So much for the "hippy chimp". Wait...this is about monkeys?
Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, They're hippies, all right.
have been caught in the act of cannibalism. But they're monkeys.
An account of a group of wild bonobos consuming a dead infant, published last month, is the first report of cannibalism in these animals making the species the last of the great apes to reveal a taste for the flesh of their own kind. Daggone it, that headline--you had me expecting lurid descriptions of patchouli-scented long-haired freaky people consuming each other in a drug-fueled orgy of carnage. Instead, it's just monkeys. Wotta gyp!
Posted by: Mike ||
02/02/2010 17:25 ||
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#1
If we de-criminalized weed and gave them enough Oreos, they probably wouldn't do this kind of stuff.
The South Bend Police Department is investigating whether officers behaved appropriately during a chase of a car theft suspect Sunday, a department official said.
Some police at the scene allege Cpl. Scott Ross mishandled his canine and scuffled with Cpl. Joshua Morgan after Morgan tried to shoot the dog, South Bend police spokesman Capt. Phil Trent confirmed.
"We're investigating what led to a shot (allegedly) being fired by an officer, what was the aftermath, and were all policies and procedures followed correctly," Trent said.
According to a police report, Morgan began chasing a teenager driving a stolen Oldsmobile about 3:45 p.m. Sunday.
Morgan chased the vehicle for about 3 miles before the driver crashed the car and began running away at the corner of Camden Street and Western Avenue, the report said. Morgan followed on foot.
The department is investigating what happened next.
Trent confirmed some officers at the scene have alleged the following occurred:
As Morgan was chasing the suspect, another officer, Cpl. Scott Ross, released his canine partner to help the chase. For reasons that are not clear, the canine went after Morgan instead and attempted to bite him.
Morgan then fired at the canine, apparently in self-defense, but missed. He continued the pursuit as more officers arrived to help. Officers caught the suspect in the back yard of a house in the 400 block of Liberty Street.
Meanwhile, Ross and Morgan began "swinging at each other" in the backyard after Ross became angry that Morgan shot at his dog. As the dispute between Ross and Morgan continued, the canine began biting officers who were trying to arrest the suspect.
The canine bit Cpl. Dominic Hall on the left leg and then attacked Ptl. Jamil Elwaer on his upper left thigh, pinning him on the ground. Other officers eventually pulled the dog off of Elwaer and separated Morgan and Ross.
The department is still gathering information about the incident, Trent said.
#2
Reality intrudes...
From Columbine to the Iranian hostage rescue, forces that have not worked together in simulated event training will be poorly coordinated and a greater risk to the operation that the perp.
#3
Could be the handler is at fault or that the dog needs more training.
However, Morgan should have assumed that this dog, like other police dogs, was trained to hold but not harm if he didn't struggle. Hold but not harm is deeply, deeply ingrained during training - a first lesson and one that is reinforced continually and that operates at the instinctual vs. command level. Shooting the dog was way out of bounds, assuming he hadn't gone for the officer's throat.
Gov. Bob McDonnell is gaining traction with his proposal to earmark potential royalties from oil and gas drilling off the Virginia coast for improving the state's transportation network.
A bill introduced at the governor's request by freshman Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, would require that 70 percent of any future drilling royalties be deposited in the state's Transportation Trust Fund. Twenty percent would go to the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium and 10 percent would go to affected localities for drilling-related infrastructure. A nice split, I think.
Stolle's bill, HB 756, won approval Monday in the House Appropriations Committee.
Stolle and supporters of the measure, including the road-building industry and the Virginia Manufacturers Association, said it will help position Virginia as the future energy capital of the East Coast. If petroleum reserves are found off the coast, they said, the state could earn as much as $5 billion in royalties over 30 years.
Several environmental groups oppose the bill. Say it ain't so!
One critic on the committee, Del. James Scott, D-Fairfax, said the measure is highly speculative because Congress has shown no inclination to allow East Coast states to share in drilling revenue. He also noted that the Navy has expressed reservations about negative effects from drilling on its operations.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/02/2010 17:05 ||
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#1
Yup. Never forget that around every silver lining is a big black cloud.
NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.
Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.
Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
#1
You men eat your dinner
Eat your pork and beans
I eat more chicken
Than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah
I'm a back door man, wha
The men don't know
But the little girls understand
-- Jimmy Morrison
#2
"The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week." Rooters
I am sure due to pressure from Ein White House Führer
Posted by: Boss Snomotle8280 ||
02/02/2010 13:57 Comments ||
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#3
I did my taxes this past weekend. I made 7 grand lees than the year before but I'm paying almost the exact same tax as the year before. Both the personal and standard deduction have decreased meaning I have the same taxable income as year before last but I made less money. No tax increase? Horse-hockey!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/02/2010 14:49 Comments ||
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#4
Deacon,
The Democrats cut deductions clear across the board very quitly. America's Pravda (MSM) went right along with them by keeping a lid on it and not reporting any of it.
Posted by: Boss Snomotle8280 ||
02/02/2010 15:56 Comments ||
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The health care system may as well be run by the mafia. It's a total scam. Insurance companies pay a fraction of what they are billed for, and the hospital writes the difference off. If the person needing treatment doesn't pay, they write the whole thing off. If they do pay, it's like they won the lottery. Central to this whole thing is grossly over-used and overpriced CT scans (whose results are often ignored) and ER visit costs. I don't see how a hospital could lose here because there is a bigger upside to every "loss" they pretend to suffer. It's no wonder the hospitals always look like they are scraping by. All we need is tort reform and someone to go over the hospitals financial practices with a not-so-fine-toothed comb and nail them to the wall for the fraud they are committing.
The Obama administration's latest spending plan calls for modest changes to the U.S. healthcare system but does little to incorporate sweeping moves called for Democrats' larger plan to increase access and cuts costs.
In releasing his fiscal 2011 budget on Monday, President Barack Obama said his proposal "includes funds to lay the groundwork for these reforms." Instead of dramatic action, the plan seeks to boost health information technology, cheaper generic drugs and certain Medicare payment changes.
The budget plan comes as efforts to pass sweeping healthcare reforms in Congress have stalled with little sign from Democratic leaders on when final legislation will move forward.
"This budget -- absent health reform -- will still leave a major gap in not only affordable coverage for many, many Americans, but makes very little change in the cost trajectory, which right now is just crushing families," as well as businesses and government, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. "We need both."
Reforming the nation's swelling $2.5 trillion healthcare system has been a top priority for Democrats in the last year, but talk of imminent change has quickly faded amid rising anxiety about the U.S. economy and the stinging loss of a Senate seat that cost Democrats the supermajority needed to break procedural hurdles in the chamber.
Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed different versions of legislation that aims to expand access to health insurance for millions more Americans, but have so far been unable to agree on a final bill.
Obama and other Democratic leaders have vowed to press ahead but have faced gridlock after Republicans won a crucial Senate seat in Massachusetts long held by Democrats and as public concern rose about unemployment levels.
HEALTH SAVINGS
Administration budget officials, speaking on background, said while the health budget does not include specific health reform spending, it overall includes $150 billion in anticipated net savings over 10 years from the overhaul.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who helped shepherd a health reform bill through the Senate and whose committee oversees the massive Medicare and Medicaid government insurance programs, said he was "pleased to see that health reform is assumed to be part of" the budget.
Some Wall Street analysts also said Obama's plan appears to reflect the budget impacts of Congress' healthcare bills. Shares of healthcare insurance companies -- the biggest target of Democrats' reforms -- closed lower than the overall market.
The S&P Managed Health Care index of large health insurers closed nearly unchanged while the overall S&P index closed up 1.4 percent.
Specifically, Obama's plan seeks to reduce health costs through cheaper, generic medicines as well as limited steps to reform payments under the massive Medicare insurance program.
It also expands efforts to compare medical treatments to help doctors determine which therapies work best by another $286 million. Health insurers back such research, but drug and device makers worry it could be used to deny coverage for newer, more costly treatments.
Additionally, the plan seeks $110 million to boost health information technology such as electronic medical records.
Congress must still weigh Obama's plan before drafting its final spending plan for the next budget year starting October 1.
The White House has said reform must pass to shore up the nation's long-term finances. But analyst Ethan Siegal of The Washington Exchange said the budget shed little light on the future of the administration's health reform bid "except their hope."
#2
On the one hand hospitals have been forced to accept patients without insurance - even those illegally in the country - and provide expensive services.
On the other hand, greedy Americans have gleefully allowed personal injury lawsuits and awards against hospitals and doctors to balloon well beyond what is necessary to keep true malpractice in check.
As a result, most hospitals are near bankruptcy and many have already closed. All that "writing the difference off" might in fact have turned out to be, you know, bad for finances ...
#4
The bottom line is that "Political Correctness" is killing our health care system as it is. Hospitals ARE CLOSING. One closed several miles from where I live. Providing virtually FREE health care to non-citizens hear illegally in this country and then trying to recover those costs by over billing citizens, many who then cannot pay those bills due to the poor economy or the sky rocketing medical insurance premiums ends up putting hospitals between a rock and a hard place.
#5
A 'total scam' until the life of you or your loved one is in danger, and the health care system has what you need.
I don't mind them making a profit. But I would like to know how a kidney stone can cost $5,000 when all you get is a CT scan, flexeril, and vicadin. The doctor didn't even read the CT scan. I know. because I got a copy of it and there were three stones, not just the one he mentioned. It's BS. If it wasn't, someone would be able to explain it, and would have by now.
On the one hand hospitals have been forced to accept patients without insurance - even those illegally in the country - and provide expensive services.
The services are not as expensive as they make them out to be.
On the other hand, greedy Americans have gleefully allowed personal injury lawsuits and awards against hospitals and doctors to balloon well beyond what is necessary to keep true malpractice in check.
That's what I'm talking about when I say tort reform. At least it's what I think I'm talking about. :-)
As a result, most hospitals are near bankruptcy and many have already closed.
I'll bet the administration and doctors are paid well until then. And being on the verge of bankruptcy is right where they want to be.
I just cannot accept the idea that they are charging what they do and are going bankrupt. A doctor's appointment used to cost me $30 or so in the '80s. Along come the HMOs and the price skyrocketed. A vial of insulin then was about $10. Now it's $150. WTF? Whatever is happening, we are doing it to ourselves, it is not true unfettered market dynamics. Something is broken, I don't know what. But it ought to be easy enough to find, because it seems all hospitals are onto it, and the government seems to be colluding with them. Are the HMOs a jobs program of some kind? What is so hard about finding fraud? It seems like they are spending four times as much as they used to just to make sure there isn't 10% fraud, and they aren't finding any more than they did before! Now fraud is legalized in the form of unnecessary and unread tests to cover the doctors' a$$es. Hospitals and doctors are referring patients to self-owned and very lucrative CT machines! When I see a doctor for 10 minutes, he charges me about $150 nowadays. So the doctor ends up pulling down about $600/hour. Shouldn't that be enough? Isn't it? I don't see doctors having to treat an inordinate number of illegals. Do they have to tithe 50% of what they get to the poor, struggling hospitals that charge me $5,000 for a total of about two or three man-hours of their time? For that $5,000, they could treat ten illegals and me and about break even, I feel.
Something is wrong. I feel the government isn't fixing it so they can justify healthcare takeover, and then they will continue with the high prices so they can control that huge, over-inflated sector of the economy.
#6
On the other hand, greedy Americans have gleefully allowed personal injury lawsuits and awards against hospitals and doctors to balloon well beyond what is necessary to keep true malpractice in check.
And the medical community supports the lawyers by failing to effectively and efficiently clean their ranks of practitioners who should not be in the 'profession'. The lawyers are simply making money because juries, the people, do not see that happening. Convince the people that you can clean your house [do a better job than others] and they'll let you alone. Tort is an ineffective and costly means in the absence of other functional corrective mechanisms.
#7
The insurance companies pay little more than incremental costs of products and services. The indigent pay nothing at all. Those without insurance but with some means to pay are stuck with carrying the indigent AND the (very substantial) overhead of the whole system. But raising the insurance payments to cover overhead will raise the cost of insurance, driving more people to have to go without insurance. The total cost of health care is unaffordable to society in general. Costs have to come down - either by decreasing demand (rationing), or by increasing supply (education, time).
They have infiltrated it already: Feds ignored Medicare scam warnings for years
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors over three years -- mostly under the Bush administration -- but didn't respond to half of them, even after repeated letters, according to records provided to The Associated Press by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's office.
A July 2008 warning said organized crime had infiltrated the system and was costing more than $1 million dollars for each phony Medicare provider license the crooks obtained. The letter got no response, Grassley said.
He and other critics said lack of oversight in the federally administered program is part of an estimated $60 billion a year in Medicare fraud.
"There's no good answer for why the bureaucracy turned a blind eye, and it's a breach of the public trust," said Grassley, an Iowa Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.
#9
Hospitals are closing in part because we don't need them as much. We do more and more care as outpatients. That's a trend that started in the early 1980s.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2010 15:10 Comments ||
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#10
Kidney stone in NH ER.
$4800 "negotiated" down by carrier to $4300, of which I pay a $150 deductible and 20% of the balance. On top of the many thousands we pay a year in premiums. In nine out of ten years I don't even go above my $550 deductible.
They treated me very well.
But, as gorb says, $4800 for a quick CT with no contrast, some oxycodone, keterolac, morphine (latter did nothing!), 30 min of the ER doc, and using the space for four hours seems high.
The bill was itemized, at least 20 items, but each description was "ER services", so I as a patient have no idea what they were charging for. I'd have to go down to the hospital and get them to run a detail.
#11
Doctor removes raisin from friend's kid's nose.
about $1450, negotiated down to $150. Rest was written off.
Hospital in area where some relatives live got pi$$ed off by stupid city they were located in.
Bailed out of old hospital that covered several city blocks. Build brand new high-tech, shiny modern hospital outside city limits that sprawls over several acres.
Sometimes, hospitals need to be replaced or upgraded, too.
So much for all their whining about how poor they were despite higher illegal population.
The watchdog charged with monitoring the government's $700 billion bailout unleashed one of his harshest criticisms of the program to date, questioning its overall effectiveness. The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round . . . .
In his latest quarterly report to Congress, special inspector general Neil Barofsky said that the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has failed to boost bank lending as well as halt the spread of foreclosures -- two key aims of the rudderless sprawling program.
"Whether these goals can effectively be met through existing TARP programs is very much an open question at this time," Barofsky said in the report. Open question? Hardly. But do go on.
When Congress enacted TARP, the hope was that injecting capital into hundreds of banks would spur lending and keep the economy from spiraling even deeper into recession.
But since then, lending to both consumers and businesses has continued to decline.
Earlier this month, the Treasury Department reported that the 22 banks that got the most aid from the government's various bailout programs have cut their small business loan balances by $12.5 billion since April.
The Obama administration did propose a joint program between the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration in October to make capital cheaper for community banks that commit to increasing their small business lending.
Three months later however, the government is still drafting guidelines for that initiative. Diddle diddle diddle!
Barofsky, whose office has been closely tracking the evolution of TARP, also criticized the Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program.
Even as Treasury allocated $35.5 billion towards that foreclosure-prevention program as of the end of last year, only 66,500 homeowners have received permanent modifications, with another 787,200 homeowners in trial modifications.
Under fire for the low number of people receiving long-term help, the Treasury Department in late November ramped up pressure on servicers to convert borrowers to permanent modifications.
Still, there is no sign that the rate of foreclosures is slowing down anytime soon. Earlier this month, RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed homes, reported that foreclosure filings surged to a record 3 million in 2009, up 21% from 2008. No jobs, the bottom is still falling out from under the housing market, the probability that houses won't regain value for anther decade, and lenders are making the process feel like they are giving you a shot in the dark in exchange for a bunch of paperwork vs. just giving them back their house and telling them to go fuc& themselves after they screwed up the housing market. Hmm. Let me think.
There was at least one bit of good news from Barofsky's latest report however. He acknowledged that while the ultimate cost will still be "substantial" for American taxpayers, it will be less than originally estimated. That's quite some back-handed good news there, Barofsky. How 'bout you call it what it really is: The least-bad news.
In December, the White House echoed those sentiments after it lowered its projections for the ultimate cost of TARP from $341 billion to $141 billion, as banks have raced to repay government aid. Embattled lenders Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) returned a combined $65 billion to government coffers in December.
However, the American public is still expected to incur a massive loss in the end -- the question is just how much it will be. A separate estimate issued earlier this year by the Congressional Budget Office warned that TARP will ultimately cost taxpayers approximately $159 billion. So what's the other $600B for? Pork projects and healthcare, possibly?
#1
There was at least one bit of good news from Barofsky's latest report however. He acknowledged that while the ultimate cost will still be "substantial" for American taxpayers, it will be less than originally estimated.
What was that exactly, involuntary servitude to the state for three generations? /rhet question
The $2.25 billion will pay to finish engineering and environmental reviews and provide seed money to start building the Anaheim-to-San Francisco route. The $2.25 billion in federal stimulus funds awarded this week to the California high-speed rail project ensures that construction can proceed on a 520-mile route between Anaheim and San Francisco within three years, rail officials said Thursday.
Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the infusion of federal dollars would pay for completion of the project's engineering and environmental reviews and provide a significant amount of seed money to start building the system by September 2012, as required by the federal grant.
"We have been aggressively pushing the environmental and engineering work on this project," Morshed said. "We didn't have assurances we would have money for construction. Now we do." California has spent a lot of State money on passenger trains, trying to wean itself from the love affair with the automobile. Its trains carry tens of thousand each day that would oterwise further clog the freeways. Plus, I'm sure San Fran Nan appreciated the billions.
Morshed said the grant gives the California project the potential to generate $4.5 billion in additional funding by allowing the state to match the federal allocation. If the Legislature approves, the money will come from issuing bonds authorized by Proposition 1A. Passed in 2008, the ballot measure approved the sale of up to $10 billion in bonds to finance the high-speed rail project. That part might be interesting!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/02/2010 08:15 ||
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#1
We already have a train the nobody rides on that runs north-south. What a friggin sink hole of money.
#2
I forgot a little nugget that I learned yesterday. NONE of the public train systems (high speed or otherwise) exists without subsidies. That is to say NONE in the whole world. So even if it is built it will only become another money sucking government entity.
#5
The democrat party is all about scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after scam after fraud.
#6
the initial $10B cost estimate on this is BEFORE engineering and environmental studies
this initial estimate was badly low balled
I expect that after the new studies are completed the cost will be $15-25B. Also, they are going to have to refine the ridership estimates. These now are for 40M to 100M a year (100k to 250k/day). These are way high. Adding the Acela and the regular NE corridor ridership only is about 10M/yr.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/02/2010 9:49 Comments ||
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#7
Another death nail in the artificial California...
#8
In Boston we couldn't do a 3 mile freeway project for under $15 bn, after all the payoffs to unions and relatives of local politicians. A 520-mile train track will probably need at least $100 million per mile.
#9
So... left out of this high speed rail discussion is security.
Let's compare:
Airplane: Airport security and passenger security checks.
High Speed Rail: Station security, passenger security PLUS 520 miles of track security.
Blow the rails, or just park a truck on the tracks and see how many passengers survive the impact and subsequent derailment at 200 mph.
The whole high speed rail idea is stupid in the age of terrorism.
#10
If they were serious about high speed rail they would have built it in the 90s when we were flush with money. They would also be talking about building above (or beside) the i-5 and the aquaduct where they wouldn't need the same level of environmental scrutiny and/or right of way purchases.
#12
This is essentially a full-employment act for the California legal community. I'll be shocked if they ever lay the first mile of track but I won't be at all shocked when the thought that it's about to happen spawns thousands of lawsuits. My friends who are members of the CA Bar thank all of you for your kind contribution of tax dollars to their well being.
Now, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, UCLA, Harvard University, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Cornell University have teamed up to develop and test a broad-spectrum antiviral compound capable of stopping a wide range of highly dangerous viruses, including Ebola, HIV, hepatitis C virus, West Nile virus, Rift Valley fever virus and yellow fever virus, among others.
UCLA researchers led by Dr. Benhur Lee identified the compound (which they call LJ001), after screening a "library" of about 30,000 molecules to find a one that blocked the host cell entry of deadly Nipah virus. Subsequent experiments revealed that LJ001 blocked other viruses that, like Nipah, were surrounded by fatty capsules known as lipid envelopes. It had no effect on nonenveloped viruses.
"Once we started testing more and more, we realized that it was only targeting enveloped viruses," said Alexander Freiberg, director of UTMB's Robert E. Shope, M.D. Laboratory, the Biosafety Level 4 lab where much of the cell-culture work was done, as well as mouse studies with Ebola and Rift Valley fever viruses. "We followed up and determined that it was somehow changing the lipid envelope to prevent the fusion of the virus particle with the host cell."
Additional experiments indicated that while LJ001 also interacted with cell membranes, whose composition is nearly identical with that of virus envelopes, it caused them no ill effects. The reason, according to the researchers: Cells can rapidly repair their membranes, but viruses can't fix their envelopes.
"At antiviral concentrations, any damage it does to the cell's membrane can be repaired, while damage done to static viral envelopes, which have no inherent regenerative capacity, is permanent and irreversible," said Lee.
#3
Could a cure for Obamaulosis (OBIS) be far off?
o·be·ah (b-) also o·bi (b)
n. pl. o·be·ahs also o·bis
1. A form of religious belief of African origin, practiced in some parts of the West Indies, Jamaica, and nearby tropical America, involving sorcery.
2. An object, charm, or fetish used in the practice of this religion.
#5
Why? It'll just be misused by a bunch of unfeeling doctors and ignorant patients.
Here's a hint. Consider the bioterror implications of some of those viruses and then consider the value of an antiviral that could be stocked ahead of time and counter multiple such viruses with a single agent.
USAMRIID's mission isn't limited to STDs among young troops or to the possibility of cooties on FOBs.
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced. Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei- Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".
The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.
Makes you wonder how good the other science is ...
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair. It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full. The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities. The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"
Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.
Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more. Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."
How exactly do you 'correct' for them?
In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.
Last week the Information Commissioner's Office the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.
Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.
"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Bad data from Russia, Australia, China. Bad data from the US (at the least recording stations on pavement or next to AC outlets). Data truncated to ignore the Little Ice Age and cooling the last ten years. Jiggered computer models.
#3
If only we still had stocks. Imagine Al Goria in the public square getting pelted with genetically engineered vegetables. This is after he is stripped of the Nobel, Grammy, Emmy, and everything he has made from them..
#4
This being The Guardian they say us that the multiple scandals don't affect the reality of global warming. However, the fact is that those scientists doctored their data, that is they cheated. Now a question to fellow rantburgers. How many times have you seen someone cheating with a royal flush in hand?
#6
Even the Guardian is reporting this (albeit with their own spin, but still).
Thats massive. The effect of the UK press on elite opinion in the ROW (Rest of World) ensures that Global Warming is a dead letter. Wait till the BBC picks up on it.
The US MSM however is still silent, doubtless for partisan reasons.
[Al Arabiya Latest] One of the great remaining mysteries of ancient Egypt, the lineage of the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, may soon be solved, the country's antiquities supremo hinted on Sunday.
Zahi Hawass told AFP he has scheduled a news conference for Feb. 17 in the Cairo Museum to unveil the findings from DNA samples taken from the world's most famous pharaoh.
The announcement will be "about the secrets of the family and the affiliation of Tutankhamun, based on the results of the scientific examination of the Tutankhamun mummy following DNA analysis," Hawass said.
The tomb of the boy king, who reigned from the age of nine and died under as yet unknown circumstances at about 19, was unearthed by British archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, causing an international sensation.
In August 2008, Egypt's antiquities authorities said they had taken DNA samples from Tutankhamun's mummy and from two fetuses found in his tomb to determine whether the still-born children had been fathered by the boy king.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2010 00:00 ||
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You know, I think that the most dangerous place in the world for a person to stand - is between Dr. Zahi Hawass and a video-camera.
My daughter and I high-five each other when there is a program about ancient Egypt on the History Channel and there is someone other than Dr. Hawass on camera.
[Iran Press TV Latest] After one-and-a-half-century, Washington has come across a new phenomenon surfacing in its political arena as secessionist advocates in the state of Vermont seek a divorce from the United States of America.
Last week, a group of Vermont State secessionists declared their intention to seek political power in a quest to quit the Union altogether.
"For the first time in over 150 years, secession and political independence from the US will be front and center in a statewide New England political campaign," said Thomas Naylor, 73, one of the leaders of the campaign, Time reported on Sunday
Naylor, a former Duke University economics professor, is in charge of the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as "left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy."
A 2007 poll suggested that the group has the backing of at least 13 percent of state voters.
Naylor said, Vermonters would not be "forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East."
The secessionists say the US government is an immoral enterprise, which is engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and snooping on the private lives of the US citizens.
President Barack Obama in his State of the Union Address on Wednesday tried to reassure Americans the union of the US states is still "strong."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2010 00:00 ||
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They won't leave. No matter how much we beg them.
#2
Let them go after they pay the rest of us for federal property in VT, and OF COURSE assume their full per capita share of the National Debt. More nattering from the Free Lunch Party.
#3
Interestingly some lefties want to secede because the federal government isn't large and instrusive enough while some on the right want to secede because the federal government is too large and intrusive. Which merely illustrates, once again, the genius of the Founding Fathers and their recognition of the necessity that the federal government be of very limited scope & able to exercise only very limited powers, no?
#5
Reading "news" from the Iran Press TV is as entertaining as reading "The Onion" except the Iranians are actually serious about the propaganda. The Iranians must have hired some old, out of work PRAVDA or Isvestia reporters from the CCCP in 1991.
#6
I go to Norwich University, a military college about 15 minutes from the VT state capital. We make jokes about having to march on Montpelier in the event that VT declares independence.
VT secessionists are nothing new.
Posted by: Bisa ||
02/02/2010 7:40 Comments ||
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#7
Not only are going to New Hampshire, but South Carolina, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, and Texas, and Delaware, and Washington D.C., then we're going back to Montpelier to take back the State House.
#8
To Thromorong Johnson8241: which propaganda outlet do you enjoy more , the 'PressTV of Iran, or those of which are reported by the US MSM??
The above article was from "Time". Today's other US stories they report include "Autopsy- FBI shot Muslim prayer leader 20 times" and also includes a poll: "What is the main reason behind the decline in President Obama's popularity". BTW, the correct answer is leading in the poll, hands down.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/02/2010 8:04 Comments ||
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#9
First objective in the Granola coup: seize the TV station Ben & Jerry's plant.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2010 9:12 Comments ||
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#10
Naylor said, Vermonters would not be "forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East."
Mighty hifalutin of this Naylor clown, but I'm from Chicago, and I don't see anything about forcing them to participate in killing in the Middle West! Who are these laconic warmongers?
#11
If you truly wanted to secede you'd get all of your like-minded folks to move somewhere small and isolated, not one of the original colonies. Imagine if all those folks in Vermont moved to the US Virgin Islands or something. They could dominate the population and do what they wanted. Us Virgin Islands might not allow emigration but you get the point. Libertarians should move to Alaska which is geographically isolated and already very libertarian in outlook.
#12
One of the reasons for secession talk, right and left, is that the bureaucratic class in the Beltway forgets the name of the place is the United States of America and that it means something. Push come to shove, the Constitution allows three quarters of the small states to tell the one quarter big states and the Beltway to stick it.
#13
If you truly wanted to secede you'd get all of your like-minded folks to move somewhere small and isolated, not one of the original colonies. Imagine if all those folks in Vermont moved to the US Virgin Islands or something. They could dominate the population and do what they wanted.
Hey, go for it. They are slaughtering innocent women and children in Paradise, too. Incidentally, Vermont is the whitest state in the union and the VI is predominately black. Might not go over to well to start "doing what they want" but they can put their concerns over violence into action. Virgin Islands homicide rate was almost ten times the national average in 2009. During 2009, the homicide rate in the territory was 51 people out of every 100,000. The territory's total population is only 110,000, a number akin to some of the U.S. mainland's smaller municipalities. The U.S. murder rate is 5 for every 100,000 people. And, while the national trend, which includes the country's biggest cities, shows a 10 percent decline in homicides, here it is on the rise.
"It is an all-time record," V.I. Police Commissioner Novelle Francis Jr. said. In all, 35 lives were lost to homicide on St. Thomas, 20 were killed on St. Croix and one person was shot down on St. John.
In 2009, most homicides were by firearm. Some people were stabbed to death. But those slain were not all criminals or statistics. Each untimely death had its own story.
#14
Two things:
1) Vermont is upstream from Quebec, not downstream, Besoeker. The watershed flows northward towards the St. Lawrence.
2) Vermont isn't one of the original 13 colonies, rjschwartz. New England farmers who settled/squatted in the disputed lands between the colonies of New York & New Hampshire banded together under Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allan & seceded from New York during the war, forming the so-called "Vermont Republic" or "Republic of New Connecticut". It eventually became the fourteenth state.
This latter point is why Vermonters are so fond of the whole secession thing - like Texans, they harbor a certain crankish affinity for threatening to take their ball and go home.
I suppose they pine for that decade or so of independence from the rest of the polity.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/02/2010 15:52 Comments ||
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Lest we fergit, 1990's OIL STORM + NET > the UNITED SOCIALIST REPUBLIKS/STATES OF AMERIKA.
#16
WHAT MAKES THESE VERMONTERS , etc. THINK THAT DOMINANT ISLAM-HAPPY/CENTRIC OSAMA + SOON-TO-BE-NUKULAAR-IFF-NOT-ALREADY RADIC ISLAM CARE IFF VERMONT IS A US STATE OR A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY.
What the above care about is Vermont being a ISLAMIZED, SHARIA-CENTRIC, MUSLIM STATE.
Among other, 9-11 + WOT = WAR FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD = WAR FOR OWG-NWO thingy = WAR FOR ANTI-US, PRO-US OWG-NWO, ...........
D *** NGED "OTHER THINGYS"!
CHINA wants GUAM-WESTPAC, HAWAII, + MINIMA 1/2 of CONUS-NORAM for future "LIVING SPACE", + the ISLAMIST JIHAD IS UNIVERSAL-GLOBAL, aka WORLD-WIDE, NOT MERELY LOCAL, REGIONAL, OR TRANS-REGIONAL despite [Perts] PCorrect rhetoric to th contrary.
Running off to the NORTH POLE for forever won't save you nor stop Osama + Burqua Boyz nor stop the Battle for the World + OWG-NWO.
The only question is whether CHINA will achieve its goals before RADIC ISLAM takes over CHINA + CHIN'S NUKES, or LARGE PARTS OF SAME + RUSSIA'S + INDIA'S + SAMOA'S + ........................@.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Gov. Bob McDonnell is gaining traction with his proposal to earmark potential royalties from oil and gas drilling off the Virginia coast for improving the state's transportation network.
The $2.25 billion will pay to finish engineering and environmental reviews and provide seed money to start building the Anaheim-to-San Francisco route. The $2.25 billion in federal stimulus funds awarded this week to the California high-speed rail project ensures that construction can proceed on a 520-mile route between Anaheim and San Francisco within three years, rail officials said Thursday.
[Al Arabiya Latest] One of the great remaining mysteries of ancient Egypt, the lineage of the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, may soon be solved, the country's antiquities supremo hinted on Sunday.
