Half of overweight adults may be heart-healthy

You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart attack waiting to happen.
And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy.
A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people - about half - have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.

The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed.
The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even "less voluptuous" people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher."We're really talking about taking a look with a very different lens" at weight and health risks, Sowers said.

In the study, about 51 percent of overweight adults, or roughly 36 million people nationwide, had mostly normal levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, blood fats called triglycerides and blood sugar.
Almost one-third of obese adults, or nearly 20 million people, also were in this healthy range, meaning that none or only one of those measures was abnormal.
Yet about a fourth of adults in the recommended-weight range had unhealthy levels of at least two of these measures.
That means some 16 million of them are at risk for heart problems.
It's no secret that thin people can develop heart-related problems and that fat people often do not.
But that millions defy the stereotypes will come as a surprise to many people, Sowers said.

Even so, there's growing debate about the accuracy of the standard method of calculating whether someone is overweight.
Health officials rely on the body mass index, a weight-height ratio that does not distinguish between fat and lean tissue.
The limits of that method were highlighted a few years ago when it was reported that the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category.
A number of experts say waist size is a more accurate way of determining someone's health risks, and the study results support that argument.
Dr. Robert Eckel, a former American Heart Association president and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, said the new research may help dismiss some of the generalizations that are sometimes made about weight and health.

Study co-author Judith Wylie-Rosett emphasized that the study shouldn't send the message "that we don't need to worry about weight."
That's because half of overweight people do face elevated risks for heart disease, explained Wylie-Rosett, a nutrition researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York
But, for those without elevated risks, losing weight "might be important only from a cosmetic perspective," she said.

To arrive at the estimates, scientists analyzed nationally representative government surveys involving 5,440 people age 20 and over, and extrapolated to calculate nationwide figures.
The new study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, used government surveys from 1999 to 2004 that included lab tests and height and weight measurements.
Participants reported on habits including smoking and physical activity.
In all weight categories, risk factors for heart problems were generally more common in older people, smokers and inactive people.
Among obese people who were 50 to 64, just 20 percent were considered healthy compared with half of younger obese people.
The results underscore how important exercise is for staying healthy, even for people of healthy weight, Wylie-Rosett said.

The authors noted that fat tissue releases hormones and other substances that affect things like blood vessels, cholesterol and blood sugar.
The results suggest this interaction varies among overweight and obese people, the authors said.
The results also add to mounting evidence that thick waists are linked with heart risks.
Among people of healthy weight in the study, elevated blood pressure, cholesterol and other factors were more common for people with larger waists or potbellies.
This often signals internal fat deposits surrounding abdominal organs, which previous research has shown can be especially risky.
Similarly, among overweight and obese adults, those in the "healthy" category tended to have smaller waists than those with at least two risk factors.
Dr. Lewis Landsberg, a Northwestern University obesity expert, noted that the research didn't look at heart disease, and that not everyone with high risk factors develops heart problems.
Still, he said, the study shows that waist measurements can help assess health.

*****

Never went too much for stereotypes anyway and this really isn't anything new to me.
I have been skewing and screwing the 'numbers' all my life.
I have always been heavier than I looked - muscles tend to do that for you - had a low heart rate and blood pressure and a respiration rate half of what a 'normal' person has, yet I was disqualified for several jobs because I weighed too much for the 'charts' said my height made my weight to be (always pushed the envelope in the Corps, too).

What was the most galling about some of those disqualifications was the fact that the ones 'disqualifying' me were sick puppies (and not just mentally, either) - there were high blood pressure sufferers (2), metabolic disorders (5) and a nervous condition (some were combinations) - while I was healthier than a horse!

Carolina Naturally is read in ...

Berlin, Hanover, Bad Vilbel, and Frankfurt, Germany
Sidney and Canberra, Australia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Singapore
Jakarta, Indonesia
Brampton, Ontario
Cuidad de Mexico, Mexico

As of this moment ...

500
Brave men and women are dead in Afghanistan
4143
Brave men and women are dead in Iraq

And these are only OUR troops, not counting the civilian and allied dead in these needless wars!

Support OUR troops ... Bring them home now!

Carolina Naturally is number 1

Carolina Naturally is ranked Number One on one of the biggest search engines and shows up at the top of the list of 22,000 blogs on that engine. Its sister blog comes in a Number Six.

Wow! Two blogs in the top ten.

And to think there were some that said it couldn't be done, especially by a blog that did not kowtow to the right-wing dogma and neo-con agenda like theirs.

Amazing what an independent mind and the truth can do, isn't it.

Thanks to all the readers who have those independent minds and know the truth when they see it for making this blog Number One.

And if you will excuse a moment of Childishness: Pfffffft to all you naysayers ... naner, naner, naner, naner.

Miniature cattle - family pets that provide milk

The Times Online reports on the Dexter cattle breed, “the world’s most efficient, cutest and tastiest cows."

For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the freezer.

The Dexter, a mountain breed from Ireland, is perfect for cattle-keeping on a small scale, but other breeds are being artificially created to compete with it, including the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus, which has been developed by the Australian government to stand no more than 39in high but produce 70% of the steak of a cow twice its size.

Just right for the garden: a mini-cow

Bumpersticker of the week

Honk!
If you like peace and quiet.

Ten Things

We've all seen those 'ten things about you' on Myspace. I have been tagged twice for them recently so here they are:

The Original Ten.

1. I like walking in the rain ... naked and in the jungle is even better while doing so.

2. I want to travel to all the places around the world I have lived in again ... at least the places I didn't leave too many bodies in

3. I used to wear glasses before the retna surgeries - thick ones too.

4. I have never drank or smoked or taken drugs and I still can party'em under the table just ask the Paris Police or the Rome Police or the Rio Police or ...

5. I am a voracious reader and have several thousand tomes on every subject imaginable (and yes, those, too), in my library.

6. I have memorized the lyrics to practically every song I have ever heard, but can't recite them without the music playing except for a couple of Beatles tunes.

7. I want to get back on stage this year - dramatic or comedic. I can do both. Maybe I just might take MaryBeth up on one if her offers - I mean three women at one time sounds nice doesn't it.

8. I have some wild and crazy friends. Some might say some are warped.

9. I like to find the little roadside hole-in-the-wall places be they cafes, junk shops or something else and try them out. Found some of my best friends that way.

10. I have been nose to nose with a skunk at 4AM on a mountainside and was so charming I came away unsprayed.

The Next Ten

1. I can cook and do so very well.

2. I can be quite comical, though the authorities in Frankfort didn't it think of it that way at the time.

3. I played soccer internationally as a teenager and this was before most Americans knew what soccer was. I played in France for the town of Bafleur in Normandy.

4. I can take the right wing off a fly resting on a horse's tail from a mile away and not touch the rest of the fly or the horse's tail with a rifle.

5. I cannot/will not abide stupidity.

6. I like to swim at night.

7. I love tea ... all kinds of tea.

8. I have seen an orange woman naked ... and yes, I do mean orange.

9. I like flowers and gardening.

10. I will always defend the defenseless.

Paying the Bills

From the you never really know, do you files:

Being a Greek Philosopher didn't really help Socrates pay the bills.
He was trained in the trade of stonecutting, which helped him earn a living

Inside the Hash House Harriers

When the name “Hash House Harriers” is brought up in general conversation, images of the drug-addled sitting around a house feeding their addiction often are conjured in the minds of the uninitiated. The fact of the matter, though, is that the Hash House Harriers is a global group of runners with their minds set on running, social networking and light-hearted frivolity.

The Hash House Harrier roots extend back to the old English schoolboy game of "Hares and Hounds," in which some players, called "hounds," chase others, called "hares," who have left a trail of paper scraps along their route across fields, hedges, streams, bogs, and hills. One of the earliest Hares and Hounds events on record was the "Crick Run" at Rugby School in Warwickshire, England, first held in 1837.

Hare and Hounds as an adult sport began in the fall of 1867 with a group of London oarsmen who wanted to keep fit during the winter. Also called "Paper Chasing" or the "Paper Chase," the game became very popular after its introduction on Wimbledon Common in 1868 by the Thames Hare and Hounds. Early clubs called themselves "Hare and Hounds" or simply "Harriers."

A.S.I., "G" Gispert (1903-1942)

The Hash House Harriers, as it is known, today was founded in Malaya (now Malaysia) by Albert Stephen Ignatius Gispert, an English chartered accountant.

It was sometime during 1937 when Gispert (or simply "G" as he was known to his friends) acquired a taste for the paper chase with the Springgit Harriers in Malacca (also in Malaya). Shortly after being transferred by his accounting firm to Kuala Lumpur he gathered together a number of fellow expatriate businessmen to form a harrier group. The first run was held in December 1938 and the founding members included Cecil H. Lee, Frederick "Horse" Thomson, Eric Galvin, H.M. Doig, and Ronald "Torch" Bennet.

The group's name came about primarily because local authorities required legal registration of clubs and organizations. While the "Kuala Lumpur Harriers" would have appeared a logical choice, "G" decided instead to use the nickname for the Selangor Club where a number of the local harriers both lived and took their meals. It seems that due to its lackluster food, the dining room was commonly referred to as the "Hash House."

The Original "Hash House," Kuala Lumpur, circa 1938

The philosophy of the original Hash House Harriers from the 1938 charter:

» To promote physical fitness among our members
» To get rid of weekend hangovers
» To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer
» To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel

Hashing in Kuala Lumpur was suspended during the World War II occupation by Japanese forces, but then reestablished after peace returned. It wasn't too long before the hash began slowly spreading around the world. Former members of the original Hash House Harriers started a hash in 1947 near Milan, Italy, but it wasn't until 1962 that the next group was formed in Singapore. The Singapore Hash was gradually followed by others until in 1973 there were approximately 35 hashes in 14 countries.

Subsequently, the hash began spreading like wildfire and the number of hashes soon climbed into the hundreds by the early 1980s. Today there are thousands of active hashes in over 180 countries, including over 500 in the United States.

Hashers are from a wide array of ages, running abilities and demographic backgrounds. Modern hares now mark the trails they lay with informative symbols and simple blobs of more eco-friendly flour and chalk rather than scraps of paper. The paths they follow range from simple, short street running to grueling cross-country tests of will and endurance. The harriers follow the laid path in a group effort to catch the hare, shouting "On! On!" to let other harriers know that they have found and are following the trail.

Hashers world-wide take a great deal of pride as they describe their organization (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) "a drinking club with a running problem". Hashes subscribe to the philosophy that the more participants the merrier and welcome all comers.

*****

Interesting isn't it?!

Just in case you missed it ...

... A Solar eclipse occurred between 3:35 a.m. and 6:44 a.m., yesterday(Sunday) morning.

Texas Polygamy: the soap opera continues

More than two months after being forced to return children from a polygamist sect to their parents, Texas child welfare authorities want eight of the youngsters put back in foster care.
Individual hearings for the four mothers of the children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, are set to begin Monday.
Child Protective Services has asked Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to return the children to foster care because their mothers allegedly have refused to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.
"We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

*****

Awww, here I done gone and thought is was over, yet it continues.

And I Quote

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

~ Albert Einstein

(The ol'boy had a sense of humor did he not?!)

Floods in the canyon

Days of heavy rains around the Grand Canyon caused an earthen dam to fail earlier today and created flooding that forced helicopters to pluck hundreds of residents and campers from the gorge.
No injuries were immediately reported.
The failure of the Redlands Dam caused some flooding in Supai, a village on a canyon floor where about 400 members of the Havasupai tribe live, said Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.
The current floods and potential for more required the evacuations, she said.
No structures were damaged after the dam failed about 45 miles upstream from Supai, but some hiking trails and footbridges were washed out, she said.
Trees were uprooted, the National Weather Service said.
Nearly 80 people had evacuated as of early Sunday evening, said Red Cross spokeswoman Tracey Kiest.
Evacuations were still in progress.

As much as 8 inches of rain since Friday caused trouble even before the dam burst.
A private boating party of 16 people was stranded on a ledge at the confluence of Havasu Creek and the Colorado River on Saturday night after flood waters carried their rafts away, Oltrogge said.
The boaters were found uninjured and were being rescued from the Grand Canyon, whose floor is unreachable in many places except by helicopter.
Rescuers were trying to find visitors staying at the Supai Campground and escort them to safety, Oltrogge said.
Evacuees were being flown to a parking area 8 miles from Supai and then, if needed, bused to a Red Cross shelter in Peach Springs, about 60 miles southwest of Supai, the spokeswoman said.

The area got 3 to 6 inches of ran Friday and Saturday and got about 2 more on Sunday, said Daryl Onton, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Flagstaff.
"That's all it took - just a few days of very heavy thunderstorms," he said.Supai is on Havasu and Cataract creeks about 30 miles northwest of Grand Canyon Village, a popular tourist area on the south rim.
Havasu Creek feeds the Colorado, which runs the length of the canyon.

The flooding came on a weekend during the busy summer tourist season, when thousands of visitors a day flock to the canyon for spectacular views, hikes or to raft its whitewater.
The helicopters lifting residents out were from the National Park Service, the National Guard and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Oltrogge said.

In 2001, flooding near Supai swept a 2-year-old boy and his parents to their deaths while they were hiking.

The Grand Canyon has been the traditional home of the Havasupai for centuries.

Disaster Area Tour

A fact we humans tend to overlook ...

... Nature's laws are the invisible government of the Earth.

The Warrior

The Warrior

Echoes among the laughter
show the hidden truths.
Everlasting sorrows wail
casting a pall over the Earth.

Even as the Demon's daughter
comes to ease and soothe.
Shadows etch across the pale
moon, void of its mirth ...

The Warrior stands tall
face toward the specter
answering the Clarion's call
to raise the Ancient Scepter.

Cold steel rises above
glistening with malicious intent
ever the Ewer devoid of love
arching upon its murderous descent.

The clamor of arms severe
spark the forest aflame.
Deafens all that are near.
So foul as to have no name.

Rage and ruin rain upon the soil
to the last gasp of the defeated.
In defending the One Soul
never hath he retreated.

When the battle has ceased
and the Light shines in the world
one stands increased
as all the banners are furled.

The Warrior has battled yet again
to win Light from Dark
with his body wracked with pain
He stands ... and he makes his mark!

*****

(From my book Through Different Eyes)

Fay is coming ...

... and it's best to be out of town when she does.

Officials urged visitors to leave the Florida Keys on Sunday ahead of Tropical Storm Fay, which forecasters said could strengthen to a hurricane.
Fay could start pelting parts of the Keys and south Florida as soon as Monday.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said a hurricane watch was in effect for the Florida Keys from south of Ocean Reef to Key West, and along the mainland from Card Sound Bridge west to Bonita Beach.

And I Quote

This will come as a shocker to some, but ...

The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

~ George Washington

I will be there, how about you?

In Yucatan, a maze of Maya stone temples found in underground caves

Email Picture

Mauicio Marat / EPA

An undated handout picture shows the inside of what Mexican archaeologists believe is the ancient Maya tribe underground network of caves called Xibalba, the underworld of these people is located in the Mexican state of Yucatan.

Archaeologists say the Maya believed the complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers was an underground road to a mythical underworld.

From Reuters

Mexican archaeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones.

Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers found the stone ruins of 11 sacred temples at the site on the Yucatan peninsula.

Archaeologists say the Maya believed the underground complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers, including an underground road stretching about 330 feet, was the path to a mythical underworld known as Xibalba.

According to the Popol Vuh, an ancient Maya scripture, the route was full of obstacles, including rivers filled with scorpions and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, said Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site. The souls of the dead were said to have followed a mythical dog who could see at night, he said Thursday.

"It is very likely this area was protected as a sacred depository for the dead or for the passage of their souls," De Anda said.

Different Maya groups who inhabited what is now southern Mexico and northern Guatemala and Belize had their own entrances to the underworld that archaeologists have discovered at other sites, almost always in cave systems buried deep in the jungle.

Excavations at the Yucatan site over the last five months revealed stone carvings and pottery left for the dead. Scientists found one 1,900-year-old ceramic vase, but most of the artifacts date between AD 700 and 850.

"These sacred tunnels and caves were natural temples and annexes to temples on the surface," De Anda said.

Eden in the Sahara

Scientists uncover skeletons thought to be as old as 10,000 years, when monsoon rains created a 'green Sahara.'

By Thomas H. Maugh II,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The tiny skeletal hand jutted from the sand as if beckoning the living to the long dead.

For thousands of years, it had lain unheeded in the most desolate section of the Sahara, surrounded by the bones of hippos, giraffes and other creatures typically found in the jungle.

• 

  Photos: When the Sahara was green

• 

  National Geographic video

A chance discovery by a team of American scientists has led to the unearthing of a Stone Age cemetery that is providing the first glimpses of what life was like during the still-mysterious period when monsoons brought rain to the desert and created the "green Sahara."

Read the article: LA Times

A fascinating piece on what many do not realize ... that the Sahara desert at one time was a paradise and could that it is remembered as Eden, Shangra La, Utopia, etc., in our collective consciousness.

Teddy is spinning in his grave about now

Plans to turn a secluded Badlands trail into a major road and river crossing might not have created such a stir if not for where it is: near the ranch where Theodore Roosevelt helped conceive the American conservation movement.

But as it is, hundreds of people and groups have flooded the officials in charge with their thoughts on the proposal, which has been stalled for years but now appears to be moving closer to reality.
Billings County officials want a crossing over the Little Missouri River and a road north of Medora to connect state Highways 16 and 85.
Proponents say it would cut as much as 100 miles off commutes, encourage economic development, and help fire trucks and ambulances respond faster."Our plan is not an evil plan, and we are not trying to terrorize the people who love the Badlands," said Jim Arthaud, a county commissioner. "We need this and we have a legal right to it."

But opponents fear it will become a road heavy with RVs and traffic from the area's oil booming industry, ruining an area that inspired the conservation-minded president.
"Teddy Roosevelt would be going nuts over this," said Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club. "It's going to alter the whole feel of the area if this road goes through."

All the county's proposed routes are within 2 1/2 miles of Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch, said Theodore Roosevelt National Park Superintendent Valerie Naylor.
"We're very concerned about the soundscape and any potential visual intrusion and dust," Naylor said. "It would forever impair a very special place."

Public comment is being accepted until Friday, said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration.
An environmental impact statement could be done by next spring, with a final decision in 2010, he said.
Sentiment is running about half and half, Hecox said, noting that locals' comments would hold more weight with regulators.
"A lot of folks are very supportive of it, and would like the benefit of shaving 90 to 100 miles off their commute," Hecox said.Billings County has just under 800 residents, according to the Census Bureau.

"Locals are all for it, but I wonder how heavy they (federal officials) will weigh it in a county ... losing population," Schafer said.

Arthaud, who also is a rancher and owns an oil trucking company, said an engineering firm hired by the county has identified three alternatives for the river crossing and road, all of which would at least partly traverse federal land.
Two of the routes would go through a 5,200-acre parcel, the former Blacktail Creek Ranch, next to Elkhorn.
The U.S. Forest Service completed the $5.3 million purchase last year, with $4.8 million coming from the federal government and $500,000 from conservation groups, including the Boone and Crockett Club, started by Roosevelt himself.
But the county won a court battle in 2005 to build a 6-mile long road and a low-water crossing through the Blacktail ranch when it was privately owned.
Forest Service spokeswoman Sherri Schwenke said the county still has a right to the road, which currently is little more than a jeep trail.
The three routes eyed by the county already have an existing roadbed and can easily be tied into existing farm-to-market road systems, Arthaud said.
"It's not like we just threw a dart. This is not only the logical location, but the only place that is feasible because of terrain," Arthaud said. "Otherwise, we'd have to plow through 6 miles of untouched Badlands."

Roosevelt, who was president from 1901 to 1909, set aside millions of acres for national forests and wildlife refuges during his administration.
He spent more than three years in the North Dakota Badlands in the 1880s.
He helped conceive the idea of conservation during the years he spent in the Badlands, said Lowell Baier, executive vice president of the Boone and Crockett Club, started by Roosevelt in 1887."We see it as the cradle of conservation, where the concept of conservation started in this country," Baier said."Find another route," he said. "Leave the sanctity of this place in silence."

Daily Funny

Definition:

Inflation (n) - is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten dollar haircut you got for five dollars when you had hair.

You can't stop the wind

And it keeps on rolling along ...

All 197 countries of the world have visited this little ol'blog and since I added the Flag Counter 108 have been back ... not bad for this humble Southern Boy's musings.

Some of the things they are saying about Carolina Naturally ...

"I found you blog to be very informative" - Malaysia
"Sacred elephants don't stand a chance of escaping unscathed" - Germany
"News with humor, Jon Stewart couldn't do any better" - United States
"I feel renewed inner peace when I read Carolina Naturally" - Nepal
"Scots rule, nice to read a fellow Scot's work" - Scotland
"Keep it up" - Australia
"I like the way all are treated fairly" - Pakistan
"Awesome, a Top Rank blog for sure" - United States

It's in the name

Carolina Naturally is read in ...

Olathe; Piscataway; Ooltewah;
Harve; Cle Elum; Pinckney;
New Braunfels; Olney;
Normal, Seal Beach; Chicopee:
Acton; Yulee;

'Least of my brothers ,,,'

Senator Barack Obama said today that the country's -- and his -- greatest moral failure has been selfishness.

"We still don't abide by that basic precept of Matthew -- whatever you do to the least of my brothers ... you do to me," Obama said.

As for himself: "I had a difficult youth ... I experimented with drugs and drank ... I trace this to a certain selfishness on my point ... I couldn't focus on other people," Obama told Pastor Rick Warren. "It's not about me."

Obama took the stage to a standing ovation at the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency at Warren's church in southern California, home to nearly 20,000 members.

*****

While he was citing a christian biblical quotation the way we treat others is a basic human tenet and reflected in all religions (granted in some cases it is a bit of a stretch, especially with fundamentalists - of every stripe).
It is refreshing to see and hear a politician actually make sounds that form real words and in a coherent pattern, the fact those words are closer to the truth (all politicians 'lie', that's a given) than we have heard in many years - particularly the last eight - is a bonus.

Horse-whipping is too good for him!

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is urging a change in state law after two kennels shot and killed 80 dogs.
Current state law allows kennel owners to euthanize their dogs.
Rendell said Saturday that he wants only veterinarians to be allowed to do so.

Officials say Elmer Zimmerman and his brother shot the dogs after an inspection July 24.
Wardens had ordered some of them to be checked for insect bites and had issued citations for their living conditions.

A hundred people attended a vigil outside the property Friday.

Elmer Zimmerman apologized, saying he thought he would face legal action if he didn't do something immediately.

Horse-whipping is too good for him ... too good by far!

Support the troops

If you support the troops then you must support Obama, otherwise you are not supporting the troops as they support Obama 6 to 1.

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain’s haul.

Despite McCain’s status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall — whether stationed overseas or at home — are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Of federal contributions by military personnel to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

If military personnel are putting their hard earned monies somewhere you can bet your bottom dollar they know what they are getting. The fact that they are giving it overwhelmingly to the Democratic candidate should be a wake up call to the troglodytes and sycophants howling about 'supporting our troops' all the while doing their ever-loving best to not support them.

I cannot wait to hear the 'spin' on these facts the smear mill will be generating, can you?!

Pot and Kettle

If there ever was a more clearer example of the Pot calling the Kettle 'black' than the shrub's recent vocal machinations toward Russia, I don't know what it could be!

Here are a few examples of the almighty gall the nincompoop has:

BBC

CBC

The idiot actually said ... "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," speaking to reporters at the White House.
He said Georgians have cast their lot with the free world and "we will not cast them aside."

Damn, that is one strange planet the shrub lives on and it is sure not like the one we humans inhabit. Bullying and intimidation are the bulwark of the foreign policy of the cabal and it is biting them in the arse now.

Oh, but there's more ... September's Vanity Fair has a feature editorial on the shrub's hubris.

This excerpt from the feature is but a small sampling of the idiocy that is the shrub:.

“Your eminence, you’re lookin’ good!,” Bush bellowed when he met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in June. A few weeks later, at the G-8 Summit in Japan to discuss climate change, he exited with an air punch and a cheery “Good-bye from the world’s biggest polluter!” The remark was met with stony silence by the other attendees, who didn’t seem to appreciate this attempt at hilarity from a man whose nation consumes a quarter of the world’s oil. The president’s vaunted ability to assess others in high office was also on display during this trip. After gazing into the eyes of Dmitri A. Medvedev, he pronounced the new Russian president to be “a smart guy.” They say that opposites attract, and the two really did seem to hit it off.

The entire feature can be found here.

Men Are Just Happier People --

WHY MEN ARE NEVER DEPRESSED:


Your last name stays put.

The garage is all yours.

Wedding plans take care of themselves.

Chocolate is just another snack.

You can never be pregnant.

Car mechanics tell you the truth.

The world is your urinal.

You never have to drive to another petrol station restroom because this one is just too icky.

You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.

Wrinkles add character.

People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.

New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.

One mood all the time.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

You know stuff about tanks and engines.

A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.

You can open all your own jars.

You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.

You never have strap problems in public.

You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color.

The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.

You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life.

One wallet and one pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons.

You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.

You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.

You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier!

Editor's Note: Sounds like a woman compiled this list to me, how about you?

Fool's Overture by Supertramp

Free Speech Mistrial

A teenager's free-speech lawsuit against a school dress code that banned Confederate flag clothing ended in a mistrial Friday when a jury in federal court failed to reach a verdict.
The panel of five women and three men deliberated about 13 hours over three days before telling U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan they couldn't reach a unanimous decision in the case of Tommy DeFoe, 18.
Lawyers for DeFoe and for the Anderson County School Board both claimed victory.
DeFoe's attorneys felt they convinced at least some jurors of the rightness of their claims.
The school board's attorney said the result leaves the ban against the Confederate flag in place.

Varlan dismissed the jury without polling it and told lawyers he would hold a hearing in the next few weeks to "talk about where we go from here."
Both sides suggested a second trial was more likely than a settlement.
"I am up for a new trial. I am ready. This ain't over yet," DeFoe, who wore a belt buckle with a Confederate battle flag every day of the five-day trial, said outside the courthouse.

DeFoe's lawsuit, the latest in a string of similar claims from Texas to South Carolina since the 1990s, argued the teen's rights to free speech, due process and equal protection were violated by a dress code in Anderson County, near Knoxville, that bars the Confederate symbol from student clothing.
The flag is considered a symbol of racism and intolerance by some, while others, like DeFoe, consider it an emblem of their Southern heritage.

School officials said they worried that displaying the banner would lead to racial tensions and violence at Anderson County High, which has had problems before, and at nearby Clinton High School, which was bombed two years after becoming the first public school desegregated by court order in the Old South in 1956.

DeFoe's lawyers countered there was no evidence that racial problems resulted directly from the apparel.
They also criticized the dress code for being a blanket policy that left no discretion to school principals.
DeFoe attended the high school at a time when just one out of 1,160 students was black and then went to an all-white county vocational school.
By the time he finished vocational school last fall, he had been suspended more than 40 times for wearing Confederate flag apparel.
He sued the school system in 2006.

Anderson County High Principal Greg Deal said he backs the dress code even if there was only one black student who might be offended.
"My feeling is, it doesn't matter how many kids I have in the school. I have the right to make sure that none of them come to school under fear of intimidation," Deal said.

DeFoe's attorney Van Irion said other, similar cases in the past have typically not gone to juries but instead were dismissed by judges or settled out of court."The fact that we have gotten this far and the fact that we came so close to a victory ... should send a message to all school boards in the country that if you are banning things based on the fact that it is offensive, that violates the Constitution," he said.

The panel was all white, though that was not the result of a selection strategy by either side.
No blacks were in the small group of randomly selected people from which the panel was selected, a reflection of the significant white majority in East Tennessee.

Eleven Hundred Posts In The Ground

Texan denies teaching kids to perform at sex club

Texas again ...

A Texas man accused of starting a "kindergarten" where children as young as 5 learned to have sex with each other and were given Vicodin-like "silly pills" to help them perform denied the charges Friday, saying the children were lying.
Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly, 41, is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
He is accused of helping teach the kids to have sex with each other and dance provocatively.
He also allegedly helped run the Mineola Swinger's Club, where prosecutors say the children performed for paying audiences.
The children, ages 5 to 7, were given Vicodin-like drugs passed off as "silly pills" to help them perform, prosecutors said.

Kelly denied knowledge of such pills.
He said he didn't touch the children or make the kids do any kind of sexual dancing.
He said he has never even been to the club, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported Friday on its Web site.
Four of the five child victims testifying for the state identified Kelly as one of the adults who sexually abused them.
If convicted, Kelly could face life in prison.
That was the sentence jurors handed down this year in the trials of two others linked to the club, Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo.

Four other defendants in the case are awaiting trial.

To my way of thinking upon conviction ... life in prison is too lenient ... a dark alley -- five minutes and no questions asked about what happened to the convicted person in that dark alley is more fitting.

Finally....

As Skippy the Bush Kangaroo says:

"Finally ...

Testicular fortitude is shown by the congresscritters of the donkey varietal.

House judiciary chairman John Conyers has taken the highly unusual step of calling
his committee back from summer recess in order to investigate allegations by
Ron Suskind that the bush administration forged a letter to buttress the links
made between Saddam and 9/11, and Saddam and WMD."

Let's see if these newly grown Cajones are brass or glass and the guilty (and the world knows they are) are punished.

Should Mein Kampf Be Un-Banned in Germany?

Adolf Hitler’s notorious Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a manifesto pretending to be an autobiography, has long been banned from German bookshelves “out of a responsibility and respect for the victims of the Holocaust.”
They should let it be read so all will know what a crackpot ol'Adi really was
But 83 years after it was first published, some Germans argue it should be made available again in order to drain it of whatever power it might still have.
A debate over the book is slowly growing in Germany, in part because Mein Kampf’s copyright, held by the state of Bavaria, will expire in 2015.
Then the book will enter the public domain, and anyone will be able to reprint the text. Academics and officials who fear that a flood of new editions may be abused by far-right extremists are now demanding that a carefully researched and critical edition of the 800-page tome be prepared as a way to demystify it.

Full Story: Time

They should let it be read by all so all will know what a crackpot ol'Adi really was (as if most don't know all ready).

It should be pointed out though that the nutcase did contribute one small thing positive to society ... he helped design the 'People's Car' or as it is known the Volkswagon (referred to affectionately as 'the Beetle'), ok, so maybe that is a poor example of a positive thing to contribute to society.
He did set the bar for hatred so damned low that even today's neo-nazi types have a hard time going under the bar - but some manage, anyway.

RIAA has to pay $107,951 for court costs in failed suit against disabled single mom

The RIAA has lost its lawsuit against Tanya Andersen, a disabled single mother, and have been ordered to pay her court costs of $107,951. But the good news keeps on coming: Ms Andersen is now countersuing for damages arising from her having to defend the suit.

"Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."

RIAA Pays Tanya Andersen $107,951

Karma is a bitch at times you know!

Paying the Piper

Monkey diplomacy is expensive

Full Story

Excerpt:

Well, it has finally happened. The crisis born of unilateralism, strategic overreach and bravado
has come to pass. With U.S. forces tied down in two protracted wars, American credibility
at a record low and our dependence on foreign oil painfully obvious, a revitalized Russia is
on the move. And the blow has fallen where most analysts expected it would: on America's
closest ally in the Caucasus, the tiny Republic of Georgia.

Conciliation, not confrontation, should have guided American foreign policy in Eastern Europe
during the past decade. Instead, Washington continued to poke the Russian bear with a stick.
If the U.S. could act unilaterally to invade a sovereign state, why couldn't Russia?

Woman who had dogs cloned wanted in Tennessee

A woman who made headlines by having five pups cloned and was linked to an abduction case in England is also wanted in Tennessee on charges she tried to plan a burglary in 2004, a defense attorney and prosecutors there said.

Joyce Bernann McKinney was charged in Carter County with criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to appear in court, said attorney David Crockett, who represented her in the Tennessee case.
Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house, and Crockett said she needed the money to buy a false leg for a beloved horse.
Crockett said Thursday he hasn't heard from her since she skipped a court date, but after seeing television coverage of the cloning case, he's certain she's the same person known to the world as dog lover Bernann McKinney.

Prosecutors are reviewing charges against the 58-year-old McKinney to decide whether to pursue the case, said Melanie Widener, an assistant district attorney for the county in the northeast part of the state near the North Carolina state line.
"It'll depend on where she is now, how important the case is, how much it would cost the taxpayers and whether witnesses are still around," she said.

McKinney declined comment when reached by phone Thursday.
McKinney was arrested in November 2004 in Tennessee in a van with the 15-year-old, according to a Carter County Sheriff's Department arrest report.
McKinney, then living across the state line in Avery County, N.C., needed money to help her three-legged horse, Crockett said.
"She loved it dearly," Crockett said.
"She was a rather bizarre character, and seems to have a strange circumstance now."
He recalled that McKinney had two or three dogs in her car when she conferred with him about her case.
"There was a strong aroma about her, and I told her this needed to be taken care of before I went to court with her," Crockett said.

McKinney made news around the world this summer when she had five pups cloned in South Korea from her beloved pit bull Booger.
She later confirmed she was Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 became a British tabloid sensation over the kidnapping case.
She faced charges of unlawful imprisonment after she was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave.
She jumped bail and was never brought to justice.

"She is bold to put herself on worldwide television," Crockett said. "She must know she's a fugitive in at least one state."

With the previous post so sadly making its words ring hollow I thought I would remind us all of the entire text of the oft quoted "Give me your tired ..."
Come this November the words may not ring as hollow as they do now.

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is wrong plain and simple

This is how the cabal treats us ...
They make a mistake and we are responsible for it ...

Man whose US immigration notice was sent to the wrong address is detained with untreated spinal cancer until he dies, denied access to his wife and children

A Hong Kong computer programmer who had legally resided in the US for 15 years (since he was 17) and fathered two American children went for his final green card interview and was locked up, detained until he died of cancer that the DHS refused to treat him for. He had overstayed a visa (the DHS sent a key notice to the wrong address), and this prompted the DHS to lock him away and demand that he waive all right to immigration appeal and be immediately deported. In detention, his complaints of excruciating back pain were treated as fakery, and he was dragged around in shackles after he lost the ability to walk, taken on long, bumpy drives while official demanded that he drop his immigration appeals. The jailers who caused his death were private contractors with fat deals with the DHS to lock up immigration detainees.

As he lay dying, his family -- wife and two children, aged 1 and 3 -- were denied access to him while the warden considered their request to visit.

"Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses..."

But his condition continued to deteriorate. Once a robust man who stood nearly six feet and weighed 200 pounds, his relatives said, Mr. Ng looked like a shrunken and jaundiced 80-year-old.

“He said, ‘I told the nursing department, I’m in pain, but they don’t believe me,’ ” his sister recalled. “ ‘They tell me, stop faking.’ ”

Soon, according to court papers, he had to rely on other detainees to help him reach the toilet, bring him food and call his family; he no longer received painkillers, because he could not stand in line to collect them. On July 26, Andy Wong, a lawyer associated with Mr. Cox, came to see the detainee, but had to leave without talking to him, he said, because Mr. Ng was too weak to walk to the visiting area, and a wheelchair was denied.

On July 30, according to an affidavit by Mr. Wong, he was contacted by Larry Smith, a deportation officer in Hartford, who told him on a speakerphone, with Mr. Ng present, that he wanted to resolve the case, either by deporting Mr. Ng, or “releasing him to the streets.” Officer Smith said that no exam by an outside doctor would be allowed, and that Mr. Ng would not be given a wheelchair.

Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands

And I Quote

It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be?

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

No Neanderthal In You, Says Ancient DNA

Scientists who sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal returned no evidence of ancestral interbreeding with our long-lost cousins.

That mild disappointment aside, the study, published today in Cell, is an impressive technical achievement.

“For the first time, we’ve built a sequence from ancient DNA that is essentially without error,” said study co-author Richard Green, a Max-Planck Institute anthropologist, in a press release.

They could do so in part because the mitochondrial genome, housed in cell-powering mitochondria rather than cell nuclei, contains just 37 genes. (The full human genome contains about 25,000 genes.) The researchers sequenced their sample no fewer than 37 times.

Because mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child without mixing with a father’s genetic material, it gives evolutionary anthropologists a well-marked trail into the past.

Scientists eventually hope to sequence a full Neanderthal genome.

Berkeley Scientists: World In ‘Mass Extinction Spasm’

Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just the deaths of frogs and salamanders, University of California, Berkeley scientists said Tuesday.

Researchers said substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet, the scientists said in an online article this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There’s no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now,” said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. “Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn’t. The fact that they’re cutting out now should be a lesson for us.”

New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species, scientists said.

Extreme cases of this are called mass extinction events. There have been only five in our planet’s history, until now, scientists said.

Full Story: NBC

Former La. police officer indicted in Taser death

As they should have ...

A former police officer accused of repeatedly jolting a handcuffed man with a Taser before he died was indicted on a manslaughter charge Wednesday by a grand jury in central Louisiana.
The Winn Parish grand jury also indicted former Winnfield police officer Scott Nugent on a charge of malfeasance in office stemming from the Jan. 17 death of Baron Pikes, 21.
Pikes was shocked nine times with a 50,000-volt Taser as he was arrested on a drug possession warrant in January, authorities said.
Winn Parish District Attorney Chris Nevils said Nugent broke the law when he "unnecessarily" used the Taser on Pikes multiple times and failed to get him medical attention "when it was apparent he needed it."
"In a civilized society, abuse by those who are given great authority cannot be tolerated," Nevils said in a statement.

Ability to sniff out a compatible partner affected by taking contraceptives

And we mean that sniffing thing literally.

As Jeanna Bryner writes:

Birth control pills could screw up a woman's ability to sniff out a compatible mate, a new study finds.

While several factors can send a woman swooning, including big brains and brawn, body odor can be critical in the final decision, the researchers say. That's because beneath a woman's flowery fragrance or a guy's musk the body sends out aromatic molecules that indicate genetic compatibility.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are involved in immune response and other functions, and the best mates are those that have different MHC smells than you. The new study reveals, however, that when women are on the pill they prefer guys with matching MHC odors.

MHC genes churn out substances that tell the body whether a cell is a native or an invader. When individuals with different MHC genes mate, their offspring's immune systems can recognize a broader range of foreign cells, making them more fit.

Past studies have suggested couples with dissimilar MHC genes are more satisfied and more likely to be faithful to a mate. And the opposite is also true with matchng-MHC couples showing less satisfaction and more wandering eyes.

"Not only could MHC-similarity in couples lead to fertility problems," said lead researcher Stewart Craig Roberts, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Newcastle in England, "but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odor perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners."

Sexy scents
The study involved about 100 women, aged 18 to 35, who chose which of six male body-odor samples they preferred. They were tested at the start of the study when none of the participants were taking contraceptive pills and three months later after 40 of the women had started taking the pill more than two months prior.

For the non-pill users, results didn't show a significant preference for similar or dissimilar MHC odors. When women started taking birth control, their odor preferences changed. These women were much more likely than non-pill users to prefer MHC-similar odors.

"The results showed that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odors," Roberts said.

Pregnant state
Based on the work by Claus Wedekind, a University of Lausanne researcher who preformed similar studies in the 1990s, Roberts suggests a likely reason for the pill's effect on a woman's odor preferences. The pill puts a woman's body into a hormonally pregnant state (the reason she doesn’t ovulate), and during that time there would be no reason to seek out a mate.

"When women are pregnant there's no selection pressure, evolutionarily speaking, for having a preference for genetically dissimilar odors," Roberts said. "And if there is any pressure at all it would be towards relatives, who would be more genetically similar, because the relatives would help those individuals rear the baby."

So the pill puts a woman's body into a post-mating state, even though she might be still in the game.

”The pill is in effect mirroring a natural shift but at an inappropriate time,” Roberts told LiveScience.

The results are detailed in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The Naked Vacation: Tips for Basking in the Buff

The New York Times had a fabulously informative article on how to vacation naked.

First thing you should know is that the word “nudist” is so last season - that's “naturist” to you clothing-compulsive types.

The article listed out several free-range-epidermis vacations that are fun. Sun? Cruises? Buffets?

So, it is a little late in the season, but there is always next year!

Venomous lionfish on the prowl in fragile Caribbean waters

A maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes is rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean's warm waters, swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on an ecologically delicate region.
The red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans that probably escaped from a Florida fish tank, is showing up everywhere - from the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola to Little Cayman's pristine Bloody Bay Wall, one of the region's prime destinations for divers.
Wherever it appears, the adaptable predator corners fish and crustaceans up to half its size with its billowy fins and sucks them down in one violent gulp.

Research teams observed one lionfish eating 20 small fish in less than 30 minutes.
"This may very well become the most devastating marine invasion in history," said Mark Hixon, an Oregon State University marine ecology expert who compared lionfish to a plague of locusts. "There is probably no way to stop the invasion completely."

A white creature with maroon stripes, the red lionfish has the face of an alien and the ribbony look of something that survived a paper shredder - with poisonous spikes along its spine to ward off enemies.
The invasion is similar to that of other aquarium escapees such as walking catfish and caulerpa, a fast-growing form of algae known as "killer seaweed" for its ability to crowd out native plants.
The catfish are now common in South Florida, where they threaten smaller fish in wetlands and fish farms.
In Africa, the Nile Perch rendered more than 200 fish species extinct when it was introduced into Lake Victoria.
The World Conservation Union calls it one of the 100 worst alien species invasions.
"Those kinds of things happen repeatedly in fresh water," Hixon said. "But we've not seen such a large predatory invasion in the ocean before."

The lionfish so far has been concentrated in the Bahamas, where marine biologists are seeing it in every habitat: in shallow and deep reefs, off piers and beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, in mangrove thickets that are vital habitats for baby fish.
Some spots in the Bahamian archipelago between New Providence and the Berry Islands are reporting a tenfold increase in lionfish just during the last year.
Northern Caribbean islands have sounded the alarm, encouraging fishermen to capture lionfish and divers to report them for eradication.

The invasion would be "devastating" to fisheries and recreational diving if it reached Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Eugenio Pineiro-Soler of the Caribbean Fishery Management Council.
"I think at the best they will have a huge impact on reef fish, and at the worst will result in the disappearance of most reef fish," said Bruce Purdy, a veteran dive operator who has helped the marine conservation group REEF with expeditions tracking the invasion.
Purdy said he has been stung several times while rounding up lionfish - once badly."It was so painful, it made me want to cut my own hand off," he said.

Researchers believe lionfish were introduced into the Atlantic in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew shattered a private aquarium and six of them spilled into Miami's Biscayne Bay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Biologists think the fish released floating sacs of eggs that rode the Gulf Stream north along the U.S. coast, leading to colonization of deep reefs off North Carolina and Bermuda.
Lionfish have even been spotted as far north as Rhode Island in summer months, NOAA said.
They are not aggressive toward humans, and their sting is not fatal.
There are no estimates so far of tourists who have been stung.
But marine officials say swimmers will be more at risk as the venomous species overtakes tropical waters along popular Caribbean beaches.

The slow-moving fish, which measures about 18 inches, is easy to snare, though lionfish swim too deep for divers to catch in nets - a common method of dealing with invasive species.
So researchers are scrambling to figure out what will eat the menacing beauties in their new Caribbean home, experimenting with predators such as sharks, moray eels - and even humans.
Adventurous eaters describe the taste of lionfish fillets as resembling halibut.
But so far, they are a tough sell.
Hungry sharks typically veer abruptly when researchers try to hand-feed them a lionfish."We have gotten (sharks) to successfully eat a lionfish, but it has been a lot of work. Most of our attempts with the moray eel have been unsuccessful," said Andy Dehart of the National Aquarium in Washington, who is working with REEF in the Bahamas.

One predator that will eat lionfish is grouper, which are rare in the lionfish's natural Southeast-Asian habitat.
Scientists are pinning long-range hopes on the establishment of new ocean reserves to protect grouper and other lionfish predators from overfishing.
Hixon said there is some evidence that lionfish have not invaded reefs of the fully protected Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a 176-square-mile reserve southeast of Nassau.
But unprotected locations in the vast archipelago are more vulnerable.
Containing the spread of the lionfish is an uphill fight.
As lionfish colonize more territory in the Caribbean, they feed on grazing fish that keep seaweed from overwhelming coral reefs already buffeted by climate change, pollution and other environmental pressures.
Dehart said: "If we start losing these smaller reef fish as food to the lionfish ... we could be in a whirlwind for bad things coming to the reef ecosystem."

And here I just posted a link to some pretty reef pictures and then this news ... tain't funny to fool around with Ma Nature, she has a way of 'getting even' as it were.

What a ride

Betty Skelton Erde is 82 and lives in a retirement community where many are content to putter about in golf carts.
Not Erde: She drives a blazing red Corvette to match her red hair and really means it when she says, "I like fast cars."
An auto racing pioneer, Erde (Uhr-Dee) once was the fastest woman on Earth, setting female speed records at Daytona Beach and Utah's Bonneville salt flats half a century ago.
On Wednesday, she reaches a new milestone as only the fifth woman inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in suburban Detroit.
She also becomes the 174th person honored; Erde will attend the ceremony in which Champ Car driver Michael Andretti and five other racing legends also are being inducted.
Dozens of firsts are attached to her name: the auto industry's first female test driver, in 1954; the first woman to set a world land speed record in 1956 (145 mph at Daytona Beach); and then the world land speed record for women in 1965, hitting 315.72 mph at Bonneville.

You go girl!

National Debt

Just in case you were wondering how much debt the world's largest debtor nation has ...

National Debt Clock

Dirty Water

Pearl of Wisdom

A man is not truly married until he understands every word his wife is NOT saying.

NOAA's gallery of coral photography

Thanks to the folks over at Boing Boing for bringing this to our attention, this pictures are great!

NOAA has an amazingly awesome gallery of photos from their work studying coral reef ecosystems.
Coral reefs are extremely imperiled all over the world due to climate change, overfishing and pollution, not to mention humans physically 'taking mementos from them' and literally tearing them apart that way.
Carolina Naturally readers might want to see these photos before many of the reefs depicted are gone.
If you ever get the chance to see a reef live and up close and personal - do so ... just be careful and look only - they are beautiful sights but extremely fragile when humans get involved with them.
Check out the photos at Welcome to "The Coral Kingdom."

Childish Police

Cops in Oldham, UK broke into the wrong house while searching for a fugitive; rather than leaving an official note or apology after smashing in the door, they used the magnetic letters on the fridge to spell out OLDHAM TASK FORCE CALLED.

"When I came home I noticed the fridge magnets had been rearranged and said: `OLDHAM TASK FORCE CALLED'. "These are for children, they're not for the police to leave a message they've raided your house."

Police's fridge-magnet calling card

Stone Arch Collapses

One of the largest and most photographed arches in Arches National Park has collapsed.

Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said Wall Arch collapsed sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.

The arch is along Devils Garden Trail, one of the most popular in the park.

For years, the arch has been a favorite stopping point for photographers.

Henderson said the arch was claimed by forces that will eventually destroy others in the park: gravity and erosion.

Iraq demands 'clear timeline' for US withdrawal

Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear time line" for the departure of U.S. troops.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were "very close" to reaching a long-term security agreement that will set the rules for U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
Zebari said the Iraqis were insisting that the agreement include a "very clear time line" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

*****

Now, you would think the Iraqis would want our troops to occupy their nation for the next hundred years just like McPain wants them to, wouldn't you! After all we have destabilized the entire region and wrought incalculable havoc upon their nation ... all for a few greedy perverts. The ungrateful ingrates!

[Editor's Note: There is no sarcasm contained in the proceeding paragraph - none whatsoever]

Louisiana bans cockfighting, finally

Gory and bucolic all at once, cockfights have drawn crowds to small-time pits and full-blown arenas in towns around Louisiana for generations.
By next week, they'll be against the law. Everywhere.
On Friday, Louisiana will become the last state to outlaw the rooster fights, a move that cockfighting enthusiasts say marks the end of a rich rural tradition.
"The culture, the custom of the Cajun people, it's gone," said Chris Daughdrill, who breeds fighting roosters in Loranger (lor-AHN-zher), a community about 50 miles north of New Orleans. "It's another one of the rights that big government has taken away from the people."(typical response from the ignorant)
Maybe so, but supporters and opponents agree that the blood sport won't be wiped out entirely. Like bootlegging, cockfights will continue on the sly in remote areas, and getting caught could mean fines or even prison.

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

What with all the troglodyte smears going round and about n talk radio and the media (and doubtless more to come as they get ever more desperate to prevent something they cannot ... the return of our nation to us this November), I thought it would be good to review and oldie but a goodie from John Gray

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

~John Gray

Father of former Olympian killed in Beijing

It is a sad state of affairs to say the least when sporting events are thusly perverted ...

The fatal stabbing of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark cast a pall over the first full day of Olympic competition Saturday, just hours after China's jubilant opening of the Summer Games.

Todd and Barbara Bachman of Lakeville, Minn. - parents of 2004 volleyball Olympian Elisabeth "Wiz" Bachman and in-laws of U.S. men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon - were attacked by a Chinese man while visiting the 13th-century Drum Tower.

The assailant, Tang Yongming, 47, leapt to his death from a 130-foot high balcony on the Drum Tower, just five miles from the main Olympics site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed Bachman died from knife wounds and that Barbara Bachman suffered life-threatening lacerations and stab wounds. She and their Chinese tour guide, who was also injured in the attack, were being treated in a Beijing hospital.

Leadership Type

Not surprising that the Leadership Profile Type test at Military.Com says I am like Teddy Roosevelt.
He was a in the front, lead by example type of leader as well as a skilled diplomat when needed just like I am.









Take the test

Fingerprint test reveals than you think

Fingerprint test reveals if owner has touched drugs, explosives, and poisons, etc.

In today's edition of the journal Science, R. Graham Cooks, a professor of chemistry at Purdue University, describes a mass spectrometry technique that to test fingerprints to learn what the person has been touching, including drugs, explosives, and poisons.

Because the spatial resolution is on the order of the width of a human hair, the Desi technique did not just detect the presence of, for instance, cocaine on the surface, but literally showed a pattern of cocaine in the shape of the fingerprint, leaving no doubt who had left the cocaine behind.

Fingerprint test tells much more than identity

California Supreme Court: Non-compete clauses are not enforceable

This is great news for workers ...

The California State Supreme Court has ruled that non-compete clauses in employment contracts are not enforceable in California. I'm reminded of the study from the Duke Center for the Public Domain that concluded that the reason that the tech corridor on Route 128 near Boston had grown so much more slowly than Silicon Valley was that Massachusetts has enforceable non-competes, while California does not. The researcher concluded that in California, the best talent moved to the best companies, while on Route 128, crummy companies could lock up great people for years at a time through non-compete agreements.

Note that none of this invalidates confidentiality agreements -- you're still not allowed to disclose secrets -- but you're allowed to work for whomever will hire you, without the cold dead hand of your last boss tugging on your belt.

Californians have the right to move from one company to another or start their own business and can't be prohibited by their employer from working for a competitor in their next job, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a unanimous decision, the justices said state law since 1872 has forbidden what are called non-compete clauses that restrict management employees' options after they leave a company.

State Supreme Court rejects noncompete clauses

Daily Funny

Mildred was a 93 year-old woman who was particularly despondent over the recent death of her husband, Earl.
She decided that she would just kill herself and join him in death.
Thinking that it would be best to get it over with quickly, Mildred took out Earl's old Army pistol and made the decision to shoot herself in the heart, since it was so badly broken in the first place.
Not wanting to miss the vital organ and become a vegetable and a burden to someone, she called her doctor's office to inquire as to just exactly where the heart was located.
"On a woman," the doctor said, "your heart would be just below your left breast."
Later that night, Mildred was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to her knee.