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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Odd Stories: Sex Video Game to Get a Sequel



By Jonathan Sher

London, Ontario, Canada – London health officials are launching a sequel to their controversial online sex-ed game for young people that features such characters as Wonder Vag and the Sperminator.

In the sequel, the virgin with the Barbie-doll figure will be caged and the Sperminator will have lost his penis-arms and become a force for good.

The original Adventures in Sex City, an online game from the Middlesex-London Health Unit, was banned by officials with the London District Catholic school board because it ran afoul of the school's official stance on abstinence.

In the original version, the infected Sperminator fired sperm from penis-shaped arms at characters such as virginal Wonder Vag, who when struck might say, "Aggg! Right in the face."
While the original will be kept available at Getitonlondon.ca, a second version will officially launch Feb. 14 during Sexual Awareness Week.

In the new version, Wonder Vag has been kidnapped by her evil twin, Bloody Mary, and placed in a cage at a bar where, unless she's rescued, she'll be forced to drink alcohol.


Trying to rescue her is a team of superheroes that now includes the Sperminator, cured of his sexually transmitted illness and with no more penises as appendages.

Players are asked questions related to sexual health and risky behaviour brought on by the use of alcohol and drugs. If enough questions are answered correctly, Wonder Vag is freed and Bloody Mary falls in a drunken stupor and vomits.

The point of the game is to teach youth how getting intoxicated can lead to risky sexual practices.

"It's really for the youth," said Shaya Dhinsa, manager of sexual health for the health unit.

Odd Stories: Man Found Eating and Wearing a Cat


Odd Stories: Judge Uses Bob Marley's Image to Express Opinions


(Reuters) - A Chicago judge is under fire for making his rulings look a bit like a graphic novel, using pictures of reggae icon Bob Marley, lions, ostriches and other images to underscore his opinions.

Judge Richard Posner's tendency to use pictures -- often taken from the web -- to spice up his rulings is a rarity in a legal world where staid, dry documents are customary, and sometimes a matter of pride.

Posner, a judge in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, used the photo of Marley with his matted, foot-long braids flying in every direction in a case examining the right of a prisoner with dreadlocks to refuse a haircut on religious grounds.

In another case, Gonzalez-Servin v. Ford Motor Co, Posner embedded an image of an ostrich with its head in the sand next to an image of a man in a suit on his knees, his head also buried under sand.
The intent? To reprimand the plaintiffs' lawyer for ignoring a precedent.

Pleasing to some who delight in the unorthodox presentation, the images have ruffled feathers of others. David "Mac" McKeand, the plaintiffs' lawyer who was the object of Posner's ostrich-photo-jab, was so offended by the image he submitted a grievance with the 7th Circuit.

"If the judge can bully plaintiffs' lawyers, he's going to do that to protect American corporations," said McKeand, whose grievance was dismissed.

Posner said it was the first negative feedback he'd received for an image. "I'm sorry he was upset by it," he said.

Posner also defended his use of artistic license, saying photos embedded in his opinions "couldn't conceivably be hurting the copyright holder."

Copyright lawyer David Donahue of the intellectual property firm Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu agreed with Posner's analysis.

Still, David Corio, the British photographer who took the picture of Marley, the late singer, said he was
surprised to see it in a judicial opinion without any credit or attribution.

"I would have a thought a judge of all people would be decent enough to ask permission before using an image," Corio told Reuters on Friday.

So far, no one has objected to one of Posner's earliest forays into photo-enhancing in 2007: the photo of Kwanzaa, a lion at a Texas zoo, celebrating its birthday with a cake made from 10 pounds of horsemeat topped with whipped cream and a carrot.

The point there -- it would seem -- was to underscore that zoos feed their animals a considerable amount of horsemeat in a dispute over banning the slaughter of horses for human consumption.

Odd Stories: Cat Urine Responsible for Smoke in House

— One western Pennsylvania fire department learned that there's not necessarily fire wherever there's smoke.

New Castle's assistant fire chief Jim Donston tells The Associated Press that firefighters were called when an electrical outlet on a floor was smoking, only to find that happened because the family's cat urinated into the outlet.

The New Castle News first reported the incident Friday and Donston supplied more details to the AP.

The assistant chief says a Columbia Gas worker was at the house checking for a possible leak when he noticed the smoking outlet and called the fire department Wednesday about 7:30 p.m.
Donston says firefighters "found the receptacle wet from cat urine" and shut off the electrical supply to that circuit.

Odd Stories: Bank Robber Used Skateboard for Transportation

— Mexico City police say they have arrested a would-be bandit who rode his skateboard to bank robbery attempts.

Police say Sergio Ledesma and his skateboard have been turned over to prosecutors after he allegedly attempted to rob two banks by whispering threats to tellers.

Police say the teller at the first bank simply acted as if he hadn't heard Ledesma, who then skated off to a second bank.

The second teller told police Ledesma appeared to whisper a threat. So the teller set off a silent alarm, and counted out the money while the would-be robber waited patiently.

Police said Friday Ledesma was still waiting when they arrived and arrested him.

Odd Stories: Teen Has History of Impersonations



Miami - It seems a teenager who was arrested for impersonation of a medial official didn't learn his lesson the first time he was arrested.

Matthew Scheidt was arrested for impersonating a cop on January 18th.  According to the undercover officer who arrested him, Scheidt drove up to him at a red light with a car designed to look like an unmarked police car and asked him why he wasn't wearing his seat belt.  According to police "The undercover officer made eye contact with the driver, and noticed that he [Scheidt] was conducting himself as an officer, using a laptop, and speaking with the officer using police jargon."

When asked twice if he was an officer, he told the undercover cop yes.  Upon arresting him, Scheidt was found to have a loaded gun, taser, handcuffs, a folding knife, a Motorola police radio, an ankle holster, and a black sheriff's T-shirt.  He's facing a charge of impersonating a police officer and two counts of carrying a concealed weapon..

Scheidt, who tried to pass himself off as a medical doctor at least three different times, also has to go to trial in March for falsely representing a doctor for two weeks.  During the time he "worked" at Osceola Regional Medical Center, he correctly performed CPR on a drug-induced heat attack victim and gave a man a physical.

Video

Friday, January 20, 2012

Suspicions About Charles Taylor's CIA Links Confirmed

United States - U.S. officials have confirmed long-held suspicions former Liberian president Charles Taylor worked for the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. Taylor helped raise speculation after claiming U.S. officials had helped him escape a maximum security prison in Boston in 1985. According to the Boston Globe, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency has now acknowledged Taylor served as a CIA informant during his emergence as a warlord in the 1980s. Taylor is currently awaiting a verdict at The Hague on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian law during Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Teardrop Protein Shown to Have Jaws



ScienceDaily — A disease-fighting protein in our teardrops has been tethered to a tiny transistor, enabling UC Irvine scientists to discover exactly how it destroys dangerous bacteria. The research could prove critical to long-term work aimed at diagnosing cancers and other illnesses in their very early stages.

Ever since Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming found that human tears contain antiseptic proteins called lysozymes about a century ago, scientists have tried to solve the mystery of how they could relentlessly wipe out far larger bacteria. It turns out that lysozymes have jaws that latch on and chomp through rows of cell walls like someone hungrily devouring an ear of corn, according to findings that will be published Jan. 20 in the journal Science.

"Those jaws chew apart the walls of the bacteria that are trying to get into your eyes and infect them," said molecular biologist and chemistry professor Gregory Weiss, who co-led the project with associate professor of physics & astronomy Philip Collins.

The researchers decoded the protein's behavior by building one of the world's smallest transistors -- 25 times smaller than similar circuitry in laptop computers or smartphones. Individual lysozymes were glued to the live wire, and their eating activities were monitored.

"Our circuits are molecule-sized microphones," Collins said. "It's just like a stethoscope listening to your heart, except we're listening to a single molecule of protein."

It took years for the UCI scientists to assemble the transistor and attach single-molecule teardrop proteins. The scientists hope the same novel technology can be used to detect cancerous molecules. It could take a decade to figure out but would be well worth it, said Weiss, who lost his father to lung cancer.

"If we can detect single molecules associated with cancer, then that means we'd be able to detect it very, very early," Weiss said. "That would be very exciting, because we know that if we treat cancer early, it will be much more successful, patients will be cured much faster, and costs will be much less."

The project was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation. Co-authors of the Science paper are Yongki Choi, Issa Moody, Patrick Sims, Steven Hunt, Brad Corso and Israel Perez.

Monkey Thought to Be Extinct Reappears



Jakarta - A monkey species once thought to be extinct has shown not only is it alive, but living in an unexpected area.

Scientists from Simon Fraser University in Canada tracking Indonesian wildlife instead found images of the primate known as the Miller's Grizzled Langur.  They were surprised by the find, especially since they had no way to compare them outside of sketches. 

"We were all pretty ecstatic, the fact that wow, this monkey still lives, and also that it's in Wehea ," said Ph.D. student Brent Loken.  Loken is one of the lead researchers in the find.

Wehea forest is a nearly 40-thousand rainforest in Borneo, the third-largest island in Indonesia.

The fears the monkeys went extinct were expressed several years ago after a search for them turned up nothing.  The theory was that fires, deforestation, human encroachment, and conversion of the land for agricultural use were responsible.

Loken said the next step is to return to the forest to find out exactly how many of the langurs are still alive.  Although there are more than four-thousand images of the animals, scientists say they may be just one or two families reappearing.

Polish Parliament Member Plans to Smoke a Joint



Warsaw - Janusz Palikot, of Poland's new party named after him, is planning to smoke a joint in Parliament.

The activist and former businessman's plan is part of his campaign to get the country to lighten up on soft drug use.  However he has already ran into opposition to his scheme.

Palikot also plans to introduce a law that will decriminalize having small amounts of pot.

Parliament speaker Ewa Kopacz said she will not let him break the law and reported him to prosecutors.

Pro Golfer, Swim Coach Among 40 Busted in Sex Sting Operation

PHOTO: (l-r) Roy Alexander, Stephen Wesley Thomas and Bryan Allen Woodward are among the 40 arrested in underage sex sting operation.

Orlando - From January 8th to the 16th of this year Osceola County Sheriffs Department (OCSD) conducted sex sting operations in several counties in Florida.

Known as Operation Red Cheeks, detectives and investigators set-up online profiles as either minors or as a 30-year-old mother with a 13-year-old daughter, all of whom were interested in having sex.  Through internet chatrooms, the investigation led to 40 arrests including the three pictured men.

Alexander Roy (left), is an eighth-grade math teacher at the Manatee Academy who traveled from Port St. Lucie to Kissimmee to have sex with a mother and her 13-year-old daughter.

PGA professional golfer Stephen Wesley Thomas (center), believed he was chatting with a mother about possibly having sex with her and her 13-year-old daughter as well. The 'mother' was only willing to have sex with Thomas if she could watch him perform sex acts on and with her daughter. When arrested and searched, Thomas was found to have condoms, chocolate pudding, and honey. Thomas has since posted bail.
Bryan Allen Woodard (right), a private swim team coach who coached 200 children, mostly under the age of 18, was arrested for chatting with a '14-year-old' whom he agreed to meet. The Gator Swim Club coach was found in possession of M&M's and aside from discussing graphic sexual acts reportedly told the undercover cop, "younger girls turn me on."

"What is most concerning about this is not that there are so many people out there, but that some of these people work directly with children," said Twis Lizasuain, a spokeswoman for the OCSD.

Ranging in ages from 18-70, most of the suspects came from the central Florida area. Men from Georgia, Alaska, New York, and New Jersey were also caught in separate stings.

Nine students, including one in high school and a student at the Golf Academy of America were also arrested and charged.

Some suspects responded to fake advertisements like "2 for 1 girls on vacation" or "Fun family intimate experience" on the Internet and in most cases the suspects sent inappropriate photos to who they believed was a minor.

Hidden surveillance cameras, internet chat logs, and other evidence were collected in each case and all suspects are charged with an array of offences ranging from traveling to seduce a child to commit a sex act, use of a computer to induce a guardian to facilitate sex with a child, and attempted lewd and lascivious battery.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Germany to Seek EU Animal Welfare Label on Meat


Germany will press the European Union to introduce a label on meat saying it came from humanely raised farm animals, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said on Thursday.

The move would be part of a new German government programme to improve farm animal welfare, she said.

"Transparency changes buying behaviour and then the production processes and manufacturing processes," she said at the opening of the Green Week food trade fair in Berlin.

An EU-wide label on meat to show consumers that the animal was reared humanely should be introduced, she said.

"This will make it possible for consumers to recognise products which were produced using a very high level of animal welfare," she said.

It would not be practical for Germany to make such a move alone, she said.

Farm animal welfare is part of a charter for agriculture and consumers setting out a series of medium and long term goals for German farm policy announced by Aigner on Thursday.

The charter said the amount of space farm animals receive and their freedom of movement were key factors for animal welfare.

Practices such as castrating piglets without painkillers was not compatible with animal welfare, it said.

The actual definition of humanely-reared still needs considerable research, said a report from a ministry working group preparing the charter.

Consumers must be ready to pay more for meat with such labels, German farmer's association DBV said.
"Consumers will have to change their understanding of prices," said Heinrich Graf von Bassewitz, DBV spokesman for organic farming.

"Consumers who complain about so-called factory farming have pushed forward this form of agriculture though their purchases of cheap foods and their extreme price-consciousness."

Mental Illness On the Rise, Say Experts


United States - The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced  roughly 50 million people, or one in five, are disproportionately suffering from a mental illness.  The majority of that number are either young adults or women.

Women are more likely than men to be affected, according to a survey conducted by the SAMHSA.  Twenty-three percent of women and almost 17 percent of men have fallen prey to mental illness, while people between the ages of 18-25 suffer twice as much as those who are above the age of 50.  Five percent of the population, just more than 11 million, suffer from a serious mental illness.  Almost nine million adults say they had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year.  Of those 2.5 million made plans to do so and just more than a million actually tried.  Mental illness is described as mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, excluding developmental disorders and substance use.

Adults aren't the only ones who are going through the spike in mental illness.  Eight percent of those between the ages of 12-17, almost two million, experienced major depression.

 More than 67-thousand people took part in the study.

Army Reports Suicides Down, But Violent Crimes Up

— A new Army report says the number of suicides among soldiers has been leveling off, but there has been a dramatic jump in domestic violence, sex crimes and other destructive behavior in a force that has been stressed by a decade of war.

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said Thursday that violent sex crimes and domestic violence have increased more than 30 percent since 2006 and child abuse by 43 percent.

Chiarelli was releasing a 200-page report on the health of the troops and the Army's efforts to address the problem.

It said that 278 soldiers in the active duty, Guard and Reserve committed suicide last year compared to 304 in 2010.

Despite All-time Teen Pregnancy Low, 1/3 of Pregnant Weren't Careful



"I think what surprised us was the extent that they were not using contraception," said CDC senior scientist Lorrie Gavin, who co-authored the report.

Of the ones who did use protection, 20 percent said they used the pill or patch and 24 percent claim they used condoms.  Thirteen percent said they didn't use any at all because they couldn't get them.

The CDC officials say they don't think the birth control measures were faulty, but that they failed to use them properly or consistently.

However there seems to be more devastating news.  Almost 25 percent of the mothers said they didn't use them because their partners didn't wish to use them.  CDC officials think this means not only does sex education and information need to discuss anatomy and birth control, but how to deal with peer pressure too.

Despite these news however, National Campaign to Prevent Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy spokesman Bill Albert said the good news is that overall teen pregnancies are declining and have hit an all-time low in almost 70 years.

Chicago to Pay Half-Million to Family of Autistic Teen


Chicago - A City Council committee proposed settling a lawsuit filed in 2009 by paying over $500,000 in the police clubbing of an autistic teen. Oscar Guzman, 16 at the time, was diagnosed with autism at the age of 4 and has the mental capacity of a 5th grader.

While taking a break from working at his family's restaurant in the Little Village area, he was outside observing pigeons and the scenery when a patrol car with two officers pulled up. They began to question the young man but became suspicious when he didn't answer them. His sister explained to the officers his disability but the police chased after him when he ran inside the store.

Oscar tried to explain to the officers his disability but was frightened when one of the officers reached for the baton on his belt. He struck the autistic teen once on the head.


Oscar Guzman required eight staples after an officer stuck him. The incident was witnessed by Guzman's family who were trying to explain Guzman is autistic.


After being struck, Guzman fell to the ground as blood began to pour from his injury. Knowing no other act but complete submission, he cried out, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I submit. I submit."

The Independent Police Review Authority announced an investigation into the event and interviewed his family members.

Ironically, the 2009 incident occurred the same week an award-winning Crisis Intervention Team program was promoted since over 1,000 of CPD's 13,500 officers completed the 40-hour training since 2004. The program trains police officials to notice signs of mental illnesses/disadvantages. Officer Jerald Nelson, a member of the Crisis Intervention Team, expressed the absolute importance of noticing someone with autism saying, "To recognize it, that's number one."

Nelson, who has a 21-year-old son with autism, says some of the characteristics as observed in Guzman's case were signs that the officers could have noticed. Included in those sings are avoiding eye contact and questions.

Not knowing such signs can easily make the situation worse as it did in the case of Oscar Guzman. The family has called for the still unidentified officers to be fired.

Worried that Guzman is permanently scarred by the event, his older sister believes that all officers should be trained prior to becoming patrol officers.

Guzman's drawing depicting his beating.



If the proposed $525,000 dollar settlement is approved, the money will go towards Oscar Guzman's condition and assist his sister who was threatened with arrest for questioning the officers.

The officers responsible for the attack say they saw Oscar reach for his waistband, a sign of possibly having a weapon, which they felt justified such violent force. The officer who struck Oscar claims he wa pushed in the chest after taking out his baton and inadvertently struck the teenager.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Burmese Pythons On "Banned Reptiles" List



Florida - Burmese pythons, which have endured extermination attempts in Florida to no avail, will be banned in the United States in 60 days.


Joined by Florida Senator Ben Nelson, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released the news to the public at a news conference just outside Miami holding a 13-foot python.


Calling the act an attempt to “strike a balance” between the state's economic and environmental concerns,Salazar said "The action we're taking today is a milestone in the protection of the Everglades.” State and federal wildlife managers, along with environmental groups, scientists, and Florida lawmakers have hailed the move as a step in the right direction.


According the local biologists most of the Burmese pythons in the Everglades were probably released there by their owners once theyrealized the snakes can grow to 12 feet long within their first two years. The snakes, native to Southeast Asia, became legendary ever since they were first sighted in the Everglades 1970s. Known to eat almost anything, one python was found with a huge bulge from a recently eaten 76-pound deer.


The most notorious of the invasive species in the United States is not alone in the ban. Yellow anacondas and two species of African rock pythons are also included. On the pending list are five other exotic snakes, including the infamous boa constrictor.


Officials have a tough road ahead for them however, as the snakes also bred in the wild, savanna, and the swamps of the Everglades.

One of several famous snake pictures in which a python attempts to eat an alligator

Israelis Who Speak for Justice

 by Lawrence Davidson

Last month Amira Hass, one of Israel’s best, bravest and most disliked journalists wrote a short piece in Haaretz entitled “When ‘fascist’ is not a rude word,” in which she tells us that “in fascist regimes the state is above all” and notes that the sort of fascist-style bills pouring out of Israel’s Knesset would “make Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter [the leaders of the far-right party of France] look like amateurs.”

For instance, Hass cited a proposal from Danny Danon, a member of the ruling Likud Party, mandating that “Every certificate issued by the state will oblige [the recipient] to sign a document with a clause declaring loyalty to the State of Israel,” or as one settlers’ Web site explained: No declaration – then no driver’s license, no identity card, no passport.

According to Hass’s article, Danon told Army Radio that his plan was only part of “the total solution.” Danon proclaimed, “there are many people who act against the State that protects them. Anyone who is not faithful to the State should not be a citizen.”

Danon mainly has in mind the quarter of Israel’s population who are not Jewish, but he would also throw into this category those Israeli Jews audacious enough to stand up for political equality for all citizens, such as those who object to the mistreatment of Arabs (or who protest the growing ultra-Orthodox demands for discrimination against women).

In other words, Danon’s aim is to manufacture “statelessness” for those who object to signing loyalty oaths. (Statelessness is when people are denied a connection with or protection from a state, often as a result of discrimination or persecution.) As both 20th century European history and Israel’s 45 years in the Occupied Territories attest, statelessness is a one-way road to physical and cultural destruction.

But could this be so? Could it be that Israel, often hailed as the “only democracy in the Middle East,” the U.S. friend and ally that allegedly reflects American values is morphing into a fascist state? It seems that, in Danon’s efforts to be “just like us,” this good-looking and clean-shaven fellow is following in the footsteps of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Deeply indoctrinated Americans are going to need more than Amira Hass’s word on this, however. They are going to need supporting evidence. So after consulting with Danny Danon, they may want to move on to Benni Katzover.

Katzover is a major figure in the Israeli “settler movement” and a supporter of the terrorist activities of the Zionist “price tag” campaign, a bunch of “patriots” who attack Palestinians and Israeli peace groups whenever the government frustrates the settlers’ helter-skelter expansionist activities on the West Bank.
Katzover may well have the same ends as Danon, but he is much more out-front about them, declaring: “I would say that today, Israeli democracy has one central mission, and that is to disappear. Israeli democracy has finished its historical role, and it must be dismantled and bow before Judaism.”

He said Israeli leftists who find this proposal frightening are just “against anything that smells of holiness, and … act against the foundations of Jewish faith.” One wonders what American Zionists who see Islamic Sharia law undermining the foundations of democracy make of Benni Katzover?

While estimates vary, it is not unreasonable to assume that Danny Danon and Benni Katzover together command the support of at least 25 percent of the Israeli Jewish population. Otherwise the Israeli Knesset would not look and act as it does and the settler movement would not be so openly aggressive. And this category of Israelis is nothing if not aggressive.

According to a recent survey, the Danon-Katzover types are mostly young and express their opinions in an “open and unabashed” racist way. They express open hatred for Arabs and a wish that those under Israeli control would die.

Jewish Humanitarians

Of course, there are other Israelis who represent the opposite point of view. Thus, our figurative American supporters of Israel might also want to interview some of them.

First they should look up Uri Avnery, a founding member of Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc. Avnery has solid Israeli credentials: he was a heroic fighter in the 1948 war, a well-known journalist and was a distinguished past member of the Knesset. However, he has also always asserted that Israel evolved along the wrong path.

Avnery said it should not be a “nationalistic, theocratic ‘Jewish State’” but rather a “modern, liberal state belonging to all its citizens irrespective of national or religious roots.” This position earned him a lot of enemies including Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor, Golda Meir. Both considered Avnery a “public enemy.”

Subsequently, there was an assassination attempt against him and the office of his newspaper, Haolam Hazeh, was bombed. Avnery is a shining light of humanism – and he is not the only one.

After talking to Avnery, our figurative inquirers should move on to Rabbi Arek Ascherman, the Director of Special Projects for Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel. Ascherman’s position is that the only legitimate way you can have Israel be a Jewish place is by having its institutions uphold Jewish values.

For Ascherman that means getting in the way, as best one can, of the “ugly side” of Israeli behavior and policies such as standing against the house demolitions, land confiscations, settler encroachments, arbitrary arrests, beatings and killings of Palestinians, etc. For his efforts Ascherman and his organization have suffered the same sort of attacks as has Avnery.

Asherman’s car has been stoned (by Israelis), and he has been arrested and beaten up. His fate reminds one of the treatment received by civil rights workers in the 1960s in the U.S. South. This seems to be another way that Israel is “just like us.”

Avnery, Ascherman and other Israeli Jewish men and women who fight for human decency probably command the support of, at most, 15 percent of the Israeli Jewish population.

The Indifferent

And what of the rest of Israel’s Jews? Well, the survey mentioned above found that the other 60 percent are indifferent to the Palestinians, but in a generally negative way. For instance, many in this category (up to 46 percent) “would not be willing to live next door to them.”

It is actually the negatively tinged indifference of this majority of Israeli Jews that allows the more assertive and aggressive 25 percent to gain power and assure the country’s status as a truly apartheid state. The 15 percent who may support Avnery and Ascherman essentially become social misfits within the Israeli milieu.
They have somehow escaped the full impact of Zionist education and ideology. They have broken free of the conformist pressures of family, community, army and media propaganda. And, having freed themselves from what Gabriel Kolko calls “enforced consensus,” they collectively become a fringe element.

It is strange that all countries seem to have such self-aware and active humanitarians in roughly the same relative proportion – about 15 percent. This is just large enough to remind us of what good humanity is capable of, but just too small to help us realize that good.

Anti-war Activist Speaks Against U.S. Treatment of Iran




Minneapolis - Anti-war activist Jess Sundin, one of several activists who were raided by the FBI in an attempt to find links between anti-war activists and groups in Colombia and the Middle East, condemned what she calls an “act of war against Iran.”

“The anti-war movement needs to take U.S. threats against Iran very seriously,” said Sundin. “Over the past several months we have seen more military deployments of U.S. forces into the Persian Gulf, a new round of U.S. sanctions - with more threatened from Europe - and the murder of Iranian scientists. The situation is looking a lot like the run-ups to the U.S. wars on Iraq. In and of themselves, the U.S. sanctions on Iran are an act of war. The sanctions are designed to harm Iran’s economy and cause human suffering on a mass scale.”


Despite the treatment she is facing from the FBI as well as a Chicago grand jury, she continues to speak out against state repression. When questioned about repression from the FBI she said “As peace activists, we need to continue to speak out against all U.S. wars and we need to condemn government repression directed against the anti-war movement, like the attack on Carlos Montes in Los Angeles. He is a veteran leader of the Chicano movement, who speaks out against U.S. intervention abroad. The government wants to put him in jail, and we say drop the charges. “People in this country can’t afford to let the government pick our ‘enemies.’ The State Department is trying to demonize Iran and pave the way towards another war. We have to speak out and say, ‘Hands off Iran.’”

Why Does the FBI Treat Videotaping Corporate Animal Abuse As Terrorism?

By Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Activists who expose animal abuses on factory farms face the risk of being prosecuted as domestic terrorists.
 
Using the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in November 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has kept files on animal rights activists who have recorded incidents of cruelty towards animals on large farming operations.  Now, though, a bureau task force has even recommended trying these individuals as terrorism suspects.
 
Activist Ryan Shapiro, who used the Freedom of Information Act to discover what the FBI was up to, told the Los Angeles Times that “it’s simply outrageous to consider civil disobedience as terrorism.”
 
“Civil disobedience” he added, “has a long and proud place in our nation’s history, from Martin Luther King to Occupy Wall Street, and the AETA takes that kind of advocacy that we celebrate from the civil rights movement and turns it into a terrorist event.”
 
The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a lawsuit challenging the AETA as unconstitutional, claiming the law is too vague and is discouraging political activism.

Median Income for White Families in U.S. Almost Double Blacks and Latinos

 
Whites today enjoy considerable economic advantage over the largest minority groups in the United States—a disparity that's expected to exist far into the future even as Caucasians shrink in numbers and no longer represent a majority of the American population.
 
According to a new report published by the group United for a Fair Economy, the median family income of black and Latino families was 57% of that earned by white families.
 
At different times over the last 30 years, the income inequality between whites and blacks and Latinos was not as great. In 1981, the median Latino family earned 71 cents to each dollar of income by a white family. For blacks, better times were had as recently as 2000, when their family income was 62% of whites.
 
If current trends continue, the situation is expected to improve somewhat in the coming decades for African-Americans. By 2042, the typical black family would make about 61 cents for every dollar of income earned by the median white family.
 
But Latino income would continue to decline relative to white income. Thirty years from now, Latinos will earn only 45 cents for every dollar of white median family income.
 
By that time whites will no longer constitute a majority of the U.S. population and make up only 49.9% of all Americans.
 
Even more dramatic than the racial income gap is the wealth gap. Net wealth is calculated by subtracting debt from assets, and can be passed on from generation to generation. According to figures for 2007, the median black family held only 10 cents in wealth for every dollar owned by the median white family, while Latinos held 12 cents.
 
A more recent study, done by the Pew Research Center, calculated that between 2005 and 2009, the median white household lost 16% of its wealth to $113, 149. Black households fell to $5,677, a decline of 53%, while Latinos fell 66% to $6,325.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Honeybee problem nearing a ‘critical point’

By Clare Thompson

Anyone who's been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by placing the more than 70 crops they pollinate -- from almonds to apples to blueberries -- in peril.


Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

"We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point," said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD -- a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind -- bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.

"In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in what's going on," said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don't like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from." These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that "we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry." In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for example, he knows that "if I spray, I'm going to kill all the beneficial insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg's awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.

Beekeepers have already teamed up with groups representing the almond and blueberry industries -- both of which depend on honey bee pollination -- to tackle the need for education among farmers. "A lot of [farm groups] are recognizing that we need more resources devoted to pollinator protection," Ellis said. "We need that same level of commitment on a national basis, from our USDA and EPA and the agricultural chemical industry."

Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists' clear warnings about the chemicals' effects on bees and other pollinators. That doesn't bode well for the chances of getting neonics off the market now, even in light of the Purdue study's findings.
"The agency has, in most cases, sided with pesticide manufacturers and worked to fast-track the approval of new products, and failed in cases when there's clear evidence of harm to take those products off the market," Towers said.

Since this is an election year -- a time when no one wants to make Big Ag (and its money) mad -- beekeepers may have to suffer another season of losses before there's any hope of action on the EPA's part. But when one out of every three bites of food on Americans' plates results directly from honey bee pollination, there's no question that the fate of these insects will determine our own as eaters.

Ellis, for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee crisis could be a catalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. "If we can protect that pollinator base, it's going to have ripple effects ... for wildlife, for human health," he said. "It will bring up subjects that need to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water -- all the connected subjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture."

Georgia May Lose Federal Funding over Excessive Jailing of Non-Criminal Juveniles


 
The state of Georgia has for years thrown into jail juveniles who have committed no crime. But to continue doing so could now cost the state millions of dollars.
 
Those spending time in jail are what is known as “status offenders”—runaways, truants, curfew violators, underage smokers and drinkers whose actions would not be considered crimes if they were adults.
 
A study commissioned by the Georgia Governor’s Office for Children and Families has warned that the incarceration of such non-criminal youths could mean losing $2 million a year from the federal government.
 
Legislation has been introduced in the Georgia legislature that would overhaul how the state handles status offenders. The bill calls for creating a new agency, Children in Need of Services, modeled after what 16 other states have done with their non-criminal youths. The idea is to redirect these children and teens into community-based services instead of throwing them behind bars.

Separate Schools for Roma Challenged

By Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, Jan 16, 2012 (IPS) - A school in Slovakia has defended its decision to segregate Roma children from other students after a court ruled the practice breached equal rights laws.

The headmistress of the primary school in Sarisske Michalany, Maria Cvancigerova, said Roma children had been put into classes on their own to ensure they got special attention, and that they had benefitted as a result.

But critics say that other schools have had success with mixed classes including Roma children and that segregation will do nothing to help resolve problems with the education and social inclusion of Roma.

Stefan Ivanco of the Advisory for Civil and Human Rights NGO which brought the legal action against the school, told IPS: "This ruling is an important precedent in stopping the widespread and illegal practice of segregation at schools.

"Inclusive education is the only approach schools can take. Inclusive education in a diverse collective of students shows a child not just how to learn but how to be friendly, tolerant, considerate and responsible within a society which is, fundamentally, diverse."

Of the 430 children attending the school, more than half are Roma and of the 22 classes at the school, 12 are exclusively for Roma children.

Teachers at the school claim the segregation has been a success.

Margita Dorkova, a teacher at the school who has spent 20 years teaching Roma children, told local media: "This has been shown to be the right decision. It allows us to give the children individual attention and adjust the rate at which we cover subjects to suit their abilities. Attendance rates are up, there are less children dropping out of school and they learn much more.

"Children from (Roma) settlements often can’t speak Slovak, don’t even follow basic hygiene practices, and their parents pay little attention to them. In a mixed class they would be condemned to failure."

Most Roma children come from poor backgrounds and socially excluded communities with chronic unemployment and low education levels. In Slovakia, large numbers of Roma live in settlements which are little more than shanty towns and slums where levels of crime and violence are high.

Cvancigerova says that both Roma and non-Roma parents are against mixed classes and that having mixed classes could have an adverse effect on teaching of non-Roma children.

Directors at the school also claim that the behaviour of some Roma children would lead to teachers acting as "bodyguards" protecting children instead of educating them.

The school plans to appeal against the court’s decision.

But other schools have rejected the claims that mixed classes could negatively affect the schooling of non- Roma children, and point to their success in helping Roma children reach their full educational potential and in integrating into society.

Gertruda Schurgerova, deputy headmistress at a primary school in Medzev in Eastern Slovakia which has mixed classes, told local media that Roma children have proved to be among their best students.

She added: "For children that have known only poverty, filth and hunger and come to us dirty and ridden with lice it is a bit of a shock. But they adapt quickly and enjoy coming to school. They can see that there are other ways to live."

Both government and opposition politicians have criticised the segregation at the school in Sarisske Michalany. But they admit that there is no easy solution to problems connected to educating Roma children from deprived backgrounds.

Some politicians have suggested the school should form smaller mixed classes where Roma children can get extra attention, but not to the detriment of the education of non-Roma children.

Others have said that the state should give whatever support is necessary to the school to help with the desegregation of classes and implementing inclusive education.

The court ruling also comes after years of campaigning by international rights organisations against discrimination of Roma children in schools across Central Europe.

Reports by Amnesty International and other groups have highlighted widespread systematic segregation at schools in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

They also claimed that many Roma children were wrongly being put into schools for the mentally and physically handicapped. One study by the Open Society Foundation claimed Roma children in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were 28 and 27 times more likely, respectively, to be put in special schools than non- Roma pupils.

In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights found the Czech Republic guilty of racism and discrimination against the Roma because of the practice of putting Roma in special schools.

It was hoped the law would stamp out the practice and put an end to segregation at schools. But a recent report by the UK-based Equality charity, which campaigns for ethnic minority rights in Britain and Europe, showed that the situation had not changed.

Between March and September 2011, Equality spoke to Roma of Czech and Slovak nationality who had migrated with their families to the UK. The group found that 85 percent of pupils interviewed had, in their home countries, been placed in a segregated school, a special school, or predominantly Roma kindergarten.

The majority said they had experienced racist bullying and verbal abuse by non-Roma peers, as well as discriminatory treatment by teachers.

Meanwhile, all Roma parents interviewed valued the absence of discrimination and racism in the British type school system and said their children had better chances of success in later life after attending mainstream schools.

The study also showed the average attainment of Roma pupils in mainstream education in numeracy, literacy and science was average or just below average and that the more the Roma pupils were integrated within classes and schools, the fewer community cohesion problems existed both in and out of school.

Alan Anstead, chief executive of Equality, told IPS: "There is no justification for segregation and no basis for claims that it will help Roma students. It only deepens social exclusion.

"This school should have mixed classes. If there are concerns over education of Roma children in mixed classes, teachers should try to work with parents to resolve this. The state, parents, teachers and local community could come together, share experiences and try to work together on this issue."

Georgia Takes Top Two Spots for Worst Polluting Power Stations


 
Georgia leads the nation for dirty power plants, which are the primary source for greenhouse gases like CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. To put things into perspective, for cars to produce as much planet-baking CO2 as U.S. coal-fired power plants do in a year, Americans would have to drive at least twice as much as they currently do.
 
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released an online Greenhouse Gas Database that allows consumers to find out which power plants are polluting the most. The database, which includes the 6,700 power plants and heavy industrial sites responsible for 80 percent of all emissions in the US, shows that Georgia is home to the two worst polluting plants in the country—Scherer coal plant in Juliette and Bowen coal plant in Cartersville. Neighboring Alabama has the third worst offender, the Miller coal plant in Quinton, Alabama, while yet another Southern state, Texas, is the locale of the fourth worst plant, the Martin Lake coal plant in Tatum, Texas.

Shot Bicyclist Possibly Target of Sniper

Bicyclist shot possible sniper Richmond 1/16/2012 photo

Richmond, CA - While walking his bike along train tracks, a man was shot in the legs.  The event happened in the early hours of January 15th.  The unnamed victim believes he was targeted from a rooftop.

Sargent Mike Rood of the Richmond Police Department stated the man was walking along tracks near West Ohio Avenue moments after noticing a red laser dot on his body aimed from a high vantage point.

After being shot, the bicyclist ran from the area and was noticed by a train engineer who thought he wished to cross the tracks. After stopping the train, the engineer noticed the victim was bleeding and alerted the police.



ShotSpotter and how it works.
ShotSpotter gunfire-detection microphones picked up the gunshot around the same time.  Shortly after the detection, police were notified of the shooting incident and rushed to help.

A search for the shooter has proved unsuccessful so far.

The wound is not life-threatening.

Scott's Lost Antarctica Photographs Bought

By Maev Kennedy


The last photographs taken by Captain Robert Scott, lost for most of the 20th century, have been bought for the nation in time for the centenary of his doomed expedition to reach the south pole on 17 January 1912.The anniversary is being marked by many institutions, including:

• The Natural History Museum in London, where an exhibition on the venture featuring a recreation of Scott's hut which survives in Antarctica, opens on Friday.
• A conference at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, where there is an exhibition with many surviving artefacts.
• The Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth, where a single white rose will be laid at the foot of his statue – sculpted by his widow, Kathleen, and commissioned and paid for by the officers of HMS Vernon in 1915.
• And the British Services Antarctic Expedition in Antarctica, which is currently hauling scientific equipment across the ice on a research and exploration expedition.

The Scott Institute was founded with money left over from the fund for the widows and orphans of Scott and his four companions, who starved and froze to death with him on their heartbreaking return after learning that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to the pole. It has bought the 109 photographs, never seen by Scott himself – they were developed after he set out on the last fatal stage – for about £750,000 with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund of £704,000. They will be reunited with Scott's camera, presented by his daughter-in-law Lady Philippa Scott, in 2008. Professor Julian Dowdeswell, head of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: "Scott's photographs bring to life, in vivid detail, his party's sledging journey into the interior of Antarctica. From men and ponies struggling through deep snow, to panoramas of the Transantarctic mountains, the images are very powerful."

In 2004 the institute acquired the 1,700 glass-plate negatives taken by the expedition photographer, Herbert Ponting.

Scott had asked him for photography lessons because Ponting was not fit enough and his equipment too heavy to cover the final part of the journey. Scott's photographs were developed by the geologist Frank Debenham, who founded the institute.

The photographs were returned to the UK with Ponting's, and kept out of the public gaze by a copyright row. The nitrate film disintegrated, but a single set of surviving prints was mislaid in a photography archive after his death.

When they eventually resurfaced, they were bought at an auction in New York in 2001 by a London-based American antiquarian book dealer, Richard Kossow. He was surprised to be able to afford them, he told the Guardian when they were first published in October. "Most collectors didn't know about the sale, and those who did didn't take it seriously," he said.

Get Tough on Nuclear Safety

Originally posted by Nature Magazine

A refreshingly frank and forward-looking report on the safety of French nuclear power plants in the wake of Fukushima should spur other countries to take a hard look at regulation of their own reactors.

The Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear accidents each prompted profound rethinks of safety requirements. But as the incidents slipped into history, the nuclear industry, regulators and governments tended to revert to reassuring refrains that atomic energy was once again safe and in expert hands.

So it is probably too early to be confident about the impact of the Fukushima accident in Japan last March. But it is clear that, as the defences at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant crumbled, so too did the fundamental dogma of modern nuclear safety: that a series of back-up and redundant safety systems, combined with physical defences strong enough to resist expert estimates of external threats, was enough to make impossible a catastrophic meltdown and release of radioactivity into the environment.

As the first anniversary of the disaster approaches, and supporters and opponents of nuclear power prepare to use it to underscore their positions, will Fukushima mark a turning point for the nuclear enterprise, or will industry return to business as usual?

André-Claude Lacoste, head of France's Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in Paris, suggested at a press conference last week that things have already changed. “There will be a before and an after Fukushima,” he promised.

Is he right? Some in industry will always oppose the costs of tougher regulation, and shortsighted or ideological politicians and companies will continue to insist that a repeat of Fukushima is impossible in their own backyards. But many in the nuclear industry were genuinely and deeply shocked to see at Fukushima a sequence of events that they believed impossible. The world's main nuclear operators have an interest in establishing the causes of the disaster and learning the lessons — they know too well that if another major accident were to occur, then in many people's eyes the already-struggling industry would be finished.
The World Association of Nuclear Operators, for example, has stressed the need for its members to respond properly to Fukushima, and has beefed up its own inspection and oversight of plants (see Nature 472, 274 and http://doi.org/hj5; 2011).

So to France, the world's leading user of nuclear power and arguably the nation with the most to lose from a global rejection of it. Last week, the ASN released a report announcing a sweeping safety upgrade to all the country's reactors (see page 121). The planned multi-billion-euro improvements are part of a programme of tests to assess how well French reactors would stand up to extreme events, and how prepared plants are to deal with a major accident. The ASN's report is written with stunning candour, stating plainly that a loss of coolant or electricity could, in the worst cases, see meltdowns at reactors in hours. It also lists many shortcomings found during 'stress tests', in which some safety aspects of plants were found not to conform to existing standards.

Critics will wonder why the ASN didn't spot these problems earlier, given that it is responsible for regulating the plants. Others will question how the authority can reconcile its statement that France's reactors are fundamentally safe with its insistence that they must be upgraded on safety grounds. But it would be a mistake to penalize France for listing its nuclear shortcomings, especially when other nations seem less enthusiastic about publicly discussing problems with their own reactors and regulations. The French report makes for a breath of fresh air in a post-Fukushima climate in which worldwide public reassurance has too often taken priority over transparent debate.

The ASN has also come up with an elegant technical solution to get around the (universal) dilemma of how to protect a plant from external threats, such as natural disasters. The report recommends that all reactors, irrespective of their perceived vulnerability, should add a 'hard core' layer of safety systems, with control rooms, generators and pumps housed in bunkers able to withstand physical threats far beyond those that the plants themselves are designed to resist.

There will, rightly, be scepticism about whether France will ultimately implement the new measures. The bunker concept may prove technically difficult, and Électricité de France — the operator of the reactors — would need to pay for systems that some in the company will probably feel are an expensive luxury.
Whatever happens in the long term, the French plans have an immediate benefit: they raise the post-Fukushima safety bar for other countries. Those governments, regulators and companies that have yet to propose anything close to such far-reaching measures must now explain why not.

Drones Slowly Becoming a Fact of Life



Grand Junction, Colorado - Denver's ABC-7 seems to be in preemptive spin mode with the idea of having drones keeping an eye on the residents of Mesa county.  It reports:

The Mesa County Sheriff's Department has purchased a small drone aircraft for $14,000 to use in investigations and in search and rescue operations...The sheriff's department is test-flying the aircraft and expects it will be ready for use within the next couple of months. Officials said the department has FAA permission to fly the drone anywhere in Mesa County in daylight hours.

Now I don't doubt what else is present in the article, that it will help find lost hikers and bikers, but just like what happened in Montana and other western states it will more than likely be used on civilians too.  The station then went on to praise the drone's looks and abilities, never stopping to question the real possibility it may be used on citizens.

Sheriff's officers demonstrated the 4-foot-long, 9-pound vehicle Friday. The plane can stay airborne for an hour, fly at an altitude of 400 feet and send video and infrared images to ground controllers...Officials said the plane could also be useful for observation during wildfires. The plane has manual pilot capabilities but is most useful and efficient on autopilot, allowing its operators to type into a computer where they want the plane to fly. "You tell it where to go, and it will continuously fly over those parameters you set for it," [sherriff's spokeswoman Heather] Benjamin said.

It will only be a matter of time before seeing drones in the skies for no reason will become commonplace.  Right now we are just being normalized to it.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent


Odd Stories: Cow Brains Confiscated in Egypt





Cairo - Supply-and-demand on an international scale appeared at an Egyptian airport when 420 pounds of cow brains were discovered and confiscated by authorities for the fourth time in a week.

Raw cow brains are a favored food in Egypt. Because it's extremely cheap to get in Sudan – one pound costs less than a dollar and can be sold for as much as six times as much – Sudanese travelers try to smuggle in the brains and make a profit. If this batch got through it could've netted the three men more than $1,500.

The brains were discovered when airport officials were inspecting the travelers' large freezer boxes. Although it's not illegal to have the brains, they were take and destroyed because they weren't sure they were properly preserved.