- Signs of the Times Archive for Thu, 15 May 2008 -




Sections on today's Signs Page:


SOTT Focus
Israel - Two Thousand Years of Lies - Sixty Years of State Terrorism

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
SOTT.net
2008-05-14 15:07:00

A few years ago, when my book The Secret History of the World was published, I rashly promised that volume 2 would soon be completed and ready for publication. After all, I pretty much knew what I wanted to zoom in on - the topic of Moses and the creation of Judaism - and I already had a good hypothesis and had tons of supplementary support material. I even had a title: The Horns of Moses (triple entendre!) It should be a piece of cake, I thought. And so, I sat down to write.

I had a pretty good flow going, Moses was coming to life on the computer screen, and then... well, then I started to have doubts. I knew that I knew a lot about Moses from the theological point of view and from the point of view of a lot of alternative research. I even knew a lot of what the scholars knew - the people who spend their lives studying and analyzing the Biblical texts. But I still felt uneasy. So, I went searching for more source materials and discovered that there was a whole lot more I needed to read before I could complete this project. That's pretty much what I have been doing for the past year or two: reading stuff that nobody except specialists ever reads, and collecting piles of data.

What has been shocking to discover is exactly how much IS known among the scholars that is not known by the general public. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since I have discovered this to be true in other fields, but when the subject is the foundation of religion - stuff people believe in and stake their lives on and use to determine their actions in life - well, it's pretty bad.

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Best of the Web
The Sky Is Falling

Gregg Easterbrook
The Atlantic
2008-05-14 13:51:00

The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn't NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe?

Comet
©Stéphane Guisard, www.astrosurf.com/sguisard


Breakthrough ideas have a way of seeming obvious in retro­spect, and about a decade ago, a Columbia University geophysicist named Dallas Abbott had a breakthrough idea. She had been pondering the craters left by comets and asteroids that smashed into Earth. Geologists had counted them and concluded that space strikes are rare events and had occurred mainly during the era of primordial mists. But, Abbott realized, this deduction was based on the number of craters found on land - and because 70 percent of Earth's surface is water, wouldn't most space objects hit the sea? So she began searching for underwater craters caused by impacts rather than by other forces, such as volcanoes. What she has found is spine-chilling: evidence that several enormous asteroids or comets have slammed into our planet quite recently, in geologic terms. If Abbott is right, then you may be here today, reading this magazine, only because by sheer chance those objects struck the ocean rather than land.


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Textbook descriptions of George Bush reveal psychopathy, and much worse

Ed Martin
OpEdNews
2008-04-30 06:59:00

Image
©Unknown
Ted Bundy and George Bush. Seperated at birth?


The research of Dr. Hervey Cleckley and Dr. Robert Hare exploring the personality and character traits of psychopaths, when applied to George Bush, shows that Bush fits exactly the profile they developed for the psychopath. Demographis show that Republicanism is much worse than psychopathy.

An excerpt from the book Blood Relations, by Eric Konigsberg, about his great-uncle Harold, a convicted murder:

Hervey Cleckley in his book, The Mask of Sanity, describes the psychopath as a certain type of cruel manipulator whose harmful actions are accompanied by an absence of delusion. The psychopath, he wrote, "does not hear voices. In theory, he can foresee the consequences of injudicious or antisocial acts." A psychopath is a person who knows full well the difference between right and wrong and yet, without compunction, chooses to do wrong. Checkley cited the protagonist of The Incredible Charlie Carewe, a novel by Mary Astor, as a quintessential psychopath. "Charlie is a genius in reverse with dangerous charm. Sisters lie for him, parents defend him, friends obey him. While calmly and casually, Charlie Carewe literally gets away with murder."

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U.S. News
Barr expected to announce Libertarian White House bid

Ben Evans
Associated Press
2008-05-12 17:09:00

Washington - Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr is expected to announce that he's running for president as a Libertarian.

His candidacy would be a wild card in the White House race that many believe would hurt Republican Sen. John McCain.

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At Last! Lori Drew Indicted in MySpace Sucide Hoax

By Scott Michels and Mary Fulginiti
ABC
2008-05-15 16:19:00

A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday on federal charges for allegedly perpetrating an online hoax that led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

Lori Drew was indicted by a grand jury in Los Angeles for her role in allegedly creating a fake MySpace page, in the name of "Josh Evans," that was used to contact Megan Meier.

Meier committed suicide in October 2006 and her parents have said their daughter's death was the result of the rapid decline of her online relationship with "Josh," whom she believed to be a 16-year-old boy who first flattered the self-conscious girl and then taunted her.

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Flashback: Justice Time: Parents Want Jail Time for MySpace Hoax Mom


ABC News
2007-11-30 22:05:00

The family of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who took her own life after being bullied on MySpace, is demanding justice and jail time for the adult involved in the bullying.

Lori Drew, the Meiers' 48-year-old neighbor in suburban St. Louis, admitted in a police report that she created a fictitious MySpace account and pretended to be a boy with a romantic interest in Megan. According to the police report, Drew created the profile to find out what Megan was saying online about her teenage daughter.

©ABC
Lori Drew, pictured here on the Missouri Chamber of Commerce Web site, told police she created a ficticious MySpace profile pretending to be a boy with romantic interest in Megan Meiers.


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Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit

Clifford Craus
The New York Times
2008-05-10 05:28:00

commuters
©Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Rod Crane, right, and other commuters use Denver's rail line.


Denver - With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.

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One-man concert against high gas prices draws a crowd, and the police

Emma Graves Fitzsimmons
Chicago Tribune
2008-05-11 05:09:00

Jay Weinberg struck a chord with drivers when he staged an unauthorized concert on the roof of a gas station in northwest Indiana to protest high fuel prices. Armed with a guitar and megaphone, he crooned about feeling pain at the pump before a growing crowd below.



Comment: Enter link to watch the video of the song.



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75 percent Dallas ISD students can't read effectively or do simple math

Cynthia Izaguirre
WFAA.com
2008-05-10 04:36:00

It's May, which means thousands of high school seniors across North Texas can almost taste it: their diploma. This month 7,500 Dallas ISD seniors are expected to walk across the stage and make their families proud.

But what if we told you that 75 percent of the seniors headed to Dallas community colleges can't read above an 8th grade level, and others can't add or subtract?

Graduation is a time for feeling proud, but that might quickly change to frustration for thousands of DISD students like Gia Hollis come fall, when reality hits.

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Four percent of U.S. firefighters are women


United Press International
2008-05-12 01:46:00

Ithaca, New York - Fewer than 4 percent of U.S. firefighters are women, despite almost half of female firefighter candidates passing physical ability tests, a study says.

Co-author Francine Moccio, director of Cornell University's Institute for Women and Work looked at the percentage of women in comparable jobs requiring strength and stamina or involving dirty or dangerous work such as drywall installers, loggers and welders and found women represented 17 percent of these workers.

However, 51 percent of paid fire departments have never hired a female firefighter and the New York City Fire Department has fewer than 0.25 percent women firefighters, the study says.

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Barr to announce Libertarian White House bid

Ben Evans
Associated Press
2008-05-12 01:34:00

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has announced that he's running for president as a Libertarian.

His candidacy would be a wild card in the White House race and many believe it would hurt Republican Sen. John McCain.

Barr made the announcement Monday at a news conference. He first must win the Libertarian nomination at the party's national convention that begins May 22. Party officials consider him a front-runner thanks to the national profile he developed as a Georgia congressman from 1995 to 2003.

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Four people still hospitalized after explosion at shooting range in Virginia

Mike Holtzclaw
dailypress.com
2008-05-12 01:27:00

Seven people were injured Sunday in an explosion at a Virginia Beach shooting range, and four of them remain hospitalized with burns from the resulting flash fire inside the range.

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Texas Railroad Commission Now Investigating Explosion That Destroyed Home

Scott Lawrence
KFDM News
2008-05-12 01:17:00

The Texas Railroad Commission is in Port Arthur to investigate an explosion that leveled a home and caused damage to buildings in a two block area.

Texas house explosion
©Unknown


Investigators believe a leak in a natural gas line caused the explosion in the 23 hundred block of Green Avenue.

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Backing my claims about 9/11 questions

Karen S. Johnson
East Valley Tribune
2008-05-02 00:44:00

A recent letter to the editor asked for evidence of my claims regarding the tragedy of 9/11. Below I present some points that are presently known. I won't be able to convince anyone who doesn't want to be convinced, but for those who are willing to deal with factual evidence, consider the following:

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UK & Euro-Asian News
Greeks march and strike against privatisations

Karolos Grohmann
Reuters
2008-05-15 17:46:00

Thousands of Greek workers walked off the job on Thursday and marched through central Athens in protest at the conservative government's privatisation plans.

Dock workers, hospital and civil aviation authority staff and workers at Greece's biggest phone company OTE walked out a day after the government agreed to sell a stake in OTE to Deutsche Telekom and share management with the German firm.

"This is how workers show their discontent with the government's sell-out policy," said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for the GSEE private sector umbrella union.

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Greek fuel truckers continue strike, supplies dry up

George Georgiopoulos and Renee Maltezou
Reuters
2008-05-15 17:44:00

Athens - Greece's fuel truckers on Monday decided to extend a strike that has cut petrol supplies, causing queues at filling stations and transport disruptions that threaten to bring the economy to a halt.

The strike has already lasted a week, leaving about three quarters of Greece's petrol stations without fuel for the fourth consecutive day.

Talks between unions and the government have failed to reach agreement so far. Fuel truck drivers want a 13 percent increase in their commission.

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French teachers go on strike over job cuts

Brian Rohan
News Daily
2008-05-15 17:33:00

PARIS - Hundreds of thousands of French teachers and other public sector workers went on strike on Thursday to protest against job cuts and reforms announced by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.

It was the third broad public sector strike since Sarkozy took office a year ago promising reforms to reinvigorate the economy. Unions are already planning a bigger strike on May 22 involving a larger chunk of the workforce.

French high school students demonstrate with teachers
©REUTERS/Charles Platiau
French high school students demonstrate with teachers and other public sector workers in Paris May 15, 2008 to protest against job cuts and reforms announced by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy's government. The placard reads, "High school students on strike".



Teachers and students marched through central Paris in a demonstration that flowed through some of the French capital's biggest boulevards. Police estimated the number of marchers at 18,000 while organizers put the figure at more than 50,000.



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Berlusconi's back! Italian police swoop on migrants


BBC News
2008-05-15 17:28:00

Police in Italy have arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants in raids across the country.

Expulsion orders were issued for several dozen of those detained. More than 100 Italians were also arrested.

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Flashback: J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz

Orson Scott Card
The Rhinoceros Times (Greensboro, North Carolina)
2008-04-24 00:00:00

Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling's hugely successful novel series, is just a "rearrangement" of her own material?

Rowling "feels like her words were stolen," said lawyer Dan Shallman.

Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

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Medvedev appoints former Putin aide as drug control chief


RIA Novosti
2008-05-15 14:25:00

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appointed on Thursday Viktor Ivanov, a former presidential aide and FSB officer, as head of the federal drug control service, the Kremlin said.

Since 1997 Ivanov, 58, has held various posts in the Federal Security Service, and was appointed its deputy chief in 1999. In March 2004 he became an aide to the then-president Vladimir Putin.

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Power is restored after explosion


BBC News
2008-05-12 01:09:00

Power has finally been restored to all of Chelmsford following an explosion and fire at an electricity sub-station.

Sub-station explosion
©Unknown
Firefighters were called to Bishop Hall Lane in Chelmsford



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Update: Austrian man brutally murders entire family with axe - 'to save them from financial ruin'

Bojan Pancevski
The Times
2008-05-14 18:19:00

Vienna - An Austrian man gave himself up to police yesterday after hacking his family to death with an axe, allegedly to save them from financial ruin.

The 39-year-old, who for legal reasons has been identified as Reinhard S, first killed his wife, Barbara, 42, and his daughter, Natalie, 7 in their family home in a prosperous Vienna district. By his own admission, he repeatedly struck them on the head with an axe that he had bought at a DIY store.



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Around the World
Literally unbelievable: Burma 'approves new constitution'


BBC News
2008-05-15 17:18:00

Burma vote
©AFP
The generals were criticised for holding the vote during a national crisis


A new constitution proposed by Burma's military rulers has been overwhelmingly approved in a referendum, according to the country's state-run media.

The junta said 92.4% voted "yes" in the ballot and reported a turnout of 99%.

The vote was held in two-thirds of the country, but was postponed for two weeks in areas hit by Cyclone Nargis.

Human Rights Watch labelled the result an "insult to the people of Burma", while an opposition group said the vote had been "full of cheating and fraud".

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Nigeria: Lagos oil pipeline blast 'kills 100'


BBC News
2008-05-15 17:13:00

At least 100 people have been killed in an oil pipeline explosion in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, the local Red Cross says.

The explosion tore through the Ijegun suburb, engulfing schools and homes after a bulldozer burst the pipeline.

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Air Canada surcharge to negatively impact tourism

Jean Adams
carrentals.co.uk
2008-05-12 17:11:00

A new fuel surcharge introduced by Air Canada late last week will likely have a negative impact on the country's tourism industry, according to George Murphy, a prominent consumer advocate interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The new fuel surcharge hike was announced on Friday afternoon and it will make some roundtrip domestic flights as much as $120 more expensive. Passengers travelling on routes that are 1,601.6 kilometres in length will be the most heavily impacted by this newest fuel hike. Those travelling on shorter and regional routes, will also find that the cost of air travel has increased-thanks to the rise in the fuel surcharge-but they will be required to pay a smaller portion of this burden. Air Canada, however, pointed out that even these fees will be unable to completely compensate for the steep rise in jet fuel.

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New Zealand: Police code found wanting

Emily Watt
stuff.com.nz
2008-05-13 16:45:00

New rules for police behaviour do not mention sexual misconduct, prompting accusations that police have failed to right the wrongs highlighted in a damning report on past abuses.

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Australia: Stabbed taxi driver Jalvinder Singh living 'miracle'

Paul Anderson
Herald Sun
2008-05-13 16:13:00

Jalvinder Singh, stabbed several times in his cab late last month, survived on the operating table despite a collapsed lung, massive bleeding and the fact his heart stopped beating for 15 minutes. One knife wound missed his heart by a centimetre.

Jalvinder Singh
©Unknown


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Western Australia: Helicopter crash prompts calls for RFDS funding

Matthew Brann
ABC Rural
2008-05-13 15:05:00

People who witnessed the aftermath of yesterday's helicopter crash in the Kimberley say it's a timely reminder that medical services to remote parts of WA need improvement.

A helicopter carrying three passengers crashed just metres from the Imintje Community Store, 235 kilometres north-east of Derby.

Three of the people injured in the crash were waiting for over seven hours to receive medical attention from Royal Flying Doctors Service.


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"Me, I'm a Camera" -- African Women Making Change

Ann Jones
TomDispatch.com
2008-05-13 23:53:00

The last time I was back in the U.S.A., everyone was talking about "change." Change seemed to mean electing Barack Obama president and thereby bringing all Americans together in blissful agreement. But real change isn't like that. Didn't the guy who's got the job now promise to be a "uniter"? Real change has content and direction. It's driven by courageous people unafraid to speak up, even -- or perhaps especially -- when it's risky.

Anyway, there are plenty of Americans I'll never agree with, so I'm in self-imposed exile in Africa where I work with women who teach me a lot about real change and the risks involved in going for it. The women I work with live in the aftermath of civil wars -- in the midst of a continuing war on women that's acted out in widespread sexual exploitation, rape, and wife beating. They've had enough.

As a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), I go from country to country, running a simple little project dreamed up by the IRC's Gender-Based Violence unit. (GBV is the gender-neutral term for what I still call VAW: Violence Against Women.) The project -- dubbed A Global Crescendo: Women's Voices from Conflict Zones -- is meant to give women a chance to document their daily lives, their problems, their consolations and joys. It's meant to give them time and space to talk together and come up with their own agenda for change.

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Red Cross: Up to 128,000 may have died in Myanmar


Associated Press
2008-05-14 23:45:00

Yangon, Myanmar - The Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000 - a much higher figure than the government tally. The U.N. warned a second wave of deaths will follow unless the military regime lets in more aid quickly.


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Forgotten tot left behind at Vancouver airport


Associated Press
2008-05-14 19:06:00

Vancouver, British Columbia - An immigrant family left a 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of the trip.


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Big Brother
Airport-style scanners on London streets


Associated Press
2008-05-15 18:44:00

London, England -- A surge in violent knife crimes has prompted London police to introduce a new program that will rely on mobile, airport-style scanners and hand-held metal detectors for use against people suspected of carrying concealed weapons.

The new program, called Blunt 2, started this week in one borough and should be in place in all 32 London boroughs within the next few months, said a Metropolitan Police spokesman, who asked not to be identified in line with police rules.

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Mother of man who died at airport at Taser inquiry

Greg Joyce
The Canadian Press
2008-05-15 17:11:00

Vancouver - The mother of a man who died after being hit by an RCMP Taser at Vancouver airport says her faith in the national police force has been shattered.

Zofia Cisowski told a B.C. public inquiry into the use of Tasers that she wants truth, justice and accountability for the death of her son, Robert Dziekanski.

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TCI government implements controversial fingerprinting policy

Anthony L Hall
Caribbean Net News
2008-05-12 14:43:00



First they fingerprinted the Haitians,
and you did not speak up because you were not a Haitian.
Then they fingerprinted the Dominicans,
and you did not speak up because you were not a Dominican.
Then they fingerprinted the Filipinos,
and you did not speak up because you were not a Filipino.
Then they fingerprinted you,
and there was no one left to speak up for you.


[My version of a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller]



Civil libertarians and human rights activists are expressing grave concerns about a new fingerprinting policy the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) implemented last week. This measure makes it mandatory for all persons seeking work permits, renewal of permits and residency permits to be fingerprinted.

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UK: Fears of 'Orwellian dystopia' as councils, police and fire chiefs agree to share information

Jon Land
24Dash
2008-05-12 14:41:00

A campaign group today expressed fears of an "Orwellian dystopia" after councils, police and fire chiefs signed the first information-sharing agreement of its kind in the UK.

The Dorset Over-Arching Information Sharing Protocol allows data to be passed faster and easier between the county's public sector bodies including the police, fire service, education chiefs, social workers and housing staff.

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UK Government backs Big Brother approach to 'sickies'


TrainingZone.co.uk
2008-05-12 04:55:00

Lie detectors could soon be used to deter workers from pulling sickies, after trials of the technology were backed by the government last week.

The controversial Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) system, which can tell when a person is lying on the phone about being too ill to work, has already been trialed successfully in a number of pilot projects within the benefits system.

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Italian's Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors to U.S. Face

Nina Bernstein
The New York Times
2008-05-14 18:49:00

Image
©UnknownChris Warde-Jones for The New York Times
Domenico Salerno, with his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper, in Rome on Sunday. He was held for 10 days in the United States after being denied entry.


He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. She was "a totally Virginia girl," as she puts it, raised across the road from George Washington's home. Their romance, sparked by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian, Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

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Axis of Evil
Arms race and anti-China rhetoric continues

Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
2008-05-13 14:53:00

The naval buildup on Hainan appears to be part of Beijing's long-range plan to increase its military presence, but the new base has alarmed neighboring countries and the US.

Reports of a massive new naval base in southern China have fueled more concerns in the West and Asia about the rapid rise of China's military.

The underground base can reportedly hold up to 20 submarines, including new nuclear-armed submarines. It is also apparently big enough to hold future aircraft carrier groups if China decides to build them.

Military analysts say that the base is part of China's long-term plan to beef up its naval and nuclear might. They say the expansion is aimed at deterring Taiwan from making its de facto independence permanent, better protecting China's seaborne energy supplies, and projecting Chinese power far beyond its shores.

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Pass the Sick Bag: Bush presents peace prophecy and tours Israel's ancient fortress of Masada

Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria
Reuters
2008-05-15 11:13:00

U.S. President George W. Bush offered a peace prophecy for the Middle East on Thursday in which the enemies of the United States faced a future of defeat.

"This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved," Bush told Israel's parliament.

"This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of enemies of peace and America utterly rejects it."



He called U.S. ally Israel, on its 60th anniversary, a "homeland for the chosen people" and made only fleeting mention of Palestinian hopes for statehood.

"Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away," Bush said.

"This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of enemies of peace and America utterly rejects it."

Image
©Moshe Milner, GPO
Olmert and Bush at Masada


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"Holocaust Hillary's" Final Solution to the Persian Problem - Shades of Hitler!

Robert Weitzel
Counterpunch
2008-05-15 07:06:00



"To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it . . . An evil unchecked is the prelude to genocide."

Dr. Mordechai: The Ezekiel Option


There are over 70 million human beings living in Iran, 17.5 million of whom are under the age of fifteen. Hillary Clinton vowed to attack Iran and "totally obliterate" the majority of the Persian race in a furnace of primordial fire should the Iranian government attack Israel with nuclear weapons, which they do not now possess or are likely to for some time - if ever.

Hillary's "final solution" to the Persian problem bests Adolf Hitler by a magnitude of ten.


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Radioactive Hypocrisy: American Hubris Threatens Perpetual Nuclear Proliferation

Tad Daley
AlterNet
2008-05-15 05:55:00

"Why can't we have them when they can?" That, for the "nuclear have-nots," has long been the essence of what some call the nuclear double standard, what others call nuclear narcissism, what others still call America's nuclear hypocrisy.

The bitterness about that double standard has steadily intensified for almost exactly four decades now (the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, was signed on July 1, 1968, and came into force in 1970). Why? Because in the basic bargain of the NPT, the non-nuclear weapon states promised forever to forego nuclear weapons, in exchange for a pair of promises from the nuclear weapon states. First, the nuclear weapon states conceded -- quite explicitly, in Article IV -- that the non-nuclear weapon states possess an "inalienable right" to develop "nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" and even promised "to facilitate" their efforts to do so. Second, the nuclear weapon states promised -- quite explicitly, in Article VI, and reiterated quite explicitly at the NPT Review Conferences in 1995 and 2000 -- to negotiate the complete elimination of their own nuclear arsenals, and eventually to deliver to the human race a nuclear-weapon-free world.

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Flashback: Some of His Best Friends Are Jewish: The Saga of a Holocaust Revisionist

Nathaniel Popper
Forward.com
2004-10-22 04:59:00

From his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, in what might be called the intellectual center of Jewish America, Michael Santomauro sends out a daily e-mail digest of what are, for his neighborhood, some unusual views on Judaism. Among them: questions on the Holocaust's veracity, excoriation of every aspect of Israel's behavior and questions on the morality of Judaism itself.

Santomauro, 50, says he is not an antisemite. But this week, his messages, which he claims reach about 144,000 subscribers, caught some unwanted attention. The Jewish Defense Organization, a militant group known for its sharp-tongued rhetoric, called for his eviction from the apartment in which he lives and assembles his "Reporter's Notebook" Web site. The organization has posted leaflets outside his building and called for a rally there next weekend.

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Sands: Bush's Architects Of Torture Are 'Weaseling Out' Of Responsibility For 'Crimes'


Water-Boarding Blogspot
2008-05-11 04:48:00

In his new book, Torture Team, renowned international lawyer Philippe Sands documents the fact that Bush's torture program was approved at the highest levels of the administration.

Speaking with PBS's Bill Moyers on Friday, Sands noted that these architects of torture refuse to acknowledge they were "complicit in the commission of a crime." "There was not a hint of recognition that anything had gone wrong, nor a hint of recognition of individual responsibility," he said of his interviews with key torture advocates.

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Two Takes on Torture

George Giacoppe
Splinters-Splinters
2008-05-11 04:05:00

As is characteristic of it, the Bush Administration, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, has managed to persuade most Americans that the torture problem has been solved: the wrongdoers have been punished, torture is no longer tolerated, and Abu Ghraib is closed. The public's gullibility notwithstanding, however, there remains the criminal truth. Not only are the perpetrators of the torture policies still at large and in power, a recent report indicates that, in fact, more Iraqis are now imprisoned than ever before: over 51,000 now languish in American and Iraqi prisons. Indeed, the "surge" has meant mainly a surge in prisoners: the number of Iraqis held by Americans rose 70% in 2007 from 14,500 to 24,700, while the Iraqi government now holds more than 26,000 of its own people prisoners. ("The Surge of Iraqi Prisoners," by Clara Gilmartin, Foreign Policy in Focus, 5/7/08.)

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US financier to testify in Olmert probe


Agence France-Presse
2008-05-14 18:06:00

US millionaire businessman Morris Talansky who authorities suspect of illegally funding Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will testify in the investigation on May 25, public radio reported Wednesday.

Talansky will give sworn evidence before a judge in a closed-door session and then be allowed to return to his home in the United States, the radio said.

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Middle East Madness
Israel: Slovenian president's request to visit Temple Mount denied


YnetNews.com
2008-05-14 16:55:00

Dr. Danilo Turk, country serving as current relieving president of EU, denied access to holy site in Old City of Jerusalem due to 'lack of security'

Slovenian President Danilo Turk arrived Wednesday morning for a visit at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Upon his arrival, he requested to visit the Temple Mount and when his request was denied, immediately left the site.

Slovenia is currently the relieving president of the European Union, and thus Turk is considered a prominent European figure.

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Flashback: Not Even Fact Finding: How the West Ignored the Cry of Jenin

Isabelle Humphries
IslamOnline.net
2001-10-19 16:04:00

Six months on and nobody is talking about Jenin anymore. The majority of the media decided to go along with the Israeli view that, because it wasn't a "massacre," it was only worth talking about in terms of a classic example of Palestinian lies and propaganda. The IDF didn't line hundreds of people up against the wall and shoot them all at once, so therefore it's a boring story compared with what it could have been.

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Reuters urges Israel answer on journalist killed


News Daily
2008-05-15 12:12:00

LONDON - A month after journalist Fadel Shana was killed by an Israeli tank crew in the Gaza Strip, Reuters renewed its demand on Thursday for a prompt explanation from the Israeli army of why it fired on its cameraman.

Shana, a 24-year-old Palestinian, was killed on April 16 along with eight mostly teenage bystanders by darts known as flechettes that burst out of a tank shell in mid-air. Shana had been filming about 1.5 km (a mile) from two Israeli tanks.

Palestinian mourner
©REUTERS/Said Khatib/Pool
A Palestinian mourner carries the blood-stained flak jacket of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, 23, during his funeral in Gaza City April 17, 2008. A month after journalist Fadel Shana was killed by an Israeli tank crew in the Gaza Strip, Reuters renewed its demand on Thursday for a prompt explanation from the Israeli army of why it fired on its cameraman.


The Israeli army said it had completed an initial field investigation that had determined the soldiers had followed orders and acted appropriately. But military lawyers still had to study the case before the army could give a full account.

"A month has passed since Fadel Shana was killed by Israeli forces while responsibly going about his professional duties," said Reuters Middle East Managing Editor Mark Thompson.

"We urge the IDF to release its report on the incident now so that media organizations and the military can cooperate on ways ensure journalists can continue to cover this conflict."



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The ongoing sabotage of the peace process

Donald Macintyre
The Independent
2008-05-15 05:36:00

A 75 year old Israeli woman was killed yesterday by a rocket fired from Gaza as Israel suggested any truce in the Strip depended on the release of the Army corporal seized almost two years ago.

The woman died after the rocket struck a house in Yesha, nine miles from Gaza's eastern border and further than the usual targets of Qassam rockets. Islamic Jihad said it had fired rockets at the time of the fatal attack.

The move came as Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman spent the day in Israel seeking a ceasefire agreement following Egypt's success in persuading the Palestinian armed factions to drop its earlier pre-condition that Israel halts military action in the West Bank.



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Iraq: Food Crisis Hits Fallujah

Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
2008-05-12 07:31:00

Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah.

"This is a country that was damned by the Americans the moment they stepped on our soil," Burhan Jassim, a farmer from Sichir village just outside Fallujah told IPS. "This is Iraqi land that has always been blessed by Allah with the best production in quality and quantity, but now see how it has been turned into a wasteland."

Fallujah faces this new crisis after much of the city was destroyed by U.S. military operations in 2004.

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Grand Theft Economics
China growth to keep commodity boom alive - Red Kite

Chris Kelly
Reuters
2008-05-12 16:37:00

Long-term growth prospects in China should continue to fuel the country's insatiable demand for raw materials like copper and keep a commodity boom in place for years to come, a hedge fund executive said.

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Mystery Billionaire Avoids Taxes on $200 Million


Wall Street Journal
2008-05-13 14:27:00

The Justice Department has just indicted a private banker and a trust-company owner for allegedly helping an American billionaire avoid taxes on $200 million in income.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, names Bradley Birkenfeld, an American who resides in Switzerland and worked for two large Swiss banks (which aren't named). It also names Mario Staggl, a Liechtenstein-based owner of a trust company.



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Capitalism, Agribusiness and the Food Sovereignty Alternative

Ian Angus
Global Research
2008-05-11 14:17:00

Image
©GlobalResearch.ca




"Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet." - Fidel Castro, 1998



When food riots broke out in Haiti last month, the first country to respond was Venezuela. Within days, planes were on their way from Caracas, carrying 364 tons of badly needed food.

The people of Haiti are "suffering from the attacks of the empire's global capitalism," Venezuelan president Hugo Chàvez said. "This calls for genuine and profound solidarity from all of us. It is the least we can do for Haiti."

Venezuela's action is in the finest tradition of human solidarity. When people are hungry, we should do our best to feed them. Venezuela's example should be applauded and emulated.

But aid, however necessary, is only a stopgap. To truly address the problem of world hunger, we must understand and then change the system that causes it.


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Britain's rich get richer even as recession begins to bite

Simon Whelan
World Socialist Web Site
2008-05-14 14:12:00

The choice of headline to mark 20th aniversary of the Sunday Times Rich List will hardly have given the newspaper's editor sleepness nights: "Rich Get Richer under New Labour." The same headline would suffice for each of the past 10 years.

But this time the uninterupted growth of wealth amongst the already super-rich takes place amidst a period of extreme economic turbulence, during which the living standards of working people have fallen sharply. As Sunday Times journalist Philip Beresford's opening gambit illustrates: "Even as the storm clouds gather, Britiain's super-rich have never been richer."

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Alaska first state to hit $4 a gallon gasoline: AAA reports

Bernard Woodall
News Daily
2008-05-15 13:43:00

LOS ANGELES - Alaska hit a milestone on Wednesday that could be a sign of things to come around the United States this summer -- it became the first state where the average price for regular gasoline reached $4 per gallon.

"It wasn't totally unexpected," said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for the travel and auto group AAA which issues a daily gasoline price report.

"Oil prices recently brushed against $127 per barrel so certainly, $4 gasoline could be in the cards for other states as well this summer," said Sundstrom.

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World Bank 'Destroyed Basic Grains' in Honduras

Alison Fitzgerald, Jason Gale and Helen Murphy
Bloomberg
2008-05-15 06:40:00

Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm in southern Honduras because of the rising cost of seeds, fuel and food. After months of one meal a day, he hiked with his wife and six children to find work in the city.

''We would wake up with empty stomachs and go to bed with empty stomachs,'' said Alvarez, 37, who sought help from the Mission Lazarus aid group in Choluteca in January. ''We couldn't afford the seeds to plant food or the bus fare to buy the food.''

Honduran farmers like Alvarez can't compete in a global marketplace where the costs of fuel and fertilizer soared and rice prices doubled in the past year. The former breadbasket of Central America now imports 83 percent of the rice it consumes -- a dependency triggered almost two decades ago when it adopted free-market policies pushed by the World Bank and other lenders.

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What Michael Pollan Hasn't Told You About Food

Onnesha Roychoudhuri
AlterNet
2008-05-15 05:25:00

As both obesity and hunger are on the rise, a new book shows why we shouldn't feel guilty about our food choices but angry with a corrupt food system.

TV dinners were launched at a time when only a small percentage of Americans actually owned TVs. Thus, the meals, writes Raj Patel, "were what people ate while they dreamed of affording one." In the American dream, we imagine a bucolic Midwest, a place of bounty, yet the reality is that the breadbasket of America is rife with poverty and a declining life expectancy. The idyllic vision of quaint American farmland doesn't work like that "except in fiction," says Patel, and there is perhaps no greater fiction than the comforting hand of the free market -- particularly as it pertains to food.

Patel's new book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System makes visible the people behind the abstraction and reveals a global food system that, with our complicity, continues to alienate farmers and consumers alike, all while fattening the pocketbooks of a few middlemen.

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Competing at the pump with your supplier

Tony Gnoffo
The Philadelphia Inquirer
2008-05-11 05:19:00

gas stations
©Unknown


A gallon of regular gasoline was selling for $3.71 late last week at the Sunoco station at 1491 N. Providence Rd. in Media.

About 270 yards away, the Sunoco station at 1300 N. Providence Rd. was selling regular for $3.68.

The two stations were selling gasoline produced by Sunoco Inc. at one of its three Philadelphia area refineries in South Philadelphia, West Deptford and Marcus Hook.

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The Living Planet
India: Toll in Uttar Pradesh storm rises

Ram Dutt Tripathi
BBC News
2008-05-15 17:38:00

The number of people killed in a storm in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday has risen to 94, the state's relief commissioner says.

GK Tandan told the BBC that most deaths were caused by the uprooting of trees, phone and electricity wires as well as fires and collapsing houses.

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Giant sinkhole swallows up part of Texas town


Associated Press
2008-05-08 08:47:00

Daisetta, Texas - A large sinkhole swallowed up oil field equipment and some vehicles Wednesday in southeastern Texas and continued to grow. There were no reports of injuries or home damage.

"Right now we're not concerned about any kind of explosion or any kind of hazard," said Tom Branch, coordinator of the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management.

"We are monitoring some other things around the area to make sure everyone's OK."

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Over 5,500 people pulled alive from rubble in quake-hit China


RIA Novosti
2008-05-15 14:32:00

Over 5,500 people have been rescued from under rubble following a devastating earthquake that hit southwest China three days ago, the Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

The quake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, was the worst to hit the country in more than three decades, and affected eight provinces, killing around 15,000 people and devastating buildings and infrastructure.

"Over 5,500 people had been pulled out alive from under rubble by 8:00 a.m. [midnight GMT] on Thursday," the agency quoted a police source as saying.

Some 25,000 people are believed to still be trapped under collapsed buildings.

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Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics

Linda Stewart Ball
Associated Press
2008-05-15 03:16:00

DALLAS - In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

ants
©Associated Press / David J. Phillip
'Crazy rasberry ants' are shown Tuesday, May 13, 2008, in Deer Park, Texas. The ants are throwing off the balance of nature as they feast on beneficial insects, researchers say, noting that even the hatchlings of the endangered Attwater Prairie Chicken are at risk from these omnivores. They're invading homes and shorting out electrical boxes and electronics by getting their tiny bodies wedged into the intricate equipment.


The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" - crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

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Chile town closed for three months after volcano

Bianca Frigiani and Pav Jordan
News Daily
2008-05-15 13:28:00

SANTIAGO - The government on Wednesday declared the evacuated Chilean town of Chaiten off-limits for three months until it is no longer threatened by a cloud of hot ash from an erupting volcano.

The Chaiten volcano, six miles from the town that had been home to 4,500 people, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing ash, gas and molten rock into the air.

Image
©REUTERS/Stringer
A house is flooded by El Rio Blanco in Chaiten town May 12, 2008.


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Estimated 3.2 Million Burmese Potentially Affected By Cyclone


Science Daily
2008-05-15 13:06:00

As many as 3.2 million Burmese are estimated to be affected by the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis, according to geographic risk models developed by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Lehman College, CUNY. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the researchers calculated the likely distribution of the population of Burma (also known as Myanmar) and developed maps of the regions at greatest risk from the storm's effects.

Cyclone Nargis
©Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Cyclone Nargis: Affected areas and cyclone path.


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US: More rain, thunderstorms hitting soggy Louisiana


Associated Press
2008-05-15 12:43:00

Shreveport - A line of drenching thunderstorms moved across the state from west to east Thursday after record rainfall caused flooding in water-logged parts of Louisiana.


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Chinese wonder if animals can predict earthquakes


Associated Press
2008-05-15 09:58:00

Beijing - First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely.


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Update: China quake death toll could reach 50,000


CNN
2008-05-15 08:41:00

China earthquake victim
©Getty images
A rescue team attends to a quake victim at the Zipingpu Dam Wednesday.


China's state TV has said that the death toll from this week's massive earthquake could reach 50,000, news agencies have reported. The official death toll in southwestern China has now topped 19,500, Sichuan provincial government officials said Thursday, according to state-run media.

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Proof found of man-made climate change, Scientists fear public won't care after a comet falls on their head

Fiona Harvey
Financial Times
2008-05-15 07:30:00

Scientists have been able to say with virtual certainty for the first time that the climate change observed over the past four decades is man made and not the result of natural phenomena.

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Etna volcano rumbles back to life in Sicily


AFP
2008-05-14 05:22:00

Image
Mount Etna


The Etna volcano in Sicily rumbled back to life on Tuesday with a "seismic event" followed by a burst of ash, volcanologists said three days after minor eruptions shook the cone.

A "seismic event provoking a strong explosion was recorded Tuesday at 0424 GMT (6:42 am local) in parts of the peak of the volcano," the National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute in Sicily's Catania region said in a statement.

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Health & Wellness
Distinct Treatment Needed: Tourette's And Obsessive-compulsive Disorder


Science Daily
2008-05-15 18:01:00

While 30 to 50 percent of people with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome are also affected with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), both illnesses might have a distinct neurocognitive profile, according to a new study published in the journal Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Brain Psychiatry by researchers from the Université de Montréal and the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of the Louis-H Lafontaine Hospital.

"In the study of cerebral activity or the relationship with working memory and attention, this was the first study to show a clear dissociation between OCD and Tourette's dimensions. This could have a major impact in the treatment. It is difficult to treat Tourette's symptoms if you don't identify and address symptoms of OCD first," said Université de Montréal associate researcher Dr. Marc Lavoie, who completed the study with students Geneviève Thibault and Mihaela Felezeu, and clinician collaborators Kieron O'Connor, Christo Todorov and Emmanuel Stip.

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So-Called Education Intentionally Dumbs Down Americans

Heidi Stevenson
NaturalNews
2008-05-11 16:55:00

As Mike Adams' wonderful analysis of the current state of the world shows in "The Biofuels Scam, Food Shortages and the Coming Collapse of the Human Population", something is deeply wrong in America and the world. It's as if the vast majority of people have given up. Given up caring. Given up thinking. Given up common sense. Given up everything but gluttony.

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Study: Healing Clays 'Exterminate' Superbugs

Adam Miller
NaturalNews
2008-05-12 16:50:00

Arizona State University researchers presented evidence at the most recent annual meeting of the American Chemical Society that several types of clay exhibit powerful action against disease-causing bacteria.

After two years of research, the ASU team found that of 30 types of clay tested, three displayed a surprisingly strong effect against such deadly bacteria as E. coli, Salmonella, and even the anti-biotic resistant superbug MRSA. The clay killed all or most of these strains and others in vitro. Special emphasis was put on the volcanic soil known as bentonite clay.

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Bird flu pandemic seen needing multiple drugs

Ben Hirschler
News Daily
2008-05-15 16:30:00

LONDON - Governments need to stockpile different sorts of flu drugs -- not just Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu -- to counter the danger of resistance in a pandemic triggered by bird flu, British experts said on Wednesday.

The warning could boost demand for GlaxoSmithKline Plc's inhaled medicine Relenza, which has been largely overlooked in favor of Roche's more convenient pill.

Indonesian pharmacy worker
©REUTERS/Dadang Tri
An Indonesian pharmacy worker conducts research to produce Oseltamivir capsules, a local version of Tamiflu, at the country's Kimia Farma laboratory in Bandung, west Java, February 17, 2006.


Scientists analyzing the structure of a key flu virus protein found that both H5N1 and seasonal flu could develop resistance to Tamiflu, while still remaining highly susceptible to Relenza.

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Discovery Of Cell Linked To Learning And Memory


Science Daily
2008-05-15 16:23:00

Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) neuroscientists at The University of Queensland have discovered a fundamental component of the process that regulates memory formation.

QBI Director Professor Perry Bartlett said the discovery explains, for the first time, how new nerve cells form in an area of the brain associated with learning and memory -- which is known to deteriorate in people with stroke and dementia.

"The hippocampus is the region of the brain involved in important brain functions such as learning and memory and loss of neuronal production in the hippocampus is associated with a range of neurodegenerative conditions, and is particularly evident in ageing dementia." Professor Bartlett said.

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Having less power impairs the mind and ability to get ahead, study shows


Association for Psychological Science
2008-05-15 15:10:00

New research appearing in the May issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that being put in a low-power role may impair a person's basic cognitive functioning and thus, their ability to get ahead.

In their article, Pamela Smith of Radboud University Nijmegen, and colleagues Nils B. Jostmann of VU University Amsterdam, Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Wilco W. van Dijk of VU University Amsterdam, focus on a set of cognitive processes called executive functions. Executive functions help people maintain and pursue their goals in difficult, distracting situations. The researchers found that lacking power impaired people's ability to keep track of ever-changing information, to parse out irrelevant information, and to successfully plan ahead to achieve their goals.

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Culture affects how teen girls see sexual harassment


University of Kentucky
2008-05-15 15:07:00

Teenage girls of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds still experience sexism and sexual harassment - but cultural factors may control whether they perceive sexism as an environmental problem or as evidence of their own shortcomings.

A study of 600 girls between the ages of 12 and 18, from California and Georgia, included young women who identified as Latina (49 percent), White (23 percent ), African-American (9 percent), Asian American (7.5 percent) and multi-ethnic or other (7.5 percent) was conducted by researchers Christia Brown, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, and Campbell Leaper, professor, Department of Psychology, University of California Santa Cruz. Participants were asked about experiences with sexual harassment and any discouraging comments they received in traditionally male-dominated areas such as math, science, computers and sports.

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Electric shocks can cause neurologic and neuropsychological symptoms


University of Montreal
2008-05-15 15:03:00

Canadian researchers have shown that an electric shock ranging from 120 to 52,000 volts can cause neurologic and neuropsychological symptoms in humans.

Following an electrical injury, some patients may show various emotional and behavioral aftereffects, such as memory loss and symptoms of depression.


The study, supported by a grant from Hydro-Québec and conducted by clinicians from the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Medicine and Sainte-Justine Hospital, is published in the May edition of the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

ER pediatrician and toxicologist Dr. Benoit Bailey, in collaboration with pediatricians Pierre Gaudreault and Robert Thivierge, assessed the prevalence of short-term neurologic and neuropsychological symptoms as well as one year after an electric shock severe enough to require 24-hour cardiac monitoring. Their goal was to explore whether any symptoms were associated with risk factors such as transthoracic current, neuromuscular spasms (tetany), loss of consciousness or shock of 1000 volts or more.

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Young children with OCD benefit from family-based treatment


Lifespan
2008-05-15 14:33:00

Although children as young as 5 can be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), few research studies have looked at treatments specifically geared toward young children with this disorder. Now, a new study from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center provides some of the first evidence-based data on a successful intervention for early childhood OCD.

According to the study's findings, published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, children with OCD between the ages of 5 and 8 may benefit from a form of psychotherapy, known as family-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), that is uniquely tailored to the child's developmental needs and family context. The overall focus of family-based CBT is to provide both child and parents with a set of tools to help them understand, manage and reduce OCD symptoms.

"If left untreated, early childhood OCD can severely disrupt and impair a child's development and functioning and can extend into adulthood. Despite this risk, clinicians do not have a proven treatment model for these young children," says lead author Jennifer B. Freeman, Ph.D., of the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry/human behavior (research) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

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Genetically modified human embryo stirs criticism

Malcolm Ritter
Associated Press
2008-05-13 14:37:00

News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."

But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.

"None of us wants to make designer babies," said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

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Errors in Psychiatric Diagnoses and Drugs Plague Strained Immigration System

ana Priest and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post
2008-05-13 14:31:00

Peasant farmer Jose Lopez-Gregorio, 32, left his wife and five children behind in Guatemala with two bags of corn, barely enough food for one month, when he decided to find work in the United States. Detained crossing the Mexican border and held in an Arizona immigration center, he felt guilty, he told guards, eating three meals a day. Lopez had been inside one month and eight days when he strangled himself with a bedsheet. Five days earlier, the staff had placed him on suicide watch, only to be overruled within hours by the center's psychologist.


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Afghanistan: WHO confirms 'charmak' disease in Herat Province


IRIN
2008-05-15 11:47:00

Kabul - Confirmed cases of hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD) - also known as "camel belly" or 'charmak' disease - in Gulran District of Herat Province, western Afghanistan, have surpassed 190, and 17 people have died so far, provincial health officials said.

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How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get It Back

Ann Vileisis
AlterNet
2008-05-14 09:38:00

The following is excerpted from Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis, copyright 2008 by the author. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington D.C.

Has it ever occurred to you just how odd it is that we know so little about what we eat? Each day we feast on cereal, bread, salad, soup, chicken, cheese, apples, ice cream, and more. Over the course of our lives, each of us has eaten thousands of different foods. We have tasted their saltiness and sweetness, crunched their crispness, chewed their fleshiness, swallowed them, and incorporated their nutriment into our bones.Yet despite this biologically intimate and everyday physical connection, most of us have little idea where our foods come from, who raised them, and what went into making them.

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'Mad Pride' Fights a Stigma -

By Gabrielle Glaser
NY Times
2008-05-15 06:35:00

IN the YouTube video, Liz Spikol is smiling and animated, the light glinting off her large hoop earrings. Deadpan, she holds up a diaper. It is not, she explains, a hygienic item for a giantess, but rather a prop to illustrate how much control people lose when they undergo electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, as she did 12 years ago.

In other videos and blog postings, Ms. Spikol, a 39-year-old writer in Philadelphia who has bipolar disorder, describes a period of psychosis so severe she jumped out of her mother's car and ran away like a scared dog.

In lectures across the country, Elyn Saks, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Southern California, recounts the florid visions she has experienced during her lifelong battle with schizophrenia - dancing ashtrays, houses that spoke to her - and hospitalizations where she was strapped down with leather restraints and force-fed medications.

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Canada: Opting for organic foods


The Chronicle
2008-05-12 01:40:00

When you turn to organic foods are you really guaranteed the pesticide free, health oriented product as declared on its package? How can you really be sure?

Firstly an organic food is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, food additives or antibiotics. Overall, what differentiates an organic food versus its conventional counterpart is how it is grown, processed and handled. Organic farmers rely on less invasive methods such as manure or compost fertilizer, crop rotation methods and also by giving animals more roaming space.

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Science & Technology
Gravity-defying Bird Beak Mystery Solved: Shorebirds Benefit From Surface Tension


Science Daily
2008-05-15 17:41:00

As Charles Darwin showed nearly 150 years ago, bird beaks are exquisitely adapted to the birds' feeding strategy. A team of MIT mathematicians and engineers has now explained exactly how some shorebirds use their long, thin beaks to defy gravity and transport food into their mouths.

phalarope
©Rainey Schuler
MIT researchers have figured out how the phalarope, a shorebird with a long, narrow beak, transports its food from the tip of its beak to its mouth. Here the bird feeds by pecking at the water surface.



The phalarope, commonly found in western North America, takes advantage of surface interactions between its beak and water droplets to propel bits of food from the tip of its long beak to its mouth, the research team reports in the May 16 issue of Science.


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Astronomers baffled by weird, fast-spinning pulsar

Will Dunham
News Daily
2008-05-15 17:24:00

WASHINGTON - Astronomers are baffled after finding an exotic type of star called a pulsar apparently locked in an elongated orbit around a star much like the sun -- an arrangement defying what had been known about such objects.

Reckless pulsars
©REUTERS/HO/NASA
Reckless pulsars - spinning searchlights in space - might tear themselves apart if they whirled too fast, but ripples in the cosmic fabric first predicted by Albert Einstein may set a celestial speed limit. That limit is still extremely high, about 760 revolutions per second, astronomers said on July 2, 2003.


The rapidly spinning pulsar -- an extraordinarily dense object created when a massive star exploded as a supernova -- is called J1903+0327 and is located about 21,000 light years from Earth, the astronomers said.





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Bizarre Star Gets Stranger

Clara Moskowitz
SPACE.com
2008-05-15 16:03:00

Pulsars are like cosmic lighthouses sending out sweeping beams that blink at us across the galactic expanse. Now scientists have spotted a wacky pulsar that doesn't behave exactly like its fellows: Instead of circling a white dwarf star, this one orbits a sun-like star along an oval path.

All other known pulsars that rotate as quickly as this one seem to have picked up speed by pulling off mass from a companion star that has reached the advanced stage of red giant, when its gaseous layers bloat out prior to the end-stage of life as a very compact, dim, white dwarf.

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Key molecule discovered in Venus's atmosphere


ESA
2008-05-15 15:13:00

Venus Express has detected the molecule hydroxyl on another planet for the first time. This detection gives scientists an important new tool to unlock the workings of Venus's dense atmosphere.

Hydroxyl, an important but difficult-to-detect molecule, is made up of a hydrogen and oxygen atom each. It has been found in the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere, some 100 km above the surface, by Venus Express's Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, VIRTIS.

The elusive molecule was detected by turning the spacecraft away from the planet and looking along the faintly visible layer of atmosphere surrounding the planet's disc. The instrument detected the hydroxyl molecules by measuring the amount of infrared light that they give off.

Image
©ESA/C. Carreau
Hydroxyl, an important but difficult-to-detect molecule, is made up of a hydrogen and oxygen atom each. It has been found in the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere, some 100 km above the surface, by Venus Express's Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, VIRTIS.


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Indian scientist says Phobos will turn into a ring around Mars


RIA Novosti
2008-05-15 14:31:00

Phobos, a satellite of Mars, will become a ring around the Red Planet in a few million years, an Indian scientist has calculated.

Bijay Kumar Sharma, an assistant professor at the National Institute of Technology in Bihar, said in a recent paper that contrary to previous expectations, Phobos will not fall into the surface of Mars in 50 million years but will be torn apart by the tidal forces of the planet in about 7 million years.

In his paper entitled "Theoretical formulation of the Phobos, moon of Mars, rate of altitudinal loss," Sharma said that the Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 3.7 cm a year, while Phobos is moving closer to its host at a rate of 18.3 cm a year.

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Physicists Demonstrate How Information Can Escape From Black Holes


Science Daily
2008-05-15 13:50:00

Physicists at Penn State have provided a mechanism by which information can be recovered from black holes, those regions of space where gravity is so strong that, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, not even light can escape. The team's findings pave the way toward ending a decades-long debate sparked by renowned physicist Steven Hawking.

supermassive black hole
©ESA / V. Beckmann (NASA-GSFC)
An artist's depiction of the accretion of a thick ring of dust into a supermassive black hole. The accretion produces jets of gamma rays and X-rays.


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Baby supernova seen right in our neighborhood

Maggie Fox
News Daily
2008-05-15 12:06:00

WASHINGTON - A baby supernova, just over a century old, has been found in the middle of our own Milky Way galaxy and provides an unprecedented opportunity to watch a star dying, astronomers said on Wednesday.

The supernova, known as G1.9+0.3, would have made a bright flash when it first exploded 140 years ago but was not seen because dust obscures it, David Green of Britain's University of Cambridge and colleagues reported.

"It's by far the youngest supernova identified in the galaxy," Green told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Green first identified the object in 1985 as a possible supernova, using radio readings from the U.S. National Science Foundation's Very Large Array.

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Wandering Poles Left Scars On Jupiter's Moon Europa: Could Life Exist Beneath Icy Crust?


Science Daily
2008-05-15 12:02:00

Washington, D.C.--Curved features on Jupiter's moon Europa may indicate that its poles have wandered by almost 90°, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution, Lunar and Planetary Institute, and University of California, Santa Cruz in the 15 May issue of Nature. Such an extreme shift suggests the existence of an internal liquid ocean beneath the icy crust, which could help build the case for Europa as possible habitat for extraterrestrial life.

Europa
©P. Schenk/NASA/LPI
Arc-shaped troughs (black and white arrows) extend 100s of kilometers on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. These enigmatic features are likely fractures resulting from a shift in Europa's spin axis. Vertical scale bar (right) is 100 km.


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Flashback: The Destruction of Zhou Man and Hong Bao's fleets in the Southern Ocean by a Tsunami triggered by a comet

Gavin Menzies
1421.tv
2005-07-14 08:57:00

In the book '1421', I contended that the Emperor Zhu Di had sent fleets to the Southern Ocean to determine the precise position of the star Canopus. The Chinese needed this information to establish accurate latitudes and longitudes in the southern hemisphere. (United Kingdom paperback edition, pages 161-3, and diagram 1).

Since the book was published we have received more than 100,000 e-mails and letters and millions of people have visited our website 'www.1421.tv'. These visitors from over 130 countries around the world have brought new evidence. To date the most important has been my underestimation of the scale of the undertaking. Instead of 100 ships, over 1000 set sail (800 arrived at Calicut alone). There were many great voyages - Fleets were continuously at sea from 1403 to 1432 and the scale of the losses was even more horrific - more than 900 ships never returned. This is exemplified in the Southern Oceans. The discovery of Zheng He's records shows that four separate fleets charted the Antarctic not the two I have claimed. Some got further south - deep into the Weddell Sea.

This memo describes a catastrophe which overtook the fleets which had sailed south of New Zealand down to Campbell Island and Auckland Island (pp.206-209 of United Kingdom Paperback edition). A huge comet struck the ocean less than a hundred miles from the fleets, incinerating many ships and hurling the blazing wrecks onto New Zealand South Island and the East coasts of Australia, and across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

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Our Haunted Planet
Scientist: Bright light over N.M. was a meteor

Valerie Castro
KOB-TV
2008-05-12 05:16:00

It turns out a mysterious flash of lights over the Sandia Crest was most likely a meteor.

The bright streak was spotted just after 2:00 Monday morning.

Video of the flashing light was captured by an observatory near Santa Fe.

According to a UNM scientist, it was most likely a meteor passing through the earth's atmosphere.

It's a rare sight for anyone to witness, but the real treasure is finding the meteorite once it lands.

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Animal psychic 'finds' missing dog

Andy Bloxham
Telegraph (UK)
2008-05-12 05:14:00

A pet owner claimed she rescued her missing dog by using an animal psychic to locate it.

Nikki Newcombe, 35, spent a week digging and using thermal imaging cameras to find her missing Jack Russell Marmite but failed.

In desperation, she rang animal psychic Pea Horsley, 35, who claims to be able to telepathically communicate with any species.

The clairvoyant claimed to see pictures of Marmite's location and the route he had taken, despite being 100 miles away.

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