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Week To Quakes?

Dec. 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 PM

(Web Bot Project) -- Since the predictive linguistics have these 'twin quakes' coming up (window opens in a week temporally) a great email from a well-versed reader on some of the things Californians might want to ponder:

"George, As you know California has had three great earthquakes in the last 150 years. Two have occurred on the San Andreas fault. Both were mammoth; 1906 San Francisco quake 7.7-8.2 and the 1857 Ft. Tejon quake 7.9-8.1. A major quake occurs on the San Andreas fault on average every 140 years......so we're overdue by 10 years.

I'll list 4 scenarios within the 32-36 N. Latitudes.

1. Colorado River/All American Canal: Western U.S. bread basket for winter vegetables is the Imperial valley/Mexicali. The San Andreas ends near the Salton Sea and the San Jacinto fault begins on the Westside of the Salton sea and extends southward to the Gulf of California. A larger quake here could rupture open the Gulf of California allowing a channel of water to move in through Mexico and merger with the Salton Sea. There is a 100 mile from Indio to the Mexican border that is below sea level. A smaller quake would disrupt waterways including the All American canal, the largest irrigation canal in the world creating significant damage to the crops. It would take a huge rupture to force water inland not likely but faintly possible.

Most of So Cal water is imported; LA aqueduct from Owens Valley, California aqueduct from the state water project and the Colorado River aqueduct. All three aqueducts cross the San Andreas fault. The great fear is not transpiration disruption but unavailable water.

2. The Colorado River aqueduct parallels the San Andreas fault separated by a distance of 1-5 miles from Coachella Valley west to Banning about 40 miles. After crossing the fault near Banning in Riverside County the water is deposited in Lake Mathews for distribution throughout LA, Orange and San Diego counties. A good size quake here would produce water disruptions and shutdowns.

3. Half of all Southern California water usages comes from the California aqueduct. The California aqueduct transports water 450 miles from Sacramento River delta to Los Angeles. The California aqueduct crosses the San Andreas fault through Cajon pass north of San Bernardino. The water is then distributed through all of So Cal. The San Andreas fault passes through Northern LA county on the north of the San Gabriel mountains. Unfortunately that is where the California aqueduct is located. The aqueduct is tucked in next to the San Andreas fault for about 35 miles. At this point the aqueduct heads Northwest to tie in with the Los Angeles aqueduct while the fault maintains a more westerly direction lifting to 4,000ft as the fault precedes through Ft. Tejon. A Ft.Tejon type quake with similar magnitude would more than likely result in equipment failure and cracks/leakage along miles of the canal.

4. San Luis Dam: The California aqueduct parallels the San Andreas fault along the Westside of the San Joaquin Valley for 170 miles......separated by 10/30 miles. The water is stored in the San Luis reservoir/lake. The reservoir is a huge man made lake supported by the San Luis Dam. The Dam is 25 miles east of the San Andreas fault. 20 miles west of San Luis Dam is the city of Hollister....."earthquake capital of the U.S." Southwest of Hollister only a few miles west of the San Andreas fault is the "salad capital of the world" the Salinas Valley. A major quake in this area could create major/minor agricultural shortages but a significant crack in the Dam could be a disaster..... the damage would be relative to the amount of water stored in the lake. Right now the dams in the Sierras are holding little water.

5. Bay area slips: A large bay area quake off the Hayward fault causes sea water to rush into the shipping channels of the Sacramento Delta flooding thousands of acres, busting levies and mixing seawater with fertile soil.

Again, we hope to be wrong on the quakes, or that they happen in areas where there's no impact, but we should know in about two weeks whether we're right or wrong...We don't know, for example if the 32-36 latitude band is north or south, and even if north, that could still cover the New Madrid region. Dramamine ready? Stand by to cue the 'dancing mountains'.

Zeitgeist: Addendum

Dec. 1st, 2008 at 12:03 PM

Quakes Minus 10

Dec. 1st, 2008 at 12:00 PM

(Web Bot Project) -- With the December 10 -15 date range for the twin quakes fast approaching, we are seeing a couple of areas to keep an eye on. One is the Arkansas quakes a week back which starts the words "New Madrid" welling up, and there's the central California action over the weekend...4.1 SE of Fresno and a 5.8 in the Pacific west of Eureka.

It's official: U.S. is in recession

Dec. 1st, 2008 at 11:57 AM

WASHINGTON - The economy fell into recession late last year, according to a panel of economists that is responsible for determining the dates of business cycles.

Monday's declaration by the panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research confirms what many private economists, lawmakers and members of the general public already have assumed and puts an official date on it: A U.S. recession began in December 2007.

That was the same month employment peaked, and the economy began shrinking in a downturn that has been exacerbated by the financial crisis that took hold of markets beginning in September.

The White House commented on the news without ever actually using the word “recession,” a term President George W. Bush and his aides have repeatedly avoided.

Instead, spokesman Tony Fratto remarked upon the fact that the NBER “determines the start and end dates of business cycles.”

“What’s important is what is being done about it,” Fratto said. “The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continue to make progress in housing, and that’s where we’ll continue to focus.”

The NBER's seven-member Business Cycle Dating Committee met Friday and determined that economic activity peaked last December and has essentially been declining since then.

Payroll employment peaked that month and has declined every month since then, with the economy shedding some 1.2 million jobs, the committee noted in a statement on the NBER Web site.

Two new reports on the economy provided a grim snapshot of how steep the slump is becoming. The Commerce Department reported Monday that construction spending fell by a larger-than-expected 1.2 percent in October, while the Institute for Supply Management said its gauge of manufacturing activity dropped to a 26-year low in November.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that further interest rate cuts were possible but he cautioned that there were limits to how much such action will be able to revive an economy expected to remain weak well into next year.

“Although further reductions ... are certainly feasible, at this point the scope for using conventional interest rate policies to support the economy is obviously limited,” Bernanke said in a speech to business executives in Austin, Texas. The Fed is widely expected to cut a key interest rate when officials next meet Dec. 15-16.

Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels

Dec. 1st, 2008 at 12:36 AM

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.

This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.

"They are throwing the kitchen sink at this," said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist.

"The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.

"Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don't think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes," he said.

"This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised."

"What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We're already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore," he said.

Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies.

"If true, this is a very material change," he said.

Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. "People have started to question the value of government debt," he said.

Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months – reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency.

Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses.

Pentagon to detail military to bolster security

Dec. 1st, 2008 at 12:08 AM

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

Source: MSNBC.com

Police Seeking Wal-Mart Shoppers Who Trampled Employee

Nov. 29th, 2008 at 11:14 AM

NEW YORK — Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries. The store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart doors before its 5 a.m. opening at a mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the employee, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

"This crowd was out of control," Fleming said. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store.

Damour, 34, of Queens, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store. It said it tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.

"Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred," senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted."

A woman reported being trampled by overeager customers at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in Farmingdale, about 15 miles east of Valley Stream, Suffolk County police said. She suffered minor injuries, but finished shopping before filling the report, police said.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.

Items on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.

Jealous lover who blinded woman with acid will be blinded with acid

Nov. 29th, 2008 at 11:09 AM

A jealous lover who blinded a woman with acid is also to be blinded with acid under the country's Islamic law.

A 27-year-old named only as Majid confessed to attacking Amenah Bahrami in 2004 to dissuade anyone from marrying the woman he loved.

Wednesday's ruling was issued based on the Islamic law system of 'qisas,' or eye for an eye retribution.

The reports say Ameneh asked the court to sentence Majid, who was only identified by his first name, to be blinded by acid to prevent similar attacks on other women.

Majid is allowed to appeal the verdict.

Elsewhere, Iran hanged 10 people in a Tehran jail, all of them convicted of murder. The executions are the latest in a series that have drawn criticism from rights groups.

It said one of those executed at Tehran's Evin prison was a woman who killed her husband in 2001 and cut him into pieces.

'They were hanged after their sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court,' Fars News Agency said, quoting judiciary sources.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's sharia law, practised since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Rights groups and European governments have criticised Iran for an increase in the number of hangings since authorities launched a clampdown on 'immoral behaviour' in July 2007.

Iran dismisses accusations of abuses, insisting it is implementing Islamic law and accusing Western governments of carrying out rights abuses themselves.

Amnesty International said in April that Iran had executed at least 317 people last year, trailing only China, which carried out 470 death sentences.

Boy 'killed father after 1,000 smacks'

Nov. 29th, 2008 at 11:04 AM

(Telegraph.co.uk) -- The unnamed boy allegedly shot dead his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, their lodger, at the family home in St Johns, Arizona, with a .22 rifle as they were coming home from work at a local power plant.

The double murder on Nov 5 shocked the US, with investigators initially struggling to find any motive.

However, according to police records reported by the Arizona Republic, the boy "is believed to have made ledgers and/or communicated in the form of writings about his intentions" if his father and stepmother continued to smack him.

According to the police records, the boy told a Child Protective Services official that "when he reached one thousand spankings . . . that would be his limit. [The boy] kept a tally of his spankings on a piece of paper."

Despite his age, relatives suspected the boy immediately in the shootings. His grandfather told investigators: "If any 8-year-old was capable of doing this, [the boy] was", and the child's grandmother added: "I knew this was going to happen, they were too hard on [him]."

The boy told police he was smacked the day before the shootings for failing to finish schoolwork.

Records indicate the boy had no history of psychiatric care and was not on any medication.

Police say he gave conflicting accounts about the shootings, initially saying he discovered the bodies when he returned home from school.

He later changed his story, admitting he shot each man twice to end their suffering after they had been shot by an unknown assailant.

In an interview whose contents was later released by police, the boy admitted he been angry with his father after the latter asked his stepmother to smack him for not bringing some schoolwork home.

At the end of the interview, he buried his head in his jacket. Asked by an officer what he was thinking, he replied: "I'm going to go to juvie."

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death by Customers

Nov. 28th, 2008 at 11:15 AM

(New York Times) -- A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after being trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a frenzy.

The 34-year-old employee, who was not identified, was knocked down by a crowd that broke down the doors of the Wal-Mart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y., and surged into the store. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 6 a.m.

The police said that three other shoppers were injured and a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to the hospital for observation.

One shopper, Kimberly Cribbs, said she was standing near the back of the crowd at around 5 a.m. on Friday when people started pulling the doors from their hinges and rushing into the store. She said several people were knocked to the ground, and parents had to grab their children by the hands to keep them from being caught in the crush.“

They were falling all over each other,” she said. “It was terrible.”

The Nassau County Police said the man’s exact cause of death had not been determined.

On Friday, Wal-Mart released a statement saying that the man who was killed had been working for Wal-Mart through a temp agency. The company called the death “a tragic situation,” and said it was working with police.

“The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority,” Wal-Mart said in a statement.

Terrorists attack several sites in Mumbai

Nov. 26th, 2008 at 12:12 PM

MUMBAI, India - Terrorists armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked at least seven sites in Mumbai on Wednesday and were holding Western hostages at a hotel, authorities said. Police and Indian media reported at least 80 people were killed and 250 wounded.

The gunmen targeted luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a police station, a crowded train station and other sites in India's financial capital in attacks that began late Wednesday and continued into Thursday, police and witnesses said.

"We have reports of 80 people dead and at least 250 injured. Many have serious injuries and the toll will go up," P.D. Ghadge, a police officer in the main control room in Mumbai, told Reuters.

A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said police were continuing to battle the gunmen. "The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed, the encounters are still going on and we are trying to overpower them," he said.

Gunmen opened fire on two of the city's best-known Luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi, and some reports said they took hostages.

The attackers were holding an unknown number of Western hostages at the Taj, television reports said.

They also attacked a police station, the crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station in southern Mumbai and Leopold's restaurant, a Mumbai landmark.

The motive was not immediately clear but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terror attacks, including a series of blasts in July 2007 that killed 187 people.

"It was really scary. It was like the sound of loud crackers, not one but several, we just ran out of there," said Janice Sequeira, a tourist who had been at a restaurant in the Taj Mahal Hotel.

"The lobby of the Taj hotel is on fire," a police spokesman told Reuters. "We are trying to find out how many people are inside the hotel."

At the Oberoi, police officer P.I. Patil said shots had been fired inside and the hotel had been cordoned off. He would not give any other details.

Some of the injured were evacuated from the Taj on the hotel's golden luggage carts, while waiters in black and white formal wear and chefs were seen leaving the Oberoi.

The gunmen also attacked police headquarters in south Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks took place. "We are under fire, there is shooting at the gate," said constable A. Shetti by phone from police headquarters.

Leopold's, a restaurant popular with tourists, was riddled with bullet holes and there were blood stains on the floor and shoes left by fleeing customers, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

A Reuters reporter heard two explosions and then short bursts of automatic gunfire in the same street as the restaurant. The wreckage of a red scooter, the remains of shop awnings and broken glass were strewn across the street.

Armed police, rifles cocked at the hip, set up barricades around the explosion site, and local people were seen yelling at each other, angry that another terror attack had hit the city.

Vehicles and street vendors' barrows were used to keep locals away, and speeding military four-wheel drives with horns blaring arrived at the bomb site.

There were other attacks elsewhere.

The Press Trust of India quoted Mumbai General Railway Police Commissioner A.K. Sharma as saying that several men armed with rifles and grenades were holed up in the train station.

Sameeran Chakraborty, a Mumbai resident, told the NDTV news channel he heard a blast inside a car near the city airport.

"It was a big noise and one car was involved, definitely not more than that."

India has suffered a wave of bomb attacks in recent years. Most have been blamed on Islamist militants, although police have also arrested suspected Hindu extremists thought to be behind some of the attacks.

Source: MSNBC.com

Salt Lake Tribune: Prop 8 has become a PR "fiasco" for Mormons

Nov. 26th, 2008 at 12:07 PM

When your biggest negatives are that people think you're pushy, rich, secretive, weird, and hell-bent on imposing your seemingly-cultish way of life on them, the last thing you should do is use gobs of money to force your views on millions of others. It's not clear what the Mormons were thinking, but in the process, they may have made a few friends on the religious right - friends who still think the Mormons are a cult, mind you (even the Mormon's evangelical "allies" have this to say about them, "Our theological differences with Mormonism are, frankly, unbridgeable") - but they've just convinced millions of other Americans that they're hateful heavy-handed bigots.

And it seems we're not the only ones who are thinking this way. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Mormons around the country are now being forced to deal with the fall-out from their ill-fated decision to become hate's banker.

Although they live a continent away from California, LDS Church members Gregory and JaLynn Prince, of Washington, D.C., still have felt the backlash from their church's involvement in the traditional marriage initiative known as Proposition 8.

Their daughter, Lauren, a Boston University student, has lost friends over the issue, while their son, an LDS missionary in San Bernardino, Calif., has had a disproportionate number of potential converts cancel appointments.

About two weeks ago, during a first-ever class on Mormonism at Wesley Theological Seminary, where the Princes have built bridges for years, students pointedly asked them: "What was your church thinking?"

"We are not taking sides on the issue, but the way this was done has hurt our people and the church's image," JaLynn Prince said. "It reminds me of the naive public relations strategy we had regarding the Equal Rights Amendment."

In some minds, the so-called "Mormon moment" heralded at the start of 2008 has stopped short.

Stopped short? Try, set you back 150 years. In one fell swoop, the Mormons just convinced somewhere between 10 million and 30 million gay Americans, and their 40 to 120 million friends and families, that the Mormons are filthy rich bigots who want to come into your town, take over, and force you to live under their rules (rules which include accepting Jesus as a polygamist who married his mother and was the brother of Satan, rules which include being forced to convert to Mormonism against your will), or else they'll destroy your families and ruin your lives.

Hell of a way to stop people from hating you.

Large meteor streaks across Canada sky

Nov. 25th, 2008 at 12:46 AM

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan (AP) — Scientists say they hope to find remnants of a meteor that brilliantly lit up the sky before falling to earth in western Canada.

University of Calgary planetary scientist Alan Hildebrand called it one of the largest meteors visible in the country in the last decade.

Widely broadcast video images showed what appeared to be a speeding fireball Thursday night over Saskatoon that became larger and brighter before disappearing as it neared the ground.

Hildebrand said Friday that he received about 300 email reports from witnesses.

"It would be something like a billion-watt light bulb," said Hildebrand, who also co-ordinates meteor sightings with the Canadian Space Agency.

Tammy Evans was wakened by her 10-year-old daughter who ran into the bedroom.

"She said there was a flash of light, the house shook twice and it sounded like dinosaurs were walking," Evans said.

Hildebrand suspects it broke up into pieces and he plans to investigate around Macklin, Saskatchewan near the Alberta border.

Rick Huziak, an amateur astronomer in Saskatoon, helped operate a camera on top of the University of Saskatchewan physics building that captured video of the meteor.

"It was quite spectacular. The ground lights up all over the place," he said.

Martin Beech, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina, said meteorites are valuable to learning about the history of the solar system.

"Picking up a meteorite is almost equivalent to doing a space exploration mission between Mars and Jupiter," he said.

Obama plans to ‘give a jolt’ to economy

Nov. 24th, 2008 at 1:56 PM

President-Elect Barack Obama unveiled his economic team Monday and said they would begin work immediately on an economic stimulus package.

Obama declined to specify how much money the plan would cost the federal government, but he said it needs to be big enough “so it really gives a jolt to the economy.” The plan will focus on creating 2.5 million jobs, partially through new spending on infrastructure, clean energy and education, he said.

The new administration also plans to make “meaningful cuts” to the federal budget as well, Obama said. He pledged to make reforms in how the budgeting process works “so that we have a path toward a sustainable and responsive budget scenario down the line.”

The president-elect said his economic team has a lot of work to do, and “that work starts today. The truth is we do not have a minute to waste.”

Obama tapped Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to serve as secretary of the Treasury. Geithner will serve as “the chief economic spokesman for my administration,” Obama said, and “will waste no time in getting up to speed.”

Lawrence Summers, a former secretary of Treasury in the Clinton administration, will head Obama’s National Economic Council, which coordinates economic policy among agencies. Summers was “one of the architects,” Obama said, of Clinton administration policies “that led to the longest economic expansion in history.”

Christina Romer, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, will head the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Melody Barnes, former executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, will direct the Domestic Policy Council.

Tom Donohue, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Obama’s economic team “brings a wealth of knowledge to Washington and an understanding that any sustainable economic recovery will involve the business sector.”

“The chamber stands ready to work with the new administration to spur growth and job creation,” Donohue said.

One issue where the chamber and Obama likely will part ways is the income tax rate for wealthy Americans. Obama reiterated his support for increasing rates on families with more than $250,000 in taxable income. He favors cutting taxes for “the vast majority” of Americans, but “those who benefited disproportionately” from the Bush administration’s tax cuts will “pay a little more in order for us to be able to invest in the economy and get it back on track.”

The president-elect also reiterated his support for providing assistance to U.S. auto makers in order to keep them -- and their suppliers -- in business.

“We can’t allow the auto industry to simply vanish,” he said.

But, he added, “we can’t just write a blank check” to them either.

Obama said he was surprised the top executives at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler didn’t have “a better thought-out proposal” when they appeared before Congress last week. Congress “did the right thing,” he said, when it asked them to come back with more detailed plans on how they would use federal money.

Any money the federal government provides must be used to ensure the auto industry’s long-term sustainability, “not just kicking the can down the road,” Obama said.

“When we see a plan, I think we’ll be able to shape the kind of assistance plan that makes sense,” he said.

Indonesian AIDS patients face microchip monitoring

Nov. 24th, 2008 at 7:15 AM

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Lawmakers in Indonesia's remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips _ part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease.

Health workers and rights activists sharply criticized the plan Monday.

But legislator John Manangsang said by implanting small computer chips beneath the skin of "sexually aggressive" patients, authorities would be in a better position to identify, track and ultimately punish those who deliberately infect others with up to six months in jail or a $5,000 fine.

The technical and practical details still need to be hammered out, but the proposed legislation has received full backing from the provincial parliament and, if it gets a majority vote as expected, will be enacted next month, he and others said.

Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country and has one of Asia's fastest growing HIV rates, with up to 290,000 infections out of 235 million people, fueled mainly by intravenous drug users and prostitution.

But Papua, the country's easternmost and poorest province with a population of about 2 million, has been hardest hit. Its case rate of almost 61 per 100,000 is 15 times the national average, according to internationally funded research, which blames lack of knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases.

"The health situation is extraordinary, so we have to take extraordinary action," said another lawmaker, Weynand Watari, who envisions radio frequency identification tags like those used to track everything from cattle to luggage.

A committee would be created to decide who should be fitted with chips and to monitor patients' behavior, but it remains unclear who would be on it and how they would carry out their work, lawmakers said Monday.

Since the plan was initially proposed, the government has narrowed its scope, saying the chips would only be implanted in those who are "sexually aggressive," but it has not said how it would determine who fits that group. It also was not clear how many people it might include.

Nancy Fee, the UNAIDS country coordinator, said the global body was not aware of any laws or initiatives elsewhere involving HIV/AIDS patients and microchips.

Though she has yet to see a copy of the bill, she said she had "grave concerns" about the effect it would have on human rights and public health.

"No one should be subject to unlawful or unnecessary interference of privacy," Fee said, adding that while other countries have been known to be oppressive in trying to tackle AIDS, such policies don't work.

They make people afraid and push the problem further underground, she said.

Local health workers and AIDS activists called the plan "abhorrent."

"People with AIDS aren't animals; we have to respect their rights," said Tahi Ganyang Butarbutar, a prominent Papuan activist.

He said the best way to tackle the epidemic was through increased spending on sexual education and condom use.

Associated Press Writer Irwan Firdaus contributed to this report.

Gadget that makes water straight out of thin air 'could help millions'

Nov. 24th, 2008 at 7:00 AM

(The Daily Mail) -- A gadget which makes water out of thin air could become the greatest household invention since the microwave. Using the same technology as a de-humidifier, the Water Mill is able to create a ready supply of drinking water by capturing it from an unlimited source - the air. The company behind the machine says not only does it offer an alternative to bottled water in developed countries, but it is a solution for the millions who face a daily water shortage.

The machine works by drawing in moist air through a filter and over a cooling element which condenses it into water droplets. It can produce up to 12 litres a day.

The Water Mill will also generate more water when storms pass over, as the humidity in the air increases. In keeping with its eco-development, the machine uses the same amount of electricity as three light bulbs.

Inventor Jonathan Ritchey said: 'The demand for water is off the chart. People are looking for freedom from water distribution systems that are shaky and unreliable.'

The machine, which is about 3ft wide, is likely to cost £800 when it goes on sale here in the spring.

Its maker, Canadian firm Element Four, estimates that a litre of water will cost around 20p to produce.

Environmentalists claim half the world's population will face water shortages because of climate change by 2080. One in five humans is said to lack access to safe drinking water.

The Water Mill is not effective in areas with below about 30 per cent relative humidity, but with average relative humidity in Britain of more than 70 per cent that won't be much of an issue here.

Government to back $306 billion in Citi loans

Nov. 24th, 2008 at 6:43 AM

WASHINGTON - Rushing to rescue Citigroup, the U.S. government agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions of dollars in possible losses at the stricken bank and to plow a fresh $20 billion into the company.

Regulators hope the dramatic action will bolster badly shaken confidence in the once-mighty banking giant as well as the nation's financial system, a goal that so far has been elusive despite a flurry of government interventions to battle the worst global crisis since the 1930s.

Wall Street appeared encouraged as stock futures moved higher ahead of the market opening in New York. Dow Jones industrial average futures rose almost 2 percent. Stock markets in Britain and Germany gained more than 4 percent in afternoon trading. Citigroup shares themselves climbed 44 percent to $5.64 in premarket trading.

"If they didn't help, the damage would be beyond imagination," said Teck-Kin Suan, economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore.

The action, announced late Sunday by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is aimed at shoring up a huge financial institution whose collapse would wreak havoc on the already fragile financial system and the U.S. economy.

"With these transactions, the U.S. government is taking the actions necessary to strengthen the financial system and protect U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. economy," the three agencies said in a joint statement. "We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions, and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks."

Analysts said a Citigroup failure would have seized up still fragile lending markets and caused untold losses among institutions holding debt and financial products backed by the company.

"It would create chaos," said Winson Fong, managing director at SG Asset Management in Hong Kong, which oversees about $3 billion in equities in Asia. "Simply put, you couldn't borrow or lend for a while. This is a nightmare scenario."

The bold move is the latest in a string of high-profile government bailout efforts. The Fed in March provided financial backing to JPMorgan Chase's buyout of ailing Bear Stearns. Six months later, the government was forced to take over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and throw a financial lifeline — which was recently rejiggered — to insurer American International Group.

Critics worry the actions could put billions of taxpayers' dollars in jeopardy and encourage financial companies to take excessive risk on the belief that the government will bail them out of their messes.

The Citigroup rescue came after a weekend of marathon discussions led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who is being tapped by President-elect Barack Obama as his Treasury chief also participated.

Vikram S. Pandit, Citi's chief executive officer, welcomed the action. "We appreciate the tremendous effort by the government to assure market stability," he said in a statement issued early Monday.

The $20 billion cash injection by the Treasury Department will come from the $700 billion financial bailout package. The capital infusion follows an earlier one — of $25 billion — in Citigroup in which the government also received an ownership stake.

As part of the plan, Treasury and the FDIC will guarantee against the "possibility of unusually large losses" on up to $306 billion of risky loans and securities backed by commercial and residential mortgages.

Under the loss-sharing arrangement, Citigroup Inc. will assume the first $29 billion in losses on the risky pool of assets. Beyond that amount, the government would absorb 90 percent of the remaining losses, and Citigroup 10 percent. Money from the $700 billion bailout and funds from the FDIC would cover the government's portion of potential losses. The Federal Reserve would finance the remaining assets with a loan to Citigroup.

In exchange for the guarantees, the government will get $7 billion in preferred shares of Citigroup. In addition, Citi said it will issue warrants to the U.S. Treasury and the FDIC for approximately 254 million shares of the company's common stock at a strike price of $10.61.

Florida Teen Abraham Biggs Live-Streams His Suicide On Internet

Nov. 23rd, 2008 at 12:33 PM

MIAMI — A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke. Some watchers contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs' home _ a scene also captured on the Internet _ it was too late.

Biggs, a 19-year-old Broward College student who suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder, or manic depression, lay dead on his bed in his father's Pembroke Pines house Wednesday afternoon, the camera still running 12 hours after Biggs announced his intentions online around 3 a.m.

It was unclear how many people watched it unfold.

Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama _ and the reaction of those watching _ was seen as an extreme example of young people's penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.

Biggs' family was infuriated that no one acted sooner to save him, neither the viewers nor the Web site that hosted the live video, Justin.tv. The Web site shows a video image, with a space alongside where computer users can instantly post comments.

Only when police arrived did the Web feed stop, "so that's 12 hours of watching," said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. "They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours."

She added: "It didn't have to be."

An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Source: Huffington Post

Ballot requests run into a glitch

Nov. 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 PM

By Kent A. Miles

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Saturday, November 22, 2008

GEORGIA -- A Republican-generated effort to get out the vote for the Dec. 2 runoff election has hit a snag as thousands of requests for absentee ballots have been denied because the applications were not signed.

County elections officials are contacting voters by mail, directing them to print applications from county or state election Web sites and fax them in by Wednesday.

Many of the unsigned requests came in the form of cards printed by the Republican National Committee and mailed to voters. Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is in a tight battle to retain his seat by beating Democratic challenger Jim Martin.

The signature line on the RNC cards is easy to miss since it appears after an entry asking voters to enter an address different from their permanent one. Georgia doesn’t require voters to give a reason for voting by absentee ballot.

Cobb County received about 7,075 of the cards from voters that were not signed, about 44 percent of the cards received. “We’ve never seen anything near that ratio,” registration manager Beth Kish said.

DeKalb County election officials have received 5,000 applications from the RNC mailing and rejected 2,800 of them.

DeKalb is accepting applications that are unsigned on the signature line of the application if the voter wrote his or her name in cursive on the first line.

Election officials in other counties report similar problems and have worked to notify voters.

“We’ve now been hearing reports of our cards, and we’re doing all we can to ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote gets the opportunity,” said Ben Fry, executive director of the Georgia Republican Party.

The state GOP distributed an e-mail Friday urging voters to sign the cards before mailing them.

People who are unsure of the status of their absentee ballot application can check the secretary of state’s Web site, www.sos.ga.gov/elections/polllocator.

Staff writer Ty Tagami contributed to this article.

Crash Test - Iconic Rings and Flares of Galaxies Created by Violent, Intergalactic Collisions

Nov. 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 PM

PITTSBURGH -- The bright pinwheels and broad star sweeps iconic of disk galaxies such as the Milky Way might all be the shrapnel from massive, violent collisions with other galaxies and galaxy-size chunks of dark matter, according to a multi-institutional project involving the University of Pittsburgh. Published in the Nov. 20 edition of “The Astrophysical Journal,” the findings challenge the longstanding theory that the bright extensions and rings surrounding galaxies are the remnants of smaller star clusters that struck a larger, primary galaxy then fragmented.

The study's team consisted of Andrew Zentner, a professor of physics and astronomy in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences; James Bullock, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of California at Irvine; Stelios Kazantzidis, a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University; Andrey Kravtsov, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago; and Leonidas Moustakas, a researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

The team's computer simulations of galaxy formation suggests that disk galaxies most likely began as flat, centralized star clusters. Smaller galaxies collided with and tore through these disks billions of years ago, casting disk stars outward into the wild extensions present now; the bright center is the original formation. In addition, vast bodies of dark matter-a low-density, high-gravity invisible mass thought to occupy nearly one-quarter of the Universe-swept through these disks and further pulled stars from the main disk.

The researchers' scenario largely applies to the formation of the rings and long flares of stars that surround such galaxies as the Milky Way, Zentner said. But the model also presents a possible solution to how star spirals-the arcs of stars that radiate from the center of some disk galaxies-maintain their shape. Spirals form as a result of any disturbance to the star disk, Zentner said. However, the prolonged disturbance of a galaxy and dark matter expanse passing through a disk explains why the spirals seem to never recede.

“Our model suggests that a violent collision throws stars everywhere and continues moving through the disk, disturbing its structure,” Zentner said. “It also has been known for some time that for star spirals to develop and maintain their well-known form, there must be a prolonged disturbance. We show that large masses moving through a galaxy could provide that disturbance.”

The team's findings were serendipitous, Zentner explained. They were modeling disk galaxies for an unrelated astrological survey when they inadvertently discovered that stars in the main disk scattered when satellite galaxies-smaller galaxies surrounding larger ones-passed through. They shared their results with colleagues a year ago, and the results have since been replicated, Zentner said.

“One of the major advantages of these results is that we didn't set out to find them,” he said. “They happened as we simulated existing galaxies.”

The paper is available on Pitt's Web site at www.pitt.edu/news2008/zentner_paper.pdf

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