Eeyores News and View

Wind spreads disease faster than thought CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) - Plant and human diseases that travel with the wind can spread more quickly than previously believed, according to a study at Oregon State University and elsewhere. The findings cause concern not only for some human diseases but also a new fungus that threatens global wheat production. The research concludes that invading diseases do not always progress in an orderly, constant rate and that some airborne pathogens can actually accelerate as they move. "It's now becoming clear that some types of diseases can spread more rapidly and widely than we anticipated," said Chris Mundt, a professor of plant pathology at OSU. "This makes it especially important, in some cases, to stop a spreading disease quickly if you hope to stop it at all." The studies explain, in part, how West Nile Virus spread so rapidly across the United States when experts had been expecting a slower movement. They help analyze the progression of some historic disease problems, such as the potato blight that led to the Irish potato famine of the mid-1840s. And they suggest that a new fungal wheat pathogen that emerged a few years ago in Uganda may be a bigger threat to world production than first thought. Mundt, an international expert on pathogens of several important food crops, has studied wheat stem rust for years. "If we didn't have crops that could resist wheat stem rust, we pretty much wouldn't have a wheat industry," Mundt said. "From this pathogen we've learned a lot about plant disease resistance in general. "And this new study confirms that it is crucial to get prepared for the rapid spread of a new variety of wheat stem rust that appeared in Uganda in 1999." The new wheat stem rust, Mundt said, could attack 75 percent of the world's known wheat varieties, and in a bad year might cause up to 50 percent crop losses in some areas. "We don't want to suggest that the sky is falling, but major losses could occur if the right set of conditions converges," Mundt said. "This is something that we shouldn't take a chance on. It's already spread to Iran, and the new research shows that its global spread may be about to pick up speed." He said there is little time to waste. "This wheat disease problem could be global within a few years," Mundt said. "We would be foolish to ignore it." Most plant and animal diseases spread by contact or proximity tend to move in a fairly predictable way, researchers say. But some carried by wind-carried spores or migrating birds can spread rapidly. From 2004-06 the avian bird flu spread across parts of Africa, Europe and Asia through migrating birds. From New York City in 1999, the West Nile Virus spread across most of North America within three years. "It was surprising to see how closely the spread of very different plant, animal and human diseases followed the same mathematical relationship," Mundt said. "This is giving us a better ability to predict how various types of diseases may move, and hopefully prepare for them." The study was published recently in The American Naturalist, a professional journal.
http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story/Wind-spreads-disease-faster-than-thought/Z2Huv2Xm5UO3KPFJmMd2jw.cspx

Canadians find vast computer spy network: report WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New York Times reported on Saturday. In a report provided to the newspaper, a team from the Munk Center for International Studies in Toronto said at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries had been breached in less than two years by the spy system, which it dubbed GhostNet. Embassies, foreign ministries, government offices and the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York were among those infiltrated, said the researchers, who have detected computer espionage in the past. They found no evidence U.S. government offices were breached. The researchers concluded that computers based almost exclusively in China were responsible for the intrusions, although they stopped short of saying the Chinese government was involved in the system, which they described as still active. "We're a bit more careful about it, knowing the nuance of what happens in the subterranean realms," said Ronald Deibert, a member of the Munk research group, based at the University of Toronto. "This could well be the CIA or the Russians. It's a murky realm that we're lifting the lid on." A spokesman for the Chinese Consulate in New York dismissed the idea China was involved. "These are old stories and they are nonsense," the spokesman, Wenqi Gao, told the Times. "The Chinese government is opposed to and strictly forbids any cybercrime." The Toronto researchers began their sleuthing after a request from the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware. The network they found possessed remarkable "Big Brother-style" capabilities, allowing it, among other things, to turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of infected computers for potential in-room monitoring, the report said. The system was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian nations as well as on the Dalai Lama, the researchers said, adding that computers at the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated and a NATO computer monitored. The report will be published in Information Warfare Monitor, an online publication linked to the Munk Center. At the same time, two computer researchers at Cambridge University in Britain who worked on the part of the investigation related to the Tibetans are releasing an independent report, the Times said. They do fault China and warned that other hackers could adopt similar tactics, the Times added. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090328/ts_nm/us_security_spying_computers

DHS Signals Policy Changes Ahead for Immigration Raids By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 29, 2009; 1:19 PM Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids, federal officials said. A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute -- increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers. "ICE is now scrutinizing these cases more thoroughly to ensure that [targets] are being taken down when they should be taken down, and that the employer is being targeted and the surveillance and the investigation is being done how it should be done," said the official, discussing Napolitano's views about sensitive law enforcement matters on the condition of anonymity. "There will be a change in policy, but in the interim, you've got to scrutinize the cases coming up," the senior DHS official said, noting Napolitano's expectations as a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general. Another DHS official said Napolitano plans to release protocols this week to ensure more consistent work-site investigations and less "haphazard" decision-making. Napolitano's moves have led some to question President Obama's commitment to work-site raids, which were a signature of Bush administration efforts to combat illegal immigration. Napolitano has highlighted other priorities, such as combating Mexican drug cartels and catching dangerous criminals who are illegal immigrants. Napolitano's moves foreshadow the difficult political decisions the Obama administration faces as it decides whether to continue mass arrests of illegal immigrant workers in sweeps of meatpackers, construction firms, defense contractors and other employers. Critics say workplace and neighborhood sweeps are harsh and indiscriminate, and they accuse the government of racial profiling, violating due process rights and committing other humanitarian abuses. The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base, who have stepped up pressure on Obama to stop them. At a rally last week in Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, head of the archdiocese of Obama's home city, called on the government "to end immigration raids and the separation of families" and support an overhaul of immigration law. "Reform would be a clear sign this administration is truly about change," George said. Also last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus made similar calls as the caucus met formally with Obama for the first time. "Raids that break up families in that way, just kick in the door in the middle of the night, taking [a] father, a parent away, that's just not the American way. It must stop," Pelosi added at a Capitol Hill conference on border issues sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But Obama also faces pressure from conservative lawmakers and many centrist Democrats, who say that workplace enforcement is needed to reduce the supply of jobs that attract illegal immigrants, and that any retreat in defending American jobs in a recession could ignite a populist backlash. When the White House announced plans last week to move more than 450 federal agents and equipment to the border to counter Mexico's drug cartels, lawmakers warned Napolitano against diverting money from workplace operations. Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the administration "appears to be using border violence as an excuse" to undercut immigration enforcement in the nation's interior. "It makes no sense to take funds from one priority (worksite enforcement) to address a new priority (the growth in border violence). This is just robbing Peter to pay Paul," Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, said in an e-mail. Led by Byrd, Congress this year ordered ICE to spend $127 million on workplace operations, $34 million more than President George W. Bush had requested. Reducing those amounts, even in ICE's overall $5 billion budget, would provoke a fight, senior aides in both parties said. DHS officials categorically deny any reduction. Instead Napolitano has sought to chart a middle course by ordering a review of which immigrants are targeted for arrest. While a policy is still under development, Napolitano has said she intends to focus more on prosecuting criminal cases of wrongdoing by companies. Analysts say they also think ICE may conduct fewer raids, focusing routine enforcement on civil infractions of worker eligibility verification rules. Former Bush administration officials said their raids were also targeted against supervisors, but that it took time to build complicated white-collar cases. In the meantime, they said, depriving companies of their workforces and in some cases filing criminal charges against illegal immigrant workers sent a clear message of deterrence to both management and labor. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to reduce immigration, said Obama aides are trying to manage the issue until an economic turnaround permits an attempt to overhaul immigration laws. "I think their calculus is, how do they keep Hispanic groups happy enough without angering the broader public so much that they sabotage health care and their other priorities?" Krikorian said. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group, said that to the contrary, groups such as his support Obama's focus on going after bad employers and criminal illegal immigrants first -- or as he put it, prioritizing "drug smugglers, not window washers." Within ICE, the front-office vetting of cases has led to some doubts. Last week, for example, ICE postponed plans to raid employers at a military-related facility in Chicago for which they had arranged to temporarily detain as many as 100 illegal immigrants, according to one official. A second official said Napolitano thought the investigative work was inadequate. The raid would have been the second under the Obama administration. After the first, a Feb. 24 sweep of an engine-parts maker in Bellingham, Wash., that led to 28 arrests, Napolitano publicly expressed disappointment that ICE did not inform her beforehand and announced an investigation into agency communication practices. In response, Leigh H. Winchell, the ICE special agent in charge in Seattle, wrote an e-mail to his staff -- subsequently leaked to conservative bloggers -- saying they had acted correctly. He also copied a statement from House Republicans calling Napolitano's review "beyond backwards." "You did nothing wrong and you did everything right," Winchell wrote. "I cannot control the politics that take place with these types of situations, but I can remind you that you are great servants of this country and this agency."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032901109_pf.html

Here is a growing phenomenon around the country Tea Party's. I think it is a good thing as long as the stuff is done lawfully and non violent Civil Disobedience is not a bad thing,
Cape "tea party" canceled; City fears too many attendees
CAPE CORAL, Fla. - A tea party to protest government spending and taxing is canceled. Canceled by the government.Why? They feel too many people could show-up. Lynn Rosko planned to hold a tax payer tea party at Jaycee Park in Cape Coral on April 1st. The idea was announced at a Cape Coral City Council meeting, then an e-mail blast by the Republican Party and it was mentioned in the local media.With all of that attention, the City of Cape Coral felt there could be more than 500 people attending the tea party.Therefore Rosko needed to get a permit and insurance for the event. Rosko says she's not willing to get insurance and accept liability for something that a stranger could do. Rosko told WINK News, "I have rescinded any organizing or supervision or what ever you want to call it over this tea party on April 1st."WINK News spoke to the director of parks for Cape Coral. He says that even now if Rosko is willing to get insurance for the event he'll likely re-authorize it.For now Rosko's event is canceled, she's encouraging people to attend the April 15th Tax Payer Tea Party in Centennial Park in Fort Myers.
http://www.winknews.com/news/local/42019772.html

Another growing phenomenon around the country is raising you own food, it goes from the White house growing a Victory Garden to the city dwellers raising chickens.
Ground is broken for White House 'kitchen garden'
March 20, 2009 - 4:12pm
First lady Michelle Obama takes part in the groundbreaking of the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, March 20, 2009, with students from Washington's Bancroft Elementary School. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds) By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground for a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.
Crops to be planted in the coming weeks on the 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped patch near the fountain on the South Lawn include spinach, broccoli, various lettuces, kale and collard greens, assorted herbs and blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.
There will also be a beehive.
"We're going to try to make our own honey here as well," Mrs. Obama told the students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington. The school has its own community garden.
The students will be brought back to the White House next month to help with the planting, and after that to help harvest and cook some of the produce in the mansion's kitchen. The first harvest is expected by late April.
Mrs. Obama said her family has talked about planting such a garden since they moved to the White House in January.
After she spoke, the students were paired off and handed a gardening tool. The first lady joined, with a tool of her own, and together they began raking and scraping up the grass and topsoil, dumping it into wheelbarrows and depositing the contents in a central location.
"Are we done yet?" Mrs. Obama jokingly said at one point. "I want to plant. Let's harvest something."
When the work was finished, the students sat at three nearby picnic tables and were treated to apples, apple cider and cookies baked in the shape of a shovel.
Some of the produce from the garden will be served in the White House, including to the First Family and at official functions. Some crops also will be donated to Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen near the White House where Mrs. Obama recently helped serve lunch.
Assistant chef Sam Kass said the garden will exist year round, and the crops will change based on the seasons.
He gave no estimate on how much produce the garden would yield, but said, "It should be quite a bit, if we're lucky."
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=555.0

Chickens vs. property values
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/25/2009
CHESTERFIELD — The four chicks came home in a small white box.
For months, Marci Davis watched them grow. One fell ill and died, but the three others became colorful hens that laid eggs with large, thick yolks.
"It completely changed my baking," she said. "It made it so much richer."
Then last fall, Davis spotted a blurb in a local news magazine. The City Council was considering restrictions on who could keep chickens in their backyards.
"It didn't make sense to me," Davis said. To her, keeping chickens was "the ultimate green family experience."
Backyard chicken owners cite a host of reasons for keeping poultry. They provide a cheap source of fresh eggs in a tough economy. The nitrogen in their droppings makes excellent fertilizer. They eat weeds and bugs.
And they're fun to watch.
But in Chesterfield, the growing popularity of urban fowl didn't go over so well with some residents. The concern? The effect on property values and attracting coyotes and other varmints.
"It has to do with health issues and being able to resell your property," said Barbara Nauert, president of the board of trustees for Clarkson Woods South, a subdivision that lobbied the City Council for the restrictions.
From Webster Groves to Wentzville, cities have had to confront backyard chickens, sometimes reaching drastically different solutions.
Officials in Chesterfield decided subdivisions were no place for chicken coops. So earlier this year, the council passed an ordinance prohibiting people who live on less than two acres from owning chickens.
'THEY COME IN THE MAIL'
"A lot of municipalities forbid it," Councilman Lee Erickson said. "There were a number of people in the city that wanted to do it."
Councilman Barry Flachsbart was the only one who voted against the ordinance. MORE METRO
"We really don't need to regulate this," he said.
At the Missouri Botanical Garden's EarthWays Center last week, a group of prospective backyard chicken owners sat at a round table learning how to build coops, where to buy feed, how to determine which breed is right for them and how to purchase chicks online.
"They come in the mail," said Julia Weese-Young, who taught the class. "The face on the postman is priceless."
The center scheduled one class in February on raising chickens, then promptly added two more to meet the demand.
Weese-Young keeps hens in the backyard of her Clifton Heights home and thinks more people have taken an interest in chickens because they want to be more aware of where their food comes from.
During the class, she showed a picture of hundreds of scraggly white chickens squeezed into tight quarters at a chicken farm. She talked about genetically modified chickens that gain weight too quickly and how the birds can sit in their feces and get ammonia burns.
Rob Ludlow, a California online consultant who owns the website backyardchickens.com, said more than 26,000 people have registered with the site and between 70 and 80 people join each day.
"They are the multipurpose pet," Ludlow said. "We have a bumper sticker on our site: 'My pet makes me breakfast.'"
LAWS VARY
Laws governing backyard poultry vary across the country.
In Chicago, officials flirted with the idea of banning fowl last year but decided against it. In Fort Collins, Colo., officials enacted a law allowing chickens with some restrictions.
The laws also vary in the St. Louis area. Brentwood and Ballwin, for example, forbid keeping chickens. But they are allowed in St. Louis, Clayton and Webster Groves.
Officials in St. Charles caused a stir last fall when they forced a resident to give up a potbellied pig. If the pet had been a chicken, it wouldn't have been a problem.
In 2007, a woman in Wentzville got in trouble with the city when a neighbor complained about the 20 chickens she kept in her backyard. She tried unsuccessfully to get aldermen to revise the ordinance forbidding them.
Most cities that do allow chickens limit the size of the flock and prohibit keeping roosters, which, contrary to popular perception, aren't needed to produce eggs.
Merryl Winstein, a Webster Groves resident who keeps chickens and goats on her property, fumed over Chesterfield's new ordinance.
"Where is one example of somebody's property being devalued because their neighbor had chickens?" Winstein asked.
Winstein enjoys the eggs from her four hens, and they help dispose of the droppings from the goats she also keeps. Pet chickens go unnoticed in many cases, she said, and some people keep them illegally.
"People will do more of it this year than last year," said Winstein. "That has no place in the legal books at all."
Chesterfield's ordinance was eventually amended so that current chicken owners who live on one to two acres of land, such as Davis, can keep the birds and replenish their flocks. Those who live on less than an acre won't have to get rid of their flocks but can't replace them once they die.
Chesterfield City Attorney Robert Heggie estimated only five to six people in the city owned chickens, but more than a dozen residents showed up at City Council meetings to speak on the matter. Many were Davis' neighbors, who didn't want to see her flock taken away.
Davis built a chicken coop with a green aluminum roof in her backyard about a year ago. It's outside the basement where her husband keeps a six-foot-long aquarium with exotic fish.
"He got the aquarium," she said. "I got the chickens. It's our midlife crisis."