A Metaphor

Catholics versus Jews

In the Fourteenth century, the Pope decrees that all Jews living in Italy must convert to Catholicism, or be thrown out of the country.
A huge outcry erupts and it is decided that a religious debate between the leaders will decide the fate of the Jews.
The Pope and an aged and wise Rabbi meet, neither understands their language, so it is decided to have a silent debate, using gestures.
Firstly the Pope raises his hand and shows three fingers
the rabbi responds with one finger.
Secondly the Pope waves his finger around his head
the Rabbi responds by pointing to the ground.
Finally the Pope brings out a communion wafer and some wine.
The Rabbi pulls out an apple.

With that the Pope declares himself beaten, and the Jews are allowed to stay in Italy.

Later on the Pope meets his cardinals to explain what happened
The Pope said "First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity, he held up one finger to remind us that one God is common to both our beliefs
Next I waved my hand to show that God is all around us, he responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was here with us, and finally I brought out wine and wafers to show that God absolves us of all our sins, he produced an apple to remind us of the original sin, with that I realized he had won the argument"
The Rabbi returns to his people and is asked how he had won

The Rabbi replies "Not got a clue, first he told me we had three days to get out of Italy, I gave him the finger. Next he tells me the country would be rid of Jews, and I told him we were staying right here"
What then? He was asked, "Who knows, he took out his lunch, and I took out mine"

*****

There's story in there somewhere ...

Eve of Destruction

As true today as it was then ...

... except today we are well into the day of destruction ...

Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Well I'm here to tell you
each and every mother's son.
You better learn it fast,
you better learn it young.
'Cause Someday never comes."

Street corner science lessons with a Nobel Laureate

This is a cool idea ...












In 1988, Leon Lederman shared a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work to understand elementary particles called neutrinos. ScienCentral set Lederman up with a desk on a street corner and encouraged curious passersby to ask science questions. The two-part video was part of SciCentral's Web show series called "Street Corner Science." Lederman talked about time travel, nuclear power, and, particle physics.

Street Corner Science with Leon Lederman

Comments, Comments, Comments

What they are saying:

Hi, It is nice to be a part of your world. Rich

Repugicans! I like that term, it suits them. Joaine

Great blog. Hope you are having a wonderful day. Stephanie

Anchorage loves Carolina Naturally. Keep it up. James

Good for you. Nice blog. It’s been a long time since ’78. Gilles

(editor's note: Gilles was an exchange student who stayed with us back in '78. And he just found my blog)

你好，从北京。 爱您的博客。 黄 (Hello, from Beijing. Love your blog. Huang)

Biting humor didn't die with George! Marie

I took a hard look in the mirror, thanks. Eduard

Thanks for the comments folks keep them coming.

Daily Conundrum

Does not expecting the unexpected make the unexpected, expected?

Obama Unharmed by Rabid Chihuahua Attack

DETROIT, MICHIGAN- During a campaign event over the weekend, Presidential candidate Barack Obama found himself distracted by an odd tugging at his pant leg. He looked down and discovered a tiny chihuahua ferociously chewing on his ankle.

Instinctively, his aides rushed in to whisk the Senator off to the nearest emergency room, but in the end this proved to be unnecessary. For all its growling and gnashing of teeth, the animal had failed to break the skin. As a matter of fact, Obama suffered no discernible injury whatsoever other than an uncomfortable moist and slightly sticky sensation. He was so nonchalant about the so-called attack that he didn't even bother to remove the thing as it continued to munch on him.

Read the rest here.

A 2-to-1 ratio

By a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks.

As a result of this Obama's advantage, is growing.

Fifty-one percent of registered voters now say they will back Obama.

Where did Obama make his gains?

In two core McPain constituencies: men, who now favor Obama, and seniors, who have also flipped from McPain to Obama.

Lest you Forget ...

As of Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, at least 525 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Iraqi's warmth to Israel exacts a heavy price

First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi's troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state - something Iraq's leaders refuse to consider.

The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel - a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party's sole seat in parliament.

Because he had visited Israel, many Iraqis assume the maverick legislator was the real target of the assassins who killed his sons in 2005 while he escaped unharmed.

Now he is in trouble for again visiting Israel and attending a conference a week ago at the International Institute for Counterterrorism.

"He wasn't set to speak, but he was in the audience and conversed with a lecturer on a panel about insurgency and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel," said conference organizer Eitan Azani. "We didn't invite him. He came on his own initiative."

Al-Alusi has a German passport, allowing him to travel without visa restrictions imposed on other Iraqis. Lawmakers accused him of humiliating the nation with a trip to the "enemy" state.

The uproar shows how far Iraq has moved from the early U.S. goal of creating a democracy that would make peace with Israel and remove a critical force from the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The U.S. Embassy declined comment. "It is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Mission to Iraq," said spokesman Armand Cucciniello.

"What has happened was a catastrophe for democracy," Al-Alusi told The Associated Press in an interview in his Baghdad home. "Within an hour's time, the parliament became the policeman, the investigator, the judge, the government and the law. It was a sham trial."

Al-Alusi said he went to Israel to seek international support for Iraq as it struggles against terrorism, and insisted that the outcry reflects Iranian meddling in Iraq's internal affairs - an accusation often leveled by Sunnis like himself against Iraq's mostly Shiite neighbor.

"Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah and many other terrorist organizations. Israelis are suffering like me, like my people. So we need to be together," he said. "Peace will have more of a chance."

Iraq sent troops to three Arab wars against Israel, and fired Scud missiles at it in the 1991 Gulf War. It remains technically at war with the Jewish state. Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community has shriveled to just a few people, most having fled after Israel was founded in 1948.

"Al-Alusi has insulted the hundreds of Iraqi martyrs who fell while fighting the Israelis," said Osama al-Nujeifi, a Sunni lawmaker. "It was a provocative visit to a historical enemy."

In Al-Alusi's living room, decorated with oriental rugs and paintings, his two dead sons, aged 19 and 29, smile from a photo hanging next to a stately grandfather clock.

A secular Muslim, he lit a cigarette during an interview even though this is the Muslim month of Ramadan, when food, water and smoking are forbidden during daylight hours.

Al-Alusi, 55, has a long history of clashes with authority and spent half his life in exile.

He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1976 - he was studying in Cairo at the time - for allegedly trying to undermine Saddam Hussein. He went to Syria and Germany, returning in 2003 after the dictator was overthrown.

Even in exile, he caused commotion, leading a group that stormed the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin in 2002 to protest against Saddam's regime. A German court convicted him of hostage-taking and other charges, but he appealed and never served his full sentence of three years.

In 2004, he was expelled from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress for his earlier visit to Israel, also for a terrorism conference.

In February 2005 came the ambush. Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, a former culture minister in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death last month on charges he planned the ambush. Al-Hashimi remains a fugitive.

After his expulsion from the Iraqi National Congress, al-Alusi formed the Iraqi Nation Party, which he describes as a "liberal, secular and democratic party" with 12,000 members.

Al-Alusi said Iraq should follow Jordan and Egypt in seeking peace with Israel, especially since Syria is moving in that direction. He insists Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians.

"We should act now because if the Syrian-Israel talks succeed, this means that Iraq will be isolated," he said. "It's the right time to open a new phase with Israel."

'Merchant of Death' in Thai court

An arms smuggler's extradition hearing to the United States began Monday after a string of delays in the high-profile case because of complications with his defense team in Thailand.

Viktor Bout, dubbed "The Merchant of Death," has been indicted in the U.S. on four terrorism charges. He was arrested in Thailand on March 6.

Though Bout denies any involvement in illicit activities, he is regarded as one of the world's most-wanted arms traffickers and was purportedly the model for the character portrayed by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie "Lord of War."

Chained at the ankles, Bout made no comment as he was led into Bangkok's Criminal Court.

Monday's hearing was briefly interrupted at the start when defense attorney Preecha Prasertsak petitioned the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the Russian had been illegally detained. After a half-hour adjournment, judges said the complaint would be considered at a later date.

Bout's defense team has repeatedly said she plans to fight his extradition, a procedure that has been bogged down by the Russian's inability to hold onto a lawyer.

The hearing was initially scheduled to start June 9 but was postponed when Bout's attorney at the time said he had heart problems.

Bout was then given a court-appointed attorney who failed to show up for the rescheduled hearing on July 28, saying he had another case in court at the same time. That lawyer was dismissed and Bout was assigned representation by Preecha.

It was not immediately clear how long the extradition proceedings would take.

The 41-year-old Russian faces charges of conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile, according to a U.S. indictment made public May 6. He faces a life sentence.

American prosecutors say Bout was offering a deadly arsenal of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, including more than 700 surface-to-air missiles, thousands of guns, high-tech helicopters, and airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles. The U.S. classifies FARC as a terrorist organization.

The charges were based in part on a covertly recorded meeting in Thailand on March 6. Bout was arrested after a sting operation in which undercover U.S. agents posed as Colombian rebels.

Bout, who has been accused of breaking several U.N. arms embargoes, has a long list of alleged clients including African dictators and warlords such as former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and both sides of the civil war in Angola.

Police say officer feared insulin pump was weapon

This is why we need better educated policemen ...

Police officers in two Detroit suburbs are accused of beating a motorist who was suffering a diabetic episode on a freeway.

Lawyer Arnold Reed says 59-year-old Ernest Griglen had brain surgery after the June 15 encounter with police and has been clinging to life with help from a ventilator.

Reed filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court seeking at least $20 million from Allen Park and Dearborn police. He says officers mistakenly believed Griglen was resisting arrest when he was having a major medical problem.

An Allen Park police report says Griglen's car was swerving.

Allen Park police wouldn't comment on the lawsuit. Dearborn police released a report saying an officer feared Griglen's insulin pump was a weapon.

Woman whose dogs mauled neighbor gets 15 to life

A woman whose dogs viciously attacked and killed her neighbor in the hallway of their apartment building seven years ago was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in prison.

Marjorie Knoller was convicted of second-degree murder in the 2001 mauling death of Dianne Whipple, but a judge later reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her in 2002 to a four-year prison term.

But the California Supreme Court last year said the trial judge was wrong and sent the case back. Last month, Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard reinstated the murder conviction, for which Knoller was sentenced Monday.

The case is the California's first murder conviction connected to a dog mauling, prosecutors say.

The case turned into a tabloid sensation because of the viciousness of the attack - the dogs tore all of Whipple's clothing from her body and left her with more than 70 bites - and the seemingly cavalier attitudes of Knoller and her law partner and husband, Robert Noel, who blamed Whipple for the attack.

The couple also said they were keeping the canines on behalf of a white supremacist accused of running an attack dog ring from his state prison cell. The couple eventually adopted the prisoner, Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, as their son.

Knoller, who has served three years in prison, will have to serve 12 more years before she can apply for parole.

In denying Knoller's plea for probation, Woolard noted that Knoller didn't call 911 or otherwise try to help Whipple during the 10-minute attack. The judge said Knoller knew the dogs were dangerous, ignored numerous warnings to train them and hasn't expressed remorse for the attack.

"She has blamed the victim and has held her dogs in higher regard than humans," Woolard said.

Whipple's partner, Sharon Smith, addressed Knoller before she was led off to jail. Smith called Knoller's relationship with the two dogs and the prisoner "perverted" and expressed satisfaction with the lengthy prison sentence.

"It is very hard to find forgiveness for someone who doesn't accept responsibility," Smith said.

Experts say Stonehenge was place of healing

The first excavation of Stonehenge in more than 40 years has uncovered evidence that the stone circle drew ailing pilgrims from around Europe for what they believed to be its healing properties, archaeologists said Monday.

Archaeologists Geoffrey Wainwright and Timothy Darvill said the content of graves scattered around the monument and the ancient chipping of its rocks to produce amulets indicated that Stonehenge was the primeval equivalent of Lourdes, the French shrine venerated for its supposed ability to cure the sick.

An unusual number of skeletons recovered from the area showed signs of serious disease or injury. Analysis of their teeth showed that about half were from outside the Stonehenge area.

"People were in a state of distress, if I can put it as politely as that, when they came to the Stonehenge monument," Darvill told journalists assembled at London's Society of Antiquaries.

He pointed out that experts near Stonehenge have found two skulls that showed evidence of primitive surgery, some of just a few known cases of operations in prehistoric Britain.

"Even today, that's the pretty serious end of medicine," he said. Also found near Stonehenge was the body of a man known as the Amesbury Archer, who had a damaged skull and badly hurt knee and died around the time the stones were being installed. Analysis of the Archer's bones showed he was from the Alps.

Darvill cautioned, however, that the new evidence did not rule out other uses for Stonehenge.

"It could have been a temple, even as it was a healing center," Darvill said. "Just as Lourdes, for example, is still a religious center."

The archaeologists managed to date the construction of the stone monument to about 2,300 B.C., a couple of centuries younger than was previously thought. It was at that time that bluestones - a rare rock known to geologists as spotted dolomite - were shipped by hand or by raft from Pembrokeshire in Wales to Salisbury Plain in southern England, to create the inner circle of Stonehenge.

The outer circle, composed of much larger sandstone slabs, is what most people associate with the monument today, particularly since only about a third of the 80 or so bluestones remain. The scientists argued that they were once at the heart of Stonehenge, and closely associated with its healing properties.

As evidence, Darvill said his dig had uncovered masses of fragments carved out of the bluestones by people to create amulets. Any rock carried around in such a way would have had some sort of protective or healing property, he said. He said that theory was backed by burials in southwest England where the stones were interred with their owners.

Today the bluestones are now largely invisible, dwarfed by the huge sandstone monoliths - or "hanging stones" - that were erected later and still make up Stonehenge's iconic profile.

"They are of course quite impressive when you see them," Darvill said. "But in a sense they are the elaboration of a structure which kicked off with the bluestones."

Both archaeologists quoted the 12th-century monk Geoffrey of Monmouth as saying the stones were thought to have medicinal properties. They also said that evidence uncovered by their dig showed that people were moving and chipping off pieces of the bluestones through the Roman period and even into the Middle Ages.

Darvill said he felt the "folklore interest" in the bluestones into modern times suggested some sort of lingering memory of their supposed healing powers.

"That would be for me the single strongest piece of evidence," he said.

Andrew Fitzpatrick, from British heritage group Wessex Archaeology, said Darvill and Wainwright's discovery was "very important" but that the healing theory, while plausible, was not the only one.

"I don't think we can rule out the other main competing theory - that the temple was a meeting point between the land of the living and the dead," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

The scientists announced their findings Monday, ahead of a documentary due to air on the BBC and the Smithsonian Channel on Saturday, Sept. 27.

*****

My favorite TV channel is W-OFF, but I will be tuning in to the BBC, Saturday for the documentary.

Whar da White Wimmins be at?

To here the repugicans blubber on about it you think all white women in America are voting for McPain because he picked Palin so they would not have to vote for the "Black" man who beat Hillary!

Well ... it just isn't so, but that's not stopping them from babbling on about it.

Here is one take on it

"Every white woman I know is positively horrified. Wait, that's not exactly true. It's more accurate
to say that every thoughtful or liberal or intuitive or open-minded white woman I know worth her
vagina monologue and her self-determination and two centuries of nonstop striving for equal rights
and sexual freedom and exhaustive patriarchal unshackling is right now openly horrified, appalled at
what the addition of shrill PTA hockey-mom Sarah Palin seems to have done for the soggy,
comatose McCain campaign -- that is, make it not merely remotely interesting and melodramatic,
but aggressively hostile to, well, to all intelligent women everywhere."

Read the read here.

Caveman gets into Madison Avenue Ads Walk of Fame

Getting into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame is so easy, even a caveman can do it.

The Geico Caveman and the Serta Sheep advertising icons have been elected to the Walk of Fame in midtown Manhattan after online voting by the American public.

The U.S. Postal Service slogan "We Deliver For You" and the UPS tagline "What can Brown do for you?" also were inducted Monday, the first day of Advertising Week.

The Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame was created by Advertising Week, a weeklong gathering of marketing professionals. Organizers have filled the Walk of Fame with bronze plaques and lamppost banners honoring such past inductees as Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Geico Gecko and Colonel Sanders.

Right on cue

Right on cue ...

I posted a piece on September 20, 2008 of a study from Scotland that proves the detrimental affects of smoking and in particular second hand smoke in public by a marked decrease in health problems after smoking bans are in place.

And, they chimed right in.

Who, you might ask, chimed in?

The myopic smokers and their agents of denial (kind of like repugicans in the way they knee-jerk, but I digress).

Making false claims and issuing psuedo-science myths via links to their handlers' dogma in the comments box.

Yes, I checked the links out and they are nothing but as I stated above.

One would think they would learn, but alas I fear tis not to be.

Seven Hundred Billion - My Ass!

"Yesterday, President Bush announced his $700 billion plan to buy out troubled financial institutions. Demanding enormous faith in his administration’s stewardship, the plan “would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt,” and to hire outside firms “to help manage its purchases.” Further, the proposal provides no oversight mechanism:

Sec. 8. Review: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Bush is demanding unprecedented control over billions of dollars — with no oversight."

See what else Think Progress has to say about the shrub ‘Demanding’ 700 Billion.

See what Matt Stoler has to say about the 700 Billion.

Nearly 12,900 Chinese children sick from milk

China said Sunday the number of children sickened by baby formula tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has doubled to nearly 12,900 as the government confronts a scandal over widespread contamination of the milk supply.

More than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late Sunday. Four children have died.

The ministry said most of the children sickened consumed infant formula from one company, the Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co.

Update: The number of children in China sickened by dairy products tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has jumped to nearly 53,000, the government said.

Damn, one was too many. But 53,000!

The Army’s Totally Serious Mind-Control Project

Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That’s why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing “thought helmets” that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will “lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone.”

If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago. But improvements in computing power and a better understanding of how the brain works have scientists busy hunting for the distinctive neural fingerprints that flash through a brain when a person is talking to himself. The Army’s initial goal is to capture those brain waves with incredibly sophisticated software that then translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. “It’d be radio without a microphone, ” says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. “Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way.”

Full Story: Time Magazine

India becomes first country to use brain scanning in courts

The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.

Now, well before any consensus on the technology’s readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.

Full Story: New York Times

Anxiety-detecting machines could spot terrorists

“A scene from the airport of the future: A man’s pulse races as he walks through a checkpoint. His quickened heart rate and heavier breathing set off an alarm. A machine senses his skin temperature jumping. Screeners move in to question him.Signs of a terrorist? Or simply a passenger nervous about a cross-country flight?

It may seem straight out of an Orwellian nightmare, but on Thursday, the Homeland Security Department showed off an early version of physiological screeners that could spot terrorists. The department’s research division is years from using the machines in an airport or an office building — if they even work at all. But officials believe the idea could transform security by doing a bio scan to spot dangerous people.

Critics doubt such a system can work. The idea, they say, subjects innocent travelers to the intrusion of a medical exam. The futuristic machinery works on the same theory as a polygraph, looking for sharp swings in body temperature, pulse and breathing that signal the kind of anxiety exuded by a would-be terrorist or criminal. Unlike a lie-detector test that wires subjects to sensors as they answer questions, the “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) scans people as they walk by a set of cameras.”

Read the story in USA Today

New way to spot breast cancer shows promise

A radioactive tracer that "lights up" cancer hiding inside dense breasts showed promise in its first big test against mammograms, revealing more tumors and giving fewer false alarms, doctors reported Wednesday.

The experimental method - molecular breast imaging, or MBI - would not replace mammograms for women at average risk of the disease.

But it might become an additional tool for higher risk women with a lot of dense tissue that makes tumors hard to spot on mammograms, and it could be done at less cost than an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging.

About one-fourth of women 40 and older have dense breasts.

"MBI is a promising technology" that is already in advanced testing, said Carrie Hruska, a biomedical engineer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., which has been working on it for six years.

She gave results in a telephone news briefing Wednesday and will present them later this week at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Washington, D.C.

Mammograms - a type of X-ray - are the chief way now to check for breast cancer.

MBI uses radiation, too, but in a different way.

Women are given an intravenous dose of a short-acting tracer that is absorbed more by abnormal cells than healthy ones.

Special cameras collect the "glow" these cells give off, and doctors look at the picture to spot tumors.

Researchers tried both methods, on 940 women who had dense breasts and a high risk of cancer because of family history, bad genes or other reasons.

Thirteen tumors were found in 12 women - eight by MBI alone, one by mammography alone, two by both methods and two by neither. (The two missed cancers were found on subsequent annual mammograms, physical exams or other imaging tests.)

Looked at another way, MBI found 10 out of 13 tumors, missing three; mammograms detected three out of 13 tumors and missed 10.

Using both methods, 11 out of 13 tumors would have been detected.

"These images are quite striking. You can see how the cancers would be hidden on the mammograms," Hruska said.

Mammograms gave false alarms - led doctors to conclude that cancer was present when it was not - in about 9 percent of patients, compared to only 7 percent for MBI.

The MBI tests led to more biopsies than mammograms did, but they more often revealed cancer.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation and Bristol-Myers Squibb, which makes the imaging agent used in the study, paid for the work.

The next test will be to see how MBI stacks up against MRI.

The federal government is paying for a new study Mayo is leading that compares the two in 120 high-risk women with dense breasts.

MRI is often used now for women with dense breasts, but it gives many false alarms that lead to unnecessary biopsies.

Doctors hope MBI will prove more accurate and cost less - under $500 versus more than $1,000 for an MRI.

"We all know that mammography is, in and of itself, an imperfect tool, and we clearly need to do better in the future," said Dr. Eric Winer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, a spokesman for the oncology group. "It is fair to say that MRI will not solve all problems either."

One drawback of MBI: It uses about 8 to 10 times the radiation of mammograms, a dose that engineers like Hruska are trying to lower with newer technology.

Other medical centers also are testing MBI.

"We're just beginning to see what this technology can do," she said.

Life imitates ‘art'

All right so television isn’t art but it works for this …

Sopranos' actor's murder trial set for October

"Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato Jr. is set to go to trial next month in the death of an off-duty New York police officer.

A judge ruled Friday that Brancato and co-defendant Steven Armento would be tried separately.

Prosecutors wanted them tried together.

Authorities say they broke into an apartment to look for prescription drugs in 2005.

Officer Daniel Enchautegui confronted them and was killed in a shootout.

Armento is accused of firing the fatal shot.

Brancato, who played an aspiring mobster on HBO's "The Sopranos," says he didn't know Armento had a gun.

Brancato's murder trial is set for Oct. 28.

Armento goes on trial Sept. 29.

Zor and Zam

As of Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008, 4,168 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq.

The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, 7; El Salvador, 5; Slovakia, 4; Latvia and Georgia, 3 each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, 2 each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, 1 death each.

"... Two little kings playing a game. They gave a war and nobody came ..."

Would that it be so ...

Cyber Attackers Beware

Just in case you were concerned ... the wing-nut cyber attacks on Carolina Naturally over the past few days have been throughly defeated and those that attempted the attacks are now dealing with the aftereffects of those foolish attempts.

To wit: Computers that won't boot up, automatic uploads and downloads of all kinds of 'interesting' stuff and ultimately their computers will simply implode and cease to function all together.

It's not nice to fool with us 'old school' computer people - we know the operating machine languages and the C++ crowd hasn't a clue!

Just have to tell their machines to perform a function that has no end ... Sorta like telling the kids you threw 100 pennies in the back yard and they aren't allowed to come in the house until they find all 100 pennies but you only threw out 99 pennies.

The poison your brew today

Has everyone else noticed the Haters are beating themselves up for being haters and telling us they want to throw themselves out of office?

It is really too funny - as many have said the repugicans are running against themselves as if they think they have fooled us by going out the back door, circling around front and yelling at the empty house for the neighbors to see and hear them calling for the bums to leave.

It is pretty pathetic actually - but we cannot help laughing.

I think the line goes something like this 'the poison you brew today, will kill you tomorrow' - or something like that - and by dang, tomorrow has come.

And I Quote

Life begins at rape...ask mayor Palin

~ Shannyn Moore

Shannyn Moore is a blogger in Alaska and knows all about Palin and her hatred of women
Check out her blog and the Mudflats for all things Alaska.

Manhunt on for suspect in slaying of NC deputy

Authorities in rural North Carolina are searching for an Iraq veteran they suspect in the fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy. Another sheriff's officer was shot but suffered minor injuries.

Officials with the Caldwell County Sheriff's Department said Saturday night they were searching for 32-year-old Skip Brinkley, an Army veteran who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2006. They say he also has some law enforcement training.

Officials say Deputy Adam Klutz was responding to a 911 call at a home earlier Saturday when he was shot in a spot not protected by his bulletproof vest. The other officer was hit three times in his vest.

More than 200 officers were searching the surrounding area in Lenoir, about 75 northwest of Charlotte.

Up the Whazoo

I hope you have a lot of Vaseline to soothe the burn from the screwing our collective anal cavity has been getting for the past seven years because we are about to be rectally assaulted even harder ... and with a bigger dildo~!

700 Billion Dollars- That's correct 700 Billion!

That is what the shrub and the cabal are telling congress (which means us ... the Taxpayers) they want and that they want to give to their buddies to 'help' them out of the mess they made for themselves - with the help of the shrub and the cabal - while giving us the hard one up the whazoo.

You want to talk about gall, stupidity, arrogance, incompetence ... if this doesn't twist your beak then you are dead.

To paraphrase another ... get ready for inflation like we've never seen, gas shortages, runs on regional banks, and other such life experiences ...

Something Wicked this way comes ... indeed!

Obama hits McCain on lobbyists, Social Security

Campaigning in Florida, Democrat Barack Obama criticized Republican presidential rival John McCain on Saturday for his past advocacy of deregulation, ties to lobbyists and support for partial privatization of the Social Security system many of Florida's elderly residents depend on.

The Democratic presidential nominee used McCain's words to portray him as an opponent of federal regulation of the banking industry.

McCain, a 26-year veteran of Congress with a long history of opposition to such regulation, now says more controls are needed to prevent a repeat of the financial turmoil that sent the stock market plunging this past week.

"There's only one candidate who's called himself 'fundamentally a deregulator' when deregulation is part of the problem," Obama said during an appearance at Bethune-Cookman University, arranged to highlight his campaign's effort to reach out to women voters.

Obama noted that McCain said in a trade publication that opening the health insurance market to more vigorous competition nationwide, as was done with the banking industry, would provide more choices.

"So let me get this straight," Obama said. "He wants to run health care like they've been running Wall Street. Well, Senator, I know some folks on Main Street who aren't going to think that's a good idea."

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation," McCain said..

Obama said in Jacksonville: "John McCain said he wants to do for health care what Washington did for bankers."

McCain has criticized Obama this week, including in television ads, for ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two faltering mortgage giants that government took over earlier this month. But Obama said McCain is the one who's campaign is filled with current or former Fannie and Freddie lobbyists.

"There's only one candidate whose campaign is being run by seven of Washington's most powerful lobbyists, and folks, it isn't me," Obama said, adding that he doesn't "take a dime" from Washington lobbyists and special interests.

"So when John McCain says that lobbyists 'won't even get past the front gate' at his White House, my question is, 'Who's going to stop them?' Those seven lobbyists," Obama said.

In Jacksonville before 12,000 cheering backers, with another 8,000 outside the rally, he argued that McCain has no solutions for the nation's economic crisis.

"His solution was to blame me for it," Obama said. "I would say Sen. McCain is a little panicked."

He accused McCain of relentlessly pushing deregulation, the sort of loose controls many blame for the turmoil on Wall Street.

On Social Security, Obama said he'll protect and strengthen the program, while McCain wants to privatize it.

McCain favors partial privatization, giving younger workers the option of diverting money they pay in Social Security taxes to private accounts. President Bush pushed such a plan in 2005 but dropped it after Congress pushed back.

Obama said that given events of the past week, with several major investment firms either allowed to fail or be taken over by the government, "millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes."

"I know Sen. McCain is talking about a 'casino culture' on Wall Street, but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings," Obama said.

Cheney must keep records, judge orders

Oooh, that's gotta hurt ...

Dick Cheney must preserve a broad range of records from his time in office, a federal judge ordered Saturday, ruling in favor of a private watchdog group.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that the records are not excluded from preservation under Presidential Records Act, which gives the national archivist responsibility over the custody of and access to the records at the end of a president's final term.

Thecabal had sought a narrow interpretation of the act to allow for fewer materials to be preserved by the National Archives.

"Defendants were only willing to agree to a preservation order that tracked their narrowed interpretation of the PRA's statutory language," Kollar-Kotelly said in her order. This position "heightens the Court's concern" that some records will not be preserved without an injunction.

Cheney chief of staff David Addington has told Congress that the vice president belongs to neither the executive nor legislative branch of government, AP reported. Instead, he said, the office is attached by the Constitution to Congress. The vice president presides over the Senate.

The lawsuit -- naming among its defendants Cheney, the Executive Office of President and the National Archives and Records Administration -- was filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, commonly known as CREW.

In response to the ruling, Cheney spokesman James R. Hennigan said that "we will not have any comment on pending litigation."

The judge's order is the most recent setback to the cabal's position on openness of executive branch records.

In December, a federal judge ruled in another CREW lawsuit that the White House cannot hide behind a shield of privilege over release of its visitor logs.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth concluded that the information was a public records request, subject to Freedom of Information Act disclosure of "agency records."

The White House had claimed exclusive control of the documents, subject to the complete discretion of the president over their release.

CREW sought the visitor records of prominent conservatives James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Wendy Wright (Concerned Women of America) and seven others, including the late televangelist Jerry Falwell.

Public Smoking Bans Work Across the Board

After a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, there was a 17 percent reduction in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome, says a new study that provides further proof that smoke-free laws provide health benefits.

Researchers found the number of admissions in the 10 months after the ban was 2,684, compared with 3,235 in the 10 months before the ban. Nonsmokers accounted for 67 percent of the decrease. There was a 14 percent reduction in admissions among smokers, a 19 percent reduction among former smokers, and a 21 percent reduction among people who'd never smoked.

The study also found that people who'd never smoked reported a decrease in their weekly amount of exposure to secondhand smoke.

While admissions for acute coronary syndrome decreased 17 percent in the 10 month's after the Scottish ban, there was a 4 percent reduction in England (which has no such legislation) during that same period. In the decade preceding the ban, Scotland had a mean annual decrease of 3 percent.

Previous studies have suggested that banning smoking in public places reduced hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome, but it wasn't clear whether the reduction involved nonsmokers, smokers or both.

The new study was published in the July 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Earlier this month, an International Agency for Cancer Research report said smoke-free policies are extremely effective at reducing smoking rates, exposure to secondhand smoke, and smoking-related heart disease.

Another study, published in the journal Circulation, found the number of acute coronary events dropped significantly among adults in Rome after Italy banned smoking in public places in 2005.

For more information:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about smoke-free policies.

Ten fire-safety tips for homeowners

1. Stack woodpiles at least 30 feet from any structure.

2. Locate LPG tanks at least 30 feet from any structure; maintain 10 feet of clear space around tanks.

3. Keep the following tools ready and handy: a round point shovel with a long handle, a rake with a long handle, a ladder tall enough to reach the roof, one or more 5-pound fire extinguishers, at least one bucket, a garbage can full of water with a bailing bucket.

4. Keep driveway clear and accessible to fire engines. Remember, they are twice as big as a car.

5. Make sure your number is clearly visible from the road. Use four- to six-inch reflective numbers to mark your address.

6. Locate all fire hydrants in your neighborhood.

7. Never prune near power lines. Call your local utility company first.

8. Landscape with fire resistant plants.

9. Maintain all plants by regular watering and by removing dead branches, leaves and needles.

10. Landscaping should be spaced so that fire has no clear path to burn up to the house or nearby plantings.

Pictures of the Scottish Highlands

Steve Carter has some wonderful shots of the Highlands.

Reminds me of the places I want to know, to paraphrase an old song.

See the photos here.

Palin as Misogynist

Palin as Misogynist

By Gerry Fern

What can we make of Sarah Palin? She is a woman, looks normal, acts normal on the stump, but is she normal? I would say she is not. She is a misogynist and perhaps that is the most disturbing thing about her.

I do not understand why so little is being written about this fact, or the mainstream media has not picked up on it, not to mention bloggers. Honestly, the silence is confusing.

We live in a very dysfunctional society. It is unfortunate that some people are abused by the system and others know how to game it. As an executive I was accused of sexual harassment by two female employees that knew how to play the game. Both accusations came to nothing, but they did leave me bitter and very weary of dealing with female employees.

In my personal life, I am the husband of a woman that was brutally assaulted, lived through 10 years of therapy with her and we still deal with the consequences of that day almost on a daily basis.

What do I make of Sarah Palin? A woman that forced abused woman to pay for rape kits. That the state of Alaska had to pass a bill exclusively to stop Wallisa , her town, from continuing this horrendous practice. Does this woman have a soul? A heart? It is not enough that these women were abused, they should also pay for the investigation that so often will never bring anybody to justice?

Now as result of the investigation into the firing of Walt Monegan, the public Safety Commissioner that was fired because he refused to fire her brother in law, Sarah has come up with a new plausible reason why he was fired. He was fired because, “he had gone over her head in seeking federal money for an initiative to combat sexual assault crimes, before she had approved the program.” A program that would have,” use(d) the federal money to hire retired troopers and law enforcement officials, and assign them to investigate the most egregious cases of sexual assault — including those against children.” Wow, let’s not investigate these things. And let’s fire the idiot that thinks this is the state’s responsibility. If people do not want to get raped or children abused maybe they should not be so damned attractive.

I am not an advocate of the invasion of privacy, but this is a special case. In a home where we have a child whose dad and mother is in question, yes I am referring to Trig, I do not ever remember such a high profile infant whose paternity is in question, do you? And now her daughter is pregnant. Great!!! A mother that apparently is indifferent to child abuse, rape and other crimes. The Governor of the state with the highest cases of rape, incest, child abuse and domestic violence. The ex-mayor of a small town with 42 meth labs. Let’s have an investigation of what is going on in that home. Something smells here.

*****

Gerry Fern posted this piece over on the blog at BartCop. Read more of what was said @ BartBlog

Obama still ahead in polls

Gallup poll daily tracking from Wednesday through Friday finds Barack Obama maintaining his lead over John McPain among registered voters, by a 50% to 44% margin…

And they still insist it is the other way around whenever a repugican opens its mouth?!
It must be nice to live in such a deluded state of being - I wonder what are the drugs they are on and can the rest of us get some.

American Psychological Association members can't aid in military torture

A majority of members in the American Psychological Association have voted in favor of a resolution that forbids members from aiding in torture. This was spurred by the complicity of APA members in conducting torture-based interrogation at Guantanamo Bay and other American and American-affiliated secret prisons:

The ban means those who are American Psychological Association members can't assist the U.S. military at these sites. They can only work there for humanitarian purposes or with non-governmental groups, according to Stephen Soldz, a Boston psychologist. Soldz is founder of an ethics coalition that has long supported the ban...

Psychologists have been involved in decisions that approve of coercion methods, including "taking away comfort items like clothes and toilet paper from detainees" to help extract information from them, Soldz said.

He said that some even declined to diagnose post-traumatic stress in detainees because that would suggest detainees had been abused or harmed while in custody.

...

Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Mental Health and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have determined that treatment equivalent to torture has been taking place at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. [1]

Whereas this torture took place in the context of interrogations under the direction and supervision of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs) that included psychologists. [2, 3]

Whereas the Council of Europe has determined that persons held in CIA black sites are subject to interrogation techniques that are also equivalent to torture [4], and because psychologists helped develop abusive interrogation techniques used at these sites. [3, 5]

Whereas the International Committee of the Red Cross determined in 2003 that the conditions in the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay are themselves tantamount to torture [6], and therefore by their presence psychologists are playing a role in maintaining these conditions.

Be it resolved that psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights[7].

2008 APA Petition Resolution Ballot,

Psychologists vote against role in interrogation

Blast targets Marriott Hotel in Islamabad

A suicide truck bombing destroyed the packed Marriott Hotel, near the Parliament building and the prime minister's home, in the city of Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday night.

The attack killed at least 40 people and wounded another 200, police said.

People were still trapped in the hotel, which burst into flames after the explosion caused a natural gas pipe leak, officials said. The fire was still burning at 2 a.m., six hours after the blast.

Rescuers worked to moved bloodied bodies from the hotel but were forced to stop for fear that the structure could collapse.

Details and the number of fatalities are still unclear because of conflicting initial reports. It is unclear if only one or two vehicles were involved in the attack.

The gas leak set the top floor of the five-story, 258-room hotel on fire, police said, and the blaze quickly engulfed the entire structure.

Cockpit recorder recovered in fatal SC jet crash

Investigators say they've recovered the cockpit voice recorder from a fiery South Carolina jet crash that killed four and critically injured former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM.

National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said Saturday that the recorder has yet to be analyzed. She says authorities investigating the crash at Columbia Metropolitan Airport have yet to rule anything out for causing the crash, but the plane took off in clear weather.

The Learjet overshot the runway, and hurtled across a five-lane road shortly before midnight Friday.

Barker and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were in critical but stable condition at a burn center in Georgia. The pilot, co-pilot and two passengers died.

*****

Heard about this as it happened from my son who lives near the airport.

Malaysia frees blogger held for suspected

Malaysian police on Saturday freed a prominent political blogger who was arrested for suspected sedition after he launched an online protest against Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's embattled government.

The case underscores the government's struggle to tackle increasing public dissent amid a threat by the opposition to topple Abdullah's administration through parliamentary defections.

The blogger, Syed Azidi Syed Aziz, drew the government's ire last month when he posted a picture of Malaysia's national flag upside down on his popular blog and urged other Internet bloggers to follow suit to protest the country's political and economic problems.

Authorities arrested Syed Azidi on Wednesday, saying he was being investigated for sedition, which is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Syed Azidi said in a statement posted on his "Kickdefella" blog that he was released Saturday. He said police treated him "well and most of the time, beyond the call of duty."

Police officials familiar with Syed Azidi's case could not immediately be contacted, and it was not clear whether he would face formal charges later.

Ahead of Syed Azidi's arrest, authorities detained another political blogger, an opposition lawmaker and a journalist last week under a separate law that allows detention without trial.

The politician and the journalist have since been freed following a public outcry, including by the law minister, who resigned in protest.

Public pressure on the government mounted Saturday as the Malaysian Bar, the main lawyers' group, held an emergency meeting to denounce the arrests under the Internal Security Act, which is used against suspects deemed to be threats to national security.

The lawyers issued a resolution calling for the Internal Security Act to be abolished and for the government "to immediately and unconditionally release all persons presently detained without trial." Activists estimate there are about 60 such detainees.

___

Syed Azidi's blog: http://kickdefella.wordpress.com/

As the fortune cookie crumbles

Went out for Chinese this evening and got doubly blessed by Buddha!
Two fourtunes in my fortune cookie:

You have the potential and the ability to accomplish great things.
and
You will have a change for a better job or status shortly.

Now, how cool is that ...

Flooding in Thailand kills 14, sickens over 53,000

Floods in Thailand have killed 14 people and sickened more than 53,000 others, including many who contracted waterborne ailments after wading through floodwaters, the government said Saturday.

The 14 people were swept away by flash floods that hit 36 of Thailand's 76 provinces over the past nine days, the Ministry of Public Health said.

It warned residents that floodwaters were full of parasitic leeches, human waste and bacteria that can cause skin infections and fungus.

The ministry said 53,946 people were sickened, with 35 percent suffering from skin funguses and 27 percent from cold and respiratory problems. Others suffered from diarrhea, it said.

"We urge that people travel through flooded areas by boat or wear long pants tied at the feet with plastic bags if they must wade through flood water," Prat Boonyawongwiroj, permanent secretary for public health, said in a statement.

Officials were calculating the damage from the floods, which destroyed farmland and inundated villages, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Center said.

Heavy downpours in northern and northeastern Thailand at the height of the rainy season caused rivers to swell, Water Resources Department Director-General Siripong Hungspreuk said.

Damage to collider forces 2-month halt

The European Organization for Nuclear Research says its new particle collider has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months.

On Thursday, the organization said the collider - the world's largest - malfunctioned within hours of its launch to great fanfare, but its operator didn't report the problem for a week.

Spokesman James Gillies says experts have gone into the Large Hadron Collider to examine the damage.

Gillies said Saturday the part that was damaged will have to be warmed up well above absolute zero so that repairs can be made. He said that will require having to shut off the new particle collider do to the repairs.

*****

I guess that means we have two months to wait to see that Black Hole the thing is 'supposed' to create then.

Earthquake sets off buried WWII bomb

Austrian authorities say a small earthquake set off a large World War II-era bomb in the garden of a Vienna home.
No one was injured in the explosion.

Investigators think the bomb weighed up to half a ton. It lay buried for decades in the garden, and no one knew it was there.

But when a minor quake shook parts of the Austrian capital, the bomb exploded.

Officials say the homeowner heard a dull bang Friday evening and went outside to see what happened.

Experts were still on the scene Saturday to examine the crater left by the blast.

All for the love of Labs

Moving pets is a job, let me tell you.
I spent the better part of today taking down and re-erecting a kennel for my Labs and moving them.

I am tired.