Eeyore's news and view

Substance sickens pro-lifers
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 11/16/2008 5:00:00 AM
Operation Rescue is concerned about the lack of investigation of an alleged chemical attack against pro-life warriors at a Wichita, Kansas, abortion clinic.

Operation Rescue's headquarters is next door to the abortion clinic where the incident happened. Spokesperson Cheryl Sullinger was there. "There was a chemical substance spread on the driveway near where pro-lifers pray at George Tiller's abortion clinic, and it made two women very, very sick," she explains. "They were vomiting; one had to be treated at the emergency room -- she had swelling of the eyes." Doctors said the reaction came from exposure to a foreign substance and was not related to any viral or bacterial infection. Sullinger says two aspects greatly concern her. "We think that this kind of attack against pro-lifers is shocking and it's cowardly," says Sullinger. "And the fact that the authorities don't seem to be interested in stopping this kind of thing really is troubling to us." That alone, she suggests, encourages repeat performances. Operation Rescue has reported death threats recently, as well as vandalism at the property.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=320480

Meltdown to hit agriculture, food shortage looms
2008-11-12 18:50:00
Commodity OnlineNEW DELHI: As if the global meltdown and soaring food prices are not enough, now brace up for food shortage in the coming two years.Even as the world is struggling to fight global market meltdown with companies sacking employees and Industries scaling down production, the world will also have to tackle food shortage and soaring prices in the coming days.According to United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the current financial crisis will adversely affect agricultural sectors in many countries, including India and other developing countries.This warning is issued by the FAO despite predictions that world cereal production is set to hit a new record of some 2.24 billion tones in 2008/2009. Again, global rice production is also expected at 450 million tonnes during the same period.Still, this year’s record cereal harvest and the recent fall in food prices should not create a false sense of security.If the current price volatility and liquidity conditions prevail in 2008/09, plantings and output could be affected to such an extent that a new price surge might take place in 2009/10, unleashing even more severe food crises than those experienced recently.The report also noted that most of the recovery in cereal production took place in developed countries, where farmers were in a better position to respond to high prices.In contrast, developing countries were largely limited in their capacity to respond to high prices by supply side constraints on their agricultural sectors.FAO said the sharp 2007/2008 rise in food prices has increased the number of undernourished people in the world to an estimated 923 million.Lower international commodity prices have not yet translated into lower domestic food prices in most low-income countries, it added.The FAO report further noted that world agriculture was facing serious long-term issues and challenges that need to be urgently addressed.These include land and water constraints, low investments in rural infrastructure and agricultural research, expensive agricultural inputs relative to farm-gate prices and little adaptation to climate change.The more critical and likely impact of the global meltdown will be on credit, whose non-availability is widely recognised as one of the major constraints to agricultural development in the developing countries, and the rationing of which is likely to be more serious than any interest rate effects, it said.Taking lessons from the 1996 Asian financial crisis, the FAO suggested that countries and investors should meet their commitments on the development of agriculture in the developing countries as agriculture would act as a 'buffer' and help cushion greater losses incurred in other sectors of the economy.
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Meltdown-to-hit-agriculture-food-shortage-looms-12694-3-1.html

Banning Guns by the Size of the Hole in the Barrel
Posted by Scott L. Bach, Esq. November 14, 2008 9:36AM
Categories: Hot topics, Law & order, Policy watch, Politics
It seems that those intent on dismantling the Second Amendment brick by brick have found a new target of opportunity to demonize and ban: guns with a larger hole in the barrel than others.
On November 17, the New Jersey Assembly is set to consider A2116, which bans most firearms which shoot projectiles of 50 caliber or larger.
Many hunting and historical firearms fall into this category, so A2116 would ironically ban Revolutionary and Civil War flintlocks and muskets that won the very freedom that the legislation seeks to take away, not to mention popular hunting rifles. It could also ban a truly evil scourge of society that shoots 100+ caliber projectiles: marshmallow guns.
Apart from obvious absurdity, A2116 makes the fundamental mistake of banning hardware rather than punishing criminal behavior. It's a truly awful piece of legislation that will accomplish little to advance public safety, but plenty to erode the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.
I testified on this bill before an Assembly committee back in June. Here's some of what I said:
This bill is essentially a convoluted solution to a hypothetical problem. It calls for the equivalent of radical surgery for an imagined pain, and its net effect is to ban hundreds of guns from thousands of honest citizens, while doing nothing to address public safety.
9/11 showed us that a criminal bent on doing harm does not need sophisticated tools, and will not be deterred if a particular instrument becomes unavailable. Who would have ever believed that common household objects could be turned into instruments of evil?
The fact of the matter is that any object can be misused, which is why banning one particular object will never stop someone who means to do harm.
Instead of banning guns by the size of the hole in the barrel - which is what this bill does - we should be punishing criminals by the size of the crime. Punishment is the only thing criminals understand.
But no matter what you think at the end of the discussion, there is one clear, simple, and irrefutable fact about this bill: it will ban hundreds of hunting and historical guns.
- Is it really your intention to ban popular rifles used by sportsmen? Because it does.
- Is it really your intention to ban flintlocks and muskets that won the American Revolution and Civil War? Because it does.
- And is it really your intention to interfere with the inheritance of family heirlooms worth thousands? Because that's precisely what this bill does.
This is the third time in 3 sessions that we've had this discussion. At this point, it's hard not to conclude that a sweeping gun ban is precisely what you intend.
And while some of our concerns from last session were addressed in this session's bill, it remains fundamentally flawed legislation that uses hypothetical speculation and emotional rhetoric about a single gun, as cover for a sweeping ban on hundreds of guns.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_scott_bach/2008/11/banning_guns_by_the_size_of_th.html

The nuclear nations are the ones that are on the moon also?
Chandrayaan-I reaches its final resting orbit
12 Nov 2008, BANGALORE: India's unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 on Wednesday successfully entered the operational lunar orbit after ISRO scientists
carried out final orbit reduction manoeuvre, lasting one minute. ( Watch ) The craft is now at a circular orbit of 102 km above the moon's surface, ISRO spokesperson S Satish said. It is expected to be trimmed to 100 km — the final circular orbit of Chandrayaan-1 — tomorrow, he said. On November 9, India became the fifth member of the global moon club with Chandrayaan-1 entering the lunar orbit at 5.04 pm (IST). The other four members are the US, Russia (former Soviet Union), Japan, China and members of European Space Agency (ESA). According to Isro officials, Chandrayaan's liquid engine was fired for 817 seconds when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable the lunar gravity to capture it around the moon. Chandrayaan's speed was reduced to 366 metres per second when it flew into the moon's orbit. Experts said it was a significant feat because India's moonshot was successful in the very first attempt — something that even major space powers like the US and Russia could not achieve. The man who launched the Indian moon mission, Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, had said, "It's undoubtedly a great moment for India because nearly 50% of the moon missions of other countries have not been successful." Chandrayaan-1, the two-year Rs 386 crore Indian moon mission launched from Sriharikota on October 22, will draw a three-dimensional map of the moon, carrying out its chemical mapping and hunting for water or ice. Kasturirangan said the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) was a nail-biting moment because two objects — the moon and Chandrayaan — moving at a high speed had to have a successful rendezvous. At a certain point, the gravity of moon and that of earth cancel each other out, making LOI very challenging.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chandrayaan-I_reaches_its_final_resting_orbit/articleshow/3705750.cms

Germany to advocate ‘world risk map’
By Chris Bryant in Berlin
Published: November 14 2008 13:39
German chancellor Angela Merkel is set to push international leaders to draw up a “world risk map” of global financial institutions to allow financial authorities to quickly identify future trouble spots.
Unveiling the findings of a government-commissioned expert panel on Friday Mrs Merkel also proposed the creation a central body to oversee credit ratings agencies, an international register of major loans and the better alignment of managers’ pay to discourage short-term risk taking.
The chancellor and finance minister Peer Steinbrück are expected to lobby at the G20 world financial summit in Washington this weekend for all financial institutions, markets and jurisdictions to be made subject to proportionate regulatory control in order to eliminate “blind spots” in the financial system.
This supervision is intended to shed more light on the opaque workings of hedge funds and insurance companies, which the government believes have contributed to the severity of the current crisis.
The idea has found support in Europe, the US is thought to be hostile to what it views as a heavy-handed approach.
Ms Merkel said on Friday she was "somewhat surprised" about warnings against too much regulation before the crisis had been overcome.
Although Berlin has also sought to play down expectations for detailed solutions to the crisis Ms Merkel said she remained “optimistic” about the chances for progress.
The chancellor will go to Washington armed with a set of policy ideas prepared in the past two weeks by a six-strong panel led by Otmar Issing, a former European Central Bank chief economist.
Prof Issing said the panel had considered ways to reform the world's financial architecture in order to prevent a repeat of the current crisis which had left the financial system "on the edge of ruin".
Among the panel's suggestions isa global risk map which would highlight at a single glance areas where pressure is building up in the financial system.
The map would show all major international institutions and financial products, including credit insurance and asset-backed securities.
Similarly, the group has suggested setting up a cross-border credit register of major loans to provide greater transparency to businesses and governments seeking to evaluate risk.
Credit agencies, which have been criticised for dishing out spurious ratings in the pursuit of profit and failing to spot the build-up of risk, should be subject to a central supervisory body that would report annually on their work the report said.
Furthermore the fee structure of credit agencies must be reformed to incentivise the issue of a correct rating, for example by making agencies buy into the tranches of debt that they rate.
The group also proposed realligning management compensation schemes to motivate long-term performance.
A new compensation model could incorporate both bonus and malus components, similar to the system used in the car insurance industry,an idea favoured by Mr Steinbrück.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97c3f92e-b245-11dd-bbc9-0000779fd18c.html