2012-02-12T17:15:28Z Sott.net tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/:signsofthetimes tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241486 2012-02-12T16:48:12Z

It's often said that we have bees to thank for one out of every three bites we take of food. In addition to producing honey, honeybees literally criss-cross the United States, pollinating almonds, oranges, melons, blueberries, pumpkins, apples, and more. And while carrots are a biennial root crop that are harvested long before they flower, all carrots are planted from seed, and honeybees pollinate the carrot flowers that produce the seeds. Other species of bees, both social and solitary bees, pollinate other crops. And the populations of all these species of bees are in decline. The decline of bees has been in the headlines for several years, and theories to explain their deaths abound. But perhaps there is not just one single cause. University of California San Diego professor of biology James Nieh studies foraging, communication and health of bees. "I would say it's a combination of four factors; pesticides, disease, parasites, and human mismanagement," says Nieh. Bees might be weakened by having a very low level of exposure to insecticides or fungicides, making them more susceptible if they are attacked by viruses or parasites. "It's kind of like taking a patient who is not doing so well -- very weak, poor diet, exposing them to pathogens, and then throwing more things at them. It's not surprising that honeybees are not very healthy." One class of pesticides, neonicotinoids in particular has received a lot of attention for harming bees. In late 2010, the EPA came under fire from beekeepers and pesticide watchdog organizations. This happened when Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald spoke out about how the EPA allowed clothianidin to be used without any proof it was safe and despite the fact that the EPA's own scientists believed it "has the potential for toxic risk to honey bees, as well as other pollinators."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241485 2012-02-12T16:39:22Z

The Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) regime installed by the US-NATO intervention in Libya last year is responsible for ongoing atrocities, particularly against black-skinned Libyans, detainees and other alleged supporters of the previous Gaddafi government. One of the most recent incidents occurred on February 6 at a former naval base in the Janzour district of the capital, Tripoli. The base is being used as an internal refugee camp for about 1,500 predominantly dark-skinned former residents of the town of Tawergha. The camp inhabitants told Reuters that militiamen from the coastal city of Misrata arrived, searched the camp and attempted to remove several young men. When the unarmed refugees protested, the militia opened fire, killing at least five people. Female camp resident Huda Bel-Eid told Reuters: "Around 15 of them started shooting us. All the women escaped but the young men stayed. My brother was there and I went to help him because he was shot in the head and neck, then they shot me (in the leg)." A woman and an elderly man were confirmed dead at a morgue in Tripoli, both with gunshot wounds to the chest. A resident of Janzour told Reuters: "We found two bodies of black people who had been shot on the beach. We told the police, and they have taken them now."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241484 2012-02-12T14:01:02Z

Images produced by the National Center for science Literacy, Education and Technology (NCSLET) showed a rare from of interaction in the wild between two species. Bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales were captured playing in Hawaiian waters. According to a paper published in the Aquatic Mammals Journal, based on what is known about the behaviour of both species, play was the most plausible explanation of the observed interaction. The paper observed that humpback whales are known to engage in "object play," and "social play" is a common occurrence among dolphins, but never has the behaviour been observed in the wild to extend across species boundaries. According to the paper, given the "apparent initiation and cooperation of each dolphin being lifted, object (i.e., the dolphin) play by the whale and social play by the dolphin seem to be the most plausible explanations for the interaction."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241483 2012-02-12T13:46:15Z

There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary. Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact. It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others - particularly "different" others - requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241482 2012-02-12T12:04:26Z

Police in Kendall County, Illinois said Friday that they were investigating whether an off-duty officer drew his firearm and pointed it at a pregnant woman because she had more items than Walmart recommends for self-checkout lanes. Nicole Thurmond and husband Jason were reportedly checking out recently at a Walmart store in Oswego, Illinois when a man confronted them wearing civilian clothing, not identifying himself as an officer. The couple said it was only after his gun was drawn that the man told onlookers he was a police officer. Nicole Thurmond told NBC Chicago that officer Craig French just walked up to her and said, "Don't you know how to count? You are holding up the whole store." When her husband returned from getting an item they forgot, he described the situation he encountered as "a guy in her face, yelling at her."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241481 2012-02-12T03:50:26Z

Zebras got their stripes to avoid tiny, but harmful, predators: bloodsucking horseflies. That's the conclusion from a new study from researchers from Hungary and Sweden who tested how zebra stripes might influence the attraction tabanids or horseflies have to their victims. The scientists used boards painted with either black and white strips like zebras or single colors of black, brown, gray or white like regular horses in an effort to find which color lured more horseflies. The researchers nabbed the blood suckers with oil and glue and found that zebra stripes attracted fewer horseflies. The stripes repel the insects reflecting light in a polarizing fashion, making a zebra coat look undesirable to the pesky -- and harmful -- critters.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241480 2012-02-12T03:29:47Z

Numerous reports of explosions heard around Salem Township and Leetonia are still a mystery. Salem Township Police Chief Dan Valentine says reports of loud explosions started more than a month ago. "The first ones came in about five weeks ago then they were coming in about every two to two and a half weeks," Valentine said. Valentine says all of the reports have been similar in description.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-12:/articles/show/241479 2012-02-12T03:24:42Z

Up to 800 birds have been found dead at wetlands in Christchurch's eastern suburbs and the oxidation ponds. The Christchurch City Council said yesterday that during the past few weeks dead birds have been found on the banks of the oxidation ponds in Bromley. Dead birds have also been found in the Bexley area and the Travis Wetland. Council ornithologist Andrew Crossland said between 600 and 800 dead birds had been found. "The earthquakes in Christchurch have caused a lot of changes to water quality but also to effluent levels at the oxidation ponds," he said.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241478 2012-02-11T21:23:59Z

An internal report on the occupation of Afghanistan, penned by an active-duty military officer and published weeks ago - but not released by the Pentagon - was leaked on Friday by Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, who called the 84-page examination "one of the most significant documents published by an active-duty officer in the past ten years." The document, written by Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, explains there has been a 12-year-long cover-up of the reality on the ground in Afghanistan. Davis was the source of a New York Times feature last Sunday, which cited his report but did not release it. The Pentagon has since launched an investigation of Davis for possible security violations. Davis reportedly wrote two versions - one classified and one not - and briefed four members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Senior Pentagon officials also have the report, but they've decided not to release it. For that reason, the unclassified report was published by Rolling Stone on Friday afternoon.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241477 2012-02-11T21:11:34Z

Hundreds of thousands protested in Portugal Saturday against austerity measures ahead of next week's talks with international creditors, with unions vowing to keep up the pressure. Officials from the so-called Troika -- the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- will next week evaluate progress on the country's bailout programme. Demonstrators arrived in Lisbon from across the country in the rally described as one of the country's biggest in three decades. Many were brandishing banners such as "The struggle continues" and "No to exploitation, no to inequality, no to impoverishment." The CGTP union which called the march estimated 300,000 people took part, while police would not give any figures, in line with their usual practice. "We are convinced that it is one of the biggest demonstrations in the last 30 years," said Armenio Carlos, general secretary of the CGTP, in a speech at the end of the protest in the landmark Praca do Comercio (Commerce Square).

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241476 2012-02-11T20:41:26Z

Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48. Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown. At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen. Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale. She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise. She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241475 2012-02-11T20:03:01Z

A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba derived her fabled treasures A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures. Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator, who headed the excavation on the high Gheralta plateau in northern Ethiopia, said: "One of the things I've always loved about archaeology is the way it can tie up with legends and myths. The fact that we might have the Queen of Sheba's mines is extraordinary." An initial clue lay in a 20ft stone stele (or slab) carved with a sun and crescent moon, the "calling card of the land of Sheba", Schofield said. "I crawled beneath the stone - wary of a 9ft cobra I was warned lives here - and came face to face with an inscription in Sabaean, the language that the Queen of Sheba would have spoken." On a mound nearby she found parts of columns and finely carved stone channels from a buried temple that appears to be dedicated to the moon god, the main deity of Sheba, an 8th century BC civilisation that lasted 1,000 years. It revealed a victory in a battle nearby, where Schofield excavated ancient bones.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241474 2012-02-11T19:13:40Z

A woman has admitted arranging for mainland Chinese women to give birth in Hong Kong, reports said Saturday, the first prosecution of its kind as the southern city cracks down on the practice. The Chinese city has been struggling with an influx of tens of thousands of mainland women who come to Hong Kong each year to give birth, to gain residency rights for their children and to circumvent China's one-child policy Local women have taken to the streets to protest at the influx, which critics say has led to a shortage of maternity beds in hospitals. The outcry has prompted the government to step up enforcement. Mainland woman Xu Li, 29, was charged in a Hong Kong magistrates' court on Friday for her role as a "birth agent", according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post and Apple Daily newspapers.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241473 2012-02-11T19:04:50Z

Money laundering at the Vatican bank. Corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts. Even a purported plot to kill Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican is being besieged by near-daily leaks of confidential documents and tabloid-style reports of alleged financial mismanagement, political infighting and gossip about who might be the next pope - all coming out at an exceedingly delicate time for the Holy See and Benedict himself. The frescoed halls of the Apostolic Palace have been buzzing about the leaks, which have emerged as the pontiff prepares for the ceremony next week to crown 22 new cardinals - the princes of the church who will elect his successor. Such ceremonies always breed unseemly speculation about a future pontiff since they provide a rare chance for cardinals new and old to size one another up. But the Feb. 18 consistory has taken on greater gravitas since the 84-year-old Benedict is showing signs of slowing down. Conspiracy theorists reading the Italian media of late might also point to another looming date as reason for why the Vatican's dirty laundry is being aired now: In June, a European commission will decide whether the Holy See has abided by tough international anti-money laundering and anti-terror finance laws. Compliance would mark a key step in the Vatican's goal of joining the so-called "white list" of countries that share financial information - a designation the Vatican hopes will forever dispense with its reputation as a scandal-plagued, secrecy-obsessed tax haven.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241472 2012-02-11T18:48:33Z

Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom. Some 41,000 people rallied in Germany, including 16,000 in Munich and 10,000 in Berlin, against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was negotiated between the 27-nation European Union and 10 other countries. Many brandishing "Stop ACTA" banners and wearing Guy Fawkes masks -- a symbol of hacker-led rallies -- the mostly young protestors also braved subzero temperatures to mass in cities such as Budapest, Bucharest, Bratislava, Prague, Paris, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius and Vienna. ACTA is awaiting ratification from several governments, but intense opposition led by Internet users has forced some EU states including Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to freeze their ratification process. "We see the suspension of ratification as a victory, but we cannot over-estimate it," said the vice-president of the Czech Republic's pirate party, Mikulas Ferjencik.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241471 2012-02-11T18:19:55Z

Laguna Beach will back San Clemente's appeals to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure that San Onofre doesn't replicate last year's disaster in Fukushima, Japan. The City Council on Tuesday voted 4 to 1 to send a letter to the commission requesting the resolution of public concerns before any consideration is given to extending San Onofre's operating license due to expire in 2022. The letter had been requested by San Clemente Mayor Lori Donchak, but the action might be moot. "Southern California Edison has not made a decision on whether we'll apply for renewal," said Edison spokesman Christopher Abel. The majority of 14 speakers at Tuesday's meeting would be delighted if Edison immediately dismantled the plant, let alone opted not to renew the license. Abel verified that 4,000 tons of high-level, radioactive waste are stored there. "There is no way the plant should be storing waste material," said Kathleen Jepson-Bernier.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241470 2012-02-11T18:08:10Z

Our armed forces are not the thirteenth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third...We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force...We have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under." - - Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel's Hebrew University. "What would serve the Jew-hating world better as repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a nuclear winter? Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?" - - Professor David Perlmutter, writing in the Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2002 Despite the objections many people (rightly) entertain against the manner Italians are unfairly and inaccurately portrayed in gangster films such as The Godfather, nevertheless there are invaluable lessons to be learned from them concerning the inner workings of organized crime interests, and in particular how these interests use coded language when conveying certain ideas.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241469 2012-02-11T17:47:43Z

In January, Michel Chossudovsky reported British media confirming UK/CIA/MI6 operatives in Syria training anti-Assad Western-backed insurgents. They're also supplying them with arms, ammunition, and equipment. "These reports confirm unequivocally (they're illegally) interfer(ing) in the affairs of a sovereign state. This is not a popular uprising. The insurrection as well as the killings of civilians were sponsored by the Western powers from the outset." More on this below. Events replicate the Libya model a year earlier. In February 2011, US/UK/French special forces and intelligence operatives actively began helping anti-Gaddafi NATO-backed militants. An armed insurgency followed, including bombing weeks later. A year later, BBC confirmed it, saying: "....British special forces were deployed on the ground in order to help the UK'S allies - the Libyan 'revolutionaries' often called the National Transitional Council or NTC."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241468 2012-02-11T17:21:15Z

Snow drifts reaching up to rooftops kept tens of thousands of villagers prisoners in their own homes Saturday as the death toll from Europe's big freeze rose past 550. More heavy snow fell on the Balkans and in Italy, while the Danube river, already closed to shipping for hundreds of kilometres (miles) because of thick ice, froze over in Bulgaria for the first time in 27 years. Montenegro's capital of Podgorica was brought to a standstill by snow 50 centimetres (20 inches) deep, a 50-year record, closing the city's airport and halting rail services to Serbia because of an avalanche. Eight more people were reported to have died in Romania, taking the toll for the country to 65, three in Serbia, one in the Czech Republic and one in Austria. Polish fire brigade spokesman Pawel Fratcak said Saturday that defective heating had triggered a spate of deadly blazes in houses and apartments, with eight people killed on Friday night and three the night before.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241467 2012-02-11T17:15:38Z

The war against the LGBT community is alive and well in the state of Virginia, and children are being caught in the crossfire. On Friday, the Virginia Senate passed SB 349, which gives private adoption agencies the power to deny the placement of children with same-sex couples on religious grounds. Known as the 'conscience clause' bill, the bill allows adoption agencies to deny same-sex couples the opportunity to adopt children, even if they are well qualified to do so. The Senate passed the bill along partisan lines 22-18 and the House has already passed a version of the bill. Governor McDonnell is expected to sign the bill the second it hits his desk. The bill is supposedly being passed to defend the religious freedom of faith based adoption agencies, of which there are over 80. Many of the agencies also happen to be state funded, which begs the question: How is it possible for government money to be used to violate the First Amendment? The answer, of course, is that it shouldn't be.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241466 2012-02-11T14:45:30Z

It sometimes feels as though some months go by faster than others, but November 2009 really did. Events in the Southern Ocean conspired to make the Earth spin ever-so-slightly faster, shortening half of the days in the month by 0.1 milliseconds each. Different factors affect how fast the Earth spins. For instance, if the winds that whip around the planet slow down, the Earth spins faster to conserve angular momentum. There was a more down-to-earth cause in November 2009, however. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a powerful ocean current that rings the continent. Stephen Marcus and his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris in France noticed that it slowed abruptly on 8 November 2009, only to speed up two weeks later. Precise day-length data revealed that the changes immediately caused the Earth to spin faster, shortening each day by 0.1 milliseconds. Like the currents, day length returned to normal on 20 November (Geophysical Research Letters,). This is the first time we have seen a rapid change in the oceans that is large enough to affect the Earth's rotation, says Marcus. The event is worth noting as the Antarctic currents directly impact the health of the ice sheets.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241465 2012-02-11T13:21:37Z

The following photographs were taken this morning in Crimea:

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241464 2012-02-11T13:17:13Z

Roadwork excavations in Marsa have revealed the archaeological remains of a Muslim cemetery dating back to 1675, confirming historians' belief of the existence of a Turkish slave cemetery in the area. The find is being documented and excavated by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and an archaeologist specialising in documentation of human remains is closely following the investigation. The roadworks have been temporarily halted on the relevant sections until the preservation works are complete. Sections likely to be impacted by ongoing roadworks will be scienti-fically extracted and taken to the superintendence for further testing, analysis and conservation.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241463 2012-02-11T13:11:58Z

'De-Arabizing the history of Palestine is another crucial element of the ethnic cleansing. 1500 years of Arab and Muslim rule and culture in Palestine are trivialized, evidence of its existence is being destroyed and all this is done to make the absurd connection between the ancient Hebrew civilization and today's Israel. The most glaring example of this today is in Silwan, (Wadi Hilwe) a town adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem with some 50,000 residents. Israel is expelling families from Silwan and destroying their homes because it claims that king David built a city there some 3000 years ago. Thousands of families will be made homeless so that Israel can build a park to commemorate a king that may or may not have lived 3000 years ago. Not a shred of historical evidence exists that can prove King David ever lived yet Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly along with their schools and mosques, churches and ancient cemeteries and any evidence of their existence must be destroyed and then denied so that Zionist claims to exclusive rights to the land may be substantiated.' -- Miko Peled, Israeli dissident. Indeed, archaeology has become a state apparatus for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Zionist fairyland aka the City of David Archaeological Park located in the Palestinian village of Silwan in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital of the proposed Palestine state. It was illegally annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. Prohibiting annexation of territories gained by military conquest is one of the major principles of international law. The international community does not recognise Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem nevertheless over 50,000 illegal premises have been built for 250,000 illegal Israeli colonists.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241462 2012-02-11T12:39:28Z

Cbet nr.3016, issued on 2012, February 11, announces the discovery of a new comet (discovery magnitude 18.8) by R. H. McNaught on CCD images obtained on February 5.5, 2012 taken with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring. The new comet has been designated C/2012 C1 (McNAUGHT). We performed some follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of eight R-filtered exposures, 30-sec each, obtained remotely, from the Siding Spring-Faulkes Telescope South on 2012, Feb. 6.4, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD, shows that this object is a comet: coma about 5" in diameter, with a weak central condensation. The coma is slightly elongated toward the southwest. Our confirmation image

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241461 2012-02-11T12:14:26Z

Conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork after a massive explosion erupted south of St. Petersburg, Russia, on Monday, causing wild speculation and online concerns of the beginning of Armageddon. As news and videos of the spectacular event went viral this week, the cause of the explosion ranged from Martian visitation to a nuclear bomb test gone wrong.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241460 2012-02-11T11:57:17Z

Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday. These extremists, sometimes known as "sovereign citizens," believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference. The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard. Routine encounters with police can turn violent "at the drop of a hat," said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI's counterterrorism division. "We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement," he said. In May 2010, two West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers were shot and killed in an argument that developed after they pulled over a "sovereign citizen" in traffic. Last year, an extremist in Texas opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. The officer was not hit. Legal convictions of such extremists, mostly for white-collar crimes such as fraud, have increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 each in 2010 and 2011, FBI agents said.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241459 2012-02-11T11:19:06Z

Millions of healthy people - including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes - may be wrongly labeled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday. In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts said its new categories and "tick-box" diagnosis systems were at best "silly" and at worst "worrying and dangerous." Some diagnoses - for conditions like "oppositional defiant disorder" and "apathy syndrome" - risk devaluing the seriousness of mental illness and medicalising behaviors most people would consider normal or just mildly eccentric, the experts said.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241458 2012-02-11T11:07:14Z

Maintaining proper balance of healthy gut flora is a crucial yet widely misunderstood component of human health. While the development of antibiotics has lengthened our lifespans, our excessive and inappropriate use of these drugs may be causing serious long-term consequences we are only now becoming fully aware of. These consequences not only affect our individual health, but may even be causing permanent changes to the microflora of all people from generation to generation. Martin Blaser's recent (2011) article published in Nature highlights the potentially dangerous long-term consequences that arise from the rampant overuse of antibiotics. (1) He argues that changes in our microbiota may even be promoting the transmission of deadly organisms, as one of the important roles of an intact microflora is to resist colonization by pathogenic organisms. Blaser also points out that not only does the individual use of antibiotics cause permanent changes in the gut flora, but that infants born to women given antibiotics during pregnancy, or the 30% of children delivered via cesarean section, may be starting life with a significantly altered and insufficient level of friendly gut flora. (2) This is a serious concern because lack of diversity in friendly gut bacteria has been shown to contribute to a large number of diseases and complications. Unfortunately, even a single course of antibiotics can permanently alter the gut flora.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241457 2012-02-11T00:30:54Z

Germany on Friday halted the signing of a controversial international accord billed as a way to beat online piracy that has sparked angry protests, saying it needed more time to consider it. "The signing has not happened, to give us time to carry out further discussions," a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP. "The federal justice minister in charge of the issue has already signalled her objections this week," added the spokesman. The ACTA agreement, negotiated between the European Union, Australia, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore and the United States, needs all 27 EU countries to ratify the deal. But countries including Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have already frozen their ratification process.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241456 2012-02-11T00:20:45Z

Computer hackers claiming to be from the loose-knit group known as Anonymous say they have broken into several Alabama law enforcement and government websites and have stolen the personal information for more than 46,000 people. In an online news release Friday, the group claimed to have taken Social Security numbers, license plate numbers, phone numbers, addresses and criminal records. Mobile city spokeswoman Barbara Drummond said Utah authorities alerted officials Thursday night that hackers may be targeting the city. She told The Associated Press that the city shut down its computers to avoid the attack and that the hackers did not gain access to Mobile's servers. However, hackers did breach the website of the city webmaster, and took data from a recent program offering amnesty to people with outstanding warrants for municipal offenses.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241455 2012-02-11T00:13:11Z

Thousands of Egyptians marched to the Defense Ministry Friday to press demands for the generals to hand over power, a day before a strike called by activists to mark the first anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak's fall. Egypt remains in political turmoil a year after a military council took over from Mubarak, when popular demonstrations forced him to end his 30-year rule. The Muslim Brotherhood, while not involved in the protests has called for a coalition government to replace the military-appointed one criticized for its handling of soccer violence in Port Said in which at least 74 people were killed. "The people want the overthrow of the Marshal," activists chanted during the march in Cairo, referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the army council. "We are here to tell Tantawi and the military council to hand over power. This is a peaceful march and it will stay so," activist Sara Kamel said. "Since the generals have come to power, they haven't done anything for Egypt and they want to continue Mubarak's legacy." Army units blocked access to the defense ministry, where the walls on one side of the complex had been repainted to hide graffiti plastered on by activists.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-11:/articles/show/241454 2012-02-11T00:04:54Z

A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to "destroy" gun rights and "erase" the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November. While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president's low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was "a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." "All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term," he said. "We see the president's strategy crystal clear: Get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms' freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241453 2012-02-10T23:55:41Z

Greece's future in the eurozone came under renewed threat Friday as popular protests again turned violent and dissent grew among its lawmakers after European leaders demanded deeper spending cuts. The country's beleaguered coalition government promised to push through the tough new austerity measures and rescue a crucial €130 billion ($170 billion) bailout deal after six members of the Cabinet resigned. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos promised to "do everything necessary" to ensure parliament passes the new austerity measures that would slap Greeks with a minimum wage cut during a fifth year of recession. He also promised to replace any other Cabinet members who did not fully back his efforts. "It is absolutely necessary to complete the effort that began almost two years to consolidate public finances, restore competitiveness and economic recovery," Papademos told an emergency Cabinet meeting. Draft legislation for the new austerity measures was submitted to parliament after the five-hour meeting ended.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241452 2012-02-10T22:44:46Z

Saudi Arabia used Interpol's system to get journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad on Twitter Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet's birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you ... I will not pray for you." More than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled "The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari".

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241450 2012-02-10T22:13:44Z

A woman who snatched a newborn baby from a New York City hospital in 1987, then raised the child as her own for more than two decades, pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge Friday as the girl's true mother wept in the courtroom. Ann Pettway, 51, appeared resigned to a life behind bars as she entered the plea at a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Her voice was flat as she briefly recounted how she took a train from her home in Bridgeport, Conn., to Harlem Hospital, where she scooped up Carlina White, a 3-week-old baby who had been brought to the emergency room by her parents. "I went to the hospital. I took a child," she said. "It was wrong." Pettway said little else during the hearing, and offered no explanation for why she would do such a thing. As part of her plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to recommend between 10 and 12½ years in prison, although the actual term will be set by a judge. As Pettway admitted her guilt, Carlina's birth mother, Joy White, quietly cried in the courtroom gallery. Afterward, she told reporters that she was outraged at the plea bargain, and felt a decade in prison would be too light a punishment for the woman who had robbed her so cruelly. Justice, she said, would be a term of 23 years, one for every year she was separated from her daughter.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241449 2012-02-10T22:06:17Z

A 14-year-old shot himself in the face in a New Hampshire elementary school cafeteria filled with dozens of students eating lunch, officials said Friday. The teen, identified by a relative and fellow students as Hunter Mack, was hospitalized after shooting himself around 11 a.m. at Walpole Elementary School in southwestern New Hampshire. Police locked down the school for several hours, but no one else was injured. Cheshire County Attorney Peter Heed told The Associated Press the student might have been upset about a "relationship issue" with a girl. "It clearly involved a relationship issue; I think that is fair to say," Heed told the AP. As of Friday afternoon, the student was in serious condition in the intensive care unit. "Our hearts go out to the family of this young man and our thoughts go out to all of the students that were in the school at this time," Heed said at an afternoon news conference.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241448 2012-02-10T21:59:17Z

The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline. "CIA Tango down," a member of Anonymous said on @YourAnonNews, a Twitter feed used by the group. "Tango down" is an expression used by the US Special Forces when they have eliminated an enemy. Attempts to access the CIA website at cia.gov were unsuccessful. More than two hours after the initial attack on the site attempts by AFP to reach cia.gov were met with a message saying the Web page was not available. Asked about the apparent website outage, a CIA spokeswoman said: "We are looking into these reports."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241447 2012-02-10T21:49:58Z

A man from Uzbekistan who pleaded guilty Friday to plotting to kill President Barack Obama with an automatic rifle claimed he was acting at the direction of an Islamic terror group in his home country. Authorities said Ulugbek Kodirov had discussed trying to kill the president as he campaigned for re-election because he would be out in public more often. Kodirov entered the plea during a hearing in Birmingham before U.S. District Judge Abdul K. Kallon, an Obama appointee. Defense attorney Lance Bell said the 22-year-old Kodirov avoided a potential life sentence by pleading guilty. He faces up to 30 years in prison, though Bell expected Kodirov to receive about half that. The judge also told Kodirov that he will face deportation once he's released from prison. Kodirov pleaded guilty to three counts: Threatening to kill the president, possessing an automatic weapon, and providing material support to terrorists. Four other charges were dropped as part of the deal. Area Muslims who knew Kodirov were stunned to learn of his plans.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241446 2012-02-10T21:41:30Z

President Barack Obama, in an abrupt policy shift aimed at quelling an election-year firestorm, announced on Friday that religious employers would not be required to offer free birth control to workers and the onus would instead be put on insurers. But Catholic Church leaders and Obama's Republican opponents, who had railed against the Democratic president's new rule on contraceptives as a violation of religious freedom, signaled that divisions remain over the hot-button social issue. The compromise by the Obama administration sought to accommodate religious organizations, such as Catholic hospitals and universities, outraged by a new rule that would have required them to offer free contraceptive coverage to women employees. Instead, the new approach puts the burden on insurance companies, ordering them to provide workers at religious-affiliated institutions with free family planning if they request it, without involving their employer at all, the White House said. "Religious liberty will be protected, and a law that requires free preventive care will not discriminate against women," Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room as he sought to put the political furor to rest.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241445 2012-02-10T21:36:11Z

A teen convicted of emailing pictures of an alleged rape at a rave in Pitt Meadows, B.C., that were eventually posted by others on Facebook has been sentenced to 12 months probation for distributing obscene material. The teen, who cannot be named because of his age, was also sentenced to write an essay on the harmful impact of social media by the judge on Friday in provincial court in Port Coquitlam. He was initially charged with production and distribution of child pornography, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge in December.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241444 2012-02-10T20:37:11Z

Female students stayed in classroom and watched Akeelah and the Bee Dallas, Texas: When 5,700 fifth-grade boys in Dallas' public schools recently went to see a movie about black fighter pilots in World War II, the girls stayed in school and saw a different movie instead. One of the pilots is among those asking why. A spokesman for the Dallas Independent School District said officials took only boys to see Red Tails Thursday because space at the movie theater was limited. Jon Dahlander told The Dallas Morning News that leaders of the district also thought boys would enjoy the movie more than girls. Red Tails tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary pilots during World War II who become the first black aviators to serve in the U.S. military. The movie opened last month. Some female students were shown a different movie instead: Akeelah and the Bee, about an 11-year-old girl who competes in a national spelling bee.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241443 2012-02-10T20:06:26Z

Rupert Sheldrake has researched telepathy in dogs, crystals and Chinese medicine in his quest to explore phenomena that science finds hard to explain It is not often, in liberal north London, that you come face to face with a heretic, but Rupert Sheldrake has worn that mantle, pretty cheerfully, for 30 years now. Sitting in his book-lined study, overlooking Hampstead Heath, he appears a highly unlikely candidate for apostasy; he seems more like the Cambridge biochemistry don he once was, one of the brightest Darwinians of his generation, winner of the university botany prize, researcher at the Royal Society, Harvard scholar and fellow of Clare College. All that, though, was before he was cast out into the wilderness. Sheldrake's untouchable status was conferred one morning in 1981 when, a couple of months after the publication of his first book, A New Science of Life, he woke up to read an editorial in the journal Nature, which announced to all right-thinking men and women that his was a "book for burning" and that Sheldrake was to be "condemned in exactly the language that the pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reason. It is heresy". For a pariah, Sheldrake is particularly affable. But still, looking back at that moment, he still betrays a certain sense of shock. "It was," he says, "exactly like a papal excommunication. From that moment on, I became a very dangerous person to know for scientists." That opinion has hardened over the years, as Sheldrake has continued to operate at the margins of his discipline, looking for phenomena that "conventional, materialist science" cannot explain and arguing for a more open-minded approach to scientific inquiry.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241442 2012-02-10T18:10:54Z

Reports reveal that British special forces are directing rebel attacks in Syria utilizing U.S. arms being smuggled through Turkey and Lebanon following wave of rebel bombings Reports are now surfacing that Syria rebels attacks are being led at the direction of British and Qatari special forces. The attacks are being fueled by U.S. arms which are being smuggled through Turkey after a cargo plane of U.S. arms was seized in Lebanon. The reports of the U.S. arms smuggling and assistance of the British special forces coincide with a wave of rebel bombings that have left over 200 wounded in the Aleppo, Syria. The US is setting up an international coalition aimed at supporting rebels in their struggle. The so-called "Friends of Democratic Syria" will involve countries willing to prop up the opposition, and pile more pressure on the regime. Direct military action is ruled out, but reports suggest British and Qatari special forces are already in the conflict zone. And while the US and its allies criticize Russia for supplying military hardware to Damascus, there are now calls from American lawmakers to arm the opposition. As RT's Marina Portnaya reports, the region's already been flooded with firepower made in the USA.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241441 2012-02-10T18:00:37Z

A viral video of a father firing his .45 at his daughter's laptop after she blasted him on her Facebook page has sparked a fiery debate about parenting and tough love. Tommy Jordan posted the video entitled, "Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen" on YouTube on Wednesday. By Friday, it was closing in on two million views. Jordan went public with the clip after daughter Hannah posted on Facebook an open letter to her parents griping about what most 16-year-olds would complain about at that age: having to do chores and not having the latest gadgets bought for her. In the video, Jordan sits on a chair with a cigarette in hand and a printed-out copy of his daughter's posting in the other. He also has a .45 caliber holstered to his belt. The angry dad starts off with a message to his daughter.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241440 2012-02-10T17:39:13Z

The people of Detroit, Michigan are taking no prisoners. Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they're offering no apologies. "We got to have a little Old West up here in Detroit. That's what it's gonna take," Detroit resident Julia Brown told The Daily. The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn't show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she's prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity. "I don't intend to be one of their victims," said Brown, who has lived in Detroit since the late 1950s. "I'm planning on taking one out."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241439 2012-02-10T17:37:10Z

Well, well. So the Sierra Club's campaign to end coal was substantially supported by a natural gas company CEO involved in the controversial practice called fracking. The club's Beyond Coal campaign is very active in Kentucky. Bryan Walsh of TIME has the report, here, in what's as an exclusive. The report says the organization has since stopped taking the money: TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy - one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking - to help fund the Club's Beyond Coal campaign. Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010 - and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations - the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club's independence and its support of natural gas in the past. It's also sure to anger ordinary members who've been uneasy about the Club's relationship with corporations. "The chapter groups and volunteers depend on the Club to have their back as they fight pollution from any industry, and we need to be unrestrained in our advocacy," Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director since 2010, told me. "The first rule of advocacy of is that you shouldn't take money from industries and companies you're trying to change."

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241438 2012-02-10T17:31:01Z

Say the words "fungal infection" and most people think of athlete's foot. But fungal infections are actually the root cause of many illnesses - from sinusitis to kidney disease. Fungi invade through our lungs, skin and digestive tract. Food, especially grains and peanuts, is rampant with fungi. Once inside our bodies, fungi can survive indefinitely. Fungal infections have been documented in every body part except teeth. What's more, they are an area of medicine that is largely ignored by conventional physicians. Here's what you need to know to protect yourself...

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241437 2012-02-10T16:58:43Z

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published the photograph to the left. It is of a 55-year-old man with Type 1 diabetes who has been injecting insulin under the skin of his belly for more than 30 years. Those who inject insulin regularly are often advised to 'rotate' (vary) the site of injections. One reason for this is that if they don't, they can run the risk of developing 'lipohypertrophy' - enlargement of fat cells local to where the insulin is injected. The picture is a graphic example of this condition.

tag:en.sott.net,2012-02-10:/articles/show/241436 2012-02-10T16:34:15Z

I don't believe that the best way for people to lose weight is to consciously restrict how much they eat. I have no issue with people eating less, I just believe that, for the best results, it needs to be done in a way that is both easy and sustainable. For the most part an essential component here is a regime that does not induce undue hunger. My preference is generally for a carbohydrate controlled diet 'primal' diet. Such a diet will usually provide enough protein to keep the appetite sated, while allowing fat loss from fat tissues which can then 'feed' the body, thereby potentially quelling appetite through this mechanism too.