Jimmy Cliff doing Reggae proud!
Peace Mon!
Peace Mon!
Friday, October 10, 2008
Homeless man dies after being set ablaze in LA
"That ye do unto the least of my brethren ye do also unto me."
A homeless man died after being set on fire on a street where he had lived for many years, police and local merchants said Friday.
Police were called to Third Street west of downtown Thursday evening and found the man, who apparently had been drenched with what may have been gasoline and set ablaze. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said a man in his 20s was seen running from the scene. Scorch marks stained a wall Friday where the man was burned.
The victim remained unidentified, Detective Brian Carr said. Investigators canvassed the neighborhood Friday looking for evidence, witnesses and information about the victim.
Shopkeepers said the man was a fixture in the neighborhood, and residents were shocked to hear about his violent death.
Every day, the man drank a Dr Pepper, ate a bag of chips and smoked cigarettes, said Young Kim, who owns a nearby dry cleaner.
The homeless man had been in the area for at least 20 years but never bothered anyone or begged for money, Kim said. People gave him food, clothes and spare change.
"This is a terrible shame. He didn't deserve this. It's so cruel," said Jose Antonio Gonzalez, who owns a vitamin shop near where the man was found.
Gonzalez said some longtime residents called the man Johnny and believed he had fought in the Vietnam War and had a wealthy family somewhere. Gonzalez didn't know whether the stories were true.
"He didn't seem to have mental problems. He understood and spoke well. I don't know why he lived on the street," Kim said.
A witness, Thomas Lopez, told KCAL-TV he saw a teenager walk by the homeless man and pour something on him. Moments later the man was on fire.
"To actually see this guy on fire, it was unbelievable. Who would do such a thing?" Lopez said. "I took my shirt off and started putting him out."
The man, who paramedics thought was about 50 years old, had burns over 90 percent of his body, Fire Department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies said.
Andy Bales, chief executive of the Union Rescue Mission on downtown's Skid Row, said the incident was "part of a long history of people attacking vulnerable homeless individuals in Los Angeles."
"They think the person is less than human because they happen to be homeless. I don't know how you could do that to another human being," Bales said.
*****
A society is judged by the manner in which it treats the least among it ... and right now our society isn't fairing all that well and such events as this aren't going to win any points anytime soon!
Russian cops hassling bathtub chopper driver
Who says the Russians don't have a sense of humor?
Russian biker busted for driving a non street legal bathtub.
Scenes from the life of traffic cops from Russia and other post Soviet countries.
Palin Abuses Power
repugican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska’s governor by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator’s report concluded Friday.
Alaska governor Sarah Palin is under investigation for the firing of her public safety commissioner.
“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda,” the report states.
Vietnam veterans against McPain
Vietnam veterans name McPain a collaborator and 'the Manchurian Candidate'
They should know.
"Keep The N*gger Out Of Office”
kerry posted this over at Bartblog
OK, I am officially thoroughly disgusted now! This along with the piece Richard Metzger wrote that I posted three posts back leaves no doubt any anyone's mind that repugicans is the proper term.
After a week of McCain supporters being incited to shout “kill him!” and “terrorist!” and “treason!“, a man in Louisiana was arrested for threatening to kill election officials. The Smoking Gun has his arrest report and mug shots. It seems his voter registration card was delayed, and he was insistent that he would bring his shotgun to their office and kill them if they didn’t hurry up because he needed to “keep the n*gger out of office.”Look at the photo.
Does America really want to be THAT ONE?
http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/keep-ngger-out-of-office.html
*****OK, I am officially thoroughly disgusted now! This along with the piece Richard Metzger wrote that I posted three posts back leaves no doubt any anyone's mind that repugicans is the proper term.
Market Nose Dives
The Market opened to today with a nose dive - falling to below 8000.
Thank your repugican 'friends' for this ... it's not every day you get to see all your efforts to provide for yourself and your family evaporate before your eyes!
Thank your repugican 'friends' for this ... it's not every day you get to see all your efforts to provide for yourself and your family evaporate before your eyes!
Nobel Peace Prize
Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president and United Nations envoy, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace prize for his work as a mediator in international conflicts.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it had chosen Mr. Ahtisaari, 71, for his “important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”-
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it had chosen Mr. Ahtisaari, 71, for his “important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”-
If It Walks Like A Duck and Talks Like a Duck Dept: The McCain-Palin Mob
Richard Metzger posted this over at BoingBoing and is spot on ...
By Richard Metzger
The things that has always alarmed me most about the right wing Republican/conservative/FOX News-watching types is how they wear their own IGNORANCE as a badge of honor! I can't get my head around the notion of how unashamed they are of their own ignorance. It used to be that abject stupidity was something to be embarrassed about. Is it somehow now HIP these days to be a total dumbass? Did I miss the memo? It's even worse when Republican politicians stoop to cultivate the least intelligent amongst us. Why is it that the Republican party seems to consist solely of the top 5% of America's wealth holders and the lower third of the IQ spectrum with NO ONE in between?
Here is what Blogger Interrupted saw at a McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville, Ohio:
The fact that my videos of McCain-Palin supporters are blowing up online tells me a lot.First, the media should be ashamed of themselves for not covering this until now. The McCain-Palin supporters in my videos are not new, they are not exceptional, they are not hiding. This is who they are. It has been brewing for months, and not one mainstream media outlet has taken the time to expose them. Not one. And that is dangerous. If America is about to decide on its president based on this level of hate and ignorance, without a single question being asked as to why, then America is in for a rude awakening.
There are some seriously ignorant people on display in these videos (and no, not just the governor of Alaska). These people are clearly SO DUMB that they'd believe any darn thing you told them! Be afraid, be very afraid... McCain-Palin Mob in Ohio (video) part 1 | McCain-Palin Mob in Ohio (video)part 2
'Do Nothing..."
A point of order ...
The repugicans are howling about the 'do nothing Democrats in control of congress' as a election stunt to attempt to fool the American people (Hint: it's not working).
Its only been in the last year and a half that the Democrats have had a majority in Congress.
But only razor's edge on in the Senate where the Republicans have blocked nearly every single bill except a very few 'must pass' bills - filibustering nearly 100 times - a world record ... just as we said they would after the 2006 elections where they lost their majority due to their greed, corruption, scandals and just plain unfitness for the job.
Their plan to stall until this election cycle has ruined the nation and literally the world economically and it has backfired on them in that they will loose even more 'seats' in congress as a result.
We have always known repugicans aren't very bright - they have just removed any doubt anyone may have harbored in the back of their mind in the last year and a half.
The repugicans are howling about the 'do nothing Democrats in control of congress' as a election stunt to attempt to fool the American people (Hint: it's not working).
Its only been in the last year and a half that the Democrats have had a majority in Congress.
But only razor's edge on in the Senate where the Republicans have blocked nearly every single bill except a very few 'must pass' bills - filibustering nearly 100 times - a world record ... just as we said they would after the 2006 elections where they lost their majority due to their greed, corruption, scandals and just plain unfitness for the job.
Their plan to stall until this election cycle has ruined the nation and literally the world economically and it has backfired on them in that they will loose even more 'seats' in congress as a result.
We have always known repugicans aren't very bright - they have just removed any doubt anyone may have harbored in the back of their mind in the last year and a half.
Virginia shark's pup a 'virgin birth'
Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark.
In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.
The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Nebraska zoo.
"This first case was no fluke," Demian Chapman, a shark scientist and lead author of the second study, said in a statement. "It is quite possible that this is something female sharks of many species can do on occasion."
The aquarium sharks that reproduced without mates each carried only one pup, while some shark species can produce litters numbering in the dozen or more. The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.
"It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth," Chapman said.
The medical mystery began 16 months ago after the death of the Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit at the Virginia Beach aquarium. No male blacktip sharks were present during her eight years at the aquarium.
In May 2007, the 5-foot, 94-pound shark died of stress-related complications related to her unknown pregnancy after undergoing a yearly checkup. The 10-inch shark pup was found during a necropsy of Tidbit, surprising aquarium officials. They initially thought the embryonic pup was either a product of a virgin birth or a cross between the blacktip and a male of another shark species - which has never been documented, Chapman said.
Tidbit's pup was nearly full term, and likely would have been quickly eaten by "really big sand tiger sharks" that were in the tank, Chapman said in a telephone interview from Florida.
That is what happened to the tiny hammerhead pup in the Omaha case.
"By the time they could realize what they were looking at, something munched the baby," he said of aquarium workers. The remains of the pup were used for the DNA testing.
Virgin birth has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and has been suspected among sharks in the wild. The scientists who studied the Virginia and Nebraska sharks said the newly formed pups acquired one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development, then united anew.
Absent the chromosomes present in the male sperm, the offspring of an asexual conception have reduced genetic diversity and, the scientists said, may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild. A pup, for instance, can be more susceptible to congenital disorders and diseases.
The scientists said their findings offer "intriguing questions" about how frequently automictic parthenogenesis occurs in the wild.
"It is possible that parthenogenesis could become more common in these sharks if population densities become so low that females have trouble finding mates," said Mahmood Shivji, one of the scientists and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
The DNA fingerprinting techniques used by the scientists are identical to those used in human paternity testing.
Chapman, who is with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook, was assisted in the study by Beth Firchau of the Virginia Aquarium.
Chapman and Shivji were on the team that made the first discovery of virgin birth involving the Nebraska shark.
Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack
The ladies I know will love this ...
Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack. Though the news is still good for them: 6.7 grams of chocolate per day represent the ideal amount for a protective effect against inflammation and subsequent cardiovascular disease.
A new effect, demonstrated for the first time in a population study by the Research Laboratories of the Catholic University in Campobasso, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute of Milan.
The findings, published in the last issue of the Journal of Nutrition, official journal of the American Society of Nutrition, come from one of the largest epidemiological studies ever conducted in Europe, the Molisani Project, which has enrolled 20,000 inhabitants of the Molise region so far. By studying the participants recruited, researchers focused on the complex mechanism of inflammation. It is known how a chronic inflammatory state represents a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease, from myocardial infarction to stroke, just to mention the major diseases. Keeping the inflammation process under control has become a major issue for prevention programs and C reactive protein turned out to be one of the most promising markers, detectable by a simple blood test.
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