Eeyore's News and View

This to me is stupid, it makes as much sense as mandating corn based ethanol. Why when we are having trouble feed our families (and the world) would you purposely cut back on food production?
ABC: Judge Cuts Water to California Farmers to Save Endangered Fish
By Brad Wilmouth
Created 2009-03-31 10:29
On the March 28 World News Saturday, ABC gave rare attention to the plight of drought-stricken farmers in California who have been denied access to a major water supply by a judge citing the Endangered Species Act to protect a type of fish. During a story recounting the unusual level of problems facing these farmers – a recession coinciding with drought – correspondent Lisa Fletcher informed viewers: "And for the first time ever, farmers may be completely cut off from one of their sources of water. Farmers don't have access to this water that runs right through the center of their farmland. It is being allocated to the delta smelt, a little fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. Conservationists say the smelt are dying in the irrigation pumps, so a judge ruled they must be shut off for much of the growing season."
Fletcher then told of an almond farmer who is now forced to spend $600,000 digging his own well. Fletcher: "That hits almond farmers, like Shawn Coburn, particularly hard. Ninety percent of the nation's almonds come from this valley, and almond trees need a lot of water. ... So Coburn is spending $600,000 to dig a new well, and he hopes to buy himself some time."
The report ended with a soundbite of Firebaugh, California, city manager Jose Ramirez pleading for more water: "All our people want here is a job. That's all we want. You let the water flow, food will grow, and jobs will flow after that, and we're in business."
Below is a complete transcript of the story from the March 28 World News Saturday on ABC:
DAN HARRIS: In California, the problem is not too much wet weather, but not enough of it. A drought combined with the bad economy have delivered a one-two punch to the Central Valley, where much of the nation's food is grown. 100,000 acres went unplanted last year, and this year, it could be 750,000 acres. Economists say that will mean $1.5 billion in lost income and the elimination of 40,000 jobs. Lisa Fletcher is in California tonight.
LISA FLETCHER: In just a glance, you know something is very wrong.
PETE RAMIREZ, CROP DUSTER: It's like a desert. A couple of years ago, it was all farmland and everybody had a job.
THEDA LAWRENCE, MENDOTA: What are the people gonna do? How are they gonna eat whenever there's no farming?
FLETCHER: A quarter of the nation's fruits and vegetables are grown here in California's Central Valley. But the farmers here have been hit with two crises at the same time. They're in their third year of severe drought. And now, they must also cope with the worst recession in a generation. That has driven unemployment to staggering levels – 35 percent in some places, numbers that recall the Great Depression. And for the first time ever, farmers may be completely cut off from one of their sources of water. Farmers don't have access to this water that runs right through the center of their farmland. It is being allocated to the delta smelt, a little fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. Conservationists say the smelt are dying in the irrigation pumps, so a judge ruled they must be shut off for much of the growing season. That hits almond farmers, like Shawn Coburn, particularly hard. Ninety percent of the nation's almonds come from this valley, and almond trees need a lot of water.
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?action=post;topic=714.0;num_replies=0

First let me say, i'm glad the man was caught, but what does it say about your right to privacy? What does it say about your right to be left alone?
Google cheat view
A FURIOUS wife has called in divorce lawyers after spotting her husband’s car parked outside another woman’s house — on Google.
She saw the Range Rover while using the internet giant’s new Street View service to snoop on a female friend’s home.
The hubby had claimed he was away on business, but his missus recognised his motor immediately because of its blinged-up hubcaps.
The love cheat is not the only husband trapped by Google’s controversial new 360-degree photo search which covers 25 cities and towns throughout the country.
Top media lawyer Mark Stephens said: “I was talking about the Range Rover case when another divorce lawyer came up to say his firm was dealing with the same sort of thing. People are getting caught out on Google.
“I suspect the husband’s lawyers will claim it was an invasion of privacy that will cost him his marriage and Range Rover.”
Street View has triggered a stream of complaints from people caught on camera since its launch on March 20.
Google removed some images — including a man sheepishly leaving a sex shop. An office worker was also caught having a crafty cigarette by a No Smoking sign.
And yesterday The Sun told how a fleet of UFOs was spotted on Street View hovering over an East London bookies.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2350771.ece

Senate Legislation Would Federalize Cybersecurity
Rules for Private Networks Also Proposed
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 1, 2009; A04
Key lawmakers are pushing to dramatically escalate U.S. defenses against cyberattacks, crafting proposals that would empower the government to set and enforce security standards for private industry for the first time.
The proposals, in Senate legislation that could be introduced as early as today, would broaden the focus of the government's cybersecurity efforts to include not only military networks but also private systems that control essentials such as electricity and water distribution. At the same time, the bill would add regulatory teeth to ensure industry compliance with the rules, congressional officials familiar with the plan said yesterday.
Addressing what intelligence officials describe as a gaping vulnerability, the legislation also calls for the appointment of a White House cybersecurity "czar" with unprecedented authority to shut down computer networks, including private ones, if a cyberattack is underway, the officials said.
How industry groups will respond is unclear. Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which represents private companies and civil liberties advocates, said that mandatory standards have long been the "third rail of cybersecurity policy." Dempsey said regulation could also stifle creativity by forcing companies to adopt a uniform approach.
The legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), was drafted with White House input. Although the White House indicated it supported some key concepts of the bill, there has been no official endorsement.
Many of the proposals were based on recommendations of a landmark study last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Currently, government responsibility for cybersecurity is split: The Pentagon and the National Security Agency safeguard military networks, while the Department of Homeland Security provides assistance to private networks. Previous cybersecurity initiatives have largely concentrated on reducing the vulnerability of government and military computers to hackers.
A 60-day federal review of the nation's defenses against computer-based attacks is underway, and the administration has signaled its intention to incorporate private industry into those defenses in an unprecedented way.
"People say this is a military or intelligence concern, but it's a lot more than that," Rockefeller, a former intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview. "It suddenly gets into the realm of traffic lights and rail networks and water and electricity."
U.S. intelligence officials have warned that a sustained attack on private computer networks could cause widespread social and economic havoc, possibly shutting down or compromising systems used by banks, utilities, transportation companies and others.
The Rockefeller-Snowe measure would create the Office of the National Cybersecurity Adviser, whose leader would report directly to the president and would coordinate defense efforts across government agencies. It would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish "measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards" that would apply to private companies as well as the government. It also would require licensing and certification of cybersecurity professionals.
The proposal would also mandate an ongoing, quadrennial review of the nation's cyberdefenses. "It's not a problem that will ever be completely solved," Rockefeller said. "You have to keep making higher walls."
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told reporters that one agency should oversee cybersecurity for government and for the private sector. He added that the NSA should be central to the effort.
"The taxpayers of this country have spent enormous sums developing a world-class capability at the National Security Agency on cyber," he said.
Blair acknowledged there will be privacy concerns about centralizing cybersecurity, and he said the program should be designed in a way that gives Americans confidence that it is "not being used to gather private information."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103684_pf.html

Verizon Wireless sees Kindle-type e-readers coming
April 1, 2009 - 6:35pm
By PETER SVENSSON AP Technology Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Amazon's Kindle might soon be getting new competitors in the market for electronic-book devices.
Tony Lewis, who heads an initiative within Verizon Wireless to provide access to non-phone devices, said Wednesday that five companies have approached Verizon about wireless connections for e-readers.
"You're going to see a lot of e-readers out there," Lewis said. "The interest level is tremendous."
Lewis wouldn't say which manufacturers Verizon has been talking to. But he hinted that they are looking at entering parts of the e-book market that the Kindle doesn't focus on, like college textbooks.
Amazon.com Inc. launched the second version of the Kindle a month ago. It uses Sprint Nextel Corp.'s wireless network to provide near-instant access to a store with 100,000 books.
So far, the Kindle's main competitor has been Sony Corp.'s Reader. It has the same type of screen, meant to imitate the look of paper, but lacks wireless access. Instead, books are loaded by connecting the device to a computer.
"We'd love to have Sony on there," Lewis said, refusing to confirm if the company had been in touch. He spoke at a cell phone trade show that started Wednesday in Las Vegas.
AT&T Inc., the second largest wireless carrier after Verizon Wireless, has also been talking to e-reader manufacturers, said Ralph de la Vega, the company's head of consumer services. Since AT&T's network is more similar to ones used overseas, it could support international e-book readers, he noted. The Kindle can download books only in the U.S.
Just like Verizon Wireless, AT&T is looking for ways to expand the uses of its wireless network beyond cell phones to generate additional revenue.
Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. of New York and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.
http://wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1639098

Quick breads a delight
Easy treat to bake for self or gift
Whenever I stick a pan of quick bread in the oven, I never know whether I am going to enjoy it myself or wrap it up as a gift. Often I do both, for a home-baked quick bread is a flashy, evocative treat.
Delightful aromas waft across my kitchen as I stir the batter with a medley of spices: cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, mace, fresh and ground ginger, grated lemon and orange peel, and crushed seeds such as cardamom and coriander.
Coriander seeds' lemonlike flavor perks up the old traditional Southern lemon tea bread. Cardamom, too, adds a heady aroma to quick breads.
These easy-to-do breads owe their name to the fact that they are leavened with baking powder or baking soda and not yeast, so there's no need to sit and wait for the bread to rise before baking. No kneading is required, either. Stir up the batter and stick it in the oven and bake until golden and delicious - real quick.
The breads should be baked on the lowest shelf of the oven, where the heat is the highest, and in small loaves for better and faster baking. You can always count on the top of the loaf to crack - well, most times - because the crust browns before the center of the bread has finished rising. As the center expands, the loaf cracks, creating its beauty mark.
When I bake these breads, I turn them around in the oven halfway through the baking - or if I'm baking two pans at the same time, I switch the position of the pans. That's another down-home trick that works.
Jamaican banana bread
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus another tablespoon for coating the nuts
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup coconut, grape-seed or light peanut oil, or a mixture of all three
3/4 cup light brown sugar, preferably crystallized sugar
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
3 or 4 tablespoons dark rum or lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-2 1/2-inch loaf pan or a 6-cup ring mold or cake pan, and dust lightly with flour. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside.
Combine the eggs, oil and sugar in a large bowl, and beat vigorously with a wire whisk or an electric hand mixer for a few minutes until well blended. Add the mashed bananas, rum or lemon juice, and allspice, and beat until just smooth.
Stir in the flour and leavening, mixing only until blended. Coat the walnuts all over with the 1 tablespoon flour and stir into the batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and shake the pan gently to settle the batter.
Set the filled pan in the middle of the oven on the lower shelf and bake the bread for about 55 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, but still moist. When done, set the pan of bread on a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Then turn the bread out of the pan and serve warm, if desired.
Molasses tea bread
3/4 cup vegetable oil, such as grape-seed, peanut, corn or coconut, or a mixture of the oils
3 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup dark or robust molasses
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 or 4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger or 2 to 3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 to 2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 1/4 cups unbleached flour, plus another tablespoon for coating the nuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Easy-to-make quick breads such as Jamaican banana bread are leavened with baking powder or baking soda so there's no need to wait for the bread to rise.
3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 1/2 tablespoons crystallized sugar such as Sugar in the Raw, or more if desired
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan, dust lightly with flour, shake out excess, and set aside.
Combine the oil, eggs, molasses, sugar, ginger, allspice and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl, and beat vigorously with a whisk or hand-held electric mixer until well blended.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add the flour and buttermilk alternately to the molasses mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon after each addition. Sprinkle the walnuts or pecans all over with the 1 tablespoon flour and then stir into the batter, mixing well.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and shake gently to settle the batter. Set the pan in the center of the hot oven on the lower rack. Bake the bread for 10 minutes and then scatter the top of the loaf evenly with the crystallized sugar.
Bake the molasses bread for 45 to 50 minutes longer, or until it is brown and puffy and a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean but a little moist. Don't overbake the bread and dry it out; it should be moist.
Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes. Run a metal spatula around the edge of the bread and turn out the bread onto a rack or board lined with a tea cloth or sheet of wax paper. Then turn the bread upright and serve warm, if desired.
Lemon coriander bread
4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour, plus another tablespoon for coating the nuts
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/4 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup mild-flavored nut or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons crushed coriander seeds, lightly toasted if desired
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons grated lemon peel
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, pecans or pistachios
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter and then dust lightly with flour 2 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch loaf pans, or 2 8-by-2-inch cake pans, or 2 6-cup ring molds.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside. Stir the lemon juice into the buttermilk and set side.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, oil, crushed coriander seeds, lemon peel and eggs. Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the mixture on high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
Quickly, using a large spoon, add the flour and milk alternately to the bowl. Then beat the batter briskly with the spoon for about 30 seconds, scraping the bowl as needed.
Toss the chopped nuts with the 1 tablespoon flour and stir into the batter, mixing well but gently.
Pour the batter into the buttered pans, dividing evenly between the two. Shake the pans to level the batter. Place the pans on the lower shelf of the hot oven. Don't allow the pans to touch.
Bake the breads for 40 minutes and then insert a metal tester or toothpick into the center of the breads to test for doneness. If the tester comes out clean but moist and the breads are golden brown, they are done. If not, bake 5 or so minutes longer, and test again, watching carefully.
When done, remove the breads from the oven and cool in the pans on a wire rack for 10 to 12 minutes. Turn the breads out of the pans and onto the wire rack and serve warm, if desired.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/01/quick-breads-a-delight/

Eeyore's News and View

Police use of warrantless GPS tracking challenged
March 4, 2009 - 6:02am
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in the federal appeals court in Washington on behalf of Antoine Jones of Waldorf, Md. Jones was sentenced to life in prison last year after he was convicted in what authorities say was the largest seizure of cocaine ever in the Washington area - 213 pounds.
But his lawyers say the case was built in part on information from a GPS device secretly attached to Jones' car and that police should have obtained a warrant first.
Dan Prywes, the lawyer who filed the brief on behalf of the ACLU, said such satellite technology makes it all too easy for police to engage in Big Brother-type surveillance unless the courts rein them in.
"Most people are aghast at the notion that police - without any showing of probable cause - could track them wherever they go by using an electronic eye in the sky," said Prywes, an attorney with the Bryan Cave law firm, which worked on the case on a pro bono basis.
Jones' trial lawyers also tried to have the tracking evidence tossed out of court, but U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle allowed the jury to hear it.
Prosecutors argue that GPS tracking is no different than physical surveillance conducted by police.
"Because Jones lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle, the placement of the GPS device was proper, even in the complete absence of a court order," prosecutors wrote in their legal briefs dating to 2006.
Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Washington, did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment on the most recent court filings.
Generally, courts have ruled that people do not have the same expectation of privacy in their cars that they have in their homes. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could place radio "beepers" in a car without a warrant, though in its opinion the court warned about all-encompassing "dragnet-type" technology.
Prywes said the precision of GPS tracking is far more intrusive than the "beepers" the court confronted a quarter century ago, and that the law needs to be revisited.
Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, said the guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court on issues like these is muddled.
"These cases are very interesting because they raise a classic tension between technology and privacy," he said. "The Supreme Court has often had to alter its privacy doctrine to adjust for technological advances."
It is not entirely clear how often police agencies use GPS tracking, and how often they do so without a warrant.
In northern Virginia, several police agencies reported using warrantless GPS tracking hundreds of times over a three-year period, according to a defense lawyer who accumulated the date through Freedom of Information Act requests.
A few courts across the country have considered similar challenges. The New York Supreme court is considering a similar case, and in 2003 the Supreme court in Washington state ruled that, under the state's constitution, police must obtain a warrant before attaching GPS tracking to a car.
http://wtop.com/?sid=1615905&nid=25

This kind of fries me. They will say that the budget that the President sent up is too much (and it is by about 3 trillions dollars). But i bet when the smoke clears the budget that they sent to him is for more the 3.6 Trillion dollars.
Lawmakers tear into $3.6 trillion budget plan
WASHINGTON — Republicans attacked President Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget Tuesday as offering "red ink as far as the eye can see," and Democrats even suggested that the president might be trying to solve too many problems at once.
As administration officials trekked to Capitol Hill to defend Obama's budget, they were met with skepticism from both sides of the aisle because of the huge changes the president has promised to make in taxes, health care, energy and education.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, in separate appearances, stuck to the administration line that the president's budget would benefit 95% of working Americans.
Higher taxes for affluent Americans would not come until 2011 once "we are safely into recovery," Geithner told the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
"I'm confident this is the right path for the country," he said.
But Republicans disagreed.
"The president's budget increases taxes on every American, and does so during a recession," Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., told Geithner.
Camp also complained about provisions that would limit the size of charitable deductions that could be taken by families earning more than $250,000 a year.
Orszag faced similar questioning before the House Budget Committee.
He acknowledged under questioning by Republicans that Obama has proposed the largest peacetime budget in history as a percentage of the nation's economy, at 27%.
He also admitted that it would double the size of the national debt in eight years, from $10 trillion last year to $20 trillion in 2016.
Still, Orszag said, "this budget is not a big-spending budget," noting spending would drop to 3.1% of the nation's economy by 2019, the lowest level since 1962.
But lawmakers challenged the projections.
"The numbers in this budget are staggeringly high," said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., top Republican on the House Budget Committee.
They will be even higher, he said, if the administration's economic assumptions prove too optimistic, as many Republicans say they will. Obama's budget projects a lesser decline in the nation's gross domestic product this year and a more robust increase next year than most economists and the Congressional Budget Office.
Orszag defended the economic assumptions because they were made more recently than others — after a two-year, $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan that's intended to boost the economy was enacted. He acknowledged, however, that the economy has worsened since those assumptions were made.
The budget director also defended projected deficits of $500 billion to $700 billion annually even after the economy recovers, noting that would represent only about 3% of the nation's economy. This year's estimated $1.75 trillion deficit is more than 12% of the economy.
Unlike his predecessor, President Bush, Obama chose to include all the spending that's likely to occur this year in his budget.
That includes the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a tax cut to spare 20 million Americans from being hit by the alternative minimum tax and a measure holding doctors harmless from projected cuts in Medicare payments.
"I could make the deficit look a lot smaller by playing those games," Orszag said.
The key to the budget, Orszag said, is "bending the curve" on spiraling health care costs.
The budget includes $634 billion as a "down payment" on overhauling the nation's health care system, which Orszag said should be more than half of what's needed. Half that money would come from Medicare savings, the other half from raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
Orszag said initiatives begun in the budget, such as studying the comparative effectiveness of medical treatments, expanding the use of information technology in doctors' offices and hospitals, and stressing prevention and wellness should reduce health care costs over the long term.
He said the administration will talk more about its plans for health care at a White House summit on Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-03-congress-budget_N.htm

Amazon unveils Kindle Application for iPhone
March 4, 2009 - 7:36am
By RACHEL METZ AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - You may not have the latest $359 Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon.com, but if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, a new application will let you access the same content on your Apple device.
In a bid to increase its slice of the e-book market, the Seattle-based online retailer plans to roll out a free program Wednesday that brings several of the Kindle's functions to the iPod and iPhone's smaller screen.
The program, which can be downloaded from Apple's online application store, lets iPhone and iPod Touch users read the same electronic books, magazines and newspapers that Kindle owners can buy on Amazon.com. As with the Kindle, the iPhone app lets users change the text size on the screen, and add bookmarks, notes and highlights.
The application does not connect to the Kindle store, however, so users must access the Web browser on their iPhone, iPod or computer to buy the content.
If you happen to have a Kindle and an iPhone, Amazon's program will handily sync the two so you can keep your place in the same book on both devices.
The Kindle program isn't the first e-book reader for the iPhone, but it marks the first time Kindle content is available on a cell phone _ a move Amazon recently said it would be making, and something that rival Google Inc. is also doing.
It arrives a few weeks after Amazon unveiled the second-generation Kindle, which has the same price tag as its predecessor but is skinnier and includes updated features like more storage space for books and a longer battery life.
Amazon has been working on the application for several months, said Ian Freed, who is Amazon's vice president for the Kindle. Freed said the company sees the software as a way to introduce non-Kindle owners to the device, potentially turning them into Kindle buyers. (Amazon does not say how many Kindles it has sold.) It also gives Kindle owners an additional way to read their content while on the go, he said.
He added that the new application will show books in color that were developed that way. This is unlike the Kindle 2, which has a 6-inch screen that only shows content in shades of gray.
The application does not include the text-to-speech feature Amazon built into the latest Kindle, which can read books aloud, sparking concerns among authors worried it would undercut separate audiobook sales. Amazon said Friday it will let copyright holders turn off text-to-speech on any book.
http://wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1615773

Spike in Fatal H5N1 Indonesian Cases Raises Concerns
Recombinomics Commentary 14:37
March 3, 2009
Krisnamurthi had little details about the latest deaths, saying only that two were siblings from the city of Bogor and the others were women from Bekasi and Surabaya.
Republika also reported on Tuesday that two more deaths from the disease occurred at the weekend near the capital Jakarta -- a 5-year-old girl from Depok, and an 8-year-old boy from Bekasi.
The above comments from wire reports describe 4 more confirmed H5N1 fatal cases near Jakarta and describe 2 more recent suspect fatal cases in the same general area. However, additional local reports describe a fatal case in Tangerang, which was said to have been lab confirmed, suggesting that there are at least 7 fatal H5N1 infections in the areas surrounding Jakarta, which are in addition to the two fatalities reported for Tangerang and Bekasi last month.
Details on these cases are somewhat lacking because of the news blackout that delays reporting. WHO generally follows with situation updates, but these updates come after Indonesian announcements and trail disease onset dates by weeks or months.
The familial cluster in Bogor was described in local media reports and the two sisters died in late January. In addition, the patient in Surabaya also died in January, but paramedics linked to the hospital in Surabaya were reported as hospitalized in critical condition, raising concerns that the H5N1 confirmed fatal case directly or indirectly infected the paramedics (see updated map).
The recent seven confirmed or suspect fatalities follow the news blackout last year, which followed a series of additional clusters. The announcement of the blackout was accompanied by claims that the lower number of confirmed cases was due to more rapid treatment. However, the rapid treatment would not lower the number of infections, unless there was significant human to human transmission. Collection of samples after the start of treat may low the number of lab confirmed cases because of a lower viral titer linked to treatment. Rapid treatment could lead to a lowered cases fatality rate, but there is little evidence in the confirmed cases. Historically the case fatality rate for human H5N1 in Indonesia is approximately 80%. However, the rate for confirmed cases reported this year is 100% for the six cases, all of which were on Java. Indeed, it has been over a year since a recovered H5N1 case was reported on Java. Since that cluster in February of 2008, all 10 reported cases last year were fatal. Thus, for Java the case fatality rate has been at 100% for all 16 of the most recent reported H5N1 cases.
This high case fatality rate strongly suggests that milder cases are not report, either because they test negative because of titers lowered by treatment, or they are not tested at all because they are misdiagnosed or self medicated at home, which has been described for many suspect cases. Indeed, many of the fatal cases die within hours of being transferred to an infectious disease hospital after local treatment at home, clinics, or smaller local hospitals and fatally infected family members linked to lab confirmed cases have been misdiagnosed as having lung inflammation, dengue fever, or typhus. The recent Tangerang case was diagnosed as dengue fever, and the recent Bogor case was diagnosed as having dengue fever and typhus prior to lung x-rays and reports of contact with dead or dying poultry, which then led to the H5N1 diagnosis.
The spike in H5N1 cases in the Jakarta area increases concerns that the number of H5N1 in Indonesia in general and the Jakarta area in particular, are markedly higher that the recently announced confirmed cases.
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03030901/H5N1_Indo_Spike.html

Flu strain proves resistant to medication: report
A virulent strain of influenza sowing misery across the United States is proving resistant to what had been until recently the most effective anti-viral drugs, according to a study released Monday.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the H1N1 subtype of influenza A viruses commonly proved resistant to the popular drug oseltamivir.
Oseltamivir, sold commercially in the United States as the drug Tamiflu, is produced by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, and is the main antiviral remedy on the market.
But during the 2007-2008 flu season last year, the Tamiflu-resistant strain of the virus accounted for fully one in five cases of flu in the United States.
Preliminary data during the current 2008-2009 influenza season shows that the virus's resistance to the Tamiflu continues to be high and that the drug-resistant strain of the flu continue to have a high incidence.
Equally worrying is the virulence of this particular strain of flu. Data last year for 99 individuals infected with oseltamivir-resistant influenza found that five of the patients had to be hospitalized, four of whom died.
The authors wrote that the worrisome development "has highlighted the need for the development of new antiviral drugs and rapid diagnostic tests that determine viral subtype or resistance."
In an editorial accompanying the study, David Weinstock of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and Gianna Zuccotti of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said that the findings also show that researcher can never become complacent when treating the scourge.
"New surprises await in the perpetual struggle with influenza," they wrote.
"One thing is certain -- the organism will continue to evolve."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.17135f1da1b9956707046861571187da.c31&show_article=1

Elementary blots out 'In God We Trust'
An elementary school in Tennessee, after successfully rebuffing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over religious expression on campus, has nonetheless ordered the words "God Bless the USA" and "In God We Trust" covered up on student-made posters in the hallway.
Administrators at Lakeview Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., told parents that the posters, promoting the See You at the Pole student prayer event, mentioned "God" and are therefore precluded by school board policy and prohibited in the hallways as inappropriate.
Attorneys
with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending religious liberty, filed a lawsuit today on behalf of 10 parents and their children, seeking an injunction against banning private religious expression on student-made posters.
"Christian students shouldn't be censored for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum in a statement. "It's ridiculous as well as unconstitutional to cover up these references to God and prayer – one of which is the national motto itself – on posters announcing a student-led activity."
Further, Kellum surmised, "School officials appear to be having an allergic reaction to the ACLU's long-term record of fear, intimidation, and disinformation, despite a previous court ruling at this very school that said students can observe these types of events on school property."
In 2006, lawyers from the ACLU sued the school to stop it from recognizing religious events, including See You at the Pole and the National Day of Prayer.
In May 2008, a U.S. District Court judge refused to grant the ACLU's request.
This year, each poster, made on personal time without the use of any school funds or supplies, included the disclaimer: "See You at the Pole is a student-initiated and student-led event and is not endorsed by Lakeview Elementary or Wilson County schools."
Nevertheless, the lawsuit states, the school's assistant principal told parents – upon advisement from the principal and director of schools for the county – that Scripture verses and phrases mentioning "God" would not be permitted on the posters. Even "come pray" was deemed in violation of school policy for using the word "pray."
With the date of the "See You at the Pole" event only a few days away, rather than asking the students to make new posters, the school provided green slips of paper to obscure the offending words.
WND contacted Lakeview Elementary's vice principal, but she declined to comment until she could familiarize herself with the details of the lawsuit.
Attorneys from ADF contend the disclaimer statement on the posters was more than enough to release the school from any perceived endorsement of the "God" messages, and that burying the words behind green paper constitutes a clear violation of First Amendment rights. "The Constitution prohibits government officials from singling out religious speech for censorship," Kellum said, "but this is exactly what Lakeview school officials did when they ordered these words to be covered."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=90674

Eeyore's News and View

US Inflation Could Hit 200%: Dr. Doom
The US risks being hit by Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation and there are signs that the world's biggest economy risks turning into a banana republic, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Doom & Boom report, told CNBC's "Asia Squawk Box."
Current DateTime: 02:45:58 10 Feb 2009
"In the US, we have a totally new school, and it’s called the Zimbabwe school," Faber said. "And it’s founded by one of the great leaders of this world, Mr Robert Mugabe, that has managed to totally impoverish his own country. And that is the monetary policy the US is pursuing."
The government's increased intervention in the economy is likely to slow down economic growth because history shows that every time the private sector shrinks to make way for the government sector, the economy suffers, he said.
Asked whether the US risked being faced with 200 percent inflation, Faber answered: "Well, not yet. Not yet. But I think eventually. If I look at government debt in the US, and debt in general, I think the only way they will not default physically on their debt is to inflate."
The Federal Reserve's policy of printing money and the government's intervention in the economy might undermine the US's economic and political clout, Faber warned.
"Well, I wrote two years ago a report entitled 'Is America becoming a banana republic?' And there are some features that characterize banana republics- totalitarian states, very strong government intervention into the economy, and the polarization of wealth," he said.
"And we have all these trends occurring in the US. We are not yet there. And in theory it could be reversed, but I doubt it will be," Faber added.
Because of these factors, US government and corporate bonds, including that of CNBC parent General Electric [GE 12.64 --- UNCH (0) ], should be downgraded, he said.
"Yeh, I think GE should be a junk bond. But I also think the US government should be junk," Faber said, adding: "I don’t pay much attention to rating agencies. The rating agencies have totally failed over the last 3-4 years to identify sick companies."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29047443/

Health risks may reach far beyond reported victims
By Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
Like any mother facing a long day in the car and then on a plane with two young kids, ages 4 and 5, Jennifer Krieger of Alexandria, Va., was prepared.
"I bought peanut butter crackers," she says, "thinking it would be a great healthy snack to take on the trip, easy to throw in my bag, and it won't go bad."
But things went bad, in ways that Krieger couldn't have imagined. A long-awaited Christmas vacation ski trip turned into a five-day vigil at a Colorado hospital after David Krieger, 4, got salmonellosis, a life-threatening infection caused by exposure to the salmonella bacteria.
"The hardest part was seeing him in such pain," Krieger says. "He would cry out, 'My tummy hurts! My tummy hurts!' and he'd be in a fetal position on the floor."
Federal officials say David, who has recovered, was one of more than 538 people across the nation who became sick after they ate contaminated peanut butter or foods containing tainted peanut paste made in a Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) manufacturing plant in Georgia. The infection also may have contributed to eight deaths, they say. Recalled products now number more than 1,700, including peanut butter crackers and many other snacks, although officials say major brands of peanut butter are not affected.
PCA is under a criminal investigation by the Food and Drug Administration and the Justice Department. A second congressional hearing on the recall is scheduled for Wednesday. The impact of the salmonella contamination could reach well beyond the 538 people who got sick.
The conventional wisdom among epidemiologists, first outlined in a 2004 paper by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher Andrew Voetsch, is that for each case of salmonellosis that is reported, more than 38 other people get sick but don't go to their doctor or get tested. So this outbreak could be responsible for more than 20,000 illnesses.
In Belle Plaine, Minn., pre-Christmas snacking was the likely path to infection for Sarah Kirchner's son Michael, 3. "We ease up around Christmastime," Kirchner says, so Michael got to eat more peanut butter crackers and candy than he'd normally be allowed.
He was in the hospital for four days, three with a temperature of 104. "He couldn't even move because he was in so much pain. He would scream and cry every time the nurses touched him," Kirchner says.
Michael's baby sister Lily, who was 4 months old, got the bug from him. The bacteria can be passed along via contaminated hands and surfaces. And it was present and growing in Michael days before his parents knew he was sick.
Lily got to stay at home but had such intense diarrhea every five to 10 minutes that her skin was raw and she had to have a baking-soda bath after each bout to counteract the acid in her stool.
Kirchner and husband David — who had not eaten the crackers or candy — took turns at home and in the hospital so that neither child was ever alone.
"I kept wishing it was us," she says. "Why didn't we get it?"
Most fight off infection
Once ingested, the salmonella bacteria start growing in the intestines. For the vast majority of people exposed, their bodies fight it off, and they never know they had it.
But depending on how many bacteria you have, or how old or sick you are, salmonella can overwhelm the body's defenses and infect the colon, says Tim Dellit, an infectious-disease specialist at Harborview hospital in Seattle.
"Normally you've got this nice, smooth intestine and colon, and then you get inflammation, and it's like eczema on your skin," Dellit says.
In some cases, blood vessels leak into the colon, he says.
"It can actually be bright red blood that comes out in the watery diarrhea. That's typically what people will notice, that there will be blood in the toilet bowl."
In most cases, salmonella infection lasts four to seven days. The body eventually fights it off. In fact, treating it with antibiotics often can make it worse. "In some situations, the antibiotics can prolong the carrier state, the time that the body takes to clear the bacteria," Dellit says.
How hard salmonella hits a given person depends on several factors: how much bacteria they consumed, how good their immune system is at fighting it off and how old or young they are.
But there's another interesting thing about salmonella: There are thousands of different strains of the bacteria, and each seems to attack the body in a slightly different way, says Robert Tauxe of the CDC's division of foodborne, bacterial and mycotic diseases.
There are salmonella strains that hit younger people harder, and there are salmonellas that hit older people harder. Some make boys sick more than girls; some, women more than men. In the ConAgra salmonella outbreak associated with peanut butter in 2007, more than 25% of the cases showed up as a urinary tract infection in older women, researchers at the CDC found.
Why the same basic bacteria cause such different illnesses is a mystery. "It's a real head-scratcher," Tauxe says. "I can't pretend we understand why."
The current outbreak's potential impact on children likely has been reduced by the rise in peanut allergies in the USA. Salmonella is most dangerous for very young children.
"Pediatricians have told everybody under 2 to stay away from peanut butter" for the past few years, Tauxe says.
"So we see very few kids under the age of 2 in this outbreak," he says. "And those are likely to be the kids who get into trouble."
What are the chances?
Leslie Kurland of Hoosick, N.Y., went to culinary school, so she knows all about food safety and sanitation.
But it never occurred to her that peanut butter crackers could be the cause of the horrific bout of salmonella that has son Gabriel, who is about to turn 2, on his second round of antibiotics.
In his case, doctors prescribed antibiotics because very young children are at the highest risk for developing a blood infection from salmonella.
Overall, however, salmonella has a very low attack rate, says Bill Keene of Oregon's acute and communicable disease program.
"Look at the total number of people ill, we're talking 500 reported cases," says Donald Schaffner, a food microbiologist speaking for the Institute of Food Technologists.
"But the amount of product that came out of that (PCA) plant fed more than 20,000 people. So we're looking at a level of contamination that's low and sporadic."
Peanut butter and peanut paste, which are low in water and high in fat, are an almost perfect medium to preserve salmonella bacteria even when they are exposed to heat.
That's a problem, because the "kill step" for peanut butter — the action that's supposed to ensure that it's free of harmful bacteria — is roasting, Schaffner says.
That means that either the roasting of the contaminated products wasn't done at a high enough temperature or the peanut products were infected later in the process.
A recent FDA inspection found unsanitary conditions at the PCA plant. An FDA inspection report says PCA shipped products in 2007 and 2008 that tested positive for salmonella.
In some situations, the products first tested positive and then negative — and then were shipped anyway. In others, the company shipped products before receiving positive test results, the FDA report says.
A wake-up call
Peanut paste goes through more heat exposure when it's baked in a cracker or some other kind of snack.
However, "Salmonella is a million times more heat-resistant when it's in peanut butter than when it's in chicken (a common carrier) or another high-moisture environment," Schaffner says.
This outbreak is a wake-up call to the nut industry and the food industry in general, Schaffner says.
"People (in the industry) ought to be asking themselves, 'What is my kill step? Am I really sure that my kill step is as effective as I think it is?'
"If there's anybody out there in the industry who's manufacturing nuts or nut butter of any kind, they really need to get on the stick and study the thermal processes they're using and document that it's effective against salmonella."
For now, the only thing that's going to end this outbreak is for people to go through their cupboards and toss out potentially infected food.
"The shelf life of these products is months, if not years, in somebody's cupboard," says the CDC's Tauxe.
"They're going to be little time bombs going off for months unless people get rid of them."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2009-02-09-peanut-butter-salmonella_N.htm

Grandma's moistening kettle may have held off flu
February 9, 2009 - 11:41pm
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Grandma may have been right about keeping a teakettle warming on the stove in winter to moisten the air. Studies of seasonal influenza have long found indications that flu spreads better in dry air. Now, new research being published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, indicates that the key is the absolute humidity _ which measures the amount of water present in the air, regardless of temperature _ not the more commonly reported relative humidity.
Relative humidity varies depending on air temperature; absolute humidity doesn't.
"The correlations were surprisingly strong. When absolute humidity is low, influenza virus survival is prolonged and transmission rates go up," said Jeffrey Shaman, an Oregon State University atmospheric scientist who specializes in ties between climate and disease transmission
The finding "is very important for the scientific community and the medical community to know to develop better prediction models of influenza," Shaman said in a telephone interview. It will offer the chance to better understand and forecast the spread of the disease.
For the public, he added, it offers a "more elegant explanation for why we see these seasonal spikes" in flu. And, he added, it shows that in some cases it may be worthwhile to add humidity to the air. Beware of overdoing it, though _ too much humidity can lead to other problems, such as mold.
The correlation with flu and low humidity is important because in cold winter weather, when flu is most common, even a high relative humidity reading may indicate little actual moisture in the air, and the less moisture there is, the happier the flu virus seems to be.
Shaman and co-author Melvin Kohn, an epidemiologist with the Oregon Department of Health Services, reanalyzed data from a study published in 2007 in the journal PLoS Pathogens by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. That report found there were more flu cases when it was colder and drier.
The Oregon researchers said relative humidity could only explain about 12 percent of the variability of influenza virus transmission and 36 percent of virus survival in the 2007 study.
In their new analysis, Shaman and Kohn said using absolute humidity explains 50 percent of influenza transmission and 90 percent of virus survival.
So why is relative humidity misleading?
The answer is that more moisture can be present in warm air than in cold. Some people like to say warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. While that's not scientifically correct, it is a convenient way to think about it.
What that means is warm air at 30 percent relative humidity and cold air at 60 percent relative humidity may actually have the same amount of water in the air.
So, while the cold air sounds moist, it might be pretty dry _ just what the flu likes.
Absolute humidity is expressed in weight of water, grams or pounds, in a volume of air, such as a cubic meter or yard. The higher the reading the wetter. The wetter, the worse for flu virus.
"In some areas of the country, a typical summer day can have four times as much water vapor as a typical winter day _ a difference that exists both indoors and outdoors," Shaman said. "Consequently, outbreaks of influenza typically occur in winter when low absolute humidity conditions strongly favor influenza survival and transmission."
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org

In recession, many fix old autos instead of trading in
More motorists are fixing their old cars instead of buying new ones, in hopes their jalopies will survive a long recession.
Auto dealers and garage owners say they are seeing drivers pay more attention to regular maintenance and be more willing to spring for costly major repairs now that they are reluctant to trade in their junkers. "People are hanging on to them right now, and they've got to keep them running," says Tim Smith of Bob Smith BMW/Mini in Calabasas, Calif.
Working to saving Old Bessie:
•Dealer servicing. Parts and service departments are expected to see a revenue gain of about 3% this year, forecasts Paul Taylor, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association. That would be up from 1.8% for the first 11 months of 2008.
Dealers count on servicing to offset falling new car sales. Jason Brickl of Ballweg Chevrolet in Middleton, Wis., says his service department has seen a 17% sales gain the past 12 months.
•Repair shops. Some 60% of the independent mechanics responding to a survey by Automotive Service Association reported sales up last year over the previous year. Only 14% reported a decline. This year, 76% say they expect more work.
Shop owners say, "It's common these days to hear from motorists, 'I don't want to buy a new car right now so … should I spend the money and fix this one?' " says ASA spokeswoman Angie Wilson.
•Roadside assistance. Though AAA says roadside assistance calls have remained fairly steady at nearly 30 million a year, memberships, which usually include towing benefits, rose by about 500,000 last year to 51.3 million. "People are taking a little better care of their cars," says Michael Calkins, manager of AAA's approved auto repair shop program.
Motorists are hanging on to vehicles longer. The average age of the entire U.S. fleet of cars and trucks averaged a record 9.2 years in 2007 for the second year in a row, the most recent figure from research firm R.L. Polk. The 4.8% of vehicles scrapped was the lowest since 1996.
Business is up about 10% over last year at Parkway Auto Care in St. Paul, says owner Ron Alcorn. "A few years ago, if it was going to be $1,000 to fix it, they would trade it off. Now they say, 'I can't buy a new car for $1,000 or even a decent used car,' " and go ahead with repairs, Alcorn says. But the garage is still losing some business when customers who now can't afford a major repair choose to ride public transit instead, he adds.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-02-08-used-car-repairs_N.htm

Amazon's new Kindle e-book reader gets slimmer
February 9, 2009 - 6:34pm
NEW YORK (AP) - Amazon.com Inc. is releasing a slimmer version of its Kindle electronic reading device, but it still costs $359 _ making it unclear how mainstream even an improved Kindle can be during a brutal recession.
Rather than lowering the price, Amazon touted several upgrades to the e-book reader and a novella from Stephen King that will be available exclusively for the device. The new Kindle is expected to begin shipping Feb. 24, with owners of the first Kindle at the front of the line if they want to upgrade.
"This device is a significant improvement versus the first generation," Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said in an interview.
He said there was no way to lower the price given the upgraded components in the Kindle 2, which is a bit more than one-third of an inch thick _ about half the thickness of the first Kindle. Its 6-inch screen can display 16 shades of gray, compared with the previous Kindle's four shades. It will be able to read text aloud from two small speakers on the back, and it can store 1,500 books, instead of 200.
The new Kindle is slightly taller, but like the old version, it weighs about 10 ounces. It downloads books _ the catalog has 230,000 titles _ and newspaper stories and blog posts over Sprint Nextel Corp.'s wireless network.
E-books still don't exceed 1 percent of overall book sales, but publishers say they are a fast-growing niche, a rare area of improvement in an otherwise terrible market. Although some publishers have expressed nervousness about Amazon.com's market power, they have supported the Kindle and expanded the number of books available for it and competing devices such as Sony Corp.'s Reader. The Reader costs $300 or $400, depending on the model.
The Kindle has enjoyed a steady buzz, with an endorsement last fall from Oprah Winfrey and Amazon's claim over the holidays that it was out of stock.
Seattle-based Amazon has carefully guarded key details, including how many Kindles have sold since they debuted late in 2007. Amazon wouldn't comment on an analyst report last week that it had sold about 500,000 Kindles, which was based on a regulatory filing by Sprint Nextel that indicated 210,000 were bought in the third quarter of 2008.
Sony spokeswoman Valerie Motis said that since the original Reader's launch in October 2006, the company had shipped 300,000 of the devices as of the end of November.
Bezos said Monday that Kindle orders were strong around the holidays and that he expects that to continue. Even in the recession, he said, "people are buying Kindles."
The Kindle is available only in the U.S.; Bezos said an international release is "clearly something we're thinking about."
Ross Rubin, an analyst with The NPD Group, called the Kindle 2 "an improvement across the board." He said that there was enough room for improvement over the first Kindle that the second probably will still appeal to people who already have one.
But for e-book readers to reach broader audiences, the price needs to come down, he said. He expects this won't happen until must-haves like textbooks become available for the devices.
Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, said Amazon could cut the Kindle's price before the next holiday season if sales are healthy enough that Amazon can save on some component costs. He noted that driving down the price could lead to more sales of books for the Kindle _ and books are more profitable than the device itself, he said.
Amazon recently said it would make Kindle e-books available on other kinds of devices, including cell phones, as rival Google Inc. also is doing.
Amazon also hopes to make the Kindle enticing through exclusive content, beginning with King's novella, called "Ur," which incorporates the device into the story.
King has been known as a digital publishing innovator. In 2000 he released a novella, "Riding the Bullet," as a free download. Web sites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com were swamped by high demand for the 66-page story.
Amazon shares rose 16 cents to close at $66.71.
http://wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1596778

Eeyore's News and View

Pilgrim Daughter by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

We searched for the ghost of fifteen-year-old Constance Hopkins in the bowels of the reconstructed ship "Mayflower II," rolling gently aside a pier in Plymouth harbor. Where volunteers dressed in period costume answered tourists' questions, Constance had once huddled, miserably cold and damp, as fierce storms buffeted the ship.
"According to the usuall manner," the old records relate, "many were afflicted with seasicknes." As the ship had only the crudest of conveniences and no sanitary facilities of any kind except the traditional bucket, the air in the narrow, crowded quarters below deck must have been nauseating at worst and at best simply staggering.
Constance and her younger brother were responsible to keep track of their three-year-old sister who was always scampering among the various families camped side by side in the hold's cargo compartments. It was all their mother could do, great with child, to brace herself as the "Mayflower" heaved in the heavy Atlantic storms. As Constance watched a tiny brother was born on the high seas, christened "Oceanus."
Since the "Mayflower" had left England nine weeks behind schedule, the New World's harsh weather threatened their very survival. The men went ashore in December to construct rude shelters; women and children spent the winter aboard ship anchored in the bay.
Winter took its toll. Journal entries feature the same melancholy theme week after week, for months on end:
"... Aboute noone, it began to raine ... at night, it did freeze & snow ... still the cold weather continued ... very wet and rainy, with the greatest gusts of wind ever we saw ... frost and foule weather hindered us much; this time of the yeare seldom could we worke half the week."
That winter more than half the heads of households perished. Aboard ship only five of eighteen wives lived through the ravages of scurvy, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. An entry for March 24th reads:
"Dies Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Edward Winslow. N.B. This month thirteen of our number die. And in three months past dies halfe our company ... Of a hundred persons, scarce fifty remain, the living scarce able to bury the dead."
My daughter Annie, a descendent of Constance, tried to imagine the terrors of that winter for a young teenage girl. When not lying sick herself, she would doubtless be tending whimpering children, preparing food for their stricken mothers, and comforting the increasing number of orphans aboard the "Mayflower."
But spring finally came, and by the third week in March the weakened survivors rowed ashore in the longboat to take up residence in New Plimoth.
How could the Pilgrims talk about thanksgiving in the midst of life's most difficult trials? we wonder. Why not just curse God and die? They gave thanks for God's presence in their adversities because they knew that struggles did not have to make them bitter; struggles could make them better. These remaining Pilgrim daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, placed their trust in their God and laid the enduring foundations of a nation. Thanksgiving Day, 1621, did not just celebrate wild turkey and Indian corn; it celebrated the human spirit reaching out to God in gratitude for the blessings the Pilgrims still did possess.
"Yea, though they should lose their lives in this action," ancient documents say, "yet they might have comforte in the same ... All great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages."
No, the Pilgrims did not lack for courage.
Our family poked around in a windswept burying yard until we found the tombstone of Constance Hopkins Snow, age 72 years. And as my wife and daughter laid a bunch of hedge row wildflowers on her grave, we stood for a moment of silence, meditating on our brave and very personal link with that first Thanksgiving.

http://www.joyfulheart.com/thanksgiving/constanc.htm

It came from outer space: Fireball streaks across Canadian Prairie, crashes

The Canadian Prairie is still buzzing about a giant fireball that roared across the sky last night and slammed into the earth with a bright flash.

Witnesses described the fireball as red, green, white or blue.

Aliens? Not so far, anyway. Just a meteor.

"It's a massive fireball; it's one of the brightest that we've seen in the area. And it almost certainly dropped meteorites," Dr. Christopher Herd, a University of Alberta earth and atmospheric sciences professor, told CBC News. "It looks somewhere around the Alberta-Saskatchewan border."

The Edmonton Sun reports that fragments may have landed in central Saskatchewan. Scientists have begun searching and reviewing footage from Web cams

See for yourself in this video from the dashboard camera of an Edmonton, Alberta, police car:

The fireball was spotted around 5:30 p.m. MT (7:30 p.m. ET) and was seen in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, western Ontario and even North Dakota.

"It seemed like fireworks or a missile coming down. The sky lit up greenish and yellow," said Shawn Mitchler, who was pumping gas in Radisson, about 40 miles northwest of Saskatoon. "My heart just started racing because I didn't know what it was."

Despite its size and the noise it made entering the atmosphere, the meteor was probably no bigger than a grapefruit, Edmonton space educator Randy Atwood told CTV Calgary. The meteor may have broken into small pieces before hitting the ground, or it may have burned up entirely before touching down.

"It was a beautiful show, and some people might have thought it was just over the hill, and that it was the size of a house," he said.

Here's what The Edmonton Sun reported last night, along with the The Vancouver Sun and the Calgary Herald.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/11/it-came-from-ou.html (you can see video at the link)

Worst of financial crisis yet to come: IMF chief economist
The IMF's chief economist Olivier Blanchard, seen here in Ma...
The IMF's chief economist has warned that the global financial crisis is set to worsen and that the situation will not improve until 2010, a report said Saturday.
Olivier Blanchard also warned that the institution does not have the funds to solve every economic problem.
"The worst is yet to come," Blanchard said in an interview with the Finanz und Wirtschaft newspaper, adding that "a lot of time is needed before the situation becomes normal."
He said economic growth would not kick in until 2010 and it will take another year before the global financial situation became normal again.
The International Monetary Fund on Friday promised to help Latvia deal with its economic crisis after it assisted Iceland, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia and Pakistan.
But Blanchard said the IMF was not able to solve all financial issues, in particular problems of liquidity.
Withdrawals of capital leading to problems of liquidity "can be so significant that the IMF alone cannot counter them," he said, adding that massive withdrawals of investments from emerging countries could represent "hundreds of billions of dollars.
"We do not have this money. We never had it," he said.
The IMF had spent a fifth of its 250 billion dollar (200 billion euro) fund in the last two weeks, Blanchard added.
He also urged central banks around the world to cut interest rates, after the Swiss National Bank made a surprise one percentage point rate cut Thursday.
The central banks "should lower interest rates to as close to zero as possible," he said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081122230427.xqkurulg&show_article=1

The Mother of all Bailouts is continues and grows, will the stupid politicians ever realize that the answer to every question is not to print more money. Money can not fix all problems.
U.S. approves plan to help Citigroup weather losses
By Eric Dash
Published: November 23, 2008
U.S. government regulators approved a radical plan to stabilize Citigroup in an arrangement in which the government could soak up tens of billions of dollars in losses at the struggling bank, the government announced late Sunday night.
The complex plan calls for the government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities and directly invest about $20 billion in the company. The plan, emerging after a harrowing week in the financial markets, is the government's third effort in three months to contain the deepening economic crisis and may set the precedent for other multibillion-dollar financial rescues.
Citigroup executives presented a plan to U.S. government officials on Friday evening after a weeklong plunge in the company's share price threatened to engulf other big banks. In tense, round-the-clock negotiations that stretched until almost midnight on Sunday, it became clear that the crisis of confidence had to be defused now or the financial markets could plunge further.
Whether this latest rescue plan will help calm the markets is uncertain, given the stress in the financial system caused by losses at Citigroup and other banks. Each previous government effort initially seemed to reassure investors, leading to optimism that the banking system had steadied. But those hopes faded as the economic outlook worsened, raising worries that more bank loans were turning sour.
President-elect Barack Obama was also working over the weekend to shore up confidence in the rapidly faltering economy. Obama signaled that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than he had outlined during his campaign and planned to announce his economic team on Monday. Some Democrats in Congress, meantime, were calling for the government to spend as much as $700 billion to stimulate the economy over the next two years.
Multimedia
Obama's expected choice for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, played a crucial role in the negotiations on Friday but worked behind the scenes once news of his appointment was circulated. While the initial focus of government officials was to help the embattled company, they may also seek to draw up an industrywide plan that could help other banks.
Under the proposal, the government would shoulder losses at Citigroup if those losses exceeded certain levels.
The plan could herald another shift in the government's financial rescue. The Treasury Department first proposed buying troubled assets from banks but then reversed course and began injecting capital directly into financial institutions. Neither plan, however, restored investors' confidence for long.
"By intervening, they are giving the market some heart to temporarily stave off some fear — but you can only push that so much," said Charles Geisst, a financial historian and professor at Manhattan College.
Banking industry officials said the decision to support Citigroup, while necessary, could draw a firestorm of criticism from smaller institutions that were not big enough to be saved.
Under the agreement, Citigroup and regulators will back up to $306 billion of largely residential and commercial real estate loans and certain other assets, which will remain on the bank's balance sheet. Citigroup will shoulder losses on the first $29 billion of that portfolio.
Any remaining losses will be split between Citigroup and the government, with the bank absorbing 10 percent and the government absorbing 90 percent. The Treasury Department will use its bailout fund to assume up to $5 billion of losses. If necessary, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will bear the next $10 billion of losses. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve will guarantee any additional losses.
In exchange, Citigroup will issue $7 billion of preferred stock to government regulators. In addition, the government is buying $20 billion of preferred stock in Citigroup. The preferred shares will pay an 8 percent dividend and will slightly erode the value of shares held by investors.
Citigroup will also agree to certain executive compensation restrictions, which will be reviewed by regulators. It will also put in place the FDIC's loan modification plan, which is similar to one it recently announced.
The government said it was taking the step to bolster the economy while protecting taxpayers. "We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks," the regulators said in a joint statement Sunday.
Inside Citigroup's Park Avenue headquarters, the mood was tense. Through the weekend, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary and an influential executive and director at Citigroup, held several discussions with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr.
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive, spoke to regulators and lawmakers. Pandit also met with Citigroup's board on Saturday, and there was no indication that they would seek to replace him.
Once the nation's largest and mightiest financial company, Citigroup lost half its value in the stock market last week as the bank confronted a crisis of confidence. Although Citigroup executives maintain the bank is sound, investors worry that its finances are deteriorating. Citigroup has suffered staggering losses for a year now, and few analysts think the pain is over. Many investors worry that it needs more capital.
With more than $2 trillion in assets and operations in more than 100 countries, Citigroup is so large and interconnected that its troubles could spill over into other institutions. Citigroup is widely viewed, both in Washington and on Wall Street, as too big to be allowed to fail.
Citigroup executives reached out to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury last week as they sought to stabilize the company's stock. All major bank stocks have been battered in recent weeks, including those of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Citigroup's shares have been hit particularly hard. A year ago they were trading at about $30; on Friday they closed at $3.77.
The plan under discussion is reminiscent of the one that Citigroup and the FDIC worked out in October with Citigroup's proposal to buy Wachovia. That deal fell through, however, when Wells Fargo swept in with a higher offer.
Under that plan, Citigroup agreed to bear a certain level of Wachovia's losses, with the U.S. government agency absorbing the rest. In exchange, Citigroup agreed to give the FDIC preferred stock.
It is also similar to an effort orchestrated by Swiss financial regulators for UBS, another big global bank. Last month, the Swiss central bank and UBS reached an agreement to transfer as much as $60 billion of troubled securities and other assets from UBS's balance sheet to a separate entity.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/24/business/24citibank.php

Not a bad thing, hopefully they will actually do some good books also
Random House to digitize thousands of books November 24, 2008 - 7:42am
NEW YORK (AP) - With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse" children's series.
Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books."
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
Random House's vice president for digital operations, Matt Shatz, says e-book sales have increased by triple digit percentages in 2008, thanks in part to Amazon.com's Kindle reader, but he declined to offer specific number. E-books remain a tiny part of the overall market, widely estimated in the industry at 1 percent or less.
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On the Net: http://www.randomhouse.com/