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To all:
http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/17/editorial/letters.html
Law officers have reason to be proud
Regarding this week's National Police Week observance:
Lawman: Something to be proud of - chin high, chest out. Our brothers and sisters pin on the badge, strap on a gun and don't know if they'll return home. How unselfish, how sincere: heroes all! May God keep you safe!
Mark M. "Dutch" Hanohano
United States Marshal
District of Hawaii
Comment: Thanks Dutch!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/17/2008 01:17 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/BREAKING01/80515049
Vog from Kilauea covers most islands
Associated Press
As a voggy haze generated by the ongoing eruption of Kilauea volcano covers most of the Hawaiian Islands, Civil Defense has issued a health warning for areas closest to the source.
Officials are advising residents of South Hilo, Upper Puna and from Kea'au to Volcano to limit exposure to the haze known locally as vog.
The Code Yellow condition warns residents in those areas who are especially sensitive to air pollution to avoid outdoor activity.
A Code Green warning was in effect for other Big Island districts for low levels of vog which do not pose health risks.
No risk is reported for any other island.
The National Weather Service reported hazy conditions for every island zone except the breezy summits of Haleakala on Maui and Mauna Kea on the Big Island.
Comment: Though national newspapers have remarked on the vog and other issues around the Big Island of Hawaii, this is the first concern raised locally since my last post on the issue. On Oahu, Honolulu, is not as bad as the national news portrays.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/15/2008 09:44 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.military.com/news/article/house-backs-two-new-attacks-subs-a-year.html?col=1186032310810
House Backs Two New Attacks Subs a Year
May 15, 2008
Associated Press
Washington - A House committee endorsed major changes in the Navy's shipbuilding plan Wednesday, including a $422 million cash infusion that would push the service to build two attack submarines per year beginning in 2010.
The stepped-up schedule - the Navy is now building subs at the rate of one per year - would be a major boost for Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard, which shares submarine contracts with a yard in Connecticut. It is far from ensured, however.
While expressing a clear preference for two subs per year, every year, the House Armed Services Committee proposal would give Navy officials the option of funding two boats in 2010 and just one in 2011 before shifting to the two-per-year schedule in 2012 and subsequent years.
Even if the money added by the committee is approved on the House floor and in the Senate, the Navy would have to shift funds in other accounts into the submarine program to fully pay for a second sub in 2011, said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. Each of the Virginia-class subs costs more than $2.5 billion.
Hunter called the added money "a critical item of leverage" and warned that the Navy's attack-submarine force could fall below 40 in future years unless the pace of shipbuilding is stepped up. The Navy currently has more than 50 attack subs.
Other portions of the shipbuilding plan that the committee endorsed would slow and perhaps stop the development of a futuristic destroyer, the DDG-1000, that is a major component of the Navy's modernization plan.
Two of the DDG-1000 ships already have been funded. But the committee plan would shift $2.5 billion sought by the Bush administration for a third ship in the series to build an additional amphibious transport and two supply ships.
The ship programs are part of a $606 billion defense spending plan for 2009 submitted in February by the Bush administration. Each house of Congress is developing its own amendments to that proposal. Action is not expected to be complete until the fall.
Comment: With two new attack subs per year, we can maintain are control over the sea lanes. World commerce will be sustained!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/15/2008 07:34 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356018,00.html
Rebel Documents Present Damning Evidence of Venezuelan Aid to FARC
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Venezuela offered substantial military help to Colombian rebels in their fight against the Colombian government, according to a report Thursday by the Washington Post, which cited internal rebel documents.
The Post reports that Venezuelan officials set up contacts with Australian arms dealers and arranged for missile training in the Middle East, according to the documents, which were on computer hard drives seized by Colombia.
Venezuela's ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, came under further scrutiny Thursday when Interpol said it had concluded that the Colombian government hadn't tampered with the seized computers.
Interpol's report bolsters Colombia's claims that the computers contain evidence of meddling by Venezuela in its neighbor's war with FARC. Venezuela has asserted the files on the computer are bogus, and on Thursday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the Interpol report as "ridiculous."
The developments come on the heels of Chavez's warning Wednesday that Colombia should not allow a U.S. military base on the border between the two countries, or else Venezuela would consider it an act of "aggression" that would revive a decades-old territorial conflict in the region known as La Guajira.
"We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire," Chavez said, referring to the U.S. during a speech to a packed auditorium of uniformed soldiers. "Colombia is launching a threat of war at us."
Diplomatic relations between Caracas and Bogota have been rocky for months. They worsened last week when Colombia unveiled documents allegedly showing that Chavez sought to arm and finance Colombian rebels.
Interpol's findings are sure to increase pressure on Chavez, and more revelations are likely to emerge, since Interpol also turned over 983 decrypted files to Colombia and left it up to Colombian officials to decide whether to make the contents public.
Colombian commandos recovered the three Toshiba Satellite laptop computers, two external hard drives and three USB memory sticks after destroying the rebel camp just across the border in Ecuador. FARC foreign minister Raul Reyes and 24 others were killed in the March 1 raid.
The 39-page forensic report by Interpol concluded Colombian authorities did not always follow internationally accepted methods for handling computer evidence, but said that didn't taint the data.
The France-based international police agency limited itself to verifying whether Colombia altered the files and correctly handled the evidence, but did not address the contents of the documents.
More than a dozen internal rebel messages detail several years of close cooperation between top Venezuelan and FARC officials, including rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil and a meeting inside Venezuela's equivalent of the Pentagon, according to the Associated Press, which reviewed text files provided by a senior Colombian official.
The Washington Post reported Colombian officials said they had no evidence that the guerrillas obtained antiaircraft missiles with Venezuela's help, but Venezuelan authorities seem to have provided rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weaponry to FARC.
"They are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "Certainly, that has deep implications for the people of the region."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403785.html?sub=AR
Comment: It appears that the Bolivian Revolution, envisioned by Che Guevara, remains active in the imaginations of South American leadership! When we consider the produce that we acquire from South America, the fallout from such a revolution would have a devastating impact on the United States of America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/15/2008 07:28 pm - reply- forum
To all:
Kalpoe vs. Dr. Phil UPDATE:
http://www.helpfindthemissing.org/forum/showthread.php?s=19099b75514bf86680c520f1f7ac5a31&t=926&page=3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civil/
Case Number: BC363201
DEEPAK KALPOE VS PHILLIP C MCGRAW
Filing Date: 12/13/2006
Case Type: Defamation (Slander/Libel) (General Jurisdiction)
Status: Pending
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Future Hearings
05/29/2008 at 08:30 am in department 69 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Motion to Compel (2) Motion to Dismiss3) Case Management Conference)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents Filed | Proceeding Information
Parties
CBS PARAMOUNT DOMESTIC TELEVISION - Defendant/Respondent's AKA
CBS TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION GROUP - Defendant/Respondent
CREMER KOPON SHAUGHNESSY & SPINA LLC - Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
DOES 1-50 - Defendant/Respondent
FORD WALKER HAGGERTY & BEHAR - Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
JACKSON WALKER L.L.P. - Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
KALPOE DEEPAK - Plaintiff/Petitioner
KALPOE SATISH - Plaintiff/Petitioner
MCGRAW PHILLIP C. - Defendant/Respondent
PETESKI PRODUCTIONS INC. - Defendant/Respondent
SECURITY CONSULTANT SERVICES INC. - Defendant/Respondent
SKEETERS JAMIE - Defendant/Respondent
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Case Information | Party Information | Proceeding Information
Please make a note of the Case Number.
Click here to access document images for this case.
If this link fails, you may go to the Case Document Images site and search using the case number displayed on this page.
Documents Filed (Filing dates listed in descending order)
Click on any of the below link(s) to see documents filed on or before the date indicated:
10/17/2007 05/14/2007
05/07/2008 Summons Filed (ON FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
04/22/2008 Reply/Response (TO PLTFS' OPPO. TO ITS MOTION TO COMPEL, ETC. )
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
04/22/2008 Reply/Response (to Plaintiffs' Opposition to Defendants' Second Motion to Dismiss and Request for Terminating Sanctions for Plaintiffs' Willful Failure to Comply with Court Orders)
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
04/02/2008 Stipulation (to Continue the Hearing on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
04/02/2008 Order (Re: Stipulation of the Parties to Continue the Hearing on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
03/20/2008 Points and Authorities (POINTS AUTH.IN OPP TO DEFTS SECOND MOTION TO DISMISSED )
Filed by Attorney for Deft/Respnt
02/22/2008 First Amended Complaint
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
02/21/2008 Notice of Continuance (OF HEARING ON SECURITY CONSULTANT SERVICES INC'S MOTIONS TO COMPEL, ETC. OLD: 2/29/08 NEW: 4-29-08 )
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
02/15/2008 Reply/Response (TO DEFTS' MOTION TO COMPEL, ETC. )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
02/14/2008 Motion to Dismiss (AND REQUEST FOR TERMINATING SANCTIONS, ETC. SET: 4-3-08)
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
02/08/2008 Declaration (OF SATISH KALPOE RE DISCOVERY COMPLIANCE )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
02/08/2008 Declaration (OF DEEPAK KALPOE RE DISCOVERY COMPLIANCE )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
02/08/2008 Declaration (OF WM. J. CREMER )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
02/07/2008 Notice of Ruling (AND NOTICE OF CONTINUED CMC )
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
02/05/2008 Order (Granting Application of Joshua D. Yeager to Appear as Counsel Pro Hac Vice for Plaintiffs )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner
Comment: It appears that Motion to Dismiss remains active.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/14/2008 09:13 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=109875&d=14&m=5&y=2008&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Vice Cops Arrest Three for Sorcery
Badea Abu Al-Naja, Arab News
MAKKAH, 14 May 2008 — The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice arrested two Nigerian nationals on charges of practicing sorcery in the Mansura district of Makkah yesterday.
Zainab, 37, and Nufa, 16, confessed that they claimed to have the power to break up relationships and make people impotent, Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, the commission’s director in Makkah, told Arab News. Nuha is the youngest witch to be caught ever by the commission in the Kingdom.
After receiving several complaints, the commission on Saturday sent a woman to the two Nigerians to request their help to foil her husband’s plan to marry a second time. The duo demanded SR,3000 in remuneration from the woman, who paid an advance of SR1,000.
The next night, the two Nigerians arrived at the woman’s apartment and started their magical rites and incantations. As the act progressed, waiting commission members entered the apartment and arrested them.
Meanwhile, members of the commission’s Jeddah branch detained a Saudi practitioner of witchcraft from the Jamiah district of the city. The man used to tell his clients that he knew a magic trick to make and break relationships. In a raid at the man’s home, commission members discovered paraphernalia used in witchcraft. The man was handed into police custody.
Comment: Relationship magic has to be serious! What would happen if the magic reached one of the 72 virgins? Can you imagine a martyr, surrounded by 72 eager virgins, discovering that he has been made impotent? Think of the devastating effect this would have on recruitment!
Allah has blessed the Mutaween with the vision to eradicate sorcery!
Allah is the Greatest!
# Posted by harry at 05/13/2008 08:52 pm - reply- forum
To all:
The research into the Origins of Life has uncovered a most unusual dilemma with respect to the implements employed. Professor Stuart Kauffman proposes a scenario in which living organism reside within a constant state of non-equilibrium:
http://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Universe-Self-Organization-Complexity/dp/0195111303/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210235800&sr=1-2
Residing in a state of non-equilibrium enables an organism to move easily into what Professor Kauffman refers to as an adjacent possible. Furthermore, Professor Kauffman contends that for our biosphere to have achieved its current status of evolution would have required huge magnitudes of the powers of ten longer than the estimated age of the Universe since the Big Bang (some 14 billion years ago). With our current understanding of the implements employed in research, we could not exist.
What am I writing?
The long held belief that: 2 + 2 = 4 is incorrect. The very idea that " = " provides insight into unlock the mysteries of the Universe, with respect to the biosphere (for now), becomes insufficient. Our comprehension of reason is inaccurate. And, with it, all our mathemetics ... with respect to the biosphere (for now) ... is inadequate. Our reason and mathematics are faulty and do not reflect our reality.
The creation of " = " was a fantasy akin to a child's game.
Accordingly, Professor Steven Strogatz's Sync Theory provides some salvation in this dilemma:
http://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210236824&sr=1-2
Perhaps, the biosphere evolved (evolves) under some form of synchronization mechanism which escapes the burden of probability mathematics. Since many physical phenomena have shown to operate in contradistinction to probability mathematics, it would seem to follow that the biosphere maintained a similar capability. Actually, it would had to have done so!
Amuse yourself with the thought that all mathematics to date has ignored the biosphere. We are still in a sandbox building imaginary castles!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/08/2008 05:06 am - reply- forum
To all:
Earth's Global Warming Anecdote:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354267,00.html
Volcano in 1600 May Have Put World Into Deep Freeze
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The effects of a massive volcanic eruption in Peru more than 400 years ago might have significantly impacted societies and agriculture world-wide, according to a new study of historic records.
Huaynaputina erupted in southern Peru on Feb. 19, 1600, driving volcanic mudflows that destroyed villages for many miles around and spewing a huge column of smoke and ash into the atmosphere.
The eruption of Huaynaputina represents the largest known eruption in South America in the past 500 years, said study leader Ken Verosub of the University of California, Davis.
Global cooling
Like many other volcanic eruptions, Huaynaputina injected a large amount of sulfur into the atmosphere.
Sulfur reacts with water in the air to form sulfuric acid droplets, which reflect some of the sunlight hitting Earth, preventing rays from reaching the surface. The reduction in sunlight cools the surface for a year or so, until the droplets fall out of the atmosphere.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354216,00.html
The most recent case of this cooling from a volcanic eruption occurred when Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines, blew its top in 1991. Global temperatures dropped by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) the following year. (Scientists have proposed schemes to artificially inject sulfur into the atmosphere to counteract the effects of global warming.)
Studies of tree rings have shown that 1601 was a cold year (trees grow less in colder years, so the growth rings corresponding to those years are not as wide), but no one had looked through records to see how the eruption impacted societies globally.
"We knew it was a big eruption, we knew it was a cold year, and that's all we knew," Verosub said.
Other historic eruptions, such as Indonesia's Tambora in 1815, had well-documented effects on global agriculture.
Verosub and undergraduate student Jake Lippmann combed through records from the turn of the 17th century in Europe, China, Japan and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America to investigate the eruption's potential impacts.
Famine, freezes and late harvests
Here is what the geologists found: In Russia, the period from 1601 to 1603 brought the worst famine in the country's history, contributing to the overthrow of the czar and the decade-long crisis known as the "Time of Troubles."
Records from Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia mention the exceptionally cold winters from 1600 to 1602. The 1601 wine harvest in France was late and wine production collapsed in Germany and colonial Peru.
In China, peach trees bloomed late, while in Japan, Lake Suwa had one of its earliest freezing dates in 500 years.
"In one sense, we can't prove that the volcano was responsible for all this," Verosub said, "but we hope to show that 1601 was a consistently bad year, connected by this event."
The findings are detailed in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union. Verosub also plans to examine records kept by the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church in Seville, Spain, and by the Ming Dynasty in China.
Comment: When we consider that the Earth, as a planet, contains of a dynamic, self-sustaining mechanism (volcanism and subduction), should we not consider that these mechanisms regulate atmospheric conditions in order for a planet to evolve into a solar entity?
http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-2-Justice-Hawk/dp/0595449263/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210122094&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-3-Justice-Hawk/dp/tags-on-product/1436316022/ref=tag_dpp_cust_edpp_sa
How have we overlooked this Very Convenient Truth?
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/06/2008 09:04 pm - reply- forum
To All:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blackhole_jets_040817.html
Twisted Physics: How Black Holes Spout Off
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 17 August 2004
06:58 am ET
Black holes are complex beasts. Among their mysterious traits are intense jets of matter that sometimes shoot out from the rotational poles at nearly light-speed.
The jets are the result of some really twisted physics, according to a new computer model. And to unravel the mystery, a researcher invokes some imaginary string, a corkscrew and a certain child's plaything -- the Slinky.
First, the puzzle. At the centers of some galaxies are supermassive black holes that can hold more material than a billion Suns, theorists say. From some of these galaxies, focused beams of hot gas shoot into space at more than 99 percent the speed of light. The plasma emits X-rays, radio waves and other radiation, all of which has been widely observed.
Researchers assume the material is accelerated by some mechanism related to the black hole. But there are multiple theories.
One idea is that the spinning of the black hole drags space and time, which twists magnetic field lines and generates a coiled force akin to what allows Tigger to bounce on his tail. Researchers led by Vladimir Semenov of the State University in St. Petersburg, Russia, have created a new computer model that supports this notion.
Semenov's colleague, Brian Punsly of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, explained what the team thinks is going on.
Plasma, a superheated gas considered the fourth state of matter, infuses the inner part of a galaxy. Some of it spins into a fairly flat disk around the equatorial region of the central black hole as it gets sucked inward.
"The plasma takes weak strands of magnetic field along for the ride, depositing them near the black hole," Punsly said in an e-mail interview.
This accumulation of magnetized plasma creates a strong magnetic field near the black hole. The lines arc outward like rigid strings that can be envisioned as the skeletal remains of giant space pumpkin. Plasma tends to stick to field lines, effectively forming strings of plasma.
"Plasma sticks to them for the same reason that iron filings trace out a magnetic line of force around a magnet," Punsly said in an e-mail interview. At the heart of the galaxy, all this gets very interesting. "The strings wind around the black hole."
But this is no simple winding action. The black hole is spinning very fast, and according to Einstein it drags space-time with it. Very close to the black hole, the magnetic field is dragged, "twisting up the strings like a corkscrew," Punsly said. Then it all comes rather undone as the contorted setup propagates out along the black hole's rotational axis, taking the plasma with it.
You can try this at home.
Take a long flexible wire and imagine it is the magnetic string. Try to make a Slinky by twisting one end relative to the other -- that's the space-time dragging force.
"If you try to do this, the wire won't conform to the Slinky's shape," Punsly predicts. "It will try to spring apart. It is a torsional spring. You will feel two forces, one the uncoiling and a second is an expansion force along the axis of the helix that results from trying to compress the individual coils together. If you release your hands it will spring apart axially."
Roger Blandford, a California Institute of Technology professor who has been theorizing about black hole jets since the 1970s, said the idea that a rotating black hole directly drags the magnetic field, thus accelerating the plasma, is probably the current leading theory for how the jets are produced. "However, the specifics are controversial," he said.
And Blandford and others say there are at least two other processes that could be at work.
The orbiting disk of material coming into the black hole might drag the magnetic field, launching jets from the accretion disk, not from near the hole, explained David Meier, an astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has also modeled black hole jet formation on computers. Or perhaps the black hole drags the disk around, which drags the field around, and thereby indirectly accelerates the jet,
"The field is still very much up in the air," Meier told SPACE.com.
The problem, of course, is that black holes can't be seen. Even the environments around black holes, being so chaotic and full of energy and bright plasma, thwart close scrutiny. The key to figuring all this out, Meier said, would be to measure black hole spin rates -- something that astronomers don't yet know how to do.
"If we could determine -- as we suspect -- that black holes with powerful jets are spinning rapidly while those without strong jets are not, then we would at least understand that it is the black hole rotation that creates the jets," Meier said.
Background articles:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020604073033.htm
Black Hole Dynamo May Be Cosmos' Ultimate Electricity Generator
>>>
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353195,00.html
Astronomers Solve Mystery of Black Hole Jets
By Clara Moskowitz
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
While we may never know what it looks like inside a black hole, astronomers recently obtained one of the closest views yet.
The sighting allowed scientists to confirm theories about how these giant cosmic sinkholes spew out jets of particles travelling at nearly the speed of light.
Ever since the first observations of these powerful jets, which are among the brightest objects seen in the universe, astronomers have wondered what causes the particles to accelerate to such great speeds.
http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080428_blazar-coil
A leading hypothesis suggested the black hole's gigantic mass distorts space and time around it, twisting magnetic field lines into a coil that propels material outward.
Now researchers have observed a jet during a period of extreme outburst and found evidence that streams of particles wind a corkscrew path away from the black hole, as the leading hypothesis predicts.
We got an unprecedented view of the inner portion of one of these jets and gained information that's very important to understanding how these tremendous particle accelerators work," said Boston University astronomer Alan Marscher, who led the research team.
The results of the study are detailed in the April 24 issue of the journal Nature.
The team studied a galaxy called BL Lacertae (BL Lac), about 950 million light years from Earth, with a central black hole containing 200 million times the mass of our Sun.
Since this supermassive black hole's jets are pointing nearly straight at us, it is called a blazar (a quasar is often thought to be the same as a blazar, except its jets are pointed away from us).
The new observations, taken by the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope, along with NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and a number of optical telescopes, show material moving outward along a spiral channel, as the scientists expected.
These data support the suggestion that twisted magnetic field lines are creating the jet plumes.
Material in the center of the galaxy, such as nearby stars and gas, gets pulled in by the black hole's overwhelming gravity and forms a disk orbiting around the core (the material's inertia keeps it spiraling in a disk rather than falling straight into the black hole).
The distorted magnetic field lines seem to pull charged particles off the disk and cause them to gush outward at nearly the speed of light.
"We knew that material was falling in to these regions, and we knew that there were outbursts coming out," said University of Michigan astronomer Hugh Aller, who worked on the new study. "What's really been a mystery was that we could see there were these really high-energy particles, but we didn't know how they were created, how they were accelerated.
"It turns out that the model matches the data. We can actually see the particles gaining velocity as they are accelerated along this magnetic field."
The astronomers also observed evidence of another phenomenon predicted by the leading hypothesis — that a flare would be produced when material spewing out in the jets hit a shock wave beyond the core of the black hole.
"That behavior is exactly what we saw," Marscher said.
Comment: I selected these three articles, because what has not been acknowledged is that: If Black Holes generate magnetic fields, then it is quite possible that the four fundamental forces remain as one unified field within a Black Hole. And, if we allow our imaginations to roam, then it may be conceivable that the four fundamental forces do exist in our reality as one force, begetting the other four as the situation dictates.
Generation, as described in the articles, may well be the conversion of a unified force into the four fundamental forces. We could have induced our reality incorrectly!
Superstring theory could be leading to this very conclusion.
Now, if we add our suppositions about the Higgs Field, the magnetic field observed emanating from a Black Hole could actually be an energy-to-mass conversion process. If this is true, then Black Holes are not the demons of the Cosmos for which they have been portrayed ... they are conversion portals! As the Higgs Boson has been affectionately referred to as the God Particle, then Black Holes would equate to Heaven!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/03/2008 05:51 pm - reply- forum
To all:
High Surf Waikiki:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/BREAKING01/80502007
High surf advisory continues for south-facing shores
Advertiser Staff
A high surf advisory remains in effect until 6 p.m. today for south facing shores on all islands in the state, the National Weather Service said.
A powerful storm east of New Zealand last week generated a large south swell which is expected to continue producing larger than normal surf along south-facing shores through today, the agency said.
Wave faces measured 6 to 10 feet late Thursday but are expected to diminish a bit today to 6 to 8 feet.
Comment: Great surf watching from hotel room balconies!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 05/02/2008 09:31 am - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352068,00.html
Primitive Life Is Likely On Other Planets, Stephen Hawking Says
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
WASHINGTON — Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been thinking a lot about the cosmic question, "Are we alone?" The answer is probably not, he says.
If there is life elsewhere in the universe, Hawking asks why haven't we stumbled onto some alien broadcasts in space, maybe something like "alien quiz shows?"
Hawking's comments were part of a lecture at George Washington University on Monday in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. He theorized that there are possible answers to whether there is extraterrestrial life.
One option is that there likely isn't life elsewhere. Or maybe there is intelligent life elsewhere, but when it gets smart enough to send signals into space, it also is smart enough to make destructive nuclear weapons.
Hawking said he prefers the third option:
"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth."
So should you worry about aliens? Alien abduction claims come from "weirdos" and are unlikely. However, because alien life might not have DNA like us, Hawking warned: "Watch out if you would meet an alien. You could be infected with a disease with which you have no resistance."
The 66-year-old British cosmologist, who suffers from ALS and must speak through a mechanical device, believes "if the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before."
Hawking compared people who don't want to spend money on human space exploration to those who opposed the journey of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
"The discovery of the New World made a profound difference to the old. Just think we wouldn't have had a Big Mac or KFC."
Comment: To state that life exists elsewhere in the Universe is one thing; however, to state that intelligent life, like us, exists in the Universe is quite another.
First, Professor Hawking underwrites the notion, as do most learned scientists, that intelligent life is a goal of planetary evolution. But is it?
An argument exists that intelligent life, as we have come to appreciate it, is an accident and only serves to advance one specie over others in the struggle for control of the planet's resources. The overall goal of this argument is planetary (stellar) evolution ... the creation of star material.
http://www.emergence3.com/
Second, Professor Hawking's notion fits the party line ... commanding theory of reality ... that homo sapiens (humans) are special. It would be difficult to uncover a current scenario in our social contextualization that does not support such an idea. That is why Professor Hawking's notion has so much appeal and widespread acceptance. It serves an intoxicating enticement!
Third, Professor Hawking , a physicist, ignores much evidence from the biological sciences that new species are emerging all the time. Of course, theses discoveries are quickly categorized as existing species that as of yet have gone undiscovered ... explanation designed to shore up the party line. Additionally, we should not overlook the fact that existing, non-human species constantly evolve!
With so much evolutionary activity ongoing, should not the eminent Professor Hawking even stop to question why? After all, if intelligent life was the ultimate goal of creation, then why would there continue to be a need for more evolutionary activity in the biosphere?
Why indeed!
Perhaps, there exists a crack in the dominant cosmology!
I would vote that true intelligent life in the Universe adheres to stellar evolution ... and does not escape into the chimera of Socrates's: the Myth will save us, if we choose to believe it!
Perhaps, it is time for us to relinquish our addiction to the Myth of Er.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 04/22/2008 08:12 am - reply- forum
To all:
Lies Told by Democrats!
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/OPINION02/804090371/1108
mideast
Not true that war in Iraq is all about oil
A recent letter asserted that the war in Iraq only concerns oil. This is not true.
More than 73 percent of our oil comes from other sources: Iraq ranks eighth in importing nations, right above the Virgin Islands.
Here are a few facts rarely reported and all are verifiable on the Department of Defense Web site.
The Iraqi government employs 1.2 million people, and 47 countries have re-established their embassies there.
Iraq has a fully operational air force and navy plus a counter-terrorist unit and a commando battalion.
The Iraq police service has more than 55,000 trained and equipped officers and its five police academies produce more than 3,500 new officers every eight weeks.
More than 3,000 schools have been renovated, and there are 364 new schools and 263 under construction. Iraq's higher education system consists of 20 universities, 46 institutes or colleges and four research centers.
Iraq has an independent media consisting of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations.
There are more than 1,100 new building projects that include schools, public clinics, hospitals and railroad stations, plus water, electrical and oil facilities.
By accentuating the negative, our media undermines world perception of the U.S. and discourages the average American.
It demoralizes our troops who have chosen to serve and believe in their mission.
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes accepted as fact — "it's all about the oil" is one of those lies.
Janna Wyman
Mililani
Comment: Amen!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 04/09/2008 08:47 am - reply- forum
To all:
Science Explains Religion!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343674,00.html
Researchers: Asteroid Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Monday, March 31, 2008
A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.
The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky.
He referred to the asteroid as a "white stone bowl approaching" and recorded it as it "vigorously swept along."
Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C.
About half the symbols on the tablet have survived and half of those refer to the asteroid. The other symbols record the positions of clouds and constellations. In the past 150 years scientists have made five unsuccessful attempts to translate the tablet.
Mark Hempsell, one of the researchers from Bristol University who cracked the tablet's code, said: "It's a wonderful piece of observation, an absolutely perfect piece of science."
He said the size and route of the asteroid meant that it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it traveled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact.
Debris consisting of up to two-thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400 Centigrade (752 Fahrenheit) would have been created, killing anyone in its path.
About one million sq kilometers (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of TNT exploding.
Dr Hempsall said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid's impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father's sun chariot.
The findings of Dr. Hempsall and Alan Bond, of Reaction Engines Ltd., are published in a book, "A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels Impact Event."
The researchers say that the asteroid's impact would explain why at Köfels there is evidence of an ancient landslide 3 miles wide and a quarter of a mile thick.
Tale of devastation
"Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities ... [Abraham] looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace."
Source: Genesis 19:24-28
Comment: Interesting deduction from a series of pictures on an assortment of clay tablets!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 03/31/2008 04:20 pm - reply- forum
To all:
A Stimulating article!
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?264c5a5b-a2f2-4969-a3eb-235d9f112027
Shackling the Individual by Imposing Racist Pride
By Nancy Salvato, 3/24/2008 9:38:34 AM
An avid reader, I’ve learned much about individualism and freedom by reading about what life is like when these are taken away from groups of people. I recently finished The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini, which tells the story about being a Hazara minority in Afghanistan, and provides insight into the nature of racism and a glimpse of how it might feel as the recipient of that type of evil. For those interested, there are many non fiction writings available which document the iniquity of racism in this world, for example, Marci Nafziger’s research paper which discusses the extreme injustice that took place during the regime of Pol Pot in, “Khmer Rouge in Cambodia”. (2006)
There is a plethora of utopian literature which brings to the logical conclusion what happens when societies reject the notion that man will always be imperfect yet strives to be better based on accepted values of good and bad, instead, imposing an unnatural existence to make the impossible, possible, e.g., “The Giver” (1993) by Louis Lowry, in which the hero exists in, “a seemingly ideal world: a world without conflict, poverty, unemployment, divorce, injustice, or inequality,” “1984” Orwell’s landmark book about totalitarian society (1949), or Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) which tells the story where, “a society where individuality and independent thought are demonized and discouraged is brought to its knees when intellectuals effectively go on strike and withdraw their contribution to civilization.”
Sometimes it is much easier to understand a concept like freedom or racism by creating a story in which the reader can identify or empathize with characters; in education this is called making a text to self connection. This can happen with movies, as well. For instance, in “Planet of the Apes” (1968) the imagery really hits home at the end of the movie when, as the movie ends, the protagonist glimpses the half buried Statue of Liberty in the horizon.
In the world today, there are many people trying to eradicate racism. There are two different ways of looking at it. I happen to agree with Michael S. Berliner and Gary Hull, who explain, “Racism is the notion that one’s race determines one’s identity. It is the belief that one’s convictions, values and character are determined not by the judgment of one’s mind but by one’s anatomy or blood. ” (ARI 2002)
I believe with Berliner and Hull that the diversity movement, which “claims that its goal is to extinguish racism and build tolerance of differences,” is a complete sham. They are correct when they argue that, “one cannot teach students that their identity is determined by skin color and expect them to become colorblind. One cannot espouse multiculturalism and expect students to see each other as individual human beings. One cannot preach the need for self-esteem while destroying the faculty which makes it possible: reason. One cannot teach collective identity and expect students to have self-esteem.” (ARI 2002)
What is frightening is that the pursuit of ideas such as multiculturalism and diversity is identical to the pursuit of the utopian society, the logical conclusion of which always leads to some kind of Marxian utopia that can only exist if people who do not want to subvert their own thoughts and ideas are eradicated. More frightening is that, “intellectual diversity, i.e., the diversity of ideas,” is being eradicated on campuses across the United States as “Intellectuals” preach from their “bully pulpits” the notion of “political correctness” which instead of valuing real diversity pursues abject conformity. (ARI 2002)
Regarding race, Ward Connerly writes, “Let us not put ointment on the wound of race, let us cut it out of the body politic like the cancer that it is. That will require deregulating race, getting the government out of the race business altogether, not asking American citizens the odious question about their ancestry, because it should be no more relevant to the government than one's religion — and that question is forbidden...The president could also issue an Executive Order eliminating those silly little race boxes from government forms; and he could help to eliminate the race question from the Census.
America does not need another generation of "racial healing" programs. America needs to consign race to the ash heap of history where it rightfully belongs.” (NR 2003)
While Ward Connerly tries to extinguish racism and elevate our society to a point where the question of race doesn’t enter into the question of who is best qualified for admission into a university, there are others in the academic community who believe that race and gender absolutely need to be taken into consideration. “Justice Powell, who wrote the Court's decision in the Bakke case, said race could be used as a "plus factor" in an admissions process. When race is used as a plus factor, it necessarily influences admissions decisions. At its simplest, whenever an adjustment is made for any characteristic, that adjustment may prove to have made a difference in the ultimate admissions decision.”
The notion of entitlement seems to be pervasive in a society that embraces moral relativism and is eliminating rank and competition in our educational institutions. Multiculturalism says to recognize and elevate people on the basis of color, not individual achievement. Moral relativism does not recognize universal standards. Deserving or not, larger numbers of people believe they are owed jobs, money, a certain standard of living.
P.J. O'Rourke explains why entitlement is wrong. “Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.” (CATO 1993)
With Barack Obama looking more and more like the Democratic candidate for the 2008 election, people are finally beginning to pay attention to what “change” looks like for the Illinois Senator. Following the primaries, I harbor no illusions about Obama and I’m glad that his bubble has finally begun to burst. Kathryn Jean Lopez, getting right to the heart of the issue, quotes the Rev Jeremiah Wright, “a.k.a. Barack Obama’s pastor,”...who compared Obama to the Christ child. “Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary would never know that.”
Wright continues, “Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.” As a matter of fact, before women could vote, they were considered less than a whole person.
“The more Americans hear this man who’s been an influential part of Obama’s life for two decades, the more they’re going to have the audacity to look beyond Obama’s inspirational milquetoast speeches, probing what makes him tick, what influences him, who advises him, what he believes. And not just on Sundays. It’s the Wright thing.” (NRO 2008)
The bottom line is that if we truly want to eradicate racism, we don’t want to elect a man to office whose beliefs embrace racism. If we are to believe that Obama’s preacher does not embody Obama’s beliefs, and/or that Obama was truly unaware that his preacher believed these reverse racist notions, then he would seem unqualified to be president because he should be surrounding himself by people who are looking out for everyone in the country, not just black people. He should be surrounding himself by advisors who make sure he has all the information he needs to make decisions. A person qualified to be president should make use of all information available.
Here is something that every American should understand.
“White pride,” no less than “black pride,” is an illegitimate concept. “Pride is a result of working hard and reaching positive goals. For it to have any significance, it must represent a reward, an emotional payment for one’s attainments. As such, pride belongs properly only to the individual achiever. It does not redound to others who merely happen to be members of the same ethnic group.” Andrew Bernstein (ARI 2002)
A person who wants to be president of the United States is there because he or she is elected to represent all of the people in the highest office of the land. A person who doesn’t believe the Constitution to be the “rule of law” or believe his or herself to be a protector of each individual’s freedoms should not be running for office. Obama himself says, “Don’t tell me that words don’t matter.” If he believes in this notion, then he believes the words of his preacher or he wouldn’t have chosen and maintained for twenty years his church as a house of worship.
Nancy Salvato is the President and Director of Constitutional Literacy Program for Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) research and educational project whose mission is to re-introduce the American public to the basic elements of our constitutional heritage while providing non-partisan, fact-based information on relevant socio-political issues important to our country, specifically the threats of aggressive Islamofascism and the American Fifth Column. She serves as the Assistant Provost for the American College of Education and as a Senior Editor for The New Media Journal. She is also a staff writer, for the New Media Alliance, Inc., a non-profit (501c3) coalition of writers and grass-roots media outlets, and a frequent contributing writer to The World & I educational magazine.
Comment: Barry is entrenched in the teachings of his pastor!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 03/24/2008 05:03 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080317/BREAKING01/80317010
Japanese sailor sets off on wave-powered boat
Associated Press
Japanese sailor Kenichi Horie, who has sailed nonstop around the world and crossed the Pacific in a solar-powered boat made of recycled aluminum beer cans, is off on his next solo adventure at sea.
Horie set sail for Japan yesterday from the Hawaii Yacht Club on what he says will be the world's longest voyage in a wave-powered boat.
The 69-year-old mariner will travel nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) aboard a 3-ton yacht called the Suntory Mermaid II at a speed of up to 5 knots. The journey, which would take a diesel-powered boat about 10 days to complete, is expected to take Horie about 2.5 months.
The boat made of recycled aluminum relies on the energy of waves to move two fins at its bow and propel it forward. Horie has described it as a sturdy vessel, designed to right itself if it capsizes. Still, it is equipped with an engine and 35-foot sail mast for emergencies.
Comment: This adventure brings new meaning to fair winds and following seas!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 03/17/2008 08:31 am - reply- forum
To all:
Normalization!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336278,00.html
Venezuela: Relations With Colombia Normalized Following Cross-Border Dispute
Sunday, March 09, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela said Sunday that it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Colombia that were broken off in a regional crisis sparked by a cross-border Colombian attack on a leftist rebel camp in Ecuador.
Comment: The cross-border Cocaine War is over.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 03/09/2008 09:53 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333175,00.html
Devastation of Ocean Trawling Visible from Space
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Bottom trawling for fish stirs up billowing plumes of sediment that can be seen from space and destroys entire seafloor ecosystems, new imagery reveals.
The technique, used all over the world, is a way to catch fish in deeper parts of the ocean with huge, deep nets, now that many near-shore fish populations have been virtually wiped out from over-fishing.
Several studies have shown the significant impact that trawling has on ecosystems, killing corals, sponges, fish and other animals.
New and previously released satellite images show the extent of the plumes of material kicked up. And a video of the seafloor reveals how trawling denudes an underwater world.
"Bottom trawling is the most destructive of any actions that humans conduct in the ocean," said zoologist Les Watling of the University of Hawaii. "Ten years ago, Elliott Norse [of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute] and I calculated that, each year, worldwide, bottom trawlers drag an area equivalent to twice the lower 48 states.
Most of that trawling happens in deep waters, out of sight," he added. "But now we can more clearly envision what trawling impacts down there by looking at the sediment plumes that are shallow enough for us to see from satellites."
Watling presented his findings on Feb. 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
Persistent plumes
As nets are dragged across the seafloor, they can crush coral reefs, drag boulders across the bottom, and trap fish and animals not intended to be caught, called bycatch.
All this activity stirs up sediments from the seafloor, which create the persistent plumes in the wake of the fishing ships.
Watling and his colleagues say that the plumes visible in satellite images are likely just the "tip of the iceberg" as most trawling is in waters that are deep enough that the plume remains hidden by the water above.
"Bottom trawling repeatedly plows up the seafloor over large areas of the ocean," said fellow presenter John Amos of SkyTruth, a digital mapping non-profit group aimed at environment issues based in West Virginia. (Images of these plumes can be seen on the group's Web site.)
Bans and restrictions
Scientific studies showing the impacts that trawling has on ecosystems have led to increasing restrictions on the practice.
In 2005, the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean banned trawling there below depths of 1,000 meters (3, 289 feet).
The United States closed large deep-sea areas off the coast of Alaska to bottom trawling in 2006.
Many South Pacific nations have also put a stop to the practice, and the United Nations began deliberations on a trawling moratorium in the high seas in 2006.
But there are still tens of thousands of trawlers operating in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of many Latin American countries, off the west coast of Africa, in Chinese waters, and the North Sea.
"We're a long way from protecting the ocean floor from bottom trawling," Norse told LiveScience.
Comment: I was fortunate enough to work with Papua New Guinea's Ministry for Fisheries concerning sustainability issues in the Western Pacific Ocean. We saw this coming, as Deep Water Fishing Nations (DWFNs) continued their onslaught of the ocean floors. I can say that I contributed to the cessation of bottom trawling.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 02/28/2008 04:18 am - reply- forum
To all:
Litigators: Commence Your Lawsuits:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331568,00.html
Dozens of Unindicted Lacrosse Players File Federal Lawsuit Against Duke
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
DURHAM, N.C. — More than three dozen current and former Duke lacrosse players plan to file a federal lawsuit against the university, the city of Durham and others involved in the case.
A spokesman for Washington-based attorney Charles J. Cooper said the civil lawsuit will be filed Thursday on behalf of 38 players who were not charged in the notorious case.
Spokesman Robert Bork Jr. declined Wednesday night to release the specific allegations made in the 30-count, 100-page lawsuit.
"It covers a whole lot of things, including violation of privacy," Bork said. "It's not just emotional distress."
Duke officials declined to comment.
Former Durham County prosecutor Mike Nifong won indictments against three lacrosse players in 2006, accusing them of raping a stripper at a team party.
But the case unraveled amid the accuser's constantly changing story and a lack of evidence. State prosecutors who took over the case dropped all charges and said the accused players were innocent. Nifong was later disbarred for his handling of the case.
The three accused players reached an undisclosed financial settlement with Duke in June, but later filed their own federal civil rights lawsuit against Nifong, the City of Durham and the police detectives who handled the case.
That case is still pending, as is a separate federal lawsuit filed by three unindicted players who sued the university, Nifong and dozens of others for inflicting emotional distress.
Comment: Duke University a subsidiary of the Duke Lacrosse Team!
One usually requires a scholarship in order to attend college; however, few attend college in order to retire immediately ... on a lifetime scholarship!
They may need to increase tuition at Duke in order to compensate for the ostracizing of the Lacrosse team. And, it is warranted, since so many were so quick to convict! Let us witness, if they are as quick to pay the increased tuition in order to attend a university that treats civil rights and social responsibility so indifferently!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 02/20/2008 10:28 pm - reply- forum
To all:
Rockslide Update:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/NEWS01/802190338/1001/NEWS01
Work begins soon on 8 sites with rockfall risks
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer
The state is about to launch work at eight roadside sites on O'ahu to reduce the risk of rockfalls and help protect motorists in Kailua and Wahiawa, and through Kipapa Gulch on Kamehameha Highway.
The rockfall projects, which will cost $2.08 million in all, could begin in two weeks pending permits, and be completed by late summer, said Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transpotion.
Comment: Basic Rule of Thumb: Greater than 40 degree angle of repose, the rocks will come down! It is good to read that this thread conveyed basic geology to the state Department of Transportation.
# Posted by harry at 02/19/2008 07:51 am - reply- forum
To all:
Just in from reliable source:
What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America?
Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican Visitor's Lament" -- 10/25/07.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_5730720,00.html
She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...What Happens to your country's econom y if 20 million people go away?" That's a good question - it deserves an answer.
Over 80 percent of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacatedAmerica? The answers may surprise you!
In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again.
In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids - would move back 'home', mostly toMexico. That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes th at pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Coloradovictims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.
Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop-out/flunk-out rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado. Denver's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.
In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back toAmerica, the rule of law, and English.
InChicago,Illinois, 2.1 million ill egals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.
If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home' --
If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home', the U.S. Economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. Nomore confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.
In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the '18th Street Gang' would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!
America's economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to the aliens' home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drainsAmerica's economy - which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.
Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.
Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego,Californiain what the New York Times called, "colonias" or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resembleBombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation.
The New York Times reported them to be America's new "Third World" inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I'v e seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life inMexico. We already invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation. It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life.
Interesting Statistics. Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them:
1. $11 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens. http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 billion dollars are spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
5. $17 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars PER DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
http://transcripts.cnom/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in theUnited Stateshave a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In
particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in theUS.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR ANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year 2005, there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine, and marijuana crossed into theU.S.from the southern border. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/publications.php?b=deportation
13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in theUnited States!"
http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!!
Comment: For the detractors who uphold that sending the illegal alines back would be too expensive, I believe that far less than $338.3 Billion a year would cover it.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 02/03/2008 05:04 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://starbulletin.com/2007/11/24/editorial/letters.html
Watada's actions violate cultural tenet
Jim Hennessy's letter (Nov. 23) lashes out at the "race-baiting" letter of James Tanabe, saying that Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada's race has nothing to do with the case at hand.
I beg to differ. The fact of Watada's Japanese roots is the very reason there is controversy. Not because of race, but because of culture.
In Sen. Daniel Inouye's memoirs, "Journey to Washington," he relates the conversation with his father upon his induction into the 442nd. Hyotaro tells his son that the Japanese word "On" is the very heart of Japanese culture. "On" incurs a debt that is never canceled. That because America has been good to them, it was Daniel's responsibility to return that goodness to this wonderful nation.
Thousands of issei parents instilled these cultural traits upon those nisei of the 442nd/100th battalion. The results of this lecture on a never-ending commitment to this country is legendary.
Today, some of us AJAs feel that Watada's actions are a disgrace and violate what our issei forefathers had imparted upon us; the spirit of "On." And for that, many veterans amongst us consider Watada's actions an unfortunate disrespect upon the culture instilled upon us by our ancestors.
Damon M. Senaha
Retired Navy lieutenant commander
Comment: On & Giri go together like a horse & carriage in Japanese culture. In this letter to the editor, LtCDR Senaha explains the concept on Giri or the burden of obligation.
On & Giri refers to the mutual obligation created between a superior and a subordinate. Today, On & Giri are witnessed more between a corporation and its employees where faithful service is reciprocated with lifetime employment. Also, patrons to one company or establishment will continue to frequent that establishment, even when prices are lower at other locations out of an On & Giri relationship. Loyalty reigns supreme in this On & Giri relationship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giri_(Japanese)
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 11/24/2007 07:22 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070714/NEWS01/707140342/1001/NEWS01
Posted on: Saturday, July 14, 2007
Keck observatory sees universe's infancy
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
An international team of astronomers using Mauna Kea's twin Keck telescopes has peered farther back in time than anyone ever has — 13 billion years — to collect information about the universe when it was very young.
Using natural "gravitational lenses" in space, the researchers have seen the most distant objects ever spotted, believed to be galaxies in which stars were actively forming.
Since no existing telescope is powerful enough to see these events, the astronomy team employed massive galaxies whose gravity is so great that they magnify objects behind them.
These galaxies themselves are more than 2 billion light years from our own. (A light year is the distance traveled by light in a year's time, or about 5.9 trillion miles.)
Viewing radiation amplified by these galaxies, the researchers believe they have spotted features that significantly add to the knowledge of the early universe.
"Gravitational lensing is the magnification of distant sources by foreground structures. ... We have located six star-forming galaxies seen at unprecedented distances, corresponding to a time when the universe was only 500 million years old, or less that 4 percent of its present age," said team leader Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology.
Those objects were so far away that astronomers calculated the light collected by the Keck telescope mirrors left the galaxies 13 billion years ago. The universe began, according to current astronomy theory, with the Big Bang, which took place about 13.5 billion years ago.
The latest work shows that stars — a lot of them — were actively being formed 500 million years after the Big Bang.
"We only surveyed a tiny area ... so it's a bit like looking through the eye of a hypodermic needle. If we find anything, it suggests either we were incredibly lucky or there is a dominant population of early sources out there. We conclude the latter," Ellis said by e-mail from London.
"The objects we see are very young, with very low mass, but we are seeing the characteristic signature of stars forming. These are galaxies which are undergoing a burst of star formation," said Caltech graduate student Dan Stark.
COSMIC DAWN
Astronomers believe that about 300,000 years after the Big Bang, there were no stars — a period they refer to as the Dark Ages. At some point, stars and galaxies began forming and emitting light — an undetermined time some call the "cosmic dawn."
What's not yet clear is whether the early stars seen by Ellis' team are among the very first stars to form. They may not be, Stark said.
"Were these the first generation of star-forming objects? Is this the cosmic dawn? We don't have enough information to say. I wouldn't think of these objects as truly primordial. There should be objects earlier in the history of the universe," he said.
But it likely will be several years before anyone can know for sure. Astronomy will need much more powerful telescopes to see any farther back in time. Plans for two such telescopes are in the works. One is the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013. The other is the land-based Thirty Meter Telescope, which organizers hope to open in 2015.
The astronomy community believes that if you look with a big enough telescope, you should find something, Stark said.
"The light is out there, we think," but it is extremely faint, he said.
FINDINGS SUPPORTED
The researchers concede there may be skeptics who suggest their galaxies are not as old as they say. But preliminary findings from another group of astronomers who are using the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes support the conclusions of the research done with Mauna Kea's Keck telescopes, they said. That second group is led by Caltech astronomer Johan Richard.
The Ellis team did some preliminary work on the Keck I telescope, and spotted the ancient galaxies on the Keck II.
"When we began this survey, there was naturally some risk in spending so much observing time hoping we'd find something. We might, quite honestly, have found nothing at all. But the universe has cooperated and we're very excited at this glimpse of the early phases of its history," Ellis said.
Comment: Article has some graphics that display the procedure described above.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 07/14/2007 01:09 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289044,00.html
Sting Operation Nets Government License to Handle Radioactive Materials
Thursday, July 12, 2007
WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators set up a bogus company with only a postal box and within a month obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that allowed them to buy enough radioactive material for a small "dirty bomb."
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who will ask the NRC about the incident at a Senate hearing Thursday, said the sting operation raises concerns about terrorists obtaining such material just as easily.
Nobody at the NRC checked whether the company was legitimate and an agency official even helped the investigators fill out the application form, Coleman said in an interview Wednesday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged that more checking is needed in such licensing and said that since being told of the GAO sting operation it has tightened licensing procedures.
"We've fixed the problem," said NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan in an interview Wednesday. He said that such licenses now will require visits to the company or in some cases company officials will have to come to NRC offices.
The license that was obtained allowed for the purchase of up to five portable moisture density gauges widely used in construction, in which are encased small amounts of cesium-137 and americium 241, two highly radioactive isotopes.
Individually, these devices pose little threat because of the small amount of radioactive material, radiation experts say. Still the devices require an NRC license to be purchased and must be closely safeguarded by companies that use them to avoid theft.
But the investigators from the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, found a way to purchase as many as 45 of the gauges and could have bought many more because they duplicated the NRC-issued license and removed the restrictions on the amount that could be purchased.
"With patience and the proper financial resources, we could have accumulated from other suppliers substantially more radioactive source material than what the two supplies initially agreed to ship to us," says the GAO in a report prepared for Thursday's hearing.
Coleman, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigations subcommittee, said the NRC "still has this good-faith assumption. The problem is there are bad-faith people out there."
He said "there is no question" they could have obtained enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb because the GAO was able to duplicate the certificate and no one checked on the company or whether the counterfeit license was legitimate.
A so-called dirty bomb could spread radiation by a conventional explosion but does not have a nuclear detonation. While experts believe such a bomb would not cause casualties beyond those affected by the explosion, such an attack could have significant psychological impact and have serious economy consequences because of cleanup problems.
The GAO said that investigators operated the sting from their Washington office, although they provided a postal box in West Virginia. At one point, an NRC license examiner called them to caution that the gauges are subject to special security at the construction site.
The GAO said that it contacted two suppliers of the gauges and that one "offered to provide twice as many machines as we requested and offered a discount for volume purchases." The investigators also were told that the supplier does not check with NRC to confirm the terms on the license, a copy of which was sent to the supplier along with the purchase order.
The GAO investigators never finished the deal because they didn't have the money to buy the machines — which can cost several thousand dollars apiece — and also didn't have any place to safely store them.
The GAO also tried to get a license from the state of Maryland, one of 34 states that the NRC has given authority to handle such licensing. Unlike the NRC, the Maryland officials said they wanted to visit the company, so the investigators withdrew their application.
Comment: Apparently, Iran could just order the bomb materials from the USA!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 07/12/2007 09:57 am - reply- forum
To all:
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/newton-papers-reveal-apocalypse/20070619115009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Newton Papers Reveal Apocalypse Calculation
Documents Shed Light on Scientist's Religious Beliefs
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
AP
Posted: 2007-06-19 11:52:07
JERUSALEM (June 18) - Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible - exhibited this week for the first time - lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.
Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law - even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters - and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end.
The documents, purchased by a Jewish scholar at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1936, have been kept in safes at Israel's national library in Jerusalem since 1969. Available for decades only to a small number of scholars, they have never before been shown to the public.
In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.
"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," Newton wrote. However, he added, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see "the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom," he posited.
The exhibit also includes treatises on daily practice in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In one document, Newton discussed the exact dimensions of the temple - its plans mirrored the arrangement of the cosmos, he believed - and sketched it. Another paper contains words in Hebrew, including a sentence taken from the Jewish prayerbook.
Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit's curators, said the papers show Newton's conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.
He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost. He thought it was coded, and that by studying things like the dimensions of the temple, he could decode it," she said.
The Newton papers, Ben-Menahem said, also complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion. "These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God's actions in the world," she said.
More prosaic documents on display show Newton keeping track of his income and expenses while a scholar at Cambridge and later, as master of the Royal Mint, negotiating with a group of miners from Devon and Cornwall about the price of the tin they supplied to Queen Anne.
The archives of Hebrew University in Jerusalem include a 1940 letter from Albert Einstein to Abraham Shalom Yahuda, the collector who purchased the papers a year earlier.
Newton's religious writings, Einstein wrote, provide "a variety of sketches and ongoing changes that give us a most interesting look into the mental laboratory of this unique thinker."
# Posted by harry at 06/19/2007 12:58 pm - reply- forum
To all:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Apr/18/br/br4197835206.html
Supreme Court upholds ban on abortion procedure
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.
The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
The administration had defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.
Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to uphold the "sanctity of life."
"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion," he said. "Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America."
CONSERVATIVES VS. LIBERALS
The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.
It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.
Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.
The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.
"I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.
Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their healthcare decisions for them." She had argued that point before the justices.
More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday's ruling.
OPINIONS FROM THE DISSENTERS
Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.
"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.
Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."
Ginsburg said that for the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, "the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health."
She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.
The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.
Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.
HISTORY OF ABORTION CASES
In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision.
The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.
But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday's ruling.
Kennedy's dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.
Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.
But Kennedy said, "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice."
He said the more common abortion method, involving dismemberment, is beyond the reach of the federal ban.
While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.
Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.
The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman's life is in jeopardy.
The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.
Comment: Abortion is here to stay!
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 04/18/2007 02:25 pm - reply- forum
To all:
Rumor has it that Dave Holloway intends to continue the fight for Natalee's cause after 31 May 2007 date (two years). What he plans to do is uncertain. I suppose Dave's intentions resemble the "South Shall Never Die" slogan. It is fun to hear, but nothing will ever materialize.
Well, I guess sustaining the Natalee cause gives Dave something to do.
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 04/10/2007 06:54 am - reply- forum
To All:
Monk Seal Tracking:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Apr/06/br/br0528397416.html
Monk seals can be tracked on new Web site
By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
In response to the many requests about the status of twin Hawaiian monk seals kept in captive care and returned to Midway Atoll in October 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries launched a new Web site to allow you to track the released monk seals.
People can view the location of the twins and four other Hawaiian monk seals as they venture around the three islands that make up Midway Atoll by visiting www.pifsc.noaa.gov/psd/captivecareproject.php#monkseal and then click the link for the seal you want to track.
Devices attached to the monk seals send information via satellite about their location and dive depths.
The Hawaiian monk seal population has reached its lowest level in recorded history at 1,200.
The Captive Care Project is part of a broader strategy of monk seal research carried out by NOAA Fisheries in collaboration with the Marine Mammal Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Hubbs Sea World Research Institute, Sea World and others.
Monk seal scientists from these organizations are working to improve monk seal pup survival and increase the population growth rate through a captive care and release project.
Comment: The active link to six monk seal locations:
http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/psd/captivecareproject.php#monkseal
With Aloha,
# Posted by harry at 04/06/2007 10:34 pm - reply- forum
To All:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-826--5-5--.html
Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com
US biofuel policy could spark world 'holocaust', says Castro
Published on April 05, 2007
HAVANA, Castro (AFP): Fidel Castro on Wednesday warned that US energy policies could spark a global "holocaust,&