Man's Dog Sniffs out his cancer

Steve Werner suspected his health was in trouble even before his golden retriever, Wrigley, started sniffing around.

His symptoms were vague back in June - occasional ringing in his ears, a general feeling of unease. His doctor couldn't pinpoint a problem. Tests came back negative.

Then in July, Wrigley started to behave strangely.

Every day when Werner would curl up next to his beloved canine at his Brentwood home, she would turn, focus on his right ear and sniff doggedly.

"I thought it was just a friendly sniff," Werner said. "But after four or five days, I realized she seemed to be focusing on something. At some point, I noticed she was always sniffing at the opening of my right ear. She would set herself up and intently smell my ear."

One day, Werner was watching TV when a feature about cancer-sniffing dogs grabbed his attention. What he heard propelled him back to his doctor's office.

An MRI of Werner's head revealed a brain tumor the size of a pingpong ball that had spread into the inner canal of Werner's right ear - the very ear Wrigley had been sniffing persistently.

Werner, 40, had a rare nonmalignant tumor called acoustic schwannoma. If not caught in time, it could have caused a stroke or permanent facial paralysis.

He underwent surgery in Los Angeles in February to remove it and has been recuperating at home.
read full story here

Picture of the Week

Post your comments on what you think this crazy degenerate was doing...

Astronaut's testimony of seeing UFO

Donald Slayton a Mercury astronaut revealed in an interview he had seen UFOs in 1951: "I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high." As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, grey and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn't look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk. About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me - and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off. It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared."

Green Roofing Taking off - Germany Sets the Standard

NEW YORK (AP) -- An architectural organization has unveiled a new "green" roof for its own building to showcase a trend toward environmentally-friendly technology.

The leafy rooftop of the American Society of Landscape Architects building in downtown Washington is a model of the techniques used increasingly to cool temperatures, filter air, and lessen the burden on sewers by absorbing rainwater.

Visitors are surrounded on three sides by a variety of plants, and the aluminum grating that serves as a walkway is suspended over more vegetation.

Green roofs, first championed in Germany, have grown in popularity around the world, and experts predict more growth as the practice sprouts as far away as China. In North America, green roof space grew 70 percent last year.

"What you're going to see is a meteoric rise in this industry because it takes serious issues like storm water and offers multiple solutions," said Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a non-profit industry association.

Germany, which helped launch the trend beginning in the 1950s, now has 50 square miles (32,000 square acres) of green roof space and adds an additional five square miles (13 square kilometers) per year, estimates Christian Werthmann, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

Green roofs began to spread when some German cities encouraged building owners to substitute ballast and tar rooftops with vegetation. Werthmann estimates 40 German municipalities require green roofs in at least some cases.

Hundreds of Dead Dolphins wash up on Zanzibar beach overnight

ZANZIBAR (Reuters) - At least 300 dead dolphins washed ashore on a beach in Zanzibar overnight, residents said on Friday, but the cause of the deaths was unknown.

An official with the Zanzibar Fisheries Department and Marine Products, Sihaba Haji, said the islands had not witnessed the death of such a large number of dolphins.

"I can confirm the deaths of dolphins but we need time to research to establish the cause of the deaths," he said.

A resident said the dead dolphins were on a stretch of beach called Kendwa and Mkokotoni, in the north of Zanzibar that is populated by several tourist hotels.

Another resident said he first saw the dolphins on Thursday.

"We started noticing them last night. All are adult dolphins. We could do nothing but photograph them," said a hotel owner who preferred not to be named.

Nariman Jidawi, a researcher at Zanzibar-based Institute of Marine Science at the University of Dar es Salaam, cited several possible reasons that could have led to the dolphins dying.

"We suspect oil pollution, eating red seaweed or simply being left behind when the tide recedes," Jidawi said.

She said the dead dolphins were Indian Ocean Bottlenose. The Indian Ocean is a migratory path and home for several species, including the Indo-Pacific hump-backed dolphin. Continued...

UN cutting food and aid to Darfur in half as hunger is on the rise? WHY?

The UN is cutting in half its daily rations in Sudan's Darfur region because of a severe funding shortfall.

From May the ration will be half the minimum amount required each day. The cut comes as the UN said Darfur's malnutrition rates are rising again.

Nearly 3m people depend on food aid after being driven off their land.

But little has come from the EU and nothing at all from any of Sudan's partners in the Arab League, except Libya, the World Food Programme says.

"This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made," James Morris, head of the WFP, said.

Despite a ceasefire and on-going peace negotiations, large areas of Darfur are now affected by fighting between government forces, militias and rebels.

This is also hampering the delivery of food and other aid operations.
read full article here at BBC

Teacher reprimanded for forcing eight girls to cut their hair [JAPAN]

Teacher reprimanded for forcing eight girls to cut their hair

SAGA -- A teacher at a local public high school has come under fire for forcing eight girls to cut their hair as punishment for what he called "bad behavior," school officials admitted Friday.

The school apologized to the students and parents of the victims saying his actions were excessive punitive measures.

"It's clearly wrong to instruct students to cut their hair even though I understand that the teacher didn't force them to do so. We'll make sure that this won't happen again," Principal Kunio Terasaki said.

A second-year girl at Saga Higashi Prefectural High School was caught using a mobile phone during a class on Wednesday, prompting teachers to hold a meeting instructing students not to do so later in the day.

The 37-year-old homeroom teacher of the girl then reprimanded 28 girls in his class over their bad behavior.

"If you really regret what you did, you should show it," he told the girls and ordered those who have long hair to cut it short.

Eight of the girls complied and either cut their own hair or asked friends to cut their hair.

The teacher's wrongdoing came to light after other teachers questioned some victims who were crying in their classrooms or in a hallway.

The following day, the teacher and his bosses offered deep apologies to the girls in his class and the parents of those who were forced to cut their hair. (Mainichi)

Click here for the original Japanese story

April 28, 2006

Have your say in the MSN-Mainichi Daily News Readers' Forum

Foam Continues to Fly - No scheduled changes as shuttle set to launch in July

WASHINGTON, April 28 — NASA has decided to fly the space shuttle Discovery in July without making all potential modifications to its external fuel tank that might reduce damaging foam debris, a move that concerns some agency engineers, officials said today.

Engineers have removed two large sections of insulating foam from the tank and are still evaluating the effects of that action, they said. Work will continue on redesigning or removing all or some of 34 smaller, potentially hazardous foam wedges in the future, but they will fly "as is" on the upcoming flight, they said.

N. Wayne Hale Jr., director of the shuttle program, said in a televised news conference that the decision to curtail further foam modifications before flying again followed a lively discussion among managers at a program meeting at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Some argued that NASA not fly before changing the small foam wedges to reduce their shedding potential.

"There was a strong, concerted opinion from several folks that we should wait until we have a good design on these pieces of foam and then change them before we go flying," Mr. Hale said, "That's not without merit and we considered it very strongly.

"But at the end of the day, it is appropriate to make one change at a time with the biggest problem we have, and then work our way to the next situation."

Reducing falling fuel tank debris has been a priority for NASA since the loss of the shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003. Foam insulation falling from the tank during the launching damaged Columbia's heat shield, causing the destruction of the craft and the deaths of seven astronauts as the ship attempted to return through the atmosphere from a science mission.

When Discovery flew last July on the first mission since Columbia, a greatly reduced but hazardous amount of foam still fell from its redesigned tank during the launching. Afterward, engineers removed more than 37 pounds of foam that formed two air ramps, or deflectors, that protected pressurized fuel lines and a tray guiding cables down the side of the tank, places from which the biggest pieces of foam fell in the last mission.

Don't talk about Hurricanes - You'll be struck by lightning!

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A West Palm Beach man is dead after he was struck by a bolt of lightning while talking to his neighbor about the upcoming hurricane season.Sixty-five-year-old Harold Bennett was standing outside his home wearing sandals and no shirt when he was hit in the back of his head about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.Judy Thompson said she was talking with Bennett when he was hit. Thompson said the retired gardener was taking garbage outside when he spotted her rearranging furniture.She told Bennett that she was preparing for the hurricane season.The two were standing about 25 feet away when Bennett was hit. Thompson wasn't injured.A forecaster with the National Weather Service said Wedneday's storm brought about 530 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in Palm Beach County between 5 and 6 p.m.

American Hiroshima? Greatest Fear coming from Insider Predictions

Al-Qaida has already obtained nuclear suitcase weapons from the Russian black market, weapons tested in Afghanistan in 2000, and they may have already been forward-deployed inside the U.S., according to the only journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of Sept. 11.

Last week, Hamid Mir's credibility skyrocketed when he accurately predicted in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin and later in WND the imminent release of a new recorded communiqué from bin Laden through al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV network. Two days later, bin Laden's tape was the focus of international news coverage.

"If you think that my information and analysis about bin Laden's location is correct," said Hamid Mir, "then please don't underestimate my analysis about his nuclear threat also."

Mir said that he met with an Egyptian engineer last week who lost an eye after one of bin Laden's nuclear tests in the Kunar province of Pakistan. The Pakistani journalist said the encounter with the engineer greatly disturbed and depressed him since it provided further assurance that a nuclear nightmare for America is about to dawn.

Mir believes that an "American Hiroshima" will occur as soon as the U.S. launches an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Al-Qaida and Iran," he says, "have a long, secret relationship." "American Hiroshima" is the name al-Qaida leaders chose for their long-planned nuclear attack on the U.S.

UFO Videotaped footage

Jeff Willes, respected skywatcher from Phoenix, Az., video-taped an incredible light display from a hovering UFO or UFOs. According to Jeff it started out as 2 white lights hovering in the sky for about 30 seconds. Then one of the lights disappeared leaving one light visible for about another minute or so. Next, a string of lights shoot out of the bright light and swing around to the right forming a boomerang shape then turning off completing the sighting.

Full Story...

Women Witness UFOs - Eyewitness Account

Brian Vike

April 25, 2006

The story is real but one of the names in this report is fictitious for obvious reasons. Corina, the driver of the vehicle is her real name.

Monday - August 18, 2003 I received a telephone call from Corina who lives in Kelowna, British Columbia. The lady was very upset and had a time speaking of the event that took place with her and a close female friend of hers. She told me today that a friend had brought over a newspaper article which was run in the Kelowna Capital Newspaper. The headline read "Seeking Witnesses to UFO." which showed up on August 15, 2003

Here is her story.

She tells that her and her friend are having a very hard time dealing with what took place. Also another couple who lives in the area watched an aerial craft hovering close to the location where the two ladies had parked there car at the side of the highway and gave confirmation to the incident, or at least witnessed an object.

At approx: 12:05 a.m., July 31, 2003 the two ladies were playing around on the computer when Linda said, we haven't done any star gazing in a long time, so Corina, the lady who contacted me said, you're right, lets go out and do some star gazing. They left home at 12:05 a.m. heading out to an area where they would get a look at the clear night sky without having lights to obscure their view. Corina drove to Glenmore, which is north from where she lives and is on the back road heading to Winfield from Kelowna, B.C.

They were driving along and Corina reported that there was quite a bit of traffic for that time of the night, but soon after they decided to stop just off to the side of the road to see what they might notice, the traffic stopped coming. There was not a light from any vehicles, not anything other than a very dark stretch of road. Corina grabbed her flashlight and shone it into the sky as she has done this in the past. Her friend Linda had the binoculars on the other side of the car scanning the starry night sky. They were there only a minute out of the car when her Linda said, this is really strange. There are three stars up in the sky and formed into a triangle shape. All three lights at this time were solid white. Both ladies watched as the three white lights started moving, but moving together. The witness with the binoculars said stars don't do that, and Corina replies, of course not, as she thought it may have been a plane or something. Linda replies, no this is not a plane as the lights were changing color to a neon green and the object had stopped and hovered just ahead of their car on the highway. read more here

courtesy of the Lizard Man

NASA tries to quell fears of Comet strike for May 25th

Chunks of a comet currently splitting into pieces in the night sky will not strike the Earth next month, nor cause mass extinctions or giant tsunamis NASA officials said Thursday.

The announcement, NASA hopes, will squash rumors that a fragment of the crumbling Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW 3) will slam into Earth just before Memorial Day.

"There are some Internet stories going around that there's going to be an impact on May 25," NASA spokesperson Grey Hautaluoma, told SPACE.com. "We just want to get the facts out."

Astronomers have been observing 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, a comet that circles the Sun every 5.4 years, for more than 75 years and are confident that any of the icy object's fragments will remain at least a distant 5.5 million miles (8.8 million kilometers) from Earth - more than 20 times the distance to the Moon - at closest approach between May 12 and May 28.

Comet Update - shatters into pieces

04/28/06 01:34 PM, EDT
NASA and the European Space agency have released new images from the Hubble Space Telescope showing the dramatic breakup of comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The comet's nucleus has shattered into more than 33 pieces, and is likely to continue to disintegrate.
FULL STORY

Biggest wind farm gets go-ahead and will be able to power 280,000 homes

Biggest wind farm gets go-ahead and will be able to power 280,000 homes

EBEN HARRELL

• Biggest wind farm in Europe to be built on moorland site near Glasgow
• Landmark site will generate two percent of country's energy needs
• Opponents claim it damages views and disrupts natural environment

Key quote
"Whitelee is the largest single onshore wind farm to be consented in Europe and is a significant milestone towards achieving our renewable energy and climate change targets. We are strongly committed to the continued development of a diverse renewable energy portfolio in this country." - ALLAN WILSON, DEPUTY ENTERPRISE MINISTER

Story in full THE biggest onshore wind farm in Europe is to be built on a vast stretch of moorland near Glasgow and will open by the end of the decade, the Executive announced yesterday.

Ministers consented to the 140-turbine farm, to be built on high ground to the south of East Kilbride. The farm will have a maximum output of 322Mw. That is enough, the Executive claimed, to power nearly every house in Glasgow - or 280,000 homes.

When completed in 2009, it will be able to satisfy more than 2 per cent of Scotland's yearly electricity needs.

read more here

Chinese in Indonesia flocking to Christianity

Benny Hinn, superstar Christian televangelist and faith healer, made a multi-city tour of Indonesia in late March. More than 100,000 arm-waving disciples paid more than $100 each to hear his electrifying sermons and to witness him raising cripples from wheelchairs.

Indonesia, home of the world's biggest Muslim population, seems an unlikely destination for Hinn. But Indonesia's big cities are now part of the international evangelical circuit, and charismatic Protestant churches are growing apace.

Indonesia's Muslims show no interest in Hinn and his fellow Christian preachers. But the rich, urban ethnic Chinese of Indonesia are flocking to Christianity. Since the 1950s, when only a small elite was Christian, several million Chinese have abandoned traditional Chinese religions in favor of Christianity, most commonly evangelical Protestant churches.

Of the estimated five million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, well over 70 percent are now Christian. The ebullient and staggeringly rich charismatic churches are thriving by spreading a message of personal confidence and material success that seems to hold special appeal for young Chinese.

The mass conversion to Christianity occurred in two waves. In the 1950s and 60s, many Chinese converted as a response to Indonesia's official intolerance of traditional Chinese culture.

Convinced - sometimes justly - that the Chinese were halfhearted supporters of independence, the post-revolutionary government punished the Chinese by severely stifling their culture. Chinese schools were banned, pushing pupils into Christian schools. Chinese temples were stripped of "Chinese characteristics" and worship could only be conducted discreetly.

In contrast, Christians enjoyed far greater freedom of worship. For the ethnic Chinese, Christianity offered a life with less persecution and wider acceptance, especially by officialdom. Between 1957 and 1969 the number of Chinese Catholics surged by more than 400 percent.
read more here

Congress too scared to stand up to Big Oil?

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans on Thursday refused to support billions of dollars in new taxes on oil companies as lawmakers in both parties looked for ways to soothe election-year rage over high gasoline prices.

Senate Republicans proposed a $100 fuel-cost rebate for millions of taxpayers. Democrats talked of a two-month suspension of the 18.4-cent per gallon federal gasoline tax.

Despite the jockeying for political advantage, economists and energy experts generally agreed that the government has few, if any, immediate powers to drive pump prices down for their $3-plus perch.

``Unfortunately there's nothing, really, that can be done that's going to affect energy prices or gasoline prices in the very short run,'' Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a congressional hearing.

Nonetheless, lawmakers scrambled to put together legislation they hoped would show their sympathy for motorists and their willingness to stand up to big oil companies.

The GOP-run House, in a largely partisan vote, failed 190-232 to instruct its tax bill negotiators to support a Senate proposal that would have required oil companies to pay about $5 billion more in taxes. Only four Republicans voted for the proposal; nine Democrats were against it.

Senators have voted to require oil companies to pay more taxes on their inventories, rescind favorable tax treatment for exploration in difficult areas and remove tax credits for taxes paid overseas.

Despite the House vote, the proposals are ``still on the table,'' said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the lead Senate negotiator.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the tax breaks are ``unnecessary and unwarranted'' when oil companies are reaping billions of dollars in profits. The industry says the change would amount to a windfall profits tax.

tax breaks for oil companies? I didn't even know that existed.... Get rid of the tax credits for taxes paid overseas... ridiculousness.... does exxon really need the Billions of dollars in revenue?

China to purge 'unhealthy' sites on internet

SHANGHAI, China (Reuters) -- China's top Web portals, including Sina Corp. and Tom Online, have agreed to rid their sites of "unhealthy" content, amid a broader Beijing campaign to clean up the Internet.

Other major players in the self-policing drive include Sohu.com Inc., NetEase.com Inc., Baidu.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc.'s China Web portal, according to the text of a pledge by 14 companies posted on Sina's Web site.

U.S. search giant Google Inc., which has come under fire for agreeing to self-censor its China Web site to filter out politically sensitive issues, was not on the list, and nor was Microsoft's MSN Network, which also operates in China.

The firms' pledge states that the Internet has become an important source of information and entertainment in China, now the world's second-biggest market with over 100 million surfers.

"At the same time as the Web develops quickly, certain sites are transmitting unhealthy news ... and uncivilized voice services, including pornographic content that can be harmful to society," said the pledge, which was dated earlier this month in a posting on Sina's Web site.
read more here

Comet coming close to earth - you are here-by warned!

A mysterious comet that is orbiting the sun while dividing its core is to come close to the Earth during the Golden Week holiday period, experts said.

The comet named, "Schwassmann-Wachmann 3," will come closest to the Earth on May 12, but is expected to be most clearly seen during the Golden Week period from next weekend to May 7 when the comet will not be adversely affected by moonlight.

Researchers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said they confirmed in March that the comet's core had divided into four, adding that heat from the sun is believed to have caused the split.

The comet was discovered by a German national in 1930, and is orbiting the sun in a 5.4-year cycle. Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has been called a mysterious comet as it disappeared for 49 years after it was discovered.
read more here: (Mainichi)

Ancient wall found in Mexico - Video

Apr.27 - Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an important pre-hispanic wall in Mexico City.

Archaeologists in Mexico City have discovered a number of items that date from the pre-hispanic period in Mexico.

Archaeologist Alberto Diaz Barroso, of the National Anthropological Institute, said the stone wall was of extreme historical value and must be preserved.

Jon Decker reports
watch video here

Danger Rat

Danger Rat Reuters TV: Oddly Enough
4/27/2006 2:38:12 PM
Apr. 27 - Daring rats are trained to sniff out deadly landmines in Colombia.
Read More...

Saving at the Pump

04/27/06 05:39 PM, EDT
As gas prices soar higher, Washington has rolled out a number of proposals to ease the pain at the pump: a $100 rebate check, delaying deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, increased fuel efficiency, alternative fuel research and more.
FULL STORY

Scientists on the verge of making beans flatulence free

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two strains of bacteria are the key to making beans flatulence-free, Venezuelan researchers reported on Tuesday.

They identified two bacteria, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, which can be added to beans so they cause minimal distress to those who eat them, and to those around the bean-lovers, Marisela Granito of Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela and colleagues reported.

Flatulence is gas released by bacteria that live in the large intestine when they break down food. Fermenting makes food more digestible earlier on.

Writing in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, Granito and colleagues found that adding these two gut bacteria to beans before cooking them made them even less likely to cause flatulence.

They tested black beans, known scientifically as Phaseolus vulgaris.

"Legumes, and particularly Phaseolus vulgaris, are an important source of nutrients, especially in developing countries," Granito's team wrote in the report.

"In spite of being part of the staple diets of these populations, their consumption is limited by the flatulence they produce."

Smart cooks know they can ferment beans, and make them less

gas-inducing, by cooking them in the liquor from a previous batch. But Granito's team wanted to find out just which bacteria were responsible for this.

Man on horse and cart escapes police

Man on horse and cart escapes police

A man on a horse and cart escaped four police motorbikes, a patrol car, a video van, two cycling constables and a helicopter.

The combined efforts of modern policing were outwitted in a low speed chase through Leeds, reports the Guardian. The 34-year-old man, who has not been named but is wanted for serious assault, was first spotted by a police cycle patrol.

The suspect jumped on to a rag-and-bone cart with a friend and trotted off - followed eventually by a convoy of police vehicles. Locals in Chapel Allerton described "a bizarre procession" along a dual carriageway, with the horse and cart weaving to frustrate its pursuers.

West Yorkshire police said that officers had got as close as they could but were anxious not to frighten the horse.

The Steptoe-like scene ended in a side street, where the wanted man jumped off the cart and ran down a back alley. The second man was surrounded by officers after he reined in the horse but the wanted man is still at large.

Shoplifter in Rome heads to police station

ROME (Reuters) - A shoplifter took a very wrong turn -- toward Rome's police headquarters -- while fleeing a supermarket with two stolen bottles of alcohol.

Hearing screams of "Stop thief!," heavily armed police just outside the building grabbed the 19-year-old, a police spokeswoman said Thursday.

Stunned, the crook immediately confessed and handed over the liquor.

"Yes, I stole the bottles. But not this chocolate," he said, pointing to a candy bar he had purchased earlier, according to Il Messaggero newspaper.

Three of his friends, spectators to the event, were arrested as accomplices, the spokeswoman said.

Robbers flee in style

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco police arrested a man and woman suspected of robbing a bank and fleeing in style by using a limousine as their getaway car, officials said on Wednesday.

Roy Westry and Cynthia Johnson, both recent parolees in their 40s, were pulled over on Tuesday afternoon by police officers alerted to a nearby bank robbery involving a 2006 Cadillac limousine. The vehicle belong to Westry's employer.

San Francisco Police Department inspector Dan Gardner was not surprised by the choice of getaway car.

"This is the second time in a couple of years that a limousine has been used as a getaway car in a bank robbery," Gardner said. "I've been doing this job a long time and nothing surprises me any more."

Antibodies dislike Grief?

For the elderly, bereavement or an unhappy marriage may weaken the effectiveness of a flu vaccine, but other stresses do not appear to affect the immune system's response to the shots. Those other stressors do affect younger people, research indicates.

British researchers gave blood tests to 184 people over 65 to establish whether they had antibodies to influenza virus strains. The participants also filled out detailed questionnaires about recent life events, social support, marital status and satisfaction and health habits. Finally, they each received a flu vaccine effective against three different strains of virus. The results appear in the May issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

At a test at one month after the vaccination, 32 percent of the group who had suffered the death of a family member or friend during the previous year had a significantly weakened antibody response to two of the strains compared with those who had not endured such a stress. Those who were happily married or living with a partner had a significantly increased antibody response to one of the strains compared with those who were not. These factors remained significant even after adjusting for other factors that might affect the production of antibodies.

According to studies cited in the article, vaccine response in younger people is also affected by stressful events, including some much less serious than bereavement.

NASA is trying to get rid of Vultures

Space agency sets up 'posse', hotline for shuttle safety
04/27/06 04:27 PM, EDT
NASA is trying to rid the Kennedy Space Center of vultures after the shuttle struck one of the large birds during lift-off last year on the first flight after the Columbia disaster.
FULL STORY

Investors are pumping funds into clean power technologies, finally!

Investors are pumping funds into clean power technologies, but industry players warn not all deals are a slam-dunk.
04/26/06 02:24 PM, EDT
Venture capital investors are flocking to clean energy technologies, a market expected to grow to $167 billion worldwide in the next decade, but some in the sector worry about too much money chasing too few deals.
FULL STORY

'DNA' nebula found

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Cosmic nebulae usually look like blobs in space, but astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope reported on Wednesday they have found a nebula twisted like the double helix of DNA.

"Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm," said Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Most nebulae are "formless, amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas," Morris said in a statement, adding that this one "indicates a high degree of order."

The discovery of the twisted nebula, which stretches across 80 light-years at the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth, was reported in the current edition of the journal Nature.

A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers), the distance light travels in a year.

"We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule," said Morris, lead author of the Nature article.
read full article here

New Discoveries Point to "Cave of John the Baptist"

New Discoveries Point to "Cave of John the Baptist" as Important Site in the Time of Isaiah

Recently completed digging at Israel's Suba Cave, an archaeological site that is possibly connected with John the Baptist, or Jewish groups of his time has revealed features that deepen the mystery of the site's ancient origins, according to University of North Carolina at Charlotte archaeologist James D. Tabor, associate director of the excavation.

The site was brought to international attention in 2004 with the publication of The Cave of John the Baptist, a controversial book by Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson, the site's director. The initial connection with John the Baptist was based on some of the earliest Christian drawings related to John on the cave walls as well as the location of the cave near Ein Kerem, John's birthplace. In particular, the most recent excavations point to the possible existence of a second, still unexcavated cave at the site, suggesting that the location may have been a major complex of uncertain function during the Iron Age

In the 2004 book, Gibson discussed discoveries from the cave and underground reservoir at Suba, 15 miles west of Jerusalem, focusing on the finding that it had seen particularly heavy use during the early Roman period, around the time of John the Baptist and Jesus. In particular, the discovery in 1st. Century AD stratigraphic levels of thousands of small pottery vessels, all apparently ritually broken, led Gibson to theorize that the cave had been a site for baptismal rituals, possibly performed by John the Baptist or Jesus, or other Jewish groups of a similar nature who practices ritual water purification rites.

Towards the end of the cave excavation, Gibson also found evidence that the cave's large (24 meters long, 4 meters wide and 5 meters high) plastered reservoir had originally been constructed in the 7th Century BC, near the time of Isaiah. Because the massive cave had been professionally cut from solid rock, Gibson concluded that it must have been a project of the Kingdom of Judah. Because it was not conveniently located in an urban area (the nearest town was Suba, which was more than a kilometer away) and because it contained features that were inconsistent with a storage reservoir or cistern (its unusual shape and broad stairs descending to the water), Gibson theorized that part of its original function might have included ritual rites of water purification.

From: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uonc-ndp033106.php

31/03/06

Drivers given opportunity to pay to remove pollution

Drivers can pay to remove amount of pollution they create.
04/26/06 10:40 AM, EDT
Ford Motor Co. said it will give consumers concerned about harmful greenhouse emissions an opportunity to invest in clean energy projects via a new Web Site that will calculate suggested investments based on the amount of carbon dioxide produced while driving.
FULL STORY

Numbers to increase for Flex-Fuel vehicles

Automaker announces it will hike number of flex-fuel vehicles, says it expects to sell half a million by 2008.
04/26/06 07:28 AM, EDT
Chrysler Group, a unit of DaimlerChrysler AG, said Tuesday it would devote about 25 percent of its vehicle production to ethanol-ready models in the coming years in response to higher gas prices.
FULL STORY

Japanese Man Grills Mother - Yes this is real and true news

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man has confessed to killing his mother, dismembering her body, and grilling part of it on an electric hot plate after she nagged him about getting a job, media reports said.

Yaoki Osawa, 37, was arrested Monday on suspicion of disposing of his 57-year-old mother's body improperly, police in the western city of Osaka said.

According to police quoted by Kyodo news agency, Osawa killed his mother last May by battering her head with a stone after she fell down some stairs following an argument and was unable to move.

He then dismembered her body, embedding parts like the skull in cement and grilling others over an electric hot plate before throwing them out with the household garbage, supposedly to prevent them from giving off a smell.

Asked why he disposed of his mother's body in such a way, Osawa was quoted by Kyodo as saying: "I was at a loss about what to do with it."

Osaka police confirmed that parts of the body had been encased in cement but declined to confirm other details, saying the case was still under investigation.

Quote of the Day

"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true
that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know
to be untrue." -- Edward R. Murrow

New intaglio on the Nazca Plateau?

A new giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for giant patterns that can be seen from the air, has been discovered by a team of Japanese researchers.

The image is 65 meters long, and appears to be an animal with horns. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the animal remains unclear.

The discovery marks the first time since the 1980s that a picture other than a geometrical pattern has been found on the Nazca Plateau.

The picture was found by a team of researchers including Masato Sakai, an associate professor at Yamagata University, after they analyzed images from a U.S. commercial satellite. They confirmed it was a previously undiscovered picture in a local survey in March this year. It is located at the south of the Nazca Plateau, and apparently went undiscovered since few tourist planes pass over the area.

There is evidence that vehicles had driven in the area, and part of the picture is destroyed.

Two parts of the picture, that appear to be horns, bear close resemblance to those that appear on earthenware dating from 100 B.C. to A.D. 600, during the time when the Nazca kingdom flourished, and it is thought that they relate to fertility rites.

Starchild Skull? Link to our Alien Forefathers?

The "Starchild" is a true bone skull independently dated by Carbon 14 to be 900 years old (+/- 40 years). It is unlike any other human-like skull ever seen before. The name "Starchild" is the result of early X-rays taken of the skull and maxilla fragment found with it, which showed unerupted teeth that, combined with the smaller-than-normal-adult size of the skull, indicated a child of 5 or 6.

From implausibly shallow eye sockets to the total lack of frontal sinuses, the Starchild skull's morphology cannot be accounted for by any known combination of deformities. The bone is half as thick, weighs half as much, and is double or triple the strength of normal human bone--unlike anything known by science. Furthermore, INSIDE that unusual bone are microscopic fibers and a reddish residue that cannot be explained at the present time.

read more at http://www.starchildproject.com/

Clinical Studies in Brain Shock Therapy - Shocking Results

Mild electric current causes improved cognitive ability? We remain SKEPTICAL.

check it out here

the actual abstract from the experiment here

Quote of the Day

"The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He
can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be
killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of
the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he
hasn't got and which if he had it would save him."
-- Robert Penn Warren

EVP -Edison created device to talk to the dead?

Edison stated that it might be "possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication." - read article on EVP [electronic voice phenomena], proponents believe dead communicate through EM spectrum

May 25th 2006, Tsunami predicted from meteor hit in Atlantic?

What will occur on May 25, 2006? Perhaps a planetary catastrophe originating from the Atlantic Ocean due to a medium size impact event. On this assumption, a series of giant waves, including one méga tsunami almost two hundred meters in height, will be born from a succession of underwater eruptions. These watery giants, decreasing with distance, will touch the majority of the Atlantic coasts; in particular, those most at risk lie between the equator and the tropic of Cancer. The victims of May 25 2006 will be tens of millions. The devastated survivors will be more numerous still. The economic losses will be enormous, well beyond the scales of destruction hitherto tested by our civilization. North America and Europe will not be saved, but will be affected in less dramatic proportions. By extension, other remote countries will be also affected.

A heavenly object, hardly larger than a truck, but animated by an enormous kinetic energy - its speed will be approximately 40 kilometers/second - will strike the Earth after having crossed the thick atmosphere of 80 kilometers, then the oceanic depths of 1500 meters at this place, to reach and shake the zone of the dorsal the mid-Atlantic rift crossing from North to the South on the Atlantic ocean floor. Currently, tens of underwater volcanoes lie largely dormant, ejecting very small quantities of magma emerging from gigantic chambers. They will break out, heating the sea water to a boiling point. It is the vision that I had approximately three years ago.[1] It happened again on April 7 2006 at 10 pm while I meditated on the shores of the Pacific with two other people. I received information supplementing this vision: the date, MAY 25, 2006!
read the original article along with pictures here...

Japan's Yonaguni Underwater Ruins, 10,000 years old

Yonaguni's seabed contains what appear to be ruins of a previous glacial age and traces of terrestrial flora, fauna and stalactites that form only on the surface. These suggest that these alleged ruins are more than 3,000 to 10,000 years old, which would make them the world's oldest.
The fame of Yonaguni island began in 1985, when a Japanese marine explorer, Kihachirō Aratake, by chance discovered a set of very singular architectonic structures allegedly belonging to an ancient civilization and previously unknown in archaeology and history. Shortly thereafter, a group of scientists directed by Misaki Kimura, of the University of the Ryukyus, confirmed the existence of the vestiges. They appear, at least superficially, to be comparable to the pyramids of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru.

Bush gives fuel speech, stays with Illuminatis in Napa Valley

As reported by the Associated Press, "The president spent last Friday night in a swank resort in Napa Valley's wine country..."
recall readers that the alleged Illuminati fronted wine resort in Napa Valley was reported on here: [they failed to mention that the 'swank resort' was none other than the infamous Opus One Winery]

"Easter Sunday Illuminati Special: If You Want To Share A Good Glass Of 'Blood Red' With Baroness Philippine de Rothschild,

Opus One Winery In The Napa Valley Is The Place To Go

A California researcher has located another Bohemian Grove, providing a guided tour of a devil worshipping compound fronting as a vinyard. The logo of Opus One is the two-headed Janus or the spirit who divides, the symbol being an important part of Illuminati mind control. As you can see for yourself in the image above.

16 Apr 2006" read the article here

Bush calls for fuel cells, change of tune comes too late?

WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIF.
President George W. Bush had an Earth Day message for drivers worried about soaring gasoline prices: The nation must move more quickly toward widespread use of hydrogen-powered cars.Running vehicles on hydrogen fuel cells would help reduce oil consumption, as the technology does not require gasoline. It also pollutes far less, as the cells emit only water.

But the technology is far from the marketplace - the cells are prohibitively expensive and would require a new distribution system to replace today's gas stations. Bush is proposing to spend additional federal research dollars to help speed that process.
read more here...

Man Survives Nails to the head

By SARAH SKIDMORE

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - An Oregon man who went to a hospital complaining of a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull from a suicide attempt with a nail gun, doctors say.

Surgeons removed the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill, and the man survived with no serious lasting effects, according to a report on the medical oddity in the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.

The unidentified 33-year-old man was suicidal and high on methamphetamine last year when he fired the nails - up to 2 inches in length - into his head one by one.

The nails were not visible when doctors first examined the man in the emergency room of an unidentified Oregon hospital a day later. Doctors were surprised when X-rays revealed six nails clustered between his right eye and ear, two below his right ear and four on the left side of his head.

The study did not say how long the nails were, and a hospital spokeswoman refused to release that information. A photo published in the study suggests the nails range from 1 1/2 to 2 inches long.

No one before is known to have survived after intentionally firing so many foreign objects into the head, according to the report, written by Dr. G. Alexander West, the neurosurgeon who oversaw the treatment of the patient.

The man at first told doctors he had had a nail gun accident, but later admitted it was a suicide attempt.

The nails came close to major blood vessels and the brain stem but did not pierce them. The patient was in remarkably good condition when he was transferred to Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, where the nails were removed.

The patient was later transferred to psychiatric care and stayed under court order for nearly a month before leaving against doctors' orders.

New Satellites NASA Front For Contrails Monitoring?

WASHINGTON, April 19 — The practice of staring at clouds will take on new dimensions with the impending launching of two satellites designed to make the first global survey of cloud properties that affect weather and climate, scientists said Wednesday.

The two NASA satellites, to be launched on Friday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard the same Boeing Delta II rocket, are to join three spacecraft already surveying the planet for a detailed study of the interlocking factors that affect Earth's climate.

This constellation of satellites in a string 4,400 miles long will loop around the poles at an altitude of 438 miles measuring the interactions of the air, water and surface with the Sun's energy as they drive near-term weather and longer-term climate changes.

The newest additions are the CloudSat, which will profile cloud formations with radar more than 1,000 times more sensitive than typical weather radar, and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, or Calipso, spacecraft. The two orbiters are to operate for at least 22 months to provide a minimum of two seasons of data on climate dynamics, scientists said. What they failed to mention to the press is that these two orbiters will also be able to monitor contrails in real time around the globe. This means they can control the amount of sunlight/radiation/chemtrails/ entering the earth's atmosphere.

CloudSat and Calipso were to have flown last year, but the missions were delayed because of technical problems and a year-end strike by Boeing technicians preparing the rocket.

The CloudSat radar will take vertical surveys of clouds and layers of clouds and determine how much water they contain and its form. Note that water density and temperature are key factors in the formation/length of contrails. Graeme Stephens of Colorado State University, the principal investigator, told a news conference on Wednesday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., that although just 1 percent of Earth's water existed in the atmosphere, little was known about its overall role in climate.

"The new information from CloudSat will answer basic questions about how rain and snow are produced by clouds, how rain and snow are distributed worldwide and how clouds affect the Earth's climate," Mr. Stephens said.

The 1% of water in the atmosphere will be monitored and experimented with to see if altering the amount could control the climate and the weather around the globe. Don't be fooled by the NASA spokemans spin.

-parts not in bold taken from The New York Times, read the article here

Man paints with mouth for 150 hours

Man paints with mouth for 151 hours Reuters TV: Oddly Enough 3/9/2006 8:19:34 PM

Mar. 9 - A man in India's southern Chennai took his artistic creativity a step ahead by creating a magnificent piece of art with his mouth.
Read More...

Volcano threat in Indonesia

Apr. 23 - Hundreds are evacuated from their homes as a volcano threatens to erupt in Indonesia.

More than 600 people living near the rumbling volcano have moved out of their homes after warnings that it could erupt in days but many have refused to leave their land.

Mount Merapi on Java has been rumbling and spewing thick clouds of smoke for nearly a week.

Paul Chapman reports [Reuters]

watch the video here

Mexican Farmers strip in protest against land seizures

Apr. 22 - Mexican farmers have stripped off in front of rush hour commuters in a protest against land seizures.

It's not what commuters in most cities expect to see. But residents of Mexico City got an eyeful as they drove home during afternoon rush hour.

Dozens of peasant farmers protested naked in the city centre, angry over what they say was the unlawful government seizure of their lands.

They also demanded their former governor and other authorities be arrested.

Micheal Tetlow reports

SOUNDBITE: Agustin Morales, farmer and member of 400 Towns, saying, (Spanish):
"We want them to return our land to us, that there be justice and that the repressors be punished."
- Reuters Video here

Art Rubbish in Cologne

Apr. 22 - After exhibitions all over the world, one thousand of sculptures made of rubbish are back on display in Cologne.

One thousand sculptures of people made out of rubbish went on display outside the Cologne cathedral on Friday (April 21).

The so-called 'trash people' are back in Germany as part of a world tour. According to the artist H.A. Schult, they are spreading a message about the dangers of the environmental imbalance in the world.

"The sculptures have been shown in Paris, on the Red Square in Moscow, they stood the Great Wall of China, in front of the pyramids in Giza, under they earth in the atomic bunker in Gorleben, 2,700 metres high on the Zermatt alps, in Brussels and in Kilkenny. From Cologne they will go to New York and Santiago de Chile. They will come to rest in the Antarctic to scream their message about the unequal ecological balance to the world," he explained.

Ironically the thousand sculptures require 16 containers when they are shipped around the four corners of the world, and containers lost from container-ships are some of the most dangerous forms rubbish in the seas.

Cologne is the only German city on the tour, and already crowds are flocking to see the sculptures, resembling an army of people spread out across the square. The sculptures are made entirely of refuse, old drinks cans, bits of computers, old bits of rubbish.

"The idea presented itself, we live in the Age of Trash," Schult explained. "We no longer live in the Stone Age, we live in the Trash Age. These sculptures which I made out of rubbish, they are reflections of ourselves, we produce trash and one day we shall become trash." - Reuters Video here

Quote of the Day

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be
a fool." -- William Shakespeare in As You Like It

Air Pollution Rules threaten public health

Air pollution rules threaten public health
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
Tue Apr 11 09:21:23 2006

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules that disregard the advice of its own scientists, leaving millions of Americans at risk from polluting industries and providing yet another example of the Bush administration's abuse of science.

Read More...

Enjoy Skipping TV Ads -- While You Can

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Can you imagine being forced to watch the ads on your favorite TV show?

The people at Royal Philips Electronics not only can imagine that -- they have created a device that does just that. The company applied for a patent for a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so you can't go channel surfing while the ads run.The patent, which is pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said the feature would be implemented on a show-by-show basis. Even Philips acknowledged that the anti-channel-changing feature won't sit well with consumers. In its filing for a patent, the company said customers would be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.

- courtesy of the Associated Press

sounds like this is going to just cause a lot of people to finally shut off their TVs and do something else for once.

Man tries to transport bird flu to US?

Dead Bird Found In MIA Passenger's Luggage

Customs officials at Miami International Airport said they found a dead bird in a man's luggage on Wednesday night.

Is this some kind of sick plot to bring the bird flu to the US? Maybe he is just one of many who are trying to bring down the US by starting a bird flu pandemic. If you see and dead birds at airports, make sure you kill them, kill them all....

Man crashes 33 cars in 23 years

A postman has finally learnt how to ride a bicycle after crashing 33 cars in 23 years.

Croatian Franjo Pozgaj, 39, crashed his first car at the age of 16 and has wrecked at least one a year since.

The postie from Pokupska Luka in central Croatia said: "The first car I crashed was my father's Audi when I was 16 and I once totally wrote off a new Renault just 20 minutes after I had bought it. I just seem to have bad luck with cars."

Pozgaj, who claims he has never suffered more than a few bruises from any of his crashes, has finally decided to hang up his car keys for a while and will try his luck with a bicycle instead.

Congress to Vote to let companies charge for website access on the internet

The SavetheInternet.com Coalition launches April 24 to urge Congress to take immediate steps to save the First Amendment of the Internet — a principle called “network neutrality” that ensures that the Web remains open to innovation and progress.

Congress is about to vote on a bill that would ruin network neutrality by letting big phone and cable companies set up toll booths along the information superhighway. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending tens of millions in Washington to kill any protection of the free and open Internet.

This bill would let these network giants become Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow — and which won’t load at all.

Only giant corporations will be able to afford to pay their toll for speedy delivery. The rest of us will be detoured to the “slow lane” — clicking furiously and waiting for our favorite sites to download.Coalition members are reaching out to millions of constituents in a broad campaign to tell Congress to save net neutrality now:

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/savethenet

Our elected representatives are trading favors for campaign donations from phone and cable companies. They’re being wooed by people like AT&T’s CEO, who says “the Internet can’t be free” and wants his company to decide what you do, where you go and what you watch online.

Words from Carl Jung - does this describe you?

"The more he withdrawls and hides himself, the greater becomes his secret need to be understood and recognized. Although he speaks of his inferiority he does not really believe it. Then arises within him a defiant conviction of his unrecognized merits, and in consequence he is sensitive to the the slightest disapprobation, always wearing the stricken air of one who is misunderstood and deprived of his rightful due. In this way he nurses a morbid pride and an insolent discontent-which is the very last thing he wants and for which his environment has to pay all the more dearly." - Carl Jung - The Portable Jung

Spooks keeping track of UFO researchers and abductees?

For 60 years, federal agents and military intelligence have kept track of people who see UFOs.
That's according to a shocking new book, "On the Trail of the Saucer Spies: UFOs and Government Surveillance."
From the dawn of the modern flying-saucer era to today's total-surveillance society, government spooks have paid particular attention to otherwise normal citizens who witness something strange in the skies.
British author Nick Redfern spent years researching the U.S. and U.K. interest in a phenomenon neither government officially believes is real.
He found FBI surveillance of so-called "alien abductees," real Men in Black who harass and intimidate UFO witnesses, surveillance and phone-tapping of UFO researchers, tracking of hackers seeking alien secrets, still-classified files on such incidents as the "Roswell crash" of 1947, and widespread infiltration of groups such as NICAP, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena.
"Some of the government concern was based on the post-World War II and Cold War fears about communist infiltration of the U.S. Other worries focused on links that might exist between some UFO-involved people and right-wing extremists," Steve Hammons writes in the American Chronicle.
"There were technological and even public health aspects to some of their concerns. There seemed to be legitimate neutral and professional inquiry into reports that people had seen unusual and unidentified flying craft or had experienced closer encounters. Government investigators were often especially interested when the witnesses were pilots, military personnel, police officers and similarly credible observers."

Bosnian Pyramids uncovered

INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF PYRAMIDS

VISOKO, April 17 (FENA) – The third day of work in search of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun has come with an independent confirmation of the thesis of the pyramid’s existence, the Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation stated on Monday. “The BiH Survey Bureau has analysed the dimensions of the north face of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. The configuration of the pyramid matches that of the design of the Cheop’s pyramid in Egypt. The Visoko Municipality Land Registry Office has provided independent confirmation that the Bosnian Pyramids of the Sun, Moon and Dragon form a same-sided triangle (equilateral).

This fascinating news confirms the impressive precision of the ancient builders, the Foundation stated on Monday. Economic Advisor to the Egyptian Embassy Maged Mosleh is the first foreign diplomat to visit the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun.

He offered training in the field of pyramids and archaeology for young BiH experts in Egypt. Representatives of the leading international media have also visited Visocica. A steady flow of visitors from BiH and abroad continue to visit this site.
check out the pictures here...

Noam Chomsky article

The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the "tripolar order" - Europe, North America and Asia - has continued to evolve.

Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower, the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.

Regional integration in Asia and Latin America is a crucial and increasingly important issue that, from Washington's perspective, betokens a defiant world gone out of control. Energy, of course, remains a defining factor - the object of contention - everywhere.

China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary reason for the fear of China by US planners, which presents a dilemma: steps toward confrontation are inhibited by US corporate reliance on China as an export platform and growing market, as well as by China's financial reserves - reported to be approaching Japan's in scale.

In January, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah visited Beijing, which is expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding calling for "increased cooperation and investment between the two countries in oil, natural gas and investment", the Wall Street Journal reports.
- piece taken from the Guardan article by Noam Chomsky

Is this the face that will cause 50 million people to die?

fifty million people doesnt seem like a lot to me... china has almost 2 billion now. That would barely affect them. The United States has 300 million. 1/6th would be gone if all 50 million cases occured in the US. Think about how many people are suffering in the poor countries of the world, how many people die every day.

And all of the sudden, since the Bird Flu virus is now threatening the rich countries, now there is a panic and emergency plans put in place. If it would have stayed in the far east, no one in the West would have cared. People are going to deserve what they have coming to them. I for one have a couple high quality gas masks and provisions to last a year in my house, how bout you? Or are you chicken?

Climate Change funding needs to be included in Canada's new budget

OTTAWA (CP) - Youth groups are warning Prime Minister Stephen Harper that Canada's future is at stake if he makes good on plans to cut climate change funding in the coming federal budget.
The Sierra Youth Coalition and the Youth Environmental Network issued a joint statement Thursday saying young Canadians want reductions in greenhouse gases, not in climate change funding.
"By cutting climate change programs and spending without reinvesting in new opportunities for clear action on climate change, Harper is cutting short the futures of all young Canadians," said Heather Holland of Canada's Youth Environmental Network.
"We are asking the Conservative government to invest in our futures by including climate change action in the pending budget."
read more here

Red Russia using mind control?

As reported in Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2005 "Giving Until It Hurts;" by Kim Murphy, "...In 2001, President Vladimir V. Putin signed into law a bill making it illegal to employ "electromagnetic, infrasound ... radiators" and other weapons of "psychotronic influence" with intent to cause harm. An official note attached to the bill said Russian scientists were trying to create "effective methods of influence of humans at a distance." Actual russian law and background information posted here. Russian Mind Control Weapons: New 2005 Information and Brief Update

Crazy Illuminati Compound in Napa Valley?

[provided courtesy of The Lizard Man]
An Illuminati holiday story worth mentioning involves the Opus One Winery in Napa Valley, a place were some of the diabolical gang of madmen trying to take over the world are spending the Easter Weekend. Opus One fronts as a vineyard, but actually is a satanic, deviling worshipping hideaway similar to Bohemian Grove, located just to the east and north of San Francisco. According to an inquisitive California researcher, the land for Opus One, meaning First Work, was secretly purchased in the late 1960s, its construction shrouded in secrecy. The secret, satanic winery, according to wine tasters, is known for its light but refreshing chardonnay but its specialty is said to be a very dry and heavy "blood red."

Quote of the Day

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they
say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within
you." -- Yeshua (Jesus Christ)

Quote of the Day

"What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, . . . to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdad's of his dreams to rise from the dust."
-- Salvador Dali

The Egyptian Airplane?

The Egyptian Airplane: In 1898, a peculiar six-inch wooden object was found in a tomb at Saqquara, Egypt that dated back to about 200 BCE. The object had a body or fuselage, seven-inch wings that curved downward slightly, a fixed rudder and a tail. It looked very much like a modern airplane or glider. But since airplanes had not yet been invented in 1898 (never mind ancient Egypt), it was labeled as a model of bird and stored away in the basement of the Cairo museum. The object was rediscovered many years later by Dr. Khalil Messiha, an authority on ancient models. According to Messiha and others who have studied the object, it has characteristics of very advanced aerodynamics, much like modern pusher-gliders that require very little power to stay aloft. The curved wings are today known as reverse dihedral wings, which can attain great amounts of lift. A similar design is employed on the supersonic Concorde aircraft. Was this just a child's toy? Or was it a scale model of an aircraft the Egyptians planned to build... or did build. If they did build a full-scale version of the aircraft, no evidence exists for it. No full-size airplanes have been found in any pharaoh's tomb to fly him to the land of the dead.

Grooved spheres found in rock dating to 2.8 billion years old

Over the last few decades, miners in South Africa have been digging up mysterious metal spheres. Origin unknown, these spheres measure approximately an inch or so in diameter, and some are etched with three parallel grooves running around the equator. Two types of spheres have been found: one is composed of a solid bluish metal with flecks of white; the other is hollowed out and filled with a spongy white substance. The kicker is that the rock in which they where found is Precambrian - and dated to 2.8 billion years old! Who made them and for what purpose is unknown.

Nasa constantly monitored by UFOs in space?

NASA and the CIA instructed the American astronauts to NEVER USE THE WORD UFO UPON SIGHTING THE UFO (s) while broadcasting or transmitting from outer space. Instead, the CODE AND SECRET NAME "SANTA CLAUS" is to be exclusively used upon encountering flying saucers. This, was confirmed by the US astronauts in person and in writing.
read more here

TV turn off week! 24th-30th April 2006

Rise in # of horror movies blamed on Bush administration

Just when you thought Hollywood had reached the limit of things they could blame on President Bush, along comes the director of “Hostel”, Eli Roth. Roth was a guest on Friday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto”. When asked why horror movies were resurging in such troubling times, Roth pointed directly at the Bush Administration.

Roth claimed that people wanted to scream because of the “things going on in the world” and the government’s failure to help after Hurricane Katrina. He explained that horror movies offered a safe environment which allowed people to scream. Roth went on to say the seemingly “never ending war”, fighting people that do not care about our money, our “disorganized army” with “scared kids” for soldiers and the generals calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation were specific reasons for the need of an emotional release offered by horror movies.

Former humane society official alleges 3600 tablets of Vicodin for her dog?

A former humane society official told federal investigators that she obtained 3,600 tablets of the prescription painkiller Vicodin for her dog, authorities allege.

Stacy Steel, 38, was arrested Monday for investigation of obtaining controlled substances by fraud, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. She resigned on March 25 from her $95,000-a-year job as executive director of the North County Humane Society's Oceanside animal shelter.

Dan Simmons, a special agent with the DEA, alleged that Steel directed Humane Society workers to order 36 bottles of Vicodin between October 2005 and February 2006.

Jennifer Stewart, a veterinarian who served as the interim Humane Society director from 2001 to 2003, said DEA investigators indicated to her that her drug registration number had been used to order the Vicodin. Stewart said she told investigators that she had revoked permission for the agency to use her number when she left in 2003.

"I can't imagine (Steel) would be using (Vicodin) for her dog, and I don't know why she would be self-medicating her dog without the care of a licensed veterinarian," Stewart said.

Steel referred all questions to her attorney, Peter Liss.

"We plan on having this case heard in a court of law and nowhere else," Liss said Wednesday.

Steel is scheduled to be arraigned on April 17 in San Diego Superior Court.

Exxon CEO gets 144K per day... speechlessness over that

By JAD MOUAWAD

For 13 years as chairman and chief executive, Lee R. Raymond propelled Exxon, the successor to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust, to the pinnacle of the oil world.

Under Mr. Raymond, the company's market value increased fourfold to $375 billion, overtaking BP as the largest oil company and General Electric as the largest American corporation. Net income soared from $4.8 billion in 1992 to last year's record-setting $36.13 billion.

Shareholders benefited handsomely on Mr. Raymond's watch. The price of Exxon's shares rose an average of 13 percent a year. The company, now known as Exxon Mobil, paid $67 billion in total dividends.

For his efforts, Mr. Raymond, who retired in December, was compensated more than $686 million from 1993 to 2005, according to an analysis done for The New York Times by Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant. That is $144,573 for each day he spent leading Exxon's "God pod," as the executive suite at the company's headquarters in Irving, Tex., is known.

Despite the company's performance, some Exxon shareholders, academics, corporate governance experts and consumer groups were taken aback this week when they learned the details of Mr. Raymond's total compensation package, including the more than $400 million he received in his final year at the company.

Shareholder advocates point to what they describe as stealth compensation arranged for Mr. Raymond but not disclosed in proxy filings. Consumer groups complain that while last year's rise in global oil prices left many consumers feeling less prosperous, oil executives have become a lot richer from the higher prices. And some corporate governance experts argue that much of Mr. Raymond's pay came from easy profits generated by skyrocketing oil prices.

"It's entrepreneurial returns for managerial conduct," said Charles M. Elson, the director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. "Exxon was there long before Mr. Raymond was there and will be there long after he leaves. Yet he received Rockefeller returns without taking the Rockefeller risk."

Exxon says that Mr. Raymond's compensation and retirement package was tied to the company's stellar performance. According to the company proxy statement, filed Wednesday, the package recognized his "outstanding leadership of the business, continued strengthening of our worldwide competitive position, and continuing progress toward achieving long-range strategic goals."

Through an Exxon spokesman, Mr. Raymond declined to comment.

Mr. Raymond certainly distinguished himself as an oil executive. Exxon is known in the business as a disciplined and tightly focused company with an obsessive attention to the bottom line. In 1999, Mr. Raymond pulled his biggest coup by taking advantage of a slump in oil prices to acquire Mobil in an $81 billion merger, at the time the largest ever.

Thanks to his strategy, the company each day produces 2.5 million barrels of oil — more than Kuwait — and 9.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas. It is the world's top refiner and controls 22 billion barrels of oil reserves, the most among its publicly traded peers.

NEW MOVIE - THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING

check out this great new movie here.

Britian goes into 'ecological debt'

A study by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and the Open University says 16 April is the day when the nation goes into "ecological debt" this year.
It warns if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand.
But bio-geography professor Philip Stott criticised the "doomsday report", arguing it would hit poorer nations.
"What we tend to have - not just with this report but alternative reports on the other side - are two theological positions," said Prof Stott, of London University.
"This one is the kind of Doomsday report - on the other hand the total free-traders are far too optimistic."
He went on: "If we did follow this report for example the damage to the Third World would be very great indeed because of course trade is the main dynamo of growth."
In 1961, the symbolic "ecological debt day" was 9 July; in 1981, it had shifted forward two months to 14 May.
The authors of the UK Interdependence Report hope to highlight the need to curb rising consumption levels.
read more here

Getting away with murder? Get a good excuse!

In earnest testimony in March, Douglas Dyer explained how it was just bad luck that his married girlfriend got shot twice, fatally, in the middle of her back by the rifle he was holding. Dyer said he had originally intended to kill himself, but when she grabbed at the gun to stop him, it fired into her hand. Then, as she ran out a door, he followed and bumped the door open with the gun, causing it to fire and accidentally hit her flush in the back. As his body flinched from the shot, banging into a wall, the rifle again accidentally fired, putting another bullet in the center of her back. (The Rockland, Maine, jury apparently didn't believe a word of it and convicted him of murder.) [Bangor Daily News, 3-3-06, 3-4-06]

Quote of the Day

"They put an off button on the TV for a reason. Turn it off . . . I really don't watch much TV."
-- President George W. Bush, C-SPAN interview, January 2005

"Interactive" TV coming to rule your home and your soul soon

Interactive television will be used to invade viewers' privacy. Contrary to what you might have heard, this is important, because privacy was never about information; it's about power - the individual's bargaining power with the rest of the world. If you have nothing left to hide, then your negotiating position is impossibly weak. Your free will is exposed to tampering, and you may have much to fear.

If asked, people who work in interactive television will admit that this technology creates experimental conditions in the home. The machines that control your TV set will show you something, check to see how you react, and then show you something different. That's not just convenient. It is a loop of stimulus, response and measurement as carefully designed as those boxes where rats hit buttons to get food and avoid electric shocks.

And if you want to know more about those rat boxes - what year they were first used and whose theories they were built to test - ask someone who has passed his or her Chartered Institute of Marketing exam. The people who sell it call interactive television "a convergence". And it is, of so many things: marketing, child-psychology, sociology, advertising, public relations and politics. Not to mention complex adaptive systems software.

But how will it affect your life? You are about to accept a powerful new device into your home, and interact with it every day for an average of four hours. That is half the time you are not sleeping or working, for the rest of your life. What is this machine designed to do? Look inside your digital set top box, and you will see much more than a TV tuner. It is actually a computer worth hundreds of dollars. Just like a PC, it contains, or will soon contain, all these components:

- Memory - processes data and runs programs. As with any computer, the functionality is not built into the hardware. The box will do whatever it is told by the software.

- Storage - flash ROM at the moment, but within a couple of years it will be replaced with something more powerful, perhaps a hard drive. This will allow the box to store software and data, even when turned off.

- Modem - or a network card, which allows data to be sent back and forth over a public network. Some boxes use a phone line. The more powerful ones use coaxial cable.

That is a lot of power. Best of all, you get it cheap, or for nothing. The digital TV companies have offered to subsidize or outright buy these computers for you. Profits crashed a Rupert Murdoch's BskyB Corporation, and shareholders had their dividends frozen when the company decided to pay £315 million to give each of its current subscribers a free box. That was just the beginning. Now it must also buy a box for every new customer. Why are they doing this? Why would somebody just give you all that hardware for nothing?

Here's a hint: You have no control over what it does. Unlike a normal PC, you have no say over the hardware or software. You can't add or take out bits and pieces, you can't start, stop, install or uninstall new programs. And, in the case of Sky Digital, if you choose not to plug your modem in, you'll lose your "Interactive Discount" and have to pay them up to £248. That makes interactive TV a service you pay not to have.

It is hard to find out the truth about this machine, and decide whether to accept it. The only people who know anything, and are doing all the talking, are the companies trying to sell it. And they haven't been telling the whole truth, not in their television commercials, glossy booklets or their carefully worded contracts.

read more here

Meteorite $93,000 at art auction

Meteorites Get High Prices at Art Sale NEW YORK, Apr. 12, 2006
(AP) A meteorite believed to have come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter sold for $93,000 at an auction of rare space sculptures.The 355-pound chunk of iron, thousands of years old and discovered in the Campo del Cielo crater field in Argentina, was one of 10 meteorites that went for high prices at a Bonhams' New York natural history auction.

The pristine meteorite, known as "Valley of the Sky," was purchased Tuesday by a private collector in the United States who bid by phone and plans to display it as a work of art, said Thomas Lindgren, acting director of the natural history division for Bonhams auction house.

"This is art, not from man, but from outer space," Lindgren said. The auction house had expected it to sell for between $40,000 and $50,000.

"He was absolutely ecstatic," Lindgren said of the buyer. "There was no way he was going to walk away without it.

"The high bids reflect the soaring interest in meteorites not just for their scientific value but also their natural beauty. Lindgren said the bids for the space rocks come mainly from private art collectors and interior home designers.

"They have found their place in the art marketplace," Lindgren said.

Protect the Snails?

Conservation Minister Chris Carter and Associate Minister of Energy Harry Duynhoven have approved permits under the Wildlife Act to enable a population of Powelliphanta Augustus snails to be moved from the Mt Augustus ridgeline on the West Coast. But Solid Energy New Zealand must implement an intensive mitigation package to preserve the snails before it can commence mining in the area.
read more here...

John Lennon thoughts Sold-out [again]

A schoolbook containing some of music legend John Lennon's earliest thoughts, drawings and poems could be sold for £1,00,000 (144,000 euros, $174,000) when it is auctioned later this month.
The 10-page red exercise book, entitled My Anthology, dates back to the period, when the ex-Beatle was just 12 years old. It includes an illustration of a walrus, from Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and the Carpenter.
The singer-songwriter later acknowledged that the poem was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 song I am the Walrus.

read the entire article here

New Telescope Looks for Alien Laser Pulses

Boston - A Massachusetts observatory unveiled a powerful new telescope on Tuesday designed to capture possible light signals transmitted to Earth by extraterrestrials.The telescope is the first to be developed solely to search the skies for light pulses from aliens and will be able to cover 100 000 times the amount of sky covered by current equipment, its developers said."The opening of this telescope represents one of those rare moments in a field of scientific endeavour when a great leap forward is enabled," said Bruce Betts, project director at The Planetary Society, a group in Pasadena, California, that advocates space exploration and funded the telescope's development."

Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for ET to reach out, but until now, we have been ill-equipped to receive any such signal," he said.

Researchers say alien civilisations may be as likely to use light signals to communicate as radio transmissions. Visible light can form tight beams and could potentially convey information more efficiently, Betts said.

The telescope was built at Harvard University's Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics' Oak Ridge Observatory, where the nonprofit Planetary Society has searched the depth of space for alien life using a radio telescope.

The new telescope, located at the observatory at Harvard, Massachusetts, a town about 20km north-west of Boston, will vastly enhance the scope of the search for artificial light pulses, Betts said.

The telescope can process the equivalent of all books in print every second. As it scans the sky it uses a type of camera that can detect a billionth-of-a-second flash of light.

Smithsonian takes on climate change issue

Washington - It's becoming harder to find the right snow to build an igloo, and melting permafrost is turning land into mud. With climate change the nature of the Arctic is changing, too, in ways that worry the people who live there.The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History opens a pair of exhibits on Saturday: "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely" and "Atmosphere: Change Is In The Air", discussing what is happening to the climate and how it affects people living in the planet's northernmost areas.

"They are truly concerned," anthropologist Igor Krupnik said on Tuesday of the Arctic natives.Indeed, the Arctic exhibit title comes from an Inuit word natives have used to describe the changing climate - uggianaqtuq - suggesting unexpected behaviour or "a friend acting strangely".

The ocean is eating their land as sea ice melts and storms erode shorelines and wash away fishing communities, changing climate means new plants in some areas and changes in migratory routes of animals people depend on for food, weather is stormier and food sources for polar bears and caribou change.

Since the 1950s, air temperatures have warmed over much of the Arctic, rain and snowfall have increased and sea ice is in decline.While some government scientists have reported political pressure to limit their comments on climate change, Robert Sullivan, the museum's associate director for public programs, said that did not happen in the development of this exhibit.

"Here's the data," Sullivan said. "This is not a political position, it's just scientific data."

check out the smithsonian exhibit here...