Obama not doing NASCAR sponsorship

NASCAR's BAM Racing team has presented Barack Obama's presidential campaign with a potential sponsorship deal in the Sprint Cup series later this year, but it doesn't look like an Obama car will be burning rubber on the track anytime soon.

BAM team spokesman Rhett Vandiver told The Associated Press on Friday that the team made a sponsorship proposal to the Democratic presidential hopeful's campaign, and has made similar proposals to the campaign of Republican John McCain and at least one third-party candidate.

Late Friday, the Obama campaign said there would be no sponsorship.

"The Obama campaign will not be sponsoring a car in the Sprint Cup series, though we will continue to look for ways to reach out to voters and convey Senator Obama's message of change." said Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesman

Sports Illustrated first reported the proposal on its Web site, saying Obama's campaign is in talks with BAM, a part-time operation that hasn't raced in recent weeks, to sponsor its No. 49 car in the Aug. 3 race at Pocono.

"The Obama campaign will not be sponsoring a car in the Sprint Cup series, though we will continue to look for ways to reach out to voters and convey Senator Obama's message of change." Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman

It would have been a fairly bold move within a sport whose competitors spend all year turning left on the track but tend to lean to the right politically.

BAM's choice of drivers and car brands might have been a little too sticky politically for the Obama camp.

The car, a Toyota - the only foreign automaker racing in NASCAR - would be driven by veteran Ken Schrader.

According to the Federal Election Commission's Web site, Schrader gave $1,000 to the campaign of North Carolina Republican congressman Robin Hayes in June 2004, and a total of $2,500 in 2003 and 2004 to the failed Virginia congressional campaign of Republican Kevin Triplett, a former NASCAR official.

Also according to the FEC, Mrs. Ann Schrader of Concord, N.C. and Ken Schrader Racing donated a total of $2,000 to President Bush's campaign in May 2004 and $900 to the North Carolina Republican Executive Committee in August 2004.

NASCAR has been playing an increasing role in politics, as so-called "NASCAR dads" were considered a key constituency in recent elections.

A Cup series car carried a George W. Bush logo in 2004 but wasn't officially associated with the campaign. And Democratic presidential hopeful Bob Graham sponsored a truck in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2003.

Antarctica Ice Shelf 'hanging on by a thread'

It's going to crack any day now... Does anybody care?

Link

Excerpt:
New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up,
in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread"
to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

"Since the connection to the island... helps stabilize the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge
will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk," it said.

Are musicians owed royalties for performance of their music in torture chambers?

Interesting question there, isn't it?

Canadian copyfighter Howard Knopf has suggested (presumably with tongue firmly planted in cheek) that recording artists whose music is played by torturers in Gitmo are owed performance royalties:

Leaving aside the legal niceties about whose law if any applies in that dreadful place, one can only wonder if ASCAP might not want a piece of the action. After all, it went after the Girl Guides not so long ago. And if it could try to make a buck off Girl Guides, who are nice people, why not alleged terrorists? Why should terrorists enjoy free music?

Link

(Thanks to the folks over at Boing Boing for bringing this to our attention)

Pastor among suspects in illegal snake bust

"A venomous snake isn't a pet. You don't play with it. If you do, you're an idiot."

The pastor of a Kentucky church that handles snakes in religious rites was among 10 people arrested by wildlife officers in a crackdown on the venomous snake trade.

More than 100 snakes, many of them deadly, were confiscated in the undercover sting after Thursday's arrests, said Col. Bob Milligan, director of law enforcement for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife.

Most were taken from the Middlesboro home of Gregory James Coots, including 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattlesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback rattlesnake, two cobras and a puff adder.

Handling snakes is practiced in a handful of fundamentalist churches across Appalachia, based on the interpretation of Bible verses saying true believers can take up serpents without being harmed. The practice is illegal in most states, including Kentucky.

Coots, 36, is pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, where a Tennessee woman died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a service in 1995. Her husband died when he was bitten by a snake in northeastern Alabama.

Coots was charged Thursday with buying, selling and possessing illegal reptiles. He had no listed telephone number and couldn't be reached for comment. There was no phone listing for the church.

"It is disturbing to me that individuals would keep such dangerous wildlife in their homes and in neighborhoods where they put their families, visitors and neighbors as such high risk," Milligan said.

The snakes, plus one alligator, were turned over to the nonprofit Kentucky Reptile Zoo in Slade. Most appeared to have been captured from the wild, with some imported from Asia and Africa.

Zoo Director Jim Harrison said some of the animals would likely have become exotic pets had they not been seized.

"There's been a large trade in exotics for years," he said. "Some people are just fascinated with them."

Undercover officers purchased more than 200 illegal reptiles during the investigation, some of which were advertised for sale on Web sites. One such Web site lists copperheads for $50 each and cobras for $450.

"You can purchase anything off the Internet except common sense," Harrison said. "A venomous snake isn't a pet. You don't play with it. If you do, you're an idiot."

*****
True that!

Carolina Naturally is read in ...

Domestically:

Durham, Hickory, Mebane and Charlotte, North Carolina - Greenville, South Carolina
Tacoma, Washington - Hattiesburg, Mississippi - Basin, Wyoming
Dublin, California - Reno, Nevada - Bristol, Rhode Island
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota - Boulder, Colorado
Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee

World Wide:

Root, Switzerland - Melbourne, Australia - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Valencia, Spain - Toronto, Ontario - Tel Aviv, Israel - Caracas, Venezuela
Regina, Saskatchewan - Vernon, British Columbia - Stockholm, Sweden
Prauge, Czech Republic - Antwerp, Belgium - Presov, Slovakia
Stevenage, England

A bit of wisdom floating in the ether

Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes

Oh, for the love of Sunshine!

Sunshine!

After the week of torrential downpours and thunderstorms

- one was so intense it literally blackened day into night better than any eclipse I've witnessed ... at 4:45PM I was looking out the window into a blackness I have only seen underground in caves when the torch has gone out -

it is nice to see the sun shining.

Now, I think we might have come close enough to erasing the drought we have experienced over the last two years that we can say the drought is over. I have not checked the official totals but if we aren't within spitting distance I'll be a monkey's uncle!

The birds are singing!

Holocaust siblings meet after 66 years

A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7.

That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home.

"I remember it well because I kissed him good-bye, and he pushed me away," she said of her brother. "I asked, 'Why did you do that?' And he said that he doesn't like kisses."

"The Nazis told my mother that I was being taken to work in a German labor camp for six months. But it was, of course, much longer. I was there for years."

Both siblings survived the Holocaust and grew up on different sides of the Iron Curtain, not knowing the fate of the other.

But after 66 years apart, Famulak, 83, was reunited with her long lost 73-year-old brother, Wssewolod Galezkij. They held each other close this time, cherishing the moment.

"I don't believe anyone has ever known such happiness. Now, I truly believe I can die satisfied," Galezkij said.

Famulak made the long journey to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after being contacted by the American Red Cross. The organization told her they had located her only surviving sibling.

Famulak said she spent World War II in a labor camp in Munich, Germany, working in the kitchens. She had been taken to the camp with her older sister. When it was liberated in 1945, Famulak stayed in Germany for several years, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1956.

She never saw her parents again after that day in 1942 when Nazis separated her from her family. She and her brother still have no idea what happened to their mother and father. Some of their siblings lived through the war, but later died; others, they never heard from again after being separated.

But her younger brother never gave up hope of tracking his sister down. He, too, was sent to a German labor camp, but after the war, he moved back to Ukraine, then a republic of the Soviet Union.

Under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, information on lost relatives was kept sealed, and Galezkij said it wasn't until reforms in the late 1980s, followed by the Soviet collapse, that he started making progress in finding his sister.

Even then, it took him more than 17 years to locate her in the United States. He broke down in tears as he spoke of his overwhelming happiness at finding her.

"When the Red Cross told me they had found her in America, it was such a joy," he said, sobbing.

In fact, he had to be taken to the hospital because he was so overcome when he first learned she was alive. At this week's reunion, there was a doctor on hand at the airport as a precaution.

Back in the United States, there were tears, too.

Linda Klein, the director of the American Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, said the volunteer who helped the siblings find each other got caught up in the emotion herself.

"When I showed her the picture, she stood there and wept," Klein said. "She was beside herself."

Klein's group has reunited 1,500 families since it began work in 1990. She said the former Soviet Union released records in 1989 of concentration camps it liberated, greatly helping organizers find information on Holocaust victims.

The organization has 100 volunteers -- a third of them Holocaust survivors, Klein said. The group also helps families find information about their loved ones who died during the Holocaust. They have brought together more than 50 families this year. All of their work is free. She says it's often like "looking for a needle in a haystack."

"We're playing beat the clock right now," she said, adding, "It's about families that one day they were together and then they were apart."

"When a connection is made, there are just smiles all around."

That was the case for this family in Ukraine. Years of trauma, of separation, of not knowing what happened to loved ones, have been replaced by celebration.

In a picturesque orchard overlooking rolling fields, Galezkij, his wife and their neighbors laid out a feast for his American sister. As the vodka flowed, he told her how he had survived for a lifetime without her.

"He says he always thought he'd see me someday. He dreamt lots about me," Famulak said, as she sat next to her brother.

"And he wrote a song for me. When he went to sleep, he sang every night and cried."

With that, Galezkij, weakened by illness and age, burst into song. But this time, he sang the words with pure joy.

*****

It is nice when a sad story has a happy ending isn't it!

China's new Nude Beach

China's new nude beach gaining publicity just in time for the summer Olympics

Great debate is now raging on the Chinese internet about the appearance of a nude beach in Sanya and whether it should be acceptable or not. A reporter found a dozen middle-aged men in a deserted part of the Dadonghai Bay tanning nude and they didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that just a few dozen metres away, regular tourists and families are doing their thing. Tourists and residents interviewed by the reporter also don't seem to be greatly bothered by the presence of nudists on the beach either as long as they stick to their areas.

According to this article from the Hainan News Network, that part of the beach sees as many as 400-500 male and female nudists during peak season. While some local men seem pretty happy to join the crowd in their birthday suits, the females spotted on the beach are all foreigners. As with previous attempts to create nudist spots in Heilongjiang, Sichuan and Zhejiang provinces, the Sanya beach has sparked a huge public outcry, but Hainan tourism officials are neither clamping down on the beach nor actively promoting it as a destination.

While the Sanya beach evolved over the last two years because tourists were flocking to this spot, the last nude beach that received widespread attention in the Chinese media was actually an invention of forward-thinking Hangzhou tourism officials. Although located some 80km away from the provincial capital, the nude beach was quickly shut down by the authorities after a huge controversy broke out.

We'll see how long it lasts ... knowing how the Chinese officialdom works (and it is no different than how 'officialdom' works anywhere) it will either be ignored completely or quashed with the fervent zeal of a fanatic - in any case I''d be willing to lay odds 'ignored' will be the 'official' policy during the Olympics ... afterward ...

Did You Know ...

That F.W. Woolworth, who established his first five-and-dime store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879, used to check his employee's alertness by shoplifting merchandise from his own stores.

Thought for the Day

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but they may not be the right thousand words.

Strange Inspirations

Mother and Child Reunion is a famous Paul Simon song that got its inspiration from a menu item of the same name offered in a restaurant in Chinatown in New York City.

The dish featured chicken and eggs.

An American life? It's worth less today.

It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May - a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.

Some environmentalists accuse the cabal of changing the value to avoid tougher rules - a charge the EPA denies.

"It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state and local air pollution regulators. "Those decisions are literally a matter of life and death."

Dan Esty, a senior EPA policy official in the administration of the shrub's father and now director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, said: "It's hard to imagine that it has other than a political motivation."

Agency officials say they were just following what the science told them.

The EPA figure is not based on people's earning capacity, or their potential contributions to society, or how much they are loved and needed by their friends and family - some of the factors used in insurance claims and wrongful-death lawsuits.

Instead, economists calculate the value based on what people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks, and on how much extra employers pay their workers to take on additional risks. Most of the data is drawn from payroll statistics; some comes from opinion surveys. According to the EPA, people shouldn't think of the number as a price tag on a life.

The EPA made the changes in two steps. First, in 2004, the agency cut the estimated value of a life by 8 percent. Then, in a rule governing train and boat air pollution this May, the agency took away the normal adjustment for one year's inflation. Between the two changes, the value of a life fell 11 percent, based on today's dollar.

EPA officials say the adjustment was not significant and was based on better economic studies. The reduction reflects consumer preferences, said Al McGartland, director of EPA's office of policy, economics and innovation.

"It's our best estimate of what consumers are willing to pay to reduce similar risks to their own lives," McGartland said.

But EPA's cut "doesn't make sense," said Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi. EPA partly based its reduction on his work. "As people become more affluent, the value of statistical lives go up as well. It has to." Viscusi also said no study has shown that Americans are less willing to pay to reduce risks.

At the same time that EPA was trimming the value of life, the Department of Transportation twice raised its life value figure. But its number is still lower than the EPA's.

EPA traditionally has put the highest value on life of any government agency and still does, despite efforts by administrations to bring uniformity to that figure among all departments.

Not all of EPA uses the reduced value. The agency's water division never adopted the change and in 2006 used $8.7 million in current dollars.

From 1996 to 2003, EPA kept the value of a statistical life generally around $7.8 million to $7.96 million in current dollars, according to reports analyzed by The AP. In 2004, for a major air pollution rule, the agency lowered the value to $7.15 million in current dollars.

Just how the EPA came up with that figure is complicated and involves two dueling analyses.

Viscusi wrote one of those big studies, coming up with a value of $8.8 million in current dollars. The other study put the number between $2 million and $3.3 million. The co-author of that study, Laura Taylor of North Carolina State University, said her figure was lower because it emphasized differences in pay for various risky jobs, not just risky industries as a whole.

EPA took portions of each study and essentially split the difference - a decision two of the agency's advisory boards faulted or questioned.

"This sort of number-crunching is basically numerology," said Granger Morgan, chairman of EPA's Science Advisory Board and an engineering and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "This is not a scientific issue."

Other, similar calculations by the cabal have proved politically explosive. In 2002, the EPA decided the value of elderly people was 38 percent less than that of people under 70. After the move became public, the agency reversed itself.

Talk about 'cooking the numbers'!

Woman pleads innocent to killing pregnant woman

Update:

A woman pleaded innocent yesterday to stabbing a pregnant woman to death and cutting the baby out of her womb.

The charge of aggravated first-degree murder against Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, 23, carries either the death penalty or life in prison without parole, if she is convicted. Prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Araceli Camacho Gomez, 27, was found dead in a city park on June 27, stabbed multiple times. Her baby had been cut from her body.

Police have said Sisouvanh Synhavong tried to pass off the baby as her own in calls to emergency dispatchers. Authorities have said there was no evidence the women knew each other.

The baby boy is in serious condition at a hospital in Spokane. Camacho Gomez's husband, Juan Campos-Gomez, who was in the court, said he plans to take his wife's body back to Mexico to be buried when it is released.

Sisouvanh Synhavong was granted credentials as a nursing assistant by the state Department of Health in 2005. She applied for renewal of her credentials in March.

The next hearing in the case is set for Aug. 6.

Indonesia executes man for 42 murders

Indonesia executed a man convicted of killing 42 women and girls in a series of ritual slayings he believed would give him magical powers, his lawyer said Friday.

Ahmad Suradji, 57, was killed by firing squad late Thursday in western Indonesia despite a last minute appeal by Amnesty International, a U.K.-based human rights advocacy group that opposes capital punishment in all cases.

"He appeared resigned to his fate," said Attorney General Office's spokesman Bonaventura Nainggolan. "His final wish was to see his wife. We fulfilled this."

Suradji was arrested in May 1997 following the discovery of a body in a field close to his house in Lubukpakan, a village in North Sumatra province. Forty-one other corpses were later found nearby.

Police have said the victims came to Suradji because they believed he had supernatural powers. The victims were believed to have been seeking his help in making their husbands or boyfriends faithful, find a partner or get rich.

He lured them to the field and buried them up to the waist, telling them it was part of the ritual. He then strangled them and buried their bodies with the heads pointing toward his house.

He has told police he believed the 11-year killing spree would boost his magical powers.

Suradji's wife, Tumini, was also sentenced to death for assisting with the murders, but her sentence was later reduced to life in prison.

Belief in sorcery and the supernatural is common across Indonesia, especially in poor, rural areas where education levels are low.

Media reports said authorities were forced to cancel a plan to bury Suradji's body in a public cemetery because up to 100 relatives of his victims were waiting there, planning to disrupt the funeral.

As of Friday morning, his body remained at the morgue of a local hospital.

Indonesia resumed executions in June 2008 after a 14-month hiatus, when two Nigerians were put to death for drug trafficking.

Authorities do not release official statistics on the death penalty, but at least 112 people are known to be under death sentences in Indonesia. The time and place of executions are never made public before they occur.

According to Amnesty International, authorities are preparing to execute at least four other Indonesians. One of them is also a sorcerer, who was found guilty of killing 8 people. The other three are Islamic militants.

*****

The belief that taking the life of another gives the taker the taken one's 'power', 'life force', or what have you is as old as humanity and is just as boneheaded today as it was when the first idiot came up with the idea eons ago. Indonesia could have saved the expense of the bullets used to kill this particular fool - all they had to do was turn him over to the victims relatives that were waiting at the cemetery before hand and they could have carried out the sentence and the internment all at the same time.

Chatter

This installment of CHATTER deals with Trolls.

It seems the subject of internet trolls is again on the forefront of several forums. We all know what they are and in most cases who they are. They are pervasive and they are quick to accuse anyone and everyone else of being exactly what they are.

The chatter is about these individuals and the lack of a life they have. For the most part on the various forums they are absent from the conversations - an odd but welcome respite. On other forums it is the trolls complaining about themselves although they won't admit it - almost every poster on those threads are the very trolls they are whining about ... and that I find to be quite funny.

I have noticed an increase in the most insidious of the internet trolls recently ... that being the oatmeal and tapioca pudding troll - who seek to discourage all but the most banal of banalities on every forum they infest ... they are harder to spot until it is too late in some cases than their flamboyant brethren but are still from under whatever slime covered rock in the fetid swamp they are hatched in to slither out and infest the world from.

So, look carefully when cruising the net because the slow drivers cause the most accident just like they do in the real world.

Santa Monica homeless veteran

Just another example of the way the cabal treats our troops!

or as McPain's economic advisor, Phil Gramm would refer to him - just another "whiner"

Student Researching Bacteria That Creates Ethanol Stabbed 47 Times

One of the two French research students found dead in a burnt-out London flat had been stabbed 196 times, the detective leading the murder investigation said today. His friend had 47 separate injuries.

An Imperial College spokesman said that Mr. Bonomo was studying a parasite which can spread from cats to human foetuses.

Mr. Ferez’s research was into bacteria which create ethanol for use as fuel.

Full Story: Times

In Satanist’s Custody Battle, The Law May Play Devil’s Advocate

“The T in Satan’s name inked on Jamie Meyer’s left leg is drawn to look like an upside-down cross. The crucifix suspended above his bed hangs upside down too. Meyer’s ex-wives say he also has turned their children’s lives upside down since he joined the Church of Satan—an organization that eschews spirituality and celebrates man’s selfish desires. One of Meyer’s ex-wives is citing his religious affiliation as the main reason an Indiana judge should restrict his visitation time to allow his three youngest daughters to attend Christian church. A Fulton County judge could decide the case Wednesday. “My children are my legacy,” said Meyer, 30, a factory worker. “It is because of them that I am still here today. I will always fight for my rights as a father.”

Across the nation, child-custody disputes involving religion are on the rise as the frequency of interfaith marriages and religious conversions increases and fathers become more active in their kids’ upbringing. Judges risk crossing the line between church and state, experts say, if they try to choose the religion in which a child should be raised.”

(Read the entire piece in the Chicago Tribune)

Oh, they were that kind of cookies!

“A teenager is suspected of delivering baskets of drug-laced treats to about a dozen police departments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to police who charged him Tuesday with LSD possession. At least three officers have gotten sick. The 18-year-old man was arrested after taking cookies to the Lake Worth police station, said Brett McGuire, the suburb’s police chief.

Officers there had been tipped off that someone was falsely claiming to deliver treats on behalf of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Our officers took a good whiff and thought they smelled like marijuana,” McGuire said, adding that preliminary tests instead detected traces of LSD. Christian Phillips was taken into custody and later charged with possession of the powerful hallucinogen, although the charge may be changed, McGuire said.

The suspect denied trying to contaminate the goodies or harm anyone and said one of his friends might have been smoking pot while Phillips was baking, McGuire said. The suspect is not affiliated with MADD, the chief said.”

The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1

Food prices are climbing, and some might be looking to fast foods and packaged foods for their cheap bites. But low cost doesn’t have to mean low quality. In fact, some of the most inexpensive things you can buy are the best things for you. At the grocery store, getting the most nutrition for the least amount of money means hanging out on the peripheries—near the fruits and veggies, the meat and dairy, and the bulk grains—while avoiding the expensive packaged interior. By doing so, not only will your kitchen be stocked with excellent foods, your wallet won’t be empty.

Read more from The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1

Sam & Ella are deadly

The number of people sickened in the ongoing salmonella outbreak has now surpassed 1,000, and while certain types of tomatoes remain the suspected cause, U.S. health officials on Wednesday added hot peppers and cilantro as potential suspects.

"We continue to get new reported cases every day," Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the division of foodborne, bacterial and mycotic diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a late afternoon teleconference. "This is the largest foodborne outbreak in the United States."

Since the outbreak began in April, 1,017 people in 41 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have fallen ill, and at least 203 people have been hospitalized. One death -- a Texas man in his 80s -- has been associated with the outbreak. Also, a man in his 60s who died in Texas from cancer had a Salmonella Saintpaul infection at the time of his death, the CDC reported Wednesday on its Web site.

In addition, according to the CDC, 300 of those people became ill after June 1.

An initial investigation of the outbreak, in New Mexico and Texas, suggested raw tomatoes as the likely source of the contamination. But a larger, nationwide study comparing persons who were ill in June found that those who were sickened were likely to have recently eaten raw tomatoes, as well as fresh jalapeno and serrano peppers, and fresh cilantro. These foods are typically consumed together, the CDC said.

Recently, many clusters of illnesses have been identified involving people who had eaten in restaurants. In one cluster, illnesses were linked to consumption of an item containing fresh tomatoes and fresh jalapeno peppers. In another two clusters, illnesses were linked to a food item containing fresh jalapeno peppers, leading federal officials to believe that jalapeno peppers caused some of the reported illnesses, the CDC said.

However, "at this we have not found any samples of tomatoes or peppers positive for Salmonella Saintpaul," Steve Sundlof, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told reporters at the teleconference.

Tauxe added, "Neither tomatoes nor jalapenos explain the entire outbreak at this point. We're presuming that both of them cause illness."

When it comes to tomatoes, officials said the advice to consumers remains the same: Avoid raw red plum, red Roma, round red tomatoes, and products containing these raw tomatoes.

On Wednesday, Tauxe added that people at risk of infection, including infants and elderly people, should avoid eating jalapeno peppers.

Salmonella is a bacteria that can cause bloody diarrhea in humans. Some 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the United States each year, although the CDC estimates that because milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections may be 30 or more times greater. Approximately 600 people die each year after being infected.

However, the strain of Salmonella Saintpaul had been previously considered rare. In 2007, according to the CDC, there were only three people infected in the country during April through June.

*****

Visit the CDC for more on the salmonella outbreak.

Crystal Skulls: Facts and Fictions

Some mysteries are such fun you almost don't want to know the truth. That may help explain why people are fascinated with crystal skulls.

Happy to share the spotlight with the latest Indiana Jones movie, the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History is putting its crystal skull on display starting Thursday.

"People like to believe in something greater than themselves," Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh said, and crystal skulls are mysterious and beautiful.

The skulls "are a fascinating example of artifacts that have made their way into museums with no scientific evidence to prove their rumored pre-Columbian origins," she added.

Crystals carved into the shape of a human skull fed the 19th century's need for drama and mystery and its fascination with death. They were supposed to be the creation of ancient Mesoamericans - Aztecs, Mixtecs, Toltecs, perhaps Maya.

The skulls were claimed to represent the art and religion of these peoples. Some even said the skulls had special, even supernatural, powers.

Scientists say it ain't so.

Nonetheless, the giant crystal skull that mysteriously arrived at the Smithsonian 16 years ago is out of its locked cabinet in Walsh's office and will be on public view until Sept. 1.

Studying this skull led Walsh to extend her investigation into crystal skulls in other museums and to conclude that all are fakes, made in the 19th and 20th centuries.

"In the past, most carved skulls were assumed to be ancient," she said. After all, why would someone go to the trouble of faking one?

Still, she is glad it arrived at her doorstep and prompted the study. "This particular object has told us a whole new story," she said.

The museum's director, Cristian Samper, said people often ask him if there is a real Indiana Jones doing archaeological work.

"I tell them there are several," he said. "People doing field work that is every bit as interesting."

Of the many crystal skulls in museums and private collections around the world, the Smithsonian's is one of the largest, at 10 inches high and weighing 30 pounds. It was mailed to the museum anonymously, accompanied by a note claiming it was of Aztec origin.

It isn't, Walsh said.

The skulls were carved from blocks of quartz - sometimes called rock crystal - and show the marks of modern carving tools. That means they were not made before the 19th century. The Smithsonian one, she said, seems to have been made between 1950 and 1960.

Indeed, no crystal skulls have ever been found at an archaeological site.

True, skulls appear in Aztec and Toltec art. But, as scientists point out, they always were carved in relief in basalt, a dark rock.

Scientists think the crystal skulls were made in Europe and Mexico, most in the 19th century, a period when there was a thriving market in antiquities, real and fake.

What about their claimed special powers?

Here's what the British Museum has to say:

"Large quartz crystal skulls have generated great interest and fascination since they began to surface in public and private collections during the second half of the 19th century. The British Museum views the skull in its collection as an enigmatic object of great interest but with no supernatural properties."

None of this, though, discourages movies from featuring crystal skulls or museums from joining in. Indeed, in addition to putting its skull on display, the Smithsonian is reporting on the topic in Smithsonian Magazine's July issue and featuring the skulls in a documentary Thursday night on the Smithsonian Channel.

Crystal skulls also are on public view at the British Museum in London and the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris.

___

Find out more about Crystal Skulls on the Net at:

Museum of Natural History: http://www.mnh.si.edu

Crystal Skulls: http://anthropology.si.edu/crystal_skulls

British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org

Musee do Quai Branly: http://www.quaibranly.fr/

Ailing ... Kennedy returns to the Senate for vote

Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, battling a brain tumor, walked through a wall of applause and into the Senate on Wednesday and cast a dramatic, decisive vote on long-stalled Medicare legislation.

"Aye," the 76-year-old Kennedy said in a loud voice, smiling broadly and making a thumbs-up gesture as he registered his vote.

Spectators in the galleries that overhang the chamber burst into cheers - a violation of decorum that drew no complaints.

"It's great to be back. I love this place," he said after his brief visit.

Kennedy made his way into the Senate on his own power, appearing little the worse for his illness. A patch of scalp was clearly visible through his familiar white hair, although it was not clear whether that was a result of surgery he underwent or the effects of chemotherapy or radiation that are part of his treatment.

He walked into chamber accompanied by Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, his party's presidential nominee-in-waiting, as well as fellow Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Kennedy's son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island.

Democratic senators, who had been tipped to his presence, burst into applause when he entered. Some Republicans looked around quizzically, then quickly joined in the applause when they saw Kennedy.

"I return to the Senate today to keep a promise to our senior citizens, and that's to protect Medicare," the senator said in a statement issued by his office as the vote was unfolding.

"Win, lose or draw, I wanted to be here. I wasn't going to take the chance that my vote could make the difference."

Kennedy's dramatic return gave Democrats the impetus they needed to free Medicare legislation from gridlock. It had received 59 votes on an earlier test, one short of the 60 needed to advance. Kennedy made 60, and when Republicans saw the outcome was sealed, several of them joined Democrats to pad the margin. The House already has overwhelmingly approved the measure.

Lawmakers are under pressure from doctors and the elderly patients they serve to void a 10.6 percent pay cut for doctors treating Medicare patients. It kicked in July 1 because of a funding formula that establishes lower reimbursement rates when Medicare spending levels exceed established targets. Some doctors say they'll quit taking new patients if the cuts stand.

Officials said Kennedy left Boston immediately after his daily cancer treatment for a flight to Washington. He was returning home immediately, in time for Thursday's treatment.

"It was a very important day. This whole issue of Medicare is something that's been enormously important to me since I've been in the United States Senate," a smiling Kennedy told reporters on returning home Wednesday evening. "This was a key vote on this issue, so I was glad to be able to participate."

He said he was touched by the reception from colleagues.

"It's nice to be able to get a good round of applause from even those that you differ with from time to time," he said.

Asked what his doctors thought about the trip, he said, "Well, that's another story for another time."

One official said Kennedy has been in regular contact with Majority Leader Harry Reid, and had asked his doctors earlier this week whether he could make a quick trip to Washington. He told Reid on Tuesday he would be there.

Kennedy was last in the Senate in mid-May. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor this spring after suffering unexplained symptoms that resulted in his being taken to a hospital on Cape Cod, Mass., and then flown to Boston.

He later underwent surgery at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.,

Seated in the Senate gallery were Kennedy's wife, Vicki, and Caroline, his niece. As the tourists and senators alike rose in a standing ovation, Vicki Kennedy wiped away tears.

So did many of Kennedy's colleagues and several Senate clerks.

Warren Jeffs released from Vegas hospital

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was released from a Nevada hospital Wednesday, a day after he was found "convulsive," weak and feverish in an Arizona jail cell, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

The 52-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was released around 5 p.m., police Officer Jose Montoya said. He said he did not know where Jeffs was transported to.

Calls to the Mohave County Sheriff's Department, which had custody of Jeffs, were not immediately returned.

Earlier Wednesday, a sheriff's spokeswoman said Jeffs was conscious but in a "weakened state of health, acting in a convulsive manner, shaking, and running a fever" when he was found Tuesday his solo jail cell in Kingman, Ariz.

That prompted jailers to move Jeffs from the Mohave County Jail to Kingman Regional Medical Center. He was then flown about 100 miles to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas.

"We're not told what his diagnosis is," spokeswoman Trish Carter said of Jeffs. "But based on our observations from jail staff, it does not appear to be life-threatening."

During his hospitalization, Jeffs was under heavy guard while being treated in Las Vegas for an unknown medical condition, the Police Department said in a statement.

Jeffs' Arizona lawyer, Mike Piccarreta of Tucson, acknowledged that Jeffs was hospitalized but refused to say why.

"I really don't want to comment on his personal medical condition," Piccarreta said. "I think anyone that was being incarcerated as a result of persecution for his religious beliefs would not be in good health."

Jeffs has been in custody since his August 2006 arrest outside Las Vegas. He had been on the run for more than a year, and made the FBI's Most Wanted List before his capture.

Utah court documents show that Jeffs lost 30 pounds in jail awaiting trial in St. George, Utah, and that he was hospitalized for treatment of a self-imposed fast, dehydration and sleep deprivation.

A clinical social worker who interviewed Jeffs in April 2007 reported that Jeffs attempted to hang himself in January 2007 at the Washington County jail, and was seen several days later throwing himself against walls and banging his head.

Jeffs was convicted by a Utah jury last year of two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison for his role in the 2001 marriage of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin.

Records show that Jeffs was treated in a Utah prison infirmary in February 2007 for health problems attributed to refusing to eat. A year later, Utah authorities say, the 6-foot-3 Jeffs weighed 145 pounds when he was moved to Arizona.

Carter said she did not immediately know how much Jeffs weighed when he was hospitalized Tuesday.

"Our job is to ensure he's in good health and ready to go to trial," Carter said. "If he has any medical conditions, we are going to have deputies and detention officers make sure he's safe and healthy."

Jeffs is charged in Arizona as an accomplice with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor stemming from the marriages he allegedly arranged between underage girls and older men.

He also had been charged with four counts of incest as an accomplice, but those charges were dropped last month after Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn found Arizona's incest law does not apply to the arranged marriages of teenage girls and their older male relatives.

Carter said Jeffs has been jailed in protective custody - alone in his cell 23 hours a day, and allowed one hour of recreation segregated from other inmates.

Jeffs was named in 2002 as the president, or prophet, of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an insular sect with nearly 6,000 followers that practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have sometimes involved underage girls.

Many FLDS members live in the twin border towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, about 160 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Another FLDS ranch was raided in west Texas in April, setting off a lengthy legal battle over the custody of hundreds of children.

*****

So the story keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and ...

The Moon has water!

Might be that tale about green cheese has some merits to?!

All jokes aside this is big news:

Today, researchers announced that they've found water molecules in moon matter retrieved by NASA Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The water was coaxed out of volcanic glass pebbles (like those seen below).
From National Geographic:

The researchers believe the water was ejected along with magma when "fire fountains" erupted more than three billion years ago from the moon's surface.

The finding raises new questions about the long-standing "giant impact" theory, which holds that the moon was formed more than a billion years prior to that when a Mars-sized body slammed into Earth and sent debris into orbit.

Researchers once believed the impact was hot enough and long enough to vaporize volatile elements, including the building blocks of water.

The new study "puts some limits on how hot this planet was and how quickly the volatile elements condensed back into the solid," said study lead author Alberto Saal, a geologist at Brown University.

Water on the moon

Mexico closes 5 hotels south of Cancun

Mexico's Environmental Department is closing down at least five small, upscale hotels and three other developments south of Cancun.

Officials say the businesses don't have permission to operate in the protected area near the Tulum Ruins.

Inspectors and soldiers arrived Monday to post closed signs. They say they will be back on Friday to permanently close the businesses and begin clearing out guests.

The closures were officially announced Wednesday.

Hotel owners say their papers are in order and the government can't shut them down.

Federal environmental prosecutor Patricio Patron says the hotels could eventually be demolished if the owners can't prove their legal right to the land. But he says that will take a year or more.

*****

Having worked as an Archaeologist at the Tulum ruins I can say that the Mexican government is right to close those 'hotels' because the 'tourists' from those hotels were always trampling trough the site and touching everything ...

They especially loved to have their photo made with them touching - literally touching history - a mural that was behind a wooden portcullis made of timbers the diameter of a telephone pole which they would squeeze around to stand grinning their shit-eating grins with hands on the fragile mural despite the sign beside the mural (in 16 different languages no less) telling them not to touch the mural and that the Federales will shoot them if they do. Many a tourist doesn't know how close they came to having a third eye for their stupidity.

Austria gets tougher on smokers

Austria's parliament is tightening smoking restrictions in food and drink establishments.

The law passed Wednesday requires restaurants and bars larger than 861 square feet (80 square meters) to create separate smoking sections. It prohibits minors and pregnant women from working in spaces where they are exposed to smoke.

Establishments smaller than 538 square feet (50 square meters) can choose whether they go smoke-free. For those between 538 and 861 square feet (50 and 80 square meters), authorities will determine if the creation of a separate room is feasible. If not, owners will have to pick between the two options.

The designated areas must have special signs saying smoking is dangerous.

*****

It looks like the Europeans are finally getting with the program!

Hooray!

New World Heritage natural wonders

The World Heritage Committee added eight natural sites and 19 cultural sites to UNESCO's World Heritage List of cultural, natural, and mixed properties that have "outstanding universal value." The new natural sites include:

* Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Canada)
* Mount Sanqingshan National Park (China)
* Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems (France)
* Surtsey (Iceland), image at left
* Saryarka - Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)
* Monarch Butterfly biosphere Reserve (Mexico)
* Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona (Switzerland)
* Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)

Twenty-seven World Heritage sites added (UNESCO), World Heritage 2008 photo gallery (UNESCO)

State employee won't lower flags for Helms

A longtime North Carolina state employee has chosen to retire instead of lowering flags to honor repugnant-ican Jesse Helms.

L.F. Eason III told his staff at the state Standards Laboratory not to lower the flag. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports that Eason sent workers an e-mail saying he didn't think it was appropriate to lower the flags because of Helms' "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice."

Eason is calling it quits after 29 years with the Department of Agriculture.

Even in death the Black Prince of Darkness is fucking up other people's lives!

It should be telling that a person with 29 years in on a job is willing to quit that job rather than 'honor' an honor-less demon when the entire world is rejoicing the demon's passing!

Twelve little words gone missing

From the boys and girls over at Scrutiny Hooligans:

{quote: in part}

I can’t believe I missed this until just now.

Many of you may have read about or seen the footage of Code Pink’s protest during the shrub's address at a swearing-in ceremony for new American citizens that was held at Monticello on July 4th. If not, well, it’s on YouTube.

Looking past the protest, the shrub quoted Thomas Jefferson's last letter, which was written to Roger C. Weightman, during his speech. The letter was sent as a regret that Jefferson wouldn’t be able to attend a 50th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which turned out to be the very day that Jefferson (as well as his Presidential predecessor John Adams) shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. From the shrub's address:

Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them. On the 50th anniversary of America’s independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, “May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

Kind of gets you right there, doesn’t it?

Of course, anyone familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s letters would have been correct to detect something missing from that quote. It appears that Bush’s speech writers had edited out twelve words…

This is the full quote from Jefferson’s letter to Weightman.

Note the boldface emphasis:

"May it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self government."

Part of me would like to think that the real reason those words were excised from Jefferson’s quote was because during his initial rehearsal of this speech the shrub kept saying “monkey” instead of “monkish” and couldn’t keep himself from laughing uncontrollably (because, like most men of his ilk, he thinks that farts and monkeys are absolutely frickin’ hilarious!), and his speech writer simply grabbed his red pen and prevented the “leader of the free world” from making an even bigger ass out of himself. But it seems to me that the real reason the words of one of our founding fathers were censored should be obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention over the last seven-odd years.

I think that Mojo Nixon said it best when he said “You know, Thomas Jefferson’s gonna be mighty pissed when he finds out about this…”

{end quote}

(Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

*****

I can not believe I missed this until now either!

WWF vehicle ambushed in Congo gorilla reserve

Unidentified gunmen ambushed a vehicle belonging to an international conservation group in an eastern Congo gorilla reserve, killing two people and wounding three others, officials and a U.N.-funded radio station said Wednesday.

The vehicle belonged to the World Wildlife Fund, said Thierry Bodson, the local head of the organization in Congo. The gunmen carried out their attack late Monday in Kasoso in Virunga National Park, a lush game park in Central Africa that is home to some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas.

U.N.-funded Radio Okapi reported that the vehicle was carrying 11 people. The wife of a park guard and her daughter were killed. The three injured were a park guard, the wife of another guard and a trainer for the World Wildlife Fund, Radio Okapi said.

The attackers fled with five GPS tracking devices, the radio said.

The identity of the assailants was unknown. Bodson said only that the car "had been spotted by bandits and they opened fire."

Virunga National Park is in a lawless swath of eastern Congo, straddling a volcanic mountain range that borders Rwanda and Uganda. About 700 endangered mountain gorillas live in the region; a couple of hundred of them live in Congo.

Local militia groups - including Congolese Mayi Mayi and Rwandan rebels - have been active in the region for more than a decade, feeding off a vulnerable civilian population.

More than 120 rangers have been killed in Virunga park over the last decade.

Polygamist sect leader Jeffs hospitalized

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was taken from jail in Arizona to a Las Vegas hospital for what the sheriff described as a serious medical problem.

Jeffs, 52, was brought to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center on Tuesday, authorities said.

Mohave County Sheriff Tom Sheahan didn't specify Jeffs' medical problem, but said it was serious enough to move him about 100 miles from Kingman Medical Center to the Las Vegas hospital.

Jeffs is president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - an insular faith of nearly 6,000 people. The faith practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have sometimes involved underage girls.

One of their ranches was raided in west Texas in April, setting off a lengthy legal battle over the custody of hundreds of children.

Jeffs was convicted by a Utah jury last year on two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison for his role in the 2001 marriage of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin.

Jeffs is charged in Arizona as an accomplice with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor stemming from the marriages of two girls. He had also been charged with four counts of incest as an accomplice, but those charges were dropped last month.

The sect leader has had several health complications during his jail stay, including a trip to a prison infirmary because of a self-imposed fast. Jeffs also attempted suicide last year and was seen throwing himself against the walls and banging his head, authorities said.

Jeffs' Las Vegas lawyer, Richard Wright, did not immediately respond Wednesday to messages from The Associated Press.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center spokesman Dan Davidson said he had no patient listed under Jeffs' name, and said he could provide no further information.

In dropping the accomplice to incest charges last month, Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn found that state incest law does not apply to the arranged marriages of two teenage girls and their older male relatives.

*****

And the soap opera continues ...

Did You Know ...

That during the American Revolution the provisional government wanted to be sure its soldiers did not get dry.

Every soldier got a quart of beer a day along with a pint of milk.

Hurricane Bertha could strengthen in coming days

Those darn prickly hairs ...

Forecasters are saying Hurricane Bertha could become stronger in the next day as it heads toward Bermuda.

It's unknown if or when the hurricane will make landfall. Forecasters have been urging people on the island to monitor the storm's progress.

As of about 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, the center of the storm was about 550 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and about 715 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Maximum sustained winds are about 75 mph with some higher gusting. National Hurricane Center forecasters expect the storm to regain strength in the next 24 hours but say there is a lot of uncertainty in that prediction.

The Atlantic season's first hurricane is traveling west-northwest at about 12 mph.

Those prickly hairs are still standing on the back of my neck and it seems they are starting to stand up on the forecaster's necks as well ...

Bertha is going to be a doozy before she all finished.

Chinese Police probe death of Canadian model

A young Canadian model was found dead in her Shanghai apartment building this week, and police said Wednesday they suspect she was murdered.

An official in the news department of Shanghai's Public Security Bureau said that police got an emergency call early Monday about the death of Diana O'Brien. Police said she was 23, though media reports in Canada have said she was 22.

The official, who gave only her family name, Fang, gave no further details on O'Brien's death.

Police said O'Brien entered China on June 24. She was working for a Shanghai-based modeling company, JH Model Management.

The Web site for JH, which says it is "one of the leading modeling agencies in the East of China for over 100 models," has not been accessible since Tuesday evening.

A young man who answered the door Tuesday night at the address the agency gave on its Web site said he didn't know of any modeling agency there. The apartment is in a high-rise building complex where several apartments have been converted into offices.

A statement from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada said consular officials in Shanghai were told of O'Brien's death on Monday and that Canadian officials are in regular contact with the Chinese authorities conducting the investigation.

The statement from spokesman Andre Lemay, citing Canada's Privacy Act, said no further information could be released at this time.

Atheist soldier sues Army for 'unconstitutional' discrimination

Army Spc. Jeremy Hall was raised Baptist.

Like many Christians, he said grace before dinner and read the Bible before bed. Four years ago when he was deployed to Iraq, he packed his Bible so he would feel closer to God.

He served two tours of duty in Iraq and has a near perfect record. But somewhere between the tours, something changed. Hall, now 23, said he no longer believes in God, fate, luck or anything supernatural.

Hall said he met some atheists who suggested he read the Bible again. After doing so, he said he had so many unanswered questions that he decided to become an atheist.

His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.

In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.

"I think it's utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional," Hall said.

Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.

Two years ago on Thanksgiving Day, after refusing to pray at his table, Hall said he was told to go sit somewhere else. In another incident, when he was nearly killed during an attack on his Humvee, he said another soldier asked him, "Do you believe in Jesus now?"

Hall isn't seeking compensation in his lawsuit -- just the guarantee of religious freedom in the military. Eventually, Hall was sent home early from Iraq and later returned to Fort Riley in Junction City, Kansas, to complete his tour of duty.

He also said he missed out on promotions because he is an atheist.

"I was told because I can't put my personal beliefs aside and pray with troops I wouldn't make a good leader," Hall said.

Michael Weinstein, a retired senior Air Force officer and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is suing along with Hall. Weinstein said he's been contacted by more than 8,000 members of the military, almost all of them complaining of pressure to embrace evangelical Christianity.

"Our Pentagon, our Pentacostalgon, is refusing to realize that when you put the uniform on, there's only one religious faith: patriotism," Weinstein said.

Religious discrimination is a violation of the First Amendment and is also against military policy. The Pentagon refused to discuss specifics of Hall's case -- citing the litigation. But Deputy Undersecretary Bill Carr said complaints of evangelizing are "relatively rare." He also said the Pentagon is not pushing one faith among troops.

"If an atheist chose to follow their convictions, absolutely that's acceptable," said Carr. "And that's a point of religious accommodation in department policy, one may hold whatever faith, or may hold no faith."

Weinstein said he doesn't buy it and points to a promotional video by a group called Christian Embassy. The video, which shows U.S. generals in uniform, was shot inside the Pentagon. The generals were subsequently reprimanded.

Another group, the Officers' Christian Fellowship, has representatives on nearly all military bases worldwide. Its vision, which is spelled out on the organization's Web site, reads, "A spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform empowered by the Holy Spirit."

Weinstein has a different interpretation.

"Their purpose is to have Christian officers exercise Biblical leadership to raise up a godly army," he says.

But Carr said the military's position is clear.

"Proselytizing or advancing a religious conviction is not what the nation would have us do and it's not what the military does," Carr said.

The U.S. Justice Department is expected to respond to Hall's lawsuit this week. In the meantime, he continues to work in the military police unit at Fort Riley and plans to leave as soon as his tour of duty expires next year.

(from CNN)

The one, the only, photograph of Earth

Virtually every picture showing the full Earth derives from one photograph taken in 1972. Yet hardly anybody notices this.

Apollo 17 was NASA's last and most successful manned Moon mission. Within just a few hours of launch the crew were 24,000 km away and could see an entire hemisphere of Earth. The photo they took was labelled AS17-148-22726 and was added to the hundreds of thousands of others in the NASA archives. And there it would have remained, were it not for environmental organisations and famine-relief organisations of the early 1980's. Its prominent depiction of Africa and Antarctica made it perfectly suited as symbols for both causes. Posters started appearing pairing the photo with captions such as "It's the only one we've got".

This initial boost was all that was needed to start a monopoly. From then on, whenever someone was seeking to use a photograph of Earth, naturally it was an example of AS17-148-22726 that one would find first. Television, newspapers, websites, mouse pads and marketing material are all oozing with copies of the photograph. Yet astonishingly few people notice that they are being presented with the same photo over and over.

Timetable

Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of u.s. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.

(You ain't just whistling Dixie there!
They's a many of us fer setting a timetable an' sticking to it)

It was the first time the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq.

(Most likely it ain't the first - Just the first we've heard about)

The cabal has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.

(Whoa, big surprise there, buddy boy)

How deep is your Purple!?

You know you have a hit when the Japanese play your tune on their traditional instruments in full orchestral splash with choral accompaniment ...

Forecasters say Hurricane Bertha has weakened to a Category 1 storm.

As of 11 p.m. EDT Tuesday, the center of the storm was about 580 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and about 840 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Maximum sustained winds decreased to 80 mph with some higher gusting. The storm is expected to continue weakening over the next couple of days. The Atlantic season's first hurricane is headed to the northwest at about 12 mph.

Bertha is expected to continue heading toward Bermuda. Forecasters urged people on the island to continue monitoring the storm's progress. Large swells and high surfs could affect portions of Bermuda late Wednesday.

It's unknown if or when the hurricane will make landfall.

*****

I don't know ... those prickly hairs are still standing up on the back of my neck telling me something is up with this storm.

Teen discovers bat hiding in her bra

You have got to be kidding!

Abbie Hawkins, 19, spent a half-day at work before noticing that a baby bat was hiding inside her bra. From The Telegraph:

Miss Hawkins said she got dressed at 7.30am and arrived for work at the Holiday Inn Norwich North, near Norwich International Airport without noticing anything unusual.

"When I was driving to work I felt a slight vibration but I thought it was just my mobile phone in my jacket pocket," she said.

It was not until her lunch break, at midday when she felt a strange movement inside her bra, which had been hanging on her washing line the previous night.

Bat in bra

Octopuses play with Rubik's Cubes

I wonder if they play with them in their garden's that Ringo told us all about all those years ago?!
Researchers from the Weymouth Sea Life Centre are providing octopuses with Rubik's cubes to determine whether the animals prefer one tentacle over another, or another, or another, etc.

(Want to bet they secretly hope that one of the animals will solve the puzzle.)

From Nature's The Great Beyond:

“Uniquely, octopuses have more than half their nerves in their arms and have been shown to partially think with their arms,” says Claire Little, of the Weymouth Sea Life Centre. “Many animals have been shown to favor a certain arm so we will see if octopuses can be added to that list.”

According to Little, the findings could help make life in captivity more pleasant for these intelligent, (and occasionally shark eating), animals. “They are very susceptible to stress, so if they do have a favorite side to be fed on, it could reduce risk to them,” she says.

Octupus and Rubik's Cube

Treasure trove found in Florida

Federal authorities in Miami have recovered a treasure trove of pre-Columbian gold, artifacts and emeralds, and plan to return the items to the Colombian government.

The treasures will be handed over to authorities from the South American nation on Tuesday.

Federal authorities say the items were recovered from an Italian citizen who was living in south Florida and illegally smuggling them into the country.

U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta and officials from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement say more than 60 artifacts were recovered.

'Zero' chance lottery tickets stun some players

And you thought you had a shot ...

When Scott Hoover bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in Virginia called "Beginner's Luck" last summer, he carefully studied the odds. Even though he figured his chances of winning were a long shot, he felt the odds were reasonable.

Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wasn't surprised when his tickets didn't bring him the $75,000 grand prize, but he was shocked to learn the top prize had been awarded before he bought the ticket.

"I felt duped into buying these things," Hoover said.

He discovered the Virginia State Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for games in which the top prizes were no longer available. Public records showed that someone had already won the top prize one month before Hoover played. He is now suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract.

"It's one thing to say it's a long shot to win the $75,000, but it's another thing to say you have no shot to win it," said John Fishwick, Hoover's attorney.

Through a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act, Fishwick's firm was able to obtain records that showed the Virginia State Lottery sold $85 million in tickets for which no top prize was available. Fishwick says the state should pay $85 million in damages.

Paula Otto, executive director of the Virginia State Lottery, said the state's games are fair and the top prize money is actually a small percentage of the money given out to lottery players. Most of the players win through the second, third or fourth-place prizes, she said. Otto also said it's no longer possible in the state of Virginia to purchase tickets with no top prizes available.

"We absolutely have always been very open and honest with our players about the way our scratch tickets are distributed," Otto said. "Yes, there were times when there was a scratch game out there that might've said "zero" in terms of the number of top prizes, but our players knew that."

Otto would not comment on the lawsuit, but said she stands by the integrity of the games in Virginia and looks forward to vigorously defending them.

Virginia isn't the only state to sell tickets that have no top prizes available. USA Today estimates that about half of the 42 states that have lotteries were, as of early July, continuing to sell tickets after the top prizes are claimed. Lottery officials from some states say the practice is fair because lesser prizes are still available, and they say tickets and lottery Web sites make that clear.

In New Jersey, tickets for the "$1,000,000 Explosion" scratch-off game were still on sale last week, even though the million-dollar grand prize was already awarded.

Lottery ticket buyers outside a New Jersey convenience store were stunned to hear the news.

"Oh really? I didn't know that," said one shopper. Another added, "That's just not right."

Dominick DeMarco, a spokesman with the New Jersey Lottery, said information about winning tickets and prizes is readily available on the lottery Web site and at retail outlets. However, officials are still looking for ways to improve on their procedures.

Still, Hoover hopes his lawsuit will alert lottery players in all states to be careful before they place their bets.

*****
Haven't you learned playing the lottery is only for vagrants and trailer park residents, yet?!

What have we here?

The West Virginia Ethics Commission is looking into a degree scandal involving the governor's daughter and West Virginia University.

WVU spokeswoman Becky Lofstead said Tuesday that the commission has made preliminary inquiries into last fall's decision to grant Heather Bresch a degree she hadn't earned.

Commission executive director Lewis G. Brewer declined comment Tuesday morning.

Since the scandal broke, WVU President Mike Garrison and other administrators have said they are stepping down from their posts. Most, though, will remain on WVU's payroll. Gov. Joe Manchin hasn't been accused of wrongdoing in the flap.

*****

Unfortunately, such unearned degrees are awarded more frequently than most people realize.

This does not necessarily include 'honorary degrees' awarded for achievements in life for they can be viewed as 'earned' through those achievements.

Seek Pablum and you will find it

An old forum I used to frequent has gone the way of the DoDo ...

I have been informed that since I have left the forum it has catapulted to the bottom of a cliff into a sea of mediocrity and meaningless drivel with posts as interesting as day old oatmeal - in less than 30 days.

Even the Haters have become bored with themselves (which is hard to fathom, I know, but they have). I won't bore you with some of the excerpts and entire posts I have received via e-mail, suffice to say they make one begin snoring.

Since my departure numerous others have followed suit - all fed up with the pablum and the ardent striving for just that - pablum - on the part of the games players who are accusing all who leave of being 'games players'.

So, as the sages tell you ... seek pablum and you will find it. The forum games players sought it and by damn they found it.

The jesus myth is not a unique story, but part of recognized earlier jewish tradition

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

Full Story: New York Times

Six Steps to a Higher Starting Salary

While money isn't everything, planning for salary discussions and negotiations should be an important part of your job search preparation. Following are six steps to help you secure a higher starting salary.

Step One: Know what you're worth.
The key to any successful negotiation is information, so do your homework to assess your competitive value. Do some research and find out the pay range for the type of job you are seeking. Once you know the going rate, take into consideration your skills, education, experience and any unique value you bring to the prospective employer to see where you would rank within that range.

Step Two: Delay talking about salary as long as possible.
Give a figure too soon and you risk either being disqualified because it's too high or judged underqualified because it's too low. Even if you do pass the screen, having given the employer your bottom line will limit your ability to negotiate a higher salary.

If asked your salary requirements in a want ad or posting, say they are flexible or that you are earning -- or expect to earn -- "market value" or "competitive" compensation for someone in your field.

If you are being asked your requirements as part of a phone screen, politely ask what the salary range is for the position. If they won't schedule an interview unless you give your salary requirements, tell them your requirements depend on a variety of factors including job content, health benefits, bonuses, commissions or profit sharing arrangements, training and advancement opportunities. Then give a very wide range.

Step Three: Don't lie about your current earnings.
Fearful of letting their current salaries limit their future income, some job candidates inflate their earnings. They do this at their own peril. Today, companies conduct more rigorous background checks -- some even ask to see W-2s! It's not uncommon for potential candidates to be eliminated for being less than straightforward about their salary history.

Your best bet is to avoid divulging your salary until you've had a chance to prove why you are worth more.

Step Four: Never accept or negotiate an offer on the spot.
No matter how good it sounds (or how desperate you are), never commit or discuss an offer until you've had time to thoroughly consider it. When you receive the offer, thank the employer and restate your desire to work for the organization, then tell them you need time to think it over.

Find out what the advancement opportunities are and how and when your performance and salary will be reviewed. Make sure to evaluate the entire compensation package including health and welfare benefits, vacation days, paid holidays, tuition reimbursement and company car, as well as other non-monetary elements.

Step Five: Don't be afraid to ask for more.
As long as you act respectfully, you have nothing to lose by asking what the company can do to bring you closer to your desired salary. In some cases the hiring manager has discretionary power to go 10 to 20 percent above the highest figure he or she mentions to get an exceptional candidate; besides, good managers always start low to give themselves negotiating room.

If they are firm on salary, it's often possible to negotiate some other aspect of the offer such as benefits, vacation or other incentives. Studies show the majority of employers are flexible on at least some element of the compensation package.

Step Six: Know when to stop.
During negotiations, the typical response to your counter proposal will be either to accept some of your terms or to refuse to negotiate at all. If the employer has stopped responding to your counter proposals or making concessions, it's time to end the negotiations.

Remember, you don't want to prolong a salary tug-of-war at the expense of losing the employer's goodwill -- or their offer.


Find out what you are worth >>

Ramming Speed

Question of the Day

Why are the Haters so afraid of anything different?

Bertha may weaken

Forecasters say Hurricane Bertha could begin to weaken within the next couple of days. As of 5 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the center of the storm was about 675 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and about 1,035 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Maximum sustained winds are near 120 mph with some higher gusting. The Category 3 storm is headed to the northwest at about 10 mph.

Bertha is expected to continue heading toward Bermuda. It's unknown if or when the hurricane will make landfall.

The hurricane center has projected 12 to 16 named storms in the Atlantic this season, with six to nine of them hurricanes.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.

*****

She may weaken, but don't count on it say the prickly hairs on the back of my neck.

Butterfly reserve named a World Heritage site

The Mexican government says UNESCO has added a Monarch butterfly reserve in southern Mexico to its list of World Heritage sites.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department says the reserve located in the states of Mexico and Michoacan was declared a natural heritage site by the U.N.'s World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec City.

Each September the butterflies begin a 3,400-mile (5,470-kilometer) journey from the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the U.S. to the central Mexican mountains. The voyage is considered an aesthetic and scientific wonder.

But illegal logging and development threaten a delicate migratory route that has spanned across a million square miles (2.6 million square kilometers) for some 10,000 years.

Rainbow Gathering Arrests

The U.S. Forest Service should consider banning the Rainbow Family from Forest Service land after a confrontation last week led to the arrest of at least eight people, a top agency official said Monday.

John Twiss, director of Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations in Washington, D.C., said he was among the officers who responded when Rainbow Family members threw sticks and rocks at federal officers.

The confrontation started when officers tried to arrest a member of the Rainbow group for an alleged drug offense.

Twiss characterized the Rainbow participants as "non-compromising," "arrogant" and "anti-authority." He said this year's episode and other disturbances at recent gatherings should prompt a review of whether Rainbow Family events are allowed.

"I think we have to have that discussion within the agency," Twiss said. "We spend an awful lot of time and effort on these people. And frankly, the taxpayers deserve better."

About 7,000 people turned out for this year's Rainbow event, a weeklong gathering of eccentrics, young people and hippie types, held on the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Big Sandy.

The confrontation Thursday night escalated as about 400 Rainbow participants tried to intervene in the arrest, the Forest Service said.

About 70 people were yelling profanities and throwing rocks and sticks at officers from about 25 feet when Twiss arrived. He said no officer was hit.

Officers then fired "pepper balls" - similar to paintballs but containing a pepper substance - to control the crowd, he said.

Jeff Kline, a Rainbow participant from Santa Fe, N.M., said Forest Service statements that a mob of 400 people confronted federal officers were "an absolute lie, and a fabrication."

Kline said he saw officers arrest a man near the children's area of the camp and that officers shot pepper balls at crowds of people who responded to the commotion because they were worried about their children.

"The Forest Service law enforcement crew, I could see them running and pushing people aside," said Kline, a 30-year veteran of Rainbow gatherings. "And more people kept coming, because all the little kids were there."

Five people were arrested during the disturbance and another three people have been arrested in subsequent days for related offenses, said Rita Vollmer, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service management team.

The identities and specific charges were not released by the Forest Service. Vollmer said the charges included interfering with an officer and drug-related offenses.

The suspects were scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate Monday afternoon at a temporary court set up in Lander, said John Powell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Cheyenne. Powell said information on the suspects and the results of their arraignments were not immediately available.

The Rainbow Family, which has no spokesmen, leaders or officials, has relied on the First Amendment for decades as it has held its annual gatherings on public land. That provision guarantees the right of the people "peaceably to assemble."

Linda Burt, state director for the ACLU, said it's clear that the group has a right to assemble. She said her organization is investigating the actions of the federal law enforcers.

*****

I don't know all that transpired at this gathering and the actions of the feds but with past history as a guide I tend to believe the Rainbow member's version is closer to the truth.

UFO turns out to be something a bit more mundane

Police in South Wales, UK, were dispatched to respond to a 999 emergency call to investigate a "bright stationary object" in the sky above a concerned citizen's home.

The BBC News posted a recording and transcript of the conversation between the control room, the caller, and the police:

Control: "Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?"

Officer: "Yes, it's the moon. Over."

Link

(Filed in the "Where do these people come from?" folder)

Thought for the Day

Learn from other's mistakes,
life isn't long enough to make them all yourself.

Desperate Ad

Found this add on the net - he's paying $100:

"Looking for a monkey who can bang on my keyboard to try to find the one random sequence of characters that is not yet taken as a domain name."

Any unemployed monkeys out there interested?

She isn't an IV drug user any longer! (For now)

The Mrs., just came in from the doctor where they finally decided to remove the PIC line from her right arm which she has had since her last hospital visit.

So more more IV antibiotics ... we're down to oral ones.

But when removing the PIC line the doctor said she had a blood clot in that arm (luckily it came out with the PIC line) and he was freaking because it was blood clots in the lungs last year that started this saga we are on.

Right now the Mrs., is ecstatic with the fact she can take a shower in lieu of a bath - you can not allow the end of the PIC line to get wet - so I expect not to see her for the next hour or so!

At least now, she is no longer an 'IV drug user' ... until the next time the hospital sends her home with a PIC line in her arm that is!

What they're saying ...

Here is what some are saying about Carolina Naturally:

"Makes you think"
"Isn't afraid"
"Philosophy anyone can relate to"
"Life - humorously"
"You are guaranteed to learn"
"The best blog I have found, yet"
"A must read daily"

Cancer Cured? Granulocytes Treatment Worked 100 Percent In Mice Work But Will It Work In Humans?

“Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are about to embark on a human trial to test whether a new cancer treatment will be as effective at eradicating cancer in humans as it has proven to be in mice.

The treatment will involve transfusing specific white blood cells, called granulocytes, from select donors, into patients with advanced forms of cancer. A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies.

Zheng Cui, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor of pathology, will be announcing the study June 28 at the Understanding Aging conference in Los Angeles. The study, given the go-ahead by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will involve treating human cancer patients with white blood cells from healthy young people whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity. The basis of the study is the scientists’ discovery, published five years ago, of a cancer-resistant mouse and their subsequent finding that white blood cells from that mouse and its offspring cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice. They have since identified similar cancer-killing activity in the white blood cells of some healthy humans.”

(read more at Scientific Blogging and Slashdot)

This could be the 'magic bullet' for cancer - that would be most pleasant for all those who are living with cancer.

Meditation, Yoga Might Switch Off Stress Genes

“Researchers say they’ve taken a significant stride forward in understanding how relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress. The changes were seen both in long-term practitioners and in newer recruits, the scientists said.

“It’s not all in your head,” said Dr. Herbert Benson, president emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “What we have found is that when you evoke the relaxation response, the very genes that are turned on or off by stress are turned the other way. The mind can actively turn on and turn off genes. The mind is not separated from the body.”

One outside expert agreed. “It’s sort of like reverse thinking: If you can wreak havoc on yourself with lifestyle choices, for example, [in a way that] causes expression of latent genetic manifestations in the negative, then the reverse should hold true,” said Dr. Gerry Leisman, director of the F.R. Carrick Institute for Clinical Ergonomics, Rehabilitation and Applied Neuroscience at Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K.”

(from the The Washington Post)