- Signs of the Times Archive for Tue, 10 Jun 2008 -



Sections on today's Signs Page:

SOTT Focus
Penn Guinn's French adventures

SOTT editor
SOTT French troops
2008-06-10 16:53:00

Continuing his whirlwind tour of the democracies of the world: Israel, Italy, and now France; Guinn has touched down in the land of frogs' legs, feasts and funky cheese.

Sarkozystan: the arrival; Our Man Guinn arrived in style, the $200,000-a-trip private jet being used by nameless French sub-ministers was unfortunately not available, luckily under the new regime, non-cronies of Sarkozy are provided with lush travel accommodation.

Image
©Unknown
After some breathing assistance, the man from Antarctica is back, ready for his French adventures.



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Best of the Web
At Last! Rep. Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution - Time for Action! (2 Updates)

By JoAnne Allen
Reuters
2008-06-10 08:10:00

WASHINGTON - Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich defied his party leadership on Monday by calling for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush for launching the Iraq war -- but his move was not expected to go anywhere.



Comment: If ever there was a time for everyone to write, phone, fax, lobby their congressional representatives, now is that time! Support Kucinich's resolution! Demand accountability of the Bush Regime! Bury Washington in faxes and letters; shut down the phone lines with your calls! Stop the government until this critical matter is resolved!



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"A Legacy of Greatness": the Morality of a Psychopath

Stephen Saperstein Frug
Attempts Blog
2008-05-28 11:45:00

bush legacy
©Unknown


Andrew Sullivan, writing about McClellan's new book is most taken with the fact that McClellan claims that Bush intentionally ignored the WMD evidence, saying "if the president intentionally ignored data refuting the existence of Saddam's WMDs, he should be impeached."

Frankly, the fact that Bush did this is old news; and impeachment is the least of the appropriate responses -- a war crimes trial would be called for. (I sort of thought Sullivan was farther along than this, actually.)

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Leaders With No Conscience

Rand Clifford
OpEd News
2008-06-09 21:26:00

As Osama bin Laden lay dying, December of 2001, might he have imagined that seven years later he would be on bogeyman life-support, still officially issuing messages as ruling poster boy for America's mindless, force-fed terror obsession? The hammerlock on thoughts of Americans by psychopathic leadership still depends on the fairytale power of Osama to help fuel the pathological War On Terror - could he have foreseen this, Americans being so propagandized as to let the lifeblood of their nation drip through their fingers, for lies? Whatever Osama knew he'd accomplished surely pales in light of what he has done since dying; if he had any inkling of this he must have died smiling.

With characteristic deception our pathocracy implies that Osama has somehow gotten vital dialysis treatments all these years at his hideout in never-never (mind) land.

Definition: pathocracy (n). A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people (from Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski).


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U.S. News
The Repeating Pattern of Presidential Lies and Deceptions

Kenneth T. Walsh
U.S. News & World Report
2008-06-06 17:58:00

When spin crosses the line, the credibility gap is hard to repair

The credibility gap is widening again. The latest manifestation comes from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book excoriating George W. Bush for various forms of evasion and for spreading falsehoods about the Iraq war and other issues. But Bush is only the latest in a long line of presidents who have suffered from credibility problems.

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Former fire chief gets 24 years in abuse case


Associated Press
2008-06-10 15:38:00

CHEYENNE, WY - A federal judge on Friday sentenced former Campbell County fire chief Gary Scott to serve more than 24 years in prison on 10 felony convictions of taking children under the age of 18 across state lines to sexually molest them.



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Wyoming tribe tries to cope with mysterious deaths of 3 teen girls


Associated Press
2008-06-06 15:08:00

CHEYENNE - Families and friends of three teenage girls found dead this week on the Wind River Indian Reservation received support from tribal elders and others as investigating authorities remained mum today about how the girls died.

"A lot of people are turning to traditional and nontraditional ways to help them cope with their loss," said Jonathon Barela, spokesman for the Northern Arapaho Tribe. "By traditional ways, it's ways that everybody was brought up with out here. And nontraditional ways, obviously, with counselors."

The tribe has formed a special trauma team, Barela said.

"Elders of our tribe have also extended an open arms policy for any of the youth or any of the families to come speak with them and help them with their loss," he said.

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'Suicide is Painless' message on car baffles FBI


CNN
2008-06-10 14:05:00

WHITE PLAINS, New York -- A car abandoned on a bridge with the phrase "Suicide is Painless" scrawled in the dust on its hood is registered to a hedge-fund swindler who was supposed to report to federal prison, state police said Tuesday.

Samuel Israel
©AP
Samuel Israel III walks into federal court in New York in this 2008 file photo.




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Florida tomato industry in "complete collapse"

Jane Sutton
News Daily
2008-06-10 12:52:00

MIAMI - Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" and $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot unless federal regulators quickly trace the source of a salmonella outbreak and clear the state's produce, an industry official said on Tuesday.

Florida tomatoes
©REUTERS/PRNewsFoto
Florida tomatoes in an undated photo. Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" and $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot unless federal regulators quickly trace the source of a salmonella outbreak and clear the state's produce, an industry official said on Tuesday.


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Ex-politician among dead in Ohio plane crash


Edinburgh Evening News
2008-06-09 11:12:00

A small plane crashed in an Ohio residential area and killed all six people aboard, including the pilot, a former state politician who had offered joyrides to airport visitors after a charity breakfast.

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Defense Contractor Pleads Guilty to Bribery


Corporate Crime Reporter
2008-06-03 10:27:00

A defense contractor, Raman International Inc., pled guilty today for its role in a bribery scheme aimed at influencing the award of U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contracts at Camp Victory, Iraq.

Raman, headquartered in Cypress, Texas, will pay a criminal fine of $500,000, which is the maximum fine for a corporation charged with conspiracy, and pay restitution in the amount of $327,192.

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To 'Save Face' U.S. Opens Site For Processing Iraqi Refugees

Amit R. Paley and Walter Pincus
Washington Post
2008-06-04 10:15:00

The U.S. government has opened its first permanent office here for Iraqi refugees seeking to settle in the United States, responding to criticism that the Bush administration has failed to help thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because of their work with American organizations.

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Flashback: Who are the liberal elites?

Eric Alterman
The Nation
2008-03-27 05:23:00

The contemporary conservative obsession with the "liberal elite" has its origin in the campaign of 1964, when Ronald Reagan crisscrossed the country in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential aspirations, accusing liberals of believing that "an intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." Richard Nixon took up the cudgel in his second State of the Union speech, complaining that "a bureaucratic elite in Washington knows best what is best for people everywhere." But it was Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who, aided by speechwriters Pat Buchanan and William Safire, showed right-wingers what political potential lay in this line of attack, with his orgies of alliteration regarding the evildoings of various "pusillanimous pussyfooters," "hopeless hysterical hypochondriacs of history," "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "effete corps of impudent snobs," to pick just a few of his favorite epithets for liberal opponents in the media and academia.

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Taser Loses 1st Product-Liability Suit; Jury Awards $6 Million

Margaret Cronin Fisk
Bloomberg News
2008-06-07 01:22:00

Taser International Inc., the largest stun-gun maker, lost a $6.2 million jury verdict over the death of a California man who died after police shot him multiple times with the weapon. The defeat is the first for Taser in a product- liability claim.


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Court Records Unsealed In Phoenix Serial Predator Case


kpho.com
2008-06-10 00:15:00

Court records unsealed Monday afternoon show the man accused of being Mesa's serial predator admitted to sexually assaulting two women and leaving another for dead.

The document said Trent Benson, 36, stopped short of confessing to the slayings.

Investigators said they received a tip and followed Benson. Detectives said they were able to collect a cigarette butt he had dropped, enabling them to get his DNA.



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Flashback: Police waiting to release sketch of Phoenix serial predator

Christopher Sign
abc15.com
2008-05-13 13:45:00

PHOENIX -- Just days after Mesa police announced two unsolved killings and a sexual assault were linked by DNA, a fourth case has been added to the list of crimes tied to a serial predator.

Investigators have also released details about the suspect, who is described as an Asian man with a medium build between the ages of 25 and 35.

Victims describe him as 5 foot 6 inches tall to 5 foot 10 inches tall, with a neat, clean-shaven appearance. He has short black hair and may have a scar under his left eye.

Mesa detectives confirm they do have a sketch of the serial predator but are not releasing it to the public at this point.



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Road rage suspects kill grandmother, shoot little girl


kpho.com
2008-06-09 23:52:00

PHOENIX -- A collision sparked a road rage shooting that left a grandmother dead and her young granddaughter wounded Sunday afternoon, Phoenix police said.

The victim was identified on Monday as Elvina Legarde, 69. She was a passenger in the front seat of vehicle carrying four other people and suffered gunshot wounds to the upper part of her body, officers said. Legarde was rushed to the hospital in very critical condition, police said. She later died.

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Crane accident in Miami injures 1 worker

Jessica Gresco
Associated Press
2008-06-09 22:25:00

MIAMI, Florida - The arm of a mobile construction crane came loose Monday in Miami, injuring at least one worker and leading to the partial evacuation of a nearby hotel as a precaution.

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Packing in public: Gun owners embrace 'open carry'

Nicholas Riccardi
Los Angeles Times
2008-06-07 18:02:00

Packing in Public
©Ellen Jaskol / L.A. Times
Bill White, 24, a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, wears his Colt pistol when he goes to his local Starbucks


Those who wear their guns in full sight are part of a fledgling movement to make a firearm a common accessory.

Provo, Utah -- For years, Kevin Jensen carried a pistol everywhere he went, tucked in a shoulder holster beneath his clothes.

In hot weather the holster was almost unbearable. Pressed against Jensen's skin, the firearm was heavy and uncomfortable. Hiding the weapon made him feel like a criminal.

Then one evening he stumbled across a site that urged gun owners to do something revolutionary: Carry your gun openly for the world to see as you go about your business.

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UK & Euro-Asian News
Spanish hauliers begin indefinite strike over fuel prices

Graham Keeley
Guardian (UK)
2008-06-09 17:01:00


Image
©Xavier Bertral/EPA
Spanish hauliers bring traffic to standstill near Barcelona at the start of an indefinite strike to protest against rising fuel prices.


Spanish lorry drivers used their vehicles to block a major motorway link with France today, as hauliers launched an indefinite strike today in protest at the rise in fuel prices.

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Acid tank explodes at China factory, injuring 40


Reuters
2008-06-08 16:56:00

A tank containing hydrochloric acid exploded at a factory in southeastern China, injuring more than 40 workers, Xinhua reported on Sunday.

The accident occurred early on Saturday at the Quannao electrical appliance factory in the Bao'an District of Shenzhen when workers were filling a 3,000-litre tank with the acid.

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Putin to personally control foreign investments in Russia's strategic industries


Pravda
2008-06-05 16:30:00

Image
©Unknown
Putin to personally control foreign investments in Russia's strategic industries


Vladimir Putin, the Prime minister of Russia, will become the head of the governmental committee to supervise foreign investments in Russia and their reliability from the point of view of Russia's national security. Putin ordered his ministers to pick candidates to work in the committee.

f foreign investors decide to invest in Russia's strategic fields in the future, it will be Vladimir Putin to make the final decision, Austria's Die Presse wrote.

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Two vessels collide on Chinese river killing at least seven


RIA Novosti
2008-06-09 16:11:00

At least seven people died and three are still missing in northwest China after a cargo and a passenger vessel collided at the weekend, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

The accident took place on the Hanjiang River in the Shaanxi province on Saturday afternoon. The passenger ship, which was badly damaged, sank with all 14 passengers onboard.

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Russia destroys 20 ballistic missiles in 2008 under START treaty


RIA Novosti
2008-06-09 14:25:00

Russia has destroyed and sent for scrap about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and 12 mobile missile launchers since the start of 2008, the Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) said on Monday.

"Since January 2008, the SMF have destroyed and sent for scrap about 20 ICBMs whose service life has expired," the SMF said in a statement, adding the missiles were scrapped as part of the START-1 treaty, set to expire on December 6, 2009.

In addition, a total of 12 mobile missile launchers have been dismantled during the same period under the close monitoring of U.S. inspectors, the statement said.

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Suspected U.S. missile fired in NW Pakistan

Shams Mohmand and Kamran Haider and Robert Birsel
News Daily
2008-06-10 12:57:00

PESHAWAR - A pilotless U.S. drone was suspected to have fired a missile into a Pakistani area on the Afghan border on Tuesday, but there was no word on the target or casualties, a government official said.



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Eldest child in Austria incest case wakes from coma

Karin Strohecker
News Daily
2008-06-10 12:14:00

VIENNA - The eldest daughter from an incestuous relationship between Austrian Josef Fritzl and his daughter who he kept locked in a cellar for 24 years has been revived from an artificial coma, hospital sources said on Tuesday.

house of Josef Fritzl
©REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
The house of Austrian suspect Josef Fritzl is pictured in Amstetten in eastern Austria May 2, 2008.


Fritzl kept his daughter Elisabeth locked up in a secret, windowless cellar in the basement of his house, where she gave birth to seven of his children. Three of the children were kept locked in the cellar with their mother.

"The patient Kerstin F. was brought around from her artificial coma and was able to leave the intensive care unit a few days back," the hospital in Amstetten said. "The patient is still in need of intensive medical and therapeutic care."

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Like Attracts Like: Carla Bruni's temper as 'volcanic' as Nicolas Sarkozy's


Sify News
2008-06-09 11:26:00

French first lady Carla Bruni has just as volcanic a temperament as her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the latest book about their whirlwind romance - 'Carla and Nicolas, the True Story'.

The book claims that the Italian supermodel 'regularly' threw one former boyfriend's belongings out of the window of their flat in Paris in the 1990s.

"She gets into a real rage, particularly with her boyfriends," Times Online quoted a close friend of Bruni, as stating in the book.

The authors, two respected journalists, have described the 40-year-old singer's tempestuous two-year relationship with Arno Klarsfeld, a lawyer and son of the Nazi hunters Serge and Beate, whom she met on Concorde in 1994.

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French TV turmoil as 'Sarkozy's glamorous blonde' takes limelight

Henry Samuel
The Telegraph
2008-06-10 11:22:00

France's best-known TV newsreader is to be replaced by a glamorous blonde half his age after she reportedly received the enthusiastic backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, 60, has presented Europe's most watched news broadcast for the continent's most-watched channel, TF1, since 1987.

Nine million French viewers tune into watch the softly-spoken Breton every evening for what the French call "high mass."

Such is his fame that he is known simply by his initials, PPDA, while his comb-overs and frequent hair implants are a regular topic of national debate.

Image
©AFP/GETTY/REUTERS
Patrick Poivre d'Arvor will be replaced by Laurence Ferrari


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UK: Brown's job is on line over unneccesary 42 day terror law

Mathew George
Western Daily Press
2008-06-10 10:01:00

One of the West's most senior police officers has spoken out against detaining terror suspects for 42 days without charge, in the run-up to a crucial Commons vote.

Labour MPs must decide whether to rebel against Gordon Brown's proposals tomorrow in what would be a potentially fatal blow for the beleaguered Prime Minister.

Downing Street admitted last night the crunch vote was looking very, very tight but insisted there would be no more concessions.
sad brown
©Guardian
Job on the line


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UK law creates underclass of child criminals

Rosemary Bennett
The Times
2008-06-09 05:12:00

Youth crime
©Unknown


Britain has been condemned as a bleak place for children, where thousands are needlessly criminalised for misdemeanours and where the gap between the education and health of the rich and poor is growing.

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Trips into town for axe killer

Justin Penrose
Sunday Mirror
2008-06-09 21:50:00

A nazi-obsessed serial killer described as a "ticking time-bomb" has been moved to a cushy jail and will be allowed on escorted town visits.

Patrick Mackay, 55, who slaughtered two elderly women and killed a priest with an axe, has been quizzed about NINE other murders.

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Around the World
Ethiopia faces a new famine


France 24
2008-06-04 16:28:00

As world leaders from nearly 50 nations meet in Rome to address the food crisis at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization summit, thousands of miles away in southern Ethiopia, the inhabitants of Alem Tena, a tiny village, are facing a food shortage.

The isolated village is two kilometers from any major thoroughfare. Aid workers sent to the area have set up free clinics for the villagers and attempt to respond to their needs.

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Australia: ADHD 'miracle' duped thousands

Louise Hall and Naomi Sherborne
Sydney Morning Herald
2008-06-08 16:11:00

THOUSANDS of parents have been left out of pocket by the collapse of a company that promised a "miracle cure" for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The drug-free "Dore" treatment had been ridiculed by critics, who said there was no scientific evidence it worked despite dozens of glowing testimonials from parents.

The company, founded by British businessman Wynford Dore, abruptly closed its 13 Australian clinics last month. Administrator Giles Woodgate said more than 3000 clients were owed a total of $1.6million. Another $1million was owed in unpaid wages to 128 employees. Mr Giles said both groups were unlikely to see $1.

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India: Plan to build Shivaji monument taller than Statue of Liberty


International Herald Tribune / Associated Press
2008-06-06 15:55:00

Mumbai is planning to build a towering monument to a beloved warrior-king that is taller than the Statue of Liberty - but, if initial reaction is any gauge, the memorial may not be a crowd-pleaser.

The government of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, this week cleared plans for the 309-foot (94 meter) statue of the 17th century Hindu ruler Shivaji, famed in these parts for fighting off India's Muslim Mogul rulers, who reigned over much of the subcontinent's north before the arrival of British colonizers.

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Breaking News: Passenger plane crashes in flames in Sudan


CNN
2008-06-10 15:28:00

A plane with about 200 people aboard crashed Tuesday while attempting to land at a Khartoum, Sudan, airport.

Video from the scene showed the wreckage engulfed in flames.

There was no immediate official word on casualties but Sudanese TV reported at least 100 dead.

The network also reported 13 out of the plane's 14 crew members survived,

Airport officials told CNN the plane overshot the runway in bad weather.

It was not immediately clear which airline or what type of plane was involved.

Image
©Al Jazeera
Sudanese TV reports at least 100 died in the inferno.


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Mystery Boeing 727 abandoned at Hanoi airport


BBC News
2008-06-10 14:34:00

Vietnamese authorities say they are mystified as to who owns a Boeing 727 which has been abandoned at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport.

The plane was flown in from Siem Reap in neighbouring Cambodia in late 2007 and has been unclaimed ever since.

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Venezuela: House collapses as couple watch tv


Trinidad and Tobago Express
2008-06-05 14:29:00

Fisherman Marlon Soleyh and his wife Erica were looking at television when they heard a loud noise under the house and the sound of the walls cracking.

Within minutes, the wooden house at Murli Street, La Romaine, was in shambles.

When the commotion started, the Soleyhs awakened their three children and took them to their grandmother's home, a few houses away.

Neighbours came to the rescue and helped the family by propping up the bathroom with a galvanize water tank so that it would not topple over. The tank separated the bathroom from other parts of the house.

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Official: Plane with officials crashes in Kenya

Tom Maliti
Associated Press
2008-06-10 11:01:00

An official from Kenya's Civil Aviation Authority says a plane carrying a Cabinet minister and an assistant minister has crashed in southwestern Kenya.

The official says some passengers aboard the six-seater Cessna have died, but it is not clear how many.

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Subsidiary of U.S. military security contractors buy 314 B1 Super Tucano Fighter Plane


Product Reviews/USA Today
2008-06-02 10:21:00

super-tucano-fighter-plane
©Unknown


Blackwater Worldwide who are a subsidiary of U.S. military security contractors have just purchased the 314 B1 Super Tucano Fighter Plane from the Brazilian aviation company Embraer. The 314 B1 Super Tucano propeller-driven fighter plane was bought for $4.5 million and delivered to EP Aviation at the end of February.

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Desperation as Ethiopia's hunger grows

Gavin Hewitt
BBC
2008-06-09 23:27:00

It is a strange and unsettling ride west from the Ethiopian town of Shashamene. The fields are vibrant green. There is water in the creeks. The soil is a deep rich burgundy.

However, the people here speak of a "green drought".

It is the time when the land is full of new shoots but there is no food. It happens because the last rains failed and few crops were planted.


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Encyclopaedia Britannica To Follow Modified Wikipedia Model

Eliot Van Buskirk
Wired
2008-06-09 23:17:00

In a bid to wed the comprehensive, grassroots information factory of Wikipedia with the authority of the traditional encyclopedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica is opening the floodgates for online user submissions into its 240-year-old publication -- a move it long resisted and sniffed was akin to intellectual pollution.


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UN team in Rwanda allowed to leave


Al Jazeera
2008-06-09 22:47:00

A delegation from the UN Security Council left stranded at Kigali airport in Rwanda when officials demanded $20,000 for their jet to be refuelled, has been allowed to leave.


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Myanmar Cyclone Survivors Need Food for a Year, UN Agency Says

Paul Tighe
Bloomberg
2008-06-10 22:27:00

Cyclone survivors in Myanmar's Irrawaddy River Delta will probably need food aid for a year because last month's storm destroyed fields, preventing planting in the main food-producing region, a United Nations agency said.

"Households and farmers will likely require some form of food assistance through their next harvest, which could be up to a year away,'' Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, said in Bangkok yesterday, according to the UN's IRIN news agency.

An estimated 200,000 hectares (494,210 acres), or 16 percent of the agricultural land in the delta, was damaged by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization says. The region's five worst-affected states produce most of the rice, fish and pork for Myanmar's 47.8 million people.

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Travelling 'torture caravan' disturbing sign of the times

Heba Aly
The Toronto Star
2008-06-09 22:13:00

It is a bizarre feeling - eating, walking, laughing with men who have been hung from their wrists and beaten with electric cables. To see them behave so normally despite their experiences is a bit destabilizing.

But for five days, that is what I did, as three men - Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati - travelled from small town to small town, telling Canadians their stories and pushing for a public inquiry into what happened to them.

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Big Brother
Papers Please: TSA Nixes Flying Without ID

Ryan Singel
Wired
2008-06-09 23:10:00

Americans who prefer to fly without showing ID will be turned away by airport security beginning June 21, unless they can convince screeners that their driver's license or passport has been lost, according to a Transportation Security Administration policy change announced on Friday.

The TSA describes the identification rule change as the "latest in a series designed to facilitate travel for legitimate passengers while enhancing the agency's risk-based focus -- on people, not things."

While signs in the nation's airports already say that identification is required, that's not the current rule. Wired.com watched two years ago when DHS adviser Jim Harper flew home from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., after handing his license to this reporter.

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MPs say UK risks drift to surveillance society


Reuters
2008-06-09 22:20:00

The government must guard against the drift into a "surveillance society", only keeping data on individuals as long as is absolutely necessary, a parliamentary committee said on Sunday.

The Home Affairs Committee called on the government to adopt a principle of what it called "data minimisation", collecting only essential information and keeping it under a tight curb.

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What Anti-Protestor Weapons is Denver Planning to Use?

Susan Greene
Denver Post
2008-06-09 22:08:00

As legend has it, the Brown Note is an infrasonic frequency believed to resonate through human body parts and cause a loss of bowel control. Some protesters are convinced that Denver police will amplify such low frequencies to subdue them in August.

"They'll bring out all the technologies they can get their hands on," says activist Ben Yager. "I wouldn't put anything past police in terms of crowd control."

Sounds paranoid?

Maybe. But Mayor John Hickenlooper's administration is only fueling conspiracy theories by refusing to disclose what equipment it's buying with $18 million in federal money. Even after being sued last week, the city insists on keeping its list a secret.

Image
©Unknown


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Reining in Forfeiture: Common Sense Reform in the War on Drugs

Kyla Dunn
PBS: Frontline
2008-06-09 18:53:00

Rudy Ramirez never expected to become a statistic in the War on Drugs when he set off to buy a used car, $7300 in cash at the ready, in January 2000. Ramirez, who lives in Edinburg, Texas near the border with Mexico, had spotted a listing for the used Corvette in a magazine and wanted it badly enough that he talked his brother-in-law into accompanying him on a thousand mile road trip to Missouri to make the purchase. When Ramirez was pulled over by police in Kansas City, however, the tenor of the trip changed.

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US: Civil rights group to protest as first checkpoint introduced

Michael Neibauer
Washington Examiner
2008-06-07 18:31:00

Washington, D.C. - A coalition of civil rights leaders today is expected to denounce Mayor Adrian Fenty's plan to quarantine crime-ravaged neighborhoods as a knee-jerk reaction implemented with little community input or support.

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U.S. Government forms Cyber Force to police the Internet


Strategy Page
2008-06-08 18:15:00

The U.S. government has quietly gone ahead and formed several special security organizations for policing the internet. Because there is such a (trained, not to mention talented) manpower shortage right now (and in the foreseeable future), this was done on the cheap. An effective force could not be recruited, even if everyone agreed to accept government pay levels, because of the huge expense.

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NYPD expanding use of Tasers starting from next week


My Fox New York
2008-06-07 08:05:00

Starting next week, more New York City police sergeants will be carrying Taser stun guns.

The program, which begins Wednesday, is part of an effort to give officers more alternatives to deadly force.

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Axis of Evil
North Korea, 800,000 dead from famine


AsiaNews
2008-06-10 16:17:00

People dying while working in factories, exhausted from hunger; policemen stealing food from the people; lack of food, starvation: while world leaders discuss the food problem at the FAO summit, the population of North Korea faces an unprecedented decimation. The annual famine, together with the disastrous flooding last year, has made food impossible to find in the regime headed by Kim Jong-il. According to South Korean non-governmental organisations, the only groups still allowed to bring necessities to the north, 800,000 have already died from hunger.

The situation is especially harsh for workers in the munitions industry, who are required by rules of military secrecy never to leave their place of work. The government has provided so little food for these factories that, since April, about three factory workers have been dying each day. One source, anonymous for reasons of safety, recounts: "In the district of Kandong-gun, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, there is no one left: the people are dying from hunger after seven days with no food at all".

Image
©Unknown


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Profiting from Iraq's occupation

Harry Cohen
RINF
2008-06-08 14:42:00

The British in Basra are unpopular and mostly ineffective. The last survey of Basra residents by BBC Newsnight indicated that 86 per cent believe British troops have had a negative effect on the Iraqi province since 2003.



Comment: 'Negative effect' is a gross understatement.

From Thanks to US 'liberators': "Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off" as honor killings are on the rise in Iraq:



Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.[...]

"In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising -- women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights."





More than half felt the troops presence had actually increased the overall level of militia violence over the past four years. Twelve per cent believed that British troops had made no difference at all. Only two per cent believed British troops had had a positive effect. And 83 per cent said they wanted British troops to leave Iraq without delay. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the British role, carried out at great cost, including of many lives.

Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown promised to reduce British troops in Iraq from 4,500 to 2,500. On 28 April, Defence Secretary Des Browne abandoned that promise in parliament.

The troops were also supposed to be no longer involved in day to day operations in the province and confined to their Basra airport base. That implied non-engagement has been undermined, as the troops gave support to the forces of the Iraqi government in their offensive against the forces of Moqtadr al Sadr.

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent's well-respected, non-embedded, journalist in Iraq, pointed out that elections are due in about six months time and the Shias of Prime Minister Maliki's faction are trying to gain advantage over the popular Shia faction of al Sadr. They are using force to do this and want to draw in the British in Basra.

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Jewish general named new USAF chief


Jerusalem Post
2008-06-10 14:47:00

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates launched the US Air Force in a new direction Monday by announcing an unusual choice as the service's next uniformed chief and by declaring an immediate halt to personnel reductions that he said had put the Air Force under too much wartime strain.

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EU and U.S. seek to turn up pressure on Iran

Jeremy Pelofsky and Zoran Radosavljevic
News Daily
2008-06-10 13:07:00

BRDO, Slovenia - The United States and the European Union sought on Tuesday to turn up the pressure on Iran to drop its nuclear enrichment program by saying they were ready to go beyond a latest round of U.N. sanctions.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
©REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) waves to journalists as he arrives for an official meeting with Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (unseen) in Tehran June 8, 2008.



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Empire's last hurrah

Ayman El-Amir
Al Ahram Weekly
2008-06-05 10:05:00

Of all the empires in history, the United States will go down as one of the most aggressive and least inspiring. After nearly 160 years of warfare and imperial conquest, US policy, and the war machine it marshalled, has left nothing in its tracks but death and destruction, with no lasting cultural value. Five years after the US invasion, Iraq lies in ruins. Divided, violent, depleted, unstable, rife with sectarian war, a hotbed of terrorism and with 20 per cent of its population killed, wounded, displaced or in asylum in neighbouring countries, Iraq bears no resemblance to its recent past. Meanwhile, allied regimes in the Arab Middle East, which the Bush administration vowed to democratise after invading Iraq, are now more entrenched, more autocratic than ever.

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Arming our own enemies in Iraq

Gareth Porter
Salon
2008-06-06 09:54:00

Petraeus Iran
©Salon composite / Reuters image
Gen. David Petraeus


In recent months, Gen. David Petraeus charged that Iran has supplied powerful rocket-propelled grenade launchers to Shiite militias in Iraq. But according to the U.S. government's own reports, there is no evidence to support that charge. In fact, the vast majority of RPGs in the hands of Shiite militants have come from either U.S.-purchased weapons intended for Iraq's new security forces, or from Saddam Hussein's old stockpiles, which the U.S. failed to secure when it took control of the country.

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Bush administration says it may not get Iraq deal this year

LOLITA C. BALDOR
AP
2008-06-10 09:24:00

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is conceding for the first time that the United States may not finish a complex security agreement with Iraq before President Bush leaves office.

Faced with stiff Iraqi opposition, it is "very possible" the U.S. may have to extend an existing U.N. mandate, said a senior administration official close to the talks. That would mean major decisions about how U.S. forces operate in Iraq could be left to the next president, including how much authority the U.S. must give Iraqis over military operations and how quickly the handover takes place.

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US hidden agenda in Iraq security agreement

Ismail Salami
Press TV
2008-06-07 09:16:00

Iraq and the US are now at loggerheads over a new open-ended security agreement which would sanction continued presence of the US military in the country, envisage permanent military bases, and give the American military personnel and security contractors the license to kill more Iraqi civilians.

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EU, US to seek financial squeeze on Iran

DPA
The Earth Times
2008-06-10 07:56:00

Brdo, Slovenia - The European Union and the United States agreed to tighten the squeeze on Iran's financial links to disrupt its alleged support of terrorism and nuclear proliferation, according to a draft statement at an EU-US summit Tuesday. US President George W Bush and top EU officials renewed a demand for Iran to verifiably suspend uranium enrichment, warning that "we are ready to supplement (UN) sanctions with additional measures," the document said.

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Washington ordered destruction of Guantánamo interrogation records

Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
2008-06-10 05:46:00

In another confirmation of the criminal character of Washington's handling of so-called "enemy combatants," a "Standard Operating Procedure" manual has come to light that explicitly instructs US interrogators at the American prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to destroy contemporaneous records of their interrogations.

The existence of the document was made public by the military defense attorney for Omar Khadr, a Canadian national who has been held for six years since being captured by American forces as a 15-year-old minor in Afghanistan.

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Barack O'Bilderberg: Picking the President

Andrew G. Marshall
Global Research
2008-06-10 05:13:00


Bilderberg has long been an important forum for up-and-coming politicians of Western nations to be introduced to the global financial elite; the heads of the major multinational corporations, international banks, world financial institutions, global governing bodies, think tanks, and powerful individuals of the likes of David Rockefeller and various European monarchs, including Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, daughter of founding member, Prince Bernhard, as well as Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain.[...]

James A. Johnson, the man Obama asked to pick his running mate, played the same role for John Kerry back in 2004, and he selected John Edwards. As the New York Times reported, "Several people pointed to the secretive and exclusive Bilderberg conference of some 120 people that this year drew the likes of Henry A. Kissinger, Melinda Gates and Richard A. Perle to Stresa, Italy, in early June, as helping [Edwards] win Mr. Kerry's heart.



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Sibel Edmonds vs the Nuclear Terrorists


Pakistan Daily
2008-06-09 22:05:00

This is a primer on Sibel Edmonds; her story will be of interest to anyone concerned about US national security and sovereignty; terrorism; 9/11 truth; and abuse of power by public officials. All claims of fact in this article can be sourced in the Sibel Edmonds:US Government Timeline and the Media Coverage Timeline at the bottom of the article. Her allegations listed in this article, and the documents/articles linked in the timelines are not exhaustive.

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Psychopaths Rule the World - What to do?

Len Hart
The Existentialist Cowboy
2008-06-03 21:13:00

Tiananmen Square and tank
©Unknown


The psychologist Carl Jung estimated that in every 'society' could be found a 'psychopathic' thirty percent. It's sobering to think that over 60 percent of every society --even those we think most cultured --may be largely 'ruled' by about thirty percent who are utterly lacking the restraints that most of us associate with personal maturity, social cohesion, civilization itself.

A recent article by Dr. Kevin Barrett explores the dysfunctional underbelly of civilization which he says is "... largely the creation of psychopaths: all civilizations, he claims, are built upon 'slavery and mass murder'.

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Condolizzard Shapes World in Her Image

Robert Dreyfuss
The Nation
2008-06-09 18:59:00

In case you missed it--or, if you didn't miss it, in case you didn't have the energy to read the entire 9,000 words--Condoleezza Rice's interminable lead article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs is a doozy.

It's an extended fugue on the importance of democracy promotion, whether by hook or crook. "We recognize," she writes, "that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest."

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Middle East Madness
Israeli strike kills three in Gaza


RIA Novosti
2008-06-10 16:33:00

At least three Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli missile strike on eastern Gaza on Tuesday, Hamas said.

The Islamic group also said another six militants were injured in the strike which was directed at Hamas firing positions, which earlier launched around 20 mortar shells into Israel.



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Turkish warplanes strike northern Iraq


Reuters
2008-06-10 16:28:00

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq - Turkish warplanes attacked northern Iraq on Monday, Iraqi security officials said on Tuesday, bombing a mountainous area that is home to rebel Kurdish separatists.

Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Peshmerga security forces in Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region, said the warplanes struck an area near Nerwa Wa Rekan, a village in the northern province of Dahuk. There were no reports of any casualties.


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Egyptian president urges measures to tackle overpopulation


RIA Novosti
2008-06-09 15:11:00

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has declared a nationwide campaign to slow down population growth in the Arab world's most populous nation.

Speaking at a national conference on population, Mubarak urged the government, the private sector, and civil society to take measures against overpopulation - something he called a "major challenge" to the country's development.

Egypt is suffering from rampant unemployment and some 40 % of the population lives below or $2 per day.

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IAEA chief hits out at Israel again over Syria attack


Agence France Presse
2008-06-10 14:19:00

The head of the United Nation's atomic watchdog again hit out at Israel's willingness to take unilateral action against countries such as Syria, in comments published in a magazine interview Monday.

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Top Iraqi cleric warns of uprising over US pact


United Press International
2008-06-10 13:59:00

A leading Iraqi Shiite cleric said Monday the status of forces agreement between Washington and Baghdad could lead to an uprising in Iraq.

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Enough! Iraqis want the occupation to end

Joel Wendland
politicalaffairs.net
2008-06-04 09:45:00

An Iraqi parliamentarian told a congressional committee June 4 that as many as 70% of Iraqis want the US military to leave their country.

When pressed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who opposes the war, Iraqi lawmaker Nadeem Al-Jaberi said, "The majority of the people of Iraq are with the withdrawal. ... Perhaps even about 70 percent."

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Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad orders banks to move assets to beat EU

Con Coughlin
The London Telegraph
2008-06-10 09:44:00

The president of Iran has ordered the country's leading banks to transfer billions of dollars of assets from Europe to the Central Bank to prevent them being frozen by international sanctions, according to Western diplomats.

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American Crusaders: The "Great Commission" and Iraq

Chris Rodda
Huffington Post
2008-06-04 09:27:00

On May 28, McClatchy's Washington Bureau reported that a Marine in Fallujah had outraged the city's residents by passing out coins that read, in Arabic, "Where will you spend eternity?" on one side, and "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16" on the other.

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Psychopaths' act: Wilful killing of baby by Israeli army in Gaza house raid


Defence for Children International
2008-06-09 06:07:00

Palestinian baby funeral
©Unknown


Name of victim: Amira A.
Date of incident: 4 March 2008
Age of victim: 20 days
Location: Abu al-Ageen, southern Gaza

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Book Review: Palestine Inside Out - An Everyday Occupation

Jim Miles
The Palestine Chronicle
2008-06-09 05:53:00

Palestinian children
©Unknown


This has been one of the most difficult books that I have ever read. It removed me from my academic detachment with which I read the majority of books and took me into emotions ranging from frustration, sadness, melancholy through to anger and belligerence. A compelling read, yet at the same time I had to put it down every so many pages in order to contemplate, digest, or simply escape what in sum could be called the constant inhuman brutality of one human against another. It is a brutality that is as much psychological as physical, as much emotional as bodily. While the media presents a relatively constant stream of news violence from Israel-Palestine, with the Israelis purportedly "responding" to Palestinian "terrorists", the truth of life for the average Palestinian is not just this asymmetrical violence, but the daily violence perpetrated by the occupation, a collective punishment on the Palestinian population that "because the destruction is routine, it generally takes place out of the view of the global media." It is death, destruction, eviction, genocide by a million cuts, applied over and over and over with full control of the geographical and cultural landscapes under the rule of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

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Flashback: Dr. Yasser Salihee, Translator and Friend

by Jacki Lyden
NPR
2005-07-02 06:00:00

Dr. Yasser Salihee
©NPR
Dr. Yasser Salihee: June 30, 1974 - June 24, 2005, holding daughter Danya.


My longtime translator in Iraq, Yasser Salihee, was killed at a checkpoint last Friday, June 24. He was also one of my dearest friends in the country, who would always say, "Let me know when you are coming. I want mine to be the first face you see." He knew the brutal face of Iraq was all too present.

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Flashback: Executed by US Death Squad: Yasser Salihee's Final Report From Iraq


whyareweback.blogspot
2005-06-29 05:39:00

The last story filed by Knight-Ridder special correspondent, Yasser Salihee appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday but received little attention. "Campaign of executions feared in Iraq" was co-written by Tom Lasseter and it suggested that the Iraqi police may have been acting as executioners instead of policemen:

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IAEA slams Mofaz remark that attack on Iran seems 'unavoidable'


Reuters
2008-06-07 04:36:00

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammed ElBaradei on Saturday rebuked remarks made by Transportation Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, saying an attack against Iran seemed "unavoidable."

In an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, the head of the United Nation's nuclear watchdog said "with unilateral military actions, countries are undermining international agreements, and we are at a historic turning point."

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Grand Theft Economics
OPEC chief appeals for calm over oil

Alex Lawler
Reuters
2008-06-10 16:45:00

OPEC's Secretary General on Tuesday appealed for calm, saying the record-high crude oil price was unbearable and did not reflect any shortage of supply in the market.

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North America tomato industry reeling, Florida's tomato industry in "complete collapse"

Jane Sutton
Reuters
2008-06-10 16:41:00

Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" and growers in California and Mexico are having trouble selling their crops as U.S. regulators hunt the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to certain tomato varieties, growers said on Tuesday.

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Bush official warns EU: Next president won't change climate change policy


Agence France Presse
2008-06-10 16:28:00

BRUSSELS (AFP) - President George W. Bush will attend his last EU-US summit on Tuesday, with some Europeans already looking to the post-Bush era to narrow differences with Washington on divisive issues such as climate change policy.

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BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions

Jane Corbin
BBC
2008-06-10 15:51:00

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

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Traders predict British house prices will fall by 50% in four years

Phillip Inman
The Guardian
2008-06-10 11:11:00

The slide in house prices will continue for at least three years and crush the value of a home by almost 50% in real terms, according to a key index of property price futures. Indications from futures trading on long term property prices shows that the average UK home will recover its current value only in 2017.

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How bad should war-zone accounting be?


iCON
2008-06-06 10:30:00

Henry Waxman
©Unknown


US probity watchdog Henry Waxman (pictured) agrees good accounting in Iraq reconstruction may be tough, but a phantom US$34m military base is going too far, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

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F.H.A. Loses $4.6 Billion - Denies Insolvency

Rachel L. Swarns
The New York Times
2008-06-10 06:41:00

The Federal Housing Administration expects to lose $4.6 billion because of unexpectedly high default rates on home loans, officials said Monday.

Brian D. Montgomery, the F.H.A. commissioner, attributed the unanticipated losses primarily to the agency's seller-financed down payment mortgage program, which has suffered from high delinquency and foreclosure rates in recent years.

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Open Letter: US Mint Issues False Statement on Silver Bullion Sourcing

Bix Weir
SilverSeek.com
2008-06-06 06:26:00

Another open letter to:

Henry Paulson
US Secretary of The Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20220

Edmond C. Moy
Director of The US Mint
801 9th Street, NW
Room 8S23-3
Washington, D.C. 20220

RE: US Mint Issues False Statement on Silver Bullion Sourcing

Dear Sirs:

The US Mint just released a statement concerning the rationing of US Silver Eagles that stated one of the reasons for the rationing program was that the silver bullion had to be newly mined and could only be sourced from US sources.

"By law, the United States Mint's American Eagle silver bullion coins must meet exacting specifications and must be composed of newly mined silver acquired from domestic sources. The United States Mint will continue to make every effort to increase its acquisition of silver bullion blanks that meet these specifications and requirements to address continuing high demand in the silver bullion coin market." [link]

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Phil Gramm and the Foreclosure Crisis

David Corn
Mother Jones
2008-05-28 04:51:00

Phil Gramm
©Unknown


Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

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Giant California land partnership files for Chapter 11

Alex Veiga
examiner.com
2008-06-09 23:46:00

LOS ANGELES - The outlook for housing was still rosy a little more than a year ago when the nation's largest public employees pension fund invested almost $1 billion in LandSource Communities Development LLC, a real estate project that includes the last major tract of undeveloped land in Los Angeles County.

But falling land values forced that venture into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over the weekend, raising questions as to whether investors will ever recoup their money, including the California Public Employees' Retirement System, a pension fund that provides health care and retirement services for about 1.5 million public employees.

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Money Power : Wall Street Lands First Blow in Clearing Credit Swaps

Matthew Leising
Bloomberg
2008-06-09 22:33:00

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and 14 banks and brokerages dealt a blow to futures exchanges in the battle to shift trading in the $62 trillion credit-derivatives market to a model the Wall Street firms control.

Clearing Corp., the Chicago-based clearinghouse owned by the companies, will guarantee trades at Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. by September. That gets the Chicago firm and its backers access to fees on trillions of dollars of credit- default swaps.

"It will give the dealers an edge over the exchanges,'' said Brian Yelvington, a strategist at CreditSights Inc. in New York. "The exchanges would have to get to 'critical mass,' which is much harder for them to do without the broker-dealer community using them.''

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Bernanke Says Risk of 'Substantial Downturn' Has Diminished

Craig Torres and Scott Lanman
Bloomberg
2008-06-09 21:05:00

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the economic outlook has improved from a month ago, and central bankers will "strongly resist'' any waning of public confidence in stable prices.

Image
©Jeff Parker
FAMILIAR FEELING?


"The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so,'' Bernanke said in the text of prepared remarks to the Boston Federal Reserve's 52nd annual economic conference in Massachusetts. "The Federal Open Market Committee will strongly resist an erosion of longer-term inflation expectations.''



Comment: The speculative bubble of 1929 was burst once the big boys were safely out of the market. This was followed by a period of high interest rates and tight liquidity deliberately engineered by the Federal Reserve.

Both policies were foreshadowed by pronouncements by the financiers of the time. When a central banker says that he and his colleagues will "strongly resist...inflation expectations" we might be wise to take him at his word and expect a similar approach to 1929/1930. An approach it should be recalled that made a stock market crash into a "Great Depression", a depression that simply did not need to occur.

At present we have the effects of an asset price bubble in property coming home to roost and an exploding commodity price boom driven, in much the same way as the stock market prior to October 1929, by bundles of cheap money and trading on margin with very low margin deposits.



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The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker

Nicholas von Hoffman
TruthDig
2008-06-06 20:06:00

You may be surprised to learn that the pleasant person from FedEx Ground delivering your package owns the truck which he or she has parked in front of your house. FedEx Ground drivers, you will find out in Steven Greenhouse's The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, are not FedEx employees.

They are what are called independent contractors, although it demands no little effort to discern what about their position is independent. If they do not do what they are told, their contracts are abrogated forthwith. They are required to buy their own truck with 60 monthly installments of $781.12, which comes to $46,867.20. Plus there is a final kicker payment of $8,000, all of which adds up to a grand total of almost $55,000. On top of this, as an independent business person, the driver must bear the costs of insurance, maintenance, fuel, repairs and the fee for the FedEx uniform rental.

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Vietnam's Troubled Economy

Martha Ann Overland
Time
2008-06-09 19:56:00

Hanoi market
©Julian Abram Wainwright / EPA
Shopkeepers at a vegetable market in Hanoi, Vietnam, in April


A year ago, Vietnam was being hailed as the next Asian miracle, a success story to match the rise of the Asian tigers of the 1990s and more recently the stunning growth of China and India. Thanks to economic reforms, the communist country was attracting record amounts of foreign investment. The economy expanded by 8.5% last year - among the fastest rates in the region - and housing prices doubled and tripled, driven up in part by frantic buyers who stood in line to snap up condos before they had even been built. The country's nascent stock market was minting millionaires. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, their flashy new cars clogged roads better suited for bicycles.

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The Living Planet
UK Dolphin stranding update: Royal Navy exercises and an "unexplained explosion"

Richard Savill
Telegraph
2008-06-10 17:25:00

The Royal Navy was carrying out live-firing exercises just hours before 26 dolphins died in the biggest mass stranding of the species in Britain, it has been claimed.

Marine experts trying to find out why the pod of dolphins tried to beach themselves on the shores of Percuil river, near Portscatho, Cornwall, say they could have been panicked by an "underwater disturbance".

The dolphins were found dead early on Monday morning.

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Javan mud volcano triggered by drilling, not quake

Claire Whitelaw and Robert Sanders
UCBerkeleyNews
2008-06-09 16:59:00

A two-year-old mud volcano that is still spewing huge volumes of boiling mud, has displaced more than 30,000 people and caused millions of dollars in damage on the island of Java was triggered by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.

The most detailed scientific analysis to date of the mud volcano disproves the theory that an earthquake that happened two days before it erupted in East Java, Indonesia, was to blame.
Lusi Mud Volcano
©Durham University
The main vent of the Lusi mud volcano taken within a few months of eruption.



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Powerful storms strike Kansas again


The Associated Press
2008-06-09 17:04:00

A line of powerful thunderstorms produced large hail and strong winds across central and eastern Kansas on Sunday night, damaging a correctional facility and dropping as much as 1 1-2 inches of rain in 30 minutes in Kansas City.

The storms popped up in central Kansas in the late afternoon and moved northeast toward Missouri, producing winds up to 80 mph and golf-ball sized hail in some areas, according to National Weather Service spotters.

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Eight killed by lightning in West Bengal


The Hindu
2008-06-05 16:31:00

At least eight persons were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning during pre-monsoon thundershowers in three districts of West Bengal on Thursday.

Five persons, including two women, were killed in South 24 Parganas district on Thursday as showers accompanied by lightning lashed the district, official sources said.

A boy was killed and two others injured, one critically, as they were sleeping in their homes at Hakimpur in Joynagar area, the police said.

A middle-aged woman was killed and seven persons injured in lightning strikes at Gazipur and Ramsharanpur in Kulpi area of the district, the police said.

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Food crisis: Farmers are starting to fear disaster

David Streitfeld and Keith Bradsher
New York Times
2008-06-10 16:19:00

In a year when global harvests need to be excellent to ease the threat of pervasive food shortages, evidence is mounting that they will be average at best. Some farmers are starting to fear disaster.

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US: Engineers watch Wisconsin's dams after collapse

Ryan J. Foley
Associated Press
2008-06-10 15:44:00

Engineers kept watch over this rain-deluged state's dams Tuesday after a major collapse nearly emptied Lake Delton in a torrent that washed away houses and a highway.

The Lake Delton breach was caused by violent, drenching weekend thunderstorms that threatened the survival of the tiny Wisconsin town of Gays Mills and displaced thousands of Indiana residents. The stormy weather was blamed for 15 deaths in the Midwest and elsewhere.

An engineering assessment team from the Wisconsin National Guard headed to Lake Delton to determine what was needed to repair the gaping hole that let water from the 267-acre lake carve a new channel to the Wisconsin River on Monday.

Other crews were going to dams throughout the southern and western part of the state to assess damage. They also were monitoring several dams that were seeping or in danger of failing, state Emergency Management spokeswoman Jessica Iverson said.

Image
©AP Photo/Andy Manis
People look at two houses that fell into an emptied Lake Delton Tuesday, June 10, 2008, in Lake Delton, Wis., after the 267-acre lake drained Monday. The Lake Delton breach was caused by violent, drenching weekend thunderstorms that also threatened the survival of the tiny Wisconsin town of Gays Mills and displaced thousands of Indiana residents.


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Crews continue to battle 50 square miles wildfire at eastern NC refuge


WRAL.com
2008-06-09 15:51:00

Image
©2008 WRAL.com/AP
A satellite shows the distribution of smoke from a fire in an eastern North Carolina wildlife refugee just before midnight on June 7, 2008. (Photo courtesy of Modis Today)


COLUMBIA, N.C. - Fire crews on Monday continued building containment lines around a massive wildfire burning in a sparsely inhabited rural area of eastern North Carolina.

North Carolina Division of Forestry spokesman Bill Swartley said plans for firefighters also include pumping water onto smoldering peat fires burning in the ground.

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Quake lake water surges through cities


CNN
2008-06-10 14:00:00

BEIJING -- A huge volume of water Tuesday surged from a lake created by China's massive earthquake, safely plunging downstream through an area where hundreds of thousands had been braced for disaster, officials said.

The mammoth effort to drain Tangjiashan lake -- where floodwaters behind a landslide had threatened to burst through the wall of rubble to submerge low-lying towns -- was declared a success by officials who said the crisis was over.

But with the risk of man-made drainage channels collapsing under pressure from the water charging through them, there was still a danger of sudden tidal waves.

The official Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday that a crest of flood water, carrying with it trees, TVs, refrigerators and the bodies of earthquake victims, had surged safely past the city of Mianyang in southwestern Sichuan province.

Image
©AP
An engineer prepares to fire a missile to blast boulders in a man-made spillways in Tangjiashan, China.


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South Africa: Mysterious Crocodile Deaths Puzzle South African Scientists


EarthWeek
2008-06-06 13:56:00

A group of animal experts and wildlife officials rushed to South Africa's Kruger National Park to find out what has suddenly killed at least 30 crocodiles in the refuge within a week's time.

The first carcasses were sighted on May 27, then helicopter searches found many more littering the Olifants River, the park's most polluted waterway.

While no dead fish or other animals were found, all of the dead crocodiles contained yellow-orange hardened fat in their tails - usually a sign of eating rotten fish.

"We are in unknown territory, and we certainly don't have the answers as to why these crocodiles seem to be dying, so we need to look at the problem closely and find a solution," Danie Pienaar, head of scientific services for the park, said in the statement.

Image
©Grant Shimmin
A healthy Nile crocodile lurking on the bank of the Olifants River, in South Africa's Kruger National Park.


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Wide Range Of Weather Ills Plague U.S.


kpho.com
2008-06-10 13:51:00

Midwest Floods, East Bakes, Washington Chilled

Some residents in Gays Mills, Wis., have to start from scratch again after a second devastating flood in 10 months washed away the progress they had been making.

The swollen Kickapoo River spilled over its banks and engulfed nearly the entire town Monday, just as it did last August.

On Tuesday, officials in Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest were assessing the damage from storms that have now left at least 15 people dead.

A Wisconsin National Guard team was headed to Lake Delton to determine what equipment is needed to begin repairs at a man-made lake.

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Persistent Man-made Chemical Pollutants Found In Deep-sea Octopods And Squids


Science Daily
2008-06-10 12:31:00

New evidence that chemical contaminants are finding their way into the deep-sea food web has been found in deep-sea squids and octopods, including the strange-looking "vampire squid". These species are food for deep-diving toothed whales and other predators.

cockatoo squid
©Michael Vecchione, NOAA
Close-up of eyes of Teuthowenia megalops, a cockatoo squid. Although not very muscular, the species is quite common in the deep waters off New England.


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Greece orders villages evacuated in quake-hit area

Nicholas Paphitis
Associated Press
2008-06-10 10:35:00

greek quake
©AP Photo/Phil Ipparis
People setup tents at the village of Fostena, Greece, Monday June 9, 2008. Seismologists warned Monday that a strong aftershock was expected in southwestern Greece a day after a powerful earthquake killed two people and injured nearly 150. The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, struck Sunday afternoon near the western port city of Patras, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) west of Athens, the Athens Geodynamic Institute said


Authorities evacuated three villages in southwestern Greece on Monday after seismologists warned that a strong aftershock was expected in areas where a powerful earthquake killed two people and injured more than 200.

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Navy ships' sonar may have led 26 dolphins to their death


Mail Online
2008-06-10 09:49:00

Sonar devices on board Naval vessels was today blamed for the death of 26 dolphins who died when they swam up a river in Cornwall.

But initial post-mortem examinations of seven of the animals revealed no clues as to the cause of the mass stranding.

The animals appear to have been well-fed and there were no obvious signs of disease or poisoning.
Dead Dolphin
©MSN
British Divers Marine Life Rescue have suggested that the sonar used by military ships had disorientated the Common dolphins.



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Ravaged China town flooded as quake lake drains

Chris Buckley
reuters.com
2008-06-10 00:20:00

BEICHUAN - Muddy lake water from a dangerously unstable "quake lake" rushed into the devastated Chinese town of Beichuan on Tuesday, covering about a third of the settlement where the water level was rising fast.


Image
©REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin
Soldiers pile up stones to build a temporary dam against the possible coming floods at the earthquake-hit Yong'an town of Anxian County, Sichuan province, June 9, 2008.



Brown water, clumps of trees and occasional vehicles pushing against buildings were moving quickly into low-lying areas of the town, washing away remains of buildings, bodies and valuables left under the rubble.

The water level at the Tangjiashan quake lake formed by China's most devastating earthquake in decades dropped by nearly two meters (seven ft) in one hour on Tuesday, after soldiers used explosives to widen a sluice, Xinhua news agency said.

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4 homes washed away in Wisconsin as Midwest rivers swell


Associated Press
2008-06-09 23:39:00

LAKE DELTON - Floodwater washed away four houses and threatened dams in Wisconsin on Monday as military crews joined desperate sandbagging operations to hold back Indiana streams surging toward record levels.


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Health & Wellness
New method to analyse sleep pattern


The Press Association
2008-06-06 16:21:00

A new and "non-invasive" technique to identify a person's natural sleep pattern has been developed, university researchers have said.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at Swansea University tested the method at Cheltenham Science Festival to identify their natural pattern of wake and sleep - known as the circadian rhythm.

All that is required from the subject is a quick cheek-swab. Previously, blood samples were required to obtain the ribonucleic acid (RNA) needed for this type of research, the university said.

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Excessive mobile phone use affects sleep in teens


American Academy of Sleep Medicine
2008-06-09 15:59:00

Teenagers who excessively use their cell phone are more prone to disrupted sleep, restlessness, stress and fatigue, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

The study, authored by Gaby Badre, MD, PhD, of Sahlgren's Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden, focused on 21 healthy subjects, between 14-20 years of age, with regular working/studying hours and without sleep problems. The subjects were broken up into two groups: a control group (three men, seven women) and the experimental group (three men, eight women). The control group made less than five calls and/or sent five text messages a day, while the experimental group made more than 15 calls and/or sent 15 text messages a day. The subjects were then asked questions regarding their lifestyle and sleep habits.

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Day the music died for Autistic children as funding for 'miracle-worker' is cut

Anita Guidera
Independent.ie
2008-06-09 16:07:00

Image
©Unknown
Music therapist Louise Kelly with a pupil at Scoil Iosagain in Buncrana, Co Donegal


A music therapist who worked "miracles" with autistic primary school children is to lose her job because the Department of Education has decided to stop funding the service.

'The day the music died' is now looming for the children, many with special needs, at Scoil Iosagain in Buncrana, Co Donegal.

Sixteen children with autism, in the large school of almost 700 pupils, attend daily sessions in the music therapy room, many on a one-to-one basis.

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Children with depressive, anxiety disorders have more sleep problems


American Academy of Sleep Medicine
2008-06-09 15:14:00

For some children, sleep problems may result purely from poor sleep habits and inadequate sleep hygiene. However, for a small percentage of children, sleep problems might represent a pre-cursor or early symptom of a more serious emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

The study, authored by Flavia Giannotti, MD, of Center of Pediatric Sleep Disorders at the University of Rome La Sapienza in Italy, was conducted on 122 children between seven and 11 years of age, who had a major depressive disorder. All patients underwent a systematic psychiatric, cognitive and sleep evaluation. All children were medication-free. Depressed children, as well as those presenting a comorbid anxious disorder, entered the study, and their results were compared to those of 200 healthy peers.

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Mysterious fatal strokes in a 3 U.S states baffle docs

Tom Spears
Canwest
2008-06-10 14:43:00

People in three southern U.S. states are facing a health threat no one can explain: an abnormally high risk of suffering a fatal stroke - even among tourists just visiting the region.

Residents and visitors alike in near-coastal areas of North and South Carolina and Georgia have a stroke risk at least 10 per cent higher than people in other U.S. states.

And when local people leave the area, even for a short trip, their risk of a fatal stroke drops.


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Philippines: Manila hospital unit closed after 25 babies die: report


Agence France-Presse
2008-06-07 14:26:00

A Manila hospital has closed its neonatal intensive care unit and an investigation ordered after 25 babies died of a blood infection, it was reported Saturday.

Local authorities ordered the Ospital ng Makati to close the unit after 45 babies contacted neonatal sepsis last month.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer said the Department of Health had launched an investigation while the city's mayor, Jejomar Binay, has asked for a report on the deaths by Monday.

The unit was being sterilised on Saturday and number of women giving birth in the public hospital restricted.

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Don't pump up the volume

James Grubel
News Daily
2008-06-10 12:48:00

CANBERRA, June 10, 2008 (Reuters) - Next time you crank up the volume, beware: an Australian government report said young people risk developing permanent hearing problems if they go to noisy bars and listen to loud music through headphones.

woman wears headphones
©REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
A woman wears headphones in Tokyo September 12, 2007.


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Vitamin D May Help Prevent Heart Attacks

Peter M Crosta
Medical News Today
2008-06-10 09:39:00

An article published in the June 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reports that men who have low levels of vitamin D are at a higher risk of heart attack (myocardial infarction).

It has been shown that deaths related to cardiovascular disease are more frequent in higher latitudes and during the winter months - when and where the sun rarely shines - and are less frequent at higher altitudes.

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Kidney Foundation Drops Fluoridation Support

NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc.
The Earth Times
2008-06-09 07:27:00

Fluoride may damage bones of kidney patients

The National Kidney Foundation withdrew its support of water fluoridation citing the 2006 National Research Council (NRC) report indicating that kidney patients are more susceptible to fluoride's bone and teeth-damaging effects.

The kidney-impaired retain more fluoride and risk skeletal fluorosis (an arthritic-type bone disease), fractures and severe enamel fluorosis, which may increase the risk of dental decay, reports the NRC.


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Flashback: Psychopathy in Action: MGH psychiatrist's work stirs debate

By Scott Allen
Boston Globe
2007-06-17 05:30:00

No one has done more to convince Americans that even small children can suffer the dangerous mood swings of bipolar disorder than Dr. Joseph Biederman of Massachusetts General Hospital.

From his perch as one of the world's most influential child psychiatrists, Biederman has spread far and wide his conviction that the emotional roller coaster of bipolar disorder can start "from the moment the child opened his eyes" at birth. Psychiatrists used to regard bipolar disorder as a disease that begins in young adulthood, but now some diagnose it in children scarcely out of diapers, treating them with powerful antipsychotic medications based on Biederman's work.

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Psychopathy in Action: Psychiatric Researchers Fail to Reveal Big Pharma Payoffs

By Gardiner Harris and Benedict Carey
NY Times
2008-06-10 05:26:00

A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.

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The Effects of Video Game Violence

Lori Handleman
Oxford University Press Blog
2008-06-09 21:51:00

Craig Anderson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, is well known for his research on the effects of media violence. His research on aggression, media violence, depression, and social judgment has had a profound influence on psychological theory and modern society. Karen Dill is Associate Professor of Psychology at Lenoir-Rhyne College, and has the honor of having a car named after her in Grand Theft Auto IV. Here, they talk about the effects of video game violence on children and adolescents.

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Science & Technology
Computer Literacy Tests: Are You Human?

Lev Grossman
Time
2008-06-05 16:13:00

Every web surfer, in the course of his or her browsing, has been forced to stop and perform this weird little task: look at a picture of some wavy, ghostly, distorted letters and type them into a box. Sometimes you flub it and have to retype the letters, but otherwise you don't think about it much. That string of letters has a name; it's called a CAPTCHA. And it's a test. By correctly transcribing it, you have proved to the computer that you are a human being.

Image
©Peter J. Ahlberg


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Honeybee Dance Breaks Down Cultural Barrier


Science Daily
2008-06-10 13:32:00

Asian and European honeybees can learn to understand one another's dance languages despite having evolved different forms of communication, an international research team has shown for the first time.

Image
©Su et al. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002365.g001
The yellow circle indicates the Acc queen. Blue and green arrows indicate Aml and Acc workers, respectively. The mixed-species colony was organized as follows: we put two sealed Aml brood frames with about 5,000 pupae into a healthy Acc colony containing two frames, honey, pollen, brood, ~5,000 workers and one queen. The mixed-species colony had around 5,000 workers each of Acc and Aml after 12 days.


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Why Cells Starved Of Iron Burn More Glucose


Science Daily
2008-06-10 13:26:00

Duke University Medical Center scientists have found a mechanism that allows cells starved of iron to shut down energy-making processes that depend on iron and use a less efficient pathway involving glucose. This metabolic reshuffling mechanism, found in yeast cells, helps explain how humans respond to iron deficiency, and may help with diabetes research as well.


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Mars lander struggles to get dirt into onboard lab

Dan Whitcomb
News Daily
2008-06-10 12:45:00

NASA scientists struggled on Monday to process the soil that the Phoenix Mars Lander scooped from the Red Planet's surface, finding that the Martian dirt was too clumpy to sift into the spacecraft's onboard laboratory.

The scientists called it an important day last week when the Phoenix's robotic arm scraped its first, cup-sized sample from the planet's surface, but since then have been unable to get any of the clotted soil through a screen into the lander's Thermal Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA).

"What we've found is although we had an awful lot of dirt on that screen virtually none of its has made it down into the oven," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is overseeing the TEGA experiments.

The mission is searching for signs of water or conditions that could sustain life on Mars.

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Brain Pathway That Shuts Down Seizures Identified


Science Daily
2008-06-10 12:37:00

Researchers at the University of Iowa and the Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System have uncovered a brain pathway that shuts down seizures.

The multidisciplinary team of scientists pieced together information from clinical observations made in the first half of the 20th century with knowledge from modern genetics and molecular biology to show that an acid-activated ion channel in the brain reacts to a drop in pH (increased acid) in a way that shuts down seizure activity.

The link between low pH in the brain and seizure termination was first hinted at nearly 80 years ago when clinical experiments showed that breathing carbon dioxide, which makes brain tissue more acidic, helps stop epileptic seizures. Subsequent studies in the 1950s found that seizures themselves reduce brain pH. However, it was the modern discovery of an acid-activated ion channel (ASIC1a) in the brain that provided the key to the UI discovery, which is reported in Nature Neuroscience Advance Online Publication on June 8.



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'Cursus' Is Older Than Stonehenge


Science Daily
2008-06-10 12:07:00

A team led by University of Manchester archaeologist Professor Julian Thomas has dated the Greater Stonehenge Cursus at about 3,500 years BC - 500 years older than the circle itself.

Cursus antler pick
©University of Manchester
The recently discovered antler pick used to dig the Cursus.


They were able to pinpoint its age after discovering an antler pick used to dig the Cursus - the most significant find since it was discovered in 1723 by antiquarian William Stukeley.

When the pick was carbon dated the results pointed to an age which was much older than previously thought - between 3600 and 3300 BC - and has caused a sensation among archeologists.

The dig took place last summer in a collaborative project run by five British universities and funded by the Arts and Histories Research Council and the National Geographic Society.



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Meteor Astronomers: Looking Down Into Earth


Astrobiology Magazine
2008-06-09 21:37:00

Using fossil meteorites and ancient limestone unearthed throughout southern Sweden, marine geologists at Rice University have discovered that a colossal collision in the asteroid belt some 500 million years ago led to intense meteorite strikes over the Earth's surface.

The research, which appears in this week's issue of Science magazine, is based upon an analysis of fossil meteorites and limestone samples from five Swedish quarries located as much as 310 miles (500 km.) apart. The limestone formed from sea bottom sediments during a 2 million-year span about 480 million years ago, sealing the intact meteorites, as well as trace minerals from disintegrated meteorites, in a lithographic time capsule.

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Our Haunted Planet
Stanton Friedman looks at 40 years of UFO research

Gary T. Whiteford
The Daily Gleaner (New Brunswick)
2008-06-10 15:15:00

Flying Saucers and Science

by Stanton T. Friedman (New Page Books)

Fredericton resident and nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, well-known ufologist, presents a comprehensive look at 40 years of UFO research data in his new book.

Stanton Friedman Book
©Unknown




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UFOs hit Romanian plane


United Press International
2008-06-06 15:13:00

The Romanian Defense Ministry has confirmed that a fighter plane was struck by four unidentified flying objects and released a video of the incident.



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Rare daytime fireball seen over Utah mountains


KSL.com
2008-06-09 21:11:00

It's a UFO no more. An unidentified flying object spotted over the mountains between Salt Lake and Tooele has been identified as a rare daytime fireball; a meteor big enough and close enough to be spotted when the sun's still out.

We had several e-mails, and so did NASA's ambassador to Utah Patrick Wiggins. We asked him what conditions need to be in place to see a daytime meteor. He said, "Size would be part of it, certainly how fast it's going, if it was going really slow for a meteor; that is, it wouldn't get bright enough."

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Man Gets DWI After Riding Motorized Cooler


kpho.com
2008-06-10 13:55:00

One New York man's Memorial Day fun ended when police pulled him over while he was driving his motorized cooler.

Leslie J. "Bomber" Marr, 57, was charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle after the police saw him swerving onf the street and driving on the sidewalk in his "Cruzin Cooler," Whitehall Police Chief Richard LaChapelle told the Post Star newspaper.

Marr's electric-powered cooler was filled with 14 beers and has room for 24 cans and ice, Fox News reported.

Under New York state law, driving any motorized vehicle must be done without alcohol, including motorized coolers. In various states, other modes of transportation in which driving is prohibited while intoxicated include lawnmowers, boats, bicycles, golf carts, wheelchairs and horses.

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Satire: 'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'


The Onion
2008-06-10 10:37:00

World Of World Of Warcraft's amazing level of detail makes players feel like they are actually in a cramped, dark apartment playing World Of Warcraft.

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

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Satire: Apple to fool public for 207th time


The Daily Mash
2008-06-10 10:28:00

APPLE boss Steve Jobs last night unveiled the new iPhone, insisting there was 'no way' he would launch a better and cheaper version in three months time.

Jobs said the latest 3G iPhone could never be improved on, and definitely not this year, just before Christmas.

He added: "This is the final version. It's got everything on it, including a little apple symbol, so there's no way a better one will be in the shops by Thanksgiving at the latest for $100 less.

"Listen: the chances of an October launch of a 4G iPhone with double the storage, a better camera, and a keyboard you can actually use, at half the cost of this one are nil. Seriously.

"So if you want one, go out and buy one tomorrow, because we've only got a hundred, and when these run out, we're not making any more."

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