islands were made a World Heritage Site 30 years ago for their unique plant and animal life...
"We are pushing for a series of actions to overcome the huge institutional, environmental and social crises in the islands..." the result of years of neglect by previous governments...
The islands, located some 1,000km (620 miles) off Ecuador's mainland, are home to an array of species, including giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:39:16
...On Wednesday, the keepers at the [Chicago Shedd Aquarium] started rolling out the rocks for the Gentoo and Rockhopper penguins who call the aquarium home. For these types of penguin,
nothing says romance like a pile of rocks
...
Lasting Contributions
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:05
Kurt Vonnegut
, has died aged 84 in New York... He suffered brain injuries after a fall at his home in Manhattan and died on Wednesday... His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951. The story, which describes a world in which machines have taken over, led to the author being dismissed as a science fiction writer... Critical acclaim came 11 years later, in 1963, with the publication of Cat's Cradle... But he will be best remembered for Slaughterhouse Five - which draws directly on Vonnegut's own experience of the firebombing of Dresden, Germany during World War II...
Theory of Justice
theage.com.au/ ... 10:15:29
THERE were two quite distinct reactions to the dismissal of sexual assault charges against three Duke University lacrosse players, a racially charged case that roiled America. The players wondered what would have happened to them if they had not come from well-off families who could afford the best legal advice. They said they never realised that such an injustice could happen in America. The second reaction, from one of the player's lawyers, was to name and shame the woman who made the accusations... One of the players, Reade Seligmann, said his experience had opened his eyes to a "tragic world of injustice" that he never knew existed.
"If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves..."
Digital Beatles
smh.com.au/ ... 10:13:48
THE Beatles have settled a £30 million ($72 million) row over royalty payments with the record company EMI, clearing the final obstacle to the release of the band's entire back catalogue over the internet... The highly anticipated internet release is likely to net millions and propel Beatles hits to the top of the download charts... Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of John Lennon and George Harrison had alleged that EMI underpaid £30 million in royalties on sales of Beatles records between 1994 and 1999...
Reasons for Repeal
kcentv.com/ ... 10:12:59
AUSTIN, Texas... The Texas Department of Public Safety reports its troopers have seized
four-and-a-half tons of marijuana
in a roadside bust in South Texas.... troopers stopped a tanker truck Monday afternoon on State Highway 285 about three miles east of Hebbronville.... inspection disclosed 846 plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana inside the truck, totaling 89-hundred pounds... truck bore fictitious markings. They suspect the truck was carrying the cargo from Starr County in the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Houston... [and] the driver was taking a back route to bypass a Border Patrol checkpoint...
kptv.com/ ... 10:11:31
SALEM, ORE. -- A teacher at Chemawa Indian School was cited on marijuana charges Tuesday... sheriff's deputies said they found a small baggie of marijuana at [her] home... Deputies said they were contacted by Jon Claymore, the school's administrator...
[A. How did he know? B. What business is it of anyone's what she possesses or smokes in the privacy of her own home?]
chron.com/ ... 10:09:53
An off-duty Matamoros, Mexico, police officer was one of four people arrested Wednesday during a drug raid where more than 600 pounds of marijuana were seized in a home in Brownsville [Tx]...
1960s - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 10:00:17
Two fans have asked Florida to pardon rock bad-boy Jim Morrison, the late lead singer for The Doors, who was convicted of exposing himself during a Miami concert nearly 40 years ago... in 1969... sent a letter to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist last month asking him to issue a full pardon to Morrison on two misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure and using profanity... Police said Morrison rolled down his leather pants and simulated masturbation on stage. Some witnesses disagreed, saying Morrison had only simulated exposing himself... The Miami Herald noted that both Morrison and Crist attended Florida State University, where sports teams are nicknamed the Seminoles. "He's a 'Nole? Well, given that fact, I'm certainly willing to review it," Crist was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Herald. The newspaper said Crist then sang a few lines of "Light My Fire..."
Modern Culture
reuters.com/ ... 09:56:16
The writer of one of Germany's best known fictional characters, an imp called Pumuckl, is heading to court to battle his illustrator over whether the red-headed mischief maker can marry or should stay chaste... illustrator Barbara von Johnson... says Pumuckl deserves a girlfriend after more than 40 years of fooling around in books and on the radio and television. However... Writer Ellis Kaut... says the cheeky imp must stay true to his spirit nature...
"Fundamentally, spiritual beings have no discernable gender. They are not born ... they do not grow old. They take part in good or bad frolicking, but frolicking without sexuality..."
Being Human
reuters.com/ ... 09:45:06
People taking part in a game designed to explore egalitarian impulses in human nature consistently robbed from players assigned the most money while giving money to those with the least... saw as a "Robin Hood impulse" in people who took part in the experiment... "In essence, what we found is that our taste for equality is one of the important reasons why we cooperate with each other, much more so than, say, other species of primates..."
carried out last year using 120 paid student volunteers...
[Right. Try the experiment again on 120 life-experienced wage-earners...]
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:48:33
MGM has become the latest major film studio to offer downloadable movies on Apple's iTunes Store... builds the iTunes catalog to more than 500 movies...
reuters.com/ ... 09:41:54
LIVERMORE, California... In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for $5 apiece. Soon he had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk. Years later, his collection of early computers, printers, and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money...
Woman's Right
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:18
The Indian government says it will review new appraisal forms requiring female civil servants to reveal details of their menstrual cycles...
Monarchy is Dead
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:35:49
Thailand's king has pardoned a Swiss man who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for defacing images of him... expected to be deported as soon as possible...
The king is widely loved in Thailand and often treated as a virtual god. Analysts say that this act of compassion against a now contrite foreigner will only enhance his image still further...
WED 2007-APR-11
Data Threat
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:03:51
A computer disk containing the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 2.9 million Medicaid and children's health care recipients is missing, Georgia health officials said Tuesday. The state said the security breach was reported by Affiliated Computer Services, a private vendor with a contract to handle health care claims for the state...
Transport Incident
irishexaminer.com/ ... 10:40:10
Turkish authorities today detained a man who threatened to blow up a passenger plane to divert it to Iran... entered the cockpit and threatened to blow up the plane, claiming to have an explosive device on board... was not armed and did not have explosives... no information as to why the man wanted to divert the plane to Iran...
Digital Threat
news.zdnet.com/ ... 10:38:07
Microsoft on Tuesday issued five security bulletins with fixes for eight flaws, including a "critical" zero-day vulnerability in Windows that also affects Vista. Four of the security bulletins released as part of Microsoft's monthly patch cycle address problems in Windows. Three are tagged "critical," Microsoft's highest severity rating, while the other is pegged "important," a notch lower...
Prison Sucks
mysanantonio.com/ ... 10:37:09
Sex abuse charges were filed this afternoon against the two [41yo] former administrators of a West Texas juvenile lockup whose molestation case sparked the current scandal rocking the Texas Youth Commission... indicted on multiple sex abuse-related charges involving six students, ages 16-19...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:57:25
Israeli authorities on Tuesday said they have arrested 19 Palestinian militants for planning to set off a huge car bomb in Tel Aviv over the Jewish holiday of Passover. The suspects are all were Hamas members from the West Bank town of Qalqiliya...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:57:07
A suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, wounding seven civilians, while a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed 13 suspected militants...
alertnet.org/ ... 10:35:24
U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by attack helicopters fought gunmen in Baghdad on Tuesday, witnesses said, in what appeared to be the heaviest battle in the capital since a security crackdown was launched in February... Two witnesses in Baghdad said they saw U.S. helicopters fire on buildings where gunmen had holed up in the Sunni stronghold of Fadhil. Police and witnesses said there had been casualties. The U.S. military said there was an operation in the area and that an Apache attack helicopter had been hit by small arms fire. It returned to base...
Northeast of Baghdad, a woman suicide bomber strapped with explosives under an Islamic gown killed 17 recruits outside a police station in the town of Muqdadiya, police officials said...
The Baghdad offensive is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into all-out civil war...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:10:38
Army Spc.
Clifford A. Spohn III
, 21, of Albuquerque, N.M., died Apr. 9 in Karmah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when the enemy attacked his location with indirect fire. Spohn was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:10:13
Army Staff Sgt.
Jesse L. Williams
, 25, of Santa Rosa, Calif., died April 8 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire while conducting combat operations in Baqubah, Iraq. Williams was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:09:53
Army Capt.
Jonathan D. Grassbaugh
, 25, of East Hampstead, N.H.
Army Spc.
Ebe F. Emolo
, 33, of Greensboro, N.C.
Army Spc.
Levi K. Hoover
, 23, of Midland, Mich.
Army Pfc.
Rodney L. McCandless
, 21, of Camden, Ark.
died Apr. 7 in Zaganiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit. They were assigned to the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:09:05
Army Staff Sgt.
Harrison Brown
, 31, of Prichard, Ala.
Army Pfc.
David N. Simmons
, 20, of Kokomo, Ind.
died April 8 in Baghdad, Iraq, when their unit came in contact with enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:06:33
Navy Cmdr.
Philip A. Murphy-Sweet
, 42, of Caldwell, Idaho, died April 7, as a result of enemy action in the vicinity of Baghdad. He was operationally assigned to Joint Contracting Command, Multi-National Force, Iraq, and was deployed from his permanently assigned command of Naval Inventory Control Point, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:03:25
Tasmanian devils - the marsupial made famous as a snarling cartoon character named Taz - are being relocated to an island off Australia to avert their extinction by a contagious cancer... Some scientists fear the move could endanger rare birds and other animals on the island, but other experts say it is a last resort and should pose no problem since the devils are scavengers, not predators...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:11:22
National Guard....
This week, the Army, Navy and Air Force announced an increase, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard had a decrease. The net collective result is
1,030 more reservists
mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to
80,988
, including both units and individual augmentees.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:08:06
The Department of Defense announced today its recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for the month of March.... All services met or exceeded their recruiting goals in March.... Retention in the services remains solid. The Army, Marine Corps and Air Force are meeting or exceeding overall retention missions. The Navy missed its first-term target, but achieved 99 percent overall.... Three of the six reserve components met or exceeded their accession goals for March 2007.... For March, Army National Guard retention was 94 percent of the goal of 3,593, and Air National Guard retention was 111 percent of its goal of 829. The Army National Guard is currently at 100 percent of its end strength, while the Air National Guard is at 99 percent. Losses in all reserve components for February are well within acceptable limits. Indications are that trend will continue into March....
reuters.com/ ... 10:58:37
A U.S. soldier who goes on trial in absentia next week in Rome for murder caused a furore in Italy on Tuesday for defending his fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq. Mario Lozano, of the U.S. Army's 69th Infantry Regiment, is charged in Italy with voluntary homicide for killing Nicola Calipari as the agent was escorting a newly freed hostage, reporter Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport in 2005.... "You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line... Anyone inside 100 meters is already in the danger zone ... and you gotta take them out... If you hesitate, you come home in a box -- and I didn't want to come home in a box. I did what any soldier would do in my position..."
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
reuters.com/ ... 11:05:30
Suicide rates among people of all ages are higher in states where more homes have guns... Twice as many people committed suicide in the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership, compared with the six states with the lowest levels, even though the population in all the states was about the same...
[I can't help but suspect this statistical correlation is not necessarily suggesting what it's meant to...]
While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time. People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 11:03:03
Two out of three British Internet users lose significant portions of their time to irrelevant web browsing... Workers confronted with the almost unlimited pool of online information become distracted and begin
"wilfing," short for "What Was I Looking For?"
... Wilfers lose two working days a month to aimless browsing, with men being the worst offenders... Shopping sites are the most distracting... A third of men quizzed said wilfing through tempting adult entertainment sites had damaged relationships with their partners...
Marriage Today
reuters.com/ ... 10:59:40
A Saudi man lost a bit of his nose in a joint assault by his two wives after he jokingly threatened to marry a third woman...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
mpp.org/ ... 10:48:44
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND The House Health, Education and Welfare Committee passed legislation today to prevent Rhode Island's medical marijuana law from expiring on June 30... The committee had previously heard testimony from several patients who have benefited from the program, including Craig Paquette of Richmond, who suffers severe pain from spinal injuries suffered in a 1992 accident, and who endured serious side effects from narcotic painkillers...
wyff4.com/ ... 10:47:45
ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. -- The Anderson County Sheriff's Office said that a baby was removed from his home Monday after the child was found in what they described as a filthy home just feet away from a marijuana plant... room was filled with smoke, infested with roaches, and littered with food refuse and dog feces...
[Okay, great prohibitionist propaganda. Filth plus pot plant. It's not likely any baby is going to be chewing on a leaf, but it's still really gross and of course bad for the cause.]
[Parents and another person were] charged with unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia...
[Parents were] charged with child endangerment, but that charge was dropped by a magistrate
. They were released on $1,087.50 personal recognizance bond...
[So, filth, smoke, roaches, food refuse and dog feces are not a problem, but one marijuana plant is serious business. THE LAW IS VERY CONFUSED.]
ksby.com/ ... 10:43:58
The Morro Bay pot dispensary raided by federal agents is back in business... Compassionate Caregivers Medical Marijuana Co-op has re-opened its doors just over a week after being cleaned out by federal agents... The facility was able to reopen because its business license is still valid with the city of Morro Bay and the state... Many of the patients... were relieved to hear the dispensary was open again, but the San Luis Obispo county sheriff's department said their relief may be short lived...
myfoxtwincities.com/ ... 10:43:06
A Burnsville man is charged in a marijuana smuggling ring after the Dakota County Drug Task Force learned he was receiving 350 pounds of pot, with a
[by-the-joint prohibition-inflated drug-warrior-propagandizing high-end possible]
street value of over $700,000...
theage.com.au/ ... 10:41:42
Boroondara Police this afternoon attended Xavier College, where they have taken possession of a small quantity of cannabis after this morning's reports of a student dealing drugs on the premises. News Limited reported that a former student was expelled after allegedly selling marijuana in the school grounds in February. Three students who bought the drug were reportedly suspended from the school...
abc.net.au/ ... 10:39:05
Police will push to extend their drug protocol policy to Victoria's private schools after a report of drug problems at a Catholic secondary school in Melbourne. It is reported that a Year 11 student was expelled for selling marijuana to students on the college grounds last term. Under the protocol, all government schools must notify police when they encounter a drug problem with their students...
TUE 2007-APR-10
Yuck!
gothamist.com/ ... 11:09:40
The Department of Health says it will now, amongst other things, monitor 311 calls better, revise the inspection system when it comes to rats, and looking at initiatives to combat rats the the neighborhood level...
nydailynews.com/ ... 11:08:33
...numerous New Yorkers told the city that the rodents had overrun the KFC/Taco Bell... When a health inspector finally visited the rat-infested fast-food joint Feb. 22, she gave the restaurant a passing grade. That inspector, Cemone Thomas, resigned yesterday - jumping the gun on a recommendation from the Department of Investigation for her to be fired. The DOI said there was no suggestion that Thomas accepted any bribes or gratuities for her actions. "The evidence does suggest, however, that Thomas' shoddy inspection may have been motivated by a desire to avoid the additional time it would have taken for further enforcement steps..."
Violence
thedailynews.cc/ ... 11:04:28
An accounting firm employee fired from his job last week apparently picked his targets when he returned with a shotgun to the suburban office building where he previously worked... taken into custody by police, who had orders to shoot and kill him if he resisted... arrested following a 30-mile car chase in which speeds reached 120 mph...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
bloomberg.com/ ... 11:06:03
A female suicide bomber killed 14 people and wounded 20 when she blew herself up among a crowd of police recruits northeast of Baghdad... targeted a crowd of about 200 recruits at a police station in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the Iraqi capital...
ca.today.reuters.com/ ... 11:05:34
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up after police shot dead another overnight during a chase in a Casablanca slum... Police cordoned off part of Fida, a poor working-class suburb of Morocco's economic capital, and were trying to trace a third suspect who escaped...
thesun.co.uk/ ... 10:54:37
GUTSY Faye Turney turned the tables on Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he freed her in front of TV cameras making him SQUIRM. She was the first of the 15 hostages ushered forward during the cynical stunt in the madmans own Tehran palace garden. As Faye stood in front of bearded Ahmadinejad he asked her through a translator: "How is your daughter?" Faye fumed in response:
"I dont know, Mr President, I havent seen her for 13 days remember?"
The Islamic fanatic stuttered: "Oh yes. But havent you been allowed a phone call to her?" Faye replied: "No I most certainly have not"... Faye said of Ahmadinejad: "He looked really embarrassed and didnt know what to do..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:46:03
Russia questioned on Tuesday an announcement by Iran that it was now making nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, a move that if confirmed would take Tehran closer to making an atomic bomb which the West fears is its aim... "We are not aware of any technological breakthroughs in the Iranian nuclear program recently which would change the nature of work on enrichment being carried out in the country," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Western analysts say Iran has made grand claims in the past about progress to strengthen its bargaining hand with the West but say Tehran has glossed over technical glitches that mean it is several years from being able to make a bomb...
Korean War - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 01:27:40
North Korea has agreed to turn over the remains of six U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-1953 Korean War... The U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which is dedicated to finding the more than 8,100 U.S. servicemen from the Korean War not yet accounted for, said it was sending three delegations to North Korea this year to search for remains...
Under Digital Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 01:25:35
Internet game operators in China must deter young people from playing more than three hours a day to combat online addiction, according to a circular issued by eight government departments on Monday. The number of Internet users in China reached 123 million in mid-2006, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday, citing official statistics. About 15 percent -- or 18 million -- are under the age of 18...
Supernatural Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:23:38
Parents of some of the girls studying at a controversial religious school in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, have voiced concern for their safety. Their fears rose after an ultimatum from madrassa leaders that Sharia law be enforced in the country. The school and adjoining mosque are accused of promoting intolerance and taking the law into their own hands. On Sunday, the
chief cleric issued a fatwa against a female minister who had been pictured hugging a man...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:31:27
Army Sgt.
Todd A. Singleton
, 24, of Muskegon, Mich., died April 8 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:31:06
Army Sgt.
Adam P. Kennedy
, 25, of Norfolk, Mass., died April 8 in Diwaniyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered with his unit came in contact with enemy forces using indirect fire. Kennedy was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:30:39
Army Capt.
Anthony Palermo
, 26, of Brockton, Mass.
Army Spc.
Ryan S. Dallam
, 24, of Norman, Okla.
Army Pvt.
Damian Lopez Rodriguez
, Tucson, Ariz.
died April 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:29:55
Navy Chief Petty Officer
Gregory J. Billiter
, 36, of Villa Hills, Ky.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
Curtis R. Hall
, 24, of Burley, Idaho
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class
Joseph A. McSween
, 26, of Valdosta, Ga.
died April 6 from enemy action while conducting combat operations near Kirkuk, Iraq. All three sailors were assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit Eleven, Whidbey Island, Wash.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:29:06
Army Spc.
Conor G. Masterson
, 21, of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., died April 7 in Eastern Afghanistan of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Masterson was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, Hohenfels, Germany.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:28:45
Army 1st Lt.
Phillip I. Neel
, 27, of Maryland, died April 8 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using grenades. His death is under investigation. Neel was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:28:24
Army Pfc.
Walter Freeman Jr.
, 20, of Lancaster, Calif.
Army Pfc.
Derek A. Gibson
, 20, Eustis, Fla.
died April 4 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:27:40
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of ten U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are
Army Air Force 2nd Lt.
Raymond A. Cooley
, of Leary, Texas
Army Air Force 2nd Lt.
Dudley R. Ives
, of Ingleside, Texas
Army Air Force 2nd Lt.
George E. Archer
, of Cushing, Okla.
Army Air Force 2nd Lt.
Donald F. Grady
, of Harrisburg, Pa.
Army Air Force Tech. Sgt.
Richard R. Sargent
, of North Girard, Pa.
Army Air Force Tech. Sgt.
Steve Zayac
, of Cleveland, Ohio
Army Air Force Staff Sgt.
Joseph M. King
, of Detroit, Mich.
Army Air Force Staff Sgt.
Thomas G. Knight
, of Brookfield, Ill.
Army Air Force Staff Sgt.
Norman L. Nell
, of Tarkio, Mo.
Army Air Force Staff Sgt.
Blair W. Smith
, of Nu Mine, Pa.
The dates and locations of the funerals are being set by their families.... On April 16, 1944, a B-24 Liberator crewed by these airmen was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft was altering course due to bad weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor, but it never returned to friendly lines. In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage of a World War II bomber had been found in Morobe Province....
Feeding Ourselves
news.com.au/ ... 11:15:31
THE world's largest study of weight loss has shown diets do not work for the vast majority of slimmers and may even put lives at risk... More than two-thirds pile the kilos straight back on, raising the danger of heart attack, stroke and diabetes...
It's All in Your Mind
bloomberg.com/ ... 11:10:33
A newly discovered link between the brain and the heart may give researchers some insight on cardiac events induced by emotional stress such as grief and surprise... A complex part of the brain that deals with understanding, awareness and perception sends and receives signals from the heart...
US Military
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 10:52:25
Included in the Pentagon's Future Warrior Concept are a powerful exoskeleton, a self-camouflaging outer layer that adapts to changing environments and a helmet which translates a soldier's voice into any foreign language... 'intelligent' armour, which remains light and flexible until it senses an approaching bullet, then tenses to become bulletproof...
Animal Companions
apnews.myway.com/ ... 10:50:33
Pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical may have sickened or killed 39,000 cats and dogs nationwide, based on an extrapolation from data released Monday by one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals... suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs that ate the pet food contaminated with melamine developed kidney failure....
Healing Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 01:26:42
Few topics are more likely to cause argument among doctors than the influence of religion on healing, but a survey suggests most physicians bring their ideas about religion into their practice, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. Physicians have been debating studies about the influence of religion and spirituality on patient health for more than a decade, but little consensus has emerged. A new study... "This is yet more evidence that doctors are not just objective, neutral scientists. Their religious or secular commitments influence the way they respond to patients and the way they interpret data..." They found that 85 percent of those surveyed believe religion or spirituality is generally positive, but only 6 percent say it often changes "hard" medical outcomes, reflecting some sort of miraculous healing...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
ramcigar.com/ ... 11:23:28
As part of the Forensic Science Seminar Series, ElSohly made his presentation, "Marijuana in Forensics," to about 60 students and members of the community in Pastore Chemical Laboratory Friday. Referring to his latest research, ElSohly talked about the fact and fiction of marijuana usage and why certain defenses for positive marijuana testing don't hold up in court. "When the tests come back positive for marijuana, some people say, 'I went to a party and people were smoking pot,'" ElSohly said. "This issue has been studied to death..." another excuse that wouldn't hold up in court would be the "hemp seed" defense. Hemp seed and oil contain small amounts of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, which are responsible for the psychometer effects of marijuana... Like passive inhalation, there would not be enough THC in a sample after ingesting hemp to meet the guidelines for "testing positive..."
[All of which would be TOTALLY MOOT if we were free from the PuriTaliban prohibitionist tyranny!]
missoulian.com/ ... 11:21:34
Because Robin Prosser uses prescribed marijuana to ease her chronic pain and illness, she calls it medicine. Because Jeff Sweetin is a federal agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, he calls it a dangerous drug. And because federal law supersedes state law, making it illegal to grow, sell, purchase or use marijuana, even for health-related reasons, Prosser is out of luck. "From the DEA's standpoint, it's not medical marijuana, it's just plain marijuana," said Sweetin, special agent in charge of the DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division. That's how federal agents saw it earlier this month, when they nabbed Prosser's shipment of marijuana from a UPS delivery truck - it was marijuana, plain and simple. And illegal...
[It's a medicine! It's a relatively harmless recreational substance! It's TWO, TWO, TWO threats to government nannying socialists, prohibitionist profiteers, big alcohol profiteers, big tobacco profiteers, AND big pharmaceutical profiteers IN ONE!]
thesop.org/ ... 11:18:46
John P. Gilbride, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, announced the dismantlement of a sophisticated hydroponic marijuana indoor grow operation and the seizure of over 700 marijuana plants that were each three to four feet high.
[All this effort and money and propaganda and ink over 700 vegetables!]
SAC Gilbride stated,
"Marijuana cultivation and distribution is a crime that generates millions of dollars in illegal profit.
Last night, DEA discovered and shut down a complex marijuana grow lab that had the potential to harvest hundreds of high potency marijuana plants..." 700 marijuana plants with an
[inflated by-the-joint prohibition-supported DEA-propagandized]
estimated street value of $2,800,000...
thedesertsun.com/ ... 11:16:56
Palm Desert City Councilman Robert A. Spiegel wants California to revise its medical marijuana law so that the
state health department would distribute the drug
similar to a new program now in the works in New Mexico...
[NO NO NOOOOOO! No more socialism! No more Big Nanny government! No more PROHIBITION!]
themaneater.com/ ... 11:12:43
Arrest records show no significant change in the number of arrests for possession of marijuana since the Columbia City Council reduced the penalty for possession of less than 35 grams of the drug. But groups lobbying for change in marijuana law still promote the city as an example for similar legislation elsewhere...
allheadlinenews.com/ ... 11:12:16
Kirsten Dunst believes the world would be a "better place" if more people smoked marijuana. The "Spider-Man" actress has admitted she enjoys using cannabis and has branded America's strict marijuana laws as "ridiculous..."
[I don't usually use celebrity-drug articles, but... insists she would never overindulge in drug taking, but says smoking marijuana can be inspirational... this is Mary Jane Watson!]
Modern Family Life
reuters.com/ ... 11:02:53
A British woman on Tuesday lost a legal battle to have children using frozen embryos fertilized by her former partner, who no longer wants her to have his baby... The European court said there had been no violation of the right to life, the right to respect for private and family life enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, or of the prohibition of discrimination...
Free Expression
theage.com.au/ ... 11:07:15
THEY are calling them the
blog cops
two internet bigwigs who want to clean out the potty-mouths of 70 million bloggers and civilise the virtual Wild West of online publishing.
Boy, have they picked a fight...
Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales have proposed a code of conduct for all bloggers to adopt. O'Reilly is a long-time blogger who coined the term "Web 2.0" to describe the booming world of citizen media. Wales is the founder of the online, citizen-edited reference project Wikipedia... On the internet, a bastion of rough language and anything-goes libertarianism, many have responded angrily (not to mention abusively) and joined a raging debate about what limits can and should be placed on free speech, particularly when that speech is bullying, hateful or offensive. "Code of Crap" complains American tech-blog Scobleizer. "The new Gestapo" screams another blog, Burningbird...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:02:14
The Royal Marines and sailors who were held captive in Iran have been banned from selling any more of their stories after Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, reversed the decision to allow them to profit from the ordeal. After a day of sustained criticism Mr Browne imposed an immediate ban on any Armed Forces personnel accepting money for television or newspaper interviews, admitting that the outcome of the sailors interviews "was not satisfactory"... The decision to allow the former captives to sell their stories was described as "appalling" and "outrageous", with some critics saying the personnel were being used as pawns in a government-inspired propaganda campaign...
[Who, exactly, owns these military personnel's speech? Are they still in Iran?]
news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:48:47
A judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled... "While we have little regard for A.B.'s use of vulgar epithets, we conclude that her overall message constitutes political speech..."
Woman's Right
blog.syracuse.com/ ... 10:48:05
A 24-year-old West Monroe woman is facing a charge of second-degree self abortion, a misdemeanor, and is accused of trying to kill her unborn baby... ingested several over-the-counter and prescription medications... in her 13th week of the pregnancy...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:28:57
The newly-appointed minister of health in Brazil has called for a wide-ranging debate on the issue of abortion. Under present law, abortion is only permitted when the life of the mother is at risk, or in the case of rape. The minister, Jose Gomes Temporao, said in a newspaper interview he wanted to move the issue on from religious and moral contexts to a matter of health. But his remarks are thought certain to prompt a firm response from the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil...
[Why is it in "abortion debates," the question of a woman's right to choose how to deal with her very own physical body is so often played down to meaninglessness, if mentioned at all?]
Digital Business
hosted.ap.org/ ... 01:25:09
The group behind security measures for next-generation DVDs said Monday it has fixed a leak that allowed hackers to discover the keys for unlocking movies on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs...
[For today... There is no way to make any material available and unavailable at the same time...!]
New high-def DVDs will include updated keys and instructions for older versions of the PC-playback software not to play discs until the software patch has been installed...
MON 2007-APR-09
Fire
nypost.com/ ... 11:17:16
A raging fire in a Bronx high-rise injured 41 people last night and sent hundreds of terrified residents fleeing for their lives through billowing smoke that reached to the top floors... Five of the victims were seriously injured...
Violence
freep.com/ ... 11:15:43
A gunman shot three people around 10 this morning at an office building in Troy [Mich], and police were searching the building for the shooter... shooter was a former employee of an accounting firm inside the building... victims were taken to hospitals. Their conditions werent immediately known...
Nature vs Transport
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:07:58
HANOI, Vietnam... A fugitive mouse delayed the departure of a Japan-bound airliner for more than four hours Sunday as technicians hunted down the potential threat... The mouse was found in a food storage area...
Nature can be Deadly
news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:56:08
The seismic jolt that unleashed the deadly Solomons tsunami this week lifted an entire island metres out of the sea, destroying some of the world's most pristine coral reefs... forced the island of Ranongga up three metres (10 foot)... pushing the shoreline out to sea by up to 70 metres... Aid agencies have yet to reach Ranongga... huge earthquake fissures which had almost split the island in half...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 11:09:02
A group of around 20 gunmen tried to bust an Italian held for drug trafficking out of a Brazilian prison hospital on Friday, but police foiled the movies-like escape attempt...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:05:17
The Taliban on Monday threatened to kill four Afghan medical personnel and their driver unless the government releases two Taliban commanders ,
seeking a deal similar to the prisoner swap that won an Italian journalist's freedom last month
...
[Never negotiate with gangsters... it only encourages them!]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:54:15
In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country - a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:53:59
Leading Seaman Faye Turney has told how she feared her Iranian captors were measuring her for a coffin before killing her... She is said to have received a six-figure sum for the interview. Relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq have criticised the decision allowing the navy crew to sell their stories... said her lowest moment came when her captors isolated her from her colleagues and told her they had been sent home...
reuters.com/ ... 10:53:27
Baghdad was under curfew on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of the capital to U.S. forces, as Iraqis gathered in the city of Najaf for a big anti-U.S. protest called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr...
Sex Laws can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:51:27
HILLSIDE, Ill... [17yo] once arrested alongside her mother in a prostitution case has been accused of running an escort service out of her suburban Chicago home using the popular Web site Craigslist...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:10:22
Army Staff Sgt.
Jerry C. Burge
, 39, of Carriere, Miss.
Army Cpl.
Joseph H. Cantrell IV
, 23, of Ashland, Ky.
died from wounds suffered Apr. 4 in Taji, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
Feeding Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:06:41
The presence of fat in the stomach may override the anti-cancer effects of vitamin C...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:11:48
The Department of Defense announced today the alert of additional replacement units for deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. These units, consisting of four National Guard brigade combat teams, will deploy consistent with the Secretary of Defense's new policy of mobilizing reserve component units for a maximum of one year at any one time. These Reserve units are not scheduled to begin deployment until December 2007. They are receiving alert orders now in order to provide them the maximum time to complete their preparations. It also provides a greater measure of predictability for family members and flexibility for employers to plan for military service of their employees. The final determination of whether these units will deploy will be made based on conditions on the ground in Iraq. This alert is not associated with the current troop surge. These units would deploy as replacement forces for formations currently operating in Iraq. There are approximately 13,000 personnel in these four brigades. Specific units receiving alert orders include: 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Little Rock, Ark. 45th Infantry Brigade, Oklahoma City, Okla. 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Indianapolis, Ind. 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Columbus, Ohio....
content.hamptonroads.com/ ... 11:00:25
CHESAPEAKE - Two Marines in their dress uniforms... say they were accused of recruiting at a Target department store here and told to leave... "I just popped in to say hi to a guy I went to high school with. He works there..."
Future is Now
guardian.co.uk/ ... 10:56:45
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
en.rian.ru/ ... 11:19:45
France's presidential election campaign kicked off to a populist start Monday as an independent candidate running on an anti-globalization platform proposed the decriminalization of marijuana... "This is as much part of the daily routine today as drinking alcohol... French laws make no distinction between hard and soft drugs, so from the formal point of view, marijuana smoking is an offence in France, which is punishable with a prison term of up to one year and a fine of 3,750 euros...
abclocal.go.com/ ... 11:19:05
MARION, Ill. - Illinois State Police say a tractor-trailer at a southern Illinois weigh station was carrying far more than just its load of carrots... found roughly 761 pounds of suspected marijuana... Investigators searched the rig after they determined it was overweight...
[Keep in mind, what we read about is the tiny tip of the iceberg that they actually catch...]
suntimes.com/ ... 11:18:09
Chicago Police arrested two men Sunday and seized about 200 marijuana plants from a Northwest Side home equipped with indoor growth lights and a ventilation system... estimated the pot's value at
[a ludicrous prohibition-inflated
$1.1 million...
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 11:08:44
A British man has met and married a 22-year-old woman after, by his own account, dreaming of her phone number and then sending her a text message... "I've no idea how I ended up with her number in my head -- it's only a few digits different from mine..."
Digital Business
reuters.com/ ... 11:07:20
NEC Corp. has developed a corn-based bioplastic that conducts heat faster than stainless steel, and it aims to mass-produce the material starting in April 2008 for use in mobile phones and other portable devices... could help make laptops and mobile phones thinner and lighter by eliminating the need for heat-releasing sheets or fans... aims to replace 10 percent of the plastic used in its products with bioplastic by 2010...
Modern Culture
mediainfo.com/ ... 11:16:33
"He was well-loved by the National Cartoonists Society and its members and will be sorely missed," NCS President Rick Stromoski told E&P this morning. Stromoski, who does "Soup to Nutz" for United Media, added that Hart's comics "influenced a generation of cartoonists, and he'll always be remembered as one of the greats." Hart -- a past winner of the NCS Reuben Award as cartoonist of the year -- died Saturday at his Endicott, N.Y., home from a stroke. He was 76...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:06:25
Cartoonist Johnny Hart, who won awards and acclaim for creating the BC comic strip... also co-created The Wizard of Id... has died at the age of 76... "He died at his storyboard..." Family members have been helping produce the strips for years, and they have an extensive computer archive of drawings to work with...
["Clams got legs...?"]
US Election 2008
charlotteobserver.com/ ... 10:59:50
Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home -- and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor... recalls the time neighbor Monty Johnson brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way near his property... Johnson defended the occasion he brandished a gun, saying those on his land didn't have the proper approval. "I use the gun for protection, and I considered that an appropriate time..." Edwards views Johnson as a "rabid, rabid Republican" who refuses to clean up his "slummy" property just to spite her family, whose lavish 28,000-square-foot estate is nearby on 102 wooded acres... "I have to budget. I have to live within my means," Johnson said. "I don't have millions of dollars to fix the place..."
Reporting Science
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 10:58:20
Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over... Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentatorsand many scientistsseem to miss is that
the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes...
Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now...
Movies are dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:53:09
A growing number of blockbuster, live-action films and animated movies are expected to be offered in in-your-face 3-D in the next few years, as thousands of theaters are outfitted with the special projectors and screens needed to show the films. Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., is so gung-ho about 3-D that he has said his studio might start exclusively releasing movies in the format as early as 2009 with its "Monsters vs. Aliens..." For theater owners and studios, the technology could be a lifesaver, luring people back to multiplexes for an experience that cannot be matched by sophisticated home-theater systems or stolen by pirates with hidden camcorders
[yet]
... With newer systems, moviegoers still need to don special glasses but not the cheap cardboard variety with blue and red lenses. Instead, special polarized lenses will separate the stereo images projected on specially coated screens...
Print is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:50:36
The pressures on the European industry are the same as in the United States: Fewer readers, less ad revenue and competition from the Internet and free papers. But European editors are optimistic they can provide the content readers need - whether it's on newsprint, a computer screen, a smart phone or a futuristic electronic scroll. Some predicted the media revolution underway may even allow them to return to the deeper, more sophisticated journalism on which they took pride decades ago, before the crush of round-the-clock news took its toll. What they can't agree on is how that new emphasis on quality will play out - online or in print...
SUN 2007-APR-08
Rage -- not a good idea
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:03:00
A Northwest Airlines flight was canceled because the pilot was yelling obscenities during a cell phone conversation while people were boarding, and cursed one passenger...
Nature can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:01:20
A man in eastern Malaysia saved about 100 people from being swallowed by a sinkhole when he felt the earth move while walking to an open-air toilet in the dark... immediately ran back to the village where he screamed to alert the others living in a traditional indigenous "longhouse" in Sarawak state on Borneo island...
9/11 - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:00:32
New DNA technology developed by a Virginia laboratory to help identify years-old remains of Sept. 11 victims is working for all but the smallest slivers of bones... But identifying a Sept. 11 victim still takes weeks of painstaking review and often depends on factors like the quality of DNA samples originally provided by families from items like toothbrushes...
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:58:58
The video-sharing website YouTube has offered to show Thailand how to block material deemed insulting to King Bhumibol Adulyadej... Minister of Information Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said Thailand would consider ending the ban when it had the ability to block all offending pages. He said: "I don't want to hear a lecture on free speech...
I am a proponent of free speech
[except, not!]
but this is just culturally insensitive and offensive... we will not tolerate materials that offend the monarchy..."
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:10:01
Six soldiers serving with the Nato-led force in Afghanistan have been killed... when the vehicle they were travelling in hit an explosive device... One other soldier was injured... no civilian casualties and that all signs pointed to the Taleban...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:09:34
A large explosion near the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, has killed at least 18 people and hurt about 28... a car bomb... targeting supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:09:12
At least nine Algerian soldiers and six Islamists have been killed in clashes... At least five soldiers had been injured... in a wooded area west of the capital Algiers...
reuters.com/ ... 12:00:05
U.S. forces launched an air strike in Diwaniya on Saturday as U.S. and Iraqi troops fought for a second day to overcome Shi'ite militias and bring the city back under government control... A local hospital source and a resident said six people, including two children and a woman, were killed in the missile strike on a home in the centre of the city, 110 miles south of Baghdad...
reuters.com/ ... 11:59:38
The death toll from a truck bomb attack on a police checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday was 12... considerably lower than that reported by most media organizations. The military said the blast wounded 43, including eight women and five children... latest in a string of attacks that have spewed poisonous chlorine gas into the air...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:57:57
Pakistan's government has told the BBC it will take action against the head of a radical mosque in Islamabad, following comments he made on Friday... A government official said restraint would be used to deal with the matter, to avoid "a law and order situation". He said negotiations were under way to stop a repeat of the "silly remarks"...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:57:36
Israeli helicopters have fired at least two missiles into the northern Gaza Strip, killing a Palestinian militant... Israeli army said the strike was against gunmen trying to plant an explosive device near the border... The Israeli army says that since a ceasefire was declared last November, militants have fired at least 200 rockets into Israel...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:55:43
Somali pirates have released two merchant ships hijacked off the coast of north-east Somalia... crews of both ships were safe. One report... [said] a ransom had been paid...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:55:09
Unidentified attackers have fire-bombed a mosque in northern Yemen, injuring about 30 people... Yemeni security forces said on Saturday they had arrested a man apparently responsible for the attack. Two assailants burst into the mosque during Friday prayers, spraying worshippers with petrol before setting them alight... At least six people appear to have suffered serious burns... in Amran province, to the south of an area where government forces are battling against Shia Muslim militants. But there was no immediate sign of any connection to the rebels, who usually attack security forces and do not regularly operate in Amran. It was not immediately clear if the mosque was used by Sunni or Shia worshippers...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:54:21
A roadside bomb has hit a bus in northern Sri Lanka, killing seven people and injuring 26... outside the town of Vavuniya, 250 km (155 miles) north of the capital, Colombo... The Tigers have denied responsibility, and blame the military for the bombing...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:53:52
The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:52:14
The kidnapped translator for an Italian journalist was beheaded Sunday... a roadside bomb killed a NATO soldier, and violence in the east left four Afghans and two militants dead...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:51:50
More than 1,000 NATO and Afghan troops clashed with Taliban and took over control of a district center in southern Afghanistan long held by the militants... The troops used helicopters, armored vehicles and infantry in their push toward the town of Sangin in Helmand province, the world's biggest opium-producing region...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:51:28
Israel is reviewing a list of hundreds of Palestinians prisoners that Gaza militants want released in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier...
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:08:49
At least 20 crew members are missing after two Cambodian and Chinese cargo ships collided off the east coast of China... The Cambodian vessel sank after the collision... Nineteen of the missing crew were Chinese, the other was Indian...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:51:12
A jeep carrying a gelatin-based explosive used for a highway construction project exploded in a south Indian village on Saturday, killing 16 people and injuring 22 more... "The villagers saw smoke emerging from the jeep and stopped it. The driver and his assistant and some villagers tried to put out the fire by throwing sand on it, when the explosion took place..." in Chendur village, 80 miles south of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:04:47
Army Pfc.
Jay S. Cajimat
, 20, of Lahaina, Hawaii, died April 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his unit. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:04:19
Army Sgt. Forrest D. Cauthorn, 22, of Midlothian, Va., died April 5 in Hawijah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit came into contact with enemy forces using small arms and grenades during combat operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
Digital Consequences
blogs.pcworld.com/ ... 12:18:46
Kevin Garrard, a soldier in the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, was shot in the chest by an insurgent with an AK-47 at very close range. A bullet of this caliber at close range would normally pierce through body armor, but this was Kevins lucky day. He had his
20-gig iPod
in his jacket pocket. The bullet struck the iPod and
slowed down the projectile
enough that his body armor stopped the hot lead from piercing his chest...
World Zookeeping
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:10:48
A worldwide scientific effort to catalog every living species has topped the 1 million milestone. Six years into the program the total has reached 1,009,000... They hope to complete the listing by 2011, reaching an expected total of about 1.75 million species...
Healing Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:06:19
A 2-year-old Indiana boy who contracted a rare and life-threatening infection from his soldier father's smallpox vaccination is recovering... Doctors have relied on some untested measures to save the boy's life, including skin grafts and an experimental drug that has never been used to treat a human patient... he boy's pox lesions left him with the equivalent of second-degree burns, requiring grafts to let the underlying skin heal...
Why People Go Vegan
latimes.com/ ... 12:25:14
The MTA has TVs blasting ads at bus riders. It has ads wrapping around hundreds of buses. Now, in another attempt to generate cash, the transit agency has allowed McDonald's to transform Metro Rail's biggest subway terminal into a massive ad campaign for the company's new Angus burger. The 7th Street/Metro Center station in downtown Los Angeles is plastered with huge pictures of the burger on walls, ceilings, lining the columns. The ads are jarring some riders, who say the experience makes them want to never eat a burger again...
Reasons for Repeal
infoshop.org/ ... 12:20:03
Long-term and even daily marijuana use doesn't appear to cause permanent brain damage... researchers found only a "very small" impairment in memory and learning among long-term marijuana users. Otherwise,
scores on thinking tests were similar to those who don't smoke marijuana...
theolympian.com/ ... 12:19:10
For the first time since voters passed Proposition 215 more than a decade ago, state tax assessors are reaching out to the state's 150 to 200 estimated medical marijuana retailers to get them to pay their state and local sales tax...
Easter 2007
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:05:21
From Moscow to Washington, Rome to Jerusalem, Christians of the Orthodox and Western faiths celebrated Easter on Sunday, prayed for a better future and relished ancient rituals on the same day this year as their religious calendars coincided. The alignment of the Easter calendars, based on equinox and moon phases, occurs every few years, and this year's overlap made the narrow streets in the Holy Land especially crowded...
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:24:25
Pope Benedict led the world's Roman Catholics into the second Easter of his pontificate on Saturday night, telling them not to fear evil or even death... The basilica, which was kept in darkness, became a sea of flickers as the congregation lit thousands of candles before the lights were turned on. The gesture symbolized the darkness in the world after Christ's death and the light of the Easter resurrection...
chron.com/ ... 12:17:12
CHICAGO... Cardinal Francis George fractured a hip Saturday after he slipped and fell on the marble floor of a church while blessing Easter baskets... Because he suffered from polio as a child, George wears a brace on his right leg that causes him to fall occasionally...
Transport Pleasures
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:12:02
Betty and Bob Matas have retired and are moving to Arizona, but like many New Yorkers they don't drive, and they don't want their cats to travel all that way in an airliner cargo hold. Their solution: "Hey, cabbie..." They plan to leave Tuesday on the 2,400-mile trip to Sedona, Ariz., with Guldeniz driving his yellow SUV cab 10 hours a day for a flat fee of $3,000, plus gas, meals and lodging. They're getting a break. The standard, metered fare would be about $5,000 - each way...
Theory of Sex Education
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:05:17
UNION CITY, N.J... School district officials are trying to identify who watched $250 worth of pay-per-view pornographic movies using a school cable television box...
Sportsmanship
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:05:40
Elsie McLean thought she might have lost her ball on the par-3, 100-yard fourth hole at Bidwell Park. Instead, the 102-year-old Chico [Calif.] woman became the oldest golfer ever to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:04:35
After
3,272 miles
of exhaustion, sunburn, delirium and piranhas, a 52-year-old Slovenian... Martin Strel... successfully
completed a swim down the Amazon River
Saturday that could set a world record for distance - something he's already done three times before... He said he was lucky to have escaped encounters with piranhas, the dreaded toothpick fish, which swims into body orifices to suck blood, and even bull sharks that swim in shallow waters and can live for a while in fresh water...
Big Whoops Cascade
sfgate.com/ ... 12:22:39
With allegations of money mismanagement, threats of court action and some members leaving, a group that has sponsored war protests in President Bush's adopted hometown has been anything but peaceful. The Crawford Peace House recently lost its corporate charter with the state, and a former member who now has rights to the name is threatening legal action because the group continues operating. Sara L. Oliver and some others are calling for a state investigation as to why only $14,700 is now in its bank account, saying tens of thousands donated during Cindy Sheehan's 2005 war protest are unaccounted for...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 12:02:20
HOLTSVILLE, N.Y.... An audience expecting to watch a family film was stunned to get an glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents shaken and the theater chain apologizing for the movie mix-up... expecting to see "The Last Mimzy..." saw the opening scene of "The Hills Have Eyes 2..." starts with a chained woman giving birth to a mutant... patron said the episode had left his 3-year-old son with lingering, and unsettling, questions. "My wife is eight months pregnant, and he's been asking, 'Is that what mommy's going to have?'..."
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:57:10
Far from straying into Iranian territory, the British crew say they were well within Iraqi waters when Revolutionary Guards rammed their vessels and trained machine guns on them... Once arrested, they were blindfolded, their hands tied and lined up against a wall, while they could hear the sound of guns being cocked... They were kept isolated, in small cells, subjected to aggressive questioning and what they called "mind games". They were told to confess on camera, or risk up to seven years in jail... the footage of them we saw was, they told us, a massive propaganda stunt... Of course Iran now disputes that account, and claims the sailors' news conference was staged to win propaganda points. The war of words between the two sides over this saga goes on...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:53:37
An Iranian diplomat freed two months after being abducted in Iraq accused the CIA of torturing him during his detention, state television reported Saturday. The United States immediately denied any involvement in the Iranian's disappearance or release... "The United States had nothing to do with Mr. Sharafi's detention and we welcome his return to Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman who was with President Bush in Texas on Saturday. "The Iranian propaganda machine has been in overdrive since they paraded the British sailors around on TV. This is just the latest theatrics of a government trying to deflect attention away from its own unacceptable actions..."
SAT 2007-APR-07
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:41:13
BARABOO, Wis... A peeping Tom seen peering into a second-floor window... fled... but he left a key piece of evidence behind - his ladder...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:38:38
President Hamid Karzai acknowledged for the first time Friday he has met with Taliban militants in attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, which is struggling to quell a rising insurgency. Karzai's assertion - immediately rejected as false by a Taliban spokesman - came as a suicide car bomber killed four people and wounded four others in Kabul, and militants overran a district in the volatile southeast...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:35:42
Media rights groups and family members demanded an investigation Saturday into the death of a Mexican journalist gunned down after leaving his radio show in Acapulco. Amado Ramirez, a reporter for top Mexican television news network Televisa, was killed Friday night by two gunmen waiting at his a car... The gunmen escaped, and the motive for the killing was not immediately clear...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:15:13
In a bold challenge to the government, a firebrand cleric said Friday he had formed an Islamic court to enforce a Taliban-style vice campaign in the Pakistani capital, threatening suicide attacks if authorities try to stop him...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:48:16
Army Pfc.
Daniel A. Fuentes
, 19, of Levittown, N.Y., died April 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when in improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:47:50
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joseph C.Schwedler
, 27,of Crystal Falls, Mich., died April 6 from enemy action while conducting combat operations in the Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Schwedler was assigned to Navy SEAL Team Four, Virginia Beach, Va.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:47:14
Army Spc
Jason A. Shaffer
, 28, of Derry, Pa., died April 5 in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when a vehicle-born improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Shaffer was assigned to 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:40:06
When movies shifted from videocassettes to DVD, retailers simply cleared the tapes off the shelves to make room for discs. That's not so easy now that movies appear poised to follow music onto the Internet... Wal-Mart has launched its own movie download service, Best Buy is said to be in talks to start one, and Blockbuster explored buying movie download company Movielink earlier this year...
Reporting Science
reuters.com/ ... 11:39:37
Scientists clashed with government officials at a U.N. panel on climate change on Friday over how strongly global warming is affecting plants and animals and the degree to which humans are causing temperatures to rise...
Theory of Education
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:38:18
Hundreds of girls at a Mexican boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns have been hit by a mystery illness that the authorities say is psychological... unclear what causes the symptoms, which include difficulty walking and nausea... Some 600 of the 4,000 pupils... have been affected... has prompted allegations of abuse by the nuns... Once the school told students in March about the findings, 80% recovered. About 130 pupils are still experiencing symptoms... The girls are only allowed to see their families three times a year. Some of the students have complained of strict punishments like being made to sleep in an animal enclosure. Some also complained about the nuns treating them with traditional Asian medicine...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:37:05
CARLSBAD, Calif... Kids at a suburban San Diego high school couldn't even get through their classroom doors Friday. With only a day to go before spring break, vandals plugged locks on all the exterior gates and doors on campus with super-strength adhesive... Roughly 100 doors... Surveillance video... failed to provide any clues...
FRI 2007-APR-06
Digital Threat
news.com.com/ ... 10:51:53
Kaspersky Lab on Thursday said it has discovered the first virus designed to infect iPods. At the same time, the Russian antivirus company said that the virus, dubbed Podloso, does not pose a real threat...
WW1 - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 09:37:51
Canada will remove the French-language exhibit at a major military memorial after a reporter discovered it was riddled with grammatical errors... numerous mistakes in interpretive panels at Vimy Ridge in France, where more than 10,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded in April 1917 during World War One... The errors were in an exhibit at the visitors' center next to the memorial, which took 11 years to build and was officially unveiled in 1936...
Under Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 09:36:44
China's broadcasting watchdog has issued a list of rules governing the airing of its latest take on the "American Idol" television series, urging the singing contest "Happy Boys Voice" to uphold high moral standards. Contestants on "Happy Boys Voice" must choose songs that are "healthy and ethically inspiring" in order to create a good atmosphere for China's 17th Party Congress, the Communist Party's five-yearly leadership meeting to be held later this year. "No weirdness, no vulgarity and no low taste..."
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:32:45
Two French tourists are missing after 1,600 passengers and crew were evacuated from a stricken cruise ship off the Greek island of Santorini. A 45-year-old man and his daughter... The Greek-flagged Sea Diamond issued a distress signal on Thursday after running aground and taking on water... The ship sank 15 hours after the accident...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:21:10
A bus carrying passengers on the start of the Easter holiday crashed in northern Colombia Thursday, igniting a blaze that killed 27 people, including six children... A rear tire blew out... vehicle flipped over and the fuel tank exploded...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:54:10
Royal Navy personnel seized by Iran were
blindfolded, bound and held in isolation
during their 13 days in captivity, the crew have said. They were also
subject to random interrogation and rough handling
, and faced constant psychological pressure. In a joint statement the crew also stressed that they were inside Iraqi waters at the time of the capture. Royal Marine Captain Chris Air said it became apparent that opposing their captors was "not an option." "If we had, some of us would not be here today, of that I am completely sure... We realised that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won and with consequences major strategic impacts. We made a conscious decision not to engage the Iranians and do as they asked...." spent nights in stone cells, sleeping on piles of blankets...
lined up against a wall while weapons were cocked
, making them "fear the worst"...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:44:29
Iran exerted "pyschological pressure" on 15 British naval personnel it held for 13 days, a top British officer said Friday as he defended their actions and a military inquiry started into the capture of the group...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:33:50
...First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band said the crew "reacted extremely well in very difficult circumstances". Admiral Band also said British boarding operations being carried out in the Gulf had been "absolutely proper", but there would be a "complete review". He was reacting to criticism that the crew, freed on Thursday after being held for 13 days, gave up too easily...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:33:21
Saudi security forces have killed a suspect in the murder of four French citizens on 26 February... Security forces went to arrest the suspect at a residential building in Medina when they were fired upon... One policeman was killed and two were wounded in the exchange of gunfire... identified the suspect as Waleed bin Mutliq al-Radadi, one of the most wanted Islamist militants in Saudi Arabia...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:30:40
A suicide car bomber hit a police checkpoint in Afghanistan's capital Friday, killing four people, including a policeman who tried to stop him... At least four other civilians were wounded...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:29:44
The 15 British sailors and marines captured and held in Iran said in a joint statement that they got through the ordeal "by staying together as a team..." Britain insisted the crew was on a routine operation when seized - but Sky News reported Thursday that Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air said in an interview days before his capture that his crew was gathering intelligence on Iran during their patrols. Sky said it held the interview because it thought it could hamper the crew's release. Defense Ministry officials denied the sailors and marines had an intelligence role, but said they routinely spoke to commanders of vessels using the Persian Gulf and Shatt Al-Arab waterway to determine who was using shipping routes...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:28:08
A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with TNT and toxic chlorine gas crashed into a police checkpoint in western Ramadi on Friday, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens...
In the deep south of the country, the Basra police commander said the type of roadside bomb used in an attack that killed four British soldiers on Thursday had not been seen in the region previously. Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Moussawi's description of the deadly weapon indicated it was a feared Iranian-designed explosively formed penetrator...
South of Baghdad, Iraqi forces backed by American paratroopers swept into... Diwaniyah... a troubled, predominantly Shiite city before dawn, and the U.S. military said as many as six militia fighters had been killed... eight others were wounded and five detained...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:18:10
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of "bad behaviour" for holding talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad... that Ms Pelosi bungled the delivery of a message from Israeli PM Ehud Olmert. Ms Pelosi told Mr Assad Israel was "ready to engage in peace talks". Israel later said this was contingent on Syria ending "support for terror". A spokesman for Ms Pelosi said she had made it clear the issues were linked...
reuters.com/ ... 09:17:34
The United States is putting pressure on Iran by supporting anti-Iranian militants operating from the Pakistani border region, the speaker of Iran's parliament, Gholamali Haddadadel, said on Thursday... "There is no doubt in our minds that the United States spares no effort to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran.... The best indication of United States' support to a particular terrorist group is that one of the leaders of this terrorist group was given the opportunity to speak on VoA after committing the crime..."
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:31:31
Two more clips mocking Thailand's revered king have appeared on the video-sharing website YouTube... Thailand's decision to block the YouTube site has drawn sharp criticism from media rights groups, who say it highlights an increasing amount of censorship by the military-backed government which came to power after September's coup...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:06:46
A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to Google Inc.'s YouTube... On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state - a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey...
Digital Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 08:54:43
TACOMA, Wash... Everything including the kitchen sink was stripped from a rental home after an Internet classified ad invited people to take whatever they wanted for free. But the landlord says the ad, posted last weekend on the craigslist Web site, was fake...
Yuck!
reuters.com/ ... 08:52:45
A British dentist was found guilty Thursday of urinating in his surgery sink and using dental tools meant for patients to clean his fingernails and ears... "routinely" did not wear gloves or wash his hands...
A later hearing will decide if... he should banned from practicing...
In the Line of Duty
nydailynews.com/ ... 10:49:50
A veteran FBI agent was shot to death yesterday by a fellow G-man as they closed in on a heavily armed bank robbery crew...
Barry Lee Bush
, 52, was in a car that tried to block one suspect acting as a scout for his accomplices... A van full of officers pulled up next to the suspect's car, and one of the agents accidentally fired his rifle as he leaped out. The bullet struck Bush's car and clipped him in the armpit, where he was not covered by his bulletproof vest... the first FBI agent killed in the line of duty since Sept. 11, 2001...
Cosmology
sciencedaily.com/ ... 09:47:43
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered an unrivalled snapshot of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672. This remarkable image provides a high definition view of the galaxys large bar, its fields of star-forming clouds and dark bands of interstellar dust... stronomers believe that barred spirals have a unique mechanism that channels gas from the disk inwards towards the nucleus. This allows the bar portion of the galaxy to serve as an area of new star generation. It appears that the bars are short-lived, begging the question: will non-barred galaxies develop a bar in the future, or have they already hosted one that has disappeared?..
Digital Future is Now
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 09:40:12
When the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov envisioned a future shared by human beings and robots, he predicted that the mechanical servants of tomorrow would be safely controlled by only three simple laws. But when Japans notoriously zealous bureaucracy looks into the future, it sees robots enmeshed in miles of red tape. Three laws, the robotics experts say, are nowhere near sufficient to ensure human safety in a world where cleaning, carrying and even cooking could one day be performed by machines. So the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has drafted a hugely complex set of proposals for keeping robots in check...
Animal Companions
abcnews.go.com/ ... 10:50:07
Pet food processor Menu Foods has expanded its recall to include more varieties of food, while another manufacturer Sunshine Mills is recalling more than 20 dog biscuit brands sold by Wal-Mart...
reuters.com/ ... 09:36:06
A Chinese company at the centre of a contamination scare that has led to a recall of pet foods in North America and Europe
said on Friday it had never exported wheat gluten to the United States...
Healing Ourselves
playfuls.com/ ... 10:52:16
A mind-altering mutation in mice results in an enhanced long-term memory... These findings point to a potential target for the development of a drug to treat memory loss...
reuters.com/ ... 09:15:11
Treating cancer with surgery, chemotherapy or radiation may sometimes cause tumors to spread... [because of] a compound called TGF-beta... chemotherapy drug doxorubicin or radiation both raised levels of TGF-beta, which in turn helped breast cancer tumors spread to the lung... using an antibody to block TGF-beta stopped the process...
Extraterrestrial
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:14:15
Voters in a southern New Mexico county have approved a tax to raise an estimated $49 million toward a $198 million tourism spaceport... Residents of Dona Ana County voted on the sales tax Tuesday in what backers said was a make-or-break election for the state-supported Spaceport America... envisions starting suborbital rocket flights, at about $200,000 a person, in 2009. Eventually, the spaceport could offer trips into orbit and beyond...
World Zookeeping
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:12:49
One of the rarest species of rabbit in the world has been spotted for only the third time in the last 35 years. The Sumatran striped rabbit...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:11:47
Army Pfc.
James J. Coon
, 22, of Walnut Creek, Calif., died April 4 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when in improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Coon was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
In our genes
reuters.com/ ... 09:09:05
Dogs vary dramatically in size, more so than any other mammal. The key to those differences appears to lie in a variant of [a single gene] the IGF1 growth gene... By learning how genes control body size in dogs, the researchers believe they can gain an understanding about skeletal size in humans. It may also lead to a greater knowledge of the role genes play in diseases like cancer, in which the ability of regulate cell growth is lost...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:03:58
The most infamous feud in American folklore, the long-running battle between the Hatfields and McCoys, may be partly explained by a rare, inherited disease... Von Hippel-Lindau disease... that can lead to hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts. Dozens of McCoy descendants apparently have the disease, which causes high blood pressure, racing hearts, severe headaches and too much adrenaline and other "fight or flight" stress hormones... Several genetic experts have known about the disease plaguing some of the McCoys for decades, but kept it secret... cause tumors in the eyes, ears, pancreas, kidney, brain and spine...
Feeding Ourselves
reuters.com/ ... 08:59:15
A Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruits, vegetables and olive oil can help reduce childhood respiratory allergies and asthma...
reuters.com/ ... 08:58:58
Twenty-five percent of all bottled water is actually repackaged tap water... tests on 1,000 bottles of 103 different brands of bottled water found man-made chemicals, bacteria and arsenic in 22 percent of the bottles...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
chicoer.com/ ... 10:59:38
Another large Chico area indoor marijuana growing operation was busted Wednesday, the third in 10 days. As was the case in the previous raids, the grower had a medical marijuana recommendation, but was growing more plants than allowed... 210 marijuana plants of various ages throughout the residence. About 4.5 pounds of processed marijuana was found as well...
naplesnews.com/ ... 10:58:12
The Florida Highway Patrol has shut down a marijuana-growing operation at a Lehigh Acres home, seizing 51 plan[t]s with an estimated
[b.s. inflated prohib-propaganda]
street value of $120,000... Agents received information that someone was growing marijuana... found part of the home had been converted into a marijuana-growing operation, with lights, fans, air conditioning, Co2 distributors and timers...
sfgate.com/ ... 10:55:44
A 19-year-old San Jose man and a teenager have been arrested for allegedly growing marijuana on property near the Calaveras Reservoir, where authorities said they confiscated more than 8,000 plants this week... The suspects are Mexican citizens... Authorities estimate that the site could have produced marijuana with a
[grossly inflated prohibition-supported propagandistic by-the-joint]
street value of $16 million if the harvest had gone well. The plants were about an inch tall when discovered this week...
courant.com/ ... 10:54:06
...16 plastic sandwich bags of marijuana police said they found inside the pouch of a stuffed bunny on his car floor... After police searched his car and found more marijuana and a digital scale, police said, [25yo] was charged with possession of marijuana, operating a drug factory, possession with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school and several motor vehicle violations... At the time of his arrest... was wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with the words "D.A.R.E. To Resist Drugs And Violence..."
Theory of Education
wcbstv.com/ ... 09:45:37
...Brooklyn... A 13-year-old girl was handcuffed and placed under arrest in front of her classmates in Dyker Heights after she wrote "Okay" on her desk... [Mother:] "I'm appalled, because here we have rapists, murderers, and you're taking a 13-year-old kid? Wasting valuable manpower to arrest a child who wrote on a desk?.."
US Congress
users1.wsj.com/ ... 09:59:15
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi may well have committed a felony
in traveling to Damascus this week... The "Logan Act" makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, "without authority of the United States,"...
[javascript & subscription required to see entire article]
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:43:08
USA Today editorial: ...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi crossed a line
this week by visiting Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad. She
violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad
- even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home... No matter that she claimed to have stuck closely to administration positions in her conversations with Assad, smiling photos of Pelosi and the Syrian president convey the unspoken message that while the U.S. president is unwilling to talk with Syria, another wing of the government is. Assad made good use of the moment...
Supernatural Threats
variety.com/ ... 09:41:20
The Coca Cola Company has taken legal action against producers of a spirituality themed Italian film set in present day Israel in which Jesus drinks a can of Coke in the desert... "We are not interested in this kind of product placement," a Coca Cola Italia spokeswoman said...
Reporting Science
playfuls.com/ ... 10:48:54
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed a new report outlining the serious effects of global warming, and
urged governments to adopt prompt action to avert extreme weather
and its effects on the world population...
[Yes, we must pass laws to stop solar winds from pushing cosmic rays aside, which causes global warming!...]
reuters.com/ ... 09:35:18
Climate experts issued their starkest warning yet about the impact of global warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the Himalayas, in a report on Friday that increased pressure on governments to act. More than 100 nations in the U.N. climate panel agreed a final text after all-night talks during which some scientists accused governments of watering down conclusions that climate change was already under way and damaging nature... The report said
warming, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels,
would cause desertification, droughts and rising seas and would hit hard in the tropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to Pacific islands...
People are Born
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:03
Nine-month-old conjoined twin girls who were born with connected livers and hearts have been successfully separated in groundbreaking surgery. Bangkok's Siriraj hospital claims the 12-hour operation is a "world first"... separated in late February by a team of 61 medical staff including five heart surgeons... at eight-months-old... "From our research, there are no twins who were connected by their hearts and livers who survived. This is the first time in the world..."
Thailand has a long history of famous conjoined twins. Chang and Eng Bunker, born there in 1811, were one of the first sets of conjoined twins to be shown to the world, coining the phrase "Siamese Twins." Both travelled to US and later married two American sisters and had more than 20 children between them.
Your Government at Play
reuters.com/ ... 09:16:17
Police in Florida have arrested an activist for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando... charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of destitute people in the city center... filmed by undercover officers on Wednesday as he served "30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle..." Police collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence...
Digital Business
playfuls.com/ ... 10:51:29
"The Wow Begins Now" was the campaign's tagline... But two months after the launch, Windows Vista is proving such a disappointment to many users that a new version of the catchphrase is making the circuits in internet forums and blogs: "The woes begin now..."
theinquirer.net/ ... 10:50:48
MICROSOFT is being sued over its Vista marketing strategies over misleading "Windows Vista Capable" labels on new computers. The issue was raised by customer Dianne Kelley who is miffed that "Windows Vista Capable" machines are able to run Vista Home Basic, but not necessarily the Premium edition, which features all the funky new Vista-specific Mac-a-like shiny stuff...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:55:01
Agence France-Presse, a global news agency based in Paris, said Friday it has reached an agreement with Google Inc. that will allow the Internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP. The deal settles a copyright infringement lawsuit that AFP filed in March 2005 accusing Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission...
reuters.com/ ... 09:22:24
While Internet companies are scanning libraries of books and making them available online, E Ink Corp., which emerged out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a decade ago, is seeing a surge in orders for its portable, foldable displays that mimic conventional paper to carry such books. "Nine different companies launched products last year based on the technology..." Sony's Reader tablet, whose black-and-white displays can be read in bright sunlight or a dimly lit room from almost any angle -- just like paper -- without traditional back-lit screens that chew up power... the displays are becoming more flexible and conserve power, they face other limitations such as working only in monochrome and failing to display video -- areas critical to attracting advertisers and consumers to the technology...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 09:05:11
VeriSign Inc... The master-keeper of Internet addresses ending in ".com" and ".net" - two of the most popular domain name suffixes - said Thursday it would raise fees charged to register those names... annual levy for ".com" will increase 7 percent to $6.42, and the ".net" fee will go up 10 percent to $3.85... With about 62 million ".com" names and 9.1 million ".net" names in use, VeriSign stands to ultimately make $29 million a year from the increase, which will take effect Oct. 15...
Democracy in Action
hosted.ap.org/ ... 08:56:08
MISSOURI CITY, Mo... Joe Selle... was running unopposed for City Council... didn't get any votes at all. Not even one from himself... said he simply forgot that Tuesday was election day, and apparently so did Ward 3's other 34 registered voters... the city charter lets him keep the seat... Turnout was better in Ward 2, where two people voted...
Age is No Barrier
reuters.com/ ... 08:53:32
A 95-year-old German woman solved a series of mystery thefts in a retirement home when she set a trap, hid in a toilet, and caught the thief red-handed...
THU 2007-APR-05
Digital Threat
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:30:12
World of Warcraft players are being targeted by hackers exploiting flaws in how Windows handles animated cursors... Warcraft players seem to be one of the targets because accounts for the game are potentially worth significant sums of money... Microsoft has issued a patch for the flaw...
Violence
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:24:34
A grenade has been thrown into a mosque in southern Thailand, injuring at least 14 people... in Yala province...
London 2005-July
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:24:02
Prosecutors filed charges Thursday against three people who allegedly conspired with suicide bombers in the attacks that killed 52 subway and bus passengers in London on July 7, 2005. For the first time, authorities alleged that the plot's targets may have included London tourist attractions... "The allegation is that they were involved in reconnaissance and planning..."
Transport Incident
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:25:05
Seventy-one people have been lightly injured after a commuter train hit the buffers as it pulled into one of Paris's main railway stations... 58 people were taken to a dozen hospitals...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:23:17
A cruise ship carrying 1,200 passengers and a crew of 400 was being evacuated off the Greek island of Santorini on Thursday after issuing a distress signal... The Sea Diamond was listing... More than a dozen ships in the area were involved in the evacuation...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 10:29:06
The United States would suffer losses if it attacked Iran but weight of numbers would ensure it eventually achieved air supremacy, Russian generals said on Thursday... Russia said in January it had completed delivery of TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran, provoking an outcry from Washington and its Middle East ally Israel who said the sale undermined regional security...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:28:12
The 15 Royal Navy sailors and marines held in Iran for almost two weeks are being reunited with their families... Tony Blair... contrasted the rejoicing at the return of the crew with the "sober and ugly reality" of the deaths of four British soldiers in Iraq in what he described as a "terrorist act"... he repeated allegations that there were "elements of the Iranian regime" that were "financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq"...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:27:11
Prime Minister Tony Blair has insisted no deal was done to free 15 Royal Navy crew members...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:26:48
A US helicopter has come down in southern Iraq after apparently coming under heavy fire from insurgents, according to reports by witnesses... The US military confirmed a helicopter had gone down with four people injured. But it did not specify the cause...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:17:55
Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip and shot dead a Palestinian... Five military vehicles penetrated 500 metres into farmland, sparking sporadic gunfights... Israeli army says it carried out a limited incursion to stop militants planting a bomb near the border...
Industrial Incident
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:17:04
GENEVA... A 43-foot-long magnet for the world's largest particle collider broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure test, and officials said Tuesday they are working to find a replacement part...
Theft
reuters.com/ ... 00:11:23
A volunteer for the U.S. National Archives has admitted stealing more than 150 American Civil War documents worth about $30,000 and peddling them on the Internet...
Under Digital Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:10:25
The Thai government blocked access to YouTube on Wednesday after complaining that a short clip on the popular video-sharing site is insulting to the country's beloved monarch. Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the country's minister of information and technology, said YouTube had turned down his request to remove the contentious 44-second video...
Epidemic Without Borders
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:08:23
The extent of the deadly new strain of tuberculosis in South Africa and the region is not known and is cause for concern... extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis strain, or XDR-TB... South Africa has reported 352 cases of the virulent strain since it was discovered last year in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. There have been 221 deaths and concerns have been raised about the strain spreading across the region...
Criminally Stupid
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:07:25
A seven-months-pregnant woman has been accused of soliciting money for sex in an advertisement on... craigslist.org... with her husband acting as her pimp... "She advertised that she was pregnant and married," and she did so with her husband's knowledge, said Cpl. Sara Schriver, a police spokeswoman. "I have not heard of this before..." charged with prostitution, scheduling an act of prostitution and operating a house of prostitution. Her husband was charged with the latter two offenses...
Hospitals can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:02:36
An Air Force veteran has filed a federal claim after an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one...
World Zookeeping
reuters.com/ ... 10:29:28
The world's first rhino calf born through artificial insemination thrilled scores of children and journalists in her press debut at Budapest Zoo on Thursday...
Feeding Ourselves
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:22:15
A Chinese company... Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. in the eastern city of Xuzhou... accused of selling chemically contaminated wheat gluten linked to pet food deaths of cats and dogs in the U.S. said Thursday it sells most of its wheat gluten within China. That raised concerns that people or animals in China may have been exposed to tainted wheat gluten...
Antiquity - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:13:44
Archaeologists on a Greek island have discovered a large Roman-era tomb containing gold jewelry, pottery and bronze offerings... near the village of Fiscardo on Kefalonia, contained five burials including a large vaulted grave and a stone coffin... had been missed by grave-robbers...
[er... until now, one might cynically note...]
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:12:52
A rib bone supposedly found at the site where French heroine Joan of Arc was burned at the stake is actually that of an Egyptian mummy...
Animal Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:15:10
The eight bonobos at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa howled Tuesday as they watched two trumpeter swans dip into a lake for the first time. Who can blame them? Not only will the apes get new neighbors, they'll get a chance to name the rare birds...
Bonobos walk on two legs and are the most humanlike in appearance of the great apes. They have sophisticated language skills, a trait they'll demonstrate when asked to name the swans...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:05:36
Employees and customers at a downtown Chicago Quiznos sandwich shop were stunned to see a coyote walk through the propped-open front door Tuesday afternoon and lie down in a cooler stocked with fruit juice and soda... Employees and customers calmly cleared out of the restaurant, though some took the time to finish their sandwiches and snap some cell-phone photos... Animal control officers took the passive coyote away after about 40 minutes... The city captures 10 to 15 coyotes every year, especially in the spring when they are most active...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:03:32
A black wolf snatched a small dog near a Juneau lake and ran into the woods with it... A woman was walking three dogs Tuesday at Mendenhall Lake when the wolf grabbed the unleashed Pomeranian then dashed off with the dog in its jaws... believed to be a wolf nicknamed Romeo and known for playing with larger dogs accompanying people on walks...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 00:00:28
More than three-quarters of people given protective face masks put them on incorrectly, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday in a study showing confusion about using the breathing aids in an emergency or pandemic...
Human Right
reuters.com/ ... 10:30:38
Eritrea has banned female circumcision, a life-threatening tradition that aid groups say afflicts some 90 percent of the country's women. A government statement issued on Thursday said anyone who requested, took part in or promoted the practice now faced a fine of several hundred dollars or up to 10 years in jail...
Marriage Today
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:26:08
Uganda's adultery law has been scrapped by the Constitutional Court because it treated men and women unequally... made it an offence for a married woman to have an affair, but it allowed a cheating husband to have an affair with an unmarried woman.
The attorney general said the move may encourage immorality and promiscuity...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
siouxcityjournal.com/ ... 00:27:59
A New Mexico man was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in federal prison for supplying hundreds of pounds of marijuana to a Sioux City man... a confidential source told authorities about drug trafficking activities...
wdbj7.com/ ... 00:27:02
Two unmarked state police cars were part of a three-vehicle accident that blocked southbound traffic on Interstate 81 this morning near Christiansburg in Montgomery County. State police say they found five pounds of marijuana in the vehicle they were pursuing... A trooper pulled over a 1995 Saab for making an improper lane change
[Yeah, sure, another case of profiling and hassling, probably.]
. While the trooper processed the stop, the Saab took off, headed north on I-81...
[idiot, anyway]
wdbj7.com/ ... 00:25:26
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. A Scottsville man initially believed to have grown
[absurdly-inflated prohibition-supported]
four-point-eight (m) million dollars worth of
[the relatively innocuous herb]
marijuana has pleaded guilty to manufacturing much less of the drug... The actual
[stupidly-inflated drug-warriors-bull$#!+ by-the-joint]
street value of the seized marijuana, court records show, was 35-thousand dollars... [52yo] tells authorities he
grew the plants for his ailing wife
, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Defense attorneys said [she] smoked the marijuana to combat the effects of her medication, which made her nauseated and unable to keep food down...
He still faces a maximum sentence of 30 years...
10news.com/ ... 00:22:12
SAN DIEGO -- Three San Diego County residents were arraigned Tuesday on separate but related felony complaints charging them with conspiracy to grow marijuana plants and growing marijuana plants... [34yo] arrested following the execution of a search warrant at his log cabin located on a 39-acre parcel in Santa Ysabel last Wednesday... sophisticated clandestine indoor marijuana growing operation consisting of 454 marijuana plants that was concealed underground, accessible by a concealed closet elevator in a garage structure on the parcel... 4-foot wide, 65-foot tunnel that led to the large underground grow rooms with irrigation, lighting, electrical and ventilation systems...
zwire.com/ ... 00:20:26
Medical marijuana makes living with aids bearable... For nearly a year, Rhode Island has allowed me and others living with this disease to have legal access to something that helps: Medical marijuana. But if the legislature doesn't act, we will lose that protection at the end of June...
regulus2.azstarnet.com/ ... 00:19:56
A 69-year-old man was arrested after officials say he tried to smuggle 70 pounds of marijuana into the country in hollowed out logs of wood... on Monday at the Sasabe port of entry...
Nature vs Infrastructure
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:16:29
The Global Positioning System, relied on for everything from navigating cars and airplanes to transferring money between banks, may be threatened by powerful solar flares... "Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather..." an unexpected solar radio burst on Dec. 6... affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position...
Reporting Science
reuters.com/ ... 00:12:31
Earth's dusty neighbor Mars is grappling with its own form of climate change as fluctuating solar radiation is kicking up dust and winds that may be melting the planet's southern polar ice cap...
[And then, stated as if it were established scientific fact:]
On earth, carbon dioxide traps infrared radiation which can affect global climate. This a phenomenon is known as the greenhouse effect. Fossil fuel emissions add to the problem.
Digital Culture
reuters.com/ ... 10:29:42
China's first gay chat show goes live on the Internet...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:21:23
The Thai government retained a ban on YouTube on Thursday despite the removal from the video-sharing site of a short clip deemed insulting to the country's beloved monarch... The site still featured at least one still frame from the contentious 44-second video... A notice posted on the page where the video once sat said the item had "been removed by the user..."
reuters.com/ ... 00:14:12
FBI investigators have visited Second Life's Internet casinos at the invitation of the virtual world's creator Linden Lab, but the U.S. government has not decided on the legality of virtual gambling...
reuters.com/ ... 00:11:00
Videos removed at the behest of copyright owners accounted for only a small percentage of viewership on top online video service YouTube, according to a study published this week, drawing the ire of media companies that dispute this conclusion...
Big Whoops Cascade
hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:04:13
A Wichita man is recovering from a gunshot wound to the hand from a pistol that was thrown in the trash... was helping unload trash Tuesday and accidentally hit the trigger...
People Live
reuters.com/ ... 00:01:26
A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement...
WED 2007-APR-04
Fraud
heraldnet.com/ ... 11:12:35
[30yo] woman who posed as a teenage boy was arrested Sunday for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old girl who believed the older woman was her boyfriend... lived for more than a year as a 17-year-old boy... persuaded the girl's family to let "Mark" live in their home as the girl's boyfriend... claimed to be an orphan... allegedly had beaten and sexually assaulted the girl...
Nature can be Dangerous
breitbart.com/ ... 11:07:38
Tsunami survivors tell of 'boiling sea' and miracle escapes... "There was nowhere for me to run -- I run to the sea and the sea is boiling, I run to the mountain and the mountain shakes..."
headlines.accuweather.com/ ... 11:05:23
(State College, PA) - Near-blizzard conditions continue today across the northern Great Lakes, while the threat of severe thunderstorms shifts to the mid-Atlantic coast, one day after the clash of cold air from Canada and warm moist air sparked a widespread outbreak of hail and damaging thunderstorms across the Plains and Midwest... heavy snow continues today across the upper Great Lakes... 350 reports of hail, including some that were larger than a grapefruit... 100 reports of strong wind and at least 5 unconfirmed
tornadoes... took place on the 33rd anniversary of the "Super Outbreak of 1974", the worst 24-hour weather event in U.S. history that created 148 tornadoes in 13 states...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:56:39
At least 44 people have died in fierce fighting in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan... heavily armed local tribesmen began to act on a tribal council edict to drive out foreign militants linked to al-Qaeda. Reports says Pakistan's army is also involved, and that three soldiers have been killed...
theaustralian.news.com.au/ ... 11:01:27
SECURITY surrounding the Dalai Lama has been tightened after reports of an attempt by the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba to assassinate the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader... The Dalai Lama is scheduled to make a widely anticipated 11-day visit to cities and regional centres across Australia in early June, making both free and ticketed appearances at public lectures, blessings and teaching sessions. Before that, he will visit the US...
Under Tyranny
news.sky.com/ ... 10:57:55
Iran is freeing the 15 UK sailors and marines taken captive in the Shatt al Arab waterway 13 days ago as a "gift" to Britain... to mark the birthday of Islam's Prophet Mohammed and Easter... They are expected to return to Britain tomorrow...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:54:43
National Guard... This week, the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard announced an increase, while the Army and Marine Corps had a decrease. The net collective result is
62 more
reservists mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to
79,958
, including both units and individual augmentees....
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:56:08
Army Staff Sgt.
Shane R. Becker
, 35, of Helena, Mont., died April 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire. Becker was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:55:43
Army Pfc.
Gabriel J. Figueroa
, 20, of Baldwin Park, Calif., died April 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire. Figueroa was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:55:13
Army Spc.
Curtis R. Spivey
, 25, of Chula Vista, Calif., died April 2 in San Diego of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations on Sep. 16, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. Spivey was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:53:54
Army Spc.
Alan E. McPeek
, 20, of Tucson, Ariz., assigned to the 16th Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Giessen, Germany
Army Pvt.
Matthew T. Zeimer
, 18, of Glendive, Mont. McPeek was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.
died Feb. 2 in Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries sustained when they came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire. [SIC] On April 4, 2007 the Army announced an ongoing unit-level investigation into the circumstances of the soldiers' deaths and that friendly fire is suspected.
Big Brother
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:13:36
The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter's phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co... As part of the surveillance, the retailer last year had a long-haired employee infiltrate an anti-Wal-Mart group to determine if it planned protests at the company's annual meeting... company also deployed cutting-edge monitoring systems... that allowed it to capture and record the actions of anyone connected to its global computer network...
Theory of Education
thestar.com/ ... 11:02:44
A suspended [49yo female] Toronto elementary school principal has pleaded guilty to throwing feces (excrement) on a child... "I couldnt take it any more..." But she agreed it wasn't in any way justified...
World Without Borders
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:00:03
U.S. Immigration arrested 60 to 70 sanitation workers early Wednesday at Cargill's pork plant in Beardstown, Illinois...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
nbc4.com/ ... 11:08:10
White House Advisor Karl Rove was the target of a protest on the American University campus Tuesday night... Rove was on the campus to talk to the College Republicans, but when he got outside more than a dozen students began throwing things at his car... students then got on the ground and lay down in front of his car as a protest...
militarytimes.com/ ... 10:59:43
The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget... This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committees Democratic leadership doesnt like the phrase... A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says... defense policy should be specific about military operations and "avoid using colloquialisms..." The "global war on terror," a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the "long war," which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years...
TUE 2007-APR-03
Animals can be Dangerous
breitbart.com/ ... 22:57:27
MEXICO CITY... A spider monkey that escaped from a Mexico City zoo boarded a bus and attacked a passenger... got on the bus at about 11 p.m... sat next to the bus driver for almost an hour as he drove through the city, and scratched and bit a 20-year-old female passenger when she tried to hold it...
[Just monkey talk for leave me the heck alone!]
Scary Times
kpho.com/ ... 22:55:25
MESA, Ariz. -- A middle school student who allegedly confronted a girl with a knife and was later found with a backpack full of restraining devices and weapons faces a series of charges, including terrorism... County officials said two weeks ago, the teen had plotted a "Columbine-like" scenario...
Transport Incident
starbulletin.com/ ... 22:54:40
The Coast Guard is looking for those responsible for pointing a green laser at airplanes landing in Barbers Point in two incidents this year. After the incidents in late February and early March, the Coast Guard flight crews were checked immediately at Tripler Army Medical Center. They were not injured...
breitbart.com/ ... 22:54:23
A Honolulu-bound jetliner was diverted on Tuesday when a female passenger who had smoked in the lavatory became unruly... was over the Pacific Ocean when the passenger hit a pilot who had left the cockpit to quell the disturbance... "She appeared to be out of her mind. Upset. Belligerent..."
Fun can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:47:51
CHICAGO... A woman is suing her dance partner, claiming he dropped her on her head after flipping her into the air at an office party... suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries. She is seeking damages for medical bills and lost wages for time missed from work...
Socialism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:46:49
MEXICO CITY... The city's new mayor said he hopes to offer high-speed wireless Internet to all 8.7 million residents of this sprawling metropolis, even as it struggles to supply basic services such as water and electricity...
Violence
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:50
An Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq in February has been freed... walked back into the embassy off the streets of the Iraqi capital... No-one has admitted seizing him, but Iraqi officials had been working for his release - and that of five Iranian officials seized by the US in January...
Under Tyranny
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:38
President Hugo Chavez's government may have banned liquor in the days leading up to Easter Sunday to cut road deaths, but "Blondie" the barman still pours a bracing "Coca Cola" for hard-drinking Venezuelans. "Long live the dry law," he said with a grin as he handed out another round of Cokes with rum. Sales of booze after 5 p.m. are now officially prohibited until April 9. Yet despite the ban, it is almost as easy as ever to get a drink in Caracas, although bartenders have to be careful. In restaurants, beer or whisky bottles are removed from tables, and some even serve wine in coffee cups...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:08
North Korean diplomats stationed overseas are reportedly refusing an order to send their children home... The order was issued earlier this year in an apparent attempt to stop defections from the hardline regime... But South Korea's Yonhap news agency said diplomats were resisting the order, in an "unprecedented" move. Yonhap quoted an unnamed source as saying the incident could trigger a "major political scandal", given how unusual it is for North Korea's ruling Communist Party to be disobeyed...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 22:44:31
President George W. Bush's administration has crippled al Qaeda's ability to carry out major attacks on U.S. soil
but at a political and economic cost that could leave the country more vulnerable in years to come, experts say... Some experts warn that the successes of Bush's war on terrorism have been undercut by huge security costs, strains on the U.S. military from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and resentment of the United States abroad...
reuters.com/ ... 22:43:35
U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed at least 10 Taliban fighters on Tuesday in an attack on a compound in the southern province of Helmand after a tip-off that a junior commander was hiding there... two Taliban fighters were also captured...
In the western province of Farah, NATO and Afghan forces raided a mosque and captured 22 Taliban they said were being trained for suicide and other attacks...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:41:09
The Sri Lankan army says it captured four Tamil Tiger bases and killed 23 rebels in clashes in the east of the island overnight... no comment from the Tamil Tigers...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
myfoxtampabay.com/ ... 00:02:52
DAVENPORT One by one, more than two dozen suspected internet child predators were arrested Sunday upon their arrival at Polk County home wired with cameras... arrested and charged with trying to solicit sex with a child over the internet... a sting operation based in Polk County, and they arrived at the home expecting sex with a child they'd been chatting online with... in four days, detectives sprung their trap on at least 28 suspected internet predators. Men from across the state were arrested in the sting... The sheriff says one in every seven children on the internet has been solicited for sex... Of the 28 men arrested, three of them were employees at Walt Disney World...
Nature can be Deadly
theage.com.au/ ... 00:00:40
The daughter of a New Zealand man has told how her father died trying to save his elderly parents in the Solomon Islands tsunami... visiting his parents for the first time in 18 years when the tsunami hit...
Staying Healthy
reuters.com/ ... 22:46:27
vitamin-rich camel milk can cleanse the body both inside and out. "It does give you a nice complexion..." the Spanish-trained engineer is now looking at the possibility of making camel milk cosmetics...
Prehistory - still with us
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:45:27
Italian researchers have found the skeleton of a 33-foot prehistoric whale in the Tuscan countryside... dates to 4 million years ago, to the Pliocene epoch... skeleton is complete and a variety of organisms were found around the fossil as well...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:37:34
Army Spc.
Brian E. Ritzberg
, 24, of New York, died April 2 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat operations in Kirkuk, Iraq. Ritzberg was assigned to the 977th Military Police Company, 97th Military Police Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:37:16
Army Staff Sgt.
Bradley D. King
, 28, of Marion, Ind., died April 2 in Al Amiriyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations. King was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 152nd Infantry Regiment, 76th Infantry Brigade, Marion, Ind.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:36:43
Army Staff Sgt.
David A. Mejias
, 26, of San Juan, Puerto Rico
Army Staff Sgt.
Eric R. Vick
, 25, of Spring Hope, N.C.
Army Sgt.
Robert M. McDowell
, 30, of Deer Park, Texas
Army Spc.
William G. Bowling
, 24, of Beattyville, Ky.
died April 1 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations. They were assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:35:51
Marine Lance Cpl.
Daniel R. Olsen
, 20, of Eagan, Minn., died April 2 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Olsen was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:35:26
Marine Pfc.
Miguel A. Marcial III
, 19, of Secaucus, N.J., died April 1 in Al Anbar province, Iraq. His death is currently under investigation. Marcial was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:35:07
Army 1st Lt.
Neale M. Shank
, 25, of Fort Wayne, Ind., died Mar. 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident. His death is under investigation. Shank was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:01:31
Army Sgt.
Joe Polo
, 24, of Opalocka, Fla., died Mar. 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. Polo was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.
US Congress
breitbart.com/ ... 23:02:12
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi toured Damascus on Tuesday, the highest- ranking American politician to visit Syria since relations began to deteriorate four years ago. President Bush criticized the trip, saying it sends mixed signals to President Bashar Assad... She made no comment on arrival and headed for the Old City of Damascus where she toured the 8th-century Omayyad Mosque. Pelosi draped a scarf over her head as she entered the historic mosque and stopped at a tomb inside the mosque said to contain the head of St. John the Baptist. She made the sign of the cross in front of the tomb. About 10 percent of Syria's 18 million people are Christian...
Human Right
origin.insidebayarea.com/ ... 23:01:20
Freelance videographer and blogger Josh Wolf, who spent a record-setting seven months in prison as a journalist refusing to comply with a subpoena, was freed today after cutting a deal with prosecutors... emerged this afternoon from a federal prison in Dublin soon after U.S. District Judge William Alsup vacated the contempt-of-court order against him... has posted to his Web site... all of the previously unreleased video footage he shot of a G-8 Summit protest July 8, 2005, in San Francisco's Mission District, at which a police officer was hurt and someone might have tried to set a San Francisco police car afire... Swearing in a new court document that he neither took part in nor could identify those responsible for the car's damage or the officer's injury, Wolf extracted a promise from prosecutors that they won't use the existing subpoena to compel his testimony before a grand jury...
Modern Culture
suntimes.com/ ... 23:00:10
Ebert: Despite setbacks, I am feeling better every day... This has been a long and unexpected ordeal, made better by many kind and gifted doctors and nurses, led by the incomparable Dr. Harold Pelzer and Dr. Robert Havey, and above all by the selfless and loving care of my wife, Chaz. I plan to gradually increase my duties in the months to come. I still love writing about the movies. Forty years is not enough...
Reporting Science
realclearpolitics.com/ ... 22:53:41
William F. Buckley... Business of Global Warming Feels a Lot Like Inquisition...
nysun.com/ ... 22:53:24
Bob Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation and probably one of the few CEOs brave enough to challenge the militant climate control movement that threatens the future of America's economy. In his speech, he dared to say that he regards
Al Gore
as the shaman of global doom and gloom. He is not joking when he says, "He is
more dangerous than his global warming..."
Ummm....
mtv.com/ ... 22:52:05
In case you missed it, this little yarn first appeared in the pages of London's notoriously unreliable New Musical Express. The magazine quoted the Rolling Stones guitarist as saying, "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. ... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." This wildly dubious quote proved irresistible to newspapers, wire services and TV and online outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, from The Associated Press to Forbes, The Drudge Report, Breitbart and E! Online. In fact, it was such a great story that nobody bothered trying to confirm it with a Richards representative why spoil the fun with facts? In a buzz-killing mood, though, we decided to check with Richards' longtime manager, Jane Rose. We asked her about the dad-snorting quotes in the NME interview. She responded with an e-mail: "Said in jest," she explained. "Can't believe anyone took [it] seriously..."
reuters.com/ ... 22:48:59
A German woman's plan to turn her dead father's ashes into a diamond was thwarted Tuesday by her grandmother...
Theory of Justice
breitbart.com/ ... 22:52:42
SYLVANIA, Ala.... A woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:48:05
It's not drunken driving in New Jersey if it involves a Zamboni...
People Do Drugs
reuters.com/ ... 22:47:09
Cocaine and amphetamine abusers increase their risk of suffering strokes...
[um... duh?]
People are Trashy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:45:43
Air pollution may be a bigger risk to health than exposure to radiation, such as that after the Chernobyl disaster, a study suggests...
Reasons for Repeal
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:41:29
The Peruvian President, Alan Garcia, has ordered the use of warplanes to destroy clandestine airstrips and drug laboratories in the Amazon jungle...
Transport
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:40:49
A French train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed record Tuesday for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph as it zipped through the countryside to the applause of spectators... Roaring like a jet plane, with sparks flying overhead and kicking up a long trail of dust... fell short, however, of beating the ultimate record set by Japan's magnetically levitated train, which hit 361 mph in 2003...
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:38:57
Two trained Labradors have sniffed out 50,000 bootleg DVDs in their third success since being deployed last month in Malaysia's mounting anti-movie piracy crackdown... Five people also were arrested in the raids... in two outlets in Damansara Utama, a suburb near Malaysia's largest city of Kuala Lumpur...
Malaysia is among the world's top illegal movie disc producers and exporters...
Music industry is dead
reuters.com/ ... 22:38:04
The European Commission has sent formal charges to major record companies and Apple Inc., alleging they are restricting music sales in Europe... said agreements between Apple and the record companies violate the European Union's rules that prohibit restrictive business practices...
US Election 2008
nytimes.com/ ... 00:01:11
Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has challenged his party to take a stronger stance against illegal immigration, formally declared his presidential candidacy here on Monday... made his announcement on Iowas most prominent conservative radio talk show, saying he was entering the race because no other Republicans were going to make illegal immigration "the primary issue of their campaign..."
MON 2007-APR-02
Hospitals can be Dangerous
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:47:18
SANFORD, Fla....A woman who contracted flesh-eating bacteria and had to have all her limbs amputated sued a hospital Monday for medical malpractice... claims the hospital failed to detect early signs of an infection after she gave birth to a boy in April 2005... An attorney for Orlando Regional... issued a statement Monday saying the company determined Mejia did not get the infection at the hospital...
Data Threat
reuters.com/ ... 23:45:39
RadioShack Corp. was sued on Monday by the Texas Attorney General's office, which charged that the electronics retailer exposed consumers to potential identity theft by dumping data such as addresses and credit-card numbers in a trash bin behind one of its stores...
Nixon - still with us
reuters.com/ ... 23:40:02
Newly released documents show that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger delayed telling President Richard Nixon about the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 to keep him from interfering... when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, the Israelis informed Kissinger at 6 a.m., but 3 1/2 hours would pass before he spoke to Nixon... the documents reveal a complex relationship between two men who were both prone to paranoia, insecurity, manipulation, and ruthlessness... Nixon did not believe Kissinger should handle Middle East policy and quotes the former president as saying: "Anybody who is Jewish cannot handle" Middle Eastern policy...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:43
Gunmen killed five African Union peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region along the border with Chad... The five peacekeepers were guarding a "water point" in the area of Kurni, West Darfur... attackers fled after AU soldiers returned fire...
Under Tyranny
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:34:54
President Hugo Chavez warned Monday that his government could take over private hospitals if they continue raising prices for health care.
Digital Threat
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:40:08
Microsoft is moving to close a security loophole in Windows that lets attackers hijack a PC via animated cursors... usually issues security patches once a month... the seriousness of the bug has prompted the software company to act early and stifle attempts to exploit the flaw...
Nature can be Deadly
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:38:18
Emergency aid supplies are being stepped up to thousands of people stranded after a devastating tsunami struck parts of the Solomon Islands. Officials said 900 homes were destroyed and 5,000 people affected... death toll of 20...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:36:02
Avalanches and floods triggered by heavy rains and spring snow melt have killed about 150 people in recent days in the mountains of central Asia...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:38:18
At least 51 people have been killed and hundreds of homes destroyed after flooding and avalanches in Afghanistan... estimates over 20,000 people across the country have been affected by the heavy rains... Afghanistan has been suffering from drought for most of the past decade. The rains have, thus, been welcomed by many despite the devastation...
Mass Murdering Monsters
reuters.com/ ... 10:38:50
Thousands of Taliban suicide bombers have been deployed across Afghanistan to attack Western troops and the government, the group's military chief said on Monday... Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's military head, said the Islamic guerrillas had the ability and the weapons to fight foreign troops for a long time...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:37:42
At least 16 people have been killed in an explosion on a bus carrying civilians in Sri Lanka's eastern district of Ampara... government has accused Tamil Tiger rebels... but they deny involvement... follows a weekend of violence in which six tsunami reconstruction workers were shot dead...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:37:15
Iraqi prosecutors have asked for death sentences against five defendants in the so-called Anfal trial for the 1980s crackdown on Iraq's Kurdish population. They include the alleged mastermind of the campaign - Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas attacks...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:36:57
A suicide bomber has blown up a truck near a police station and a school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least 12 people. More than 130 were injured...
the handcuffed bodies of 19 workers kidnapped north of Baghdad have been found...
WW2 - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:35:56
Germans have been embarrassed by the fact that Adolf Hitler remains an honorary citizen of Bad Doberan, a town that will host the annual G8 summit. The town council will hold a special meeting shortly to officially remove Hitler from the roll of honour...
Transport Tragedy
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:35:40
MONTERREY, Mexico... A tractor-trailer... loaded with 66 tons of steel tubes... lost its brakes and killed nine people as it plowed through a residential area in this northern industrial city... crashed into pedestrians, cars, dozens of buildings, utility poles and traffic lights... finally stopped as it hit a building and caught fire, leaving behind a 2.5-mile trail of destruction...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:51:58
Army Spc.
Christopher M. Wilson
, 24, of Bangor, Maine, died Mar. 29 in Korengal Outpost, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from a rocket propelled grenade explosion. Wilson was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:51:38
Army Sgt.
Edmund W. McDonald
, 25, of Casco, Maine
Army Spc.
Agustin Gutierrez
, 19, of San Jacinto, Calif.
died March 29 in North Kabul, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered during a non-combat related vehicle accident on March 28 in North Kabul. Their deaths are under investigation. Both soldiers were assigned to the 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:50:55
Army Staff Sgt.
Jason R. Arnette
, 24, of Amelia, Va., died April 1 in Baghdad, Iraq
Army Spc.
Wilfred Flores Jr.
, 20, of Lawton, Okla., died Mar. 31 in Baghdad, Iraq
from wounds suffered Mar. 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.
Anthropology
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:45:27
A team of anthropologists said their study of South Texas fossil deposits revealed evidence including ancient teeth that shows the area was home to numerous types of primates 42 million years ago...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:37:57
The remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit eastern Asia have been unearthed in a cave in China... 34 bone fragments belonging to a single individual at the Tianyuan Cave, near Beijing... Radiocarbon dates, obtained directly from the bones, show the person lived between 42,000 and 39,000 years ago... "For this time period, which is critical for understanding the spread of modern humans around the world, we have two well-dated human fossils from eastern Asia... We have remains from the Niah Cave from Sarawak on Borneo, and now this specimen from China. As you go west, the next specimens are from Lebanon. There's nothing in between..." The Tianyuan remains display diagnostic features of modern H. sapiens. But... the bones also display features characteristic of earlier human species, such as relatively large front teeth. The most likely explanation, they argue, is interbreeding between early modern humans emerging from Africa and the archaic populations they encountered in Europe and Asia...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:43:37
The Department of Defense announced today
additional major units scheduled to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The announcement involves one corps headquarters, two division headquarters and one brigade combat team consisting of approximately 7,000 personnel Specific decisions made by the secretary of defense include: XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters, Fort Bragg, N.C. 1st Armored Division Headquarters, Wiesbaden, Germany 4th Infantry Division Headquarters, Fort Hood, Texas 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. Additionally, the Department announced that the 25th Infantry Division headquarters will have its tour extended by approximately 45 days. Other combat-support and combat-service-support units consisting of approximately 2,000 personnel have also been identified to deploy in support of operations in Iraq. More combat-support and combat-service-support units may be deployed should commanders determine additional support forces are required. These deployments reflect the continued commitment of the United States to the security of the Iraqi people. The Department recognizes the continued sacrifices of these units and their family members....
Animal Companions
reuters.com/ ... 10:42:27
Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog... of 13 years... an elderly... childless... couple [67 & 63yo] in southern India... held a burial ceremony... hosted a feast for friends... [then] committed suicide by hanging themselves...
Healing Ourselves
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:39:02
Scientists have developed a way of converting one blood group into another...
Repeal Daylight Savings Time!
today.reuters.com/ ... 23:55:45
The early onset of Daylight Savings Time in the United States this year may have been for naught... appears to have had little impact on power usage...
Unclear on the Concept
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 23:55:04
A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines... The Independent has learned... The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment...
Age is No Barrier
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:49:33
LANGLEY, Wash... [AC] who celebrated his 101st birthday Monday, just passed his Washington state driver's test and says he did so with flying colors. "I haven't parallel parked for 10 years and I sailed through it like nothing...." took a birthday drive down to the local senior center, where his friends threw a party for him...
Just Random Chance
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:48:43
COLUMBUS, Ohio... A man awaiting trial on charges accusing him of bilking $135,000 from three people in a home-repair scam won $2,100 on the Ohio Lottery's television game show...
Reasons for Repeal
reuters.com/ ... 23:47:39
New Mexico doctors are allowed to prescribe marijuana to help some seriously ill patients manage symptoms including pain and nausea under a bill signed into law by Gov. Bill Richardson on Monday...
World Energy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:44:49
Two-fifths of Britons are doing nothing to cut energy use...
CD/DVD/etc is Dead
reuters.com/ ... 10:40:54
Two Malaysian dogs trained to sniff out DVDs have made their second big discovery of pirated movies, leading investigators to a hidden stash worth more than $430,000...
Digital Culture
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:46:11
a new online clearinghouse that bypasses traditional charities... Reality Charity LLC's Web site, to be unveiled Tuesday, promises to be an eBay for fundraising...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 10:39:24
In what analysts think might be a first in the highly experimental advertising market, YuMe Networks Inc. is powering an ad campaign that allows the customization of video ads for some television shows that are downloaded from a Web site. The messages or graphics in the video ads, for instance, can be changed to target different geographic regions...
SUN 2007-APR-01
Meth is Murder
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:03
Last year, federal officials and many states reported that the numbers of small "mom-and-pop" methamphetamine labs were dropping, a result largely attributed to the crackdown on the sale of pseudoephedrine and similar cold medicine ingredients used to make meth. Officials feared that methamphetamine from Mexico would simply fill the void. And while authorities in some places have noticed an uptick in imported meth, others are hopeful that meth use is starting to wane...
War is Hell
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:32:13
Britain has expressed "continuing regret" over the deaths on both sides in the Falklands conflict. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett released a statement on the eve of Monday's 25th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands. She said families of dead Argentine personnel could hold a commemorative event on the islands later this year. Over 900 people died during the 74-day war, including 255 British servicemen, 655 Argentines and three islanders...
Transport Tragedy
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:31:47
The pilots of an Indonesian passenger jet were arguing about the plane's speed moments before it crashed last month... the co-pilot wanted to turn around instead of landing... The two pilots, who both survived, were flying together for the first time... crashed as it landed at Yogyakarta airport on 7 March, killing 21 of the 140 people on board... "I worry that this accident came from the absent-mindedness of the cockpit..."
Sex can be Dangerous
app.com/ ... 11:35:12
A 50-year-old Toms River man has been charged with paying a [21yo] prostitute from Neptune to watch her have sex with a 12-year-old boy in a hotel room... [she] had sex with the boy previously in June 2006. The boy and [she] knew each other, but [50yo] did not know the boy... the boy's mother contacted the Neptune police... "These defendants deliberately exploited and victimized a 12-year-old boy," county Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin said...
Hospitals can be Dangerous
playfuls.com/ ... 11:20:22
At least
17 deaths at a hospital
in eastern England have been blamed on
a virulent form of bacteria that causes stomach disease...
James Paget University Hospital in Norfolk... mutated strain of Clostridium difficile... produces 20 times the toxin of other forms... at least 16 other people have been sickened with five of them requiring surgery... Deaths from the strain have been averaging one a week since December... bacteria can linger for weeks on furniture, toilet seats and floors... Patients who have been treated with strong antibiotics are especially vulnerable...
Digital Threat
pcworld.com/ ... 11:19:06
The Windows zero-day bug
now being used by attackers is
extremely dangerous
, security researchers said Friday, and ranks with the Windows Metafile vulnerability of more than a year ago on the potential damage meter... "It's very dangerous. One of the reasons is that there's no crash involved...it's instantaneous. And all it takes is visiting a site..." Attackers, who are already exploiting the bug in limited fashion, can hijack PCs by tempting users to malicious Web sites or by sending them a malformed file via e-mail... "It doesn't require a PhD in hacking.... The number of people who can use this is huge..." Outlook Express in Windows XP, Windows Mail in Vista, and Outlook 2003 in any version of Windows puts users at risk when they simply preview a malicious message. They don't have to actually open the message to be in danger of an infection...
Nature can be Deadly
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:30:33
A powerful undersea earthquake Monday in the South Pacific sent a tsunami several yards high crashing into the Solomon Islands, devastating at least one village... a wave about 10 feet high struck the western town of Gizo, inundating buildings and causing widespread destruction... initial reports that eight people, six of them children, had been killed...
channel4.com/ ... 11:16:29
31 Mar... Another wave of storms has swept through the US states of Texas and Oklahoma, spawning at least three tornadoes and heavy rain...
Civilization vs Gangsterism
reuters.com/ ... 23:32:55
Six U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bombings southwest of Baghdad over the weekend... two soldiers were killed by an explosion during a patrol on Saturday. Four more were killed when another roadside bomb detonated on Sunday near a unit responding to the first attack...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 11:15:43
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The Taliban on Sunday executed three men accused of spying for NATO and government forces in southern Afghanistan...
Separately, a suicide car bomber blew himself up Sunday near an Afghan army convoy in eastern Laghman province, killing five civilians...
Mass Murdering Monsters
stuff.co.nz/ ... 11:15:19
The Iraqi government has raised the death toll from a lorry bomb this week in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old conflict... 347 people were wounded... There was another, small lorry bomb in the mixed northwestern town on the same day... It took us a while to recover all the bodies from underneath the rubble of the homes ... what did they achieve by using two tonnes of explosive to kill and wound 500 in a residential area?.." [said] Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf...
Animal Companions
nysun.com/ ... 11:21:55
A greater sensitivity of cats to a chemical found in plastics and pesticides could explain why they've died in larger numbers than have dogs after eating contaminated pet food...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 11:21:29
The recall of contaminated pet food expanded as stores removed from their shelves a limited number of cans of Alpo dog food... Nestle Purina PetCare Co., which manufactures the 71-year-old brand, announced Friday that it was voluntarily recalling all sizes and varieties of Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food that are marked with specific date codes... after learning that wheat gluten containing melamine... had contaminated cans at one of Purina's 17 pet-food manufacturing facilities...
World of Sexual Cultures
reuters.com/ ... 23:36:30
Amsterdam's sex workers came to work early on Saturday to offer a free look at the city's famed red-light district. Hundreds of wide-eyed visitors queued in the sunshine to enter the dimly-lit sex clubs and peep shows that draw thousands to the city and to snoop around prostitutes' neon-lit boudoirs...
But is it Art?
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:36
Japanese musicians overcame fatigue and a major earthquake to set the record for the world's longest concert on Saturday, playing 184 hours non-stop in a program that ranged from The Beatles' classics to Japanese traditional harp music... Over 900 musicians aged 6 to 89 took turns performing in the 9-day marathon - with breaks of no more than 5 minutes between acts...
April Foolishness
hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:33:21
Senior executives at Google Inc. launched their annual April Fools' Day prank Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing systems...
Reasons for Repeal
siouxcityjournal.com/ ... 11:31:56
OMAHA, Neb.... Pot, dope, weed, ganja, Mary Jane -- no matter what you call it, marijuana is illegal. But the editor of High Times, a magazine for marijuana aficionados, thinks Americans should have the freedom to use marijuana responsibly... He stressed, though, that there's a time and a place for that type of behavior. For example, parents should not take hits in front of their children, and college students shouldn't hit the bong before they hit the books... He chastised those who routinely go to class stoned or use marijuana recklessly because they give recreational users a bad image and hurt efforts to legalize the drug. "You are not part of the solution. You're the biggest part of the problem..." Robert Stutham, a retired special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency who served as Hager's adversary, said legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana would simply breed more users and more drug addicts. "It becomes their life, rather than part of their life..."
[How lame!]
phillyburbs.com/ ... 11:30:22
EVESHAM A traffic stop led to charges against a [26yo] Camden man for possession of two pounds of marijuana... charged... with drug possession with the intent to distribute, drug possession, and possession of drugs near a school... during a traffic stop
[WHY?]
at 2:30 p.m. on Lakeside Drive...
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