Water shortages are likely to be trigger for wars

If global warming continues, water shortages could trigger more wars, Dr Zhang told The Times: “We are on alert, because this gives us the indication that resource shortage is the main cause of war. Human beings will definitely have conflicts over this; whether it turns to war depends on the quality of the social buffer available to each nation, but the danger is right there.”

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'Monster' Arctic Reptile Remains Found

Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.

Initial excavation of a site on the Svalbard islands in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo.

"It seems the monster is a new species," he told The Associated Press.

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Over 40 million in U.S. can't afford health care: report

More than 40 million people in the United States say they cannot afford adequate heath care and go without drugs, eyeglasses or dental treatment, according to a federal report released on Monday.

That's roughly 13% of the US population.

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Getting inside their heads ... really inside

What do Rudy Giuliani's messy personal life, John McCain's temper and Hillary Clinton's inability to seem authentic have in common? Maybe nothing. They may be just overblown issues in the otherwise normal lives of candidates under the political microscope.

Such symptoms, however, may mean a lot -- such as evidence of underlying brain dysfunction. Sometimes people with messy personal lives have low prefrontal cortex activity associated with poor judgment; sometimes people with temper problems have brain damage and impulse control problems; sometimes people who struggle with authenticity have trouble really seeing things from someone else's perspective.

...

Should we go so far as to do brain scans? Of candidates for the Oval Office? Some people might consider discussing brain health a ridiculous idea. Not me.

As a neuropsychiatrist and brain-imaging expert, I want our elected leaders to be some of the "brain healthiest people" in the land. How do you know about the brain health of a presidential candidate unless you look? The brain is involved in everything humans do: how we think, how we feel, how we get along with others, how we negotiate, how we pay attention in meetings and how we turn away the advances of White House interns or decide to invade a country based on contradictory intelligence.

Three of the last four presidents have shown clear brain pathology.

...

A national leader with brain problems can potentially cost millions of people their lives.

...

Ensuring that our president has a healthy brain may be more than an interesting topic of conversation. It can be important information to put into the election equation. A president with brain problems could wreak havoc on the U.S. and the world at large. Maybe we shouldn't leave the health of our president's brain to chance. We have the tools; shouldn't we look?

Interesting question.

Read the rest.

The Fallout from the Iran Nukes Report

Anyone following the Iran nuclear issue via the presidential debates might have been shocked to learn Monday that the U.S. intelligence community now believes that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago, and is unlikely to have restarted it.

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CNN: Corrupt News Network

THE United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest.

So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag?

...

Selecting a president is, more than ever, a life and death business, and a news organization that consciously injects itself into the process, as CNN did by hosting Wednesday's debate, incurs a special responsibility to conduct itself in a dispassionate and, most of all, disinterested fashion. When one considers CNN's performance, however, the adjectives that leap to mind are corrupt and incompetent.

...

HERE'S what Pew found: By an overwhelming margin, Americans think the war in Iraq is the most important issue facing the United States, followed by the economy, healthcare and energy prices. In fact, if you lump the war into a category with terrorism and other foreign policy issues, 40% of Americans say foreign affairs are their biggest concern in this election cycle. If you do something similar with all issues related to the economy, 31% list those questions as their most worrisome issue. As anybody who has looked at their 401(k) or visited a gas pump would expect, that aggregate figure has increased dramatically since Pew started polling in January. Back then, for example, concerns over the war outpaced economic anxieties by fully 8 to 1. By contrast, just 6% of the survey's national sample said that immigration was the most important electoral issue. Moreover, that number hasn't changed in a statistically meaningful way since the first of the year. In other words, more than nine out of 10 Americans think something matters more than immigration in this presidential election.

So, why did CNN make immigration the keystone of this debate? What standard dictated the decision to give that much time to an issue so remote from the majority of voters' concerns? The answer is that CNN's most popular news-oriented personality, Lou Dobbs, has made opposition to illegal immigration and free trade the centerpiece of his neonativist/neopopulist platform.

...

Those are significant swings of opinion, yet the poll also found that more than half of Americans still favor withdrawing American troops. That disconnect is a real issue for the GOP candidates, all but one of whom support the war. Unless we're going to believe that the self-selecting YouTube questioners were utterly different from the rest of American voters, it seems pretty clear that CNN ignored these complex -- and highly relevant concerns -- for an issue that served its ratings interests -- immigration -- or ones that made for moments of conventional television conflict, like gun control, which doesn't even show up in surveys of voters' concerns.

Glad to see this in the LA Times.

Read the rest.

The 'tut-tut' police keep us on the street and narrow

The nanny-state at work:

The fun police have slapped an "adults only" warning on a new DVD of classic episodes, which featured a world in which children played in the street, a monster gorged on cookies and a bad-tempered puppet lived in a bin.

The episodes, made between 1969 and 1974, have been released in the US with the caution: "These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

I guess I'm a screwed up adult considering those were the episodes I watched as a child.

Back then, Big Bird's bumbling friend Mr Snuffleupagus was still imaginary, which might encourage "delusion behaviour". And trash-loving Oscar the Grouch has been targetted for his blatant bad manners and questionable hygiene.

"We might not be able to create a character like Oscar today," Parente told The New York Times.

I loved Mr. Snuffleupagus! I guess that means I'm delusional. And Oscar, I thought he was the funniest.

Griffiths said children could tell the difference between fantasy and reality and did not blindly mimic the behaviour of clearly fictional characters.

"People who claim to be protecting children always make the assumption that what children see is what they will do," he said. "Underlying that is the assumption that kids can't tell the difference between fantasy and real life and I have found that to be consistently bogus."

Ah, the voice of reason.

I guess, I'll be getting these early seasons of Sesame Street and showing to my preschool child. I'm wondering if I should stay away from today's "politically correct" seasons.

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White House to Cut Anti-Terror Funds

The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, according to budget documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation's highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs.

Interesting.

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Black Alabama political groups split presidential endorsements

Turner said Clinton is the Democrat most likely to win in November "because of her husband and because of some other things, mainly because she's white."

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Is God Using NAFTA Superhighway to Stop Homosexuality?

A number of Christians have come to believe, because of recent prophecies, dreams, and visions, that I-35 is the highway spoken in Isaiah 35, verse 8: “And a highway will be there, it will be called the way of holiness.”

The world we live in.

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Bombs away?

We are also witnessing what appears to be a chilling rerun of the Iraq debacle. Confronted with evidence that calls into question the status of Iran's nuclear program, the Bush administration is shifting its rhetoric.

Read more.

Water Power

Reckoning: The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.

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Republicans Report Much Better Mental Health Than Others

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls.

Of course Republicans rate their own mental health as excellent. Many of them live with their heads in the sand, only seeing what they want to see. Many have little concern for their fellow human beings on the planet, much less the planet itself. There's no way they (Republicans) can possibly be responsible for any of the mess the human race is in, and they have even less responsibility for the shape the planet is in. It appears they don't see that we humans are in this thing together and should all be treated equally. Rather, they appear to do what needs to be done in order to achieve power and wealth for themselves and/or their buddies. (Yes, I'm well aware that this also applies to many people who are not Republicans.)

Regardless if one is a Republican or not, self-reporting that one's own mental health is excellent is like alcoholics denying they have a drinking problem. Neither is in the position to make that diagnosis.

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Show seeks to love match migrants and U.S. citizens

A Los Angeles company is touting a new reality game show called "Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen" that aims to create televised matrimony between legal citizens and immigrants who have temporary visas.

The show's backers at Morusa Media hope to make a sort of love match between reality TV and a national obsession with immigration. But the producers make no promise that a marriage will occur or lead to U.S. citizenship.

Read more.

Pope Criticizes Atheism in Encyclical

Pope Benedict XVI strongly criticized atheism in a major document released Friday, saying it had led to some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" ever known.

In his second encyclical, Benedict also critically questioned modern Christianity, saying its focus on individual salvation had ignored Jesus' message that true Christian hope involves salvation for all.

The document, titled "Saved by Hope," is a deeply theological exploration of Christian hope: that in the suffering and misery of daily life, Christianity provides the faithful with a "journey of hope" to the Kingdom of God.

"We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world is not in our power," Benedict wrote. "Only God is able to do this."

And that's bullshit. That last statement is nothing but a cop out. All it does is give humanity permission to keep acting in barbaric ways.

And by the way, hasn't religion led to some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" ever known? Oh, yeah, it has. But, as always, the religious need someone else to blame and demonize to make their actions seem more honorable and justified. Well, guess what, both the religious and non-religious have committed some major atrocities throughout history. You and your church, Mr. Pope, do not get off without some of the blame.

Read more.

Genetic Cosmetic Makes Old Skin Like New

Scientists at Stanford have reversed the aging of skin in mice, making it look and act like new skin.

The researchers first discovered a protein that plays a role in skin aging. Then they used a lotion that inhibited the protein in a genetically engineered mouse. After two weeks of treatment with their genetic cosmetic, the skin of older mice displayed the look and genetic profile of younger skin.

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Golden Compass author hits back

The author of the book on which the new film The Golden Compass is based has hit back at critics who accuse him of peddling "candy-coated atheism".

Philip Pullman dismissed as "absolute rubbish" accusations by the US-based Catholic League that the film promotes atheism and denigrates Christianity.

Don't "candy-coat" it. Tell it like it is.

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Column: The time has come to move past religion

Returning today, however, the Madman would say that God is still dead while religion is still as deadly and as ungodly as ever.

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It is no surprise then that non-believers have had enough of the killing in God's name, or Jesus' name, or Mohammed's name, or for Allah. The age of religion is over, and it is by keeping such obsolete notions alive that they become deadlier.

...

Today, science can explain much of the unknown, and we have complex religions to take care of the rest. But what has changed? Certainly not our propensity for killing, violence, greed and deceit.

...

They are being called by some the New Atheists, while they might be seen as New Madmen approaching our Christian society with fingers pointed, saying, ``Look at what you've done. You don't really believe or we wouldn't be still living in a world beset with the same moral outrages as in centuries past. It is time to move on.''

...

However bold they might be, nothing is going to change overnight. Tens of thousands of years of fear and faith are not going to wither away without a natural process of evolution.

Aggressive atheists, however, may be part of that process -- helping push consciousness to higher levels that not only don't need religion to live, but don't need it to kill and make war.

Read the rest.

Sudan protesters: Execute teacher

Hundreds of protesters brandishing swords and sticks gathered outside Khartoum's presidential palace Friday to vent their anger against a British teacher jailed for allowing children to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."

About 600 Islamic demonstrators piled out of mosques, chanting: "By soul, by blood, I will fight for the Prophet Mohammed." Some of the protesters demanded the teacher's execution, according to The Associated Press.

The agency reports that some chanted: "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."

This is the world we have created.

Fucking pathetic.

And religion is a "good" thing? Hmmmmm. I'm trying to find the "good" here, people.

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Study: 'Huge jump' in Microsoft flaws since last year

Between 2006 and 2007, there was an almost threefold rise in Microsoft flaws, Qualys said on Wednesday.

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MTV to offer all 'South Park' clips online

MTV Networks plans to make every clip from every episode of hit animated comedy South Park available for free online next year as part of a strategy to reach consumers everywhere.

The decision from the biggest division of media conglomerate Viacom follows on the heels of the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, whose popularity online has helped boost television viewership.

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McCain blames Rise of Hitler on Ron Paul

In a new low of despicable looniness, at the Republican debate in St. Petersburg, John McCain equated those Americans who want to stop militarily occupying Iraq with Hitler-enablers. He actually said that, saying that it was 'isolationism' of a sort that allowed Hitler to come to power.

It gives a person a certain amount of faith in one's fellow Americans that McCain was booed by the Republican crowd for this piece of calumny. Comparisons to Hitler should be automatic grounds for a candidate to be disqualified from being president.

But then McCain is the same person who joked about bombing Iran. He thinks that killing all those children from the air would be funny?

John, buddy,...shut up. You are washed up and irrelevant.

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Blogger Fights for Free Speech in New Jersey

"Bloggers, as well as everyone else, have a First Amendment right to speak anonymously," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Litigants don't get a blank check to pry into the private lives of critics when they say things the litigants don't like. The fact that it is the government trying to abuse the discovery process makes this attempted invasion of privacy all the more repugnant."

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My instant boob job from 36A to 36DD - and the effect it had on men (and women)

But what had inspired this frankly odd behaviour from complete strangers? Quite simply, it was my pair of perfectly perky 36DD breasts.

What they didn't know of course was that they were in fact made of silicone and had been 'added' to my chest the previous day.

...

I realised that a whole lifetime of being checked out, and commented on, like some prize heifer, would drive me quite mad.

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Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA).

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Guliani : "You're all a bunch of morons"

Do you have any idea who last looked at your data?

Yahoo and Google's troubles are probably just the start of what will be another long battle in the war over corporations as agents of control. Left to their own devices, such companies are driven to store as much data as possible for as long as is practical.

We cannot expect that having large warehouses of data on individuals will be free from unintended consequences, especially when there are incentives to try to build highly detailed models of everyone's lives. The price of total personalisation is total surveillance.

Thanks to Luis for the article.

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For toddlers, toy of choice is tech device

Cell phones, laptops, digital cameras and MP3 music players are among the hottest gift items this year. For preschoolers.

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Ron Paul The CandidateMost Hated By Most Jews

So it appears we are faced with Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, though these Alice-in-Wonderland characters are far from harmless. No one else has the blessing of the media and the other behind-the-scene controllers of American life (OK, AIPAC). The only two contenders who call for immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and foreswear any attack on Iran - Republican Congressman Ron Paul and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich - are dismissed as fringe candidates if not nutcases. Paul is a self-proclaimed Libertarian, and Kucinich, who introduced a motion to impeach Vice-President Richard Cheney earlier this month, is regularly ridiculed as a believer in UFOs, especially by his stab-in-the-back fellow Democrats. The implication is that it would be dangerous to entrust the reins of government to either of these wackos. This, despite Bush's belief that he has a hotline directly to God himself.

Read more.

A New Way to Control Weight?

Scientists have found intriguing evidence that one major reason so many people are overweight these days may be as close as the seat of their pants. Literally. According to the researchers, most of us sit too much.

Read more.

Feds Cancel Amazon Customer ID Request

Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.

Just the fact that the feds actually tried to get this information should concern you.

Read more.

High-Tech Drones Joining Miami Police Force

The Miami-Dade police department will begin experimenting with high-tech drones as law enforcement tools beginning next year.

Although the military has been using unmanned aircraft systems for years, this will be the first time they are used in law enforcement.

Read more.

College offers medical plan to employees' pets, denies it to their human companions

A Florida college, after denying employees' domestic partners access to medical insurance, has in turn offered a medical plan for employees' household pets, the Palm Beach Post reports.

In August, medical benefits for human domestic partners of employees were denied due to a tie vote among Palm Beach Community College trustees. While the increase in benefits would not have changed the cost to the college, there was concern about future increases due to higher membership in the group plan.

This is the world we have created.

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Study: Sleep deficit may be impossible to make up

New research suggests an added risk to losing sleep day after day: Humans and animals that have chronic sleep deprivation might reach a point at which the very ability to catch up on lost sleep is damaged, says Fred Turek, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Read more.

Montclair State Unveils Mandatory 'School Phone'

It includes just 50 peak voice minutes a month, but unlimited text messaging to any carrier, unlimited campus-based data usage, and student activated emergency GPS tracking.

Read more.

Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.

Read more.

We are set on a course of 'planet saving' madness

The scare over global warming, and our politicians' response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded.

This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

Read more.

Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study

More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.

Read more.

Fox's Lie Detector Game Show

“This is going to be the talk of the town and knocked out of the park. You’re either going to love it, or think it’s the end of Western civilization. And that’s the stuff that works.”

Fox’s president of alternative entertainment is referring to “The Moment of Truth,” the network’s sure-to-be controversial game show in which contestants are asked a series of highly personal questions while connected to a polygraph machine.

...

Fox’s version works like this: Before the show is taped, a contestant is given a polygraph test and asked 75 questions. Samples include: “Do you really care about the starving children in Africa?” “Are you sexually attracted to one of your wife’s friends?” “Do fat people repulse you?” and “Do you think you’ll still be with your husband five years from now?” Unlike the Colombian version, the show avoids asking about felony-level activities and sticks to revealing family secrets and unearthing private opinions.

The contestant’s responses are determined to be truthful or untruthful by a certified polygraph examiner, but the contestant is not told the results. Within a couple of days after the test, the contestant appears on the show, where he is again asked 21 of their previous questions before a live audience, including family and friends.

Yep. Sure looks like more of the end of civilization to me.

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Should fireplace fires be banned?

The Chronicle reported that "government studies" indicate that 33 percent of all "particulate matter" comes from your fireplace and mine. With all the industry and all the cars in the Bay Area, does anyone actually believe that?

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Forecast: U.S. dollar could plunge 90 pct

A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.

"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."

Read more.

Unfair seizure of coins

The company has been in business for 10 years and they have not been targeted by the U.S. government until now. In fact, both the United States Mint and the Federal Reserve have admitted that what the company was doing was perfectly legal.

What is the reason for the raid by the FBI if the company had been operating lawfully for nearly 10 years?

Earlier this year the company began minting two new coins, the 2008 "Peace Dollar" with the words "STOP THE WAR" on the reverse side and the 2008 coin commemorating the presidential campaign of Ron Paul. The Feds just have to stop Representative Ron Paul somehow, since he is the only presidential candidate who is pro-liberty.

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Labor Party Wins Big in Australia

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.

Good.

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Spreading Democracy

A mother cries as the body of her son is lowered into the grave. He was only nineteen and full of promise when he heard his nation calling and enlisted in the National Guard. He was quickly trained and armed with a rifle, a Vietnam-era flak jacket, and desert boots. His first letter home bore his pride and the conviction that he was bringing democracy and freedom to an oppressed and backward nation. He claimed the battle for hearts and minds would soon be won and he would return to a grateful nation a hero. His next letter confessed the indiscriminate killing, the fear, and the hatred of an entire culture. The conquered, he said, must accept freedom and democracy, even if it is at the point of a gun. There was no third letter. Only a knock on the door and a painfully short visit by two Marines who brought with them the few miserable effects of their son. Nothing of him was found after the car bombing. The father comforted his wife in her misery as he thought back to Vietnam, when a fiction had spread and killed 52,000 other sons.

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Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," Prof Krauss tells New Scientist.

Read more.

44 Years After JFK's Death, New Assassination Plot Revealed

A former Secret Service agent has told WLS-TV there was a plot to kill President Kennedy in Chicago three weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas.

And Oswald acted alone in Dallas?

Read more.

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

...

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

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Cheering for Ron Paul

Given that the overall defense budget is now double what it was when President Bush's father presided over the end of the cold war--even though we don't have a militarily sophisticated enemy in sight--you have to wonder how this president has managed to exceed cold war spending levels. What has he gotten for the trillions wasted? Nothing, when it comes to capturing Osama bin Laden, bringing democracy to Iraq or preventing oil prices from tripling and enriching the ayatollahs of Iran while messing up the American economy.

That money could have paid for a lot of things we could have used here at home. As Rep. Paul points out, for what the Iraq war costs, we could present each family of four a check for $46,000--which exceeds the $43,000 median household income in his Texas district. He asks: "What about the impact of those costs on education, the very thing that so often helps to increase earnings? Forty-six thousand dollars would cover 90 percent of the tuition costs to attend a four-year public university in Texas for both children in that family of four. But, instead of sending kids to college, too often we're sending them to Iraq, where the best news in a long time is they [the insurgents] aren't killing our men and women as fast as they were last month."

Give 'em Hell, Ron.

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Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

...

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

...

"I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet - and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do."

These women seem to not understand that humans, just like every other animal species on the planet, has to reproduce or the species will die out. It's not about "maintaining your genetic line". It's about survival of the species.

Read more, if you must.

Pope to purge the Vatican of modern music

The Pope is considering a dramatic overhaul of the Vatican in order to force a return to traditional sacred music.

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Democrats party of rich, study finds

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts.

Read more.

Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion

Now that biologists in Oregon have reported using cloning to produce a monkey embryo and extract stem cells, it looks more plausible than before that a human embryo will be cloned and that, some day, a cloned human will be born. But not necessarily on this side of the Pacific.

American and European researchers have made most of the progress so far in biotechnology. Yet they still face one very large obstacle — God, as defined by some Western religions.

...

“Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about ‘playing God,’” says Cynthia Fox, the author of “Cell of Cells,” a book about the global race among stem-cell researchers. “Therapeutic cloning in particular jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation.”

...

“Most people in Hindu and Buddhist countries,” Dr. Silver says, “have a root tradition in which there is no single creator God. Instead, there may be no gods or many gods, and there is no master plan for the universe. Instead, spirits are eternal and individual virtue — karma — determines what happens to your spirit in your next life. With some exceptions, this view generally allows the acceptance of both embryo research to support life and genetically modified crops.”

By contrast, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the master creator who gives out new souls to each individual human being and gives humans “dominion” over soul-less plants and animals. To traditional Christians who consider an embryo to be a human being with a soul, it is wrong for scientists to use cloning to create human embryos or to destroy embryos in the course of research.

Read the rest.

Polk School Board Leans Toward Inclusion of Intelligent Design

"If it ever comes to the board for a vote, I will vote against the teaching of evolution as part of the science curriculum," Lofton said. "If (evolution) is taught, I would want to balance it with the fact that we may live in a universe created by a supreme being as well."

The board's majority opinion is at odds with many in Florida's scientific community who strongly support the new, more rigorous science standards, and say intelligent design lacks scientific credibility.

It's amazing this conversation still takes place.

How depressing.

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U.S. government tricks hide trillions in debt

When it comes to financial magic, the government of the United States takes the prize. Sleights of hand and clever distractions by purveyors of line-of-credit mortgages, living-benefit variable annuities and equity-indexed life insurance are clumsy parlour tricks compared with the Big Magic of American politicians.

Consider the proud trumpeting that came from Washington at the close of fiscal 2007. The deficit for the unified budget was, politicians crowed, down to a mere $162.8 billion.

In fact, the U.S. government is overspending at a far greater rate. The total federal debt actually increased by $497.1 billion over the same period.

But politicians of both parties use happy numbers to distract American voters.

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American elites and their fascist terrorists are beginning to realize that the internet is their ultimate enemy

And FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY the suckers and slaves are communicating among ourselves in the millions.

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We're all children of the universe and we have a God given and constitutionally given birthright to SHARE THE WEALTH EQUALLY WITH the entire human species. And this applies to Africans, ghetto victims, those wretched New Orleans families Bush seems to hate so much, Independents, Democrats, Republicans (all those nonsense political names), our neighbors, diverse religious groups, atheists, homosexuals, and people with and without facial hair.

NOTHING SHORT OF THIS is humanly acceptable. These's so much wealth on this planet that EVERYONE should be living fulfilling, creative, and healthy lives.

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Confidence in Brown takes 30-point dive as lost data crisis deepens

THE lost data crisis has sent public confidence in Gordon Brown's government plummeting, a poll revealed last night.

Only about a quarter (26 per cent) of voters said they now considered the Prime Minister's administration "competent and capable" - down 30 points in almost three months.

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Top general urges Brazil to develop nuclear weapons

“We should be technologically prepared to produce a nuclear device,” said the general. He added, “No country can feel safe if it doesn’t develop technology that enables it to defend itself when necessary.”

Barros Moreira said that Brazil’s resources made it a “target” for foreign aggression. “The world lacks water, energy food and minerals,” he said. “Brazil is rich in all of these. For this reason we must put a strong lock on our door.”

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DHS to begin full fingerprint scans for visitors

The Homeland Security Department intends to begin scanning all 10 fingerprints for foreign visitors starting Nov. 29 at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, department officials said Tuesday.

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The 10-finger U.S. Visit scans are being rolled out at U.S. airports and at all land and sea border crossings, with a goal of being fully operational by the end of 2008, according to press reports of the briefing.

Why would anyone choose to visit the United States?

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Woman Dies Of Meningitis After Tongue Piercing

A young Scituate woman has died of viral meningitis after getting an infection from a tongue piercing.

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Babies may make social judgments

Even infants can tell the difference between naughty and nice playmates, and know which to choose, a new study finds.

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Hi-tech Torture

Just when it seems that things cannot get any worse, we learn that U.S. military commanders in Iraq are seeking permission to use a new weapon system. This will be the ultimate torture weapon. Its purpose is to cause excruciating pain, but leave no evidence of wounds on the victim. Imagine this weapon at AbuGhraib or Guantanamo. Imagine this weapon at your local precinct. The Department of Defense has named this weapon system "Active Denial".

Besides torture, this weapon can also be used for crowd control. It is a ray gun which could literally make blood boil. It is based on the same technology as a microwave oven. The human body is comprised mostly of water... think of the sensation of boiling blood. The purpose of this weapon system is to cause an unbearable level of pain so that the victim will submit to the will of the US military or police.

What a beautiful future that awaits us.

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US Congress moves toward passage of domestic spy bill

The vote demonstrated that there is broad support within the Democratic Party beyond Rockefeller for the expanded powers and immunity clause. This year, Rockefeller received $42,000 in political donations from Verizon and AT&T, the two main companies targeted by lawsuits for their role in the NSA domestic spying program.

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Posthumous book claims Ford knew of CIA coverup in Kennedy assassination

According to the publisher of a new book, who appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning, the last living words of former President Gerald Ford fingered the CIA in the orchestration a cover-up of Kennedy's assassination.

Ford, who died late last year, was the longest surviving member of the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination. The new book, "A Presidential Legacy and the Warren Commission," was written by Ford before his death, its publisher claims.

"This book, actually authored by Gerald Ford, finally proves once and for all that the CIA, our government, did destroy documents and cover-up many facts that day in Dallas," publisher Tim Miller told Fox & Friends Wednesday morning.

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Mo. City Outlaws Internet Harassment

City officials unanimously passed a measure Wednesday making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.

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Scientist claims ownership over synthetic life forms

Craig Venter, the scientist who unsuccessfully attempted to map the human genome for profit, has applied for the first ever patent on a human-made life form. Venter has submitted his application at more than 100 national patent offices.

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Venter claims that the artificial life form is designed to synthesize hydrogen or ethanol for use as industrial fuel, and that future synthetic organisms could help absorb carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. But in spite of the purported environmental motivation, many are alarmed by the attempt to synthesize and patent life.

Welcome to the future.

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Happy in their personal lives, Americans worry about country

Like Murray, most in the U.S. say they are personally happy and feel in control of their lives and finances, according to an extensive Associated Press-Yahoo! News survey on the mood of voters. Beneath the surface, though, personal and political discontent is bubbling.

There is a widespread unease—shared by 77 percent—that the country has meandered off in the wrong direction. Nearly all Democrats and more than six in 10 Republicans think the country has taken the wrong course. And although almost half express interest and hope in the upcoming elections, a third voice frustration—particularly Republicans.

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More Evidence We've Entered the End of Oil

There is growing concern within the petroleum industry that we are approaching a limit to the amount of oil that can be pumped each day, and it might arrive before alternative fuels can be adopted on a large enough scale to avert severe energy shortages, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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No one, least of all the oil industry executives quoted by the Journal or the analysts who wrote the World Energy Outlook, is saying the wells will run dry in our lifetime, or even our children's lifetimes. There's still a lot of oil left to be pumped. But there is a growing belief that several factors are converging to create a practical limit to how much we can pull from the earth each day.

In other words, after seeing worldwide production rise an average of 2.3 percent annually since 1965, we may be approaching a plateau beyond which production will not climb. According to the Journal, that ceiling could be 100 million barrels a day, and said we could hit it as early as 2012.

That isn't nearly enough, and it is entirely too soon.

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In the U.S. of A., we are all suspects now

The administration's demand that Congress shield the telecommunications industry from lawsuits for aiding in the systematic warrantless wiretapping of Americans has far less to do with protecting national security than its own exposed flanks.

Make no mistake, telecom immunity is about keeping a flagrantly illegal program from public scrutiny and maintaining the illusion that the president ordered a small, precision surveillance program, when the opposite is true.

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A myth in the unmaking

Fox News's status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction.

Have you not been paying attention for the last 11 years?

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Oh, the irony!

America is getting ready to celebrate one of its biggest holidays. And while it has been given a name which dishes out thoughts of warmth and friendship, the reality is that it should be called for what it is "A Celebration of Illegal Immigration and theft."

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Drug That Lengthens Eyelashes Sets Off Flutter

In the latest blurring of the line between cosmetics and drugs, new products that promise to make eyelashes look longer are causing a stir among physicians and regulators because they contain ingredients that are the same or similar to those in prescription drugs for an eye disease.

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UK's families put on fraud alert

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people.

"Gone missing"?

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Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

And we're supposed to "support the troops" by putting a stupid sticker on our car or wearing a stupid flag pin. In reality, this story is an example of how our troops are being "supported."

If you want to support the troops, then demand that they be brought home immediately.

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McClellan blames Bush for CIA leak deceit

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

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Scientists Find Fossil of Enormous Bug

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.

"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.

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Stem Cell Breakthrough Is Like 'Turning Lead Into Gold'

In an unprecedented feat of biological alchemy, researchers have turned human skin cells into stem cells that hold the same medical promise as the controversial embryonic stem cells.

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Apple Spies on iPhone Users, Hackers Claim

While there's no evidence that Apple actually uses this information for any purpose, good or evil, the code shows that every time you try to access detailed information on whatever stock, your IMEI will be sent embedded in the URL. This could be cross-referenced with IP location and the information in Apple or its partner's databases to gather extremely valuable data for marketing purposes.

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Sex scandal hits Atlanta-area megachurch

The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother's wife and fathered a child by her.

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MICROCHIPS AND CANCER

CASPIAN's new report, "Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990–2006," is a definitive review of research showing a causal link between implanted radio-frequency (RFID) microchip transponders and cancer in laboratory rodents and dogs.

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Dying to date

If you're younger than 30 or maybe even 35, you may not recognize the word "date" as a verb. But once upon a time, dating was something men and women did as a prelude to marriage, which - hold on to your britches - was a prelude to sex.

By now everyone's heard of the hook-up culture prevalent on college campuses and, increasingly, in high schools and even middle schools. Kids don't date; they just do it (or something close to "it," an activity that a recent president asserted was not actual sex), and then figure out what comes next. If anything.

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Because sex ed is based on the assumption that young people are sexually active with multiple partners, kids have been led to believe by mainstream health professionals that casual sex is OK. That's a delusion, says Grossman, because scientific data clearly indicate otherwise. Casual sex is, in fact, a serious health risk.

Humans are supposed to have sex. Why do I always have to remind people of this?

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Hundreds of thousands of women raped for being on the wrong side

Rape has been used to terrorise and punish civilians in Congo who support the "wrong side", and it is perhaps no coincidence that it was also a tool of genocide in the mass murder of the Tutsis. Sexual violence is now so widespread that the medical aid charity, Médecins sans Frontières, says that 75% of all the rape cases it deals with worldwide are in eastern Congo. Darfur is a distant second.

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Human rights groups described gang rapes as commonplace and often accompanied by "barbaric" acts of torture with victims beaten with clubs, cut with knives or sexually assaulted with guns. Many young women have been abducted into sexual slavery.

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Food pantries struggling with shortages

Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many pantries and food banks to cut portions.

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Teachers Should Blog, Tweet and Flirt Online Like the Rest of Us

What would you do if your employer told you not to use MySpace, Match.com and Second Life because those sites are "too dangerous" and "inappropriate" for you?

If you're a teacher in Ohio, you'd better think twice before you answer, because it's not a hypothetical question. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the state's teacher's unions recommend that teachers not post profiles on social networking or online dating sites because it could lead to the appearance of improper relationships with students.

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23AndMe Will Decode Your DNA for $1,000. Welcome to the Age of Genomics

This winter marks the birth of a new industry: Companies will take a sample of your DNA, scan it, and tell you about your genetic future, as well as your ancestral past. A much-anticipated Silicon Valley startup called 23andMe offers a thorough tour of your genealogy, tracing your DNA back through the eons. Sign up members of your family and you can track generations of inheritance for traits like athletic endurance or bitter-taste blindness. The company will also tell you which diseases and conditions are associated with your genes — from colorectal cancer to lactose intolerance — giving you the ability to take preventive action. A second company, called Navigenics, focuses on matching your genes to current medical research, calculating your genetic risk for a range of diseases.

The advent of retail genomics will make a once-rare experience commonplace. Simply by spitting into a vial, customers of these companies will become early adopters of personalized medicine. We will not live according to what has happened to us (that knee injury from high school or that 20 pounds we've gained since college) nor according to what happens to most Americans (the one-in-three chance men have of getting cancer, or women have of dying from heart disease, or anyone has for obesity). We will live according to what our own specific genetic risks predispose us toward.

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Why Is The US Dollar Loosing so Much Value? ...

Going back a little in time; by the late in 1960's, the US Govt. started racking up big debts & deficits, one of the reasons for the big increase in debts and deficits was the unexpectedly large expenses incurred waging the Vietnam war (sound familiar)... at that time, the US Govt. was spending more money than they could legally print under the amount of Gold it held in reserve... the US Govt. desperately needed to print more money to fund their war and debts than their Gold reserves would allow, so the US Govt. simply decided to re-write laws (regardless of their long-term financial consequences & Constitutional law) and started the de-coupling process away from backing the US Dollar with precious metals.

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Now passengers need ID to travel within Britain

Passengers on domestic flights and ferries between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland will be required to carry identity papers for the first time from next year.

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US plans new space weapons against China

Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate beyond the Earth's atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.

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We must not tolerate this putsch against our freedoms

Welcome to Fortress Britain, a fortress that will keep people in as well as out. Welcome to a state that requires you to answer 53 questions before you're allowed to take a day trip to Calais. Welcome to a country where you will be stopped, scanned and searched at any of 250 railways stations, filmed at every turn, barked at by a police force whose behaviour has given rise to a doubling in complaints concerning abuse and assaults.

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We now accept with apparent equanimity that the state has the right to demand to know, among other things, how your ticket has been paid for, the billing address of any card used, your travel itinerary and route, your email address, details of whether your travel arrangements are flexible, the history of changes to your travel plans plus any biographical information the state deems to be of interest or anything the ticket agent considers to be of interest.

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Those failing to provide satisfactory answers will not be allowed to travel and then it will come to us with a leaden regret that we have in practice entered the era of the exit visa, a time when we must ask permission from a security bureaucrat who insists on further and better particulars in the biographical section of the form. Ten, 15 or more years on, we will be resigned to the idea that the state decides whether we travel or not.

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The Prime Minister is found of quoting Churchill, so I will again: 'If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only precarious chance for survival.'

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Attacking Iran: Americans will kill even their own

The background to my conclusion is rooted in the doctrine of colonization: looting other people’s wealth and enslaving them, while killing outright those who resist. And this seems to be the dominant doctrine in Washington today.

It is a doctrine that has never changed from the earliest days of European settlement of the Americas. The cost of colonialist looting was, and still is, considered limitless - so high, in fact, that the price tag includes scarifying the lives of your own people.

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Talking camera aimed at sex on the beach

The county is exploring the idea of installing "talking" cameras at several of the public beaches to ward off or catch people engaged in public sex.

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Famed NASA Astronaut confirms Extraterrestrials are here

During an earlier interview, Dr. Musgrave stated he attempted to communicate with ET life forms during each of his six missions. He actually asked them to take him with them. Now that's an astronaut with a lot of courage. Dr. Musgrave retired after this flight from NASA. Since then he's been spreading his considered opinion that alien life exists. When Musgrave speaks of this, it's no great leap for one to assume he's admitting knowledge of alien life. As the final slide of a "Grey" ET was shown during a recent astronomy presentation by Dr. Musgrave, he made this surprising comment: "These guys are real... I guarantee it!"

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What Real DOJ Trial Attorneys Say About Torture

If there is one thing the Bush administration is good at, it's talking points: simple, stupid slogans. And when it comes to torture, the theme du jour is that we are all too simple and too stupid to understand just what is and is not prohibited. More than anything, White House officials want us to believe that the law of torture is so terribly confusing and vague that no lay person could comprehend its complexities. Hell, not even the attorneys can really sort it all out. How, then, the not-so-subtle implication would be, could anyone be held responsible for violating it?

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Pioneering 'heat wave' gun may be used in Iraq

Washington fears a barrage of adverse publicity in the suspicious Muslim world and is concerned that critics will claim the invisible beam weapons were being used for torture.

Ah, the accomplishments of humanity

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A world dying, but can we unite to save it?

Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world's governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process – thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years – is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse.

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Fundamentalism and World War IV

Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power.
-- Salman Rushdie

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Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.

Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

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New vending machine can identify minors

A cigarette vending machine that can tell adults from minors by determining their approximate ages based on bone structure, wrinkles and the way their skin sags went on sale Monday.

Look beyond the "cigarette vending machine" idea.

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Police to search for guns in homes

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.

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Anti-P2P college bill advances in House

The U.S. House of Representatives has taken a step toward approving a Hollywood-backed spending bill requiring universities to consider offering "alternatives" and "technology-based deterrents" to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.

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Some university representatives and fair-use advocates worry that schools run the risk of losing aid for their students if they fail to come up with the required plans.

A dangerous path to travel.

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