Boy, 5, dumped by school bus driver in NYC streets

A New York City mother wants to know why her first-grade son was left to wander the streets alone after being dropped off by a school bus driver at the end of the line.

School officials say they don't know who put 5-year-old Jaeden Vasquez on the bus Thursday - especially since he wasn't even supposed to be on it. He lives across the street from the school in the Bronx.

His mother, Aileen Bonilla, says the school apologized but that isn't enough.

Five-year-old children aren't supposed to be let off school buses unless an adult is waiting. Jaeden says he was ordered off the bus at the last stop, two miles from his home. A stranger brought him home.

School officials say they are investigating.

McPain says if you're here illegally...welcome!

But, only if you are Irish.

"There are 50,000 Irish men and women who are in this country illegally at this time, who are hard-working people, who want to become citizens. and I want to assure you that we will enact comprehensive immigration reform, after they do certain things, obviously, give them a path to citizenship in this country as part of an overall immigration reform package."

So much for the 'Brown People', Huh?

Britney's Sister in Porn Scandal

From the "Why is this even news?" Department:

Here is how Europeans view the absurdity that is the US

A picture of 17-year-old JAMIE LYNN SPEARS breastfeeding her baby has sparked a police pornography investigation in the States.

Read the full story here.

Or if you prefer the view from Down Under read it here.

Feds ask to put wolves back on endangered list

Federal wildlife officials have asked a judge to put gray wolves in the Northern Rockies back on the endangered species list - a sharp reversal from the government's prior contention that the animals were thriving.

Attorneys for the Fish and Wildlife Service asked U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula to vacate the agency's February finding that more than 1,400 wolves in the region no longer needed federal protection.

The government's request Monday follows a July injunction in which Molloy had blocked plans for public wolf hunts this fall in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho pending resolution of a lawsuit by environmentalists.

"What we want to do is look at this more thoroughly," Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Sharon Rose said. "We definitely have a lot of wolves out there, but we need to address some of (Molloy's) concerns in a way that people feel comfortable with."

At issue is whether a decade-long wolf restoration program has reversed the near-extermination of wolves, or if - as environmentalists claim - their long-term survival remains in doubt due to proposed hunting.

"This hit everybody really cold," said John Bloomquist, an attorney for the Montana Stockgrowers Association. "All of a sudden the federal defendants are going in the other direction."

The government's request to remand, or reconsider, the issue was filed in response to an April lawsuit from a dozen environmental and animal rights groups.

"I would call that victory. What they're requesting is to go back to the drawing boards," said Doug Honnold, an Earthjustice attorney representing the plaintiffs. They include the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States and other local and national groups.

If Molloy goes along with the government's request, the Fish and Wildlife Service would embark on a re-evaluation of wolves that could last for months or even years. The agency would again open the issue to public comment before returning with a new decision.

In the meantime, the killing of some wolves by government wildlife agents or ranchers would continue. More than 180 wolves were killed last year in response to wolf attacks on livestock.

A recent inventory of wolf populations in the three states showed their population in decline this year for the first time in more than a decade. Federal biologists say the decline occurred because wolves had filled up the best habitat in the region.

Honnold questioned whether disease, illegal hunting or other factors might have contributed to the drop, which saw wolf numbers decline from 1,545 during the summer of 2007 to 1,455 this summer.

Under the federal rule that took the animal off the list in February, authority over the region's wolf populations had passed to state agencies in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

In his July injunction, Molloy put that authority back in federal hands. The judge questioned whether wildlife laws within the three states - particularly Wyoming - would be enough to protect wolves from excessive or indiscriminate hunting.

Molloy also questioned whether packs had been intermingling enough to avoid inbreeding - a concern raised by recent research into wolf genetics.

Helpful Hints:

For Guys: A Guide to Girl Talk

By Amy Spencer

"Baffled by what women are getting at half the time you talk to them? Then keep this translation manual handy to decode her most misunderstood lines.

If you’ve ever spoken to a woman, it’s fair to say you’ve been confused by one. Yes doesn’t always mean yes, no doesn’t always mean no, and most of us have once in our lives even admitted, “Well, I may have said that, but I didn’t mean it.” What’s with all the mixed messages? “Women communicate by giving subtle suggestions instead of being literal, so we can check for positive reinforcement before we continue. We want to be careful about the impact we have on the other person,” explains Sharyn Wolf, CSW, a psychotherapist in New York City. But while figuring out what women really want can be difficult, it’s not impossible. So follow this guide to girl-speak. These are some of the things you might hear a woman say as you meet, date and woo her—and the code for reading between the lines."

Read the rest here.

Gunman kills 9 at school in Finland, shoots self

Another Fine US Export: School Shootings

A gunman whose violent YouTube postings made police bring him in for questioning opened fire Tuesday at his trade school in western Finland, killing nine people before shooting himself, authorities said.

It was Finland's second school massacre in less than a year.

The gunman had been questioned by police just one day before the attack about YouTube postings in which he is seen firing a handgun, Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said. He was released because there was no legal grounds to hold him, she said.

Witnesses said panic broke out as the hooded gunman entered the school in Kauhajoki, 180 miles northwest of Helsinki, and began firing in a classroom where students were taking an exam. The shootings began just before 11 a.m. local time (0800GMT), as about 150 students were at Kauhajoki School of Hospitality.

"Within a short space of time I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol," school janitor Jukka Forsberg told Finnish broadcaster YLE. "I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning and one managed to escape out of the back door."

Kauhajoki Mayor Antti Rantakokko confirmed that nine people were killed. At least one other woman had a gunshot wound to the head before the gunman shot himself in the head, authorities said.

Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reported that police had identified the gunman as Matti Juhani Saari, a 22-year-old student. Authorities would only confirm that he was a student at the school, born in 1986.

The Finnish news agency STT said the school building was on fire and the gunman reportedly had explosives on him.

The gunman and the wounded woman were taken to a hospital in Tampere, two hours away, the hospital's medical director Matti Lehto told the AP.

"(He is) shot in the head so he is severely injured," Lehto said.

College rector Tapio Varmola told YLE the school had 150 students at the time and the shooting started in a classroom where 20 people were taking an exam.

Tuesday's rampage happened almost a year after another gunman killed eight people and himself at a school in southern Finland, an attack that triggered a fierce debate about gun laws in this Nordic nation with deep-rooted traditions of hunting in the sub-Arctic wilderness.

Power cut contributed to woman's death

I see corporate disregard for humans is not only in the United States!

An energy company's decision to cut off electricity to a New Zealand woman's home because of an unpaid bill contributed to her death from morbid obesity, a coroner's court ruled Tuesday.

Folole Muliaga, 44, a nursery school teacher, died two hours after the oxygen machine she used to help her breathe shut down when the government-owned utility Mercury Energy cut power to her home.

Muliaga's death on May 29, 2007, outraged New Zealanders, with Prime Minister Helen Clark denouncing the company's actions as heartless and intolerable.

Coroner Gordon Matenga said he agreed with two of four medical experts who presented evidence to the hearing that cutting the power had contributed to Muliaga's death.

"The cessation of oxygen therapy and the stress arising from the fact of the disconnection (as opposed to the way in which the power was disconnected) have contributed to her death," he said in his ruling.

Matenga also noted that Mercury Energy acknowledged it hadn't complied with Electricity Commission guidelines for identifying vulnerable customers at the time of Muliaga's death.

Muliaga family spokesman Brenden Sheehan said the family would instruct its lawyers "to explore all legal avenues" for compensation following the findings.

"The coroner established there was a cause and effect over her death, and that Mercury Energy didn't follow the guidelines of the Electricity Commission," Sheehan said.

Sheehan said he hoped the family and the agencies involved could reach an out-of-court agreement.

Olinda Woodroffe, lawyer for Muliaga's husband, said she was confident there were strong legal grounds for compensation.

A police investigation last year found no grounds for criminal charges against the utility.

Coroners in New Zealand can order inquests into unusual deaths to assess the circumstances so they can make recommendations to prevent future occurrences. The inquest does not assign blame.

At the time of Muliaga's death, the family believed it owed Mercury Energy 34.44 New Zealand dollars (US$26.67); the company later put the amount at NZ$168 (US$130.12).

Small accidents mean big trouble for supercollider

Scientists expect startup glitches in the massive, complex machines they use to smash atoms.

But the unique qualities of the world's largest particle collider mean that the meltdown of a small electrical connection could delay its groundbreaking research until next year, scientists said Sunday.

Because the Large Hadron Collider operates at near absolute zero - colder than outer space - the damaged area must be warmed to a temperature where humans can work. That takes about a month. Then it has to be re-chilled for another month.

As a result, the equipment may not be running again before the planned shutdown of the equipment for the winter to reduce electricity costs. That means Friday's meltdown could end up putting off high-energy collisions of particles - the machine's ultimate objective - until 2009.

"Hopefully we'll come online and go quickly to full energy a few months into 2009 so in the long term, this may not end up being such a large delay in the physics program," Seth Zenz, a graduate student from the University of California, wrote on the site of the U.S. physicists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN.

"It's obviously a short-term disappointment, though, and a lost opportunity," he wrote.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said the repair operation will last until close to the usual winter shutdown time at the end of November. There has been some discussion that the new equipment could operate through the winter, but no decision has been made, he said.

The melting of the wire connecting two magnets Friday would have taken only a couple of days to repair on smaller, room-temperature accelerators that have been in use for decades, Gillies said.

Gillies said particle accelerators using superconducting equipment at Fermilab outside Chicago and at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state had similar problems starting up, but have been operating smoothly since then.

"Once they settled in they seem to be pretty stable," Gillies said.

At the Sept. 10 launch of the collider, beams of protons from the nuclei of atoms were fired first at the speed of light in a clockwise direction though a fire-hose-sized tube in the tunnel. Then proton beams were fired in the counterclockwise tube.

Jos Engelen, CERN's chief scientific officer and deputy director-general, said the startup showed that the LHC can handle complex operations.

"We have encountered a weakness in one particular connection during very final hardware commissioning," Engelen told The Associated Press by e-mail. "It is tough, but it can happen. We will make the repair and resume the very successful operation of the accelerator."

A transformer failed outside the cold zone about 36 hours after the collider's launch. That was repaired and the machine was ready again a week after it was shut down.

But the goal of the LHC - shattering protons to reveal more about how the tiniest particles were first created - was still weeks away because the equipment has to be gradually brought to the higher energies possible at full power.

"This was the last circuit of the LHC to be tested at high current before operations," Gillies said. "There are an awful lot of these connections between wires in the machine. They all have to be very well done so that they don't stop superconducting, and what appears to have happened is that this connection stopped being superconducting."

Superconductivity - the ability to conduct electricity without any resistance in some metals at low temperatures_ allows for much greater efficiency in operating the electromagnets that guide the proton beams.

Without the superconducting, resistance builds up in the wires, causing them to overheat, he explained.

"That's what we think happened," Gillies said. "This piece of wire heated up, melted, and that led to a mechanical failure."

Gillies said experts have already gone down into the 27-kilometer (17-mile) circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border to inspect the damage.

"By Monday I suspect we'll know more," he said.

Gillies said there is plenty for scientists at CERN to do between now and the startup of experiments, including studying cosmic rays that pass through collider's massive detectors.

Passenger charged in Canada bus attack

What is it with Canada and buses recently?

Police charged a man Monday with an attack on a Greyhound bus in northern Ontario that left a passenger hospitalized, just weeks after a suspect was accused of stabbing and beheading a fellow traveler on a Greyhound.

David Roberts, 28, was charged Monday with aggravated assault and breach of probation in the latest attack.

Police said the 20-year-old victim, who was not further identified, was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

Ontario provincial police Constable James Searle said the victim and his attacker didn't appear to know each other and that investigators were trying to determine a motive for Sunday's attack.

Police wouldn't confirm the victim was stabbed but witnesses said the attacker had a knife.

Anita Daher, a Winnipeg author sitting behind the driver on the bus traveling from Toronto to Winnipeg, Manitoba, said Monday that she heard a commotion from the back of the bus and saw a man clutching his chest in pain.

She said Roberts then demanded to be let off the bus before passengers called police on cell phones. Police said the suspect was arrested a short while later.

The attack came less than two months after the gruesome slaying of Tim McLean, 22, on a Greyhound traveling from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg with 37 passengers. Police said an assailant stabbed McLean dozens of times before severing his head in an unprovoked attack. Vince Weiguang Li is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is competent to stand trial for the killing.

Passengers who witnessed the latest attack questioned why police put Roberts on the bus.

"I certainly want to know how this happened," Daher said. "I would certainly like to see some security measures put in place.

Ontario Provincial police say they were assisting local officers with the alleged attacker shortly before he boarded the bus. But Searle said he couldn't comment further.

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh declined to comment on the incident.

Washington man gets 27 months in dragging death

A man convicted in the dragging death of an Eastern Washington University student has been sentenced to 27 months in prison.

Wendell C. Sinn Jr. was sentenced Monday. Last week, the 45-year-old entered an Alford plea to second-degree manslaughter, meaning he didn't admit guilt but felt he would be found guilty if he went to trial for the death of Jerid S. Sturman-Camyn.

The 20-year-old student was dragged more than 13 miles to his death by a pickup driven by Sinn's teenage son in November 2007.

Sinn was arrested after witnesses say he placed a noose around Sturman-Camyn's neck and attached it to the back of his pickup.

Justin Sinn, told investigators he didn't know he'd been dragging Sturman-Camyn. He hasn't been charged.

NYPD officer gets 5 years for stealing handguns

A former New York City police officer has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing handguns from a police evidence room and trading them for painkillers.

Hubertus Vannes, of Roslyn Heights, N.Y., pleaded guilty in May to criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal sale of a firearm. He had been an NYPD officer for two years when he was arrested last fall.

Prosecutors say Vannes admitted trading three stolen guns to a man for painkillers. He had 76 tablets of prescription painkillers in his possession when he was arrested.

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.