THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

IT IS A NATURAL PART OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND PLANTS NEED IT.

THEY WERE NEARLY TWICE AS HIGH 70 YEARS AGO - (WHEN THE DEVELOPED WORLD WAS LESS DEVELOPED AND WAS PRODUCING LESS "MAN-MADE" CO2, AND BEFORE INDIA AND CHINA HAD ANY INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT TO SPEAK OF). GLOBAL TEMP'S 70 YEARS AGO WERE NOT DRASTICALLY HIGH AND THE CO2 LEVELS DID NOT REPEAT DID NOT SET IN MOTION A SERIES OF CASCADING ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS.

THE HOCKEY-STICK IS AS BOGUS AS MICHAEL BELLESILES ANTI-GUN "DOCUMENTS."

THE ICE CORE RECORD PROVES THAT CO2 LEVELS INCREASE 800-1000 YEARS AFTER GLOBAL TEMPERATURE INCREASES - NOT BEFORE.

Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.

Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson -- thinking quickly, if not clearly -- cried rape, authorities say.

Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.

On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment -- against the wife, not the husband.

US financial sources in Bahrain report American investors in Bahrain advised to pack up business operations and leave

The advice came from officers with US Central Command 5th Fleet HQ at Manama, who spoke of security tension, a hint at an approaching war with Iran. Arab sources report the positioning of a Patriot anti-missile battery in Bahrain this week; they say occupancy at emirate hotels has soared past 90% due mostly to the influx of US military personnel. They also report Western media crews normally employed in military coverage are arriving in packs.

Thursday, March 29, Gen. Khaled al-'Absi, Bahrain's chief of air defense operations disclosed that new alarm networks had been installed and air defense systems upgraded to handle chemical, biological and radioactive attacks.

The USS Nimitz and its support ships will be departing San Diego Monday, April 2, to join the John C. Stennis Strike Group in the Persian Gulf. The nuclear carrier is due to relieve the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower , but military sources in the Gulf believe all three US carriers will stay put if tensions continue to climb or if fighting breaks out involving American, British and Iranian forces. The mighty American armada is further supported by the USS Bataan and USS Boxer strike groups.

Earlier, DEBKAfile quoted intelligence sources in Moscow as predicting that a US strike against Iranian nuclear installations codenamed Operation Bite has been scheduled for April 6 at 0040 hours. Missiles and air raids will conduct strikes designed to be devastating enough to set Tehran's nuclear program several years back.

The capture of 15 British Royal Navy personnel by Iranian forces in the Gulf comes at a time when Tehran feels it is under unprecedented international pressure. The country is diplomatically isolated and feels under a constant and building US military threat.

Earlier this month the UN Security Council passed a resolution against Iran over its nuclear programme. Iranian diplomats worked very hard to convince some members of the council, such as South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar, to support Tehran's case.

But it failed, and the vote in favour of the resolution was unanimous, further convincing the Iranian leadership that they have few friends left at the UN and that diplomacy is not working in their favour.

Iran is now also militarily encircled by the US forces. American troops are based in almost every country bordering Iran - Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Azerbaijan. The US Navy has been conducting a series of exercises in the Gulf - the biggest war games in the area since the invasion of Iraq four years ago.

Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Israel's Arrow anti-missile system is now capable of downing nearly everything in Iran's missile arsenal, including all of the Iranian missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

That according to Israeli opposition lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, who is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Steinitz told the AP that following its latest tests, the Arrow, which was jointly developed by Israel and the U.S., has proven itself able to deal with a very wide array of ballistic missiles ...

An Ethiopian helicopter attacking insurgent positions in Somalia's capital was shot down Friday as government and allied troops battled hundreds of gunmen in the streets, witnesses said. Government soldiers and troops from neighboring Ethiopia, who are in Somalia to protect the fragile government, were under a severe attack for a second day as they tried to quash a growing insurgency by Islamic militants. [...]An Associated Press reporter said an anti-aircraft missile hit the helicopter.

The number of casualties was not immediately clear. On Thursday, fighting killed at least 10 people - but it was likely that many more had died. Hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded and corpses were scattered in the streets. Doctors trying to tally the numbers said up to 30 people may have died. Dahir Mohamed, a nurse with Medina hospital, said 92 wounded patients, including three children, were brought to our hospital since Thursday. "Ethiopian troops using tanks are in fierce face-to-face fighting with hundreds of Somali gunmen since dawn," said Khalif Mohamed Mumin, who was abandoning his home in search of safety early Friday. "Residents are fleeing in all directions to escape the shelling."

Somalia has seen little more than anarchy for more than a decade. The government, with crucial support from Ethiopian troops, only months ago toppled the Council of Islamic Courts, the militia that had controlled Mogadishu for six months. But insurgents with links to the Islamic group have staged attacks nearly every day on government and Ethiopian troops. Last week, a cargo plane carrying equipment for African Union peacekeepers here was shot down by a missile during takeoff, killing the 11-person crew.

The United States has accused the Islamic group of having ties to al-Qaida. On Thursday, a White House report said that despite recent setbacks to Islamic radicals in Somalia, foreign terrorists still are able to find a haven there because of the country's lack of governance, which contributes to a growing security threat throughout East Africa. The report, submitted to relevant congressional committees, said several al-Qaida operatives have used Somalia as a base of operations, including the perpetrators of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2002 attacks against an Israeli airliner and a hotel in Kenya.

A Catholic priest is to go on trial in Vietnam accused of disseminating information to undermine the state and forming an illegal political party.

Father Nguyen Van Ly is a prominent pro-democracy activist who has been under house arrest since last month.

... the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch.

French police are bracing themselves for fresh outbreaks of violence after hundreds of youths rioted over the arrest of an illegal immigrant at a main railway station in Paris. ... The violence was reminiscent of the riots that flared in Paris’s poor suburbs in 2005 when Nicholas Sarkozy, now a presidential candidate, was Interior Minister. François Baroin, who succeeded Mr Sarkozy this week, said that the rioters used “urban guerrilla” tactics. A total of 13 people were arrested.

The violence erupted on Tuesday, during the evening rush hour, after ticket inspectors stopped a 33-year-old man for jumping over a barrier at Gare du Nord Métro station. The man — described by Mr Baroin as an illegal immigrant with 22 convictions — allegedly headbutted one of the inspectors.

Police said that they were surrounded by youths as they went to arrest the man. Nine officers and inspectors were hurt in the fighting, which lasted until about 1am. ... Amateur videos showed between 200 and 300 youths shouting insults aimed at Mr Sarkozy as they faced a line of riot police standing behind their shields. ...

Mr Sarkozy’s opponents said that his hardline law and order policies were partly to blame as they had exacerbated tensions in ethnic minority communities. Mr Sarkozy said: “We are the only country in the world where people think it’s not right to arrest someone who has not paid for his ticket. If the police is not there to ensure a minimum of order, what exactly is its role?”

Kin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq is “illegal,” and he warned that unless Arab governments settle their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region’s politics. ... On Wednesday, the king called for an end to the international boycott of the new Palestinian government. The United States and Israel want the boycott continued.

In addition, King Abdullah invited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Riyadh earlier this month while the Americans want him shunned. And in trying to settle the tensions in Lebanon, the Saudis seem willing to negotiate with Iran.

Last week, the Saudi king abruptly canceled his appearance at an April White House dinner planned in his honor, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The official reason given for the cancellation was a scheduling conflict.

France's top presidential candidates seized on a new campaign issue Wednesday after the police fought gangs of youths for seven hours at a railroad station here. Shops were destroyed, the pall of tear gas filled the air of the Gare du Nord and 13 people were arrested. ... Sarkozy, the candidate of the center-right who resigned Monday as interior minister to focus on his campaign, called the violence unacceptable and congratulated the police for "doing their job."

"I want to tell the French people that I will not be on the side of fraudsters, cheats, dishonest people," Sarkozy said. "When individuals come to the rescue of someone who is committing fraud, that is particularly unacceptable, and I hope that the justice system will firmly sanction people who behave like that."

The Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, who is running second in the opinion polls, said the incident showed that Sarkozy had failed as interior minister. "In five years with a right-wing government that has made crime its main campaign issue, you can see that it's a failure all the way," she said on CanalPlus television.

François Bayrou, a centrist, also took aim at Sarkozy. "It is very important to end this climate of perpetual confrontation between police and some citizens," he said.

There has been sporadic violence in housing projects in some suburbs since the 2005 riots, but the events Tuesday were the worst unrest in the city itself since mass demonstrations over a proposed labor law degenerated into street fighting last spring.

In nearly four years as France's "No. 1 cop," Sarkozy built a reputation as a hard-line crime buster. His tough response to the riots was criticized by his opponents, who said he was stoking the unrest. But he was praised by others for preventing bloodshed and when the violence ended his approval ratings surged.

The incident Tuesday moved to the top of the agenda in a fast-moving presidential campaign in which shifting opinion and a high number of undecided voters has kept suspense high.

Riots at a train station in the French capital, Paris, have become an issue in the upcoming presidential election. The government's candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, said police were justified in arresting an alleged fare dodger - the action that sparked the riots.

Socialist candidate Segolene Royal said the clashes resulted from Mr Sarkozy's failures as interior minister.

... The youths who gathered in the Gare du Nord on Tuesday shouted insults about Mr Sarkozy. [Umph added.]

Rivals accused rightist presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy of worsening tension between youths and police on Wednesday after clashes at a Paris train station overnight. ... Socialist officials said Tuesday's clashes were the legacy of the "provocative habits and language" of Sarkozy while its presidential candidate Segolene Royal said the violence highlighted Sarkozy's policy failures. ...

Centrist presidential hopeful Francois Bayrou, who trails Royal and Sarkozy in opinion polls, avoided criticising Sarkozy by name, but said: "It's very important to end this climate of perpetual confrontation between police and some citizens."

... critics say he [SARKOZY] remains a hate-figure for many in the neighbourhoods hit by the 2005 riots, the worst in 40 years.

It seems that they did not spend enough time to peruse in-depth the glaciological papers on CO2, and the original papers on the carbon cycle. They rather glanced over the photos, figures, tables, and read mostly abstracts and conclusions, which tell that for the past >500,000 years almost always "atmospheric" CO2 levels were lower than 290 ppmv, even in periods when the surface temperature was higher than now.

The sceptics credulously accepted the glaciologists' claim that the proxy CO2 determinations in the ice cores, are not proxies but rather direct measurements of this gas in the original ancient atmospheric air, trapped in the allegedly closed system of ice, miraculously not changed by brutal drilling procedures, and tens of physical and chemical processes in the ice sheets and in the ice cores, to say nothing of the liquid water present in the cold Antarctic ice.

The peace of mind of sceptics was not disturbed even by a total disappearance of air inclusions in all deep ice cores. They did not notice this, or what?

The carbon cycle models were all founded on an assumption of low pre-industrial CO2 level of 290 ppmv, even before the glaciological support. A component of these models is the buffer factor, in which the assumption of a pre-industrial CO2 level of 290 is the most important parameter. Future historians of science will probably eagerly study this phenomenon of groupthink, common in evironmental research.

"A long-time city employee, Ms. Griffin was terminated Tuesday after she refused to support the mayor's restructuring of the affirmative action-contract compliance office. The mayor's plan to eliminate an $11.9 million budget deficit calls for affirmative action to move under the department of human resources and contract compliance to fold into the finance department....

Later, Mr. Finkbeiner denied to reporters during his news conference in the mayor's conference room on the 22nd floor that he was racist, and insisted the fallout over the last week was caused by a "personality conflict" between Ms. Griffin and Theresa Gabriel, the director of human resources. "Ms. Griffin told me that directly," he said. "I told her she would be able to run an independent operation, as she has been doing. She refused to go to work at human resources, and that was her call."

"The simple truth of the whole issue has nothing to do with anything other than Ms. Griffin's lack of willingness to work in the human resource department because of a personality conflict," Mr. Finkbeiner said.

Source

"Bill Oliphant thinks he's been suspended from officiating basketball and baseball games because he's black. The local boards that represent both sports say that's not true, and they're outraged over Oliphant's accusations.... Both organizations claim Oliphant hasn't followed their procedures or regulations regarding meeting attendance or certification, but he said they are using this as a cover to deny him assignments....

Two of the approximately 43 referees who officiate varsity boys' and girls' basketball games in Orange County are black: Otis Cowart and T.C. Wilmer, a female. "I'm not aware of any discrimination," Cowart said. "I know Bill is unhappy, he has a dilemma, but I don't think it's about discrimination or racism. There have been no problems for me.".... This isn't the first time Oliphant has taken a case to U.S. District Court. He and Sussman settled with the Central Hudson Valley Board of Girls Softball Officials last year for $20,000, according to sources familiar with the case. The case centered around Oliphant missing a mandatory meeting and not paying a $25 fine. He and his lawyer maintained Oliphant attended a meeting in Rockland County and, again, said the incident was driven by discrimination.

Bobby Moran, secretary/treasurer of the organization from 2001-05, said he thinks the case hurt the group financially. Sources confirmed that the softball board's members paid $5,000 of the settlement, the other $15,000 coming from an insurance policy with the state association. The board had to pay another $5,800 in legal fees. Dues have gone up this year from $50 to $65 and several sources say softball umpires are turning down assignments with Oliphant. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why," said Moran, also a basketball official. "It's unfortunate the way this has all gone down. But nobody wants to step up and say anything because they are afraid they will get sued."

Several officials interviewed echoed Moran's sentiments and said that Oliphant is arrogant, often unprofessional and chronically late to meetings and games. Documents obtained by the Times Herald-Record confirmed that in 2004 two softball umpires - Moran and Steve Aurigemma - asked not to work with Oliphant....

Source

Man refused £8,000 heart surgery

A seriously ill man has been told he cannot have a potentially life-saving operation on the NHS because his local primary care trust will not pay for it. ... Paul Carter, 66, of Malvern, was told by a specialist he needed biventricular pacing fitted for his enlarged heart.

But Worcestershire Primary Health Care Trust has refused, saying the advanced pacemaker surgery would cost £8,000.

It said it could not afford the £400,000 it would cost each year to provide the surgery to patients.

FOX/AP:

Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, officials said. Nine people were arrested.

Officials said about 100 people were involved in the melee at Gare du Nord, one of Paris' most important transport hubs. Officers and police dogs fired tear gas and charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods and swinging metal bars.

The youths responded by throwing trash cans and other objects at the officers. A group of youths smashed the windows of a sporting goods store and looted boxes of shoes. Others attacked automatic drink dispensers and set fire to an information booth.

CHANNEL NEW ASIA/AFP:

Dozens of rioters attacked windows, vending machines and shops in the main hall of the subway station in the afternoon, and it took police until nearly midnight to clear the station of rioters.

The trouble started when a 33-year-old without a ticket jumped the barriers in the subway station and was stopped by railway officials, police said. He tried to resist and is accused of injuring two officials. Police patrolling the station intervened and arrested him.

However, several young people who witnessed the incident began to gather in protest against what they perceived to be the use of excessive force by police. The passenger was removed from the station but the crowd grew.

Some began throwing plastic bottles at police and shouted insults at Nicolas Sarkozy, the former interior minister and centre-right candidate for president. They also chanted slogans of "police are everywhere, justice is nowhere" and "down with the state, police and bosses".

Police reinforcements soon arrived, but did not dislodge the rioters from the station until tear-gassing them shortly before midnight. The youths then played a game of cat and mouse with police in nearby streets, setting trash cans and signs on fire. Calm was restored only one hour later.

In autumn 2005, youths and police clashed every night for three weeks in France's worst riots for decades.

Sarkozy, who left the government on Monday to campaign full-time for the presidency, was accused of provoking the rioters by calling them "scum."

the conventional liberal view of the Constitution: 20th century professors and law students are more enlightened than the Founders; Constitutional law is a vehicle for enacting policies too advanced for the voters of the time; "liberal" decisions are entitled to the deference of stare decisis, while "conservative" decisions are forever up for grabs.

Support for pregnant women is being cut because of the NHS's financial troubles, a healthcare charity has warned. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) says it is receiving "increasing reports" that NHS antenatal classes, breastfeeding services and postnatal visits are being cancelled.

NHS antenatal classes have been cut or suspended in at least 10 areas in England and Wales, according to the NCT. ... An NCT spokeswoman said: "These cuts in maternity services may reflect a more widespread pattern.

"The NCT is concerned that these short-term measures to ease financial deficits are having a negative effect on new parents and parents-to-be, preventing them from getting the information and support they need at this important stage in their lives."

Wonder drug NHS bosses can't afford to offer cancer victims

CASH-strapped NHS bosses are denying thousands of Midland kidney cancer patients two new 'wonder drugs' that could prolong their lives.

A Birmingham oncologist has likened the scandal surrounding Sutent and Nexavar to that of breast cancer treatment Herceptin, which was denied to sufferers until a public outcry last year.

Professor Nicholas James revealed that Midland health chiefs are refusing to fund some of his patients with the kidney cancer treatments, licensed for use in Britain last August. Trials have shown that Sutent and Nexavar can offer patients a dramatic improvement in quality of life - and increase life expectancy by two years. That compares favourably to Interferon-alpha, the kidney cancer treatment currently available on the NHS, which lengthens lives by just five months on average.

But Sutent and Nexavar cost £3,000 a month to fund, and have not yet been approved as 'cost-effective' by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Romano Prodi's fragile government faces another nail-biting vote on the Italian peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. The Senate has to agree the re-financing for the mission. But the parties on the far-left of Mr Prodi's alliance want the 1,800 troops currently deployed in Afghanistan to come home. [UMPH ADDED.]

It is barely a month since Mr Prodi lost a Senate vote on foreign policy and another defeat could spell the end for the prime minister.

Following his term as Secretary of Commerce, Wallace became the editor of The New Republic magazine, using his position to criticize vociferously Truman's hawkish foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear." He left his editorship position in 1948 to make an unsuccessful run as a Progressive Party candidate in the 1948 U.S. presidential election. ... Historians Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier argue (1970 p 181)

"The Progressive party stood for one thing and Wallace another. Actually the party organization was controlled from the outset by those representing the radical left and not liberalism per se. This made it extremely easy for Communists and fellow travelers to infiltrate into important positions within the party machinery. Once this happened, party stands began to resemble a party line. Campaign literature, speech materials, and campaign slogans sounded strangely like echoes of what Moscow wanted to hear. As if wearing moral blinkers, Wallace increasingly became an imperceptive ideologue. Words were uttered by Wallace that did not sound like him, and his performance took on a strange Jekyll and Hyde quality—one moment he was a peace protagonist and the next a propaganda parrot for the Kremlin."

... In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Stalin stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist.

Some scientists have subsequently challenged the validity of the Lancet study. Questions have been asked about the survey techniques and the possibility of "mainstreet bias".

Dr Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway London University says that most of those questioned lived on main streets which are more likely to suffer from car bombs: "It would appear they were only able to sample a small sliver of the country," he said.

Dr Spagat has previously conducted research with Iraq Body Count, an NGO that counts deaths on the basis of media reports and which has produced estimates far lower than those published in the Lancet.

If the Lancet survey is right, then 2.5% of the Iraqi population - an average of more than 500 people a day - have been killed since the start of the war.

"... life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today.

These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. It’s a global phenomenon.

Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population.

Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 1960 and 2003.

If Israel continues to close the Rafah border terminal, the European Union will need to reconsider extending its observer team's presence in the Strip, Gen. Pietro Pistolese, commander of the Border Assistance Mission, said Sunday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, he said if Israel kept the terminal closed to the point where it was no longer functional, the EU might decide it was no longer worth maintaining 70 observers in the Gaza Strip.

"If the border is not open, the mission is not useful," Pistolese said.

According to statistics obtained by the Post, since June 25, 2006 - the same day Cpl. Gilad Schalit was abducted by Hamas gunmen outside Gaza - the crossing has been closed 79 percent of the time, and open just 57 days. Just over 109,000 people have passed through Rafah during that period.

French presidential candidate François Bayrou has slumped to 19 per cent, behind conservative Nicolas Sarkozy on 30 per cent and Socialist Ségolène Royal on 25.5 per cent, according to a new poll.

By the end of the decade one in four new cases of schizophrenia could be triggered by smoking cannabis, scientists say. Research has suggested that regular users of the drug are up to six times more likely to develop schizophrenia, although whether the drug is the direct cause remains disputed.

The Department of Health says it is now generally agreed among doctors that cannabis is an “important causal factor” in mental illness. A study published in the journal Addiction predicts that, if the causal link between cannabis use and schizophrenia is accepted, rates of the illness will increase substantially by 2010, especially among young men.

"There's a huge majority of the American people who are ready for this, who are not represented in the current system. And this is an opportunity for those people to speak up," the actor said.

"I think by its existence it will have a beneficial effect on anybody who's running for president, because they will be obliged to look over their other shoulder at the center, and not simply address the partisan factions that have so much sway in primaries," Waterston said.

The aspirations of Unity '08 actually go a bit beyond the traditional meaning of bipartisanship – in that GOP and Democratic party leaders would not be calling the shots when Unity08 decides who will be on its slate of candidates.

On its website, the group says "Unity08 believes neither of today's major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both are excessively dominated by money."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon carries a wreath to lay at the grave of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Sunday.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas blatantly violated a promise to free captive Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit before forming a new national unity government.



Olmert spoke before the weekly Cabinet meeting and ahead of high-profile talks With U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, both visiting the region.

"We can't ignore the fact that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority blatantly violated a series of commitments to Israel, especially the commitment that no national unity government would be formed before Gilad Shalit's release," Olmert said.

Olmert said Abbas had made the commitment again and again in meetings between the two leaders, during three-way summits that included Rice, and foreign heads of state.

The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend 200,000 pounds blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East. The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public. The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias. The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent. Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible". [Umph aded by ed.]

MANALAPAN, Fla. - Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger.

"They're not supporting the troops. They're undermining them," Cheney told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the oceanside Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla., about 60 miles north of Miami.

The Sunday London Times - FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

Lord Triesman said he had been assured the group was not being held hostage for political reasons as the UK joined other United Nations Security Council members in imposing tougher sanctions on Iran over its refusal to suspend its nuclear programme. “Our own view is that these things are not linked,” Lord Triesman said. He believed it was a “technical” dispute over whether - as Iran claims - the personnel had strayed into Iranian waters or - as the UK insists - were on the Iraqi side of the border.

I've been on the fence about this thing until America's most highly-paid newsman wrote this on her blog:

"And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists -- many of them on the payroll of big oil companies -- who wonder if global warming is a reality.)"

Oil companies. I should have known. They want us all dead so they can have all the oil to themselves. Still, as a Republican, the question I really have to ask is, what's in it for me??

It's another perfect day here in Southern California, a nippy 69 degrees, and the value of my house has doubled in the last 5 years. What if everybody had nice weather, the chilling thought went down my chilled spine. My obscene profit, up in smoke like from the tailpipe of a Hummer. And if it gets as warm as Mexico here, why, they sell land as cheap as dirt!

We have to do something about this, like now. As Al Gore said while snarfing up his well-deserved Oscar, this is a moral issue. Quicker than Gore flunked out of divinity school, I came up with this helpful list. Clip and save:

• ---Plug in your clocks only when you absolutely have to know what time it is. If you need the alarm, get up five minutes early to set it.

• ---Your kids are useless for pushing your car up to highway speeds, but they can increase your mileage considerably around town. Use your headlights only when there's no moon, and remember, your horn uses less energy than your turn signal.

• ---Stairs make you huff and puff and expel carbon dioxide. Use the elevator. And sports are carbon-intensive too, so do 'em on your X-box.

The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.

Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct.

Israel: Lebanon Cease-Fire in Jeopardy -

Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria.

U.N. Unanimously Approves Iran Sanctions -

The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium - a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.

The moderately tougher sanctions include banning Iranian arms exports, and freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps.

The United States is ``very pleased by the strength of this resolution'' after two years of diplomacy, said R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is questioning whether the CIA's secret prison program -- which he fears has become a black eye to the United States -- should continue. ... Rockefeller says there is no doubt that intelligence from detainees has been valuable. Yet he says he wonders whether the CIA needed to create a system outside of long-standing FBI and military interrogation programs.

Rockefeller's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, said he has not been convinced that the CIA prisons produce better intelligence than the FBI and military systems.

''The real question is whether the administration's decision to pursue an alternate system (at the CIA) was the right approach,'' Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.

President Bush said he emptied the CIA's secret prisons in September and sent its last 14 high-value detainees to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he left open the possibility that the program could be used again. ... Rockefeller has promised to conduct more vigorous oversight of the spy agencies than did his Republican predecessor. He is asking whether having a separate CIA detention and interrogation system is necessary and worth the toll on the U.S. image abroad.

''The widespread reports about secret prisons and torture, whether accurate or not, have damaged the United States' reputation around the world and hindered counterterrorism efforts with our allies,'' he said.

Human rights groups have argued for years that the CIA's detention and interrogation techniques amount to torture. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only independent watchdog to interview the 14 detainees who were held by the CIA.

In a confidential report that has not been publicly distributed, the Red Cross said the 14 prisoners described highly abusive interrogation methods, especially when techniques such sleep deprivation and forced standing were used in combination. None of the detainees' accounts has been verified. ...

U.S. officials long have said the CIA program is for the most dangerous detainees and the CIA says its officers do not torture. ''The agency's terrorist interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives,'' CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

When the Eroica ("Heroic") came along, it upended the musical world as everyone knew it, departing from the consolidation of Beethoven's first two symphonies and making a dramatic conquest of musical territory on its own terms.




It is in this work that the true voice of Beethoven is first heard. Such a dynamic impulse was provided by nothing less than the stimulus of post-Revolutionary France, where Napoleon Bonaparte, under the force of arms, had conquered and established a number of republics embodied after the model of classical Rome, a political ideal to which Beethoven was strongly attracted.

The symphony was initially written in honour of Napoleon, but in May 1804, upon hearing that Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven went into a rage and tore the title page up which bore Bonaparte's name.

The title page was rewritten with a new name and rather more ambiguous dedication: Sinfonia Eroica, Composed to Celebrate the Memory of a Great Man.

But the symphony owes its "heroic" nature to more than just its title: the music was of such character that the development of its musical ideas was so drawn out until the work was nearly twice as long as any previous symphony.

In addition to the furious exposition of the first movement, the second movement contained a sombre funeral march which is based on French influences of the period, particularly Cherubini's Hymne funébre sur la mort du Général Hoche of 1797. The last movement is a set of orchestral variations taken from Beethoven's ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus.

To consume a virtuous good is to make a statement. It is not only to do right, whatever that might mean, but to announce that you are doing so. Thus we encounter the extreme specialization of virtuous consumption. ... Take Toyota's hybrid auto, the Prius. Studies consistently show that fuel savings do not justify the price premium of a gasoline-electric power train. People who can afford the gesture continue to buy the Prius anyway, largely because it certifies personal enlightenment in the matter of global warming.

I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Character is what you do when no one’s looking.” A fine sentiment, poised as it is against the impulse to trumpet one’s every act of charity or “eco-consciousness.” Of course, putting said fine sentiment on your bumper is a handy way of suggesting the many virtuous things you do while no one’s looking, which kind of defeats the purpose.

In simpler times, religious folks were virtuous (in their behavior if not in their choice of automobiles) because they believed God was watching. Do those who practice today’s secular virtues believe that their fellow men are watching?

Can we compare the effects of the Iraq and Thai insurgencies? Probably. The population disparity between the USA and Thailand means, in my opinion, that the impact on Thailand of a single death in the southern insurrection is almost five times as great as the impact on the USA of the death of a single US warrior in Iraq. If we multiply Thai deaths by 4.5 in order to show what is happening to Thailand, we can see how the suffering of the two nations actually compares:

USA: 2,619
Thailand: 9,363

Adjusting for population size allows us to get some insight into the true level of Thailand’s misery.

Now consider the duration of each conflict, remembering that the USA has been in Iraq almost a year longer than the violence in Thailand has persisted:

USA, actual deaths per month, four years: 55
Thailand, adjusted deaths per month, 37 months: 253

The Government is demanding the "immediate and safe return" of 15 British sailors and Marines seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces. They were taking part in a routine operation boarding merchant ships in Iraqi territorial waters when they were taken captive by Iranian naval vessels. The sailors and Marines had completed a successful inspection of one ship, reportedly a dhow, when the group and their two boats were surrounded. They were then escorted by Iranian vessels into its territorial waters. ...

The men, from the Type 22 frigate HMS Cornwall, were seized in the Shatt Al Arab waterway. The Royal Navy insists they were operating in Iraqi waters and not Iranian territory. It is thought the operation was part of a crackdown on smugglers. The commanding officer of HMS Cornwall, Commodore Nick Lambert told Sky News: "I have got 15 sailors and Marines who have been arrested by the Iranians.

"My immediate concern is that their safety and their safe return to me is ensured." A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level. The British Government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

The Iranian ambassador was later summoned to the Foreign Office to discuss the incident. It is not the first time British servicemen have run up against Iranian forces in the troubled waters between Iran and Iraq.

Eight men were seized and detained after three patrol boats were said to have strayed into the Iranian side of the Shatt al Arab waterway in July 2004. They were later released. Analysts have told Sky News that such cases are normally resolved peacefully. The latest incident comes at a time of renewed tensions with Iran over Tehran's nuclear program. It also coincides with fresh claims of Iranian interference in Iraq - UK commanders say Iran is arming and funding insurgents attacking British troops.

X-ray images taken from a new international spacecraft show that the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent than scientists knew, NASA reported Wednesday....

"These images will open a new era of study on some of the sun's processes that affect Earth, astronauts, orbiting satellites and the solar system."

The scientists said they were surprised and delighted by the findings.

"It's going to put us in a whole new realm of understanding," Golub told a news conference.

"Everything we thought we knew about X-ray images of the sun is out of date."

"Liberals call it a "hate crimes prevention" bill, but conservatives denounce it as "anti-Christian" legislation. Whatever you call it, the bill is back -- reintroduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) on Tuesday. Liberals are pressing for passage, and conservatives are pressing President Bush to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

"If there was ever a bill which needed to be vetoed -- this is it," said Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. "Most Christians might as well rip the pages which condemn homosexuality right out of their Bibles because this bill will make it illegal to publicly express the dictates of their religious beliefs."

Lafferty and other conservatives argue that the bill will "elevate homosexuality" -- a type of behavior, they stipulate -- to the same level as race and other characteristics that can't be changed. "The fact is that Conyers' so-called hate crimes bill is a fraud, designed for only one purpose: to add homosexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens and transsexuals to the ranks of federally protected minority groups," TVC said.

Source

Nigeria teacher dies 'over Koran'

Secondary school pupils in north-eastern Nigeria have killed a teacher after apparently accusing her of desecrating the Koran, police say. The teacher, a Christian, was attacked after supervising an exam in Gombe city. It is not clear what she had done to anger the students. The authorities, concerned that communal unrest could break out, have ordered all the city's schools to shut.

Similar accusations sparked riots in neighbouring Bauchi State last year.

At least 15,000 people have been killed in religious, communal or political violence since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.

MSimon, you successfully dragged me over from NASASpaceFlight.com. Helps that I just joined a Yahoo bicycling group and had not yet forgotten my user name and password!

For the newcomers, I worked for R. W. Bussard on his fusion project for over 5 years, and think he's figured out how to save the world. I am a science fiction author for Analog, and wrote a fact article [pdf-ed.] for them on IEC that won an Analab award for 1998.

I'm sometimes credited, due to that article, with starting the amateur fusion movement centered on fusor.net, but actually that was mostly the doing of Richard Hull. I got Richard started, then he turned it into a movement. Writing that article was Dr. Bussard's idea.