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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
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  • 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,
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  • 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,
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  • 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
chasejw

BBC NEWS | Americas | US chain drops 'terror scarf' ad - 0 views

  • The US chain Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an advert following complaints that the scarf worn by a celebrity chef offered symbolic support for Islamic extremism. The online advert for iced coffee featured the well-known
  • television chef Rachael Ray.
  • She was wearing a black-and-white checked scarf around her neck that resembled a traditional Arab keffiyeh.
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  • Other criticism followed and the coffee and doughnuts chain has now decided to drop the advert.
  • n a statement, Dunkin' Donuts said the silk scarf had been "selected by Rachael Ray's stylist and that no symbolism was intended.
chasejw

BBC NEWS | Health | US child obesity 'hits plateau' - 0 views

  • Child obesity rates may have reached a plateau in the US after decades of almost continuous rises
  • An analysis of data from 1999 to 2006 by the US government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed obesity rates stable at 16%.
  • The US data was based on a survey of over 8,000 children aged between two and 19. The Journal of the American Medical Association report comes after the obesity rate has been rising for three decades.
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  • One theory for the trend is that public health campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the problem and improving school meals have had a positive impact. Another suggestion is that there has been a natural levelling off related to the proportion of the population who are susceptible to obesity.
chasejw

BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2' - 0 views

  • The scientist who coined the term "global warming" in the 1970s has proposed a radical solution to the problem of climate change. Wallace Broecker advocated millions of "carbon scrubbers" - giant artificial trees to pull CO2 from the air.
  • He said some 20 million of the scrubbing devices would be required to capture all the CO2 currently produced in the US.
  • 60 million of the devices would be needed worldwide at an estimated cost of $600bn (£303bn) a year.
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  • The towers would be about 50ft high and 8ft in diameter, and use a special type of plastic to absorb the CO2.
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.
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  • 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

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
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  • 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

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
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  • 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.
sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Health | Call for junk food ad clampdown - 0 views

  • Call for junk food ad clampdown
  • Junk food advertising makes it difficult to feed children a healthy diet, a consumer survey suggests.
  • Which? found 83% of those polled believed irresponsible marketing was making it harder to encourage children to eat well.
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  • A ban on adverts for junk food during television programmes aimed at children under 16 came into force in January.
  • industry leaders said advertising in the UK is already heavily regulated.
  • And most of the 2,000 questioned want the government to do more to control the marketing of unhealthy food to children.
  • Which? said rules governing junk food advertising on the internet and on packaging were weak or non-existent, while current regulations on television advertising did not apply to the programmes most watched by children.
  • New types of promotions, like online and text messaging, have given food companies a whole new playground to promote unhealthy products to children.
  • With childhood obesity and diet-related health problems on the increase, the government must take serious action and soon."
  • "Our members take a responsible approach to the way they market their products and further restrictions would seem to be neither necessary nor proportionate."
  • "The reality is that the advertising industry takes a very responsible approach to food advertising. "There has been a real change in the nature and balance of food advertising to children."
sirgabrial

The latest trend in medicine - virtual reality - Times Online - 0 views

  • The latest trend in medicine - virtual reality
  • Doctors are now using the technology to treat many disorders, from phobias to addictions
  • Although virtual reality (VR), or computer-simulated environments, sound like a premise that would excite only computer geeks and Star Trek fans, doctors and scientists are increasingly using it to treat a range of disorders, from fear of public speaking and flying, to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers returning from Iraq.
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  • used to treat drink and drug addictions, and even to help people give up smoking.
  • can help people test out their fears and practise different ways of coping.
  • They can take the confidence gained in VR into the real world
  • Dr Page Anderson, a psychologist at Georgia State University, has used VR technology to help people overcome their fears of flying and public speaking.
  • facing your fears
  • Facing fears in a virtual world is much more appealing than facing them in real-life
  • smells are delivered through an electronic scent machine.
  • distinct lack of realism
  • Dr Anderson, who has had patients cry and suffer panic attacks on virtual flights.
  • Binge-eating
  • Stroke
  • Burns
sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Platypus genetic code unravelled - 0 views

  • Platypus genetic code unravelled
  • cientists have deciphered the genetic blueprint of the duck-billed platypus, one of the oddest creatures on Earth.
  • The animal comes from an early branch of the mammal family, and like mammals it is covered in fur and produces milk. However, it lays eggs like a reptile.
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  • Researchers say this unique mixture of features is reflected in its DNA.
  • holds clues to how humans and other mammals first evolved
  • But it is the only member of the monotremes (egg laying mammals) for which we have a genetic blueprint.
  • The platypus is so strange that it was considered a hoax when sent from Australia to European researchers in the 19th Century.
  • "It has a very weird appearance because it's a mishmash of the bill of a duck, the eyes of a mole, the eggs of a lizard and the tail of a beaver," Dr Ponting told BBC News.
  • "One big surprise was the patchwork nature of the genome with avian, reptilian and mammalian features,
  • The platypus and the small spiny mammal known as the echidna are the only existing species of monotremes in the world.
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.
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  • 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,"
sirgabrial

Epilepsy Site Hacked With Seizure Images, Web Site Bombarded With Pictures And Links To... - 0 views

  • Epilepsy Site Hacked With Seizure Images
  • Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims.
  • But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
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  • The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons
  • The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation's publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site's support forums.
  • Within the hackers' posts were small flashing pictures and links - masquerading as helpful - to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
  • "They were out to create seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation.
  • He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
  • Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of Web sites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.
  • In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people
sirgabrial

Circuit City Gives Up the Fight - 0 views

  • Circuit City Gives Up the Fight
  • The electronics chain puts out the "For Sale" sign, hiring Goldman Sachs to assist on a deal, most likely with Blockbuster
  • Circuit City is finally throwing in the towel. Confronted with weak sales, impatient shareholders, and a U.S. consumer pummeled by recession, the electronics chain capitulated on May 9 and retained Goldman Sachs to help negotiate a deal.
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  • no other buyers have emerged wanting Circuit City.
  • likely to Blockbuster (BBI), where Carl Icahn has stepped up and agreed to finance (BusinessWeek.com, 5/9/08) a Circuit City acquisition. The billionaire—Blockbuster's largest shareholder—has bought into a "game-changing" scheme announced last month in which the troubled electronics retailer would be combined with the troubled movie retailer to create a new national chain selling consumer hardware and software.
  • Circuit City is in an extremely competitive business with heavy pressure from Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). At the same time, Circuit City comes saddled with 682 locations, many of which are in poor and underperforming areas, a fact that CEO Philip Schoonover often refers to when discussing his company's poor performance.
  • Its moribund prospects are likely to turn even gloomier, with U.S. consumer spending in the doldrums and unlikely to recover in the near term.
  • In March, the Commerce Dept. reported that spending grew just 0.1% and much of that was for necessities such as medical care and haircuts, not the electronics gear found at Circuit City and rivals.
sirgabrial

CCTV boom has not cut crime, says police chief - Times Online - 0 views

  • CCTV boom has not cut crime, says police chief
  • Billions of pounds spent on Britain’s 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras has not had a significant impact on crime, according to the senior police officer piloting a new database.
  • Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.
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  • Mr Neville, who heads the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) unit, told the Security Document World Conference that the use of CCTV images as evidence in court has been very poor.
  • “Billions of pounds have been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court,” he told the conference.
  • The aim of the Viido unit is to improve the way that CCTV footage is processed, turning it into a third forensic specialism alongside DNA analysis and fingerprinting.
  • Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country in Europe.
  • Viido had launched a series of initiatives including a new database of images that will be used to track and identify offenders using software developed for the advertising industry.
  • This works by following distinctive brand logos on the clothing of unidentified suspects. By backtracking through images officers have often found earlier pictures of suspects where they have not been hiding their features.
  • Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said: “We would expect adequate safeguards to be put in place to ensure the images are used only for crime detection purposes, stored securely and that access to images is restricted to authorised individuals.
barnaby

Einstein letter calls Bible 'pretty childish' - Faith- msnbc.com - 0 views

  • letter being auctioned in London
  • written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."
  • expected to fetch between $12,000 and $16,000.
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  • expressed complex and arguably contradictory views on faith, perceiving a universe suffused with spirituality while rejecting organized religion.
barnaby

FOX Sports on MSN - More Sports - - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 14 May 08 - Cached
  • Bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympics
  • Indian Olympic Association has proclaimed it plans a pitch for New Delhi.
  • yoga in the Olympics.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Korean martial art taekwondo is in the Olympics
  • athletic, artistic and rhythmic yoga
  • Competitive yoga is a sport in some Indian schools today. Less known is that in most years since 1989 there has been a World-Wide Yoga Championship
  • it has far fewer participants than yoga
  • just the start of his list of Olympic events that yoga surpasses.
  • demonstrating a position in which she twists her feet behind her neck while balancing on one hand
  • two team members struck synchronized poses as required by the "artistic pair" competition
  • Judges score on flowing movement, steadiness and perfection of line and, in the words of Mr. Gopal, "a lack of stress and strain on the face."
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