Society's Child
Washington - Partial remains of several 9/11 victims were incinerated by a military contractor and sent to a landfill, a government report said Tuesday in the latest of a series of revelations about the Pentagon's main mortuary for the war dead.
The surprise disclosure was mentioned only briefly, with little detail, in a report by an independent panel that studied underlying management flaws at Dover Air Force Base mortuary in Delaware. A 2011 probe found "gross mismanagement" there, but until Tuesday there had been no mention of Dover's role in handling 9/11 victims' remains.
Air Force leaders, asked about the 9/11 matter at a news conference, said they had been unaware of it until the head of the independent panel, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, held a Pentagon news conference Tuesday to explain his panel's findings.
An increasing portion of students in the United Kingdom looking for a way to pay for their tuition are turning to prostitution, according to a new paper by a British medical student.
The problem may be particularly acute among medical students, who generally go to school longer, accrue more debt and have less time for paid employment, according to the paper by Jodi Dixon, who is studying at the University of Birmingham.
Dixon pointed to a study of about 300 British university students, in which 10 percent reported knowing a student who had worked as a prostitute or escort in 2010. That's up from about 6 percent in 2006, and 4 percent in 2000, Dixon said, a rise that coincided with an increase in college tuition fees.
"With escalating debts, students in the United Kingdom may view prostitution as an easy way to get rich quick," Dixon wrote in her article, published today (Feb. 28) in journal Student BMJ.
One instructor at Balderas Elementary in Fresno, Calif., learned this lesson first-hand as three fifth grade students were expelled Saturday for attempting to poison their teacher.
According to Fresno TV station CBS47, two boys and one girl attempted to feed their teacher rat poison in a cup of coffee and, later, in the frosting of a cupcake. The CBS affiliate reported that the plot was uncovered two months after an attempt when "a parent was bragging that her son saved the teacher's life by preventing her from drinking the poisoned coffee." The boy in question was allegedly the one who came up with the idea in the first place.
A columnist at the Daily Caller writes today that people receiving food stamps should be forced to shop at government-owned stores selling sub-standard food so that they can feel the "humiliation and pain in receiving government assistance."
Oh, and they should "lose the privilege of voting."
Part of the plant was flattened by the blast and witnesses said houses within a 2km diameter had windows smashed.
Police believe the blast, which left another 43 people injured, may have been caused by chemicals.
The blast took place at 0920 (0120GMT) at the Keeper Chemical Plant in Zhaoxian County, state media said.

Fire boat response crews spray water on the burning remnants of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010
The gigantic civil trial resulting from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster has been delayed for one week, just hours before it was due to get underway in a New Orleans court on Monday to give BP and lawyers for the tens of thousands who lost their livelihoods time to negotiate a settlement.
Judge Carl Barbier issued an order on Sunday afternoon putting off the start date until 5 March, citing reasons of "judicial efficiency".
A joint statement issued by BP and the plaintiffs' steering committee said the delay was granted to give the armies of lawyers from both sides more time to reach a deal. "This adjournment is intended to allow BP and the PSC more time to continue settlement discussions and attempt to reach an agreement," the statement said.

The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010 destroying the ecosystem of the Gulf, as well as the health of the people in the surrounding areas.
The agreement would be between BP and individuals and companies seeking compensation. BP is yet to comment.
One lawyer told the BBC a deal between BP and US federal and state governments was not close, and talks had halted.
The drilling rig exploded in April 2010 killing 11 men and spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP has so far paid $7.5bn in clean-up costs and compensation.
The vessel's sister ship, the Costa Concordia, capsized off the coast of Italy last month killing at least 25 people.
Here are details of some other recent cruise ship accidents:
Crashes
Costa Europa: The liner slammed into the pier in February 2010 as its captain tried to dock at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in high winds. Three crew were killed and four passengers were injured. The Costa Europa had been on an 18-day cruise from Dubai to Savona and had over 1,400 passengers on board.
Costa Concordia: In 2008, the giant Italian vessel hit the dockside in Palermo, Sicily, in bad weather, causing damage to the bow.
Power Failure
Costa Classica: A power failure was blamed for the Costa Classica smashing into a cargo vessel in China's Yangtze River, injuring three people in late 2010.
In three days from now, Google will implement a unified privacy policy that will allow it to mix data about user activity from all of its different services, creating a huge database that details people's interests and activities.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good article about this coming event. The article gives a little tip about how to erase your web search history: You have to go to Google.com/history and clear your web history.
Doing this clears the history of your use of the Google search engine, but it doesn't affect the data collected about your use of the other Google services. So, taking this action might prevent Google from using all your search data from the last several years to share a consumer profile of you with its corporate customers... for a while.
During a taping of the Stossel show at the 2012 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington D.C., I got to confront neo-conservative war monger John Bolton on the issue of blowback, and it miraculously made it's way onto the Stossel show! I'm guessing we have the man himself, John Stossel, to thank for that.
Of course, this is Fox we're talking about, so there is some disingenuous editing. But the content of my question and Bolton's response is completely intact! Thank you Stossel!










