Skip to main content

Home/ binaryoppositionpublic/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by barnaby

Contents contributed and discussions participated by barnaby

barnaby

Mystery deepens over disappearing merchant ship | Reuters - 0 views

  • The mystery surrounding a missing merchant ship
  • vessel's operator suggesting piracy
  • Maltese-registered vessel, carrying a $1.3-million cargo of timber, was supposed to have docked on August 4 in the Algerian port of Bejaia
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Mikhail Boytenko, editor of Russia's respected Sovfracht maritime journal, said that the ship may have been carrying a secret cargo
  • smells of some sort of state involvement.
  • European waters
  • Piracy is rare in European waters with only a couple of recent incidents involving private yachts in the Mediterranean.
  • GHOST SHIP?
  • safety of the 15-member Russian crew were raised after the Malta Maritime Authority said it received reports the ship had been boarded by armed men in masks posing as anti-drugs police in Swedish waters on July 24.
  • Swedish authorities said none of its law enforcement agencies had been involved.
barnaby

Microsoft Word Ban Sparked By 4-Page Complaint -- InformationWeek - 0 views

  • Word and other Microsoft technologies, including Windows Vista and .NET Framework, violate an obscure patent that governs how computer programs manipulate certain information within a document.
  • Judge Leonard Davis, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, on Tuesday ruled that Word
  • does indeed step on U.S. patent 5,787,449
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "unlawfully infringed" on i4i's patent.
  • ban would take effect in mid-October. Davis also ordered Microsoft to pay i4i more than $240 million in damages and costs.
barnaby

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE: Mexico moves quietly to decriminalize minor drug use - Los Angeles ... - 0 views

  • Could Mexican cities become Latin Amsterdams, flooded by drug users seeking penalty-free tokes and toots
  • That is the fear, if somewhat overstated, of some Mexican officials
    • barnaby
       
      really cause i'd think more tourism would be benefitial
  • claimed more than 11,000 lives since he took office in late 2006
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Calderon who proposed the decriminalization legislation.
  • It makes sense to distinguish between small-time users and big-time dealers,
  • Up to 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, a synthetic and especially harmful drug, is permitted under the legislation, as is up to 50 milligrams of heroin.
  • U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, however, said in April that legalization "would be a failed law enforcement strategy for both the U.S. and Mexico."
    • barnaby
       
      and you were a failed DEA director the moment you took office
barnaby

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE: Gun flow south is a crisis for two nations - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

  • The United States lacks a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of weapons smuggled across its southern border, a failure that has fueled the rise of powerful criminal cartels and violence in Mexico
  • the growing number of weapons being smuggled into Mexico comprise more than 90% of the seized firearms
barnaby

Neighborhood Stabilization Program needs beefing up, critics say - Tampa Bay Business J... - 0 views

  • A federal plan directing municipalities to buy up a handful of foreclosed properties to curtail neighborhood blight may be championed by local leaders, but the business community isn’t convinced it’s going to have any impact on record high foreclosure rates.
  • A federal plan directing municipalities to buy up a handful of foreclosed properties to curtail neighborhood blight may be championed by local leaders, but the business community isn’t convinced it’s going to have any impact on record high foreclosure rates.
  • Congress created the Neighborhood Stabilization Program in July, which is divvying up $3.9 billion nationally and $98.8 million locally.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • effort to get some foreclosures off the market and to partner with outside groups and companies to convert those properties into affordable housing.
  • When you go up and down the streets, 20 to 40 percent of the houses there don’t even have people living in them,” said Cynthia Miller, Tampa’s growth management and development services administrator. “We have to do the best with what we’ve got, so we’re just looking at certain streets so that we can have some land assemblage. This is all about neighborhood stabilization, and we want to make sure vacant structures don’t become a problem.”
barnaby

Woman who fled prison in '76 gets probation - Crime & courts- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 28 Sep 08 - Cached
  • A California woman who escaped from a Michigan prison 32 years ago and lived on the lam as a suburban mother was sentenced to probation Wednesday
  • Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner said LeFevre had already served 14 months in prison on a drug conviction when she escaped.
  • "The court finds no reason to give you extra time," said Groner, who ordered two years of probation.
barnaby

Chertoff: Aviation still vulnerable to terror - Security- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 28 Sep 08 - Cached
  • The nation's top domestic security official says aviation still remains vulnerable to terrorist attack, seven years after 9/11.
barnaby

Bush sidesteps court ruling on warming - Climate Change- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 17 Jul 08 - Cached
  • The Bush administration on Friday rejected regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, saying it would cause too many job losses.
  • kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress.
  • The White House on Thursday rejected EPA's conclusion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act "can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change."
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with climate change.
  • President Bush is committed to further reductions but that there is a "right way and a wrong way to deal with climate change."
  • The wrong way is "to sharply increase gasoline prices, home heating bills and the cost of energy for American businesses," she said. "The right way, as the president has proposed, is to invest in new technologies."
    • barnaby
       
      the wrong way is whatever bush says is wrong, the right is is the way he says is right. he is my god and knows all
  • Bush and other world leaders called for a voluntary 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases worldwide by 2050 but offered no specifics on how to do it.
  • Supreme Court ruled last year that the government has authority under the Clean Act to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant.
  • Bush has consistently opposed that option.
    • barnaby
       
      and ignored the supreme court ruling
barnaby

Sick orphan baby finds a family in Miami NICU - Kids and parenting- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 17 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Emma was given up twice
  • birth mothe
  • 48-year-old adoptive mother who backed out when she learned of Emma's heart condition and of her own pregnancy
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Now the baby was having an enormously risky procedure to give her the pulmonary artery she was missing.
  • also found out she has DiGeorge syndrome, a genetic disorder whose symptoms include a weak immune system.
  • Teddy bears starting turning up in the newborn's bed. Bright pink bows began adorning her head. Nurses made a point to pop into her room and hold her.
barnaby

Palm resurrected from 2,000-year-old seed - LiveScience- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 22 Jun 08 - Cached
  • new sapling was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old date palm excavated in Masada
  • Dubbed the "Methuselah Tree"
  • after 26 months, the tree was nearly four-feet
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • now extinct in Israel,
  • researchers are hoping that by reviving the plant they may be able to study its medicinal uses.
  • Carbon dating of the seeds found at Masada revealed that they date from roughly the time of the ancient fortress' siege, in A.D. 73
  • So far, Methuselah is the only one to sprout.
  • "When we look at ancient sources and Hebrew texts, the dates were used for all kinds of things — pulmonary problems, tuberculosis, dysentery, cancer. We think of it today as just a food. But in fact the date wasn't just a food."
barnaby

AC/DC to sell new album through Wal-Mart: paper | Markets | Markets News | Reuters - 0 views

  • Rock band AC/DC will sell its new album only through Wal-Mart Stores
  • AC/DC album is expected to come out in the fall
barnaby

Calif. clerk wants 1st legal gay marriage - Life- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 31 May 08 - Cached
  • For 18 years, Stephen Weir has been in charge of the office that hands out marriage licenses in California's ninth-largest county. And for just as long, Weir has been unable to get a license himself because the love of his life is a man.
  • hopes the citizens of Contra Costa County understand if their clerk-recorder invokes executive privilege and opens up for business a little early on June 17, when same-sex couples may be able to legally wed in California.
  • He and his partner
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • plan to be the first to exchange vows and kisses in the conference room Weir converted into a wedding chapel that hosts 1,200 couples a year
  • says Weir
  • "It's a big deal."
  • One happy byproduct is that Weir should be able to get Hemm on his long-term health plan. They already have stood by each other in sickness and in health: Hemm has AIDS.
barnaby

Brazil shows 'uncontacted' Amazon tribe - Science- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 31 May 08 - Cached
  • Brazil's government agreed to release stunning photos of Amazon Indians firing arrows at an airplane so that the world can better understand the threats facing one of the few tribes still living in near-total isolation from civilization
  • Anthropologists have known about the group for some 20 years but released the images now to call attention to fast-encroaching development near the Indians' home
  • "We put the photos out because if things continue the way they are going, these people are going to disappear," said Jose Carlos Meirelles,
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Brazil's National Indian Foundation believes there may be as many as 68 "uncontacted" groups around Brazil, although only 24 have been officially confirmed.
  • Anthropologists say almost all of these tribes know about western civilization and have sporadic contact with prospectors, rubber tappers and loggers, but choose to turn their backs on civilization, usually because they have been attacked.
  • Brazilian officials once tried to contact such groups. Now they try to protectively isolate them.
  • our tribes monitored by Meirelles include perhaps 500 people who roam over an area of about 1.6 million acres.
  • Loggers are closing in on the Indians' homeland — Brazil's environmental protection agency said Friday it had shut down 28 illegal sawmills in Acre state, where these tribes are located
barnaby

Native Americans Taking Back the Land | Newsweek Culture | Newsweek.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 31 May 08 - Cached
  • Across the country, Native American tribes are snapping up property with the cash that's flowing in from slot machines, blackjack tables and roulette wheels
  • they're using their newfound fortune to invest in land for housing, businesses, farming, hunting and fishing grounds, grazing lands for cattle and buffalo—or simply returning it to the wild.
  • Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservations in northeast Oregon spent $20 million to acquire roughly 30,000 acres, about a third of which they are returning to its natural conditions,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • many people who've arrived over the last century and a half see this Native American land grab as a drain on their tax base and powers of economic development.
  • tribal leaders are increasingly removing the land from tax rolls by placing it into federal trust.
  • government officials and critics are trying to fend off the Native American's land rush.
  • "I don't think in the modern world it makes any sense to tie any individual rights to a tribal entity that is unaccountable," said David Vickers, president of Upstate Citizens for Equality in Verona, N.Y., an organization which disputes the notion of Native American sovereignty. "It's possible to maintain cultural identity without establishing a separate land base."
    • barnaby
       
      Their land base that we stole
barnaby

U.S.: No funds to run pesticide survey - Environment - MSNBC.com - 0 views

  • Consumers and farmers will soon be on their own when it comes to finding out which pesticides are being sprayed on everything from corn to apples.
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday it plans to do away with publishing its national survey tracking pesticide use
  • despite opposition from prominent scientists
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • the nation's largest farming organizations and environmental groups.
  • Since 1990, farmers and consumer advocates have relied on the agency's detailed annual report
  • which states apply the most pesticides and where bug and weed killers are most heavily sprayed to help cotton, grapes and oranges grow.
  • uses the fine-grained data when figuring out how chemicals should be regulated, and which pesticides pose the greatest risk to public health.
  • program was cut because the agency could no longer afford to spend the $8 million the survey sapped from its $160 million annual budget.
  • could find similar data from private sources.
  • $500,000 it costs to buy a full set of the privately collected data each year
  • Eliminating the program "will mean farmers will be subjected to conjecture and allegations about their use of chemicals and fertilizer,"
  • Pesticide companies also rely on the program when they're looking to reregister agricultural chemicals
  • only do key surveys. Those include the monthly crop report, which influences commodity prices on the futures market, and livestock reports, which set the price for hogs and cattle.
    • barnaby
       
      spend money on money but not health
  • What we'll end up doing is understanding pesticide use through getting accident reports," said Steve Scholl-Buckwald, managing director at the San Francisco nonprofit Pesticide Action Network. "And that's a lousy way to protect public health."
barnaby

STLtoday - 17 residents of Gerald sue over fake DEA agent - 0 views

  • 2 officers have been fired as a result of the incident, in which residents said they were threatened and suffered damage.
  • Seventeen current or former residents of the Franklin County town of Gerald have filed suits alleging that that their arrests were illegal because a fake federal agent helped make them.
  • 36-year-old man accused of duping Gerald officials into believing that he was a federal agent on loan from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • conducted drug raids and made arrests
  • police chief and two officers have been fired over the incident.
  • Gerald police officers burst into
  • the fake agent
  • personal property and took money.
  • homes in April and May, made arrests, damaged
  • some of those arrested had guns placed to their heads.
  • officials and police should have better verified Jakob's identity.
barnaby

Iraqi court rulings stop at U.S. sites - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 25 May 08 - Cached
  • In the eyes of Iraqi justice, Yahya Ali Humadi is a free man.
  • To the U.S. military, he's another of the detainees in yellow jumpsuits held at the sprawling Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
  • ordered released nine months ago after an Iraqi judge dropped all charges
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • confronted and confounded thousands of other Iraqis since 2003 who have been freed by their nation's courts but remained in U.S. custody.
  • amnesty rulings could offer an early exit for many of the 27,000 prisoners in Iraqi hands.
  • Commanders say the current international mandate in Iraq, as well as general codes of war, allow them to hold any prisoner until the detainee is no longer considered a threat to U.S. forces.
  • faced by about 3,000 Iraqis since 2003 and stand as a sharp contrast between U.S. policies on the battlefield and Washington's appeals for Iraqis to build credible civic institutions.
  • "I don't know why the U.S. army brought him to an Iraqi court, if they intend to keep him for an unlimited time," said Humadi's lawyer, Samiya al-Baghdadi.
  • could wipe the slate for hundreds of the roughly 22,000 detainees held by the U.S. military
  • "The U.S. army's refusal to release my husband shows that the Americans do not care about how Iraqis suffer," Sundis Nimaa, Humadi's 34-year-old wife said
  • "They have brought my family down and they have separated the children from their father," she told The Associated Press. "They think they can do whatever they like because they have the upper hand in this country."
  • accuses Washington of rejecting the very legal system it helped forge.
  • the detention system is authorized by a U.N. resolution under which the Iraqi government allows U.S. troops to detain people at will.
  • complies with international laws covering warfare and was created in "the spirit" of the Geneva Conventions.
  • designed to take fighters off the streets, not determine guilt or innocence.
barnaby

Mom indicted in MySpace suicide - Crime & courts- msnbc.com - 0 views

  • federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.
  • helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.
  • hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.
  • first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case
  • Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison
  • members agree to abide by terms of service
  • not promoting information they know to be false or misleading
  • soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18
  • not using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."
  • conspired to violate the service terms from about September 2006 to mid-October that year,
  • egistered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the account to obtain information on the girl.
  • "used the information obtained over the MySpace computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile MySpace member,"
  • After the girl killed herself, Drew and the others deleted the information for the account
  • 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.
  • Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.
  • Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her
  • supposed to end the online relationship
  • "I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace,"
barnaby

Dirt problem overlooked in food crisis - Science- msnbc.com - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 17 May 08 - Cached
  • Science has provided the souped-up seeds to feed the world
  • the problem is the dirt they're planted in.
  • much of the world's soil is getting worse
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • about one-fifth of the world's cropland considered degraded
  • cut production by about one-sixth
  • The cause of the current global food crisis is mostly based on market forces, speculation and hoarding
  • "Even the best seeds can't do anything in sand and gravel."
  • Genetic improvements in corn make it possible to grow up to 9,000 pounds of corn per acre in Africa. But millions of poor African farmers only get about 500 pounds an acre "because over the years, their soils have become very infertile and they can't afford to purchase fertilizers,"
1 - 20 of 130 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page