- Signs of the Times Archive for Fri, 01 Jun 2007 -



Sections on today's Signs Page:

SOTT Focus
Madrid Bombings Redux - What Really Happened

Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
2007-06-01 14:09:00

Mossad - All in a day's work


For its cold-blooded professionalism, the Madrid bombings of March 11th 2004 bore all the hallmarks of an Israeli Mossad false flag operation. Yet the most interesting aspects of this particular "Islamic terror" attack is that it was one of the rare instances when the plan went totally awry in terms of the hoped for outcome.

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Best of the Web
Top Israeli rabbis advocate genocide

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada
2007-06-01 13:31:00

Palestinian Children - Legitimate targets, to senior Israeli theocrats


Yesterday I wrote a piece entitled "Israel's House of Horrors" about the openly murderous statements of Israeli cabinet ministers. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, I read a news article on the website of The Jerusalem Post that Israel's former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu -- one of the most senior theocrats in the Jewish State "ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings" ("Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza," The Jerusalem Post, 30 May, 2007).

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U.S. News
Liberty Attack Part of Grand Scheme

Mark Glenn
American Free Press
2007-05-26 17:38:00

Newly Uncovered Evidence Indicates Assault May Have Been Pre-Planned 'Useful Disaster'


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Remember the Liberty! When Israel attacks, the Pentagon retreats

Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
2007-05-30 17:14:00

It was 40 years ago this June 8 that the USS Liberty - a large, armorless, refitted freighter that was gathering intelligence in the Mediterranean at the outset of the Six Day War - was attacked by Israeli fighter jets and torpedoes. Thirty-four U.S. sailors were killed, and 172 were wounded. The Liberty limped back to Malta. A U.S. Navy court of inquiry was on board investigating the damage, but - for some reason - the investigators were not allowed to proceed to Israel to find out what really went on. Orders from the top echelons of the Pentagon nixed the inquiry, and today, the families of the fallen still haven't gotten any answers as to why Israel was allowed to get away with it without even so much as a slap on the wrist - nor even any public acknowledgment that it was a deliberate attack.

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New Age scam: 'Faith-healing' brothers charged


AP
2007-05-30 17:10:00

Two brothers claiming to be faith healers were charged with grand theft for allegedly convincing clients they were cursed and would die unless they paid for expensive cleansing rituals, authorities said.

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$2.5M check wrongly sent to counselor


AP
2007-05-30 16:55:00

An errant computer keystroke led the state to accidentally issue a $2.5 million check to a school counselor - who spent thousands on cars, jewelry and electronics, prosecutors said.

Sabrina Walker, 37, was charged Tuesday with theft by swindle and concealing the proceeds of a crime. She remained in jail Wednesday in lieu of $200,000 bail.

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Hysteria! Promotional fax mistaken for bomb threat


AP
2007-05-30 16:47:00

A faulty bank fax printed a message that was misinterpreted as a bomb threat Wednesday, leading authorities to evacuate more than a dozen neighboring businesses and a day care center.

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Boeing unit sued over CIA flights

Michelle Nichols
Reuters
2007-05-31 16:43:00

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a Boeing Co. unit it accuses of helping the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency transfer foreign suspects to overseas prisons where it says they were held and tortured.

The New York-based rights group said it would file a suit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. on Wednesday, charging that the company provided flight and logistical support to at least 15 aircraft on 70 so-called "rendition" flights.

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UK & Euro-Asian News
Russia says Litvinenko visited Chechnya to kill for Berezovsky


RIA Novosti
2007-06-01 14:11:00

A senior Russian official said there is strong evidence that Alexander Litvinenko visited Chechnya to eliminate witnesses linking tycoon Boris Berezovsky to terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev.


"We have reliable information about Litvinenko's visits to the Chechen Republic via Georgia. He was there to eliminate evidence of Berezovsky's involvement in funding illegal armed groups there, and Basayev's contacts," Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelyov said Friday in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus.


Yedelyov said the information was obtained during an investigation into the terrorist invasion of the Russian republic of Daghestan, on the Caspian coast, from neighboring Chechnya in 1999, and multiple terrorist attacks in Moscow, the Stavropol Territory and the southern towns of Volgodonsk and Buinaksk.


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Russia announces large joint military exercise with China, Shanghai Six


RIA Novosti
2007-06-01 14:02:00

Russia will hold a counterterrorism military exercise with China and other members of the "Shanghai Six" in August, the Ground Forces commander said Friday.


"The main [of the six international counterterrorism exercises planned for the year] will be a joint exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in August," a regional grouping dominated by Russia and China, Army General Alexei Maslov said.


The exercise will be held in the Russian Urals and will involve 500 vehicles from Russia and China, about 2,000 Russian and 1,600 Chinese personnel, a company (around 100 men) from Tajikistan, and smaller units from other members, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the general said.


While China has yet to decide how its troops would be transited through Kazakhstan, he has already suggested an alternate route directly across the Sino-Russian border in the Far East.


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UK profs reject plan to spy on students


Associated Press
2007-06-01 12:34:00

A union of British academics voted unanimously to reject a government plan to tackle Islamic extremism in universities, likening the initiative to "witch hunts" that would single out Muslim students.


The University and College Union, which represents more than 120,000 British academics, agreed to the motion Wednesday at its inaugural conference in Bournemouth in southern England. The motion calls for members to "resist attempts by government to engage colleges and universities in activities which amount to increased surveillance of Muslim or other minority students and to the use of members of staff for such witch hunts."


The Department for Education set guidelines last year urging university staff to contact police to identify and isolate Muslim students suspected of being radicalized. The report included real-life cases, including students watching online bomb-making videos in college libraries and using prayer rooms for radical meetings.


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£80 fine for dropping a cigarette butt

Harry Wallop
Telegraph
2007-06-01 12:30:00

Smokers will be liable for an £80 on-the-spot fine for stubbing out cigarettes in the street when the smoking ban comes into force across England on July 1.


This is one of a series of measures being introduced by the Government that will stigmatise what is normal practice for 10 million smokers, and - it is hoped - slash the NHS's £1.7 billion bill to treat smoking-related diseases.


Supporters of smoking said it was "unfair" that they should be singled out for punishment and vowed to resist heavy-handed use of fines.


But anti-litter campaigners welcomed the move, saying it would help end the blight of cigarette-strewn streets.


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China 'may have taken Hong Kong by force'


The Australian
2007-06-01 12:25:00

A former key Chinese envoy Zhou Nan who helped negotiate Hong Kong's return from British to Chinese rule in 1997, said Beijing once considered taking the city by non-peaceful means, a newspaper reported today.


As Hong Kong marks its 10th handover anniversary this July 1, several former top Chinese officials involved with Sino-British handover negotiations, have revealed rare and candid insights into the often tortured diplomacy between London and Beijing.


The pro-Bejing Wen Wei Po newspaper released excerpts of a forthcoming book of memoirs by Zhou - a hardline deputy Foreign Minister who later headed the Xinhua news agency in Hong Kong, China's de facto embassy in the territory.


"When the central Government considered the question of Hong Kong's reunification, they once considered using non-peaceful means to get back Hong Kong," Mr Zhou was quoted as saying.


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Latvian political unknown elected president


AFP
2007-06-01 02:25:00

Latvian lawmakers on Thursday elected a medical doctor with little experience in politics, Valdis Zatlers, the third president of the Baltic state since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Zatlers will take office on July 7, when the second four-year term of head of state Vaira Vike-Freiberga expires.


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Around the World
Young Psychopaths: Indian police arrest eight-year-old serial killer


RIA Novosti
2007-06-01 14:07:00

The Indian police apprehended an eight-year-old multiple murderer in the north of the country Friday, the Indian TV network NDTV said.


The boy, known as Amarjeet, was arrested after killing a six-year-old girl with a stone because she "slept at school."


"I took her a little away, and killed her with a stone and buried her," he said.


''When we met the boy, he said that he'd put the girl to sleep,'' the investigating police officer said.


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Mexico: Calderon uses drug violence as pretext for militarizing society

Kevin Kearney
World Socialist Web Site
2007-06-01 13:07:00

Much like George Bush in his fraudulent "war on terror," Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his media supporters are deeply engaged in a fear campaign to bully Mexican public opinion into accepting a move toward authoritarian rule and increased US intervention.

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India: Nearly 400 makeshift shops gutted near Chandigarh


Calcutta News.Net
2007-06-01 12:21:00

Nearly 400 makeshift shops were destroyed Friday in a devastating fire that broke out in a busy market of Mohali town adjoining Chandigarh.


Though no loss of life was reported, goods worth millions of rupees were destroyed.


The fire was first noticed in Phase 3-B-I of Mohali town, 10 km from here, around 5 a.m.


Within minutes, the blaze engulfed the market where makeshift shops lined up in a congested manner.


Nearly 50 fire tenders from Mohali, Chandigarh, Panchkula and other nearby areas were rushed to the spot to control the fire that also threatened a nearby residential area.


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Indonesians blamed for killing of five journalists in 1975

Kathy Marks
The Independent
2007-06-01 02:39:00

A long-running inquest into the deaths of five Australian-based journalists during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 was told that there was "incontrovertible evidence" they were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces.

Mark Tedeschi, the senior lawyer assisting the New South Wales coroner, Dorelle Pinch, said there was sufficient evidence to charge two unnamed individuals with war crimes. He urged her to refer the case to Australia's director of public prosecutions.

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Japan fails to lift whaling ban, threatens to quit IWC


AFP
2007-06-01 02:20:00

Japan failed in its bid Thursday to lift a moratorium on commercial whaling at the end of a stormy annual meeting of the 75-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) and warned it might pull out of the organization.

"There is a real possibility we will review at a fundamental level our role in the IWC and this would include withdrawing, setting up a new organization," Japan's top delegate Akira Nakamae said.

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Inter-Korean talks near breakdown over rice aid row


AFP
2007-06-01 02:18:00

Reconciliation talks between North and South Korea appeared close to collapse Friday over Seoul's demand that its rice aid be linked to Pyongyang's denuclearisation.

Chief negotiators from both sides sat down at 9:00 am (0000 GMT) for last-minute discussions over the rice aid, but South Korean officials sounded pessimistic

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Big Brother
Big Brother Craziness: DNA kits to trace spitting passengers

Ross Lydall
This is London.co.uk
2007-06-01 13:58:00

Bus drivers are to be issued with DNA kits so that passengers who spit on them can be traced by police.


The "spit kits" are already supplied at all 275 Tube stations and are expected to be rolled out this summer across London's 7,000-strong bus fleet.


It is the latest initiative against anti-social behaviour on buses and has coincided with the Mayor's introduction of free bus travel for under-16s.


The DNA kits will allow drivers to take swabs of saliva that can be passed to the police and checked against criminal records. Transport for London says that about seven out of 10 samples provides a match.


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Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too

Ken Fisher
Ars Technica
2007-06-01 13:04:00

With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you.


We started examining the files this morning and noticed our names and e-mail addresses in the files, and we've found corroboration of the find at TUAW, as well. But there's more to the story: Apple embeds your account information in all songs sold on the store, not just DRM-free songs. Previously it wasn't much of a big deal, since no one could imagine users sharing encrypted, DRMed content. But now that DRM-free music from Apple is on the loose, the hidden data is more significant since it could theoretically be used to trace shared tunes back to the original owner. It must also be kept in mind that this kind of information could be spoofed.


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Robot to Guard Schools to be tested in South Korea

Kim Tae-gyu
The Korean Times
2007-05-31 18:05:00

Sophisticated security robots will be deployed in the near future to patrol schools around the clock to protect students from violence and other dangers.

DU Robo said Wednesday that the Seoul-based venture start-up company plans to begin a pilot run of the security robot, dubbed OFRO, in a middle school.

This is the first time in the world that a robot will be employed to guard an educational institution, according to DU Robo.

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Axis of Evil
Marine probe stirs free speech issue: Reservists joined antiwar protests

David Montgomery
Washington Post
2007-06-01 15:53:00

WASHINGTON -- Going on a mock patrol can get you in real trouble with the US Marine Corps.

In a case that raises questions about free speech, the Marines have launched investigations of three inactive reservists for wearing their uniforms during antiwar protests and allegedly making statements characterized as "disrespectful" or "disloyal."


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Lies and more Lies: Gates, U.S. General Back Long Iraq Stay

Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
2007-06-01 12:51:00

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and a senior U.S. commander said yesterday that they favor a protracted U.S. troop presence in Iraq along the lines of the military stabilization force in South Korea.


Gates told reporters in Hawaii that he is thinking of "a mutual agreement" with Iraq in which "some force of Americans . . . is present for a protracted period of time, but in ways that are protective of the sovereignty of the host government." Gates said such a long-term U.S. presence would assure allies in the Middle East that the United States will not withdraw from Iraq as it did from Vietnam, "lock, stock and barrel."


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White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

Pete Yost
Associated Press
2007-06-01 12:43:00

A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.


Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.


The drive to keep the logs secret, the administration says, is essential to assuring that the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties.


Cabinet officers often don't want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies.


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British document: Israel initiated Entebbe hijack


Ynet
2007-06-01 12:32:00

The state of Israel was behind the hijacking of an Air France plane to Entebbe in 1976, and cooperated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in staging the affair, a UK government file compiled at the time of the occurrences and published by the BBC Friday revealed.


According to the file released by the National Archives, an unnamed contact told a British diplomat in Paris that the Shin Bet and the PFLP collaborated to seize the plane, which was hijacked in Athens and flown to Entebbe in Uganda, where 98, most of hem Israelis, were held hostage.


The crisis was brought to an end after Israeli commandos stormed the airport. Three Israeli hostages and one Israeli commander, Yonatan Netanyahu, were killed during the raid.


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War whore Rice criticises Spain over Cuba

Sue Pleming
Reuters
2007-06-01 11:45:00

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Spain for what is meant to be a fence-mending trip on Friday but her first words were of reproach for its policy of engaging Cuba.

"Democratic states have an obligation to act democratically, meaning to support opposition in Cuba, not to give the regime the idea that they can transition from one dictatorship to another," she told reporters on her plane shortly before touching down in the Spanish capital.

Comment: Supporting the opposition in a sovereign state with arms and attempting to assassinate sovereign heads of states has nothing to do with real democracy. This is what the US government has been doing for many many years around the world. But then again, everyone knows that the US is not a democracy, but a fascist state, serving the elite.


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Flashback: CNN Executive Says G.I.s in Iraq Target Journalists

Roderick Boyd
New York Sun
2005-02-09 08:00:00

The head of CNN's news division, Eason Jordan, ignited an Internet firestorm last week when he told a panel at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, that the American military had targeted journalists during operations in Iraq.


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Middle East Madness
Democracy for Jews only

Yitzhak Laor
Haaretz.com
2007-05-31 17:23:00

Looking back, it is strange how many years it has taken the liberals among us to understand that Israeli democracy needs safeguards - not against organizations trying to bring it down, or a political structure that can undermine it, or a too-powerful internal force that draws strength from the lack of a constitution (the Shin Bet security service, for example). Those who thought there was no problem with Israeli democracy, or the Arab minority in its midst, were strangely innocent.

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Iraq's bloodiest month for US troops since Fallujah invasion


AFP
2007-06-01 16:24:00

Six more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the military announced on Thursday, confirming that May has become the deadliest month for American forces in two-and-a-half years.

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A Conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski


The American Prospect
2007-06-01 14:17:00

After the failure of adventures based on fantasies, it's time for a big dose of reality in America's Mideast policy. America's most notable foreign policy realist speaks with the Prospect.

THE PREMISE OF THIS SPECIAL COLLECTION OF ARTICLES on peace in the Middle East is that all the major elements of regional conflict and cooperation are linked. These include U.S. relations with Iran, options for U.S. exit from Iraq, U.S. containment of militant Islamism, economic development of the region, and a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In this interview, which frames the issue, Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner discusses with former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski how the various elements of Middle East peace fit together.

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Media watchdog wants action after record Iraq toll

Paul Tait
AFP
2007-06-01 11:24:00

Media advocate Reporters Without Borders has called for the establishment of a special police unit to investigate media killings in Iraq after a record 12 journalists were slain in May.


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Israeli army shoots three Gaza boys


BBC News
2007-06-01 14:27:00

Two Palestinian boys have been shot dead by Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources say.

The children were estimated to be between eight and 13 years old. They have not yet been identified.

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Flashback: Iraqi government may face "coup" as US patience wearing thin


BBC Monitoring Middle East
2007-06-01 09:07:00

It seems that US President George Bush's patience is starting to wear thin and that [Iraqi Prime Minister] Nuri al-Maliki's government's days really are numbered. This was all evident in the statements President Bush made yesterday, and which he dedicated to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. The void between the US president and ruling Shi'i coalition in Baghdad is noticeably widening, reflecting an inclination to change US strategy in dealing with the Iraqi issue.


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The Loan Gunmen
The speech grads should hear

Daniel Brook
The Boston Globe
2007-06-01 16:27:00

FOUR YEARS AGO, you were all gathered before me on this quad as eager freshmen; today we are gathered here again, to send you off into what MTV has dubbed "the real world." [pause for laugh, look surprised and flattered when it comes]

Back then I urged you to embark upon a liberal arts education. By sophomore year, reality began to set in, and your schedules included a "practical" course or two. You dipped your toes into Economics 101 and, as it's known on this campus, "Accounting for Lemmings." Ultimately, most of you, like most American undergraduates, majored in a pre-professional field.

While it is customary to inspire graduates with a plea to go forth and serve humanity, I will take the advice of one of your eloquent classmates and "cut the crap." This college, like many in our great nation, is sending most of you into the world burdened by five-figures worth of tuition debt and without a loan forgiveness program for public service. Choose to be a teacher in Boston and you'll find you've been priced out of homeownership in 91.7 percent of the region's census tracts. Take a government or nonprofit job in Washington, and get ready to commute two hours a day from affordable West Virginia if you want to start a family. Or you can go corporate and embrace the five-fold pay advantage of entry-level K Street lobbyists over Capitol Hill staffers.


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PC maker Dell to cut 7,000 jobs


BBC News
2007-05-31 21:49:00

At least 7,000 jobs are set to be lost at computer firm Dell after it said it would cut its global workforce by 10%.



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The Living Planet
Idaho avoids bee problems


Star Tribune
2007-06-01 17:50:00

Idaho's commercial honeybee operations have so far avoided a mysterious phenomenon in which the insects suddenly abandon their colonies, which is good news for the state's apple and onion crops that rely on the bees for pollination.

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Strong earthquake hits eastern Russia


Reuters
2007-05-30 18:20:00

A strong earthquake hit Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Thursday morning local time, with a magnitude of 6.4, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site on Wednesday.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

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Health & Wellness
Thinking straight while seeing red?


EurekAlert
2007-06-01 14:37:00

Anger is that powerful internal force that blows out the light of reason. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Anger is appropriately blamed for flawed thinking since it tends to alter perception of risk, increase prejudice, and trigger aggression. But is anger always destructive" Three recent experiments published in the latest issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, an official publication of The Society for Personality and Social Psychology suggest it's not. Anger can actually prompt more careful and rational analysis of another person's reasoning.


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Wide range of sleep-related disorders associated with abnormal sexual behaviors, experiences


EurekAlert
2007-06-01 14:35:00

A paper published in the June 1st issue of the journal SLEEP is the first literature review and formal classification of a wide range of documented sleep-related disorders associated with abnormal sexual behaviors and experiences. These abnormal sexual behaviors, which emerge during sleep, are referred to as "sleepsex" or "sexsomnia".


"It seems that more and more reports are surfacing of abnormal sexual behaviors emerging during sleep," said Carlos H. Schenck, MD, a senior staff psychiatrist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis and the lead author of the review. "While people may think this type of behavior is humorous, in reality it can be disturbing, annoying, embarrassing and a potentially serious problem for some individuals and couples. Despite their awareness of the condition, many sufferers often delay seeking help, either because they don't know that it's a medical disorder or for fear that others will instead judge it as willful behavior. This paper highlights the expanding set of sleep disorders and other nocturnal disorders known to be associated with abnormal sexual behaviors and experiences, or the misperception of sexual events. The legal consequences are also described and discussed."


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Expertise improves shoot,no-shoot decisions in police officers and lessens potential for racial bias


EurekAlert
2007-06-01 14:26:00

From three experiments of video simulations of shoot-no shoot decision scenarios with police officers, community members and college students, researchers from the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Denver determined that training and experience is effective in minimizing decisions based on stereotyped views.


This finding is reported on in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).


The research, which was funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, shows that police officers' decisions about whether to shoot or not to shoot a suspect are less susceptible to racial bias than decisions of community members. The authors say that an officers' training/expertise yields faster responses, greater sensitivity to the presence of a weapon and reduced tendencies to shoot a suspect because of his or her race. At the same time, suspect race did affect the speed with which both police officers and community members could formulate their decisions.


Using a video simulation of a shoot/don't shoot task, the first experiment compared the speed and accuracy of 113 officers from around the United States, 124 Denver police officers and 135 community members from Denver. The simulation involved armed and unarmed White and Black men appearing in a variety of background images. Participants were instructed to respond to armed targets with a shoot response and to unarmed targets with a don't shoot response as quickly as possible.


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The Age of Autism: Quite the coincidence


UPI
2007-06-01 07:59:00


It's amazing the coincidences one comes across while reporting about autism:

The autism rate rises in tandem with increasing numbers of vaccines that contain a known neurotoxin, ethyl mercury.

Public health authorities say that's coincidence.

Parents say their children became autistic after receiving mercury-containing vaccinations, sometimes several shots in one day.

Pediatricians call that coincidence, too.

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Manipulation Alert!!! Border Agent Allowed TB Patient in U.S.

By GREG BLUESTEIN and DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press
2007-05-31 19:36:00

ATLANTA - A globe-trotting Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed back into the U.S. by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear, officials said Thursday. The inspector has been removed from border duty.


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Science & Technology
Swiss firm offers digital "Fort Knox" beneath the Alps


AFP
2007-06-01 12:27:00

A Swiss computer services firm is offering to stock sensitive business data for companies in secure servers located in ex-army bunkers deep beneath the Alps.


The company, C-Channel, which specialises in banking software, claims that the data will be stocked "deep beneath the ground, protected from theft, fire, computer viruses and hackers."


"We have already set up several servers in two disused bunkers in the Alps," Rene Reinli, a company executive told AFP.


The company says the service amounts to a "Swiss Fort Knox," in deference to the fortress which houses the US gold reserves.


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Canadian physicists report an electrifying discovery

Peter Calamai
Toronto Star
2007-05-31 22:12:00

Canadian physicists have cracked a decades-old mystery surrounding metals that carry electricity without resistance, opening the door for everyday trains that levitate on magnetic fields, ultrapowerful quantum computers and big savings for utilities.


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Magnetic device extends the life of fresh food

Teh Jen Lee
The Electric New Paper
2007-05-31 21:02:00

ESMo Technologies has developed a magentic device which can maintain the freshness of food.

©Electric New Paper
Mr Sebestian Chua (left) and his brother, Dr. Richard Chua, hope the EsmoSphere will add another level of protection over food storage.




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Space oddity: Astronomers discover giant planet XO-3b


EurekAlert!
2007-05-30 18:32:00

The latest find from an international planet-hunting team of amateur and professional astronomers is one of the oddest extrasolar planets ever cataloged -- a mammoth orb more than 13 times the mass of Jupiter that orbits its star in less than four days.

Researchers from the U.S.-based XO Project unveiled the planet, XO-3b, at today's American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu. Christopher Johns-Krull, a Rice University astronomer and presenter of the team's results, said, "This planet is really quite bizarre. It is also particularly appropriate to be announcing this find here, since the core of the XO project is two small telescopes operating here in Hawaii."



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Our Haunted Planet
Video: UFO fleet over Lima, Peru


ATV Noticias / Youtube
2007-05-20 14:00:00




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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Belgian soldiers to blowtorch caterpillars


Reuters
2007-06-01 03:01:00

A mini-platoon of soldiers wielding blowtorches will be deployed to the Belgian forests to tackle a plague of hairy caterpillars that are causing allergy outbreaks in humans.

Procession caterpillars, so called for the way they march in lines through forests, are covered in long, toxic hairs which cause dermatitis and respiratory problems and account for up to 80 per cent of doctor visits in the affected area.

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Study Finds Cocaine, Pot in Rome's Air

Associated Press Writer
Associated Press
2007-05-31 22:44:00

Researchers may have figured out what makes la vita so dolce in Rome. A report from Italy's National Research Council released Thursday found that there are traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air of the Eternal City.

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