What's Going On

Today's Word: Gestalt

2009-06-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

03-06-2009 The Word of the day - gestalt

This morning I was looking at a paper written by Ron O. Cook,
who is a writer on many things. Among those things is the idea of,
and evidence for the existence of, an advanced civilization on the
Earth prior to the ice ages or at least prior to the usually accepted
start of our current civilization. You can see it at: world mysteries

I encountered a sentence: "The truth of some of their work never
reaches the public ear however, because it would require a gestalt
paradigm shift for most of us to even understand the implications of
such enigmatic data." which contains a word juxtaposition which I
thought unusual. I have, of course, often seen the term "paradigm shift"
used in a non-technical way and the word "gestalt" is also common in,
at least some, technical writing usually, though, concerning psycho-
therapy.

Both terms: "paradigm" and "gestalt" are often defined in ways that
use the word "pattern" and frequently are offered with only that one
word as definition. Those of us who took a little math in high school
were taught that "things equal to the same things are equal to each
other" which is pretty basic to getting mathematics to work.

My relatively non-technical mind looked at two words from separate
linguistic sources, both normally used in technical writing, and both
commonly defined using the identical more common English word,
and because his construction of the sentence does not appear to be
mere redundancy for emphasis, I knew I had to learn a little more
about the two words in order to understand that usage.

Since I didn't want to dig out my OED (I wish) I looked them up on
the web, starting with TheFreeDictionary.com, and reading a little
more as I felt it desirable. So here's what I discovered:

Gestalt
ge·stalt or Ge·stalt (g-shtält, -shtôlt, -stält, -stôlt)
n. pl. ge·stalts or ge·stalt·en (-shtältn, -shtôltn, -stältn, -stôltn)

(from Wikipedia)
Gestalt is a German word that can be translated into English in various ways:

* as shape, form, guise or likeness (e.g., in Menschengestalt: in human form)
* as figure or as a synonym for person (e.g., eine dunkle Gestalt: a sinister figure)
* A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic entities that creates a unified concept, configuration or pattern which is greater than the sum of its parts.

(from TheFreeDictionary.com)
A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

[German, shape, from Middle High German, from past participle of stellen, to place, from Old High German; see stel- in Indo-European roots.]

Noun 1. gestalt - a configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts

2. gestalt - pattern, form, shape - a perceptual structure;

"the composition presents problems for students of musical form"; "a visual pattern must include not only objects but the spaces between them"

Compare to Paradigm:

par·a·digm ( pear a dime - more or less )
n.

1. One that serves as a pattern or model.

2. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb.

3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

[Middle English, example, from Late Latin paradgma, from Greek paradeigma, from paradeiknunai, to compare : para-, alongside; see para-1 + deiknunai, to show; see deik- in Indo-European roots.]

Usage Note: Paradigm first appeared in English in the 15th century, meaning "an example or pattern," and it still bears this meaning today: "Their company is a paradigm of the small high-tech firms that have recently sprung up in this area."

For nearly 400 years paradigm has also been applied to the patterns of inflections that are used to sort the verbs, nouns, and other parts of speech of a language into groups that are more easily studied.

Since the 1960s, paradigm has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework, as when Nobel Laureate David Baltimore cited the work of two colleagues that "really established a new paradigm for our understanding of the causation of cancer." Thereafter, researchers in many different fields, including sociology and literary criticism, often saw themselves as working in or trying to break out of paradigms.

Applications of the term in other contexts show that it can sometimes be used more loosely to mean "the prevailing view of things."

The Usage Panel splits down the middle on these nonscientific uses of paradigm.

Fifty-two percent disapprove of the sentence:

"The paradigm governing international competition and competitiveness has shifted dramatically in the last three decades."

Scientific paradigm

Main articles: Paradigm shift, Sociology of knowledge, Systemics, Commensurability (philosophy of science), and Confirmation holism

Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn gave this word its contemporary meaning when he adopted it to refer to the set of practices that define a scientific discipline during a particular period of time. Kuhn himself came to prefer the terms exemplar and normal science, which have more exact philosophical meanings. However, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as:

* what is to be observed and scrutinized,
* the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject,
* how these questions are to be structured,
* how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.

Alternatively, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines paradigm as "a pattern or model, an exemplar." Thus an additional component of Kuhn's definition of paradigm is:

* how is an experiment to be conducted, and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment.

Thus, within normal science, the paradigm is the set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated. The prevailing paradigm often represents a more specific way of viewing reality, or limitations on acceptable programs for future research, than the much more general scientific method.

An example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. The scientific method would allow for orthodox scientific investigations of many phenomena which might contradict or disprove the standard model; however grant funding would be more difficult to obtain for such experiments, in proportion to the amount of departure from accepted standard model theory which the experiment would test for. For example, an experiment to test for the mass of the neutrino or decay of the proton (small departures from the model) would be more likely to receive money than experiments to look for the violation of the conservation of momentum, or ways to engineer reverse time travel.

One important aspect of Kuhn's paradigms is that the paradigms are incommensurable, which means that two paradigms can not be compared to each other. A new paradigm which replaces an old paradigm is not necessarily better, because the criteria of judgement depend on the paradigm.

nuance [new-ahnss] (fr.)

Noun 1. nuance - a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude.
2. nuance - a subtle difference, as in color or tone

Pattern - you'll have to look this one up for yourself as it takes up too much space to deal with here. There are a lot of nuances in the word and we use it to mean a lot of different but, maybe, related concepts. But most directly related to my word for today were these next two lines.

Pattern - gestalt - a configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts.

Pattern - paradigm - code of behavior, code of conduct - a set of conventional principles and expectations that are considered binding on any person who is a member of a particular group.

So after looking at this and considering it for some hours, I think I've decided that what Mr. Cook meant to say is that the gestalt is the body (pattern) in reality - the actuality of what is and what actually preceded that which now is. Whereas the paradigm is the system (pattern) under which the "Scientific Establishment" allows that gestalt to be investigated, imposing prohibitions on some research and sanctions against those who would violate those prohibitions...

It, my analysis of his sentence, might miss the mark a little but the process demonstrates pretty well why it's difficult to use mathematics to describe everything and why mathematicians keep trying to do it. In English we have a lot of words which are nearly completely interchangeable, saving only a nuance of meaning or tone, on the other hand we also have a lot of words which mean different things depending upon the way they are used.

In some ways it reminds me of the often quoted statement that the Arctic Native People's languages possess a lot of different words for snow whereas English has only one. That is not exactly correct when you examine it, each different word that those languages contain which we would have to translate with our word "snow" expresses a property of that "snow" which we would have to explain by adding modifiers to our basic term, assuming that we could even recognize the noted distinctive property.

Avoid a future cataclysm: Forget the past

2009-04-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

20 April 2009 by Marcus Chown
Magazine issue 2704. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
For similar stories, visit the Quantum World Topic Guide

GREAT news, there may be a way to avoid a looming disaster. All you need to do is forget all about it by "resetting" your memory.

That's the claim of physicist Saibal Mitra at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and it is predicated on the existence of parallel universes.

The "many worlds" concept is an interpretation of quantum theory - our best description of the microscopic world of atoms and their constituents. Many worlds takes literally quantum theory's idea that a quantum entity like an atom can exist in many states at once, and posits the existence of parallel universes containing infinite copies of you with different histories and futures.

To understand how the many-worlds scenario could allow a future disaster to be avoided, says Mitra, consider a hypothetical machine intelligence that regularly backs up its memory. If it encountered a glitch, for example, it could reset its memory to, say, the previous day's state.

Imagine that on learning of an impending disaster - perhaps a catastrophic asteroid strike on its planet - the machine resets its memory. Now, an observer sat next to the machine can verify that the "same machine" will still face disaster after the reset. But from the perspective of the machine's reset memory, the state of the universe in the many-worlds scenario becomes "undetermined". After all, for all the machine knows, the reset probably occurred for a mundane reason, such as a crash of its operating system.

The next part defies our natural instincts: according to the many-worlds interpretation, all of these undetermined possibilities actually exist and open up to the machine. Even though it followed one particular history up to its resetting, it can be dealt a new card, says Mitra. So, from its unwitting perspective, the machine could "switch" to a parallel universe. The probability of a memory reset due to a rare event like an asteroid strike would be far smaller than the probability of a routine reset due to a glitch, and so there will be many more universes in which the disaster does not occur. "Consequently, the machine will almost certainly find itself in one of these universes and avoid the catastrophe," says Mitra (http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825)

"If we could find a way to reset our knowledge of an impending disaster, we too could avoid it," he says. The downside of such memory resets, however, is that there is a small chance you will "wake up" in a universe facing an even more cataclysmic disaster than the one you were trying to dodge. "You'd have to weigh up whether it would be worth the risk," Mitra concedes. Read the rest here

Now, people. I know I'm opinionated and curmudgeonly but - really:

Even if he happens to be correct - which I doubt, it still leaves me with "other dimension" versions of myself which suffer all possible catastrophes and corresponding painful forms of injury or demise.

Each instant of existence would - in that view generate a multitude of branching universes in some of which the world is destroyed, in some of which the world is only seriously injured and in some of which the world escapes serious injury.

Every action a person takes (or does not take) would, perforce, generate a branching of reality - and this multiplied by all the billions of humans now living (or who have ever lived) - leaving us with literally uncountable billions (or a couple of orders of magnitude beyond) of co-existent realities which we would not be able to discern in any fashion as each would form a separate universe from its branch point.

I have read some science-fiction stories which use this device as a factor in the plotting and it makes for pretty interesting reading - but to believe it is actually so and can be an alternative to global damage caused by man or star is beyond madness as all that is offered is a possibility that the particular branch of reality that you are conscious of will avoid the catastrophe which leaves multitudes of less fortunate outcomes in which other "yous" will suffer every possible outcome of the event.

And then there is the sheer physical issue: IF (big if) every possible outcome of every possible situation happens simultaneously, what is the membrane which conceals from us the myriad exploding stars and colliding planets which did not happen in our version of reality?

Where lies the sorry Earth on which the Third Reich was triumphant in 1944 and repelled the allied invasion? Where is the Earth on which King George's armies swept the field of Washington's little army? Where is the Earth on which the USSR still lives and holds sway over the people of the world? Where is the world on which Captain Cook was not killed for being stupid in Hawaii? Where is the world on which the native Americans were not susceptible to European diseases and repelled invasion by the contemptible little bands of colonizers? Where is the world where the African people effectively resisted European and Arab slavers?

I'd like to see the math that explains the separation of all those possible outcomes of every decision point effecting each and every moment of the existence of the universe. I'd like to see a cogent explanation of the physical means of separation of each "separate universe" or "divergent reality" created in that fashion - wouldn't you?

Famed pastor predicts imminent catastrophe

2009-03-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Best-selling author, Teen Challenge founder, sees 'earth-shattering calamity about to happen'

Posted: March 08, 2009

David Wilkerson

A respected pastor, best-selling author and founder of a major ministry to teens predicts an imminent "earth-shattering calamity" centered in New York City that will spread to major urban areas across the country and around the world – part of what he sees as a judgment from God.

David Wilkerson, author of "The Cross and the Switchblade," a book about his ministry to troubled New York street kids that was later made into a movie starring Pat Boone, tells readers of his blog this weekend that he is "compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message" about his prediction.

"An earth-shattering calamity is about to happen," he writes. "It is going to be so frightening, we are all going to tremble – even the godliest among us."

Wilkerson's vision is of fires raging through New York City.

"It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires – such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago," he explains. "There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting – including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Autographed copies of Ray Comfort's new book, "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think," are available exclusively in WND's online superstore.

Wilkerson is the founding pastor of Times Square Church in New York City, where he launched a ministry to gang members and drug addicts in 1958. He is a highly regarded mentor to other pastors in evangelical circles and travels the world holding conferences for other Christian ministers.

His work in New York in the 1950s and 1960s led to the formation of Teen Challenge – a nationwide ministry to reach out to people with life-controlling habits. Teen Challenge has grown to include 173 residential programs and numerous evangelism outreach centers in the United States, and 241 centers in 77 other countries. The program claims a recovery rate of 86 percent.

The story of Wilkerson's first five years of ministry in New York is told in "The Cross and the Switchblade," a book he co-authored in 1963. The book became a best-selling phenomenon and more than 15 million copies have been distributed in over 30 languages.

"God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations," claims Wilkerson. "He is destroying the secular foundations." Wilkerson urges everyone to stockpile a 30-day supply of food and other necessities to deal with the catastrophe he foresees.

"I do not know when these things will come to pass, but I know it is not far off," Wilkerson concluded in his message. "I have unburdened my soul to you. Do with the message as you choose."

A past vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention is hoping believers pay attention to Wilkerson's message.

"I have known David Wilkerson for more than 25 years as well as many of his friends and associates," said Pastor Wiley Drake. "He is a godly man and I believe he is listening to God. I encourage each Christian to read and heed what God is saying through our brother."

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

This is a "For What It's Worth" posting, I am not a psychic nor have I received any direct message about this from any "higher source", but, as I said: I use this blog to post things that I think are interesting and this article fits into that quite nicely... You have to decide whether you think it is of interest to you.

Visit the site

It's a new year... 2008 is over, only the atershocks remain

2009-02-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

Last week I dropped Lance Armstrong and his website on you. I said I'd do updates. I said I would become healthier and svelte (great word). I know Millions hang on my every word, that would be Fred Millions, an old friend, who doesn't so much hang as spit... But, never mind the technicalities.

So, it has been about a week... I went to the Doctor's office today and got prodded and poked... The scale showed 219: 5 lbs less than last week! I adjusted my el cheapo bathroom scale to show the same weight as the balance beam scale at the doctor's office so I can check it everyday to keep myself motivated.

Of course, the primary reason for this is to allow my medication to get my cholesterol back under control by eliminating most fat and nearly all animal fat from my diet - but I decided that if I had to, ugh, diet anyway I might as well try to get rid of the 50 or so extra pounds I've been lugging with me everywhere.

about the current foreclosure crisis...

2009-02-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of rant about borrowers who did something fraudulent and got a mortgage on a half million dollar house while having near zero income.

There might, indeed, be such cases, but those people would be "investors" looking to flip the house quickly in an UP market and not people buying a house in which to live...

We have seen the govt give away nearly a trillion dollars to banks, etc. which bought all those fraudulent notes (supposedly) in a effort (supposedly) to help the people of the US by stabilizing the economy and getting banks to again write mortgage loans.

We have not seen any value received for those dollars nor have we seen any help for real homeowners who are really caught in the double squeeze: lost income with which to pay the mortgage coupled with loss of value of the property making it impossible to refinance at a lower rate of interest, or to sell.

The outright gifts of hundreds of billions of our dollars to the banks and to Wall St undoubtedly were a great help to the bankers and financiers who received the largesse of the government, using our future tax dollars as a source, but there is not a hint of benefit to the millions of working class homeowners caught in this bursting bubble while attempting to live on fraction of their former income with rapid inflation of costs of living and tumbling value of their largest investment and 401ks that are worth a fraction of last years values.

The real beauty (?) of the situation is that it's not even possible to sell the house and cut the family's living expenses by moving into a lesser accommodation until conditions improve.

Instead we millions are caught in a situation where only bankruptcy will allow us out of the contracts we're in. This process will make many people a lot of money at the expense of millions of families made destitute and lacking even the credit score needed to rent a home.

I have read, with interest, for the past several months the crap put out by holier-than-thou people who are not in that situation - perhaps they haven't yet bought a home, perhaps they were lucky enough to have already paid it off or perhaps they have not yet lost one of the jobs they depend on to pay expenses or perhaps they are simply wealthy enough that losing 50% of their net worth or 75% or more still allows them to meet all obligations, whatever their situation - the one thing I've seen little expressed is common humanity.

The thing I have seen is a predatory glee, a sense of unbridled opportunism held in check only until they feel the property can be snatched up (stolen - is my thought) from the distraught people who are poised on the brink or who have already fallen into the chasm of foreclosure and bankruptcy and thus have made or will make these great bargain properties available to be exploited.

I'm happy for the good people who have, thus far, dodged the bullet - I really am - most of them are hard working people who provide jobs for many others and are entitled to the fruits of their labor. That being said, let me add that they are no more entitled to the fruits of their labor than are their employees.
The thing is that if this economy continues to slow, as it appears that it will, more and more of the comfortable middle class business owners will find themselves closing the doors of their businesses after having exhausted all that they had in trying to keep it going. At that point most of them will be in the same rough spot that so many now occupy, debt without means to pay. The thing that is different about small business owners (and large business owners) is that most consider themselves to be far above the common herd of mankind: "There are chiefs and there are indians." Nearly none will accept the idea that "the luck of the draw" had anything to do with their success, rather it was their innate business acumen which brought success. That's so true, until they, too, fail.

I may not lose my house, but like many, I have lost nearly half of my former household income - and what used to be a normal living expense has become a monthly struggle to meet which is added to the knowledge that it is worth less than the mortgaged value and might not recover for a long time. It cannot be sold except through a "short sale" and even that is difficult to secure.

For whatever reason, it seems that the lenders would rather foreclose than accept a short sale of the property - making it pretty much impossible to escape the court at some point for many families. I don't understand the reasons for the situation with the short sales but I'm confident that it has to do with the bottom-line of the lenders as that is all that matters to them.

This is a difficult and dangerous situation for the country as a whole, we are in the process of creating a new class in modern America - "the dispossessed" - which will number in the tens of millions before this sorry exercise is finished (if something of substance is not done quickly) and they - possibly we - will be cynical of government promises and hostile to big banking and other financial interests and aware that we have been sold out by the country as a whole for the profit of the few who were able to plunder the public treasury at will while our neighbors and former friends stood by and did nothing except call a real estate agent to check out foreclosures..

In the aftermath of the bankruptcy for many of the families involved will be the fact that with a sullied credit record employment will be much more difficult to obtain than it was before and even when the job market begins its rebound those people will be "damaged goods" relegated to less desirable positions as a result of having been driven to bankruptcy in this recession.

Not only that, but to add injury to insult, they will pay higher car insurance (people with lower credit scores have more claims?) and be required to post cash deposits for utilities and will be denied many opportunities which might otherwise have been theirs simply because they have damaged credit. As might happen to some, finding a job while having no permanent address, say camping in your RV at a convenient roadside rest area, is even harder.

Had the government really intended to solve this situation, they - all of them - would not have been stampeded like mindless cattle into hocking our grandchildren - more than they were before the fact - by handing out the money to the financiers without conditions or oversight, rather they would have deliberated and decided the benefits versus the cost of actions that might be taken and might have done nothing, or might have actually tried to use the money to help the people who actually needed help (not really likely)...

Had that happened, there would be a lot of bankers and Wall Street types in the soup lines with us commoners and the treasury would be a trillion dollars or so less in debt. The foreclosure crisis would be what it is and everything would still be as stated before, only they wouldn't need to raise taxes as much.

There is some hope that the new administration will figure out a way to keep us, in our millions, from being forced to default on our mortgage loans
but I'm afraid it's a slender hope, at best, as I don't see any understanding of what's at stake shining through the rhetoric coming from Washington, DC.

You can always buy gold, if you have any cash left after paying the 30% interest on your formerly 5% interest credit card balances. The gold merchants are looking for you, right now, trying to unload the stuff they've been stuck with since 1982. I always think it's amusing that they, who have the gold, want to exchange it for your soon-to-be-worthless, according to them, federal reserve notes... I'm missing something on that one.

Trying to shape up

2009-02-19T20:50:00.000-08:00

2008 was the worst year of my life, in almost every respect.

There have been quite a few years included in that life and a few of them have been pretty bad. 2008, though definitely thus far, has appropriated the black laurels as worst to date. On the positive side of the balance, it has ended. Therefore one must optimistically move onward with what is left and attempt to make this year better and maybe even outstanding as a good period.

For myself, I have decided to make it (2009) a new beginning and to reach for excellence, as the years go, by having it be the start of something positive. I know all about the downturns in almost everything, economy, personal finance and home values leap to mind and then there are the diminished employment prospects due to the aforementioned downturns. Those items, although certainly significant and daunting, are background to life itself and should be considered as such.

So - I have decided to become thinner and healthier in 2009 and to thereby reverse a long trend of becoming less healthy and less svelte ( a cool word not often applied to old men) by eating foods which are lower in fat and other potentially harmful substances. Lest you think that I have become geriatrically narcissistic in my advanced and hypertrophied age, I assure you that it is all due to a phone call from my physician's assistant informing me that in spite of the ongoing medication, etc. - my cholesterol level has started to increase again.

I was treated (in every sense of the word) ten years ago, to a quadruple coronary artery bypass which was offered as the only way to long delay my certain, but uncomfortably (then) imminent demise. I accepted with an unaccustomed alacrity, I'm not afraid to die - I'm just in no hurry - and had the surgery. It was not really a treat, in the sense of receiving something pleasant - unless one counts survival as pleasant, because it was scary and uncomfortable - particularly the removal of the abdominal drainage tubes.

The short-term Frankenstein aspect, provided by the metal staples in my right arm and right leg as well as my chest, was fun ( especially when watching a summer lightning storm from the patio - scared my poor wife, who insisted that I get inside before I added "electrocuted" to my other accomplishments) even though I couldn't get out much to show it off. The scars are still pretty impressive, though, even after ten years.

So anyway, here I am - fat, dumb and working on happy, when the doc's office calls and tells me my cholesterol is again becoming elevated. We discussed diet, we discussed medication (of which I already take too much) and decided to try diet modification. I have become lax, in the last few years, about the foods I eat, pretending to be, simply, a gray-bearded teenager. Not that I had become the triple cheeseburger at the fast-food stand twice a day variety but I was not a lot better. Today that has changed. Call it dietary epiphany if you like obscure words as much as I do. Otherwise just call it a revelation of the obvious.

The Doc sent me a letter showing the healthy foods which I should be eating and listing the unhealthy foods which I should avoid, I have 14 earlier letters showing essentially the same thing. I know that stuff, I even paid attention for a few years. But then I drifted into culinary non-compliance (once again - or maybe thrice again) and started eating too much fat, too much meat, too much sugar and all those other good tasting no - nos, did I mention cheesecake or chocolate.

Someone in the medical profession once told me that he thought that our problem is evolutionary in origin. We are omnivorous hunter-gatherers by heredity and we select for energy foods to allow us to live for days without eating and still retain the energy to run down and club a struggling moose to be the guest-of-honor at dinner.

The problem today is that we eat the stuff we like but don't go for days without eating and then we just drive to the closest supermarket to buy a chunk of pre-caught moose: no running down. Just sauntering cooly down and emerging with a week supply of moose to eat at one sitting, and more for the next day - and the next. It's not so much what we're eating as it is how often we eat it and what we do between those feedings that loads up the arteries.

I could, of couse, choose to run to the market every third day and buy my half pound steak to eat that day and then run there again every day but only buy and eat on the third day. That probably would help. Still: our hunter-gatherer forebears usually only lived long enough to procreate and to raise the offspring to about 8 or 9 years old before succumbing to some fatal incident. For that reason, if for no other, longevity of a mature individual human far past breeding age was really not a factor of importance in our genetic heritage. We, of course, have the leisure time to ponder the meaning of life rather than simply trying to preserve it until the next moose falls.

I, for one, have pondered long and hard the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Thus far I have arrived at no final conclusion and, therefore, desire more pondering time which, oddly enough, leads back to the reason for this whole blog entry. I'm too fat and my cholesterol is too high. Today I found a website, which you might already know but of which I was unaware.

Lance Armstrong sponsors it and might even write some of it if he has the time. It's about living longer and living better by, well, living better. Just follow the link above and you will see what he has there. There are tables of nutrition data and recipes along with other information on exercise as well as tools to help you - and me, too - get to the weight you want, whether you need to lose or to gain, in a safe and proven manner. I'm back to calorie counting and even more essential, for my body, watching my fat intake and I have used Lance's tools to compute what my daily calorie intake needs to be in order to achieve my publicly stated goals.

I need to lose fifty pounds. More would probably not hurt. That not withstanding fifty pounds is my current goal and I have selected 2.5 pounds per week as a reasonably number by which to gauge my progress. That simply means that I need to consume 912 calories, per week, less than what is required to maintain my current weight.

It sounds simple and it really is, but not so easy, first: the site provides a calculator to tell you what it takes, in calories, to maintain your current weight and then based upon your input it tells you how large a reduction is required to attune your to body to your goal. From there it becomes a process of food selection and learning how to maximize nutrition while at the same time providing yourself with food you will want to eat. If you are relatively young the benefit of doing it now will last a lifetime. If, like me, your only connection to "young" is your grandchildren doing it now it will still last a lifetime, just not as many years as it might have had you started earlier.

And it does not have to be unappetizing "cardboard" food, the site provides you the tools to make recipes for the foods you like, while understanding the calories and other things involved and also provides suggestions of how you might modify a recipe to lower the calories (if needed) or to provide more nutrition if that is your goal. It is a great resource and can be an aid in accomplishing your goals, whether dietary help or strength building information is your interest.

Tune in next week for more.

Obama Open Government Memoranda: New President, different approach.

2009-01-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

January 22, 12:30 AM

by Michael Salla, Ph.D., Honolulu Exopolitics Examiner

On his first full day as President, Barack Obama issued two Executive Orders and three Presidential Memorandum that will start an era of transparent and Open Government. The White House Office of the Press Secretary released a statement outlining the sweeping changes to be implemented by the Obama administration. In his Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, and the Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act President Obama instructed :

"... all members of his administration to operate under principles of openness, transparency and of engaging citizens with their government. To implement these principles and make them concrete, the Memorandum on Transparency instructs three senior officials to produce an Open Government Directive within 120 days directing specific actions to implement the principles in the Memorandum. And the Memorandum on FOIA instructs the Attorney General to in that same time period issue new guidelines to the government implementing those same principles of openness and transparency in the FOIA context."

President Obama emphasized that his Administration “is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.” ...

see more at: The Examiner

My comments:

The new President and the new government have many detractors. There are a great many people in this nation who are predisposed to consider any action proposed, or taken, by The President or his administration to be anti-American and in some way totalitarian socialism at work to subvert our national heritage, identity and well-being. It remains to be seen whether there is any validity to their position. I prefer to adopt a supportive, if reserved, position and await actions and events - without, however, abdicating the right to offer constructive criticism to the leaders of the new government.

It is, whether you approve or not, the government of all Americans - nationals of The United States of America, that is - and must, if you claim to be a patriot, be supported unless your claim that it is the beginning of a totalitarian dictatorship should prove to be correct. I might remind you, in fact I will remind you, that as recently as January 19th some left-wing websites were still preaching that President Bush and "Darth Cheney" would somehow contrive to circumvent the election and refuse to relinquish their offices. That has not proven to be correct, in spite of all the venomous rhetoric served up and swallowed by the leftist conspiracy theorists and their rapt followers.

That tinfoil hat leftist excreta having been put to rest, for now, we are now being inundated by parallel , if not identical, excreta from the tinfoil hat right. As a free-born American citizen, and- thank God -that is now the only kind we have, you have the right to disagree with your government and to say so. You might, arguably, have the right to malign the office holders unjustly and to accuse them of any kind of scurrilous action of which you can conceive including unjust ad hominem attacks, note that I said "arguably", that perceived right is the province of the courts - however, those actions are definitely not in the best interests of The Republic.
A more constructive course of action for a reasonable citizen would be to watch events and to communicate to your elected representatives, including President Obama, areas where you believe things are being done incorrectly or improperly - you might even consider offering ideas as to how things might be done correctly.

President Obama won this election by putting in place a communications network, over the internet and in person, which collected people who thought that the paradigm being followed by the administration of President Bush was missing the point, as far as they were concerned. It was not done by Bush-haters or McCain haters. It was not done by haters, period. It was done by millions of people, mostly working class, who felt that the government was concentrating effort, and tax dollars, in the wrong places, with the wrong priorities. It was done by the efforts of millions of people who were, and are, optimistic enough to care - and to act.

President Bush is justly proud that his efforts helped to keep us free from terrorist attacks in our homeland subsequent to September 11, 2001. The Obama campaign, as far as I know, did not belittle nor diminish that achievment and neither do I. Everyone is aware that it is possible, even likely, that the international terrorists against whom we are making war will seek to strike at us - in The United States - now that we have a new administration in charge. Electing Senator McCain would not have changed that. The terrorists will be probing for weak points and would have done so without regard to whom we had elected. Whether they will perceive that there is, in fact, an opportunity to strike effectively and will follow it up is at this point unknown.

Many question whether President Obama's administration will be able to defend against or follow up such an attack, should it occur, as well as a Republican administration would be able to do. I'm sure that the terrorists likewise are wondering. I think that President Obama's detractors do a major disservice to the nation by airing those doubts and in effect offering reassurance to the terrorists that they might succeed where they surely would not against a republican government. If you have doubts about our national readiness to prevent or to retaliate against such an attack - I urge you to communicate with your elected representatives: members of Congress, Senators and the office of the President in private rather than using newspapers or radio or television or the internet as a forum to sound off about our possible weakness or lack of preparedness.

There are people in the world, many of them, who are - for one reason or another - not friends of the US. Unfortunately a lot of them also live within our borders, I'm not - in this instance - talking about illegal immigrants, or any other group of immigrants, I'm referring to those among us who seem, always, to take the attitude that whatever the US wants or does is wrong. I'm not asking for a witch-hunt or any kind of latter-day pogrom, I'm asking for a little introspection by Americans who feel alienated from the government, populace and apparent aims of the United States.

This country is not, unfortunately, always right. We have made a lot of mistakes during our approximately two and a quarter centuries of self government. We - OK, our ancestors, - allowed slavery to persist, for economic reasons even though everyone knew - KNEW- that it was wrong. We, the part of us that is European in descent, for most of us that would be only one side of the family tree - nearly exterminated the Native Americans. A lot, if not most of us, are descended either from those slaves or from those Native Americans (often both) as well as from the Europeans and a lot of us are too new the the country to have ancestors who were involved in any way in any of it. There were a lot of ugly things going on in this favored land in colonial times and in early independence and right up to this very day some of it still rears its ugly head.

But, and this is a very large "but", we have the ability to change and to fulfill the promises made by the founding fathers of the nation, even if they might have been a bit hypocritical in the documents which they left us. We don't have to keep our brothers and sisters down in order that we might reach the top. We can all advance together and actually form that "more perfect union" and make available to everyone "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - unfortunately we cannot guaranty that everyone will be a "rock star" with money for nothing and... well you know. But, you've got to admit that it does sound good. Unfortunately it does not work that way.

To be wealthy you have to either be very lucky- inheriting is good... Or you have to work very hard - and be very lucky, or you have to be very smart - and very lucky, or be very talented - and very lucky, or steal the money - and be lucky enough to not get caught. Ok, we failed all those, we missed the lucky part. Most of us are pretty smart and we work pretty hard and we are pretty talented at something, some of us are very talented but still didn't have the luck it took to make the big bucks. It's a sorry deal, but, no matter how many people are in the pyramid, there's still only one at the top.

Support your country, try to make it what it promises to be. Support your country as you would a beloved family member, not by hiding the faults, but by trying - in private, out of the view of outsiders, to counsel for correction. This Nation, and this People, is worth that consideration.

A recent news story in the Las Vegas area - re: legal prostitution

2009-01-23T21:46:00.000-08:00

Lawmaker Proposes Saving State Budget with Sex

Updated: Jan 22, 2009 06:13 PM

State law bans prostitution in Clark and Washoe Counties and it is up to individual county commissions in rural counties to allow the practice. But State Senator Bob Coffin says it could be time to revaluate those laws.

Political leaders say legalizing prostitution, and then taxing the industry's revenues, could raise hundreds of millions of dollars for state coffers. Senator Coffin believes the time has come for Nevada to seriously consider the concept.

"The point is that this act continues to occur and will always occur and it cannot be stopped and it can only be regulated, and perhaps taxed," he said.

Coffin says his first goal would be to tax existing bordellos, such as those currently operating in Nye County, as well as strip clubs and escort services elsewhere in the state, "When you add it all up, there's a lot to be said for creating a tax on the bordellos, the strip clubs and the escort or entertainment services."

Mayor Oscar Goodman says he's always been willing to have a discussion about legalizing prostitution, but says he will not go so far as to advocate for the change, "I have met with folks from that industry who make a very compelling argument that it could generate $200 million a year in tax dollars. That would buy a lot of textbooks, pay for a lot of teachers."

Proponents believe that legalizing prostitution would also make a safer environment for those working in the industry.

But UNLV Assistant Professor Alexis Kennedy says the research does not necessarily back up that claim, "Research that has been done on the brothel system has shown less violence in the brothels, but it does not remove violence and it is only open to people who can work there legally -- those without diseases, addiction issues, of the age of majority. So it does not capture all of the population either."

A spokesman for Las Vegas Metro Police says, at this point, the department does not know if legalizing prostitution would create any public safety issues. The department says they are going to reserve judgment until they see the specific language of the legislation, if it ever gets that far.

See original story here.

My take on this issue:

Never mind Oscar (Las Vegas' Mayor Goodwin), the clown prince, It seems to me that - given the huge amount of illegal prostitution in Las Vegas and Reno - a governmental regulation which mandates the things that are required in legal brothels in Nevada could only be a positive thing.

The prostitution is not going to cease. Whether you approve or not is of no significance, it will not diminish the big dollars generated. Unless you are currently a customer and decide to no longer buy the services.

If there were legal, regulated brothels many of the women who work the streets would be there in a minute, as it is a far less dangerous environment in which to conduct business.

If there were legal brothels - IMHO - many, if not most of those looking for paid sex would patronize those establishments as a far safer alternative to picking up a streetwalker or bar-cruiser of unknown health and of unknown motives. Patrons are often robbed or otherwise harmed by unregulated prostitutes or their controllers. Often it is not something the women take part in voluntarily.

I think that the casino industry does not want the competition of the bars and other amenities provided by brothels or we would have them already, after all - conduct which was, and still is in many places regarded as sinful, has been the "stock-in-trade" of Nevada in general and Las Vegas in particular for generations. Yes, folks, it's not our huge manufacturing capacity which pays the bills here...

I don't patronize prostitutes, and I don't particularly care for the business in any form but that certainly does not change the fact that they exist and that there are customers aplenty for the services offered. If you should happen to want to see for yourself, I recommend a short tour through the Sprint - sorry -Embarq yellow pages: start just past engraving and you will find entertainers and so on. Full page advertisements in the yellow pages are not inexpensive. I'm guessing that these businesses generate a lot of income.

I also think that the availability of legal, regulated brothels would cut deeply into the profits of those who entice or force young women and under-aged girls into the sex trade. I don't know of any hard data which will support or falsify my opinions pertaining to this matter but will welcome any hard information. I'll even listen to your unsupported beliefs. Yes, yes.. I know that it's a sin and that Christians are against it as are Jews and Muslims. Hell, maybe even the Zoroastrians are against it by now. Fear of being stoned does not stop the behavior, fear of prison does not stop it - curtail it a bit? Probably that is true - but it certainly is not stopped.

Few rational men would choose a liaison with a woman of unknown health and possibly larcenous designs for sexual gratification if a legal, licensed and regulated establishment were available to them. There are among us men, and maybe some women too, who are not really interested in having a sexual partner who is above the legal age of consent. I choose to consider that as irrational. Those people will not, probably, go to a brothel but will continue to pick up - or kidnap young girls off the streets if they are able to do so... That is a whole separate issue, and is properly a law enforcement challenge. People who coerce under-age children, even those who think that they are grown-up, into prostitution are beneath my conception of human and... well, I'd better not go there.

On the other hand I don't think that unemployed females should be denied unemployment compensation by the state because they decline to accept a job in a brothel. I'm not a lawyer and can't interpret the law in such cases but have not heard of such a thing happening in Nye County or any county in Nevada where prostitution is allowed. If you know different - please enlighten me.

In short - denying that prostitution exists does not make it go away, nor does making it a crime. People, male and female, will do what they want - or need - in this area without respect to its illegality or your - or my -belief in its immorality. No jurisdiction, even using draconian measures has ever in the history of the human race succeeded in eliminating sex for pay, even when or where it was a capital offense . Refusing to legalize the business because we believe it to be wrong does not change the facts.

MAJOR SECURITY FOR PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION

2009-01-19T22:39:00.000-08:00

From "The Scotsman.com"

Published Date: 20 January 2009

By Chris Stephen in New York

WASHINGTON DC is going into lockdown today for the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, the biggest single-day security operation the world has ever seen.

With crowds of up to four million predicted and most of the world tuning in, a 3.5sq mile area of the city will be sealed off, with entry possible only via airport-style metal detectors.

Further security cordons extend in concentric rings out from the Capitol building, with all bridges sealed off within an even larger area. Some 50,000 security personnel from 58 services will flood the city, in an operation costing $80 million (£55 million).

"It will be the most security, as far as I'm aware, that any inauguration's had," the homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said.

Drawing on the experience of the 2005 London Tube bombings, when the bombers used outlying stations as staging points, 1,000 plainclothes FBI officers in 155 teams will mingle with crowds at subway stations across Washington, hoping to spot would-be terrorists.

At the tip of the security spear are the so-called "Men in Black", a 100-strong unit of snipers from the Secret Service.

Armed with a customised weapon, the snipers are able to hit a target the size of a saucer at 1,000 yards.

From early this morning, they will be deployed in teams of two on rooftops along Pennsylvania Avenue to watch over the presidential motorcade.

When one of the team spots a threat, the other trains his rifle on the target while the spotter takes the role of "wind caller", advising on corrections for wind based on flags and chimney smoke – one reason the Secret Service says the more flags on display the better.

Pictures from Washington's 5,265 surveillance cameras will be fed into a central security command centre.

More than 8,000 state and federal police are in the city, with attention centred on the 1.9-mile Mall, where more than a million will gather to watch the swearing-in on giant TV screens.

An additional 10,000 part-time National Guard troops will be deployed, with 20,000 in reserve, along with an undisclosed number of regular troops.

Hoteliers, meanwhile, have received training on how to spot a terrorist threat, with the authorities mindful that the Mumbai attackers in November singled out hotels as "soft" targets.

Chemical, biological and radiological detectors, installed after 9/11, are already in place, and public buildings will be closed.

Coast Guard craft will patrol the Potomac river, and F-16 fighters will roam the skies, with all civil air traffic banned. "I think we are ready," Mr Chertoff said. "Part of my job is to hope for the best and plan for the worst."

For today, the "worst" includes not just the risk of a terrorist attack, but managing huge crowds and guarding against stampedes or injury during and after the noon ceremony.

Much of the security effort is focused on the internet, with unprecedented attention being paid both to al-Qaeda cyber traffic and messages sent by so-called white supremacists.

In August, a group of white neo-Nazis with sniper rifles were arrested at the Democratic Party's Denver convention.

The only public airing of neo-Nazi views has been the declaration by the National Knights, a faction of the Ku Klux Klan, that they will wear black armbands and display the US flag upside down to protest at the inauguration of the first mixed-race president.

'We should learn from King's vision'

THE president-elect yesterday brought a whole new level of interest to "watching paint dry".

Barack Obama helped paint a wall at a shelter for homeless teenagers in south-east Washington, an area marred by poverty and deprivation, to mark the public holiday celebrating the birth of the assassinated civil rights icon Martin Luther King.

The shelter provides training for the youngsters and places an emphasis on self-reliance, a virtue that Mr Obama extolled during his election campaign.

"Dr Martin Luther King's was a life lived in loving service to others," said Mr Obama, who, in earlier years, worked in similar projects for the unemployed of Chicago's South Side. "His was a vision that all Americans might share the freedom to make of our lives what we will."

He appealed to the nation to remember King through service to others.

"As we honour that legacy, it's not a day just to pause and reflect – it's a day to act," he said.

"I ask the American people to turn today's efforts into an ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of others in their communities, their cities and their country."

See original article

One hopes that the deranged and/or extremist element of the US population as well as their ilk from other lands will stay away from the capitol Tuesday, and that this historic event will be allowed to occur without untoward incident. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the election results this is democracy in action and is the will of the majority of the people of the land and should be respected by all for that reason. To president George W. Bush: Thank you for all the good you have done and best wishes for the future. To President-elect Barrack Obama: Congratulations upon achieving the highest office of the nation and best wishes for a successful term of office and for a satisfying future.

DRAMATEL

2009-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

This a commercial clip that you should not miss!
You might need this service, or, someone might be planning to use it on you...
The ever observant Mac Tonnies has blown the whistle.
See it here: Posthuman Blues

HAPPY NEW YEAR and GOOD LUCK!

2008-12-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

From toxic trash in China to mountain-sized landfills in Michigan, the world is awash in waste

By William Pentland Forbes.com

The largest garbage dump in the world is roughly twice the size of the continental U.S.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a continent-sized constellation of discarded shoes, bottles, bags, pacifiers, plastic wrappers, toothbrushes and every other type of trash imaginable, floating in the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Hawaii and San Francisco. The ocean's swirling currents have pushed the piles of debris, accumulated detritus of sea vessels and decades of under-the-radar ocean dumping, together in loose configurations just below the water's surface.

While nobody knows for sure where it came from or how to clean it up, the sheer size of the Garbage Patch has attracted attention to the world's seldom-discussed renegade waste problem. The remains of daily life are becoming a colossal problem with increasingly global implications. Some places are running out of space to put it, and others haven't even figured out how to pick it up in the first place. From toxic trash on the streets of Guiya (in India) to the mountain-sized municipal landfills in Michigan(USA), the world is awash in waste — but not always in the places you'd expect.

Take, for example, the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizer and pesticide use by farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains states has gradually raised nutrient levels in the Mississippi's muddy waters to levels so high that algal blooms have appeared in the river drainage delta. These algal blooms deplete oxygen levels in the water to the point where it can no longer sustain fish, plants and microscopic species. Ergo, the "dead zone," an area that covers nearly 7,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

Everybody knows chemicals dumped in the wild can cause serious problems, and keeping them stored is not necessarily much safer. For decades, Africa was a major dumping grounds for toxic wastes. Since at least the early 1970s, there have been multiple cases of illicit toxic waste disposal deals between Western companies and African countries.

In 1987, for example, two Italian waste brokers, Gianfranco Raffaeli and Renato Pent, paid a Nigerian businessman, Sunday Nana, about $100 a month to store 18,000 drums of hazardous waste on his property in Nigeria. Nigerian officials discovered a cache of the illegal toxic waste, which contained high levels of PCB and dioxins, stored at the port of Koko.

Regardless of how they got there, mountains of obsolete pesticides like DDT, aldrin and chlordane remain stockpiled in poorly maintained storage facilities across much of Africa. Mali and Botswana have reported especially large stockpiles of industrial chemicals discarded as long as 40 years ago.

While some countries address legacy problems like abandoned pesticides, other countries are busy creating new ones for future generations. China and India are no exceptions.

Guiyu (China) is a cluster of interconnected villages located about an hour's drive away from the South China Sea in the northern province of Guangdong. In the past decade, Guiyu has grown from a rice farming community to an enormous hub for recycling and disposal of electronic waste, including everything from defunct hard drives to broken television sets. The amount of e-waste that flows through the "recycling" plants of Guiyu in a single year could create an acre-wide pile taller than the Statue of Liberty, according to an investigative report by Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and the Basel Action Network.

Truckloads of printers, fax machines, hard drives and all kinds of defunct electronics arrive daily in Guiyu from warehouses in the port of Nanhai, where the imported waste comes ashore in sea-going containers. Roughly half these computers and electronic components are recycled; the rest are dumped. Nobody knows for sure, but evidence suggests most of the discarded components are dumped locally, despite the substantial risk that the waste, laden with toxic lead, mercury and cadmium, will contaminate local soil and water supplies. Although Chinese officials have recently stepped up efforts to enforce a longstanding ban on e-waste imports, there has likely been more than enough damage inflicted to last generations.

The city of Alang, which sits on the western coast of Gulf of Cambay in western India, is the largest ship-scrapping yard in the world. A ship that would cost millions to demolish in North America is worth millions in a place like Alang.

The Alang shipyards dismantle hundreds of massive vessels from all over the world every year. Old ships are run ashore during high tide on a roughly six-mile-long stretch of beach; later, when the tide recedes, thousands of low-wage workers descend on them and use crude tools to strip them apart. The industry provides 30,000 jobs in Alang and produces millions of tons of recycled steel every year.

But that isn't all it produces.

Old ships are, more often than not, chock full of toxic chemicals, like insulation with asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls in hoses, foam insulation and paint. In addition, most ships contain huge quantities of heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium. If ships are not properly dismantled, they contaminate the area where they are broken down.

Although India has wrestled the shipbreaking business from yards in Europe and North America by effectively eliminating high-priced environmental safeguards, Bangladesh is now capturing more of India's business by lowering environmental standards even more dramatically.

These kinds of competing regulatory systems have reinforced a race-to-the-bottom dynamic in the waste trade, which all too often champions disposal sites with poor environmental practices.

The global trade in trash rose from 2 million tons to more than 8.5 million tons between 1993 and 2001, according to data collected by the Basel Convention. And not all of those sites are outside U.S. borders.

For example, two mega-sized landfills in Michigan — Carleton Farms in New Boston and Pine Tree Acres, slightly north of Detroit — have cornered the the waste disposal market in the Canadian province of Ontario. Michigan requires operators to maintain landfills for 30 years after they close, while Canada requires operators to monitor landfills for at least a century, and in a few cases, forever. The result: In 2006, it cost roughly $100 US to dispose of a ton of trash in Ontario, but only $10 to dispose of the same ton of trash across the border in the U.S. Michigan landfills receive enough Canadian garbage annually to fill a football stadium.

"We love Canadian garbage," Norm Folson, site manager at the Pine Tree Acres Landfill in northeast Detroit, told a reporter from Canadian Architect recently. "Tipping fees pay our salaries and pave our roads. To us, Canadian garbage is like gold." The original article can be read here: Forbes

A little comment on this article:

The headline certainly caught my attention! Twice the size of the continental United States is a damned big clump of garbage! As the above picture illustrates, if you're familiar with the US, the waste clump is more like the size of California. Of course, California is larger than a lot of countries so that's still a damned big clump of garbage.

When I was in the Navy (USN) in the early 1960s it was common practice for ships in international waters to dump garbage overboard. Often it was first burned and then jettisoned but sometimes the burning was skipped. In those days, other than some chemicals, there was little that would persist for long and even less that would float - for long - or so we believed. Food scraps, which made up the bulk of the garbage, would be eaten by something or would decompose harmlessly (we were told) and wood and paper would not hurt anything while metal refuse would simply sink to the ocean bottom and corrode away. We had little or no synthetic materials such as plastics in those days which might float and resist degradation by natural means.

That should not be taken to mean that the practice was not in some way harmful, only that it was not considered to be an issue at the time.

Fast forward a couple of decades, though, and the situation had changed dramatically: plastics were everywhere, food containers, small radios, cigarette filters, packaging materials of all kinds and many other articles in common use. I was only in the Navy until early 1966 so I have no knowledge of when the realization came that the trash was no longer harmless to the sea. The ubiquitous plastics did not break down in the same time-scale as the earlier materials did and some were well nigh indestructible, certainly not "bio-degradable". I read, several years ago, about an ocean shipping container full of plastic ducks which was lost overboard at sea and the ducks were washing ashore all over the world for years and providing information about ocean current flow, not very bio-degradable ducks apparently.

Now we have disposable plastic cigarette lighters, plastic toothbrushes, plastic shoes and plastic nearly everything which for many years has been consigned to the deep - only to be rejected by "the deep" and kept at the surface, non-biodegradable, almost immune to saltwater and sunlight and inedible until we have at least one immense flotilla of jetsam (flotsam actually) occupying a large area of the world's ocean and growing exponentially which might someday allow us to build a floating bridge to Hawaii. I admit that I would like to be able to drive to Honolulu from the mainland, but this floating continent of junk is obscene. They all say that they have no idea what can be done about it. Of course, that is a bit disingenuous because the simple answer is obvious: go get it. What they're really saying is that they don't want it and have no idea what to do with it after they get it.

There are a number of ways to look at this issue: the United States Government, through DEQ has in the past, held manufacturers responsible for the ultimate cleanup and disposal of hazardous wastes resulting from materials which they manufactured such as automotive batteries and some chemicals, they have held dealers of some of those things responsible for cleaning dump-sites, even those which were approved at the time of the dumping, contaminated with some substances and have bankrupted several businesses in the process.

My view is that, since all of the plastics which float in the immense doldrum in the Pacific are ultimately made from petroleum, the Saudi Government, Iran and Iraq as suppliers of the oil and China as manufacturer of the junk should be held responsible for this pollution and made to clean it up and also fined - payable in gold or dollars - twice the cost of the clean-up while they are also required to take the stuff home with them. It seems only right to me. Of course, first we should figure out how we're going to live without imported oil or plastic ducks.

Any suggestions?

I'm feeling much better, now.

2008-12-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

The text in red below is from "Canada Free Press" and was originally published at Exopolitics.blog.com so I'm excerpting from an editorialized excerpt. See comments after reading...

“Barack Obama, through his selection of UFO Disclosure Advocate John Podesta as Transition team CoChair, has energized a core of the 49% of adult Americans who believe that Extraterrestrials are now visiting Earth to now see Obama as a possible “Disclosure President,” says exopolitics.blogs.com. “Another sector of opinion within the Exopolitics community believe that Obama may be used as a front man for a “Disclosure Management” psychological warfare operation by U.S. and other military intelligence agencies. Under this scenario, a false “ET Disclosure” would be rolled out with ETs as a hostile or authoritarian force, a strategy calculated to spread the arms race and war economy to outer space, and to foster a global totalitarian police state on Earth.”

“Dr. Wernher von Braun, a whistleblower, warned that the final charade of the permanent war economy after the collapse of capitalism, would be first a False War on Terror (via the False Flag Operation of 9/11): and finally a False War against the `Evil ETs.’”

Back to Grant Park on Election Night. While some were focused on the red and black dress Michelle Obama wore, others were photographing the Orbs.

“Amidst all of this grand speculation, we now have some photographic evidence of how dimensional intelligence in the dimensional ecology we live in may be viewing at least the celebrations on the evening of Nov. 4, 2008 when Barack Obama gave his Election night acknowledgement speech in Grant Park in downtown Chicago,” notes Alfred Lambremont Webre in Exopolitics.com.

“The Orbs at Grant Park are evidence of Dimensional Intelligent intervention in the Exopolitical process of the Obama administration. Strategically, as humans, we must learn to think multi-dimensionally as Extraterrestrials with Exo-consciousness and see our reality as these dimensional intelligences do. There is much to revealed about Obama’s Grant Park speech that will impact the disclosure process, of the Extraterrestrial presence and of advanced ET-derived technologies.

“All of this “disclosure” is for naught without the elevation of moral insight and cosmic consciousness by humanity.

“The most hopeful sign today of the Obama presidency has not been the John Podestas or any other human in his team. Rather, it has been these Orbs--dimensional intelligences--disclosing a profound message of hope and consciousness to come at Grant Park.

“We may have some cause to hope, albeit dimensional, that Barack Obama is something more than a mere tool of the Trilateralists, by the photographic evidence.”

Someone, who might have been guessing, once said that "78% of statistics are made up on the spot" or words to that effect.

One can hope that the reference to "49 percent of adult Americans who believe that extraterrestrials are now visiting the Earth" is that type of statistic! I can accept that 49%of adult Americans might consider it possible that extraterrestrials are now visiting the Earth, but, believe it is another matter entirely...

And then we have a quote attributed to rocket scientist Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) (see Wikipedia if you're not sure who he was) "Dr. Wernher von Braun, a whistleblower, warned that the final charade of the permanent war economy after the collapse of capitalism, would be first a False War on Terror (via the False Flag Operation of 9/11): and finally a False War against the `Evil ETs.’”

Dr. von Braun died long before the break-up of Eastern European Communism in the late 80s and early 90s. The alleged quote appears to support the idea that the US administration was responsible for the WTC attack of Sept. 11, 2001 and that the next step in the "great conspiracy" will be to acknowledge alien contact and to assure us that they are, in fact, hostile and poised to attack us.

I am one of those who thinks it highly unlikely that over twenty-four years before the event, Dr. von Braun knew and spoke of it. Did he know of alien contact with the Earth? Your guess is as good as mine.

Dr. von Braun was raised and remained a Lutheran and as far as I can see from historical sources was not a "whistleblower" but rather a man obsessed with building and firing rockets who would work for whomever could facilitate his obsession.

He accepted the need to be an officer in the NAZI SS in wartime Germany as a prerequisite to continuing his research with state support and arranged to be captured by US forces at war's end rather than Soviet forces so he could continue his research in the United States. I have not yet found any other references to his having prophesied concerning international terrorism or extraterrestrials, if you know of any please post in "comments".

LV Housing Prices Fall, Foreclosures Climb

2008-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

"Dec 10, 2008 4:29 PM EST"

Las Vegas Housing prices have fallen to a point where they are nearly 19-percent below market fundamentals, according to a new report. In addition, foreclosures are expected to be at a record high.

The promise of "Home Sweet Home" turned sour for more than 28,000 homeowners in Clark County in 2008. The foreclosures continue to drag down the home values in Nevada.

Click here for information on upcoming foreclosure help

Click here for Federal Housing Administration's HOPE Program

"The banks have put them so ridiculously low, so it's bringing down all the neighborhoods," said broker Ronda Matthews-Wolfe, Jack Matthews & Co.

The foreclosure fallout means everyone's home is going down in value. A new report, Housing Prices in America, says the Las Vegas market is now undervalued by 18.8 percent.

"Why they really plummeted is because of the foreclosures, and the foreclosures have happened because people overpaid or got into these adjustables," Matthews-Wolfe said.

But there is a silver lining. More houses are selling. More than 2,100 homes were sold in November, although that is nearly 20-percent down from October, it is 125-percent higher than November 2007. Housing prices are also down 32-percent from a year ago.

"The price isn't all that bad either," said Bill Baldare, a home buyer. Many bank-owned homes are practical steals. Baldare is bidding on a foreclosed home listed at $32,000. The same home sold for $196,000 four years ago.

"Trying to buy a house now is way out of reach for a lot of people, including myself, but this seems to be what I've been looking for," Baldare said.

"I expect Nevada, California, Florida, and Arizona, which led this mess -- they are the ones with the most amount of subprime mortgages -- I see them to lead the market as far as recovery goes next year," said Alexis McGee, president of Foreclosures.com.

Bloggers comments:

Hmmmm... House sold for $196,000 4 years ago. Bank has foreclosed on the unfortunate family which agreed to pay $196K and is offering the house for $32,000. Does anybody other than me see a questionable scenario here? If, just an "if" mind you, the bank had shown forbearance to the former mortgage slave, I mean borrower, by adjusting the principal to say $145,000 and/or lowering the interest rate to somewhere near current new mortgage rates, is there a good chance that the borrower might have been able and willing to continue paying for the house? How about if the bank had lowered the principal amount to $110K, or $100K does it seem likely that the original purchaser/mortgagee might have been able and willing to stay and pay?

Of course the bank did not do any of those things. What they did was to tell the delinquent borrower to pay up or else: "we will pitch you and your children, wife and hamsters out into the street you freaking deadbeat useless piece of offal spurned by scavengers and carrion eaters alike, you should kill yourself for being such a loser, have a nice day." So, the borrower, who probably had a very good reason (such as loss of job, medical emergency, or some such) for being a month behind in his mortgage became both hopeless and hostile toward the pitiless, mindless collectors who, almost daily, called (perhaps at his/her work)and demanded instant resolution (we'll take a check by phone) of a situation which he or she could not resolve that way.

Finally the day came when the borrower, knowing that there was no help anywhere, said something like "Why don't you just take the house?" Very soon thereafter the bank filed a foreclosure and simultaneously a move for eviction. The house became both empty and also an unpaying liability/or asset, depending upon whether you are an accountant or not, on the balance sheet.

Then another group of bankers came into the picture, those whose task it is to keep the bank liquid, who decided that since the market is depressed and money needs to be raised it would be a good idea to just dump the foreclosed properties for quick cash. Looking at the market conditions: 25,000 houses on the market - no population growth - few buyers, etc. they picked a figure out of thin air and published an asking price which they felt would get immediate action either for cash or from a borrower with a 700+ FICA ergo $32K. Result? Another family homeless and possibly breaking apart due to financial stress coupled with ruined credit and another bargain for someone who was lucky enough to have failed to qualify for a loan when the market was good. Also, a large, and unnecessary loss for the bank or investor who had held the original mortgage.

My feeling is that this scenario is caused by the ego of the collectors who have zero empathy for people in financial crises and who are only interested in the brownie buttons and/or commissions they derive from wringing the payment (as agreed) month after month from the agonizing borrower until finally the borrower succumbs to despair from the stress and gives up trying to meet the demands. The result is a loss to the bank which need not and should not have happened as well as a destructive loss to the borrower's family due to the loss of their home and credit. A little humanity and consideration of mutual interest in maintaining the borrower in the home inspite of slow payments or even a modification of the loan terms would be a better solution for everyone involved except the bargain hunter.

Just my thoughts... Feel free to explain - very carefully - where I'm wrong.

IRS: Fry's Exec Stole $65M to Pay Gambling Debts

2008-12-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

Dec 23, 2008 3:11 PM EST

A Ferrari-driving vice president of Fry's Electronics Inc. who was allegedly such a heavyweight gambler that casinos chartered private planes to fly him to Las Vegas has been arrested on charges he embezzled more than $65 million from the retailer to fuel his lavish lifestyle and pay off debts.

Ausaf Umar Siddiqui is accused by the IRS of concocting an incredibly profitable scheme in which he cut side deals with some of Fry's suppliers, buying their goods at higher prices than they would normally get, and buying more of them than he normally would, in exchange for kickbacks of up to 31 percent of the total sales price.

The IRS alleges in a criminal complaint filed against Siddiqui that he set up a shell company that hid $65.6 million in kickback payments from five Fry's vendors from January 2005 to November 2008. Of that amount, $17.9 million was paid to subsidiaries of Las Vegas Sands Corp., which operates the Venetian Casino Resort, according to the criminal complaint and regulatory filings. Authorities confirmed the payments went to the casino.

Siddiqui, who lives in Palo Alto, was ordered held on $300,000 bond Monday at a hearing in U.S. District Court in San Jose. He has been in custody since Friday, when agents arrested him at Fry's headquarters in San Jose in front of stunned co-workers. The details about his Ferrari and the private jets came out during the hearing Monday.

His home phone number is unlisted, and it wasn't immediately clear whether Siddiqui had a defense lawyer. A criminal complaint is one of the preliminary investigative steps for arresting someone and securing an indictment.

A Fry's spokesman did not return a phone call from The Associated Press left after-hours.

Siddiqui has not been formally charged yet with the wire-fraud allegations laid out in the criminal complaint. Arlette Lee, spokeswoman for the IRS' Criminal Investigation division, said the judge in the case has given the government 20 days to file formal charges, which she said prosecutors intend to do.

As Fry's vice president of merchandising and operations, Siddiqui pulled down a legitimate annual salary of $225,000, supervised a staff of 120 and his team was responsible for buying all the merchandise sold in Fry's 34 stores around the U.S., according to the criminal complaint. The stores are mostly located in California and Texas.

The IRS alleges Siddiqui was able to amass so much illegal money by convincing Fry's executives that he alone should be responsible for a job that is typically handled by independent contractors -- the job of the sales representative that brokers deals with the suppliers and the stores for a cut of the total sales price.

The reps are kept independent so they're not seen as favoring one side or the other in sales negotiations, and their job can be lucrative if they're good at it, with commissions ranging from 3 to 8-percent of the total sales they bring in, according to the complaint.

The IRS claims Siddiqui started striking side deals with some of the suppliers, in which he would guarantee he'd keep their products stocked on Fry's shelves, in exchange for kickbacks in the form of steep commissions paid to a company he set up called PC International.

The alleged scheme unraveled when another Fry's executive walked into Siddiqui's office in October and saw spreadsheets on his desk outlining the payments and alleged kickbacks, according to the complaint. Siddiqui wasn't there, so the executive took the documents, contacted the IRS and handed over the evidence.

The IRS later examined Siddiqui's bank records and found that a total of $167.8 million was deposited into the bogus company's bank account. Seventy wire transfers totaling $65.6 million came from five Fry's suppliers, who were not named as defendants in the case.

See original article here

Folks, you've got to just shake your head in astonishment that any company would allow anyone an opportunity to accomplish such a scam and you've got to marvel that their suppliers would be willing to get onboard. I'm guessing that the grift was split with the supplier's reps and they too will be on the carpet soon. There's a lot more churning in the muck than this simple statement mentions.

He guaranteed placement of their products for a consideration, bad enough, but to pay above market and take the difference in a rebate to his own corporation requires some pretty involved paper juggling and could not be done by two people however how highly placed without collusion from others in the chain. That is if either company involved had decent controls in place.

Just my thoughts...

Financial Times: “And Now for a World Government”

2008-12-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Published on 12-08-2008

"In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic."
-a quote from the article...

By Gideon Rachman

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America’s president-in-waiting, does not share the Bush administration’s disdain for international agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he argued that: “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.” The importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America’s ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them.

These are the kind of ideas that get people reaching for their rifles in America’s talk-radio heartland. Aware of the political sensitivity of its ideas, the MGI report opts for soothing language. It emphasises the need for American leadership and uses the term, “responsible sovereignty” – when calling for international co-operation – rather than the more radical-sounding phrase favoured in Europe, “shared sovereignty”. It also talks about “global governance” rather than world government.

But some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the “core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law”.

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried away. While it seems feasible that some sort of world government might emerge over the next century, any push for “global governance” in the here and now will be a painful, slow process.

There are good and bad reasons for this. The bad reason is a lack of will and determination on the part of national, political leaders who – while they might like to talk about “a planet in peril” – are ultimately still much more focused on their next election, at home.

But this “problem” also hints at a more welcome reason why making progress on global governance will be slow sledding. Even in the EU – the heartland of law-based international government – the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for “ever closer union” have been referred to the voters. In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.

The world’s most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local. Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

Comment by the blogger:

This article brings up some interesting points and I think the the most interesting is that "International governance tends to be effective only when it is anti-democratic."

It does not address the question which immediately comes to my mind when discussing "A World Government". That question is: What would induce the people of The United States of America to willfully surrender their sovereignty to any international body, especially one so flawed as the UNO? I can think of several reasons why it would not be a good idea for us or for humanity.

Abiding by international treaties lawfully ratified under the constitution of the United States is one thing - and it is a problem in itself when those treaties are not carefully vetted to be sure that they do not compromise our national sovereignty - but surrendering sovereignty and allowing some external agency to meddle in (indeed, to dictate) how we run our country, decide if we are treating our populace in a correct manner and impose regulations from outside the country telling us how to live and who may do what inside our country is another matter entirely.

International relations are a different thing, though. Should any country take it upon itself to bomb or to invade a separate nation? I am not referring to the present US involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq as both were legitimate acts, possibly ill-advised in the case of Iraq - but legitimate. I am not so sure about Panama or Grenada and question our interference in Nicaragua and other American nations in the past.

There are many crying needs for outside intervention in todays world - several countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well as The Sudan are in a state of genocidal upheaval for reasons which are not clear to me. There is no international body which can - legally - intervene to save the people of Darfur or to help the people of Somalia or Zimbabwe out of the hopeless situations imposed by their governments. In East Asia there are a couple of other countries in similar straits. I do not think that even these obvious needs are justification for a "World Government". As nice as it would seem to be able to help all those suffering people I think that the long-term cost to all the rest of the people of the world, in accepting a "World Government," would be far too high and I doubt that their needs would be addressed anyway by such a body.

Here in the United States we have seen a constitutional government created which guaranteed equality before the law to all citizens and from the very start excluded those people who were held in chattel slavery and Native Americans from considerations of that equality, by the simple act of failing to accord to them recognition of their humanity or citizenship. It boggles the mind to consider the hypocrisy inherent in the Bill Of Rights and The Constitution when it made such elegant and general statements of equality and right only to deny both to a large population of men and women who, by accident of birth or "condition of servitude", were simply left out.

Beyond that we have watched the slow but accelerating usurpation of the rights reserved to the states by the national government since the beginning of the republic. It is true that some were made for the best of reasons: to free and enfranchise the slaves for example in the 1860s, and much later to again free and enfranchise their descendents in the 1960s. To strike down legal impediments which prevented some from voting is another example. Beyond that it is often done by threatening to withhold money for construction or maintenance unless certain changes are made in the laws of the states, such as speed limits and other seemingly small matters. The net result, though, is control by the national government beyond the legal authority constitutionally given. It is not likely that it would be very different with a "World Government" except - probably - far more oppressive.

There will always be "unusual circumstances" calling for emergency extralegal actions somewhere in the world. Unfortunately, it is likely that those circumstances would be used - repeatedly - to draw the bonds ever tighter around personal liberty everywhere if there were a "World Government" in charge. Where would be the off-setting power which would check the aspirations of the rulers? Even a country as large as the US or Russia or India or China, once having surrendered its sovereignty and having been disarmed - including the private citizens, would be unlikely to be able to stand against a government which had the weight of the entire world behind it.

Here in the US our "representatives" are held in check - to an extent - by the knowledge that we are not disarmed and that we can revolt if motivated to do so by sufficient malfeasance on their part. We have seen that a lot will be allowed of them, but they can't be sure when the limit might be exceeded. While that might seem pretty far-fetched reasoning to some, I assure you that it is not. It is inherent in the composition of the human animal that a free people can only remain free by retaining the power to oust those who would force them to conform unwillingly to some master-plan. Human history has shown us that there will always be a "master" waiting in the wings to exploit any weakness we manifest. Allowing any "World Government", in my opinion, would be manifest weakness of the first order. It would be akin to shouting, "Beat me, beat me," at a sadist convention...

Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop

2008-12-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

By Brigid Schulte

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page A01

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.

But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing.

"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."

The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn't a climatic event. "Let's hope it's not something ghastly going on with the natural world."

To find out, Simmons and Arlington naturalists began calling around. A naturalist in Maryland found no acorns on an Audubon nature walk there. Ditto for Fairfax, Falls Church, Charles County, even as far away as Pennsylvania. There are no acorns falling from the majestic oaks in Arlington National Cemetery.

"Once I started paying attention, I couldn't find any acorns anywhere. Not from white oaks, red oaks or black oaks, and this was supposed to be their big year," said Greg Zell, a naturalist at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington. "We're talking zero. Not a single acorn. It's really bizarre."

Zell began to do some research. He found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called "No acorns this year," reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. "We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird," wrote one. "None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser."

Jennifer Klepper of Annapolis even blogged about it. "Last year our trees shot down so many acorns that you were taking your life into your own hands if you went outside without a crash helmet on," she wrote this month. "But this year? Forget it."

Louise Garris lives in an Arlington neighborhood called Oakcrest, which is home to towering oak trees. When she couldn't find any acorns, she began putting out peanuts for the squirrels. Last year, oaks in metropolitan Washington produced a bumper crop of acorns, and squirrels and other urban wildlife produced an abundance of young. This year, experts said, many animals will starve.

Garris started calling nurseries. "I was worried they'd think I was crazy. But they said I wasn't the only one calling who was concerned about it," she said. "This is the first time I can remember in my lifetime not seeing any acorns drop in the fall and I'm 53. You have to wonder, is it global warming? Is it environmental? It makes you wonder what's going on."

Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust here is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. "It's sort of a mystery," Zell said.

A word about the mighty oak. Long before people paved over the area, much of the Washington region was covered by oak and hickory forests. There are at least 20 different species of oak trees in the region, and they produce acorns on different cycles: white oaks every year and red oaks every two years. Each tree, too, has its own two- to four-year cycle, producing many acorns one year and few in other years. Stressed trees, including those trying to survive extended drought conditions in the Washington region, often wildly overproduce acorns to ensure the survival of the species.

Oaks are one of the few trees that can self-pollinate and "clone" themselves. But they prefer the genetic variety that comes from the flowers of male trees pollinating the flowers of female trees. That's a dance that takes place every spring, usually in May, for anywhere from seven days to two weeks, depending on the weather.

And the weather is critical. A late frost can kill the flowers and any chance of pollination. But there was no late frost in this area last year, according to the National Weather Service. Gypsy moths and other insects can damage trees, but because the pollen is airborne, insects don't play much of a role in oak reproduction.

That leaves Simmons's theory. Last spring was so wet, he reasoned, perhaps the pollen was washed out of the air and down storm drains before it had time to do its work.

Ed Zimmer, regional forester for the Virginia Department of Forestry, doesn't buy that.

"It would have to be Noah's flood kind of rain for me to believe that. Forty days of constant rain," he said. "I don't think that could be a factor because there's so much pollen and all these trees release it at different times, depending on if they're in full sun or partial sun, or even from different places on the tree."

But last May, when the oak trees would have been busy flowering, coating cars and sidewalks with a thick dusting of golden pollen, the National Weather Service logged 10.6 inches of rain at Reagan National Airport -- three times the normal amount, making it the third wettest month on record since 1871.

Whatever the reason for no acorns, foresters and botanists are paying attention.

But they say they're not worried yet. "What's there to worry about?" said Alan Whittemire, a botanist at the U.S. Arboretum. "If you're a squirrel, it's a big worry. But it's no problem for the oak tree. They live a long time. They'll produce acorns again when they're ready to."

White oaks can live as long as 300 years. Faster-growing red oaks can reach 200. And it takes only one acorn to make a tree, he said, which in an urban area with little open space is often more than enough.

"This is probably just a low year, a biological event, and it'll go away," Zimmer said. "But if this were to continue another two, three, four years, you might have to ask yourself what's going on, whether it is an indication of something bigger."

Foresters survey acorns, nuts and berries for their annual "mast" report that helps wildlife managers figure out how much food there might be for deer, bear and other wildlife. Those reports can fluctuate, and the foresters have noticed how "spotty" it is this year in parts of Northern Virginia.

"This is interesting enough to ask some questions and pay attention to," said Adam Downing, forestry and natural resources agent with the Virginia Cooperative Extension. "Fortunately, natural systems are resilient. Oaks are tough."

* * *

Rachel Tolman, a naturalist at Long Branch, smeared a big glop of peanut butter on one of the nature center's trees. She grabbed handfuls of store-bought hazelnuts and placed them atop boxes to attract the tiny, nocturnal flying squirrels that tend to mass in the oaks every winter. Within seconds, the squirrels dive-bombed in from nearby trees, legs outstretched like fist-size silvery-gray sky divers. "They're so much more willing to be seen this year," Tolman said. "It's because they're so hungry."

Tolman was the first naturalist to notice that there were no acorns or hickory nuts this year. Each fall, starting in September, she takes daily walks through the forest to collect nuts and acorns to feed the flying squirrels and other animals at the center through the winter. This year, she found nothing. "I'm hoping this is just some weird anomaly," she said.

Hazelnuts gone and peanut butter licked clean, the still-hungry flying squirrels scampered high into the tree canopy and chirped angrily for more.

Original article

How about in your area? If you live in an area where there are nut trees, are there nuts this year?
I used to live on the central coast of California where there are large numbers of oak trees and lots of acorns. Atascadero, do you have acorns this year? How about Paso Robles, are there nuts - no, I mean acorns...

Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.

2008-11-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

19:31 | 24/ 11/ 2008

Print version

MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: "In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let's say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked."

When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink."

Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Perhaps it's just my suspicious nature, but, the article (to me, at least) - even allowing for the current economic chaos-cum-rathole that the US is experiencing - seems to be a blend of wishful thinking from an old aparatchik and practitioner of the art upon which he has written, i.e. "Information Warfare."

There are, of course, real problems with which to deal and there are also wide gulfs of belief and experience separating various factions of the US population. Is collapse and fragmentation of the nation - politically as opposed to economically - facing us in the very short run. Well, my crystal skull, oops... I mean "crystal ball" is cloudy today - or maybe it's just the shadow of a UFO overhead.

Somehow, I don't think we have reached "critical mass" yet for the explosion which would obliterate The United States of America. I could be wrong. Maybe the treasury's coup de etat
will prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back and we will soon see the "amero" coins in circulation and a different logo on the helmets of the military patrolling our cities and towns.

It remains to be seen, of course, but for all the people betting and/or investing in the imminent demise of the USA: Get a good hedge on that bet, you'll probably need it.

2900 Year Old Stele Reveals Ancient Theological Belief

2008-11-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Funerary monument reveals Iron Age belief that the soul lived in the stone

November 18, 2008

Discovery in Turkey Comes from Major Iron Age Site

Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.

University of Chicago researchers will describe the discovery, a testimony created by an Iron Age official that includes an incised image of the man, on Nov. 22-23 at conferences of biblical and Middle Eastern archaeological scholars in Boston.

The Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago found the 800-pound basalt stele, 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, at Zincirli (pronounced "Zin-jeer-lee"), the site of the ancient city of Sam'al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.

The stele is the first of its kind to be found intact in its original location, enabling scholars to learn about funerary customs and life in the eighth century B.C. At the time, vast empires emerged in the ancient Middle East, and cultures such as the Israelites and Phoenicians became part of a vibrant mix.

The man featured on the stele was probably cremated, a practice that Jewish and other cultures shun because of a belief in the unity of body and soul. According to the inscription, the soul of the deceased resided in the stele.

"The stele is in almost pristine condition. It is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features and thus provides an important addition to our knowledge of ancient language and culture," said David Schloen, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute and Director of the University's Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.

Schloen will present the Kuttamuwa stele to a scholarly audience at the meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research on Nov. 22 in Boston, the major annual conference for Middle Eastern archaeology. Dennis Pardee, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago, will present his translation of the stele's 13-line inscription the following day at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, also in Boston, in a session on "Paleographical Studies in the Near East."

German archaeologists first excavated the 100-acre site in the 1890s and unearthed massive city walls, gates and palaces. A number of royal inscriptions and other finds are now on display in museums in Istanbul and Berlin. Schloen and his team from the University of Chicago have excavated Zincirli for two months annually since 2006.

"Zincirli is a remarkable site," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. "Because no other cities were built on top of it, we have excellent Iron Age materials right under the surface. It is rare also in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age. Having all of that information helps an archaeologist study the ethnicity of the inhabitants, trade and migration, as well as the relationships of the groups who lived there."

The stele was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a "servant" of King Panamuwa of the eighth century B.C. It was found in the outer part of the walled city in a domestic area—most likely the house of Kuttamuwa himself—far from the royal palaces, where inscriptions had previously been found.

The inscription reads in part: "I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …" It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. It is of keen interest to linguists as well as biblical scholars and religious historians because it comes from a kingdom contemporary with ancient Israel that shared a similar language and cultural features.

The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or "soul" of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.

The stele was set against a stone wall in the corner of the small room, with its protruding tenon or "tab" still inserted into a slot in a flagstone platform. A handsome, bearded figure, Kuttamuwa is depicted on the stele wearing a tasseled cap and fringed cloak and raising a cup of wine in his right hand. He is seated on a chair in front of a table laden with food, symbolizing the pleasant afterlife he expected to enjoy. Beside him is his inscription, elegantly carved in raised relief, enjoining upon his descendants the regular duty of bringing food for his soul. Indeed, in front of the stele were remains of food offerings and fragments of polished stone bowls of the type depicted on Kuttamuwa's table.

According to Schloen, the stele vividly demonstrates that Iron Age Sam'al, located in the border zone between Anatolia and Syria, inherited both Semitic and Indo-European cultural traditions. Kuttamuwa and his king, Panamuwa, had non-Semitic names, reflecting the migration of Indo-European speakers into the region centuries earlier under the Hittite Empire based in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), which had conquered the region.

But by the eighth century B.C., they were speaking the local West Semitic dialect and were fully integrated into local culture. Kuttumuwa's inscription shows a fascinating mixture of non-Semitic and Semitic cultural elements, including a belief in the enduring human soul—which did not inhabit the bones of the deceased, as in traditional Semitic thought, but inhabited his stone monument, possibly because the remains of the deceased were cremated. Cremation was considered to be abhorrent in the Old Testament and in traditional West Semitic culture, but there is archaeological evidence for Indo-European-style cremation in neighboring Iron Age sites, although not yet at Zincirli itself.

In future excavation campaigns, the Zincirli team, generously supported by University trustee Joseph Neubauer and his wife Jeanette, plans to excavate large areas of the site in order to understand the social and economic organization of the city and its cultural development over the centuries. Schloen and his associate director Amir Fink hope to illuminate Iron Age culture more widely through this richly documented ancient city.

See original article and photos here.

There are some great photographs on the The University of Chicago website as well as other items of interest.

Economic stress blamed for murder/suicide...

2008-11-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

Amanda Hernandez, Reporter
NLV Murder/Suicide a Result of Economic Stress

Updated: Nov 13, 2008 07:12 AM

Eyewitness News has learned that a couple found dead in the desert on Monday had lost their home in foreclosure.

North Las Vegas Police found the pair near Losee Road and I-215. At the time, police wouldn't say how they died. But the deaths have now been confirmed as a murder/suicide, triggered by a lost job and home foreclosure.

Pushed past the point of desperation, Jeff Lingle spent the day after his 38th birthday in the desert with the woman he loved.

A family friend says the two were common law married and had fallen on hard times. Lingle had lost his job, eventually forcing the couple to join the thousands of others who lost their home to foreclosure.

They moved in with a neighbor, but things never improved and so Jeff wrote a note saying, "We couldn't do this anymore and we swore we would die together."

He then included a map of where they could be found.

It's the ultimate cost of the faltering economy and psychologists warn when both members of a couple are drawn down by a situation, it's hard to feel like there is a way out.

"The worst thing that can happen is for two people to get into a cycle of hopelessness, where they start to reinforce each others depression and drag themselves down," said Psychologist Dr. David Gosse. "If that downward spiral goes down too far, then it can eventually lead to hopelessness and suicidal thoughts and in some cases actual suicide."

Dr. Gosse works with people dealing with depression, some of it brought on by the recent economy. He warns that when things feel hopeless is when you need to reach out the most, "When people are going through stressful life events, one of the best things they can do to shield themselves from the stress is to reach out. Unfortunately, a lot of times when people are under stress they tend to withdraw and that is one of the worse things they can do."

He recommends that when people begin to feel hopeless they reach out to family and friends, especially if their partner is also struggling. Because sometimes hope can be found with a little help.

UPDATE:

The Clark County Coroner has identifed the second body found in the desert area of North Las Vegas on Monday.

The woman, 44-year-old Teresa Graciela Mullis, was found alongside 38-year-old Jeffrey Lingle. Police say the deaths were the result of a murder suicide.

Johnson Thermo-electrochemical Converter system earns honors

2008-10-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

Beyond ‘Super Soaker’: Johnson Thermo-electrochemical
Converter system earns honors. Called JTEC.

Exerpted from an article by Bo Emerson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC.COM
Monday, October 27, 2008

Lonnie Johnson has some impressive hard science credentials.
He’s worked for the Strategic Air Command and for NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, outfitting missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He holds about
100 patents, many of them in that arcane spot where chemistry, electricity
and physics cross into the marketplace. And his latest invention appears to
do the impossible: generating electricity with no fuel and no moving parts.

Even among the geniuses who gathered to honor him and his new thermo-
electrochemical converter at a “Breakthrough Awards” banquet in Manhattan
this month, the Atlanta scientist’s new invention was ignored when his most
famous device was revealed.

“What?” they cried. “You invented the Super Soaker?”
He’s still known as Mr. Squirt Gun.

Johnson’s share (he licensed the Soaker’s design to Larami, later bought by
Hasbro) won him the financial independence to pursue his own ideas, which
is how the Johnson Thermo-electrochemical Converter system —
- JTEC for short —- was born.

“This is a whole new family of technology,” said the NSF’s Paul Werbos.
“It’s like discovering a new continent. You don’t know what’s there, but
you sure want to explore it to find out.”

Johnson’s device can potentially work with even modest temperature
differentials —- say, between body heat and ambient air —- to power implanted
medical devices such as pacemakers. If successful, at high heat it would
generate Con Edison-scale output. It also would run backward for refrigeration
purposes: put in electricity to generate heat loss for, say, wearable air
conditioning.

Paired with a parabolic solar array to generate heat, it could create virtually
limitless emission-free power.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Most electricity is generated using heat to power a mechanical device,
such as a piston or a turbine. The JTEC uses heat to force ions through
a special membrane. “It’s a totally new way of generating electricity
from heat,” Paul Werbos told Popular Mechanics. The JTEC includes
two closed hydrogen cells or “stacks” attached to pairs of electrodes.
One is a low-temperature stack, the other is high-temperature. Current
compresses hydrogen in the low-temperature stack, ionizing the
hydrogen and forcing its protons through the membrane to the high-
temperature stack, where the hydrogen expands. Current is generated
as electrons are freed. The high-temperature end generates more
power than the low-temperature end uses —- creating an excess that
can cool beer or run TVs and washing machines. Hydrogen is neither
burned nor added, and emissions are zero.

LONNIE JOHNSON
Born: Oct. 6, 1949, Mobile
Residence: Ansley Park

Education: Tuskegee University, with degrees in mechanical engineering
and nuclear engineering

Career: Research engineer with Oak Ridge National Laboratories; engineer
at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; nuclear safety engineer with U.S. Air
Force; officer with the Strategic Air Command; flight test engineer Edward’s
Air Force Base.

Businesses: Johnson Research and Development, Johnson Electro-Mechanical
Systems, Excellatron Solid State LLC

Archaeology update

2008-10-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

Infectious finds at ancient site
By Bruce Bower
Web edition : Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

credit: I. Hershkovitz

EARLY HUMAN TUBERCULOSIS FOUND
DNA evidence of human tuberculosis from the 9,000
year-old bones of a woman and an infant suggests
the disease appeared in humans much earlier than
had been thought. Work at the ancient village of
Atlit-Yam, off the Mediterranean coast of Israel,
which has been covered by water for the past
several thousand years, yielded the skeletons.

credit: I. Hershkovitz
Ancient Stone Shrine?
A semi-circular construction made of stones,
some more than two meters tall, dominated the
center of the long submerged city of Atlit-Yam
and might have hosted ritual ceremonies.

FULL STORY.

Paulson tries again

2008-10-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Unlike the UK plan, the revamped American bail-out puts banks first and taxpayers second...

Joseph Stiglitz - The Guardian - October 16, 2008

Gordon Brown has won plaudits over recent days for inspiring the turnaround in Hank Paulson's thinking that saw him progress from his "cash for trash" plan - derided by almost every economist, and many respected financiers - to a capital injection approach. The international pressure brought to bear on America may indeed have contributed to Paulson's volte-face. But Paulson figured he could reshape the UK approach in a way that was even better for America's banks than his original cash strategy. The fact that US taxpayers might get trashed in the process is simply part of the collateral damage that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration.

Will this bail-out be enough? We don't know. The banks have engaged in such non-transparency that not even they really know the shape they are in. Every day there are more foreclosures - Paulson's plan did little about that. That means new holes in the balance sheets are being opened up as old holes get filled. There is a consensus that our economic downturn will get worse, much worse; and in every economic downturn, bankruptcies go up. So even if the banks had exercised prudent lending - and we know that many didn't - they would be faced with more losses.

Britain showed at least that it still believed in some sort of system of accountability: heads of banks resigned. Nothing like this in the US. Britain understood that it made no sense to pour money into banks and have them pour out money to shareholders. The US only restricted the banks from increasing their dividends. The Treasury has sought to create a picture for the public of toughness, yet behind the scenes it is busy reassuring the banks not to worry, that it's all part of a show to keep voters and Congress placated. What is clear is that we will not have voting shares. Wall Street will have our money, but we will not have a full say in what should be done with it. A glance at the banks' recent track record of managing risk gives taxpayers every reason to be concerned.

For all the show of toughness, the details suggest the US taxpayer got a raw deal. There is no comparison with the terms that Warren Buffett secured when he provided capital to Goldman Sachs. Buffett got a warrant - the right to buy in the future at a price that was even below the depressed price at the time. Paulson got for the US a warrant to buy in the future - at whatever the prevailing price at the time. The whole point of the warrant is so we participate in some of the upside, as the economy recovers from the crisis, and as the financial system starts to work.

The Paulson plan responded to Congress's demand to have something like a warrant, but as a matter of form, not substance. Buffett got warrants equal to 100% of the value of what he put in. America's taxpayers got just 15%. Moreover, as George Soros has pointed out, in a few years time, when the economy is recovered, the banks shouldn't need to turn to the government for capital. The government should have issued convertible shares that gave the right to the government to automatically share in the gain in share price.

Whether we were cheated or not, the banks now have our money. The next Congress will have two major tasks ahead. The first is to make sure that if the taxpayer loses on the deal, financial markets pay. The second is designing new regulations and a new regulatory system. Many in Wall Street have said that this should be postponed to a later date. We have a leaky boat, some argue, we need to fix that first. True, but we also know that there are really problems in the steering mechanism (and the captains who steer it) - if we don't fix those, we will crash on some other rocks before getting into port. Why should anyone have confidence in a banking system which has failed so badly, when nothing is being done to affect incentives? Many of those who urge postponing dealing with the reform of regulations really hope that, once the crisis is passed, business will return to usual, and nothing will be done. That's what happened after the last global financial crisis.

There is a hope: the last financial crisis happened in distant regions of the world. Then it was the taxpayers in Thailand, Korea and Indonesia who had to pick up the tab for the financial markets' bad lending; this time it is taxpayers in the US and Europe. They are angry, and well they should be. Hopefully, our democracies are strong enough to overcome the power of money and special interests, and we will prove able to build the new regulatory system that the world needs if we are to have a prosperous and stable global economy in the 21st century.

• Joseph E Stiglitz is university professor at Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel memorial prize in economic science in 2001. He was chief economist at the World Bank at the time of the last global financial crisis.

www.josephstiglitz.com

Credit Woes Hit Oil Supply Chain, Push Prices Down - temporarily!

2008-10-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Already suffering amid a global financial meltdown, oil and gas prices are feeling further pressure as the scarcity of credit squeezes the supply chain that has long provided support for them.

Most observers see the drop in the oil price - which Thursday fell - as collateral damage from weakening consumption, itself driven by the credit crunch. But the link between the two may be more direct: The banking crisis is reducing financial flows that normally propped up the oil price.

Banks are either refusing or tightening up credit conditions in a long chain that starts in the ports of oil-producing Middle Eastern and African countries, goes through tankers and refineries and ends up in gas stations in Europe and the U.S. Less crude is being purchased while buying is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of companies - mostly oil majors and large retailers - that are able to bargain for lower prices.

"The credit crunch is putting on a brake at every level of supply," said Antoine Halff, deputy head of research at brokerage Fimat USA. "Levels of credit are evaporating, so producers and refiners are having a hard time selling -they want to make sure their customers are good for the money," Halff added.

"The oil trade relies on credit lines, so the freezing of credit is making the system less optimal," agreed Olivier Jakob, an analyst at Petromatrix.

Cash-rich majors are set to gain more bargaining power with national oil companies, as the latter are now less willing to deal with credit-starved smaller players, said crude traders and an oil industry banker. "Those who don't have their own oil (as possible collateral) are in trouble. Nobody wants to sell to them," said the banker. In contrast to pure traders who rely on letters of credit or credit lines for spot cargoes, oil majors are both buyers and sellers, meaning they have their own cash and crude reserves.

Shippers - who bring tankers from the ports to consuming countries - are also seeing a reduction of available credit, with some of them going under as a result. On Monday, For instance, well-known Swedish company Svithoid Tankers went into liquidation after facing an immediate liquidity shortage. Global shipping loans dropped 23% to $13.31 billion in the first half of 2008 from the same period last year, according to data from Reuters Loan Pricing Corp., leading to a scarcity of available capacity for shipping.

"Even with the credit crunch, there is still a capacity crunch," said Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. in a report last week.

To make matters worse, some of the major investments banks that are currently under stress - such as Morgan Stanley (MS) - are also an important part of the oil chain. "They hold storage, are active physical traders and some of them actively participate in the physical delivery process," said Petromatrix's Jakob. A large refinery such as U.K. chemicals producer Ineos Group Ltd.'s Grangemounth in Scotland relies on supply from Morgan Stanley. Earlier this month, Ineos itself faced speculation that the company could be close to breaching the covenants on its loan agreements, though the company has said this wouldn't happen.

Indeed, refiners appear to have been affected even more than traders. In a report last week, the International Energy Agency said refiners who rely on letters of credit to facilitate product exports are finding these "increasingly difficult to obtain," the Paris-based agency said, and that higher interest rates are reducing their ability to maximize the value of production. "Were such practices to become widespread it could potentially lead to some refiners cutting runs for financial reasons, despite apparently healthy product margins and demand for products," the IEA said.

Though consumers sometimes feel massive profits are being made at the pump, the credit crunch is also pushing many gas stations owners to the end of their tether and reducing their ability to buy refined products. Jeff Lenard, vice president for communications at the U.S. Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing, said "the challenges (of gas station owners) are now accelerated by the credit crunch." Many distributors are passing the impact of tightened credit conditions on to their clients.

In testimony before members of the House of Representatives in May, Bill Douglass, chief executive of Texas-based Douglass Distributing Co., said distributors servicing retailers are "running into their own credit limits in their efforts to keep their customers supplied with fuel" and as a result, have cut the time for making payments from 10 days to seven or fewer.

So far, Tim Rogers, owner of California-based distributor and retailer Tower Energy Group Corp., can consider himself lucky. Rogers said this week he expects to sign a new, $150 million credit line Friday. But it took longer than a previous line because it involved four banks instead of two and the interests will be higher - two points above the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, instead of 1.5 points before.

But when banks fail to renew credit lines, it can trigger a domino effect as experienced by Atlanta-based natural gas marketer Catalyst Energy Group Inc. earlier this month. Catalyst filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after its credit line with independent distributor Constellation Energy was suddenly ended. Constellation was a trading partner of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH), and its stock price collapsed with the fall of Lehman, precipitating its own sellout toBerkshire Hathaway's (BRKA) MidAmerican Energy Holding Co. Catalyst itself is now being sold to fellow retailer MX Energy Inc.

With smaller players diminishing in numbers - 6,000 gas stations have disappeared in the U.S. in the past two years - the largest of the survivors, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), may have the upper hand in negotiations with sellers of products. Lenard said those large buyers, facing less competition, can "probably" negotiate lower prices. "If you can get more of the same product, you can get a discount," he said.

-By Benoit Faucon and Angela Henshall, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9266; benoit.faucon@dowjones.com

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp....

Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout

2008-10-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package
Simon Bowers The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.

The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and, most controversially, bonuses appear to bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.

In the first nine months of the year Citigroup, which employs thousands of staff in the UK, accrued $25.9bn for salaries and bonuses, an increase on the previous year of 4%. Earlier this week the bank accepted a $25bn investment by the US government as part of its bail-out plan.

At Goldman Sachs the figure was $11.4bn, Morgan Stanley $10.73bn, JP Morgan $6.53bn and Merrill Lynch $11.7bn. At Merrill, which was on the point of going bust last month before being taken over by Bank of America, the total accrued in the last quarter grew 76% to $3.49bn. At Morgan Stanley, the amount put aside for staff compensation also grew in the last quarter to the end of August by 3% to $3.7bn.

Days before it collapsed into bankruptcy protection a month ago Lehman Brothers revealed $6.12bn of staff pay plans in its corporate filings. These payouts, the bank insisted, were justified despite net revenue collapsing from $14.9bn to a net outgoing of $64m.

None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."

Many critics of investment banks have questioned why firms continue to siphon off billions of dollars of bank earnings into bonus pools rather than using the funds to shore up the capital position of the crisis-stricken institutions. One source said: "That's a fair question - and it may well be that by the end of the year the banks start review the situation."

Much of the anger about investment banking bonuses has focused on boardroom executives such as former Lehman boss Dick Fuld, who was paid $485m in salary, bonuses and options between 2000 and 2007.

Last year Merrill Lynch's chairman Stan O'Neal retired after announcing losses of $8bn, taking a final pay deal worth $161m. Citigroup boss Chuck Prince left last year with a $38m in bonuses, shares and options after multibillion-dollar write-downs. In Britain, Bob Diamond, Barclays president, is one of the few investment bankers whose pay is public. Last year he received a salary of £250,000, but his total pay, including bonuses, reached £36m.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/....

Comment:

None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."

You have to wonder: in light of the above explanation of how the bonuses are earned, If Mr. O'Neal earned a 161 Million dollar bonus for presiding over a loss of 8 Billion dollars, how much do you have to lose to earn $200 Million?

Humans Wore Shoes 40,000 Years Ago

2008-10-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

Scott Norris
for National Geographic News

Humans were wearing shoes at least 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. The evidence comes from a 40,000-year-old human fossil with delicate toe bones indicative of habitual shoe-wearing, experts say.

A previous study of anatomical changes in toe bone structure had dated the use of shoes to about 30,000 years ago. Now the dainty-toed fossil from China suggests that at least some humans were sporting protective footwear 10,000 years further back than thought, during a time when both modern humans and Neandertals occupied portions of Europe and Asia.

Study author Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, said the scarcity of toe bone fossils makes it hard to determine when habitual shoe-wearing became widespread.

However, he noted, even Neandertals may have been strapping on sandals.

"Earlier humans, including Neanderthals, show [some] evidence of occasionally wearing shoes," Trinkaus said. Regular shoe use may have become common by 40,000 years ago, but "we still have no [additional] evidence from that time period—one way or the other," the scientist said.

The study by Trinkaus and Chinese co-author Hong Shang appears in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Read the rest of the story...

That gives you some hope, doesn't it, that our ancestors were smart enough to put something on their feet when walking in the snow. I'm betting that they didn't finance their caves with adjustable rate mortgages either... Or maybe they did and that's why the world is full of empty caves with brown lawns in front.

TWO LARGE CHEVROLET DEALERSHIPS SHUT DOWN

2008-09-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Edward Lawrence, Reporter
Bill Heard's Las Vegas Car Dealerships Close

Updated: Sep 24, 2008 05:54 PM

One of the largest car dealerships in the nation has become the latest casualty of the economy. Bill Heard Enterprises closed all of its dealerships nationwide Wednesday. That includes two in Las Vegas: Bill Heard Chevrolet and Vista Chevrolet in northwest part of the city.

At noon Wednesday, without warning, the general manager walked on to the showroom floor and told employees to lock up. They were closing.

The general manager would not comment on the situation, but the main office in Atlanta, Georgia released a statement. It says Bill Heard closed all 13 of its dealerships across the nation, putting 2,700 people out of work.

Read a statement from Bill Heard Enterprises

The statement blames Chevrolet for offering mostly heavy trucks and sport utility vehicles which guzzle gas. It goes on to say rising gas prices, the bad economy, and crisis in the banking and financial markets pushed the company to close. However, reports out of Tampa and Arizona say GMAC pulled financing to the dealership.

Former employees say they did not get any severance or pay checks. They were just told to leave.

"You are sitting there working and someone tells you we are closing the doors, wrap everything up. It's a shock," said former fleet manager Cliff Toosley. "We heard rumors they were closing. They closed the Scottsdale store about two weeks ago. They told all of us that we were ok -- everything is fine. They gave us the pep talk."

Obviously, it was not ok. Toosley has a mortgage and says he will try to keep a positive attitude. He called some contacts at other dealerships and has a meeting set up for a new job.

The spokesman for the company says they have not made a decision on what to do with the new cars on the lot.

All of the cars in the service department were towed and delivered back to the customers.

People are still showing up to buy cars and try to get service, but they are being turned away.

Original Story Here

My take on this:

Apparently the downturn in Las Vegas' economy is cutting far deeper than is we have realized! If one drives around and through residential neighborhoods one cannot avoid the browned lawns and "Foreclosure" signs. The amount of empty commercial space, left by failed small businesses, is becoming painfully obvious when visiting any of our multitude of neighborhood strip malls.

It reminds me of the 1981 - 1982 spring in Portland, Oregon when high interest rates and lack of building activity all but brought commerce to a dead halt. Our timber industry was at a standstill, loggers laid off, lumber mills closed and home prices plummeted.

Auto dealers who had survived the 1970s post oil embargo slump in car sales were forced out of business by sheer lack of customers who could, or would, buy a new car with interest rates near 30 percent. Unemployment was rife and commercial space was available, cheap and empty.

Now twenty-six years later we are seeing Las Vegas, Nevada - long thought recession-proof - suffering a similar fate.

Unemployment - historically and recently - in the very low four percentages, now tops six percent and is still gaining as Autumn starts and we head into the Winter doldrums. For those who don't know: the Las Vegas metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1.5 million people and until very recently anyone who wanted a job could find one.

Fortunately the visitors still come. Unfortunately the numbers are down and slipping lower. Passenger traffic at MacLaren Airport is off about ten percent from last years "same-month" figures. Hotel occupancy is down and several large resort construction projects are on "hold" or are cancelled.

Now, the good news: Folks, Las Vegas is open for business and is still a vacation bargain! If you enjoy bright lights, great restaurants, world-class entertainment and maybe a little gaming, some call it gambling, you will find it here and the hotels are offering reduced prices to help you enjoy it all. If you're getting a little too old for another trip to Disneyland, or just want to try something different: Try Las Vegas!

A day of Remembrance

2008-09-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to the men, women and children who lost their lives,
those brave people who gave their lives,
and the heroes who responded to the call on 11 September 2001

And to the hundreds of thousands
of brave and often heroic Americans
who have answered our country's call
since that day

What's Next? Black Helicopters?

2008-09-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

UN threatens to act against Britain for failure to protect heritage sites

    * Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
   * The Guardian,
   * Monday September 8 2008

The UN is threatening to put the Tower of London on its list of world heritage sites in danger after its experts accused the UK of damaging globally significant sites such as Stonehenge, the old town of Edinburgh and the Georgian centre of Bath, the Guardian has learned.

Unesco, the UN's cultural agency, has told ministers in London and Edinburgh that it wants urgent action to protect seven world heritage sites which it claims are in danger from building developments, and said in some cases the UK is ignoring its legal obligations to protect them.

Their complaints range from decisions to approve new tower blocks in central London, such as the 66-storey "shard of glass" at London Bridge, to the failure to relocate the A344 beside Stonehenge despite promising action for 22 years, to a proposed wind farm which threatens neolithic sites on Orkney.

For all seven sites, it has asked the UK to write detailed progress reports replying to its concerns by February.

Unesco's world heritage centre in Paris is also sending two teams of inspectors to Edinburgh and Bath this winter to investigate its concerns that new buildings in both cities will damage their "integrity" and their "outstanding universal value."

In its strongest criticism, Unesco's world heritage committee has said it "deeply regrets" the decision by Edinburgh city council to press ahead with a hotel, housing and offices development called Caltongate next to the Royal Mile, despite expert evidence it will ruin the medieval old town's unique form.

In the committee's final report after its annual meeting in July in Quebec, which has just been released, it also accuses the UK of breaching world heritage site guidelines by failing to warn it in advance about the Caltongate scheme. Last month, Koichiro Matsuura, Unesco's director general, told the Scotsman there was growing concern about Edinburgh. "It is crucial that its outstanding features are preserved and protected," he said.

Leading architects and conservationists, including Sir Terry Farrell and Marcus Binney, chairman of Save Britain's Heritage, have said they share Unesco's anxieties. Farrell, appointed Edinburgh's "design champion", told the Guardian the city urgently needed a proper urban design masterplan. "I'm very supportive of Unesco's position," he said.

Binney said: "Heritage has taken a back seat to Cool Britannia and encouraging everything modern, and we're now uncomfortably in the limelight for failing to have proper policies to protect our world heritage sites, and timely criticisms are now being made."

In potentially its most serious conflict with ministers, Unesco has said it could put the Tower of London on its "world heritage in danger" list next year if ministers fail to honour promises to strengthen planning guidelines for the area.

Unesco is worried that the "iconic" Norman Tower and its 13th-century walls will be overshadowed by Renzo Piano's London Bridge tower, the so-called "shard of glass", and a 39-floor tower on Fenchurch Street in the City. It accepts that a new management plan for the area is being drafted but is angry that the new towers are still being approved.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has lead responsibility for protecting the UK's 27 world heritage sites, says it is introducing a heritage protection bill which will give all sites in England the same legal protection as a conservation area.

It said its delegation to the Quebec meeting had successfully challenged some criticism from Unesco by showing that planners were acting to draft guidelines on protecting several sites and their skylines. "The tone of the meeting was very positive and our delegates came away with a very positive feeling about the likely final outcome," it said. "Nothing has been said or received subsequently to alter this impression."

The UK overturned a proposed warning that the Palace of Westminster world heritage site, which includes the abbey and St Margaret's church, could also be added to the "in danger" list next year if Unesco's concerns were ignored, by citing the heritage protection bill and planning guidelines. But Unesco still "regrets" that the UK has failed to put in a "buffer zone" to restrict damaging developments and draw up a proper "skyline study" to allow planners to rapidly assess development proposals. It accuses the UK of a "lack of clarity" in assessing the conflicts between conservation and development.

Read the rest of this important story here...

Rock-solid proof?

2008-09-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

A discovery by a former Mineral Wells resident might prove men and dino-
saurs walked the Earth together...

July 28, 2008 09:32 am
By David May
editor@mineralwellsindex.com

A slab of North Texas limestone is on track to rock the world, with its two imbedded footprints poised to make a huge impression in scientific and religious circles.

The estimated 140-pound stone was recovered in July 2000 from the bank of a creek that feeds the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, located about 53 miles south of Fort Worth. The find was made just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park, a popular destination for tourists known for its well-preserved dinosaur tracks and other fossils.

The limestone contains two distinct prints – one of a human footprint and one belonging to a dinosaur. The significance of the cement-hard fossil is that it shows the dinosaur print partially over and intersecting the human print.

In other words, the stone’s impressions indicate that the human stepped first, the dinosaur second. If proven genuine, the artifact would provide evidence that man and dinosaur roamed the Earth at the same time, according to those associated with the find and with its safekeeping. It could potentially toss out the window many commonly held scientific theories on evolution and the history of the world.

Finding scholars and experts on evolution, paleontology or creationism to speak about the discovery proved difficult. Some who were contacted said they didn’t want to comment on the prints without a personal inspection or without review of data from scientific tests.

However, Dr. Phillip Murry, a vertebrate paleontology instructor in the Geoscience department of Tarleton State University at Stephenville, Texas, stated in his response to an interview request: “There has never been a proven association of dinosaur (prints) with human footprints.”

The longtime amateur archeologist who found the fossil thinks that statement is now proven untrue.

“It is unbelievable, that’s what it is,” Alvis Delk, 72, said of what could be not only the find of a lifetime, but of mankind.

Delk is a current Stephenville and former Mineral Wells resident (1950-69) who said he found the rock eight years ago while on a hunt with a friend, James Bishop, also of Stephenville, and friend and current fiancee Elizabeth Harris.

The three were searching in July 2000 for Indian artifacts like arrowheads – Delk’s specialty as a hunter and collector since he was 6 years old – when he said a pile of rocks along a creek bank caught his eye.

“I said it looks like something has been washed out of this hole,” Delk told the Mineral Wells Index.

Upon inspection of the pile, he said he saw a dinosaur footprint embedded in a piece of limestone. Delk said he has found and seen dinosaur prints, but now he had one on a piece of rock he could carry off – with Bishop’s help – to keep and add to his collection.

Which is what he did, for nearly eight years. The stone was kept otherwise untouched, stored amongst his other finds, which he said includes over 100,000 Indian artifacts.

A domestic fall from a ladder eight months ago nearly crippled Delk, resulting in surgeries, a long recovery and expensive medical bills. He decided to try and sell some of his archeological treasurers, so he turned to the large piece of limestone, thinking he could clean it up some and sell it to the Creation Evidence Museum located adjacent to Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose.

Two months ago – about the third week of May – Delk said he grabbed a 4-inch brush and began lightly brushing away sediments and deposits from the stone when he noticed something. He began to see another print develop – that of a human – partially beneath the dinosaur print.

“I seen the (human) track coming out and (saw) that it was a man,” Delk said. “I thought to myself, ‘Lord, I’ve been shown man was here when the dinosaur was here.’”

He said he knew what he had to do.

“When I found it, I said this has to get to someone who knows it,” he said. “I took it to Dr. Baugh. He liked to have a heart attack over it. He shed some tears.”

Read the rest of the story here.

A worthwhile effort:

2008-09-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Justin Brashares: Brashares Wildlife Conservation Fund

One of the things about the "World Wide Web" that I like the most is the fact that many "news" articles published stay available for quite a long time.

Of course, newspapers have always had "archives" of sorts. Often just a big cardboard box with a copy of each daily edition tossed in. The past issues of some were available, for a while, in the library, too.

Unless someone happened to know far enough ahead of time to subscribe to a "clipping service", when researching a piece of information, most of what had been written pertaining to the subject was not readily available - if not absolutely untraceable.

With the advent of the web a few years ago, we have begun to have available an almost impossibly huge archive of human (one hopes) thought pertinent to almost any inquiry.

It seems that the "information superhighway" - as it was called a few years back - has also become an "information multi-level parking structure." Which, in the long run, might prove to be more beneficial than mere rapidity of dissemination of data.

Southern California

On the negative attribute list, one must add the unreliability of a great deal of the information which one encounters.

Even so: Opinion, even if devoid of fact, is still information - that's my opinion, anyway.

Like a lot of old people, I don't go out "clubbing" much - so, I spend a lot of time reading. For the past several years my books have had a lot of competition from the internet. I don't "chat" but sometimes I am moved to comment.

Today is one of those times. This morning I saw a reference to a story which stated that there is a traffic in the meat of wild animals being smuggled into Europe and North America from Asia, Africa, and South America apparently for food.

Now, let me state from the outset: I have no knowledge - nor even an opinion - as to the veracity of the article nor of the reality of the alleged traffic.

That purported traffic is not what I'm writing about so if you're interested it can be found at Primatology.net.

What started this digression posing as an introduction, is the fact that the article was dated July 19, 2006 and the last comment - before mine - was dated August 28, 2008. Now that is persistence of a news item!

In the course of reading that article I saw a citation referring to "Justin Brashares, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of California, Berkeley and his team."

I was curious as to who Dr. Brashares is and what kind of team was meant. So, I followed the link given: Justin Brashares and found something that I thought to be worth passing along.

What I found is a University Professor, a coterie of post-doctoral researchers, doctoral students and technicians, see: "Who We Are", who are getting beyond (way beyond) the ivy covered halls of academia and working to make a vital contribution to the world.

O.K. That's enough of my blather, now I'll let Dr. Brashares' own material tell the story.

The following information, including pictures, is taken wholly from: Dr. Brashares' websites.

(Dr.Brashares is not responsible for the captions)

Research Summary

The catastrophic global decline of biodiversity is widely recognized as among the most pressing problems we face as a society. The biological, economic and social consequences of depauperate oceans, tundras, savannas and forests remain unclear and in desperate need of study. My research attempts to understand how our consumption of wild animals and conversion of natural habitats affects the dynamics of animal communities and the persistence of populations. Work in my group extends beyond traditional animal conservation to consider the economic, political and cultural factors that drive and, in turn, are driven by, changes in wildlife abundance and diversity. Through these efforts, my group strives to propose empirically-based, interdisciplinary strategies for biodiversity conservation. Much of this work and, specifically, my research efforts in ESPM can be placed within three foci:

* Community and population ecology of wildlife in altered ecosystems
* Causes and ecological consequences of wildlife utilization
* Landscape planning and monitoring for wildlife conservation

Home
What We Do
Who We Are
Where We Work
Contact Us
Support Our Work

Click on a picture for a larger image

California

Kids in Cameroon

Zebras in the dust

Laundry day: wash hung to dry

Two gentlemen and some cattle

University website:
UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources

Vancouver Is., B.C.

Carrizo Plain

Baboons in Ghana

Nap Time

Visit Dr.Brashares' Website

How a baby could decide who's next US president

2008-09-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

(if conspiracy theorists are right)

Published Date: 04 September 2008

By CHRIS STEPHEN

IN NEW YORK

PITY John McCain. For months he struggled to impose himself in an election that was all about Barack Obama. Now the spotlight has finally shifted to his own campaign, but only to focus on a stream of revelations about his vice-presidential choice, Sarah Palin.

The Alaska governor was guaranteed an audience for her first televised address last night, but nothing she was likely to say could match the fascination with a daily diet of fresh disclosures about her colourful life.

First was the embarrassment over her apparent support for the Alaska Independence Movement, motto: Alaska First, which cuts across the Republican convention's slogan Country First.

Then there's Troopergate, in which the state is investigating allegations that she fired Alaska's public security chief because he did not fire a state trooper engaged in a custody battle with Mrs Palin's sister.

Also in the mix is her addiction to "pork barrel" spending, a practice Mr McCain vehemently opposes: as mayor of Wasilla, she raised £15 million in federal funds for the town, population 9,000.

And then there are the polar bears. Mrs Palin has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Alaska, joined by big oil companies, against the US government, demanding that the "endangered species" status of polar bears be lifted to allow new drilling.

In a publicity gem for the Obama campaign, she has intervened to ensure that a commemorative quarter dollar coin issued this week features not a polar bear but a grizzly.

And then there is "Babygate".

Monday's revelation that her daughter Bristol, 17, is five months pregnant by her ice-hockey player boyfriend, Levi Johnston, also 17, is not in itself damaging, but does undermine her claim to back family values.

More damaging is what it says about Mr McCain and his rush to find a VP. The fact she made the disclosure three days after being nominated, and that Mr McCain began vetting her only the day before she was picked, suggests he did not know of the matter.

The blogosphere is, meanwhile, in a frenzy over speculation that Mrs Palin's fifth child, Trig, born last April, is in fact the son of Bristol.

This speculation stems from the circumstances of the birth. By Mrs Palin's account, her waters broke on 17 April while she was at a Dallas conference. Instead of going to a local hospital, she gave her speech and took an 11-hour flight home, all the while suffering contractions, to have the baby in a local clinic.

It was to quash rumours she was covering for Bristol that Mrs Palin went public with the news of her daughter's pregnancy, pointing out that, at five months in, it was impossible for Bristol to have given birth in April.

In other circumstances, these revelations might be water under the bridge. This "baggage" is no heavier than that of either Mr McCain or, arguably, Mr Obama; the only difference being all the revelations have come at once. But they feed into criticism that she is unsuited to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, the more so with revelations that until last year she had never travelled abroad.

"She has zero foreign experience, zero," said David Gergen, a former White House adviser. "When the Republicans had the assertion that Barack Obama had no experience, they were making progress with that argument. Now they have selected someone with even less foreign policy exposure."

None of that fazes conservatives, who see her as one of their own, with a zeal for reform and a delight in the battle. As mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she reduced her own salary, sacked staff and cut taxes by 40 per cent. Elected as governor on an anti-sleaze ticket, Mrs Palin has enjoyed approval ratings of 70-80 percent.

Last night, Mr McCain's team came out fighting. "This nonsense is over," declared senior adviser Steve Schmidt in a written statement. "The McCain campaign will have no further comment about our long and thorough (vetting] process."

The McCain campaign has also scheduled a news conference to defend Mrs Palin's experience, and released a new advert in key states, an indication that advisers are concerned a flurry of criticism may be taking a toll.

How pressure from Republicans' right wing led McCain to make hasty decision

JOHN McCain's controversial decision to pick outsider Sarah Palin as his running mate stems from an abrupt change of direction forced on him by conservatives in his own party.

Mr McCain had built his primary campaign around a liberal social agenda, hoping to win over centrist swing voters at the November election.

Instead, he appears to have caved in to pressure from conservatives who told him to move to the right or they would not campaign for him.

Unable to gain a polling lead over Barack Obama, Mr McCain has done several about-turns.

He has dropped opposition to the Bush administration's tax cuts for the top 1 per cent of the population, and he has joined conservatives in calling for illegal immigrants to be rounded up and deported.

Most significantly, he has dropped his opposition to the official Republican platform, which seeks to ban abortion.

People this is a pretty interesting article - including public comments - in toto.
To read the rest click here.

Important! Tire Valve Stem Safety Recall

2008-09-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

Serious Consumer Safety Issue
As many as 30 million tires on the road in the United States are at risk of blowing out. Having a tire blow out, while driving at 65 MPH in heavy traffic, can cause a serious, even fatal accident. It is what we, in the old days, used to refer to as an "E ticket ride". The issue, this time, is potentially defective rubber tire valve stems. It is well known in the industry that "flex cracks" in valve stems are indicative of a weakness in the valve stem which may fail suddenly while driving and in turn can cause tires to lose air quickly, and such air loss at highway speeds can result in tire failure and a loss-of-control crash. The valves have been recalled, but in spite of that you may have them on your car. On November 11, Robert Monk of Orlando, Fla. died when the right rear tire of his 1998 Ford Explorer suddenly failed, causing him to lose control and culminating in a rollover crash. The cause of the accident, a lawsuit alleges, was a weakened, cracked tire valve which failed prematurely causing a sudden loss of tire pressure.	This is what a TR413 valve stem looks like TR413 valve stem showing crack Several models of valve stems
The tire which was installed in the fall of 2006, is alleged to have been installed along with a new Dill TR-413 valve stem manufactured by a subsidiary of Shanghai Baolong Industries for Dill Air Control Products. In March, the Monk family filed suit against Dill Air Control Products, alleging that the defective tire valve stem caused the crash. Dill has told NHTSA that as many as 30 million of the suspected valve stems have been distributed in the North American market. The suspect valve stems identified by Dill include its TR-413, TR-413 chrome, TR-414, TR-415, TR-418 and TR-423, which were manufactured between August 2006 and November 2006. (The valve stem is a rubber tube with a metal valve used to inflate the tire with air.) "If you've had new tires installed after 2005, there's a chance that your tire valves are affected by the recall," said Don Mays with Consumer Reports. Mays checked cars in the staff parking lot and found more than one with a problem, "This crack leaked air slowly, resulting in a flat tire. But at highway speeds, you could have sudden air loss, and that can be a serious problem." So how can you tell if your tire has one of these valves? It's not easy. At a minimum, Consumer Reports says check your tire pressure at least once a month and inspect the valve for any cracks. Flex the valve out towards the tire and rotate it, looking for any cracks along the stem. A flashlight can be helpful. A good valve has no cracks. If you do find a crack, go to your tire dealer and make sure all four tire-valve stems are replaced, not just the known defective one. Most consumers will have a have a hard time figuring out if they have any of the defective valve stems on their vehicle, however. That's because once the valve stems are installed in the wheels, the only way to check to see if it is one of the recalled stems is to dismount the tire from the wheel and inspect the base of the valve from the inside of the wheel. Once they are out of the box there is no tracking for these products so it is unlikely that all owners will be notified of the recall. Any motorist who has had a tire replaced since January 2006 would be well advised to immediately return to the tire dealer to have their valves inspected for signs of cracking. Eugene Petersen, program leader for tire testing at Consumer Reports, says the difficulty in identifying the faulty valve stems represents a real problem for consumers. "I can't imagine tire shops or service centers would have kept any records on any valve stems they may have installed on a vehicle," says Petersen. "That apparently means the tire will have to be removed from the wheel to identify the manufacturer of the valve stem. That brings you to the question of who will pay for all this." Your tire dealer is the person to ask that question of. The dealer will know if they have used Dill Valves during the period in question. Also if your valve stems were replaced it probably, but not certainly, will show on your invoice copy. Dill Air Controls Products, LLC, a company newly formed in 2005, is located in Oxford, NC. Dill was formerly Air Control Products, a division of Eaton Corporation in Roxboro, North Carolina and was purchased by the Chinese companies, Shanghai Baolong Industries Co. Ltd. and Zhongding Group Ltd. Dill manufacturers automotive air valves and valve parts in addition to products for the U.S. Government, NASA, and the aircraft industry. To learn more about the takeover of Dill, click here.

1.9 million people flee Gustav

2008-08-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

10:12 PM PDT on Sunday, August 31, 2008
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - With a historic evacuation of nearly 2 million people from the Louisiana coast complete, gun-toting police and National Guardsmen stood watch as rain started to fall on this city's empty streets Sunday night -- and even presidential politics took a back seat as the nation waited to see if Hurricane Gustav would be another Katrina.
The storm was set to crash ashore late Monday morning with frightful force, testing the three years of planning and rebuilding that followed Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast. The storm has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean.

Painfully aware of the failings that led to more than 1,600 deaths during Katrina, this time officials moved beyond merely insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened to put looters behind bars, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained behind would not be rescued.

They were confident that they had done all they could.

"It's amazing. It makes me feel really good that so many people are saying, 'We as Americans, we as the world, have to get this right this time,"' New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said late Sunday. "We cannot afford to screw up again."

Col. Mike Edmondson, state police commander, said he believed that 90 percent of the population had fled the Louisiana coast. The exodus of 1.9 million people is the largest evacuation in state history, and thousands more had left from Mississippi, Alabama and flood-prone southeast Texas.

Late Sunday, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued one last plea to the roughly 100,000 people still left on the coast: "If you've not evacuated, please do so. There are still a few hours left."

Louisiana and Mississippi temporarily changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led away from the coast, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.

"I was trying to get situated at home. I was trying to get things so it would be halfway safe," said 46-year-old painter Jerry Williams, who showed up at the city's Union Station to catch one of the last buses out of town. "You're torn. Do you leave it and worry about it, or do you stay and worry about living?"

There were frightening comparisons between Gustav and Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. There was no doubt the storm posed a major threat to the partially rebuilt city and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas.

Mindful of the potential for disaster, the Republican Party scaled back its normally jubilant convention -- set to kick off as Gustav crashed ashore. President Bush said he would skip the convention altogether, and Sen. John McCain visited Jackson, Miss., on Sunday as his campaign rewrote the script for the convention to emphasize a commitment to helping people.

The nation's economic attention was focused on Gustav's effect on refineries and offshore petroleum production rigs. The combination of prolonged production interruptions, such as occurred when Katrina and Rita damaged the Gulf infrastructure, could trigger rising prices.

Billions of dollars were at stake in other wide-ranging economic sectors, including sugar harvesting, the shipping business and tourism. The Mississippi Gaming Commission ordered a dozen casinos to close.

Forecasters said Gustav could strengthen slightly as it marched toward the coast. At 11 p.m. EDT Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said Gustav was centered about 220 miles southeast of New Orleans and was moving northwest near 16 mph. It had top sustained winds of 115 mph, and was likely to stay a Category 3 storm when it made landfall west of New Orleans. Category 3 storms have winds between 111 mph and 130 mph.

Rain started falling in New Orleans before sunset, and tropical storm-force winds had reached the southeastern tip of the state.

New Orleans will likely be on the "dirty" side of the storm -- where rainfall is heaviest and tornadoes are possible, but the storm surge is lower. If forecasts hold, the city would experience a storm surge of only 4 to 6 feet, compared to a surge of 10 to 14 feet at the site of landfall, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center. Katrina, by comparison, brought a storm surge of 25 feet. Surge models suggest large areas of southeast Louisiana, including parts of the greater New Orleans area, could be flooded by several feet of water. But Gustav appears most likely to overwhelm the levees west of the city that have for decades been underfunded and neglected and are years from an update.

Against all warnings, some gambled and decided to face the storm's wrath. On an otherwise deserted commercial block of downtown Lafayette, about 135 miles west of the city, Tim Schooler removed the awnings from his photography studio. He thought about evacuating Sunday before deciding he was better off riding out the storm at home with his wife, Nona.

"There's really no place to go. All the hotels are booked up to Little Rock and beyond," he said. "We're just hoping for the best."

The final train out of New Orleans left with fewer than 100 people on board, while one of the last buses to make the rounds of the city pulled into Union Station empty. Police made final rounds around 7 p.m. Every officer in the department was on duty, and the 1,200 on the street were joined by 1,500 National Guardsmen.

The only sign of life on St. Bernard Avenue -- a four-lane artery through the partially rebuilt Gentilly neighborhood that flooded during Katrina -- was a brown and black rooster meandering along the street.

Read the rest
here.

Grey squirrels are now a problem ...

2008-08-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

to get your teeth into

– as a tasty snack with a mayo dip

Published Date: 30 August 2008
By Jenny Haworth
Environment Correspondent

THE idea of killing thousands of grey squirrels to protect native reds may leave some with a bad taste in their mouth. However, those put off by the idea of culling the furry-tailed animals are now being advised to start seeing them as food, as it is claimed grey squirrels make very tasty meals.

Thousands of greys are being trapped and shot in the Borders in an initiative to protect their native red cousins from a lethal pox.

Dr Mike Swan, head of education at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, is suggesting we make the most of the bodies – by eating them.

Squirrel stew has long been on the menu in Dr Swan's household. He has eaten grey squirrel – rumoured to have been the favourite snack of Elvis Presley – for the past 20 years. He also has a taste for casserole and strips of fried flesh rolled, appropriately, in chopped hazelnuts.

The meat, he says, tastes a little like chicken, and he claims a squirrel can provide enough to satiate one hungry human. "They are rather hard to skin but what's inside is very nice to eat. It's like a slightly firmer, textured chicken and less strongly flavoured than rabbit," he said.

Many grey squirrels carry a pox that leaves them unaffected, but is lethal to the reds, killing them within weeks. However, Dr Swan said it does not concern him that the meat might be infected. "There's no issue with it affecting us in any way," he said. "It's not a disease we are susceptible to."

He first stumbled across the idea of eating squirrel meat when his father was asked to provide ten animals for a US embassy banquet in London. In North America, Brunswick stew has long been a popular dish, and is traditionally made with squirrel meat.

Dr Swan said: "It's popular there to the extent that they have pretty strong controls on hunting of grey squirrels. They have a completely different view of the grey squirrel to the tree rat view we have here."

Richard Wales, project manager of Red Squirrels in South Scotland – which has launched an initiative to cull thousands of greys to prevent squirrel pox spreading north through the country – has also tried the meat. "It doesn't come much more organic," he said. "It's sustain-able and it's extremely low in cholesterol."

He agrees, however, that one drawback is that it is difficult to skin. "It's not like a rabbit where it slips off like a sock; you really have to use the blade and pull the skin back."

He thinks some people will eat it out of curiosity, but admits that it might not catch on with everyone.

"The vast majority of people aren't really into eating what they kill," he said. "The majority of people wouldn't wring a chicken's neck for a Sunday roast." However, he thinks it is a good idea for people to give it a go.

It is believed that some gamekeepers are already making money out of selling grey squirrels for their meat, fetching up to £3.50 for a brace. And in Northumberland, where more than 18,000 greys have been killed in the past 18 months, some butchers have even started selling squirrel meat.

However, Ross Minett, campaigns director for Advocates for Animals, said: "I am sure that many people will feel that this is a pretty sick and opportunist idea." He added that the causing of unnecessary suffering to a grey squirrel was "not only cruel but a prosecutable offence".

The initiative by Red Squirrels in South Scotland is using a trap loan scheme to urge members of the public to help catch greys in their gardens.

A hotline number will be set up, so squirrel control officers can be called out to take away trapped animals to be shot.

The aim is to stop squirrel pox spreading from the Borders, where it is already common, into other parts of Scotland. It is estimated that 75 per cent of the UK's red squirrels live in Scotland, making it one of the last remaining strongholds.

The day I ate a grey… it's just like any other sort of meat

MARK Wilkinson, conservation officer at Save Our Squirrels, remembers clearly the first time he tried squirrel stew. "I started work as a red squirrel conservation officer and had heard a lot of people asking us about eating grey squirrel meat.

"Once the grey squirrels have been killed it's good to be able to do something with the bodies. "So I decided to try it. I was given a ready-dressed grey squirrel by a friend and portioned it up into the rear haunches and saddle. "Then I gently casseroled it with a few bits of vegetable and spices.....

Read the rest of the story here: The Scotsman

With recipes!

Squirrel nibbles a' la Hootsman:

Scientists have created a robot controlled by a biological brain made of rat neurons

2008-08-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

Shades of the late, great Arthur C. Clarke! In 1971 he published a short story titled "A Meeting With Medusa" in which the protagonist was a man who had suffered an accident which destroyed his body - but not his brain. He was "repaired" by having his brain housed in a manufactured inorganic body.

And well before 1971 there was the 1953 sci-fi/horror film "Donovan's Brain" in which Donovan's brain was kept alive and given means to communicate with the world outside his jar.

The movie was described as: "Yet another version of Curt Siodmak's novel about an honest scientist who keeps the brain of a ruthless dead millionaire (Donovan) alive in a tank. Donovan manages to impose his powerful will on the scientist, and uses him to murder his enemies."

The current research, of course, is benevolent. It's all intended to serve the "greater good," it's just the opening of an effort to provide the ultimate prosthesis for the terminally ill or badly injured person.

Sadly, perfecting the technology required in order to extend a person's life by providing a prosthetic body will require experimentation using apes, dogs or pigs to work out the required neural impulse amplification and distribution as well as learning how to keep the brain alive without a body or, presumably, an ailimentary tract.

With all due respect to the prejudices of those who believe that the Earth and everything on and in it as well as the entire universe was created in 6 days of 24 hours each in 4400 BC, this research has nothing to do with that.

If their point is that the GOD who scattered the people and confused their language because they offended by building a tower which they intended to extend to Heaven, might take a dim view of this line of experimentation, might see it as a sort of lese majeste and act accordingly - then I'd say one ought to steer clear of the area encompassing the laboratory - it's hard to guess how big an area HE will expunge should HE act.

Somehow, though, I find it pretty unlikely that GOD will punish those intrepid researchers in any kind of showy display, HE doesn't seem to do much of that anymore.

All levity aside now I, personally, am seriously concerned about the uses to which this technology is likely to be applied. I'm sure that the researchers performing the design and the work of this experiment are driven by a thirsting after knowledge and have in the backs of their minds nebulous ideas of the great boon to humanity which this technology could engender.

I look at this experiment and envision a couple of alternate scenarios which I feel are more likely to result from a success in this work.

1) Create a race of ape-brained slaves to do all the service work of mankind. This would render all of us working-class humans redundant in the eyes of the "evil overlord" class and would result in most of us being allowed to starve to death so that the Earth's environment could be saved. Of course they would save some of the young women... For a while.
Think: "Brave New World"

2) Find a few human volunteers who would be willingly transplanted, or "disembodied". Naturally those "selfless" individuals would soon be freed from the researchers by the courts and guaranteed maintenance - at public expense, of course.

Free from the need to eek out a living as the masses must do the "bionic" people would soon become the "bionic class" and might feel that they had but little in common with the "meatbag" population.

Frankly, I am very worried about a future in which the moneyed classes have available to them a technology which would, possibly, allow one to extend his/her life far beyond bodily death and in which that self/same technology would permit the "manufacture" of a chattel workforce wholly dependent upon the owner for survival.

The only remaining impetus they (the super-class) would have for allowing us to live and to procreate would be the need for customers for their business interests and I'm pretty certain that they would find a way not to have to put up with us at all.

The original article:

14 August 2008 09:31 am ET

Scientists have created a robot controlled by a biological brain made of rat neurons.

The robot, named Gordon, is not exactly an Einstein but represents a remarkable bridging of the gap between biology and technology.

Gordon relies a dish with about 60 electrodes to pick up electrical signals generated by the brain cells. The brain drives the robot's movements.

Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes, the researchers explained in a statement released today by the University of Reading in England.

In response, the brain's output drives the robot's wheels left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects.

The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, the scientists state. Its sole means of control is from its own brain. Read the rest of the article here.

Gordon's brain of rat neurons and electrodes controls its movements.
Credit: University of Reading

There was more to him than met the eye...

2008-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

William M.V. Kingsland, a free-lance researcher and genealogist, died in March 2006 of a heart attack. "He was an unending trove of historic facts of the Upper East Side," a longtime friend, Eliot Rowlands, said. Mr. Kingsland was believed to be 62 when he passed away on March 21.

"He was a walking gazetteer," a Landmarks Committee member of Manhattan's Community Board 8, Barry Schneider, said. A co-chair of Defenders of the Historic Upper East Side, Elizabeth Ashby, said, "You couldn't mention an address that he wouldn't have known who had ever lived there and what had ever had happened there. Crimes, adultery, elopements, who ran off with the butler, he knew it all."

Kingsland's wry smile and store of knowledge was well known among the Upper East Side historic preservationists, art gallerists, and the employees of New York auction houses. In summer, he wore a plastic visor that made him look somewhat like an old time card shark; while in winter, he usually wore a scarf and beret. He served as a public member for the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 8.

Wearing a creased blue blazer over a white Oxford shirt, Kingsland had a slightly anachronistic way of dressing and always seemed just a little misplaced in time. It was as if he were just a little out of synchronization with the world. "The thing about Kingsland," author Barnaby Conrad III said, "was that he was slightly annoyed that the 20th century had occurred."

At Landmarks meetings, Kingsland would cross his legs, lean back in his chair, and take everything in. "He spoke in a very considered manner and hit the nail on the head," said Teri Slater, who recruited him as a public member for the Landmarks Committee.

A Landmarks Committee co-chair, Margery Perlmutter, recalled the time someone at a meeting showed a photo of simply a doorway. Astonishingly, Kingsland identified its street address. He knew prices of townhouses, exteriors of buildings, and types of renovation styles by architect and even the history of window changes on buildings. He collected landmarks violations and reported them.

He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of the lives in Upper East Side buildings over generations - the sort of background elements animating novels by Henry James or Edith Wharton. "When you have enough of that information accumulated," David Redden said, "it's no longer trivia. You can make connections and suddenly it gains significance."

Mr. Redden, who as a young cataloger at an auction house first met Kingsland in the 1970s, said Kingsland's knowledge evoked a "shadow of another world." He knew whose ancestors had been beer or steel barons or who had been an original partner in Standard Oil.

Mr. Kingsland was also a volunteer at the New York office of the American Academy in Rome, and was a volunteer room-sitter at the American Hospital of Paris Foundation designer show house.

But it was with the New York Marble Cemetery, that he likely made his greatest contribution by researching and piecing together connections between cemetery vault purchasers and their living descendants. A trustee of the cemetery would research the family genealogies, mostly from the 19th century, and pass the information to Kingsland who would carry on the research, usually at the New York Society Library.

He mailed detailed genealogies to Ms. Anne Brown, the trustee, who later learned that Kingsland was able to discuss a few thousand descendants from memory as he did not save copies for himself. "If we had all the money in the world, we couldn't have hired someone to do what he did," she said. "You couldn't design someone with his knowledge and interests. His expertise and the cemetery's needs were a perfect fit."

Mr. Kingsland would often stop friends on the sidewalk to visit and seemed to have all day to talk. He did not appear to have to be anywhere unless he decided to be there. He had leisure to deliver correspondence personally, too.

A frugal man, he recycled envelopes. He favored Gilbert and Sullivan, and could play classical music at sight. He liked puns: When a woman at a St. James Church fair exclaimed, "Look at the fuschia!" Kingsland retorted, "I prefer the past myself."

A proprietor of Jennings and Rohn Antiques, Fritz Rohn, recalled years ago playing a game with Kingsland. They would match the faces of passers-by, on the street, with Old Master painters likely to have painted them.

Kingsland worked at Vito Giallo Antiques on Madison Avenue three days a week from 1986 to 1991. Singer Elton John was so enchanted with Kingsland that he left a blank check for him to fill out for 19th-century statues. Andy Warhol befriended Kingsland for a time. At lunchtime, frugal Mr. Kingsland would usually eat two jars of Gerber baby food.

A longtime preservationist, Tony Wood, said there was an "air of delightful mystery around him." Though he said he had attended Groton, the school has no record of him. The earliest record of him identified in New York is a letter he wrote to the New York Times as a teenager in the summer of 1961 about the Elgin Marbles. (You do know what the Elgin Marbles are... Don't you?)

There are records that he attended the University of Vermont in 1964. In the late 1960s, Kingsland conducted research for Henry Hope Reed's walking tours, particularly on the genealogy of New York families. It was around that time that a New York real estate attorney, Spencer Compton, and realist painter Joseph Keiffer both met him while volunteering for Eugene Mc-Carthy's presidential campaign.

Artist Ken Rush met him in an elevator in 1972 at an art show on 57th street. Kingsland bought a painting from him around 1973 for about $50, and proceeded to send third-party checks endorsed over to him in $25 and $15 increments until it was fully paid.

Kingsland spent the summer of 1976 on East 93rd Street in a limestone-clad brownstone owned by Leslie Larned Gibson. That year, he began to write auction columns for Art/World, a monthly founded by Bruce Duff Hooton and based in the Hotel Wales on 94th Street and Madison Avenue. He later became a contributing editor for Art + Auction.

In successive apartments on East 78th and 72nd Streets, friends recalled floor to ceiling paintings, some stacked against each other more for protection than for show. Shelves of books vied for space with tapestries, objets de art, bronzes, and illuminated manuscripts. Kenyon Gibson, who now lives in England, recalled three layers of rugs. Reliquaries may have been kept in the dishwasher, Kingsland was known to have kept his phone in the closet.

While he said his East 72nd Street apartment was for storage, it is unclear where his primary residence was.

He is known to have said his initials stood for Milliken Vanderbilt, that he was once married, and that his parents had lived in Florida. There are no known surviving relatives. .

Mr. Kingsland left a rather extensive collection of art, including works by Pablo Picasso among many others, crammed into the one-bedroom apartment. No heirs have been found to claim ownership of the sketches, sculptures and paintings. City officials hired two auction houses to sell off the collection.

During that process, two movers made off with two Picassos. The culprits were apprehended and the works recovered.

Pablo Picasso: Un-named

As it turns out, that was only the beginning of the complications the city has encountered in dealing with Mr. Kingsland's estate.

Christie's auction house subsequently discovered that some of the pieces in the hoard were listed as having been stolen in the 1960s and 1970s. Additionally, a gallery owner who purchased a portrait by John Singleton Copley found that it had been donated to Harvard University in 1943 and never sold.

Now the FBI is involved, trying to ascertain just how much of the collection is stolen and, trying to find out whether Mr. Kingsland, in addition to his public persona, might have also been an art thief.

Here are a few of the paintings which Mr. Kingsland had stacked haphazardly around his apartment:

	Picasso: Tete de Femme
	Gilbert Stuart: Portrait of a Gentleman
	Frederick Waters Watts: Windmill in a Landscape
	Eugene Boudin: Trouville

See the rest of the collection here

International Credit Card Info Theft Ring May Have Your Numbers!

2008-08-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

11 charged in connection with credit card fraud

Aug 6, 9:35 AM (ET)
By RODRIQUE NGOWI and ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

BOSTON (AP) -Authorities have cracked what is believed to be the largest federal hacking and identity theft case ever, involving the theft and sale of more than 41 million credit and debit card numbers.

Eleven people, including a U.S. Secret Service informant, have been charged in connection with data breaches at nine major retailers, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Three of those charged are U.S. citizens while the others are from places such as Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus and China.

The indictment returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Boston alleges that the suspects hacked into the wireless computer networks of retailers including TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW and set up programs that captured card numbers, passwords and account information.

"They used sophisticated computer hacking techniques that would allow them to breach security systems and install programs that gathered enormous quantities of personal financial data, which they then allegedly either sold to others or used themselves," Attorney General Michael Mukasey said at a news conference. "And in total, they caused widespread losses by banks, retailers, and consumers."

Mukasey called the total dollar amount of the alleged theft "impossible to quantify at this point." U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said that while most of the victims were in the United States, officials still haven't identified all the people who had a card number stolen.

"I suspect that a lot of people are unaware that their identifying information has been compromised," he said.

Sullivan said the alleged thieves weren't computer geniuses, just opportunists who used a technique called "wardriving," which involved cruising through different areas with a laptop and looking for accessible wireless Internet signals. Once they located a vulnerable network, they installed so-called "sniffer programs" that captured credit and debit card numbers as they moved through a retailer's processing networks.

The information was stored on two servers in Ukraine and Latvia - one with more than 25 million credit and debit card numbers and another with more than 16 million numbers, Sullivan said.

The heist was a black eye for retailers like TJX. The company initially disclosed the data breach in January 2007 but said a few months later that at least 45.7 million cards were exposed to possible fraud in a breach of its computer systems that began in July 2005. Court filings by some banks that sued TJX put the number of cards affected at more than 100 million, based on estimates by officials with Visa and MasterCard, who were deposed in the suit.

In May, TJX said it won support from MasterCard-issuing banks for a settlement that will pay them as much as $24 million to cover costs from the breach. A similar agreement reached last November with Visa-card issuing banks set aside as much as $40.9 million to help banks cover costs including replacing customers' payment cards and covering fraudulent charges.

According to the indictments unsealed Tuesday, three of the defendants are U.S. citizens, one is from Estonia, three are from Ukraine, two are from China and one is from Belarus. One individual is known only by an alias online, and his place of origin is unknown.

At a press briefing in San Jose, Calif., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the non-U.S. citizens under indictment were part of an international stolen credit and debit card ring.

The ring operated in mainly in Eastern Europe, the Phillipines, China and Thailand, and the alleged foreign conspirators remained outside the U.S., Chertoff said.

The thefts were criminal actions committed for the personal gain of the defendants, who investigators did not consider a national security threat, Chertoff said.

Still, he said, their alleged crimes demonstrated the weaknesses of cybersecurity in the U.S.

"Today's indictments are a reminder of a growing threat that every American faces in the 21st century - the fact that each individual's greatest asset is their names, their identity," Chertoff said.

In the Boston indictment, the alleged ringleader Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez of Miami was charged with computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy. Gonzalez, who is in custody in New York, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if he is convicted of all the charges.

Gonzalez was a U.S. Secret Service informant who helped the agency take over a Web site being used to transmit stolen identifiers and stolen credit card numbers, U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said at the news conference.

"That was the first time ever that a computer system was wiretapped," he said.

But he said the Secret Service later found out that Gonzalez had also been feeding criminals information about ongoing investigations - even warning off at least one person.

"Obviously, we weren't happy that a person working for us as an informant was double-dealing," Mark Sullivan said.

Indictments were also unsealed Tuesday in San Diego against Maksym "Maksik" Yastremskiy of Kharkov, Ukraine, and Aleksandr "Jonny Hell" Suvorov of Sillamae, Estonia. They are charged with crimes related to the sale of the stolen credit card data.

Yastremskiy was arrested when he traveled to Turkey on vacation in July 2007. He is facing related Turkish charges, and U.S. officials said they have requested his extradition.

Justice Department officials said Suvorov was arrested on the San Diego charges by German officials in March when he traveled there on vacation. He is in custody awaiting the resolution of extradition proceedings.

Indictments against Hung-Ming Chiu and Zhi Zhi Wang, both of China, and a person known only by the online nickname "Delpiero" were also unsealed in San Diego. Rest of the article here.

8-18-2008 For a late update on this situation see here,

Cattails Seen As Global Warming Solution In Calif.

2008-08-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

POSTED: 11:53 am PDT August 6, 2008

RIO VISTA, Calif. -- About 21/2 years ago, as they measured the plants' ability to restore the islands' soil, scientists noticed that their "big garden," as Miller calls it, was removing a lot of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.On one side of the gravel road are hundreds of acres of corn. On the other is a much different crop that scientists hope will enable farmers to rebuild sinking islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, combat global warming and make a profit at the same time.

The alternate field is full of tules and cattails that are being grown by the U.S. Geological Survey on about 15 acres on Twitchell Island, about 5.7 square miles of rich but fragile peat soil 30 miles south of Sacramento. Twitchell and other delta islands are slowing sinking, their soil eaten away by wind, rain and farming. Most are more than 20 feet below the surrounding water. Only a system of increasingly pressured levees keeps them from being flooded. A collapse of the levees would bring in salt water from San Francisco Bay, damaging delta ecosystems and jeopardizing the state and federal programs that pump fresh water out of the delta for farms and cities to the south.

The Geological Survey project started 15 years ago as a small experiment on two, 30 foot-by- 30 foot plots to see if growing mostly tules and cattails would help rebuild the islands' soil. The plants can grow high enough to dwarf the average adult. As they die and decay, they slowly build up the peat. The soil under the 15-acre site has risen one to two feet since the project was moved there in 1996. "All that soil out there are plants that grew 6,000 years ago and didn't decompose completely," said Robin Miller, a biogeochemist with the Geological Survey.

"That's what peat is. So we're just making the same thing happen that happened here for millennia." "We were capturing a lot of (carbon dioxide) at levels much greater than other systems -- marshes and forests, grasslands," said Roger Fujii, the project's director and the bay-delta program chief for the Geological Survey's California Water Science Center.
Scientists say the cattail and tule plot removes two to three times as much carbon dioxide as the other natural green spaces.

That revelation convinced state and federal officials to expand the project. They are now trying to determine whether the tules and cattails could be put to use combating global warming through what they call "carbon-capture" farming. Under that scenario, companies could meet state greenhouse gas limits by paying delta farmers to plant tules and cattails rather than row crops. "They can just sit back and watch the tules grow, and they should be making money," said Fujii. "That's what the vision is. It's not to do it just on Twitchell Island. It's to see if we can do it throughout the delta on subsided land."

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is at the heart of California's water delivery system and is one of the most important ecosystems on the West Coast. It's the meeting place of some of the state's largest rivers, draining an area stretching from the Cascades in Northern California to the central Sierra Nevada.

The region between the state capital and San Francisco Bay is dotted with dozens of islands, most of them surrounded by narrow canals and many used for farming. With a three-year, $12.3 million grant from the state Department of Water Resources, the Geological Survey and its research partners at the University of California, Davis plan to move the project to a 300- to 400-acre site somewhere in the delta next year. The larger size would enable farmers to see how "they could really make a difference," Fujii said.

There are a series of environmental questions that have to be answered before scientists can conclude that carbon-capture farming is beneficial. Those questions include whether turning corn fields into tule-filled wetlands will only replace one type of greenhouse gas with more of another.

Plowing for agriculture oxidizes the soil, creating "perfect banquet conditions" for microbes that eat the peat and release carbon dioxide, Miller said. Flooding the fields with low levels of water to make wetlands limits the oxygen but forces the microbes to turn to other compounds.

Read the rest of the story here.

"Last Ice Age happened in less than year say scientists"

2008-08-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

According to a release by the German Research Center for Geosciences (cited in The Scotsman) the shift from post glacial warming in Europe, 12900 years ago, back into a glacial freezing pattern called the Younger Dryas happened during the course of a single year.

Dr Achim Brauer, of the GFZ (GeoForschungs Zentrum) and colleagues determined through analysis of annual layers of sedimentation from a crater lake in Germany that the onset of re-glaciation was a sudden event. In essence winter came and simply stayed.

It is theorized that the abrupt freezing was caused by a disruption in Atlantic Ocean currents and atmospheric circulation.

"The Younger Dryas stadial, named after the alpine / tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, and also referred to as the Big Freeze,[1] was a brief (approximately 1300 ± 70 years) cold climate period following the Bölling/Allerød interstadial at the end of the Pleistocene between approximately 12,800 to 11,500 years Before Present,[2] and preceding the Preboreal of the early Holocene.

The Younger Dryas (GS1) is also a Blytt-Sernander climate period detected from layers in north European bog peat. It is dated approximately 12,900-11,500 BP calibrated, or 11,000-10,000 BP uncalibrated." (Wikipedia)

A paper entitled "Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling" can be downloaded in PDF format at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0706977104v1.pdf

This paper deals with a suspected cause of the YD cooling and its abrupt onset.

The paper leads off with the following provocative introduction and develops a case for accepting an ET impact event as the cause for several troublesome anomalies:

"A carbon-rich black layer, dating to 12.9 ka, has been previously identified at 50 Clovis-age sites across North America and appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it. Causes for the extinctions, YD cooling, and termination of Clovis culture have long been controversial. In this paper, we provide evidence for an extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at 12.9 ka, which we hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to YD cooling, major ecological reorganization, broad-scale extinctions, and rapid human behavioral shifts at the end of the Clovis Period..."

"Increasing evidence suggests that the extinction of many mammalian and avian taxa occurred abruptly and perhaps catastrophically at the onset of the YD, and this extinction was pronounced in North America where at least 35 mammal genera disappeared (3), including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, horses, and camels, along with birds and smaller mammals.

At Murray Springs, AZ, a well known Clovis site, mammoth bones and Clovis-age stone tools lie directly beneath the black layer where, as described by Haynes: ‘‘[T]he sudden extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna would be dramatically revealed by explaining that all were gone an instant before the black mat was deposited.’’

The cause of this extinction has long been debated and remains highly controversial due, in part, to the limitations of available data but also because the two major competing hypotheses, human overkill (5) and abrupt cooling (6), fall short of explaining many observations.

For example, Grayson and Meltzer (7) summarized serious problems with the overkill hypothesis, such as the absence of kill sites for 33 genera of extinct mammals, including camels and sloths. In addition, although abrupt cooling episodes of magnitudes similar to the YD occurred often during the past 80 ka, none are known to be associated with major extinctions..." © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

Should this information be correct it will finally lay to rest the attribution of wholesale fauna extinctions in the Americas, North America especially, to early indigenous humans.

The article in "The Scotsman" is a bit Euro-centric, if that's an acceptable construction, and expresses concern that the sudden cooling of Europe might be repeated soon. The writer did not make any reference to a suspected cause for the observed abrupt freezing.

Dr. Firestone's (and many others) paper from PNAS indicates that the evidence strongly suggests one or more large low-density ET objects exploded over northern North America, towards the end of the last ice age. This caused two main effects: First a huge disruption to the atmosphere, including a reduction of the ozone layer, massive injection of particulates (from fires caused by the impact) and sulphur and nitrogen compounds, as well as water vapor into the upper atmosphere. Second, the impact destabilized the Laurentide ice sheet releasing huge quantities of ice and fresh water into the North Atlantic causing the thermohaline circulation in the northern Atlantic to weaken. This caused the sudden onset of re-glaciation in Europe and sustained the cooling for 1,000 years or so until the feedback mechanisms restored ocean circulation.

So, while another abrupt cooling might well occur soon, the trigger mechanism would probably not go unobserved and the cooling might prove to be the least troublesome effect experienced...

Just one more reason to step up the process of cataloging near Earth objects and Earth-orbit crossing objects in space. It's possible that we may soon develop technologies which will allow us to deal with such ET objects before they become "an event"...

Has a real Bigfoot finally been caught?

2008-07-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

2008-07-24
By - Oddly enough this article was unsigned on the newspaper's website...

Is Bigfoot for real?

Maybe...

A Clayton County Police officer says he and a friend have the body of a Bigfoot.

The animal -- a legendary, hairy hominid that supposedly lives in remote forests -- is said to be dead, frozen, and "shocking."

Matthew Whitton, a 28-year-old, who has been with the department for six years, and Rick Dyer, a 31-year-old former correctional officer, posted a video on youtube.com, last week, claiming to have the male Bigfoot corpse.

Whitton and Dyer co-own bigfoottracker.com, offering exploration expeditions in the North Georgia Mountains,

On their web site Whitton and Dyer announced an alleged discovery: "We have located a family of Bigfoot, and besides the clear photos and video, we have something even more shocking, a BODY."

Stay tuned...

The Clayton County Police Department responded to the news with an official statement giving the department some distance.

"That's his own personal business," said Police Chief Jeff Turner. "That has nothing to do with the business of the Clayton County Police Department. As long as he's not engaged in any type of illegal activity, his business is his business."

Turner said it is against department policy for any officer to represent himself or herself online, as an officer or anything other than an individual, private citizen, and said he does not know that Whitton has violated that policy.

Whitton is currently on leave, recovering from a gunshot wound to his left hand during a response to a Stockbridge armed robbery earlier this month.

The people who believe in Bigfoot and are searching for evidence responded to the announcement with a mixture of disbelief, ridicule and hope. The Bigfoot Field Research Organization, a California-based group claiming there have been 61 Bigfoot sightings in Georgia, officially described Whitton and Dyer as "idiots" and "clowns," and warned their claims are a scam to advertise their business.

Tal H. Branco, an Arkansas man who writes a regular column about Bigfoot research, said a lot of Bigfoot people think the whole thing's a hoax, but a lot of people are hoping, too, that they do have a Bigfoot body.

"Maybe Whitton did obtain the hard evidence required to solve one of the world's greatest mysteries," Branco said. "It is apparently being promoted by a police officer that has everything to lose as far as his profession is concerned, if it is a game, a hoax or just a joke. On the other hand, if it is true, and the Bigfoot body is in his custody ... his decision to announce it on an Internet web site before the body was examined by an expert certainly indicates a lack of good judgment."

In one video, posted online by "RDYER678," Whitton and Dyer interview a "pathologist" who is shocked at the Bigfoot... Read the rest here.

Health alert - Not ground beef this time!

2008-07-20T23:02:00.001-07:00

Each year tens of thousands of lobsters find their way from the waters of Penobscot Bay to plates all around the world.

Imagine that this is your plate of lobster... Looks good, doesn't it?

You will notice the claws of your lobster have been banded. These should be removed before the lobster is eaten, but not before the live lobster is steamed. The bands are placed on the lobster for two reasons: The first is to protect whoever handles the lobster from the powerful claws. The second is to protect the lobster from other lobsters.

Lobsters are carnivorous and will eat anything that crosses their paths, including another lobster. If the bands were not in place, the lobsters would eat each other while in pounds or holding tanks. One might say that shows that even lobsters think lobster meat is delicious.

Penobscot Bay lobster fishing might still be doing o.k. but a little farther south things are not so great. Nearly 12 million pounds of lobsters were taken out of Long Island Sound each year up to the late 1990s. The catch, though, has dwindled to between 2 million and 3 million pounds annually.

The water of the sound has warmed slightly the last few years but the change is just a little over one degree Fahrenheit. Although some warmer water species seem to be showing population increases in the sound no one is sure that the lobster decline is temperature driven.

Whatever the cause, an increasing number of lobsters are being imported from Canada to supply U.S. demand. In fact, even in New England, a sizeable portion of the lobster served in restaurants is not of U.S. origin.

Now there is another issue rearing its ugly head to confound the lobster gourmet.

Don't eat lobster tomalley!

Maine and New Hampshire officials are advising consumers not to eat lobster tomalley after tests have shown high levels of toxins in some lobsters.

The Maine Center for Disease Control said Friday that lobster meat is perfectly safe but that people should not eat the tomalley, a soft green substance found in the body of the lobster which is considered a delicacy by some...

High levels of toxic algae known as red tide have been recorded along Maine's coast this summer, forcing the state to close many areas to clam and mussel harvesting.

Tomalley functions as the lobster's liver by serving as a natural filter for contaminants that are in the water, unfortunately the contaminants become concentrated in the tomalley tissue.

People that eat oysters or other shellfish containing red tide toxins may become seriously ill with neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP). Once a red tide appears to be over, toxins can remain in the shellfish for weeks to months.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised consumers for some years not to eat tomalley. Now some of the states where the lobsters are caught are joining in with FDA...

World War II bomb removed

2008-07-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

First published: 18 Jul 2008, 11:16

When Bjørn Pettersen from Kjeller, 20 kilometres northeast of Oslo, found a bomb in his garden Thursday evening, police evacuated the neighbourhood. Traffic had to be redirected and those who were moved out of their homes were housed for the night at a local indoor sports arena.

Military explosive experts were called to remove the bomb safely. After having been placed in a reinforced bell-shaped container filled with sand and water, it was put on a truck and taken away.

"The actual risk involved may not have been very great, but we weren’t taking any chances," says Tom Danielson, spokesman for the Romerike Police District to news bureau NTB. "It'll be interesting, when we detonate it, to see just how much explosive is in the bomb," adds Danielson.

Pettersen was remodelling his garden with more soil when he found the bomb. "We got some earth from a few hundred metres away. After having tipped it from the dumper truck we discovered a cylinder. When my neighbour carried it behind the garage, he got white phosphorous liquid which smoked on his fingers. Fortunately, he washed it off right away.

White phosphorous warheads are used to start fires, make smoke screens and attack personnel.

Kjeller was a target during World War Two because of its military airfield and German headquarters.

Aftenposten English Web Desk
Sven Goll

Related stories:
Bomb defused in Bergen - 05.06.2007
Antique bomb found - 11.01.2007
Bomb experts probe blast - 30.06.2008
Only fireworks behind blast - 31.12.2007

Judge Rules It Was Legal To Mislead Voters About Tax

2008-07-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

POSTED: 11:46 am PDT July 18, 2008

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A judge said Friday that it was legal for Oakland city and elected officials to mislead voters about a 2004 ballot measure that promised to hire police officers, saying that his hands are tied by an appellate court ruling.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said the key factor in deciding whether the city of Oakland should be allowed to continue collecting taxes authorized by Measure Y is the language of the ballot measure itself, not what was said in chapter headings or in election materials distributed to voters.

Marleen Sacks, an attorney who lives in Oakland and filed suit against the city asking that it be forced to return $60 million to its taxpayers, alleging that it has failed to live up to its promise to hire more police officers, said Roesch's ruling "gives any politician a license to lie" to voters to get measures passed.

Roesch said, "I may say it's unjust and I don't like it" but he doesn't know of any legal authority that would allow him to him to rule against the city, based on a ruling by the state Court of Appeals in a similar case.

The city of Oakland's own Web site, in a response to a question about how voters will know that their tax dollars will be spent on hiring more officers, says Measure Y "has several safeguards," including one that "the city will maintain a baseline of 739 police officers in addition to the 63 new officers" authorized by Measure Y, which was approved by city voters in 2004.

Oakland currently has 748 officers, but Sacks says it reached that level only recently and had less than 739 officers for nearly four years, so it shouldn't have been collecting Measure Y taxes.

Roesch said he is bound by the language in the measure itself, which he said "is not ambiguous" in allowing the city to collect Measure Y taxes as long as the money is appropriated for more officers.

The measure doesn't explicitly require that that the additional officers authorized by the measure be hired, Roesch said.

Sacks said outside court that she's disappointed by Roesch's ruling but the main issues in her lawsuit remain intact and will be addressed by Roesch at a full hearing on the merits later this year.

Sacks said one of the remaining key issues is her allegation that the city is in effect "robbing" its citizens by taking $7.7 million from Measure Y and using it for generalized police recruitment.

Read the rest of the story here...

It seems that the judge's ruling begs the point. Are we now to accept that our local and state governmental bodies legally can publish advisories to the voters which are not in agreement with the acts being described?

Meaning that the voters must read the act itself and disregard the analysis published by the agency responsible for informing them of the meaning of the act.

The elected representatives and other employees of the people are legally entitled to lie to and mislead their employers about matters of taxation?

Hell, folks, that's not new. It is just business as usual being interpreted as legal action rather than malfeasance.

A Scot's view of the US presidential election

2008-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Black or white: Choice for many Americans

Published Date: 17 July 2008
By Chris Stephen

A BLACK barber in Charleston, South Carolina, I met during the Democratic primary campaign this year said it best: He told me that for his seven-year-old son, playing a video game at the back of the shop, no amount of affirmative action programmes and special initiatives would convince him he could make it in life so much as the simple fact of seeing a black president in the White House. "That would be the sign," he told me.

This comment explains better than any number of polls and pundits the reason Obama won the black vote, and hence the primaries, by managing a difficult trick: Gaining the support of blacks without losing that of the whites.

But as the presidential election looms into view this racial balancing act poses a newer harsher threat, with a poll for the New York Times and CBS giving stark evidence that the United States is as racially divided as ever.

Blacks may back Obama by margins of more than 80 per cent, but whites go for rival John McCain by 47 per cent to 37 per cent.

Racial tension may not be simmering, but the divide remains wide, a self-imposed apartheid, with the New York Times concluding: "Few Americans have regular contact with people of other races."

When asked whether blacks or whites had a better chance of getting ahead in today's society, 64 per cent of black respondents said that whites did.

Blacks and whites cannot agree even on how bad racism is; 55 per cent of whites insist race relations are good, a view shared by only a quarter of blacks.

To realise just how big a problem Obama's colour is, consider that if he were white, he would be a shoo-in for the presidency. The Bush administration is one of the most catastrophic in US history, with the president's popularity lower than any other White House incumbent since the Second World War.

Any Democrat should be able to walk into the presidency in these circumstances. Instead Obama is grappling with a lead of four to seven points over McCain with one-third of white voters insisting that they don't know enough about Obama to decide if he is good or bad.

Phil Noble, a Democratic Party official and long-time Obama supporter, says Obama's political trajectory can be likened to a white couple agreeing their daughter can date a black, only to throw up their hands in horror when she comes home to announce they are engaged. "Democratic primaries were about inter-racial dating, but the presidential election is about inter-racial marriage," he says.

Few polls ask whites whether they are racist, the reason being that pollsters don't expect a straight answer. But towards the end of the primary season, a fifth of white voters in a couple of states admitted that they do not want a black president in the White House.

Feeding into this insecurity is a nervousness about a man who's chief virtue – his youth and dynamism – is also his chief handicap. Put simply, nobody really knows whether Obama is up to the job.

Americans are used to seeing presidents promising the world only to crumble once in office, unable to make bold choices. The two previous Democrat presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, arrived in the White House promising brave new worlds only to shrink when it came to the tough decisions.

While his rallies are rock-concert uplifting events, his failure to define what he means by his slogan "change" puts you in mind of Tony Blair and his famous "Third Way," a concept that, to this day, he has been unable to define.

To his credit, Obama is striving mightily to articulate that vision. One pledge guaranteed to please is the promise to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich and spread it among the middle classes.

Another has been his keynote speech this week to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People calling for a culture of victimhood to be replaced by one of "personal responsibility," neatly taking as his own the key mantra of the Republican Party.

But on other fronts some detect signs of what the Republicans call flip-flop, the tendency to change policy with the wind. Having fought a primary campaign promising to pull all troops out of Iraq, Obama now says he will "refine" the plan after talking to generals on the ground.

While on the face of it a prudent move, the suggestion has fuelled concerns that Obama is too new and inexperienced to grapple with what is the most powerful political office on the planet.

What keeps some Democrats awake at night is the thought that, while the electorate might like Obama, when push comes to shove they will go with the devil they know and vote McCain, just as British voters told pollsters they preferred Neil Kinnock in 1992 but at the voting booth decided it was best to stick with John Major.

Noble is more optimistic, saying that while whites might worry about his inexperience and his colour, they may also see him as the embodiment of the American dream: Born to a white mother and black father, he has relatives living in straw huts in Kenya, yet has also won the ultimate establishment accolade of becoming president of the Harvard Law Review.

"It's twice as hard for him because he's unusual, because he's black," says Noble. "It will take longer for a lot of (white) people to get comfortable with him, but that don't mean they won't."

And Noble has statistics on his side. Throughout the primaries, Obama's numbers consistently went up once he had visited a state – once people had got to see him up close and personal.

His lead over McCain may be narrow but, in a highly polarised country, he is ahead in all three states likely to decide the election: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Obama's other asset is his opponent's weakness: On the three subjects that voters say matter the most to them, the economy, healthcare and Iraq, McCain's policies are essentially the same as Bush's, allowing Democratic campaign commercials to trumpet that a McCain presidency means "four more years" of the same.

And his life story has convinced many that there is steel in the Obama bones. "He's had to fight for everything," says New York software developer Elizabeth Mwangi,

Read the rest of the article here...

Planet's Magnetic Field Varies Much Faster Than Expected

2008-07-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

- Effect likely to have impact on electronic equipment at high altitudes
By: Gabriel Gache, Science News Editor

Material movement inside the core determines fast changes in the strength of the magnetic field of the planet!

It is widely known that the Earth's magnetic field is varying in strength periodically and has reversed poles several hundred times in the past 4.6 billion years, since our planet exists. However, new measurements show that the changes take place much more rapidly than is has been previously predicted, especially in certain regions near the surface where the magnetic field now appears to be weakening fast.

"What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said geophysicist Nils Olsen of the Danish National Space Center, co-author of a new study regarding the evolution of the Earth's magnetic field.

The results of the study show that the variations in the Earth's magnetic field are basically simultaneous to changes inside the molten-metal core, since its movement triggers the magnetic field in the first place. As the mass of molten iron and nickel revolves around the central regions of the core, it gives birth to an electric current which, in turn, determines a magnetic field.

The first evidence of dramatic changes in the strength of the magnetic field came in 2003 when scientists detected a considerable strength variation in the Australasian region of the planet, followed a year later by another such event in South Africa.

"This may suggest the possibility of an upcoming reversal of the geomagnetic field," said Mioara Mandea of the German Research Centre for Geosciences, co-author of the study. The complete reversal of the geomagnetic field could take as long as a couple of thousands of years, however it can have significant effects on the short term.

The lowering of the strength of the magnetic field in certain regions of the globe, for example, may have considerable consequences on the numbers of charged sub-atomic particles coming from space and entering the Earth's atmosphere.

"It is in these regions that the shielding effect of the magnetic field is severely reduced, thus allowing high energy particles of the hard radiation belt to penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere to altitudes below a hundred kilometers," Mandea said.

Although such radiation doesn't have a climatic impact on our planet, it can affect electrical and electronic equipment present on board of satellites and airplanes.

The study was only targeted at measuring the rate of the flow of molten material deep inside the Earth's core through continuous measurements taken with the help of satellites in orbit around the planet. "They provide a good rationale to continue this monitoring longer," said Peter Olson of the Johns Hopkins University.

Read original here.

Smallpox Changed the World

2008-06-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

By Heather Whipps, LiveScience's History Columnist

Today it's a medical success story, but before it was eradicated, the smallpox virus spent more than 3,000 years decimating communities across the globe...

It is believed that smallpox first incubated 10,000 years ago in northern Africa, spreading slowly to the rest of the ancient world. Repeat epidemics of the highly contagious virus — which caused a grotesque rash, fever and often blindness — began popping up a few millennia later.

Aside from speckling the face of Ramses V, the pharaoh who succumbed to smallpox in 1156 B.C., the virus appears in contemporary texts from India and China. Approximately 30 percent of those infected with smallpox died, and the statistics were even worse for children. According to some ancient customs, newborn babies were often left unnamed until they, inevitably, contracted the disease and proved they could survive, historians say.

Smallpox continued to spread across Asia in the Middle Ages and reached Europe by A.D. 700, killing indiscriminately. Waves of epidemics wiped out large rural populations, but didn't spare royalty either: Queen Mary II of England, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, French King Louis XV and Tsar Peter II of Russia all died of the disease, the latter on the eve of his wedding.

Perhaps the most defenseless victims of smallpox were the Aztec and Inca Indians of the New World who, with no immunity to European diseases, were almost completely wiped out by the virus before Spanish conquistadors finished them off with weapons in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Read the rest of the article here.

Smallpox postules on patient's legs.

U.S. Sheriffs might wish this were all they had to worry about

2008-06-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 19th June 2008
Source: The Scotsman
Location: Edinburgh

'We can't assure public that they are protected' says leading sheriff

ONE of Scotland's most prominent legal figures today launched a scathing attack on a "nameless official" who freed a frequent offender less than a third of the way into his sentence.
Sheriff Robert Dickson, who is president of the Sheriffs' Association, said judges could "no longer give any assurance to the public that they are going to be protected for any particular period" if civil servants continued to overule a court's sentence.

Jason Jarvie, 20, was locked up for 15 months on March 14 last year for a string of offences including violence, dishonesty, public disorder and drugs misuse.

But he was allowed out on a home curfew order on August 3 2007 after just four and a half months behind bars – despite having a history of repeatedly breaching court orders to curb his freedom.

Within weeks, "mindless" Jarvie went on to cause £150 worth of damage to a house in Airdrie, while still on probation and subject to the order.

Sheriff Dickson today criticised the "nameless official" who freed Jarvie without knowing all the facts of the case.

He also warned he could not assure the public that they would be protected if sheriffs' decisions were overruled in such a way.

Read the rest of the story here.

Roaming Packs Of Coyotes Killing Marina Pets

2008-06-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

POSTED: 7:01 am PDT June 17, 2008

MARINA, Calif. -- Packs of coyotes are brazenly roaming Marina neighborhoods, killing cats and attacking dogs in the Monterey County coastal community, authorities warned Tuesday.

Marina police say two dogs have been attacked by coyotes in the two weeks while out on late morning and midday walks with their owners.

Del Rey Oaks resident Brad Alexander says coyotes running through his neighborhood have killed nearly a dozen cats, including his.

"We are seeing the coyotes running down the street at night chasing cats as early as 8 p.m." said Alexander told the Monterey Peninsula Herald. "Some people are getting scared. It's getting out of control."

Marina police issued a coyote warning Friday after a coyote was seen stalking a dog and its owner in Hayes Park.

According to police, the first attack happened about noon on June 7 on a trail near Inter-Garrison Road and Schoonover Park and involved three coyotes. The other involved a pack of four and happened about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday near 3rd and 12th streets.

Read the rest of the story here.

Tree From Christ's Time Rises From the Dead

2008-06-12T17:41:00.001-07:00

By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 2008-06-12 2:00 p.m. ET

Scientists have grown a tree from what may be the oldest seed ever germinated.

The new sapling was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old date palm excavated in Masada, the site of a cliff-side fortress in Israel where ancient Jews are said to have killed themselves to avoid capture by Roman invaders
Dubbed the "Methuselah Tree" after the oldest person in the Bible, the new plant has been growing steadily, and after 26 months, the tree was nearly four-feet (1.2 meters) tall.
The species of tree, called the Judean date, (Phoenix dactylifera L.), is now extinct in Israel, but researchers are hoping that by reviving the plant they may be able to study its medicinal uses.
The medicinal plants from this region are very important because they are historically mentioned in the Bible and the Koran," said Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem, which initiated the experiment to grow the tree as part of its Middle East Medicinal Plant Project.

"The Judean date was very valuable and very famous, not just as a source of food but as a source of medicine," Sallon said. "When I heard there were ancient seeds found in the archeological dig, I thought it would be interesting to see if we could try to grow them."

Carbon dating of the seeds found at Masada revealed that they date from roughly the time of the ancient fortress' siege, in A.D. 73. The seeds were found in storage rooms, and appear to have been stockpiled for the Jews hiding out against the invading Romans.

"They were buried under mounds of debris on the top of the archaeological site of Masada," Sallon told LiveScience. "The Jews all committed suicide rather than give in to the Romans, and the Romans pretty much destroyed the site after that. It was more or less left for the next 2,000 years."

The seeds were excavated about 40 years ago, along with skeletons of those who died during the siege. Since then, the seeds had been languishing in a drawer until Sallon and her team decided to attempt to grow them anew.

They turned the project over to plant specialist Elaine Solowey at the Arava Institute of the Environment in Kibbutz Ketura, Israel. She pretreated the seeds in fertilizers and hormone-rich solution, and then planted them. So far, Methuselah is the only one to sprout.

Though a few trees have been planted from seeds that are rumored to be older than the Masada ones, the Methuselah tree holds the record for the oldest directly-dated seed to be germinated. Scientists determined its age from control seeds taken from the same batch, and from shell fragments from the sprouted seed itself.

Rest of the article here.

Times: Tick bite causes boy's paralysis

2008-06-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

01:11 PM PDT on Sunday, June 8, 2008
By TAN VINH / The Seattle Times

On Tuesday morning, after his father came to his bedroom and told him to get ready for school, 13-year-old Daniel Smith couldn't move his body to get down from his bunk bed. He couldn't lift his legs or even swallow.

Daniel, who had been shooting hoops near his Normandy Park home a few days earlier, was temporarily paralyzed, his doctor later determined.

The cause: a tick found along his hairline at the nape of his neck.

Tick paralysis, though relatively rare, occurs most often in the Western states, the Rocky Mountains and Western Canada, said Rebecca Baer, epidemiologist for the Washington State Department of Health.

Paralysis of the sort Daniel experienced is likely caused by a toxin secreted in the tick's saliva; the paralysis goes away fairly quickly once the tick is removed, typically within 24 hours. But if the tick is not removed in time, about 10 percent of victims die from respiratory paralysis, health officials said. Other symptoms of tick-borne illness include flulike symptoms — muscle aches, nausea, joint pains, fatigue.

Liz Dykstra, entomologist for the Washington State Department of Health, said the Rocky Mountain wood tick and American dog tick — the two species often associated with tick paralysis, are found here. In Western Washington, people aren't accustomed to finding ticks, and they and their health-care providers may not suspect ticks when symptoms start, Dykstra said.

"If you live in the Southeast, you're trained to check yourself over," she said. "People here don't expect to find ticks. But they are more common than you'd think."

In Daniel's case, the tick came from the Teanaway River area, near Cle Elum, where the Smith family was camping with friends during Memorial Day weekend. Another father on the trip found a tick on his son's head and called the Smiths to suggest they check for ticks.

Stu Smith said he checked his son throughly the day after they camped but saw no ticks.

The first noticeable symptom came a week later, on Monday morning, when Daniel felt his back go slightly numb. After school, his left leg was so weak, a neighbor had to help him get into his house.

Because Daniel had started wearing a back brace for a medical condition, his parents consulted with their doctor's office; they suspected his body was adjusting to the brace.

But the next morning, Daniel could barely squeeze his mother's hand, and he had no feeling in his lower body.

His father checked his head again and found a dark-tan tick the size of a raisin.

Ticks can be hard to detect at first, but within days, they can ingest enough blood to grow to the size of an M&M.

Read the rest of the story here

Bee die-off threatening Oregon crops

2008-06-08T18:16:00.001-07:00

01:47 PM PDT on Sunday, June 8, 2008

Associated Press

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University is seeking $250,000 in emergency state funding to find a reason and a solution for the unprecedented die-off of honey bees, a problem that threatens Oregon food crops worth more than $457 million.

Scientists at OSU say that if there aren't enough bees to pollinate crops such as blueberries, cherries, pears and speciality seeds, yields can drop by 25 to 100 percent in a single season.

Oregon beekeepers say there's no question there are fewer bees throughout the state and nation but that specifics and effects are hard to pin down.

Many, including agricultural experts at OSU, say the increased honey bee losses, lumped under the heading of Colony Collapse Disorder, began in 2006.

But Mark Johnson, vice president of the Oregon State Beekeepers Association, said, Its been a problem for eight or nine years.

"... Eight years ago, I lost 90 percent of my hives in a six-week period. Since then, I might lose 40 percent one year, 20 percent another. Winter is the worst time, every beekeeper holds his breath," the Portland area beekeeper said.

"Is it going to be a 10- to 20-percent die-off or a 70- to 80-percent die-off? And there's no way of telling who will be hit," he said.

"It rotates around, a lot like the flu. The result is farmers who need bees for pollination are having a tougher time finding them," he said.

Costs are rising for everyone starting with the beekeeper, who must pay $17.50 for a queen bee that used to cost $5.

Johnson said many researchers think low dosages of pesticides are weakening bees' immune systems.

Morris Ostrofsky, past president of the Lane County Beekeepers' Association, said the situation isn't as bad locally as it is nationally but it's getting worse nationwide.

The scariest thing, he said, is not knowing where its going to hit next, but what it is.

While bees are fewer, demand is up, Fall Creek beekeeper LeRoy Culley said.

Culley said large beekeepers who transport hives around the country have suffered the worst losses. The stresses involved with such moves may be a factor in bee losses, he said.

And cheap imported honey has result in fewer domestic bees, he said, as American beekeepers are driven out of business.

Oregon State Lane County Extension Agent Ross Penhallegon offers a low-tech remedy.

People who plant small wild areas on their property that offer food for bees during the winter report seeing increases in bees, he said.

"If 75 people a year plant a little area of lavender, or borage, something that provides the food (bees) need, the population will explode," he said.

See KING5 NEWS original article and: Drinking from water bottles can lead to 'water lips'

Creationism versus evolutionism? How about both?

2008-06-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

by Dr. Jean Lightner

June 4, 2008

Foreward by the blogger: When the members of the scientific establishment strike out at any and all who might entertain belief, faith or simply curiosity concerning the creation of the universe by "supernatural agency" i.e. God, they are almost always using the attack as a defense of Darwin's theory of evolution. They maintain almost to a person that somehow the reality of evolution - which is their religion - precludes the existence of a "sentient primal mover", i.e. God.

They also protect their dogma by lashing out at almost anyone - even members of their own establishment - who is so rash as to question the timeline which they have developed over the last century or so for settlement of the Americas, construction of Egyptian monuments and pretty much anything else which calls into question the over-all accuracy of the currently accepted archaeological and paleontological paradigms.

One of the charges frequently leveled against those who discover and seek to publish anomalous evidence is that they are playing into the hands of the creationists... or, gasp: might themselves be closet creationists.

Here is offered, for your consideration, an apparently documented article about the reality of rapid evolutionary adaptation in an animal population. Does this mean that both creation by a supernatural being and evolution can coexist?

According to Richard Dawkins in his book "The God Delusion" scientists "believe in evolution because the evidence supports it , and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it."

What if the evidence supports evolution as a biological mechanism but throws into question the concept that vast eons of time are required for it to function? Will the scientists then accept, as a possibility, shorter duration of the existence of the human race?

Not likely for, as Mr. Dawkins would hasten to point out, the accepted (by science) timelines are buttressed by a wealth of other evidence of an objective nature such as C14 dating, Potassium-Argon Dating, ceramic industries, tool making complexes, dendrochronology and, in humans and other animals, DNA
studies.

The other factor, and this is the real key, is that scientists deal in logic and evidence (at least that is the claim) and creationism is based upon faith in writings (scripture, holy books and such writings) passed down through the generations and held by believers to be unquestionable divine revelation. Which means that any evidence which would throw into question the correctness of the writings must, perforce, be false. Not only false, either, but planted by the evil adversary (or even by God himself) to mislead those of weak faith.

This is a classical "Catch 22" situation: if I am a believer and I find evidence to support my belief, then, that is obviously correct information because it is in agreement with that which I KNOW to be true. Conversely evidence found which indicates that my beliefs might be in error MUST be false as my beliefs are divinely revealed truths.

Mr. Dawkins has taken issue with that mindset on the part of the faithful without regard to which religion they espouse, at least that is how I interpret his position based upon reading his book. He also has issue with many many of the things done by people who have claimed to be doing them in "The Name of God."

He has condemned the Muslim uproar and threats over the Copenhagen Cartoon Caper as well as the craven reaction by some governments and publishers. He has correctly labeled religiously motivated murder in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Israel as what it is: religious intolerance to the point of mass murder...

Anyway... Here is the lead in to the article, follow the link at the end of the excerpt for the finish and supporting documents... You might find it interesting to see how the thoughts are flowing on both sides of the doctrinal fence...

MalteseFrog 0-7-2008

When God first created animals, he created them according to their kinds, with the ability to reproduce, and with instructions to increase in number and fill the earth (and seas; Genesis 1:20–22, 24–28). After the Flood, land animals and birds that had been preserved on the Ark again reproduced to fill the earth (Genesis 8:15–19).

Baraminologists (creation scientists who work to identify created kinds) have determined that many animals represented by a single breeding pair on the Ark have diversified so that today they are typically represented by a whole family. For example, the family Canidae is believed to be made up of animals from one baramin, a single created kind.¹ This family includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, and jackals. It consists of 34 species from 14 genera that are widely distributed on every continent except Antarctica, confirming that they have indeed increased in number and multiplied on the earth (cf. Genesis 8:17).² The Bible mentions dogs,³ foxes,⁴ wolves,⁵ and possibly jackals.⁶^,⁷ Both dogs and wolves are first mentioned less than a millennium after the Flood, indicating that diversification occurred very rapidly.⁸

Historically, evolutionists have told us that changes in living things occur at a slow, deliberate pace.⁹ Yet the creation model clearly requires that significant changes be able to occur quite rapidly, if necessary, as animals multiply and fill the earth. Today we see animals that have adapted to a variety of different environments and niches. Is there any scientific evidence that animals can adapt so quickly? Indeed there is! One example in lizards appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year.¹⁰

A Change in Home

Off the coast of Croatia, in the Adriatic Sea, there are a number of islands. Near the island of Lastovo are several smaller islets. One islet, Pod Kopište, has long been home to a particular species of lizard, Podarcis sicula. In 1971, researchers moved five adult pairs of this species to a second islet, Pod Mrčaru. After some 36 years, researchers conducted a detailed study that indicated this introduced species had not only thrived, but had also undergone significant adaptive changes.

A Change in Diet and Head Shape

The lizards on the second islet, Pod Mrčaru, had longer, wider, and taller heads. In addition to the increase in size, there were also distinct changes in head shape. An increase in bite force was associated with these changes, which appear necessary to allow the lizard to adapt to a diet that is significantly higher in plant matter. While the parent population on the first islet has a low level of plant consumption (7% of diet in spring; 4% summer), the lizards on Pod Mrčaru have a much higher level (34% and 61%). Roughly half of the plant matter consumed on Pod Mrčaru is of high cellulose content, such as leaves and stems.

A Change in the Digestive Tract

Animals don’t have the ability to digest cellulose by themselves. Herbivores rely on microorganisms in their digestive tract to digest cellulose and provide them with usable nutrients. In some animals the microorganisms ferment the food in the foregut (i.e., the beginning portion of the stomach, as in ruminants, kangaroos, wallabies, and leaf-eating monkeys), while many others are hindgut fermenters. The lizards on Pod Mrčaru have a cecal valve which slows down food passage allowing the microorganisms time to ferment it in the hindgut. This structure is not present in the parent population from Pod Kopište or in a closely related species, P. melisellensis, which had previously inhabited Pod Mrčaru but has since become extinct there. The cecal valve is present in other herbivorous lizards in this family (Lacertidae). This suggests that certain structures important to the survival of an animal in one environment may not be retained in the population if they move to a different environment and the structure is no longer useful. However, the structure may reappear if conditions change and it then becomes important to survival.

Nematodes were also found in the hindgut of the lizards on Pod Mrčaru, but not in the parent population from Pod Kopište. Nematodes are a fairly common find in herbivorous lizards.¹¹ While normally they are recognized as parasites, there has been at least one case, in bullfrog tadpoles, where a mutualistic relationship with a nematode was identified.¹² In this case, the presence of the nematode was associated with greater fermentation yields and accelerated development of the tadpoles. It remains to be seen if the nematodes in the lizards have a net positive, negative, or neutral effect.

A Change in Population Density and Behavior

The population density on Pod Mrčaru appears to be much greater, likely due to the larger, more predictable food base. The social structure also seems to have changed as the lizards no longer appear to defend territories. The changes in mode of food acquisition (i.e., browsing rather than pursuing prey) and social structure may have contributed to the shorter hind limbs and lower maximal sprint speed previously observed in these lizards compared to the parent population.¹³

Pondering the Source of the Changes

Since the large heads and cecal valves were present in hatchlings and juveniles, the authors suspect genetic changes may underlie these differences.¹⁴ However, only mitochondrial DNA was sequenced, which was identical in both populations of P. sicula. One wonders what the source of such a genetic change might be; 36 years is hardly enough time to suspect that a beneficial random mutation might have occurred. Natural selection can only be invoked after a genetic change has occurred; it doesn’t explain the appearance of a genetic change, but can explain why it becomes more or less common in the population. The authors suggest that further studies should address other possible factors (i.e., phenotypic plasticity and maternal effects), which may account for this divergence between the two populations. Regardless of the final findings, this study clearly shows that animals can adapt rapidly, just as creationists would expect, given that God provides for His creation and intends the earth to be inhabited (Psalm 147:8, 9; Matthew 6:25–34; Isaiah 45:18).

Has Evolution Occurred?

One of the most confusing aspects of the creation/evolution controversy is that there are several distinct definitions for the word evolution that evolutionists constantly blur together.¹⁵ One definition involves change (presumably with a genetic basis) in a population over time. Given this definition, evolution has certainly taken place. Ironically, it is the creationist model that requires such changes to be able to occur relatively rapidly. There are a number of examples in the READ MORE HERE.

'Little people' e-mail zips through rural Alaska

2008-06-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

MIKE DUNHAM / AROUND ALASKA

Published: May 31st, 2008 11:11 PM
Last Modified: May 31st, 2008 03:04 AM

An intriguing e-mail hit Bush Alaska in May. In it, a hunter from Marshall recounted how he found a boy alleged to have been abducted by the ircenrraat.
Ircenrraat (singular: ircenrraq; say "irr-chin-hhak" with a harsh hh and you're getting close) are a recurring theme in traditional Yup'ik teachings and legends, "little people" who dwell in the tundra, usually underground. They disorient, discomfort and trap unwary humans.

City folk usually dismiss ircenrraat as superstition. Those who have lived in Yup'ik country for any period of time tend to be a little more inclined to listen. For one thing, the stories are persistent and often come from respectable observers. For another, when you're by yourself in the middle of nowhere, things happen that are hard to explain.

For instance, a few years back, on a very remote solo kayak trip in the lower Yukon region, I swear I heard rocks tossed in my direction by unseen hands or whatever. Big rocks. Whoosh. Plunk. Weird. A little scary -- and not particularly on target, assuming they were trying to hit me. A close inspection of the presumed point of origin showed no evidence of anything. There was nowhere for anything bigger than a squirrel to hide. I can't say it was an ircenrraaq, but neither can I absolutely refute those who suggest it was.

Yup'ik descriptions of the "little people" resemble those in widespread stories shared by many cultures around the world. A conference on such creatures is held every year in Twisp, Wash.

Though accounts of sightings or of inexplicable events attributed to ircenrraat are common in Western Alaska, they seldom receive wide circulation outside the area.

The Internet age changed that.

I called Nick Andrew Jr. in Marshall, whose e-mail started the latest excitement. He intended it as a private message to a family member, he said, and was a little disconcerted that it got forwarded far and wide.

He confirmed the details, however, and gave me permission to use his name, requesting that I keep other names out of print.

Andrew was on a snowmachine hunting birds the evening of May 7, some distance out of town -- three hours away if you had to walk it, he estimated. Preparing to return home, he decided to check a different location on a hunch.

"Stopping to look, I saw a small boy all alone in middle of the marsh," he said.

He recognized the child as a boy from the village. "I asked him where's his dad or hunting partners? I grilled him with questions of who he was with and if he was alone. He was scared and had been crying. All his answers were 'I don't know.' "

He described the boy as "disoriented, dazed, confused and scared" with "no concept of time. He did not appear tired, nor was he hungry or thirsty."

But the lad was lucky, it seems. He was found in a spot frequented by large tundra brown bears.

Andrew took the boy home, noting that there were no footprints in the spring snow to indicate anyone had walked into the area. He found that puzzling. He counted at least 10 other snowmachiners in the neighborhood, none of whom had spotted the boy.

After getting the boy back to the village, he left his VHS radio on overnight, in case some other hunter reported a missing child. No one did.

"It wasn't until the next day that the story started emerging that he'd had what you'd call an out-of-the-ordinary experience," he told me. "He'd had some missing time, just like people who report being abducted by UFOs."

The boy said he was "brought into" Pilcher Mountain, a site often associated with ircenrraat encounters. There, he was questioned and saw other "little beings."

"He said he made contact with a little girl abducted over 40 years ago," Andrew said. "She told him who she was and she wanted help."

After that the ircenrraat decided to release the boy. "And that's when he came to, I guess, a few minutes before I found him."

Andrew maintained calm perspective about the experience. "Is this kid telling the truth?" he said, leaving the answer open-ended.

Responses to the e-mail, by the time it was forwarded to me, treated the news with gravity. "Ladies, please share with your husband/partners," read one forwarder. "Please tell your children about Ircinraqs (sic) and their deceptiveness," said another. "Thank God (he) found this little boy alive."
Original article here.

Boise girl, 14, believed to have run away with older man

2008-06-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Boise Police believe that Saddie Julian, 14, left town with Morgan Jones, 27, on May 28th. A felony kidnapping warrant has been issued for Jones' arrest.

06:59 PM PDT on Saturday, May 31, 2008

KTVB.COM

BOISE -- Boise Police are asking for the public's help in finding a Boise teenager who may have runaway with an Alabama man she met on the Internet.

Saddie "Elaine" Julian of Boise was last seen early Wednesday morning.

She is believed to be traveling with Morgan Douglas Jones, 27, of Birmingham, Alabama. Investigators say their last known location was Eastern Washington.

Police say the two met and developed a relationship while playing an Internet game. Officers believe Jones drove to Boise from Alabama and picked the teen around 7 a.m. on May 28th.

Boise Police have issued a law enforcement alert to all surrounding states and Alabama. Detectives are working closely with other local, state, and federal law enforcement to locate them.

"Our priority is finding Saddie and making sure she's safe," said Boise Police Lt. Alan Cavener. "Her family is understandably very concerned. We hope to find her soon and be able to tell her family she's okay."

Saddie is described as 5-feet tall, 90 pounds, light/pale skin, long red hair, and a thin build.

2008 Chey Aveo

Ada County Prosecutors have issued a felony kidnapping warrant for Jones.

Jones is described a 5-foot-9, 160 pounds, shoulder length red hair, with light/pale skin. He was last seen clean shaven.

He is believed to be driving a bright yellow 2008 Chevy Aveo, with Alabama license plates OMGROFL.

Anyone who may know their whereabouts is urged to contact their local law enforcement.
Original Story here

Rare uncontacted Amazon tribe photographed

2008-05-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick update: MSNBC has a short slide-show of images Here

And a more in depth article(excerpt starts on next line) Here
While "uncontacted" Indians often respond violently to contact — Meirelles caught an arrow in the face from some of the same Indians in 2004 — the greater threat is to the Indians.

"First contact is often completely catastrophic for "uncontacted" tribes. It's not unusual for 50 percent of the tribe to die in months after first contact," said Miriam Ross, a campaigner with the Indian rights group Survival International. "They don't generally have immunity to diseases common to outside society. Colds and flu that aren't usually fatal to us can completely wipe them out."

Survival International estimates about 100 tribes worldwide have chosen to avoid contact, but said the only truly uncontacted tribe is the Sentinelese, who live on North Sentinel island off the coast of India and shoot arrows at anyone who comes near.

Maltese Frog's note: The Sentinelese would be: the only known truly uncontacted tribe... It's still a big world with a lot of "trackless" wilderness.

Images show Indians painted bright red,
brandishing bows and arrows

Uncontacted tribe photographed near Brazil-Peru border

2008-05-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

To those of us who have lived our lives driving everywhere we go in our home towns and flying in aircraft to travel long distances it may seem hard to believe that there are people who choose not to partake of the "benefits" of our globe-spanning 21st century super-civilization; However, it is all but impossible to believe that these people don't (or didn't) know that the outside world exists.

It seems far more probable that they have heard of our culture and seen some of its works and have decided that they would rather remain in the forest and live their own way...

Members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air near the Brazil-Peru border. The photos were taken during several flights over one of the remotest parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil’s Acre state.

‘We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,’ said uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Júnior. Meirelles works for FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department. ‘This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.’

Meirelles says that the group’s numbers are increasing. But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru. Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

‘What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilised’ ones, treat the world,’ said Meirelles.

There are more than one hundred uncontacted tribes worldwide, with more than half living in either Brazil or Peru. All are in grave danger of being forced off their land, killed and decimated by new diseases. Survival has launched an urgent campaign to get their land protected, and a unique film narrated by actress Julie Christie.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.’

From these peoples' stance vis-a-vis the aerial intruder
one might conclude that they have heard what lies in
store for them if they allow outsiders to come among
them...

To find out more about the photographs of uncontacted Indians in Brazil, see below. You can learn more about Survival's other news and campaigns on the main website

For further information please contact Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20 7687 8700 or email mr@survival-international.org

To visit Survival International's report of this contact click: Here

Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades

2008-05-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

1:00 PM on Sat May 24 2008
By Elaine Chow

Cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first "discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier this week, which—if the results are real—could revolutionize the way we gather energy.

Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.

Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix(ZrO2-Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the center of the cell warm for 50 hours.

Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.

But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy—nuclear power, without its destructive heat.
Read the original article and comments: here.

Sinister secrets of the dustbin Nazis

2008-05-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

Last updated at 9:24 PM on 19th May 2008

After Labour's mauling in the local elections, Gordon Brown announced that the hated plans for pay-as-you-throw rubbish taxes would be scrapped.

That was a blatant lie and he knew it. Within days it became clear that 'trials' would still be going ahead. Why bother piloting something which you have no intention of introducing?

Far from dropping the scheme, Labour is ploughing on despite the trivial matter of what the electorate thinks.

That's because ministers are obediently implementing orders from our real
government in Brussels. Gordon couldn't stop pay-as-you-throw taxes even if he wanted to, which he doesn't.

He was the one who cranked up landfill taxes in his last 'green' budget to meet EU recycling targets, which is why councils are cutting back on collections in the first place.

All is revealed in European directive 75/442/EEC on waste disposal. In answer to a parliamentary question from the Tories, ministers have been forced to admit that they are following rules laid down in an EU handbook entitled 'Variable Rate Pricing based on Pay As You Throw as a Tool of Urban Waste Management'.

This 'toolkit' lays down the blueprint for charging every household for the amount of rubbish it generates.

It has been produced by the Dresden University of Technology, which was commissioned by the EU under the 'Fifth European Commission Framework Programme'.

Rubbish! Gordon Brown said plans for pay-as-you-throw taxes would be scrapped. But now pilots are going ahead

The Eurocrats admit bin charges are a ' politically sensitive issue', and warn of 'uncertain and perhaps uncontrollable citizens' response'. But the handbook stresses 'this lack of consensus should not be allowed to intimidate us into avoiding innovation'.

They acknowledge that higher charges, tougher rules and fortnightly collections will be unpopular and will lead to an increase in littering, fly-tipping and dumping of waste in other people's bins and recycling containers.

To combat this, it urges the 'disciplining of citizens' by 'intensive observation of illegal waste disposal through patrol and special task forces'.

Councils should set up a 'police department' to sift through rubbish to search for the addresses of 'offenders' in discarded mail, and issue fines of up to £400.

All those stories about people being punished for leaving the lid of their bin open, putting out the 'wrong' kind of rubbish or dropping an old gas bill in a public litter bin can be traced back to this sinister document.

They weren't isolated incidents, or the result of over-zealous enforcement by bloody-minded local officials - they were part of the great masterplan.

black South Africa vents its anger on immigrants

2008-05-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Published Date: 19 May 2008

By Fred Bridgland

in Johannesburg

IT BEGAN just over a week ago at a discussion in a poor township about crime. By yesterday, it had become a black-on-black ethnic-cleansing frenzy that engulfed central Johannesburg, taking more than a dozen lives and leaving hundreds injured, thousands homeless and many raped.

The assaults by poor black South Africans on poor, terrified refugees, most of them Zimbabwean, is a crisis that has been waiting to happen for months and seems likely to escalate.

Reports yesterday said the attacks had spread to Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria.

Some three million Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa from the political and economic terror waged by president Robert Mugabe. They have been joined by an estimated one to two million economic migrants from Mozambique and Malawi. In a country with 40 per cent unemployment, ordinary black South Africans have accused the foreigners of stealing their jobs, houses and women. And they have been growing increasingly angry with their own head of state, President Thabo Mbeki, accusing him of being more concerned with appeasing Mr Mugabe than recognising the scale of the problem caused by the flood of Zimbabweans into South Africa.

Eight days ago, in Alexandra, a poor township in the shadow of Johannesburg's business district and the richest square mile of earth in Africa, Jacob Ntuli, 67, a community leader and former security guard, called a meeting of residents to discuss the rape of four women and a girl.

Somehow, what began as a discussion about crime ended in people seething with anger about foreigners. They decided it was time to act, and soon, with cries of "Let's go and kill foreigners", a mob armed with guns, steel bars and whips was descending on non-South African homes.

The first to die was Sipho Madondo, a 41-year-old South African who refused the mob's demand that he join the planned killing spree. He was shot dead in front of his wife, Pretty.

Soon afterwards the first Zimbabwean died. Lungile Mtweni, 31, had just arrived jobless from his own country and was due to begin work the next day as a gardener for a white South African in the hope of providing for his wife and two children. He had borrowed the equivalent of 65p from a neighbour so he could travel to his job and was walking home when he was overwhelmed by the mob. After hearing his accent, they beat and stoned him to death, before moving on to loot and burn the homes of other foreigners.

Hundreds of foreigners fled Alexandra as they were attacked and their homes set alight. Some deadly genie had been let out of the bottle. Copycat attacks began in other townships and settlements – Tembisa, Katlehong, Reiger Park, Thokoza, Jeppestown, parts of the giant township of Soweto, names familiar from the violence that marked the 1989-1994 transition from apartheid to democracy.

Yesterday at least seven foreigners were burned or hacked to death in Johannesburg and mobs besieged the Central Methodist Church, which Bishop Paul Verryn has turned into a shelter for hundreds of Zimbabwean exiles. With violence erupting in so many places, police were struggling to maintain control.

The victims of the violence are dishevelled and dirty, sleeping in their thousands, huddled together in police compounds, the car parks of hospitals where their loved ones lie wounded, in churches and on waste ground.

One Zimbabwean said he didn't know what to do – return to unbearable poverty in his homeland or stay in South Africa, where it was beginning to look like he faced certain death.

Poor blacks pay the price for Mbeki's dithering over Zimbabwe

Fred Bridgland reports on the refugee crisis that is pitting black against black in South Africa's townships

I HOPE my gardener, George, has survived Johannesburg's pogroms unscathed. George is a Malawian, but I confess I don't know enough about him because he is actually employed and paid by my landlady. He is precisely the kind of person being targeted by black South African mobs, who accuse migrants from Zimbabwe, in particular, and from Malawi and Mozambique, of taking their jobs because they are willing to accept lower wages.

Read the rest of the story Here

May 10th 1940

2008-05-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Sitzkrieg is ended.

"All quiet on the Western Front" no more.

Sitzkrieg: "The Phony War" was the term derisively applied by many in the English speaking countries to the period after the invasion of Poland had resulted in chaos in the East with the dictator's ravaged victim partitioned and occupied while leaving the French and the English waiting.

Spring 1940, Adolph Hitler visits the troops

May 10th 1940 was my brother-in-law's birthday, he was born in Eindhoven which city is located about 100 KM west of Dusseldorf and is about 55 KM to the West of the German border with The Kingdom of the Netherlands.

On that Spring morning Adolph Hitler sent eighty-nine divisions of Germany's young men to attack The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Luft-waffe's Stuka-Flugel (dive-bombers) screamed from the sky dropping bombs to terrorize the unprepared Dutch, Belgians and Luxemburgers, while armored columns advanced across nearly undefended borders.

German parachute troops outside Rotterdam 5-10-1940

A Stuka Dive-bomber releases its bomb

At the same time, in the pre-dawn hours the Luftwaffe carried out a series of raids on aerodromes in the North of France. Pontoise, Lille, Lyon, Metz, Amiens and Annemasse were all bombed in the early morning hours so that there was no mistaking the fact that the war in the West had begun.

After only two days of Blitzkrieg (lightning-war) the German war machine had reached the northern French border and was in position to bypass the major French border defenses. Conquest of Belgium and The Netherlands was continuing and within three weeks, vastly outgunned by their larger neighbor, both countries had been forced to surrender to German occupation. With Holland and Belgium neutralized German armored columns, over a hundred miles long, poured across the border into France and crushed the opposing forces.

It would be five long years and tens of millions of lives lost and hundreds of cities and towns bombed into rubble before peace would be restored in Western Europe.

Apocalypse threatens to engulf Burma but junta seizes aid

2008-05-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

Published Date: 10 May 2008
By Stephen McGinty
BURMA is facing a disease epidemic of "apocalyptic proportions" after the military dictatorship blocked aid efforts and seized vital supplies forcing the United Nations' World Food Programme to temporarily halt mercy flights.

As the death toll from Cyclone Nargis climbed towards 100,000, with a further 1.5 million people left homeless and starving, the Disasters Emergency Committee yesterday warned of a catastrophic humanitarian disaster to follow unless the Burmese government accepted assistance from world aid agencies.

Last night the United Nations World Food Programme agreed to send in two further plane-loads of aid scheduled to arrive today, after initially calling a halt to its aid programme when two planes were impounded by the government on Friday. The WFP had sent some aid on a scheduled Thai Airways cargo flight on Thursday which went through without problems, however a bureaucratic mix-up led to the seizure of cargo from the next two flights. Instead of immediately whisking the consignment, which included 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits and relief equipment, to the disaster zone in the Irrawaddy Delta it was immediately confiscated.

"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," said Paul Risley, spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme in Bangkok. He said: "It is being held by the government. It is sitting in a warehouse. It is not in trucks heading to Irrawaddy Delta where it is critically needed. The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts. It's astonishing."

The United Nations also last night launched an international appeal for $187 million and urged the Burmese government to permit humanitarians into the country. Sir John Holmes, the UN secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator said: "Every hour that passes more lives are lost."

Despite the plight of its people, the Burmese government, who for over forty years have viewed the West with deep suspicion and hostility, is adamant that while aid is welcome, aid workers are not.

Yesterday, members of the Disasters Emergency Committee said "they could do more" without opposition from the military junta. Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said suspicion of foreign aid workers was hampering their work. He warned of an epidemic of "apocalyptic proportions" if aid does not get through. But he urged donors to continue giving, saying the charities were making a difference.

The DEC appeal, which is supported by The Scotsman, is run by British aid agencies and charities has raised £4 million in two days. Mr Costello said the Burmese government did not have the capacity to run the relief effort required, adding that the impact of Cyclone Nargis could be worse than the affect of the Asian tsunami on Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Speaking from Burma to a press conference in central London, he said: "The frustration is we know we could do more. We know what the potential is but actually we are getting to people and making a difference. He said the affected area contains 19 million people and around two-thirds of them are children.

He continued: "We certainly know that once an epidemic starts it's difficult to stop and becomes of apocalyptic proportions. The potential for this epidemic is extremely probable." He said the relief effort faced a "race against time" to prevent diseases such as diphtheria, cholera and malaria spreading. He said: "The size of this is simply extraordinary and in terms of its impact much greater than the tsunami impact in Sri Lanka or Indonesia. The capacity to absorb this level of suffering, dislocation and chaos doesn't exist (in Burma]. It really requires international aid, it cannot be done in-country."

Meanwhile a Red Cross official Anders Ladekarl, who is in Burma, revealed the magnitude of the task facing rescuers. He said: "We are simply lacking transportation. There are almost no boats and no helicopters. This is really a nightmare to make this operation run."

Entire villages have been submerged in the Irrawaddy delta. Yesterday the British ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, estimated that the death toll was between 60-100,000. Mr Canning said just five of the 17 Britons unaccounted for following the cyclone have been tracked down so far.

Last night Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, chief executive of the Scottish multi-faith charity Mary's Meals, said they were determined not to walk away from their newly-opened food centres in Burma and on the Burma/Thai border. Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: "My worry is that when the public sees such a respected body as the UN World Food Programme threaten to suspend aid flights into Burma it sends a message that the door has been slammed closed. We could have over 50,000 people dead and over a million suffering; politics will not bury the dead, feed the starving or get water to the thirsty.

"I hope that people continue to give and we can end the squabbling and get aid to those suffering. We at Mary's Meals are determined to rebuild our school feeding stations that have been destroyed ."

Last night the aid group Action Against Hunger noted that the delta region is known as the country's granary, and the cyclone hit before the harvest. A statement released by the group said: "If the harvest has been destroyed this will have a devastating impact on food security in Burma."

The effects were already being felt in Rangoon, where the price of increasingly scarce water shot up by more than 500 per cent, and rice and oil jumped by 60 per cent over the last three days.

Last night there was evidence of a change in direction as the Burmese government agreed to a single US military C-130 in the country on Monday, in what the White House hopes will be the beginning of a steady flow of aid to the stricken nation.

'Please help us, we are facing difficulty for our daily survival'

ONE week ago, the old life of Ma Khine was swept away in a tide of wind, waves and rain. Today, she and her family huddle together in a monastery, along with 500 other villagers from the township of Kyauktan, another victim of Cyclone Nargis.

Last Saturday, Nargis blasted the southern coastal area of Burma at 190kph, the worst natural disaster the country has experienced. Along with the ensuing tidal wave, measuring up to 12m high, the destruction left up to 100,000 people dead or missing.

As night approached and the flood waters rose on Saturday, many villagers crowded into the Sasana Beikman monastery with Ma Khine's family. Others held to vain refuge in their houses, until they collapsed. Some families clung to plastic containers to keep from drowning. Ma Khine said: "It was frightening. I was worried that my family members would be separated. Our faces went blue from cold and I thought we were going to die."

Huddling with her family in one of the hardest-hit areas in Rangoon division, Ma Khine talked briefly about a tough life made worse by the disaster. Economic conditions were so strained in the Irrawaddy Delta village where her family's simple house used to stand, that she had left school to work in a garment factory near the country's capital. She barely earned 200 kyat (£16) a month, she said.

The first reports of fatalities in Kyauktan township put the number of deaths at 16 of the 15,000 affected population and a number of authorities speculate it will grow considerably once they can access more of the 44 affected villages in the township.

In the temporary camp, children younger than five sit in their mother's arms, a shocked expression frozen on their faces. They don't want to return to their village, but their parents are anxious to start picking up the pieces of their shattered world.

As one mother said: "Please help us to rebuild our village. We are facing difficulty for our daily survival as our houses are now lying flat in the water; some are crushed by trees. We do not even have cooking utensils or clothes to wear."

According to a UNICEF team assessing the Kyauktan township situation, food is scarce among the 66 shelters there. Many villagers with houses remaining have been cooking and donating what they can.
Read the rest of the story and comments here.

America is being invaded and colonized by aliens

2008-04-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

It is undeniable, I've seen them with my own eyes!

Like many people I was a skeptic: after all, I reasoned, why would they leave an environment in which they had evolved successfully and found their every need met?

Why would they come here to live in a place where they are so different that they stand out from the native population and where they have to adapt to strange weather and unfamiliar foods?

And if those issues aren't enough to persuade them to stay away some local jurisdictions have taken, and are currently taking, steps intended to make them leave or even to eradicate them should they fail to leave!

And yet... They're still out there flying around our cities, lurking near power lines, scavenging everywhere for sustenance.

Hard to believe?

read more here

and here

and here too!

and here

Even in England...

What elevators can teach us about superstition

2008-04-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Submitted by Massimo Pigliucci on 26 April 2008 - 9:23am

Maybe I’ve had elevators on my mind because the one in our building has gone through endless repairs of late, none of which apparently improved its speed or reliability. Or perhaps you simply cannot live in New York City without taking into account elevators as a major component of your life. But then my wife pointed out to me this snippet from an article published recently in The New Yorker (every self-respecting newyorker reads The New Yorker while in the subway):
“In the old system—board elevator, press button—you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they’re driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer. Elevator design is rooted in deception—to disguise not only the bare fact of the box hanging by ropes but also the tethering of tenants to a system over which they have no command.”

Talk about fooling most of the people most of the time! Of course, superstition is actually a well-known phenomenon in the animal world. Experiments with rats have shown that if you give them a reward (say, food), shortly after they accidentally bumped their shoulder against a wall of their cage, they will start purposely bumping against the wall, expecting a new reward. This is no different from human beings associating a win by their favorite team to them wearing a “lucky” shirt or hat. Both are examples of a widespread logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc (after that, therefore because of that), where a causal link between two events is inferred on the basis of an observed correlation.

The difference between rats and humans is that the former give up their illogical behavior much sooner than the latter, if no further reward is coming. (Of course, what makes the elevator such a Machiavellian device is that the reward does keep coming!)

More generally, superstition (and therefore religious belief, which is a form of superstition) can likely be traced back to two factors, one of which seems to apply only to humans and perhaps other closely related primates.

The first factor is exemplified in the widespread use of observational correlations in the animal kingdom: it simply makes sense for natural selection to favor the ability to uncover potentially significant patterns in the environment, so that the organism can take advantage of them. However, one would also expect selection to favor the quick abandonment of pattern-based behavior if the pattern turns out not to be a reliable clue for action -- exactly what happens with rats.

Read the rest of the article and a lot more here.