The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth. Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.
A 13-year-old boy who never fully recovered after he fell from a Disneyland children's ride in 2000 died yesterday.
Brandon Zucker was 4 when he fell from the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin ride in September 2000. The boy was dragged underneath the car, causing serious internal injuries, cardiac arrest and brain damage. While pinned under one of the ride's cars for several minutes he suffered a ruptured diaphragm, a collapsed left lung, a torn liver and spleen, and a fractured pelvis. He was in a coma for several weeks.
Sunday morning, Brandon was found unresponsive at his father's home in Anaheim, and died early Monday at Children's Hospital of Orange County, according to sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.
Brandon's family reached a settlement with Disney about 17 months after the accident, which did not require Disney to assume blame. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed but ensured the youngster would receive medical care for the rest of his life.
In December 2000, a state agency investigating the accident concluded that a likely cause was a lap bar that had malfunctioned and Brandon's placement next to an opening in the car. The Roger Rabbit ride was reopened in July 2001 after changes recommended by the state were made, including the addition of bumpers around each car to prevent anything from getting caught underneath.
Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown said that Disney was saddened about the boy's death. "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this difficult time," she said in a statement.
*****
What she doesn't say is the relief Disney feels not having to pony up for the boys medical care any longer.
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Nobody pretends that polluted air isn't terrible for your health. Clean up the skies over any dirty city, and the people who live there will all but certainly become healthier. That, at least, has been popular wisdom, but until now, no one had ever put it to a statistical test. Now someone has, and the results are striking: according to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, when local governments decide to scrub out the smog, local residents actually live an average of five months longer.
The Senate has approved equal pay legislation to fix the moronic Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which allows companies to get away with pay discrimination against women if they just keep it a secret. McClatchy Newspapers
Republicans are blocking Hilda Solis's nomination as Labor Secretary, because she's pro-labor. Associated Press
Of course, much is being made of this on wing-nut blogs. At www.freerepublic.com, the article on the event was accompanied by keywords such as “religiousleft”, “antichristian”, and “dementedwomen”.
Www.vnnforum.com added the commentary:
We knew it would happen: Full bore weirdness! The Messiah ushers in pagan superstition along with his Czars, totalitarianism and an incredible uptick in demonic fury—to be vented mindlessly upon all available scapegoats…
Also, added commentary:
Besides invoking witchcraft against the United States, Code Pink also works with state sponsors of terrorism and the terrorists in Iraq to undermine America in the war on terror. And Code Pink works with President Obama.
There is definitely some rage and desperation out there in wing-nut land.
If anyone needs more of a rush than their coffee can provide this morning, www.vnnforum.com has contains some high-test racism, sexism, and some seriously irrational frothing-at-the-mouth ... along with the standard hate, bile and vitrol that one has come to expect from the wing-nuts.
"...It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."
~ Barack Obama, President of the United States of America
Researchers in Antarctic's Ross Sea found huge starfish, sea snails, and jellyfish with tentacles 12-feet long. The exploration of 2,000 miles of New Zealand's Antarctic waters also revealed "meadows of sea lilies" hundreds of yards across and potentially hundreds of new species, including several mollusks.
The survey was part of the International Polar Year program involving 23 countries in 11 voyages to survey marine life and habitats around Antarctica. The program hopes to set benchmarks for determining the effects of global warming on Antarctica, researchers said...
Cold temperatures, a small number of predators, high levels of oxygen in the sea water and even longevity could explain the size of some specimens, said (Don) Robertson, a scientist with (the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research).
The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
ThisBenthocodon jellyfish was spotted near undersea mountains. The photo is in a book titled The Deep that features more than 200 photos of the insanely strange and beautiful denizen of our oceans. It was edited by Claire Nouvian, a French documentary filmmaker. Smithsonian has a feature on the book and a sampling of remarkable photos from it.
From the Smithsonian article:
The more than 200 photographs—most taken by scientists from submersibles and ROVs, some shot for the book—show just how head-shakingly bizarre life can be. The scientists who discovered the creatures were apparently as amused as we are, giving them names such as gulper eel, droopy sea pen, squarenose helmetfish, ping-pong tree sponge, Gorgon's head and googly-eyed glass squid.
Nouvian herself made two dives in a submersible, to 3,200 feet. The first thing she noticed, she says, was that "it's very slow. You can tell that all their laws are different."
This is a newly discovered sea squirt that, unlike almost all other sea squirt species, eats meat. Its "mouth" is the funnel-shaped structure that traps fish inside. The 20-inch creature was found at a depth of 13,143 feet near southern Tasmania, Australia. It's one of several animals recently discovered in the region by a team Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the California Institute of Technology.
From National Geographic:
The four-week voyage, which ended on January 17, 2009, found evidence that global warming may be linked to dying coral reefs in the ocean depths, expedition members say.
The Darby Free Library, which was founded in 1743 and is believed to be the oldest continuously operating public library in America, will be forced to close its doors at year's end if they do not have a very generous benefactor or a whole lot of patronage from smaller donors.
It would be a travesty if this old library closed.
Not only is it a vital resource for its community, it is also a symbol, as our oldest known public library, of our nation's commitment to the access to knowledge and education for everyone.
The archaeologists (from the Israel Antiquities Authority) believe a merchant family from the eastern part of the Roman Empire most likely passed down the "precious object" through the generations until the fourth or fifth century, when an unfortunate family member had it with him at a public building, perhaps a hostel -- and an earthquake struck...
Two tiny holes in the figurine suggest it was used as a suspended weight together with a balance scale, the archaeologists said.
In a case of proving how insane the wing-nuts are ... this certifiable looneytune had this to say about the text and video of Obama's weekly address I posted.
Bam-Bam Rubble complains about bank renovations when he spent so much on the inaurgural. Just because he got Willma to rap resent him ain't gone and mean Fred won't move back in to Clitt stole he.
I went to his profile and 'blog' and read his two posts - literally the only posts on his blog - from last September and they read like the ravings of a incoherent insane rant from a Hollywood script ... having worked with the mentally ill I have seen first-hand the incoherent insane rants they can and do have but every one was more lucid than this fellow even at the height of their dementia.
We have to have been 'visited' by extraterrestrials who left their 'undesirables' on this planet to be shed of them - no other explanation even closes close to explaining the wing-nuts.
The suspect who went on a deadly stabbing spree at a Belgian day care center is also thought to have killed an elderly woman 10 days ago and had plans on him to attack two more nurseries, a prosecutor said.
Christian Du Four said police now believe the man they are holding for Friday's day care massacre in Dendermonde may also have stabbed to death a 73-year-old woman who lived nearby on January 16th. "There are very clear indications of links between the murders in Dendermonde and the death of the elderly woman," said Du Four. Investigators had been unable to find a motive for woman's slaying.
Last Friday, a knife-wielding man killed two babies and a caregiver at the Fairyland day care center in Dendermonde, a town 18 miles west of Brussels. He also seriously wounded 12 others, including 10 young children, in a rampage so bloody it left rescue workers shaken.
The suspect Kim De Gelder, aged 20, was arrested the same day when he calmly rode his bike fleeing the scene. Witnesses said when the elderly woman was murdered the previous Friday, they also saw a man calmly riding away into the night on a bike. Authorities say the suspect is refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
Belgium is still trying to come grips with the attack.
Day care centers and schools reopened for a new week today but many parents were still anxious and many small students cried when they discussed the tragedy.
Newspapers carried full-page pictures of a thin, longhaired suspect looking straight into the lens with an angelic smile on his face. Du Four said matters could have gotten a lot worse if police had not caught the suspect shortly afterward at a nearby supermarket. When he was detained they found a knife, an ax and more makeup, as well as detailed plans of two more daycare centers in Dendermonde with equally innocent names like "Sunshine" and "Toddler's Land.
"The prosecutor's office said although the suspect carefully laid out plans for a murderous rampage involving even more toddlers, a motive for the slayings remains elusive. The suspect is scheduled to attend a court hearing tomorrow. He was charged on the basis of identifications by witnesses at the daycare center.
*****
The world mourns with Belgium over it's loss of the innocent and the innocence of those so young as well.
In even further proof that religious nut-jobs are the same regardless their 'religion' ...
Indonesia's top Islamic body banned Muslims from practicing yoga that contains Hindu rituals like chanting, the chairman of the group said, citing concerns it would corrupt their faith.
Cleric Ma'ruf Amin said the Ulema Council issued the ruling following weekend talks attended by hundreds of theological experts in Padang Panjang, a village in West Sumatra province.
Though not legally binding, most devout Muslims will likely adhere to it because they consider ignoring a fatwa, or religious decree, sinful. The ban, which follows a similar edict in neighboring Malaysia, was passed after investigators visited gyms and private yoga classes across the country to see what effect Hindu rituals like chanting mantras might have on Muslims. Amin said clerics decided it could weaken their faith.
"Those who perform yoga purely for health reasons or sport will not be affected," he added. "We only prohibit activities that can corrupt Islamic values."
Indonesia is a secular country of 235 million people, 90 percent of whom are Muslim. Though most practice a moderate form of the faith, a vocal extremist fringe has gained strength in recent years.
In recent years, yoga - a blend of physical and mental exercises aimed at integrating mind, body and spirit - has been increasingly practiced in gyms and dedicated centers around the world.
In the United States, where it has become so popular that many public schools began offering it in gym classes, yoga has also come under fire. Some Christian fundamentalists and even secular parents have argued that yoga's Hindu roots conflict with Christian teachings and that using it in school might violate the separation of church and state.
Egypt's highest theological body also banned yoga for Muslims in 2004.
Indonesia's Ulema Council - which wrapped up its annual meeting for the issuing of fatwas late Sunday - decided to investigate the need for a yoga ban after Malaysia's top Islamic body issued its fatwa late last year.
*****
Religious nut-jobs are all the same - clueless! If they had a clue they wouldn't be the nut-jobs they are.
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If you thought the amount of chemicals and drugs leeching into our water here in the U.S. was alarming, then read this ...
When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.
And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected.
The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet - a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.
Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans.
The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.
"If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment," said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment who did not participate in the research. "If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you're treated for everything. The question is for how long?"
Last year it was found that trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals had been found in drinking water provided to at least 46 million Americans. But the wastewater downstream from the Indian plants contained 150 times the highest levels detected in the U.S.
Another sad commentary on why regulations for guns need to be stricter ...
A gunman opened fire outside an under-21 nightclub in Portland, Ore., killing two girls and wounded several other people in an apparently random act, police said.
Five victims were students from other countries and another was a Portland resident planning a trip as an exchange student; they were going to The Zone club to celebrate a birthday.
The man did not have any known relationship to the victims beforehand, and he didn't appear to have been in the club or a nearby bar before the shooting Saturday night, police Detective Mary Wheat said.
Police late Sunday identified the alleged gunman as Erik Salvadore Ayala, 24. He was in critical condition after shooting himself in the head.
"At first blush, this incident appears to be a random act of violence, of the kind that makes you despair for America," police Chief Rosie Sizer said.
Most of those shot were on the sidewalk outside The Zone but it was unknown if they were waiting to enter the club. A bullet also hit a manager inside a neighboring bar.
Ashley L. Wilks, a 16-year-old from Portland, was killed. The other victim has not been identified, but Miguel Velasquez of the Peruvian Consulate in Seattle said she was a 17-year-old girl from Peru in an exchange program. He said her host family lives in White Salmon, Washington.
Both girls were part of a group of exchange students at The Zone to celebrate a birthday, said Chuck Itoh, chairman of the Rotary District 5100 exchange program. Wilks was getting ready to leave for her trip.
A parolee has been ordered to stand trial on charges of stabbing two men at a funeral wake for a man poisoned by moonshine.
Dennis Jerome Foust of Montague faces trial in Oceana County Circuit Court on two counts of felonious assault and a misdemeanor count of domestic violence.
The 33-year-old also is charged as a habitual offender, which could result in a longer prison sentence if he is convicted.
Police say Foust and his wife fought January 9th during the wake for Shawn Davila, who died on New Year's Day from methanol alcohol poisoning.
Two men were stabbed after intervening in the fight. They were treated and released
A 14-year-old aspiring police officer donned a uniform, walked into a Chicago police station and managed to get an assignment - patroling in a squad car for five hours before he was detected.
The boy did not have a gun, never issued any tickets and didn't drive the squad car, Deputy Superintendent Daniel Dugan said. Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said the ruse was discovered only after the boy's patrol with an actual officer ended Saturday. Officers noticed his uniform lacked a star that is part of the regulation uniform.
Police said they were investigating how the deception went undetected for so long in what they described as a serious security breach. Police didn't identify the boy because of his age. He has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer. Dugan said the boy looks older than 14 and was motivated by a desire to be an officer, not malice or "ill intent.
"The boy once took part in a Chicago program for youth interested in policing, so he would have been familiar with some procedures, perhaps helping him blend in, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
One of Nigeria's biggest daily newspapers reported that police implicated a goat in an attempted automobile theft.
In a front-page article on Friday, the Vanguard newspaper said that two men tried to steal a Mazda car two days earlier in Kwara State, with one suspect transforming himself into a goat as vigilantes cornered him.
The paper quoted police spokesman Tunde Mohammed as saying that while one suspect escaped, the other transformed into a goat as he was about to be apprehended.
The newspaper reported that police paraded the goat before journalists, and published a picture of the animal.
Police in the state couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Belief in black magic is widespread in Nigeria, particularly in far-flung rural areas.
Japan launches satellite to monitor greenhouse gases.
Japan launched a satellite on Friday to monitor greenhouse gases around the world in the hope that the data it gathers will help global efforts to combat climate change.
Recyclers ready for tons of TVs after switch to digital.
The switch to digital television signaling could create an environmental nightmare across the nation as consumers get rid of their outmoded analog TV sets - with components, which contain lead and mercury, ending up in landfills here and in third world countries.
French authorities deployed 10,000 clean-up and recovery workers and Spain let evacuated villagers return home a day after deadly storms pounded southwest France and northeast Spain.
Authorities in Spain reported at least 12 deaths linked to the storm, including four children crushed as a sports facility buckled in high winds in Barcelona. In France, at least six people died - including a couple who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning from a generator they had turned on overnight in a power outage in the Dordogne region.
Chainsaws buzzed and clearing crews fanned out on both sides of the French-Spanish border as workers cut through felled trees on homes, power lines, rail tracks and roadways and took away debris. "The issue today is to restore electricity as quickly as possible," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters at a crisis response center in Bordeaux, adding that 10,000 people including rescue teams, state officials, civil security workers and others had been deployed in France.
ERDF, the Electricite de France subsidiary, said that it had managed to restore power to 600,000 customers among 1.7 million who initially were hit with the blackout Saturday. Tens of thousands of homes in Spain were without electricity.
In France, rail operator SNCF said service was gradually returning in the region. In Spain, the bullet-train link between Madrid and Barcelona was restored as debris was cleared off the track, but services into France won't resume Sunday, state rail operator Renfe said.
In Spain, aircraft battled forest fires near the eastern town of La Nucia that the town's mayor said was caused when winds blew down a high-tension power pylon in a wooded area. Around 14,000 people that had been evacuated from several villages near the burning hills were being allowed to return to their homes, regional government counselor Serafin Castellano said.
Leisure park Terra Natura, south of Valencia, said staffers evacuated some of its animals - which include jaguars, elephants, armadillos and monkeys - from their enclosures, and hailed firefighters who helped keep away flames that had surrounded the safari park on Saturday.
Bolivian Indians on Sunday threw their support behind a new constitution aimed at increasing their strength while allowing leftist President Evo Morales a shot at staying in power through 2014.
Voters were expected to easily approve the measure in a country whose Indian majority has been long oppressed. But opposition from Bolivia's white and mestizo populations and disputes over the document's wording foreshadowed yet more political turmoil in a divided nation where tensions over race and class have recently turned deadly.
Bolivia's first Indian president, Morales says the charter will "decolonize" South America's poorest country by recovering indigenous values lost under centuries of oppression dating back to the Spanish conquest.
The proposed document, for example, would create a new Congress with seats reserved for Bolivia's smaller indigenous groups and eliminates any mention of The Roman Catholic Church, instead recognizing and honoring the Pachamama, an Andean earth deity.
Authorities in Liberia have set up a command post and called on international experts to help fight an invasion by millions of crop-devouring caterpillars that are eating their way across the country with dire economic consequences.
The inch-long (2-3 centimeters) caterpillars are clogging wells and waterways with excrement and devouring vital crops including banana, plantain, coffee and cocoa. They swarmed around a clinic in one town, preventing people from accessing it, the Ministry of Agriculture said. "The pests were found to attack practically all crops of economic value. Their droppings pollute the waters, rendering them unwholesome for human use," according to a statement by the ministry. The plague has now affected 65 towns, up from the 45 that had been earlier reported, the statement said.
In response, the government has established a command center in the town of Gbarnga comprised of top local agriculture officials. An emergency hot line has been set up to track the invaders. The ministry said international agriculture experts would be arriving early next week to support the government's effort, but it did not say what nations or agencies they were from.
The caterpillars have also entered neighboring Guinea, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
The last time Liberia experienced such an invasion of pests was 30 years ago, but officials then were able to prevent its spread. The west African nation was ravaged by civil wars for years until 2003. The drawn-out conflict which began in 1989 left about 200,000 people dead and displaced half the country's population of 3 million.
In a new segment we will be bringing you some of the odd and unusual holidays and celebrations we humans have devised for ourselves and to begin ... National Take Back Your Time Week begins tomorrow, Monday, January 26, 2009. So, take back you time!
In his first weekly address since being sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama discusses how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy.
"This is not just a short-term program to boost employment," he said. "It’s one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century."
The Administration is still working with Congress to refine the plan, but in the address, President Obama lays out the key priorities. He goes into detail, noting that the plan will update our electric grid by laying more than 3,000 miles of transmission lines; weatherize 2.5 million homes; protect health insurance for more than 8 million Americans in danger of losing their coverage; secure 90 major ports; renovate 10,000 schools; and triple the number of science fellowships.
Watch the President's weekly address and read the full remarks below.
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
We begin this year and this Administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action. Just this week, we saw more people file for unemployment than at any time in the last twenty-six years, and experts agree that if nothing is done, the unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future.
In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.
That is why I have proposed an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to immediately jumpstart job creation as well as long-term economic growth. I am pleased to say that both parties in Congress are already hard at work on this plan, and I hope to sign it into law in less than a month.
It’s a plan that will save or create three to four million jobs over the next few years, and one that recognizes both the paradox and the promise of this moment - the fact that there are millions of Americans trying to find work even as, all around the country, there’s so much work to be done. That’s why this is not just a short-term program to boost employment. It’s one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century.
Today I’d like to talk specifically about the progress we expect to make in each of these areas.
To accelerate the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy like wind, solar, and biofuels over the next three years. We’ll begin to build a new electricity grid that lay down more than 3,000 miles of transmission lines to convey this new energy from coast to coast. We’ll save taxpayers $2 billion a year by making 75% of federal buildings more energy efficient, and save the average working family $350 on their energy bills by weatherizing 2.5 million homes.
To lower health care cost, cut medical errors, and improve care, we’ll computerize the nation’s health record in five years, saving billions of dollars in health care costs and countless lives. And we’ll protect health insurance for more than 8 million Americans who are in danger of losing their coverage during this economic downturn.
To ensure our children can compete and succeed in this new economy, we’ll renovate and modernize 10,000 schools, building state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries, and labs to improve learning for over five million students. We’ll invest more in Pell Grants to make college affordable for seven million more students, provide a $2,500 college tax credit to four million students, and triple the number of fellowships in science to help spur the next generation of innovation.
Finally, we will rebuild and retrofit America to meet the demands of the 21st century. That means repairing and modernizing thousands of miles of America’s roadways and providing new mass transit options for millions of Americans. It means protecting America by securing 90 major ports and creating a better communications network for local law enforcement and public safety officials in the event of an emergency. And it means expanding broadband access to millions of Americans, so business can compete on a level-playing field, wherever they’re located.
I know that some are skeptical about the size and scale of this recovery plan. I understand that skepticism, which is why this recovery plan must and will include unprecedented measures that will allow the American people to hold my Administration accountable for these results. We won’t just throw money at our problems - we’ll invest in what works. Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made public, and informed by independent experts whenever possible. We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.
No one policy or program will solve the challenges we face right now, nor will this crisis recede in a short period of time. But if we act now and act boldly; if we start rewarding hard work and responsibility once more; if we act as citizens and not partisans and begin again the work of remaking America, then I have faith that we will emerge from this trying time even stronger and more prosperous than we were before. Thanks for listening.
“Parahawking is a unique activity combining paragliding with elements of falconry. Birds of prey are trained to fly with paragliders, guiding them to thermals for in-flight rewards and performing aerobatic maneuvers.
Parahawking was developed by British falconer Scott Mason in 2001. Mason began a round-the-world trip in Pokhara, Nepal, where many birds of prey – such as the griffon vulture, steppe eagle and black kite – can be found. While taking a tandem paragliding flight with British paraglider Adam Hill, he had the opportunity to see raptors in flight, and realized that combining the sport of paragliding with his skills as a falconer could offer others the same experience. He has been based in Pokhara ever since, training and flying birds during the dry season between September and March.
The team started by training two black kites, but have since added an Egyptian vulture and a Mountain hawk-eagle to the team. Only rescued birds are used – none of the birds has been taken from the wild.”
In what should be the last of incidents like this now that the troglodytes are gone and intelligence has taken over ...
An Australian family who traveled to the US to visit a dying relative were accused of attempting to illegally immigrate by US Customs and Border Patrol officials, who caged them, detained them, starved them overnight, and then sent them back on the next flight to Australia. The US consulate's only comment? "We reserve the right to refuse entry to visitors to the United States."
A reminder to the US Border Patrol: what you do to foreigners, their governments are apt to do to Americans. When you treat foreigners this way, you put Americans who go abroad in harm's way.
For the next 24 hours, officers questioned the Thornleigh taxi driver and his aged-care worker wife, patted them down and searched their luggage before sending them to a detention center in a caged van. They were then taken to a hotel with other detainees at 2.30am to sleep with armed guards by their bedside before being woken at 4.30am and put on a flight back to Sydney...
"They treated us like terrorists," Mr Rabbi said. "We are Australian citizens. Why did they have to keep us in a detention center? Why did they have to lock up my kids?"
Mr Rabbi says that when he explained he was in the US to visit his father, the officers threatened him.
Despite producing the family's $6400 return tickets, dated February 5, he says the officers accused him of attempting to illegally stay in the US...
The family, tired and hungry after their 18-hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles via Melbourne, were given minimal food and drink during their time at the airport.
"We were given no food, apart from a few biscuits," Mr Rabbi said.
In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama signaled conciliation to America's foes by using the metaphor of an outstretched hand to an unclenched fist.
Already, there are signs that some of those foes were listening, sensing an opening for improved relations after eight combative years under the shrub and cabal. Fidel Castro is said to like the new American leader, and North Korea and Iran both sounded open to new ideas to defuse nuclear-tinged tensions.
Unclear is what they will demand in return from the untested American statesman, and whether they will agree to the compromises the U.S. is likely to insist on in exchange for warmer relations.
Just a few questions: Are the Castro brothers really willing to move toward democracy? Can Russia and the West heal their widening estrangement? Will Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stop being a thorn in America's side?
Analysts say they see many bright opportunities amid the perils and complexities. "In this dangerous world, in a world where America's leverage has either been exposed as not being as strong as the rhetoric implied or where it is simply diminishing, I think Obama's approach is exactly what America needs," said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London-based think tank. "We need an approach that gets others to show their hand, that makes others have to think harder about their diplomacy, rather than just to react to rather strident and fixed American positions."
*****
It would be nice to move forward instead of backward like the last eight years. Maybe the world will see an end to conflict ... hey, it's a dream, but dreams do come true!
The Tasmanian devil, a ferocious, snarling fox-sized marsupial, is in danger of going extinct because of a contagious facial cancer. In the meantime, its biggest rival - the European fox - is thriving, and may become so dominant that the devil never comes back.
Scientists now want to build a double fence standing more than three feet tall to stop the cancer's relentless spread toward the rugged northwest of the island, home to disease-free devils and World Heritage-listed rain forest. Devils spread the cancer when they bite each other during mating or squabble over food.But for any chance of success, the fences would have to be completed within two years, said Hamish McCallum, the senior scientist in the devil rescue program. He predicts the devil will go extinct in the wild within 20 years.
The Australian island state of Tasmania is the only natural home for the world's largest marsupial carnivore, made notorious by its Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz. Its Latin name is Sarcophilus harrisii, or "Harris' meat lover," after the scientist who first studied devils.
A guy driving a Yugo pulls up at a stoplight next to a Rolls-Royce. The driver of the Yugo rolls down his window and shouts to the driver of the Rolls, "Hey, buddy, that's a nice car. You got a phone in your Rolls? I've got one in my Yugo!"
The driver of Rolls looks over and says simply, "Yes I have a phone."
The driver of the Yugo says, "Cool! Hey, you got a fridge in there too? I've got a fridge in the back seat of my Yugo!"
The driver of the Rolls, looking annoyed, says, "Yes, I have a refrigerator."
The driver of the Yugo says, "That's great, man! Hey, you got a TV in there, too? You know, I got a TV in the back seat of my Yugo!"
The driver of the Rolls, looking very annoyed by now, says, "Of course I have a television. A Rolls-Royce is the finest luxury car in the world!"
The driver of the Yugo says, "Very cool car! Hey, you got a bed in there, too? I got a bed in the back of my Yugo!"
Upset that he did not have a bed, the driver of the Rolls-Royce sped away, and went straight to the dealer, where he promptly ordered that a bed be installed in the back of the Rolls. The next morning, the driver of the Rolls picked up the car, and the bed looked superb, complete with silk sheets and brass trim. It was clearly a bed fit for a Rolls Royce.
So the driver of the Rolls begins searching for the Yugo, and he drove all day. Finally, late at night, he finds the Yugo parked, with all the windows fogged up from the inside. The driver of the Rolls got out and knocked on the Yugo. When there wasn't any answer, he knocked and knocked, and eventually the owner stuck his head out, soaking wet.
"I now have a bed in the back of my Rolls-Royce," the driver of the Rolls stated arrogantly.
The driver of the Yugo looked at him and said, "You got me out of the shower to tell me THIS?!?!"
Driving to work this morning on I-95 I look over to my left and there's this woman in a Mustang doing 65 miles per hour with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eye liner!
I look away for a couple seconds and when I look back she's halfway over in my lane.
Scared me so bad I dropped my electric shaver in my coffee.
A Buffalo Wing Shortage is running rampant across the nation! What a travesty! There goes all the parties down the drain!
Seriously, folks there is a shortage of chicken wings in the nation because the main supplier of all the chicken wings in the nation has said they were in financial straits due to the economic collapse and has cut (more like gutted) production ... so those wings you want will cost you!
Fast-growing salmon. Pork containing heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.Are just two examples of products you might see in your local supermarket soon -- animals developed not through conventional breeding but through genetic engineering.
On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided how it will regulate genetically engineered animals, for the first time paving the way for such animals or their products to be sold as food and medicine.
The agency has decided to categorize genetically engineered farm animals, also called transgenic animals, as an "animal drug."
They will be held to the same requirements already existing for conventionally bred animals treated with hormones or antibiotics.
In the case of transgenic animals, the "drug" is a snippet of DNA.
Now for the good part ...
Products derived from them or containing them as an ingredient will not necessarily require labeling.
"Citizen" as under the 14th Amendment is NOT the same a "natural born citizen" under Article 2 (a unique requirement for President) -- on which you and us "wingnuts" will soon receive confirmation from the Supreme Court. I suggest you stand by.
Now, are we discussing the Constitution of the United States of America here or the 'constitution' that only exists in the warped black holes the wing-nuts call their minds.
If it is the Constitution of the United States of America we are discussing then you know your statement cited above is so much horsesh_t.
However if we are discussing whatever you wing-nuts call a 'constitution', well, then could be ... the rest of us don't live in whatever fantasy world you troglodytes live in so who knows what is in your 'constitution' - but from past experience and current statements ... the aforementioned horsesh_t comes to mind.
Also, since the current court has shown its inability to read much less understand the Constitution of the United States of America ... (witness witless Roberts screwing up a simple one sentence oath just this past Tuesday when swearing in our first legitimate president in eight years. Immediately the wing-nuts howled that Obama wasn't president because HE flubbed the oath not Roberts - news flash for you Obama became president at noon January 20th, 2009 with or without the oath being taken as decreed in the Constitution of the United States of America that a president is to take office weather or not an oath has been taken) ... we would ignore it and its irrelevancy to the progress of our nation and the world should they even contemplate hearing any of the idiotic and juvenile filings that have been made by morons with less grasp on reality than Woody Woodpecker.
But I have to go now, Graham Norton is about to come on BBCAmerica and he is much more entertaining than skewering nincompoops even as fun as skewering nincompoops is to do.
Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States Calgary, Alberta, Canada High Point, North Carolina, United States Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium Copenhagan, Kobenhaven, Denmark
“The majestic old trees of the western US are disappearing twice as fast as they were three decades ago, and climate change is most likely to blame, say scientists. Philip van Mantgem of the US Geological Survey and colleagues collected data from 76 plots on the west coast – from California up to British Columbia, Canada – and in Idaho, Arizona and Colorado. These are plots without any direct human management, so any tree loss is not due to logging.
The team focused on old forests, where many of the trees were at least 200 years old, and sometimes as much as 1000 years old. In 87% of the plots, trees are disappearing faster than new trees are springing up. Death rates varied, but the trend held whether the trees were old or relatively young, big or small, high up in the mountains or down in valleys.
The Pacific Northwest, including the pine trees of British Columbia, were the worst affected – death rates there are doubling every 17 years.”
South Carolina Senator Robert Ford is attempting to outlaw profanity. Under his bill, the penalty for lewd language would be up to 5 years in prison and/or $5000 in fines.
From WCBD:
Which words are exactly considered profane is still unclear, but the bill does have a list of qualifications for profanity including words or actions that are lewd, vulgar or indecent in nature.
If I or anyone else choose to use the orignial form of our language (and 95 percent of the "lewd, vulgar, indecent in nature words and actions" are in reality the old Angle-Saxon and Celtic words and actions that were spoken and used by 'English' speakers of high and low birth in 1066 when William the Bastard defeated Harold of England and thus became known to modern history as William the Conqueror and imposed his duchy's - that being Normandy - bastardized French ... William was a Norman, i.e., a Norseman, aka Viking and his original language was Norse which is to say akin to Angle-Saxon but they had lived in France for a couple of generations and adopted quite a bit of the french language into their dialect. N'est pas!?), we will without your permission nor your 'outlawing" it.
Folks in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma are disturbed by an intense blasting sound and window-shaking tremors that apparently have been occurring at noon every day this week. Hundreds of people have called the sheriff's office to complain. The source of the rumble remains a mystery.
From KHBS:
Ron Lockhart, the Sequoyah County Sheriff, said the department has checked with every mining company in the county but none have reported any blasting....
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported activity in Sequoyah County but does not believe it to be seismic.
It could just be that reality is coming to Oklahoma and the fact that Obama IS president is starting to sink in the thick skulls there (Oklahoma is the ONLY place in America that Obama did not carry the majority of the vote in any county).
President Obama struck down a rule Friday that prohibits U.S. money from funding international family-planning clinics that promote abortion or provide counseling or referrals about abortion services.
Obama said in a statement that family planning aid has been used as a "political wedge issue," adding that he had "no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate."
The policy says any organization receiving U.S. family-planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development cannot offer abortions or abortion counseling.
"It is time we end the politicization of this issue," Obama said. "In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world."
The memorandum reverses the so called "Mexico City policy."
A three-judge panel on Friday rejected Republican Norm Coleman's request to investigate alleged vote-counting irregularities that may have contributed to his opponent's lead in Minnesota's Senate race after a recount.
"The court is not convinced that another inspection of the ballots is efficient or needed to prepare for trial," the judges wrote.
The recount trial starts Monday and is expected to last weeks.
Coleman's lawyers had identified 86 precincts where they said problems may have contributed to Democrat Al Franken's 225-vote lead.
Coleman is suing to overturn the result.
Franken's attorneys had said Coleman's request was a fishing expedition for votes.
FIRST QUESTION: Who IS the actual and lawful 44th President of the USA?
ANSWER: Joe Biden
Biden was initially the Acting President for at least 5 minutes under either the Constitution’s Article 2 or the Constitution’s 20th Amendment, from 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, having already taken his Oath of Office and before Obama completed his ‘oath’ at approximately 12:05 PM, 1/20/09. Under the 20th Amendment if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, or alternatively under Article 2 if the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term, being 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, which ability and/or qualification includes that he take the Article 2 oath “before he enter on the execution of his office,” then either the Presidency shall devolve on the Vice President under Article 2 or the Vice President shall act as President under the 20th Amendment. (The importance of the oath in ‘commencing’ an ‘Obama Presidency’ — rather than merely the 1/20/09 Noon time — is confirmed by the re-take of the ‘oath’ by Obama at the White House on 1/21/09 after the first ‘oath’ was NOT administered by Justice Roberts NOR recited by Obama in the words as required under Article 2.)
This is significant because at such time that the Supreme Court finally rules on the merits on Obama’s disqualification as not being an Article 2 “natural born citizen” (clearly he is NOT), Biden’s automatic status (without needing to take a separate Presidential Oath) of being President would be predicated upon four different bases: First, having been Vice President under Article 2; second, having been Vice President-elect under the 20th Amendment; third, having been actual President in the hiatus before Obama took the ‘oath(s)’; and fourth, retroactively deemed President during the full period of the Obama usurpation so that the acts of the Federal Government under the usurpation can be deemed authorized and/or ratified by Biden’s legitimacy.
SECOND QUESTION: Who will be the 45th President?
ANSWER: Hillary Clinton
One must assume that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been aware of all of the above. Biden’s wife recently “let the cat out of the bag” on the Oprah Show that both Biden and Hillary had considered alternatively Veep or Secretary of State, in either case, setting up Hillary to be President on a vote of the Democratic Congress if need be.
THIRD QUESTION: Is Obama an unwitting victim of this troika or a knowing participant?
ANSWER: Yet undetermined.
Still not dealing well with reality is he?!
The Usurper is gone we booted him and the rest of the cabal out last November when we served notice of their eviction to occur on January 20, 2009 at noon.
Also, if one wants to be technical about it, Obama is only the 41st elected president this country has had - three were not elected ... Hayes, Ford and the shrub (funny side note here - all non-elected presidents were repugicans). Ford was appointed by Nixon and approved by Congress as VP and when Nixon resigned he became president. Hayes and the shrub were anointed by partisan courts after rigging the voting and counting in several areas.
Oh, and that citizenship thing ... his mother was a citizen therefore he is a citizen - get over it.
Our readers come from some exotic sounding places. Like today's readers in:
Johor Baharu, Johor, Malaysia Ningbo, Zhejiang, China Snohomish, Washington, United States of America Wasilla, Alaska, United States of America Tornio, Lapland, Finland
US researchers deployed a laboratory version of a male sea lamprey pheromone to trick ovulating females into swimming upstream into traps.
The sea lamprey, sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", has parasitised native species of the Great Lakes since its accidental introduction in the 1800s.
Lush Dimbulb and other traitors scrambling to be the first exposed for what they are! Watch the video to hear Lush and the other traitors spewing their treason! Those that are truly anti-American are showing themselves more and more each day!
Bank of America this week continues to make job cuts in corporate and investment banking areas, including operations positions, and could start making reductions in the consumer banking unit next week ....the bank said in December it plans to eliminate up to 35,000 jobs as part of its acquisition of investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co.
Our World May be a Giant Hologram, an article by Marcus Chown in the January 15 2009 issue of The New Scientist, discusses recent discoveries that may well confirm the idea of a holographic universe.
For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan.
If nothing else, they may have discovered what the pixel-size of the cosmos is.
In another email from my granddaughter I received one of those 'Personality tests'. Since it came from her, I took it - and it was uncanny how accurate it was.
Should you want to find out your personality you can take the test here.
In today's installment of our long running segment "Chatter" we find that as predicted by almost everyone in the world who predicts such things ... that the wing-nuts are retreating to 'their' forums and leaving the open forums where the conversations have turned to cooperation and progressing forward.
As I have read through several forums I read on a steady basis I have noticed this as well, with one exception of a supposedly 'open' forum that has consistently proved itself to be a wing-nut forum with the same hatred and venom that are to be found on the avowed wing-nut forums staining its threads. This has increased in the last two days since President Obama took control from the usurper.
Unfortunately, we will have to endure the wing-nuts blathering on about me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, that they have for the last 100 years and the hate and bile they spew for everyone not of their dogma.
Fortunately, we will not have to endure the wing-nuts blathering on about me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, that they have for the last 100 years and the hate and bile they spew for everyone not of their dogma.
Huh, you say?
How can both statements be true?
Good question.
They both can be true because the wing-nuts have been pushed back into their fetid swamps and under the rocks which beneath they slithered from, and therefore well will not have to endure their mewlings unless we are brain-dead or slip on a bar of soap when tuning the radio dial and it lands on one of those obscure stations that still will be trying to air their hatred.
For the rest of the world we will be looking forward, moving forward, not forgetting the past nor dewelling in it either.
Former detainees, human-rights advocates and government officials around the world welcomed President Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, saying it helped restore their faith in the United States.
From the "There is always some stupid and ignorant one in the crowd " Department:
An "American of German origin" was kicked off a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to New York for standing up and shouting loud complains about all the "Arab types" on the plane:
Daniel Sussman Pincus, whose age and hometown were not given but who was described in one report as an American of German origin, shouted his complaints as the flight was preparing to depart Monday.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Marcia Hofmann has a report card on transparent government measures undertaken by the Obama administration on its first day in office. The news is pretty damned good: they've reversed Ashcroft's restrictions on Freedom of Information Act requests as well as changes to the Presidential Records Act, and have adopted general principles on transparency and open government.
According to Obama's memo: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."
This statement is almost certainly meant to address a controversial memo issued by John Ashcroft in the wake of 9/11, which ordered agencies to disclose information only after considering all possible reasons to withhold it, and assured them that government lawyers would defend their decisions in court unless they had no "sound legal basis." Many open government advocates believe Ashcroft's policy effectively gutted the FOIA over the past several years. Today's memo doesn't explicitly reverse that policy, but directs the incoming attorney general to issue new FOIA guidelines to agencies "reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency." This is a big step in the right direction.
The memo doesn't stop there. It goes on to say: "The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and down by their Government. Disclosure should be timely."
A year ago a team of New Zealand researchers found a slew of interesting species in Antarctic waters.
The survey was part of the International Polar Year program involving 23 countries in 11 voyages to survey marine life and habitats around Antarctica. The program hopes to set benchmarks for determining the effects of global warming on Antarctica, researchers said...
For the next 24 hours, officers questioned the Thornleigh taxi driver and his aged-care worker wife, patted them down and searched their luggage before sending them to a detention center in a caged van. They were then taken to a hotel with other detainees at 2.30am to sleep with armed guards by their bedside before being woken at 4.30am and put on a flight back to Sydney... 
