Eeyore's News and View

I get sick of hearing about it every 2 or 4 years in which the military votes don't get counted. For what ever reason, sometimes it seems you can't make it up. Postmarks, well dah they are in the middle of the ocean or desert, they can't get them postmarked. Some people are born stupid and some go to college and law school to get it. They are in harms way and you disenfranchise their vote. What a great country we live in.
Report: One-fourth of overseas votes go uncounted
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) - One out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted, according to findings being released at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the study, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul."
The committee, working with the Congressional Research Service, surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.
It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters living abroad - mainly active-duty and reserve troops - more than 98,000 were "lost" ballots that were mailed out but never received by election officials. Taking into account 13,500 ballots that were rejected for such reasons as a missing signature or failure to notarize, one-quarter of those requesting a ballot were disenfranchised.
The study found that an additional 11,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable.
Schumer's office said that because a person living abroad must request the absentee ballot and show a clear intention to vote, voter negligence is not thought to be a major factor.
Rather, the New York Democrat said in a statement, there is a chronic problem of military voters being sent a ballot without sufficient time to complete it and send it back. He cited estimates that a ballot can take up to 13 days to reach an overseas voter.
Among the states surveyed, California had 30,000 "lost" votes out of 103,000 ballots mailed out. An additional 3,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable and 4,000 were rejected.
The hearing was to take up possible problems in the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a Pentagon program that handles the election process for military personnel and other overseas voters.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090513/D98573FG0.html

Can't make this stuff up. Save the Fire ants from becoming Zombies, Lets spend a billion dollars and figure out how Global Warming has caused this. Might be another starter story for one of Jerry's novels.
Parasitic flies turn fire ants into zombies
By BILL HANNAbillhanna@star-telegram.com
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it’s all too real.
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing.
"It’s a tool — they’re not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it’s a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas.
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas.
Wandering aimlessly
The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.
"At some point, the ant gets up and starts wandering," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at UT.
The maggot eventually migrates into the ant’s head, but Plowes said he "wouldn’t use the word 'control’ to describe what is happening. There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly. This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks."
About a month after the egg is laid, the ant’s head falls off and the fly emerges ready to attack any foraging ants away from the mound and lay eggs.
Plowes said fire ants are "very aware" of these tiny flies, and it only takes a few to cause the ants to modify their behavior.
"Just one or two flies can control movement or above-ground activity," Plowes said. "It’s kind of like a medieval activity where you’re putting a castle under siege."
New colonies
Researchers began introducing phorid species in Texas in 1999. The first species has traveled all the way from Central and South Texas to the Oklahoma border. This year, UT researchers will add colonies south of the Metroplex at farms and ranches from Stephenville to Overton. It is the fourth species introduced in Texas.
Fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves.
Determining whether the phorid flies will work in Texas will take time, perhaps as long as a decade.
"These are very slow acting," Plowes said. "It’s more like a cumulative impact measured across a time frame of years. It’s not an immediate silver bullet impact."
The flies, which are USDA–approved, do not attack native ants or species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes said. Despite initial concerns, farmers and ranchers have been willing to let researchers use their property to establish colonies. At the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in Fort Worth in March, Plowes said they found plenty of volunteers.
Just one or two flies can control movement.  . . . It’s kind of like a medieval activity where you’re putting a castle under siege."
Rob Plowes,
a research associate at UT
http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1371092.html

This is a long article but has some very good points about the government (figures lie and lairs figure) And how stupid it is to mandate taking food and using it for fuel (corn) and if you do that it is cheaper and better for the economy to use it to produce electricity then ethanol.
Administration addressing ethanol, climate change
May 5, 2009 - 5:37pm
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration renewed its commitment Tuesday to speed up investments in ethanol and other biofuels while seeking to deflect some environmentalists' claims that huge increases in corn ethanol use will hinder the fight against global warming.
President Barack Obama directed more loan guarantees and economic stimulus money for biofuels research and told the Agriculture Department to find ways to preserve biofuel industry jobs. The recession, as well as lower gasoline prices, has caused some ethanol producers to suffer, including some who have filed for bankruptcy.
Obama said an interagency group also would explore ways to get automakers to produce more cars that run on ethanol and to find ways to make available more ethanol fueling stations. "We must invest in a clean energy economy," Obama said in a statement.
The reassurances to the ethanol industry came as the Environmental Protection Agency made public its initial analysis on what impact the massive expansion of future ethanol use could have on climate change. Rejecting industry and agricultural interests' arguments, it said its rules _ which will take months to develop _ will take into account increased greenhouse gas emissions as more people plant ethanol crops at the expense of forests and other vegetation and land use is influenced worldwide by the demand for biofuels.
When Congress in 2007 required a huge increase in ethanol use _ to as much as 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 _ it also required that ethanol _ whether from corn or cellulosic crops like switchgrass or wood chips _ have less of a "lifecycle" impact on global warming than does gasoline. It set the threshold at 20 percent climate-pollution improvement for corn ethanol and 60 percent for cellulosic ethanol, although ethanol made from facilities already operating would be exempt.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the analysis shows corn ethanol emitting 16 percent less greenhouse gases than gasoline, even taking into account global future land-use changes.
But that's true in only one of the scenarios the EPA examined; another showed corn ethanol would account for 5 percent more greenhouse gases than gasoline. The scenario Jackson cited assumes future environmental benefits over a period of 100 years will more than pay back the initial increase in greenhouse gases from land-use changes; the second assumes a shorter payback period of 30 years.
Frank O'Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the Obama administration was "walking a tightrope" to try to reconcile the expansion of corn ethanol with its determination to aggressively address climate change. He called the assumption of a 100-year ethanol payback to make up for early greenhouse emission increases "nothing but an accounting trick to make corn ethanol look better."
But environmentalists also praised the EPA for making clear it will take into account worldwide land-use changes in assessing ethanol's climate impacts. "The devil is always in the details, but we're pleased that the EPA proposed rules that would require all global warming pollution from biofuels to be taken into account," said Kate McMahon of Friends of the Earth.
The ethanol industry and farm-state members of Congress had wanted only a comparison of direct emissions, which show ethanol as the clear winner, but welcomed the EPA's promise to examine the issue further.
"There is currently no scientific agreement or certainty to quantify domestically produced ethanol impacts on land-use change," argued Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, responding to the EPA assessment.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he was "skeptical about the science" about the indirect land-use impacts of ethanol on climate change, but that he is pleased the EPA "recognizes the need for a thorough analysis and review of this issue prior to any final decision." Jackson said that as the EPA develops its regulation it will seek out peer-reviewed scientific views on the issue and make its final determination "based on the best science available."
On the Net:
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov
Renewable Fuels Association: http://www.rfa.org
Agriculture Department: http://www.usda.gov
http://wtop.com/?sid=1667265&nid=116

Swine Flu May Be Human Error; WHO Investigates Claim
May 13 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an Australian researcher that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.
Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus’s origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.
“One of the simplest explanations is that it’s a laboratory escape,” Gibbs said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “But there are lots of others.”
The World Health Organization received the study last weekend and is reviewing it, Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director-general of health security and environment, said in an interview May 11. Gibbs, who has studied germ evolution for four decades, is one of the first scientists to analyze the genetic makeup of the virus that was identified three weeks ago in Mexico and threatens to touch off the first flu pandemic since 1968.
A virus that resulted from lab experimentation or vaccine production may indicate a greater need for security, Fukuda said. By pinpointing the source of the virus, scientists also may better understand the microbe’s potential for spreading and causing illness, Gibbs said.
Possible Mistake
“The sooner we get to grips with where it’s come from, the safer things might become,” Gibbs said by phone from Canberra yesterday. “It could be a mistake” that occurred at a vaccine production facility or the virus could have jumped from a pig to another mammal or a bird before reaching humans, he said.
Gibbs and two colleagues analyzed the publicly available sequences of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus’s eight genes. He said he aims to submit his three-page paper today for publication in a medical journal.
“You really want a very sober assessment” of the science behind the claim, Fukuda said May 11 at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has received the report and has decided there is no evidence to support Gibbs’s conclusion, said Nancy Cox, director of the agency’s influenza division. She said since researchers don’t have samples of swine flu viruses from South America and Africa, where the new strain may have evolved, those regions can’t be ruled out as natural sources for the new flu.
No Evidence
“We are interested in the origins of this new influenza virus,” Cox said. “But contrary to what the author has found, when we do the comparisons that are most relevant, there is no evidence that this virus was derived by passage in eggs.”
The WHO’s collaborative influenza research centers, which includes the CDC, and sites in Memphis, Melbourne, London and Tokyo, were asked by the international health agency to review the study over the weekend, Fukuda said. The request was extended to scientists at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris, as well as the WHO’s influenza network, he said.
“My guess is that the picture should be a lot clearer over the next few days,” Fukuda said. “We have asked a lot of people to look at this.”
Virus Expert
Gibbs wrote or co-authored more than 250 scientific publications on viruses during his 39-year career at the Australian National University in Canberra, according to biographical information on the university’s Web site.
Swine flu has infected 5,251 people in 30 countries so far, killing 61, according to WHO data. Scientists are trying to determine whether the virus will mutate and become more deadly if it spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and back. Flu pandemics occur when a strain of the disease to which few people have immunity evolves and spreads.
Gibbs said his analysis supports research by scientists including Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, who found the new strain is the product of two distinct lineages of influenza that have circulated among swine in North America and Europe for more than a decade.
In addition, Gibbs said his research found the rate of genetic mutation in the new virus was about three times faster than that of the most closely related viruses found in pigs, suggesting it evolved outside of swine.
Gene Evolution
“Whatever speeded up the evolution of these genes happened at least seven or eight years ago, so one wonders, why hasn’t it been found?” Gibbs said today.
Some scientists have speculated that the 1977 Russian flu, the most recent global outbreak, began when a virus escaped from a laboratory.
Identifying the source of new flu viruses is difficult without finding the exact strain in an animal or bird “reservoir,” said Jennifer McKimm-Breschkin, a virologist at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization in Melbourne.
“If you can’t find an exact match, the best you can do is compare sequences,” she said. “Similarities may give an indication of a possible source, but this remains theoretical.”
The World Organization for Animal Health, which represents chief veterinary officers from 174 countries, received the Gibbs paper and is working with the WHO on an assessment, said Maria Zampaglione, a spokeswoman.
Genetic Patterns
The WHO wants to know whether any evidence that the virus may have been developed in a laboratory can be corroborated and whether there are other explanations for its particular genetic patterns, according to Fukuda.
“These things have to be dealt with straight on,” he said. “If someone makes a hypothesis, then you test it and you let scientific process take its course.”
Gibbs said he has no evidence that the swine-derived virus was a deliberate, man-made product.
“I don’t think it could be a malignant thing,” he said. “It’s much more likely that some random thing has put these two viruses together.”
Gibbs, who spent most of his academic career studying plant viruses, said his major contribution to the study of influenza occurred in 1975, while collaborating with scientists Graeme Laver and Robert Webster in research that led to the development of the anti-flu medicines Tamiflu and Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Bird Poo
“We were out on one of the Barrier Reef islands, off Australia, catching birds for the flu in them, and I happened to be the guy who caught the best,” Gibbs said. The bird he got “yielded the poo from which was isolated the influenza isolate strain from which all the work on Tamiflu and Relenza started.”
Gibbs, who says he studies the evolution of flu viruses as a “retirement hobby,” expects his research to be challenged by other scientists.
“This is how science progresses,” he said. “Somebody comes up with a wild idea, and then they all pounce on it and kick you to death, and then you start off on another silly idea.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afrdATVXPEAk&refer=worldwide

WHO confirms flu spreads to Cuba, Finland, Thailand
* H1N1 strain infects 5,728 people in 33 countries
* WHO confirms flu strain reaches Cuba, Finland, Thailand
* More cases in Spain, Britain, Panama, Guatemala, Colombia
GENEVA (Reuters) - H1N1 flu has now reached Cuba, Finland, and Thailand, with nearly 6,000 people infected in 33 countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
In its latest tally, which lags national reports but is considered more reliable, the WHO said the number of infections has also risen in several countries including Spain, Britain, Panama, Guatemala, and Colombia.
The recently discovered virus has killed at least 56 people in Mexico, three people in the United States, and one each in Canada and Costa Rica.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has raised the flu alert level to 5 out of 6 as a result of its spread beyond the disease epicenter Mexico, signaling that a pandemic is imminent.
She is looking for evidence the hybrid strain is spreading in sustained way in communities outside of the Americas before raising that alert to 6 and declaring a pandemic is under way.
According to the latest WHO count, Spain has 98 confirmed cases and Britain has 68.
While most of those infections have been deemed "imported" cases as a result of people traveling to Mexico, or being in close contact with those who had, WHO experts are watching both countries closely for signs the virus has taken hold in Europe.
North America continues to have the largest number of confirmed H1N1 infections worldwide. Mexico has 2,059 cases confirmed in WHO labs, the United States has 3,009, Canada has 358, and Costa Rica has eight.
Other countries have the following number of WHO-confirmed flu cases without deaths: Argentina (1), Australia (1), Austria (1), Brazil (8), Britain (68), China (3, comprising 1 in Hong and 2 in mainland China), Colombia (6), Cuba (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (4), Finland (2), France (13), Germany (12), Guatemala (3), Ireland (1), Israel (7), Italy (9), Japan (4), Netherlands (3), New Zealand (7), Norway (2), Panama (29), Poland (1), Portugal (1), South Korea (3), Spain (98), Sweden (2), Switzerland (1) and Thailand (2).
(For a WHO map of the flu spread worldwide see: www.who.int/csr/don/h1n1_20090513_0600.jpg)
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-SwineFlu/idUSTRE54C2XH20090513

Scientist arrested for smuggling vials used in Ebola research into US
A Canadian scientist has been arrested for smuggling 22 vials stolen from Canada's National Microbiology Lab, used in Ebola and HIV research, into the United States, Canadian and US officials said Wednesday.
Konan Michel Yao, 42, "was taken into custody" while crossing the border from Manitoba province into the western US state of North Dakota on May 5, said a spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which operates the lab.
According to US prosecutor Lynn Jordheim, Yao was detained for carrying unidentified biological materials in vials wrapped in aluminium foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires, in the trunk of his car.
Yao said in an affidavit he stole the vials, described as research vectors, from the Winnipeg lab on his last day of work there on January 21.
He told US border guards he was taking them to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland.
US authorities feared their contents could pose a terrorist threat. But tests later showed "they are not hazardous," said Jordheim.
"This turned out not to be a terrorism-related case," he said by telephone from North Dakota. "It appears to be exactly as he (Yao) said. However, he still faces possible charges for smuggling the vials into the United States."
Yao, meanwhile, remains in US custody after waiving his right to bail and preliminary hearings, as he awaits a possible grand jury indictment for smuggling, he said.
A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman told AFP Yao "was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things."
"But he only had access to harmless and non-infectious materials, similar to what you'd find in a hospital or university lab. He did not have access to dangerous materials."
The Ivory Coast-born scientist is said to have studied at Laval University in Quebec and briefly worked at the University of Manitoba's plant sciences department.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1eb625e36e305c62ccc14e75288e023d.6f1&show_article=1

Eeyore's News and View

Survey: Identity theft up, but costs fall sharply
February 9, 2009 - 7:51am
By CANDICE CHOI
AP Personal Finance Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The number of Americans ensnared by identity theft is on the rise, but victims are striking back more quickly and limiting how much is stolen.
In 2008, the number of identity theft cases jumped 22 percent to 9.9 million, according to a study released Monday by Javelin Strategy & Research. The good news is that the cost per incident _ including unrecovered losses and legal fees _ fell 31 percent to $496.
One reason for the spike in cases is likely the worsening economy. Just last month, 598,000 jobs were slashed across the country and unemployment jumped to 7.6 percent.
"The short story is that criminals are getting more desperate," said Jim Van Dyke, spokesman for Javelin, which started tracking identity theft cases in 2003. Last year marked the first time the number of cases rose.
Crimes of opportunity, such as stolen wallets, were linked to 43 percent of cases last year, up from 33 percent in 2007. That might be why women were 26 percent more likely to be victims of identity theft; they reported more cases of lost or stolen information during in-store purchases.
Online access accounted for only 11 percent of cases, according to the survey.
Despite the growing number of victims, the total fraud amount edged up just 7 percent to $48 billion over the previous year. That's because victims are uncovering cases faster to limit losses. Another reason is that financial institutions are taking more steps to thwart thieves, according to the Javelin study.
For instance, more banks now send change of address confirmations to the original address, Van Dyke said.
This prevents identity thieves from rerouting mail to different addresses and delaying victims' awareness that their accounts are siphoned off.
The Javelin study also found identity theft went undetected longer and cost twice as much when victims knew their attackers. More than 10 percent of victims knew their identity thieves.
Despite the rise in cases, there are simple steps people can take to prevent becoming a victim.
To start, leave personal checks and Social Security cards at home and be aware of who's around when giving personal information in public.
Some types of ID theft aren't preventable, however. Someone could get your personal information by hacking into a retailer's database, for instance.
So even if you're careful about protecting your information, monitor financial accounts regularly.
"Identity fraud is all about prevention and detection," Van Dyke said.
http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1596539

A $15,000 gift for homebuyers?
The U.S. Senate approves an amendment to the economic stimulus package that would provide a tax credit of up to $15,000 for homebuyers who purchase a primary residence in the coming year. But economists are skeptical tax credits will prove stimulative.By The Wall Street Journal
The Senate added to the $900 billion stimulus bill on Wednesday a home purchase tax credit of $15,000, or 10% of the purchase price. If it's included in the bill that goes to the White House, that would represent a big gain not just for potential buyers, but also for the home builders and real-estate agents' groups that have aggressively promoted such a proposal for months as part of their "Fix Housing First" lobbying effort.
The second plank of that lobbying effort — a proposal for federally subsidized 4% interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages — isn't in the bill, but Senate Republicans are pushing for such a buy-down to spur home sales. Already, the Federal Reserve Bank has tried to lower interest rates by buying up securities backed by mortgages. However, after 10 straight weeks of declines, interest rates have edged up slightly in recent weeks.
Policymakers will also consider increasing limits on loans eligible for financing from government-backed mortgage entities to as high as $729,750 in the nation's most expensive housing markets. The stimulus bill that passed in the House last week included the provision.
Discuss: Would a $15,000 tax credit spur you to buy a home?
The Senate on Wednesday also approved $2 billion for state agencies to finance affordable housing.
Economists are skeptical that a builder tax credit or interest rate subsidies will stimulate the economy. Indeed, some argue encouraging the construction of new homes will only prolong the pain. "It is targeted not to the people who need help but an industry that wants a huge subsidy," said Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist. "Why give an unbelievable gargantuan subsidy only to people who buy a home? What about renters who are in more dire straits?"
Proponents of a tax credit point to similarly structured subsidies that Congress approved in 1975. The program gave qualified buyers a 5% credit up to $6,000 and brought down interest rates by around 1.5%, to 7%. But critics say that the analogy is misleading because the U.S. was exiting a recession that had been induced by oil prices, not a slide in home values.
"By artificially increasing prices we are encouraging more building," says Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, who chided the Republican Party in a WSJ op-ed on Thursday for embracing interest rate subsidies.
By Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal
http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=17198334&gt1=35000

Judges tentatively order Calif. inmates released
Feb 9, 6:50 PM (ET)
By DON THOMPSON
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A special panel of federal judges has tentatively ruled that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.
The judges say no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care.
They say the state can cut the population of its 33 adult prisons through changes in parole and other policies without endangering public safety.
The three judges said a final population figure would be set later.
In Monday's tentative ruling, the judges said they want the state to present a plan to trim the prison population in two to three years.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090209/D968C2K05.html

16 illegals sue Arizona rancher
Claim violation of rights as they crossed his land
An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.
His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.
Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.
The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.
Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.
The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at "gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women."
In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett's dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, "My dog is hungry and he's hungry for buttocks."
The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.
In March, U.S. District Judge John Roll rejected a motion by Mr. Barnett to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. Mr. Barnett's attorney, David Hardy, had argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.
Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.
Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.
He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck "for protection" against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.
ASSOCIATED PRESS DEFENDANT: Roger Barnett said he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.
A former Cochise County sheriff´s deputy who later was successful in the towing and propane business, Mr. Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors, which he has hidden along established trails on his ranch. He searches the ranch for illegal immigrants in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie.
His sprawling ranch became an illegal-immigration highway when the Border Patrol diverted its attention to several border towns in an effort to take control of the established ports of entry. That effort moved the illegal immigrants to the remote areas of the border, including the Cross Rail Ranch.
"This is my land. I´m the victim here," Mr. Barnett said. "When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/09/16-illegals-sue-arizona-rancher/

Families want answers from man who says he dissolved 300 people
Reporting from Tijuana -- Fernando Ocegueda hasn't seen his son since gunmen dragged the college student from the family's house three years ago. Alma Diaz wonders what happened to her son, Eric, a Mexicali police officer who left a party in 1995 and never returned.
Arturo Davila still pounds on police doors looking for answers 11 years after his daughter and a girlfriend were kidnapped in downtown Ensenada.
For the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families of people who have vanished amid Baja California's drug wars, the search for justice has been lonely and fruitless. But their hopes have been buoyed recently by the Jan. 22 arrest of a man Mexican authorities believe is behind the gruesome disposal of bodies in vats of industrial chemicals.
Santiago Meza Lopez, a stocky 45-year-old taken into custody after a raid near Ensenada, was identified as the pozolero who liquefied the bodies of victims for lieutenants of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Authorities say he laid claim to stuffing 300 bodies into barrels of lye, then dumping some of the liquefied remains in a pit in a hillside compound in eastern Tijuana.
His capture riveted Mexico with sickening details behind drug violence that has left more than 8,000 dead in two years. For the families of the disappeared, however, it was a chance to revive cases that seemed long forgotten.
In the following days, dozens more people came forward with tales of disappearances. "Please help me find out what happened to him," wrote one woman on a photograph of a young man smiling in a car. "He was my husband."
Victim rights groups estimate that there are more than 1,000 people missing in Baja California, including students, businessmen, merchants and cops. Their cases have been ignored, bungled or blocked by law enforcement officials, activists say.
As a potential cartel insider, Meza could peel back the mysteries surrounding the disappearances, they say. Ocegueda, president of the Citizens United Against Impunity, plans to visit Mexico City this week, where he will request a personal audience with Meza.
Authorities are unlikely to grant access to the suspect, but families hope they'll follow through on their promise to confront him with the photos. His capture has provided their greatest leverage against a government that for years has paid little attention to their concerns, said Ocegueda and other group leaders.
"The government wants to silence what cannot be silenced . . . but they didn't count on someone saying that he personally disintegrated 300 bodies," said Cristina Palacios Hodoyan, whose son, Alejandro, disappeared in 1997. "They're going to have to pay attention to us now."
Federal authorities have told the local media that they are cooperating with the families, having met with them and taken more than 100 photos.
The hillside compound where Meza told authorities he labored lies in an area acquainted with death. There are two cemeteries tucked in the surrounding hills, and funeral processions pass by daily on potholed Ojo de Agua road.
Behind the white gate, Meza said, he would fill a barrel with water and two large bags of lye. Wearing gloves and protective goggles, he'd light a fire underneath, and bring the liquid to a boil before depositing a body. After 24 hours, he would dump the disintegrated remains in a pit and set them aflame.
In Tijuana, the process is known as making pozole. That's because the pink liquid in the barrel resembles the popular Mexican stew. When a Mexican official asked Meza what he did for a living, he replied, "Me llaman el Pozolero": They call me the Pozole Maker.
He earned $600 weekly and said he learned how to disintegrate bodies by first experimenting with pig legs, according to the Mexican federal attorney general's office. Meza allegedly told authorities he worked for several top cartel lieutenants over a 10-year period, most recently for Teodoro Garcia Simental, whom authorities believe is behind the kidnappings of hundreds of people in recent years.
Meza's alleged deeds apparently went unnoticed in the shabby area of ranches and pig and chicken farms. Several neighbors said they had never seen him, and weren't curious. "It's best to be ignorant of such diabolical things," said a local pig farmer, who did not want to be identified because he feared for his safety.
Ocegueda, a slender, intense man with a chain-smoking habit, vows to shatter that ignorance. After his 23-year-old son, Fernando, was kidnapped, authorities did little, so Ocegueda investigated on his own. He donned dirty clothes and a hooded shirt and rode a wobbly bike in tough neighborhoods, chatting up drug dealers and other criminals.
These days he leads demonstrations, camps out at City Hall, and corners military and government officials any chance he gets. After Meza's arrest he went to the San Diego area to meet with 20 families who gave him photographs of loved ones, some of them U.S. citizens, who vanished while going to work or visiting relatives in Mexico.
Ocegueda believes he knows the identities of his son's kidnappers. But his probe, like others, hit a dead end. He believes police protect organized crime members, fear investigations will reveal their own complicity, or are incompetent. Some families have been threatened by police after reporting the crimes. In one case, a man who reported the abduction of his family was kidnapped himself the next day, said Ocegueda, whose claims are supported by many families and a Mexicali-based group, the Hope Assn. Against Kidnapping and Impunity.
"Authorities have told people not to report anything, saying their loved ones were criminals. . . . Instead of helping resolve their cases, they threaten them," said Miguel Garcia, a Mexicali-based attorney who provides legal advice to the Hope Assn.
Last year, the groups gained a key ally when the then-top military commander in the region, Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito, accused several state law enforcement officials of links to organized crime. Among them, he said, was the head of the state anti-kidnapping squad in Tijuana.
Aponte was removed from his post in August, and most of the state officials he accused have not been prosecuted.
Last week at Meza's compound, federal agents continued digging up soil samples looking for human remains. Experts and law enforcement say chances are slim they will be able to identify any of them.
Salvador Ortiz Morales, the state deputy attorney general in Tijuana, said forensic teams have never been able to identify victims dissolved in barrels because so little remains.
The site may not yield answers for another reason.
Meza admitted disintegrating bodies over a 10-year period, but neighbors said the compound was constructed only six months ago. All the more reason, the families say, to pressure Meza to disclose other grave sites, and demand other details on the fate of the missing.
"There are many other families suffering like me," Ocegueda said. "We need to find out what he knows."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing9-2009feb09,0,2537684.story

1st US case of Marburg fever confirmed in Colo. Ebola-hemorrhagic fever
WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (AP) — The first U.S. case of Marburg hemorrhagic fever has been confirmed in Colorado, and authorities say the patient — who contracted the rare illness while traveling in Uganda — has since recovered.
The disease, caused by a virus indigenous to Africa, spreads through contact with infected animals or the bodily fluids of infected humans. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Dave Daigle said no previous cases have been reported in the United States.
The patient had traveled to Uganda, visited a python cave in Maramagambo Forest in Queen Elizabeth Park and encountered fruit bats, which can carry the Marburg virus. The Ugandan government closed the cave after a tourist from the Netherlands died from Marburg in July.
The patient was treated at Lutheran Medical Center in January 2008 and sought follow-up care in July, after learning of the tourist's death. The patient recovered and his or her identity wasn't disclosed.
Pierre Rollin, acting chief of the Special Pathogens Branch of the CDC, said specialized tests of the initial sample taken in January 2008 confirmed the illness in the Colorado patient in December.
CDC officials said identifying the virus and how a patient contracted it can be difficult. It often depends on the quality of the sample being tested and the timing; samples taken early in the patient's illness makes identification easier, Rollin said.
Marburg hemorrhagic fever is extremely rare. The CDC's Web site counts fewer than 500 confirmed cases since the virus was first recognized in 1967. More than 80 percent of the known cases are fatal.
It has an incubation period of 5 to 10 days. The first symptoms are fever, chills and headaches, but symptoms worsen significantly after the fifth day of illness.
Lutheran hospital spokeswoman Kim Kobel said none of the staff and physicians who cared for the patient has developed symptoms.
Rollin said the CDC is testing hospital staff to see if any illnesses were undetected at the time.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5icwnbejl-iJTMsx_JWAIgMXlweOAD9671DF00

Eeyore's News and Views

4th Bird Flu death reported in China in 2009
The Associated Press
Published: January 24, 2009
BEIJING: A woman in China's far west has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Health Ministry said Saturday, the country's fourth death from the virus this year as the biggest festive season approaches.
The victim, a 31-year-old woman from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, had been to a live poultry market before she fell ill on Jan. 10, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Wang Xiaoyan, a deputy director of the regional health department. She died Friday.
A woman in eastern China, a teenage boy in southwest China and a woman in Beijing have also died from the disease this month.
A 2-year-old girl was also sickened with H5N1 but recovered. The Health Ministry said her mother, who like the toddler went to a live poultry market, had died of pneumonia in early January. Doctors said they could not confirm the cause of death.
China launched a daily bird flu reporting system for poultry and human cases Thursday, underscoring its concerns about potential epidemics.
Provincial health and agriculture departments must report to the Health Ministry, Agriculture Ministry and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce every day on whether there have been infections in their areas.
The Agriculture Ministry has also ordered increased monitoring and management of live poultry markets, especially before next week's Lunar New Year holiday, when people will have more contact with chickens and ducks while preparing celebratory meals.
Despite the new cases, the Health Ministry has said there was no evidence of a large-scale outbreak of bird flu. It said the illnesses were isolated, unrelated and did not show significant mutations of the H5N1 virus.
They also occurred during the cold months, which experts have determined are high season for infections, it said.
According to the World Health Organization, bird flu has killed 251 people worldwide since 2003, including 22 in China. That number does not include the latest death.
While the disease remains hard for humans to catch, scientists have warned if outbreaks among poultry are not controlled, the virus may mutate into a form more easily passed between people, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions worldwide.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/24/asia/AS-China-Bird-Flu.php

Ebola may have passed from a pig to a human
By Donald G. Mcneil Jr.
Published: January 23, 2009
In the first known case of what may be transmission of the Ebola virus from a pig to a human, a pig handler in the Philippines has tested positive for a strain of the virus, world health officials and the Philippine government announced Friday.
But the strain — Ebola Reston — is not known to be dangerous to humans, and the worker, who was infected at least six months ago, is healthy, officials said.
The development is worrying because pigs are mixing vessels in which other viruses from humans and animals exchange genetic material, possibly creating strains that are more lethal or more infectious.
But Dr. Juan Lubroth, chief of animal health at the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, said there was "more need to investigate than to worry" and still many unanswered questions.
Ebola Reston, normally a monkey virus, was first found in pigs last year in the Philippines. Health authorities closed two farms and took blood samples from 6,000 pigs and 50 workers on the farms and in slaughterhouses. Only four pigs and the one worker tested positive, the Philippine health secretary, Francisco Duque, said at a news conference in Manila.
Dr. Lubroth said the first pigs tested were very sick, but turned out to have more than one infection, including a virulent reproductive and respiratory syndrome. ,The Ebola Reston may not have been what sickened them.
"But farmers, of course, would prefer to have pigs without Ebola," he said. "So we want to do more testing to see what they can do to protect them."
Broader sampling will determine, among other things, whether the disease is more common in pigs and humans than was known, whether it causes fever and how long its incubation period is.
Ebola Reston was first found in monkeys from the Philippines that died after arriving at a laboratory in Reston, Virginia, in 1989. Antibodies to it were found in workers in several laboratories, but it is not known to have caused more than a mild flu in any human.
By contrast, the Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo strains of Ebola, all found in African apes, cause fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans.
It is not known how the pigs were infected, but Dr. Lubroth noted that studies in Africa found Ebola viruses in fruit bats. Similar bats live in the Philippines, and fruit bats are thought to have transmitted Nipah virus to pigs, possibly through their droppings or dead bodies.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/23/healthscience/24ebola.php

They tried to forward their agenda with cow farts and now with OJ very stupid. Makes me want to go out and buy a bunch so more is grown.
How Green Is My Orange?
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: January 21, 2009
BRADENTON, Fla. — How much does your morning glass of orange juice contribute to global warming?
PepsiCo, which owns the Tropicana brand, decided to try to answer that question. It figured that as public concern grows about the fate of the planet, companies will find themselves under pressure to perform such calculations. Orange juice seemed like a good case study.
PepsiCo hired experts to do the math, measuring the emissions from such energy-intensive tasks as running a factory and transporting heavy juice cartons. But it turned out that the biggest single source of emissions was simply growing oranges. Citrus groves use a lot of nitrogen fertilizer, which requires natural gas to make and can turn into a potent greenhouse gas when it is spread on fields.
PepsiCo finally came up with a number: the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice. But the company is still debating how to use that information. Should it cite the number in its marketing, and would consumers have a clue what to make of it?
PepsiCo’s experience is a harbinger of the complexities other companies may face as they come under pressure to calculate their emission of carbon dioxide, a number known as a carbon footprint, and eventually to lower it.
“The main thing is helping us figure out where the carbon is in the chain,” said Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, a division of PepsiCo. While acknowledging that protocols for measuring greenhouse emissions are far from perfect, Mr. Campbell said, “you can end up doing nothing if you let that stop you.”
PepsiCo, a manufacturer of soda, salty snacks and cereal based in Purchase, N.Y., is among a growing number of companies that hope to get ahead of potential government mandates and curb their energy use as prices and long-term supply grow less certain.
They also want to promote supposedly low-carbon products to consumers anxious about rising global temperatures; such labeling has already appeared in Europe.
The list of companies that have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions includes I.B.M., Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Google, Yahoo and Dell are among the companies that have vowed to become “carbon neutral.”
PepsiCo is among the first that will provide consumers with an absolute number for a product’s carbon footprint, which many expect to be a trend. The information will be posted on Tropicana’s Web site. The company has not yet decided if it will eventually put it on the package.
While carbon reduction efforts are generally welcomed by environmentalists, some complain that the marketing claims are backed by fuzzy numbers and dubious assumptions.
Standards exist for determining a carbon footprint, but companies can apply them in different ways. They can decide how rigorous they want to be in counting emissions in the supply chain, and what data sources they should use in the process.
“Any time people are making a legitimate effort to reduce emissions directly or indirectly with their product and services, most of us would think that is a good thing,” said Michael Gillenwater, dean of the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, a nonprofit organization that teaches greenhouse gas management and accounting.
“The trick is when you try to put a strict label that has implications for comparing your product to another product, or implying that you have no climate change impact,” he said.
Nancy Hirshberg, vice president for natural resources at the yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, said measuring a carbon footprint is a “fabulous tool” for pinpointing areas to reduce emissions. For instance, her company was surprised to learn that milk production was a far bigger contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than its factory.
But she said there were so many variables in determining a carbon footprint that an absolute number was meaningless as a marketing tool.
“I’m thrilled that people are thinking about their carbon footprint, but to put a number on a package is misleading at best,” she said.
PepsiCo’s interest in determining the carbon footprint of its products began in England, where carbon anxiety is further advanced than in the United States. In 2007, Walkers, a PepsiCo brand, published the carbon footprint of its potato chips on its Web site and on the package.
Mr. Campbell, who ran the Walkers brand, championed the idea when he came to Tropicana at the beginning of 2008. As was the case with Walkers, Tropicana hired an outside auditor, the Carbon Trust, to review its calculations and certify its footprint. The Carbon Trust was set up by the British government to accelerate progress toward a low-carbon economy.
Making orange juice is relatively straightforward: the oranges are picked by hand, trucked to the plant, squeezed, pasteurized and packed into cartons and shipped by train to distribution points around the country. Early on, company officials roughed out the carbon footprint of Tropicana juice. But when the Carbon Trust came back with its own calculations, that initial estimate was off by more than 20 percent.
Growing the oranges accounted for a larger share — about a third — than PepsiCo had expected, almost entirely because of the production and application of fertilizer.
Now, PepsiCo managers said they planned to work with their growers and with researchers at the University of Florida to find ways to grow oranges using less carbon. And they are starting to grapple with ways to teach the public how to interpret the carbon footprint of a product.
PepsiCo is scheduled to announce its Tropicana results on Thursday, and will publish carbon-footprint numbers for products including Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Gatorade. Said Bryan Lembke, a PepsiCo manager on the project: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html?_r=1

One last chance to save mankind
With his 90th birthday in July, a trip into space scheduled for later in the year and a new book out next month, 2009 promises to be an exciting time for James Lovelock. But the originator of the Gaia theory, which describes Earth as a self-regulating planet, has a stark view of the future of humanity. He tells Gaia Vince we have one last chance to save ourselves - and it has nothing to do with nuclear power
Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?
Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It's absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt - that's an awful lot of countryside.
What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?
That is a waste of time. It's a crazy idea - and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.
Do you still advocate nuclear power as a solution to climate change?
It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures.
So are we doomed?
There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.
Would it make enough of a difference?
Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.
Do you think we will survive?
I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again.
I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings.
I don't think we can react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up
It's a depressing outlook.
Not necessarily. I don't think 9 billion is better than 1 billion. I see humans as rather like the first photosynthesisers, which when they first appeared on the planet caused enormous damage by releasing oxygen - a nasty, poisonous gas. It took a long time, but it turned out in the end to be of enormous benefit. I look on humans in much the same light. For the first time in its 3.5 billion years of existence, the planet has an intelligent, communicating species that can consider the whole system and even do things about it. They are not yet bright enough, they have still to evolve quite a way, but they could become a very positive contributor to planetary welfare.
How much biodiversity will be left after this climatic apocalypse?
We have the example of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event 55 million years ago. About the same amount of CO2 was put into the atmosphere as we are putting in and temperatures rocketed by about 5 °C over about 20,000 years. The world became largely desert. The polar regions were tropical and most life on the planet had the time to move north and survive. When the planet cooled they moved back again. So there doesn't have to be a massive extinction. It's already moving: if you live in the countryside as I do you can see the changes, even in the UK.
If you were younger, would you be fearful?
No, I have been through this kind of emotional thing before. It reminds me of when I was 19 and the second world war broke out. We were very frightened but almost everyone was so much happier. We're much better equipped to deal with that kind of thing than long periods of peace. It's not all bad when things get rough. I'll be 90 in July, I'm a lot closer to death than you, but I'm not worried. I'm looking forward to being 100.
Are you looking forward to your trip into space this year?
Very much. I've got my camera ready!
Do you have to do any special training?
I have to go in the centrifuge to see if I can stand the g-forces. I don't anticipate a problem because I spent a lot of my scientific life on ships out on rough oceans and I have never been even slightly seasick so I don't think I'm likely to be space sick. They gave me an expensive thorium-201 heart test and then put me on a bicycle. My heart was performing like an average 20 year old, they said.
I bet your wife is nervous.
No, she's cheering me on. And it's not because I'm heavily insured, because I'm not.
Profile
James Lovelock is a British chemist, inventor and environmentalist. He is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. Later this year he will travel to space as Richard Branson's guest aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. His latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, is published by Basic Books in February.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true&print=true

Business usual in DC, nothing changes
Clinton Foundation's secret donor
Transparency pledge hits snag
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Former President Bill Clinton's foundation, despite identifying more than 200,000 of its donors in recent weeks, will not say who paid it windfall prices for stock in a struggling Internet firm with links to the Chinese government.
The William J. Clinton Foundation has identified donors and promised unusual transparency in order to reassure critics who fear the foundation could become the object of largesse from foreign interests seeking to influence his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton, a former Democratic senator from New York, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday as President Obama's secretary of state and assumed her formal duties with a State Department ceremony Thursday.
However, Mrs. Clinton's office and the foundation have declined to answer questions about a lucrative 2006 stock transaction, details of which were reported by The Washington Times in March 2008.
Bill Clinton
The Accoona Corp. donated between $250,001 and $500,000 to Mr. Clinton's charity after he spoke at the company's launch in New York in 2004, according to donor information released by the foundation in December. The foundation sold its Accoona stock for $700,000 two years later, according to the charity's tax return for 2006.
Despite what the tax return suggests, Accoona struggled mightily to turn a profit.
In 2007, Accoona filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission reporting more than $60 million in losses during three years. In the same prospectus, it listed the China Daily Information Corp., a subsidiary of China Daily, the official English-language newspaper of the Chinese government, as an official partner and 6.9 percent owner of the company.
Last year, the company's management posted a note on the Accoona Web site saying it no longer would be active, citing "an overwhelmingly competitive search market." Its Jersey City phone number has a busy signal. However, it was later announced that Accoona had been acquired by a Denmark-based business-to-business search engine.
While the Clinton Foundation voluntarily disclosed the original donation of the stock, it still is unwilling to say who was willing to pay so much for its holdings in the struggling company. Mrs. Clinton's office referred questions about the Accoona stock deal to Mr. Clinton's foundation, which declined to provide details.
"We have not disclosed that and have no plans to," foundation spokesman Matt McKenna wrote in an e-mail.
When The Times reported on the Accoona deal last year, former foundation spokesman Ben Yarrow said Accoona had donated 200,000 shares of stock to Mr. Clinton's charity after he gave the 2004 speech.
"The foundation sold its shares through a broker in 2006," Mr. Yarrow said at the time. "President Clinton gave a speech. He did not endorse a product. As a matter of policy, President Clinton does not promote products."
Charities are not required to disclose the identities of their donors or the buyers of any stock holdings, but some Republican senators have pressed for more disclosure about the former president's fundraising activities.
With his wife's new job, Mr. Clinton has agreed to apprise government ethics officials about his fundraising and increase transparency about the sources of his charity's donations. The former president's foundation, which financed the construction of his presidential library and various anti-poverty efforts, has received millions of dollars from overseas.
Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money in politics, said the foundation ought to consider the Accoona stock sale as a donation and disclose it if the deal was profitable.
"In a sense, whoever took the Accoona stock off the foundation's hands was making a donation, because the purchaser gave real value to something that was previously valuable only on paper," Mr. Ritsch said.
"That contribution, if you want to call it that, was all the greater if the company's stock continued downward after the foundation sold it to this unnamed buyer."
Because Accoona was not a publicly traded company, there is no way to determine a fair price for its shares before Mr. Clinton's foundation sold its interest for $3.50 a share in 2006.
Before calling off plans to raise money on the stock market in 2007, Accoona stated in its prospectus that it issued 200,000 shares of common stock to an undisclosed recipient for "marketing services."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/23/clinton-foundation-mum-on-stock-buyer/?page=2

Eeyore's News and View

'Iran wants to devour the Arab world'

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke out against Iran during a meeting with members of the Egyptian ruling party, according to a report in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida on Thursday, cited by Israel Radio.

Mubarak accused the Islamic Republic of trying to subsume its Muslim neighbors, telling the forum that "the Persians are trying to devour the Arab states."
Mubarak's comments came after the Egyptian leader recalled the country's diplomatic envoy from the Iranian capital earlier this week following an increase in tension between the two countries.
Recent strain between Cairo and Teheran has grown as several demonstrations in Iran called for the hanging of the Egyptian leader. The Iranian FARS news service reported that participants in recent student demonstrations outside the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Teheran also chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" and burned an Israeli flag.
On Wednesday the Egyptian ministry was quoted as criticizing some Iranian newspapers that have repeatedly insulted Egyptian policies and leadership recently. Teheran media, for example, broadcast incitement against Cairo's policy allegedly preventing aid from reaching Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728151219&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Manila reports Ebola virus in pigs
By Roel Landingin in Manila
Published: December 11 2008 20:24 Last updated: December 11 2008 20:24
Philippine officials tucked into servings of lechon, the popular dish of roasted whole pig, in front of television cameras on Thursday to reassure the public of the safety of the national staple meat after the discovery among hogs near Manila of a strain of the Ebola virus.
Arthur Yap, agriculture secretary, and Francisco Duque, health secretary, said the Ebola Reston virus, which had never been found in pigs before, presented a low health risk for humans and was different from the deadly African variety.
The World Health Organisation was reported to be looking into whether there was any chance humans could have become infected.
The outbreak could deal a blow to Philippine plans to build a pork export industry. The government halted an inaugural shipment of frozen pork to Singapore and quarantined three swine farms.
Pork vendors in public markets in Manila sought to assure buyers that their products had passed government inspection and met safety standards.
“December is the month when we sell the most pork at relatively higher price,” said Evelyn Reyes, who operates a small pork stall in Quezon City. “I really hope the government does a good work of calming people’s fears about the Ebola virus.”
Pork accounts for more than half of the average 61g of meat consumed daily by each Filipino.
The virus was first discovered in 1989 in macaque monkeys imported from the Philippines by a laboratory in Reston, Virginia. Scientists are trying to determine how the virus spread to pigs.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93df0f52-c7c0-11dd-b611-000077b07658.html

Seems everyone wants to riot now, some want to riot because there is not bailout some want to riot is a bail out. Should be interesting.

GOP Senator Warns of 'Riots' if Automakers Are Bailed Out Sen. Jim DeMint says unfair union influence and the bailout culture will anger many Americans. By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute12/11/2008 1:28:37 PM

Time and again we’ve heard about the lost jobs and economic impact of failing to bail out the beleaguered American auto manufacturers. But little mention has been made of the consequences of going through with the bailout, and how such an action would be viewed by other Americans.

In an interview following a Dec. 10 press conference where he and four other senators aired their opposition to the proposed bailout deal struck by congressional leaders and the White House (and approved by the U.S. House of Representatives 237-170 that evening), Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., warned that the perception that some industries are being bailed out and some aren’t could lead to violence.

“We’re going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs when everybody else is being bailed out. The fairness of it becomes more and more evident as we go along. The auto companies may be hurting,” he said, but “there are very few companies that aren’t hurting and they’re going to hurt. We don’t have enough money to bail everyone out.”

DeMint blamed the unions for pushing this issue as far as it has gotten. The senator said the notion that reorganization under bankruptcy would not work was generated by the unions for fear of losing their power.

“The primary driver behind this is the unions, because bankruptcy allows the auto companies to basically restructure all their contracts in a way that a bankruptcy judge says will make them sustainable,” DeMint said. “And if they do that, then essentially the unions lose all their leverage. It’s the unions that have brought them to the brink. So definitely, I think the reason they want a political solution and a car czar is because a car czar can protect the unions through this whole process at the expense of the taxpayer.”

The result of the bailout culture that now exists on Capitol Hill will be incredibly high rates of inflation down the road as the economy picks back up and prices reflect the amount of new money circulating through the economy.

“There is no question this will result in inflation,” DeMint said. “The amount of money we’ve borrowed, the amount of money we’ve printed has put us in a more dangerous situation than we’ve ever been in as a country. We may not see the inflation as long as the economy is slow. But, I’ve talked to some economic experts and once the economy starts picking up with so much money in the money supply and so much debt, we’re likely to see very high interest rates and very high inflation rates.”

DeMint went as far as to say that General Motors (NYSE:GM), one of the big three auto manufacturers lobbying for bailout money, was better off than the nation that’s debating whether to rescue it..

“If you look at where we’re going, we’re not on a sustainable course as a country,” DeMint said. “Frankly, GM is in a better financial situation than we are as a country. The only difference is we can print money. But as other countries around the world lose confidence in the value of a dollar – that’s going to come home very shortly.”

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081211131911.aspx

Inventor builds She-3PO robot
By CAROLINE IGGULDEN
SHE is the perfect wife, with the body of a Page 3 pin-up and housekeeping skills that put TV’s Kim and Aggie to shame.
Her name is Aiko, she can even read a map, and will never, ever, nag.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t she fellas? And she is.
Aiko is actually a robot, a fantasy brought to life by inventor Le Trung.

So touching ... Aiko reacts to gentle contact wit her inventor Barcroft
Devoted Aiko — “in her 20s” — has a stunning 32-23-33 figure, pretty face and shiny hair.
She is always happy to clean the house for “husband” Le, help with his accounts or get him a drink.
Computer ace Le, 33, from Ontario, Canada, has spent two years and £14,000 building his dream girl.
He had planned to make an android to care for the elderly.
But his project — inspired by sci-fi robots like Star Wars’s C3PO — strayed off-course.

Inspiration ... Star Warsrobot C3-PO
Le said: “Aiko is what happens when science meets beauty.”
Robo-wife Aiko starts the day by reading Le the main newspaper headlines.
The couple often go for a drive in the countryside, where Aiko proves a whizz at directions.
And they always sit down for dinner together in the evening, although Aiko doesn’t have much of an appetite.
Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn’t strayed into the bedroom, but a few “tweaks” could turn her into a sexual partner.
Le said: “Her software could be redesigned to simulate her having an orgasm.”
Aiko can already react to being tickled or touched. She also recognises faces and speaks 13,000 sentences.
Now Le is seeking a sponsor to help him overcome the robot-maker’s biggest challenge — making Aiko walk like a human.
Once Aiko has been perfected, Le hopes to sell clones for use as home-helps.
He said: “Aiko doesn’t need holidays, food or rest, and will work almost 24 hours a day. She is the perfect woman.”
Aiko sparks mixed reactions in public.
Le said: “Women usually try to talk to her. But men always want to touch her, and if they do it the wrong way she slaps them.”