That's essentially what West Hartford, Conn., police say a suburban homeowner told an ice-cream truck driver Sunday evening. To be more specific, the angry resident waved a pair of hedge clippers and threatened to quickly make the driver less of a man if he didn't turn down the truck's speakers, cops told the Hartford Courant.
Police said Matthew Flynn, 46, was trimming his hedges at about 6:30 p.m. when a Melly's Ice Cream truck ambled by, speakers blaring in order to lure calorie-craving children. Flynn allegedly blew his top and charged out into the street, running out in front of the truck and making it stop. He then yelled at the teenaged driver, according to police, asking him to turn down the tunes and not drive down his street again, since no children lived on the block.
To make his point clear, he allegedly held up the clippers and threatened to trim two very dear and personal items from the ice-cream vendor's nether regions. Want to be a UNIX operator?
Is this all it takes to drive off those annoying ice cream trucks? Thanks for the, um, tip, Matthew.
"He's making the chopping motion with the hedge trimmer," said the arresting officer. "He may have taken it a little farther than necessary."
In neighboring Hartford, a neighborhood movement was launched against Mr. Softee trucks in 2002, going all the way to court. The residents lost, which may or may not have been a factor in Flynn's behavior. Flynn was charged with threatening and breach of the peace and given a Tuesday court date.
There was no word on whether a specific ice-cream jingle â "Pop Goes the Weasel," "London Bridge" or maybe "The Entertainer" â set him off.
#3
"your Big Stick will be a Popsicle after I'm done with it!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 14:51 Comments ||
Top||
#4
jeez, just watch the price of ice-cream go up due to hazardous driver conditions, hence fewer willing drivers.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/23/2005 14:56 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I frickin hate those trucks... Out in front of my house just idling and playing "the entertainer" over, and over, and over, and over, and over,..... Loudly.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/23/2005 17:58 Comments ||
Top||
#7
IEDs seem to work pretty well in Baghdad. At least we haven't heard any complaints about ice cream trucks from there.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/23/2005 18:53 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Ah, West Hartford. Not as exclusive as Farmington, but certainly way better than Hartford. Home of business-owners, lawyers and other 'self-made' types. I'm not surprised.
I had a crush on Olivia when I was in College in the 70s. In recent years, she has gotten into environmental moonbattery, but there was nothing too personally odd about her. She was either married or living with a boyfriend, and always seemed to handle herself with class. But what about the stories mentioned below of him 'faking' his death? Seems out of character for her to have odd circumstances...
Olivia Newton-John's lover 'missing'
By Nick Papps and Steve Gee
THE long-time lover of Australian singer Olivia Newton-John has vanished during a boat trip amid claims he may have faked his death.
Ahah! This was on Lifetime for Women last week. The Little Woman went through an entire box of tissues...
A devastated Newton-John is said to be clinging to the hope that Patrick Kim McDermott, 47, is still alive because his body has not been recovered two months after he failed to return from an overnight fishing trip off California. But police suspect the photographer may have staged his disappearance.
But it wasn't really him she was having the affair with. It was his evil twin, and he only wanted her for her money...
Mr McDermott, the father of a 15-year-old son, had been dating Newton-John for nine years.
But she only thought it was him. We know better...
He vanished on July 1, but none of the boat's crew noticed him missing and his disappearance was not reported until he failed to arrive at a family function five days later.
"Hi, Olivia! Where's yer boyfriend?"
"Why, he's right... ummm... I thought he was with you!"
Concerned relatives found Mr McDermott's car in a marina car park on July 11. They then searched the boat and discovered his backpack, fishing rod and tackle box before contacting the Coast Guard. Investigators are treating the matter as a missing-person case, but remain unconvinced by the crew's version of events and are pursuing the possibility Mr McDermott may have faked his death. "Is there any suggestion he may have run away, as opposed to have gone overboard? That's something we're still looking at," Coast Guard investigator Dennis Nebrich said.
"How many false moustaches did he own, Ms. Newton?"
"Eleven or twelve. But he only wore them when we were having sex!"
"Uhuh. And what colors were they?"
"I liked the pink salmon colored one best!"
Newton-John, 56, who has lived in the US for more than 20 years since starring in the 1978 hit film Grease, has not spoken publicly about the disappearance, but a close friend said she was "obviously experiencing a lot of grief".
"Oh, Gawd! I'm so lonely! Nobody moustachioed like Whatsisname!"
The friend added: "Everyone is shocked and devastated by Patrick's disappearance, and totally baffled by it.
"What do you think, Bob?"
"I'm baffled, Albert!"
"There is nothing in his character to suggest he would deliberately take off. He would never leave his child. Patrick and Olivia are like soulmates. They have never had any problems whatsoever. We're still hoping against hope that he is found safe."
But we know better than that, because we saw the made-for-teevee movie. Up at the abandoned silver mine, the real Patrick McDermott, who's been tied up for the past nine years while his evil twin has had his way with his true love, is in mortal peril...
Coast Guard spokesman Danny Phee said McDermott's ex-wife had reported him missing.
"When did you notice he was gone, Ma'am?"
"About the time he met Olivia Newton-John."
"It was about two weeks after the fact that the ex-wife reported him missing," Commander Phee said yesterday.
She's in on it, you know. We only saw her in silhouette until the last coupla scenes, but I knew she was in on it all along...
"We referred the matter to our Coast Guard investigative services, and they have interviewed several people including the boat's captain." Mr McDermott met Newton-John in 1996 while she was filming a commercial in Los Angeles.
#6
Her grandfather, Max Born, Nobel laureate in physics, and his buddy, Albert Einstein, have an explanation for this. Their theories led to the discovery of black holes.
McDermott was reduced to a point of singularity...
#1
Um, how about the obvious killing of them? I can set here all night thinking of ways to do it. But it being the UK some wooly headed protect our rabbit friends group will go to the law courts and put a stop to all of it.
#4
Red Dog is a feature not a bug. I am lucky that a certain character works at all. I guess I should try and fix it but I think it's something under the hood here at the Burg.
#7
The article states that some people are calling for the reintroduction of Myxomatosis. Bad idea. Supposedly this disease only kills rabbits; but germs mutate and the disease could attack other species.
#10
Re-introduce the native ferrets, weasels and foxes. Predation will quickly bring the problem down to manageable levels. Or else allow the local woodsmen to set snares like they used to do in the old days.
#12
I always wondered why it was referred to as a "lucky rabbit's foot" for your key chain. Since it had to be killed first.
On our farm growing up I used to skin the rabbits, and the meat is pretty tasty,
tastes like chicken. :)
Posted by: Jan ||
08/23/2005 15:44 Comments ||
Top||
#15
My family raised rabbits when I was a kid. It supplemented the annual steer we butchered, the chickens, pigs, and ducks we raised, the fish we caught, and the deer, ducks, and other small game animals we brought home from hunting trips. We almost never bought meat, eggs, butter, or milk.
I can think of sixty or seventy ways to snare, catch, kill, or otherwise get rid of excess rabbits. The first thing to do, however, is to catch all the PETA members and lock them in a cage with 2000 wild rabbits for a few weeks. Then you can get rid of the rest of the excess rabbit population without interference.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/23/2005 23:52 Comments ||
Top||
A fish the "size of a cow" that took five people to haul onboard a boat has set a new world game-fishing record for a New Zealand angler. Business broker Michael Hayes thought he was going to be dragged overboard when he tried to land the 268kg bluefin tuna off the West Coast.
He was fishing with 60kg breaking-strain line on a reel borrowed from an Australian about 50km west of Greymouth last Thursday. Now, he is waiting for the results of a DNA test to confirm that the fish is a Pacific bluefin tuna and a new International Game Fishing Association record. "I got it to the boat but then it took five of us to get it into the boat," Hayes said. "It was a hell of a big fish. It's the size of a cow."
"Charlie, Starkist doesn't want tunas with good taste ...
The fish was caught using a soft-squid plastic lure on an Australian mate's reel, which was made to handle black marlin that could weigh up to 500kg. It took two hours to land and was one of four bluefin tuna, all heavier than 200kg, caught by anglers on the boat.
A Justice of the Peace had attended the weighing and certified scales had been used, according to rules. The fish is now frozen in Greymouth until the DNA testing can be completed.
To see if it's part cow, of course.
Hayes will have the fish mounted for his game fishing club at Whangaroa in Northland near the Bay of Islands.
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
08/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
What has two knees and swims in the ocean? Twokneefish. That would make a heck of a lot of twokneefish sandwiches.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/23/2005 7:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ho. Lee. Sh. It.
My brother caught a 60lb tuna and described it as "pulling a Volkswagen off the bottom of the ocean". My hat's off to these guys.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/23/2005 7:38 Comments ||
Top||
#3
That's a whole lot of sashimi all in one place.
#7
We caught a couple of yellowfin tuna off the coast of Panama when I was stationed down there. That was a two to three hour fight for a 35-40pound fish. My hat's off to this guy and his fishing friends. I just hope they don't get as sick of tuna as I did - we turned our catch over to the base dining hall, and had tuna about every day for a month!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/23/2005 23:54 Comments ||
Top||
EFL. Hat tip to Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler. Graphics to be supplied by .com BRITAIN could be facing a bra shortage after an EU ban blocked £50million of Chinese-made clothing heading for the UK, a trade body warned today. It means some shops could run out of trousers, pullovers, blouses and other items in the coming months, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said. And the number of bras on shop floors could also drop, a spokeswoman for the BRC said.
A number of 2005 quotas are already full, meaning further imports of affected goods are held at ports and airports across Europe and denied entry. "A small retailer has probably invested all of last yearâs profits in this yearâs Autumn-Winter collection. They have paid for their products which are now stuck in a warehouse," he said. A new quota agreement between EU and China was signed on June 10 and ratified on July 12. It affects ten Chinese textile and clothing products. A European Commission spokesman said officials were heading to Beijing later this week to discuss a solution.
Nice place - just don't get sick
Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov has deemed recorded music a negative influence on society and banned it from public events, TV and weddings.
Niyazov has already banned opera and ballet from the former Soviet state, saying they were unnecessary, the BBC reported.
"Unfortunately, one can see on television old voiceless singers lip-synching their old songs, Niyazov told his cabinet regarding music on TV. "Don't kill talents by using lip-synching ... create our new culture."
In 2001, Niyazov, the country's president for life, banned gold tooth caps, long hair and beards on young men.
He has also banned car radios, closed all hospitals except those in the capital and renamed calendar months after his relatives, the BBC said.
what about Spinner Rims and Kobe Laker jerseys?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 17:28 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Canadian-based oil company PetroKazakhstan Inc. has struck a $4.18-billion takeover deal with a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp., a major acquisition intended to boost China's energy supplies.
CNPC International Ltd. would pay $55 US per share for the Canadian firm, the companies said Monday. In Canadian dollars, the offer is worth 27 quadrillion $5.06 billion.
PetroKazakhstan, which has its headquarters in Calgary but operates solely in the central Asian country of Kazakhstan, announced in late June it had been approached by several parties regarding a potential acquisition or merger.
PetroKazakhstan, formerly known as Hurricane Hydrocarbons, is one of the largest foreign energy companies operating in Kazakhstan and has been there for the last eight years.
The total takeover offer represents a premium of 24.4 per cent based on the average closing price of the firm's common shares.
The takeover agreement has been reviewed by a special committee of the board of directors of PetroKazakhstan and has been approved by the boards of directors of both PetroKazakhstan and CNPCI, with PetroKazakhstan's board recommending that its shareholders accept CNPCI's offer.
The transaction will be subject to approval by two-thirds of the votes cast by PetroKazakhstan shareholders at a meeting expected to be held in October. Closing is subject to certain other conditions, including court approvals.
The agreement prohibits PetroKazakhstan from soliciting any other acquisition proposal but allows its board to recommend any superior proposal with a break fee $125 million US. CNPCI would have the right to match any such superior proposal.
PetroKazakhstan has had a variety of high-profile troubles this year which played havoc with its share price.
In late April, a ruling from Kazakh regulators forced the company to immediately stop flaring gas - a move that slashed second-quarter production by 30 per cent - to 106,000 barrels per day from 151,000 barrels in the same period last year.
Along with the flaring issue, the company has been publicly scrapping with Russian oil giant Lukoil over a joint venture called Turgai Petroleum. Both sides have filed multi-million dollar claims against each other.
The takeover of PetroKazakhstan would add closer economic ties to the growing strategic co-operation between China and Kazakhstan, which is expected to become one of the world's leading oil producers over the next two decades.
China is trying to increase its role in Central Asia, spurred in part by unease at the presence of U.S. military forces in the former Soviet region that borders Afghanistan.
The two governments already are partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - a six-country security group led by Beijing and Moscow that is meant to combat American influence Islamic extremism in Central Asia.
#2
The Chinese are already feeling the teeth of real world economics.
I suspect we will see internal disorder first before the Chinese can make trouble beyond Taiwan. Its the cycle of consolidation, empire, dissolution, many kingdoms that China was followed for thousands of years. In-fighting for turf has already begun.
The new commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Wednesday the Navy is âvery interestedâ in the first-ever joint military exercises China and Russia are due to hold over the next eight days.
In an interview with The Associated Press about one month after assuming his post, Adm. Gary Roughead said heâll be watching to see what kind of equipment the two countries will use and how theyâll work together.
âWeâre very interested in the exercise, weâre interested in the types of things that theyâll do,â Roughead said. âWeâre interested in the complexity and the types of systems that they bring to bear.â
China and Russia plan to gather some 10,000 troops from their land, sea and air forces for joint drills dubbed âPeace Mission 2005â on Chinaâs northeastern coast.
Roughead declined to say whether the United States would dispatch ships of its own to monitor the exercises starting Thursday, replying only that âI donât talk about the specifics of our operations.â
The admiral said he was curious how the two navies would operate and how they would command and control their forces. He added he would also be looking at how they would âintegrate in a combined way.â
Analysts say the joint exercises are primarily an opportunity for Moscow to showcase its weaponry to Beijing, an active consumer of Russian military hardware. The two nations are also expected to use the opportunity to display their military power.
Roughead, 54, takes command of the Pacific Fleet as the Pentagon mulls moving an aircraft carrier to either Guam or Hawaii from the U.S. mainland and perhaps shift more submarines to the region.
Not only is the military is keen to edge closer to potential hot spots in the Taiwan Straits or North Korea, it is also eager to ensure piracy and terrorism donât close down vital sea lanes used by some of the worldâs biggest trading nations.
âThereâs a growing sense in our country and military that our future is going to be very heavily tied to Asia,â Roughead said. âThe imperative of maintaining stability and the prosperity in the region will be the key to our security and prosperity in the future.â
The admiral said it was âan exciting time to be involved, particularly in the Pacificâ as the military reshapes its forces in response to significant changes in the world and to warfare since the end of World War II.
Roughead, who has spent five of the last 12 years in Pacific posts, said he has been watching as China has upgraded its military, taking note as its submarine patrols and surface ships have pushed beyond earlier areas of operation closer to its eastern coast.
He said he was most curious about Chinaâs motives.
âClearly they are modernizing very quickly, theyâre acquiring and producing some very capable systems. So itâs easy to see the capability that theyâre building,â Roughead said. âThe great interest I have is to what purpose do they want to use the military. How do they seek to employ it in the future and what does it mean for the region?â
Last month, a Pentagon report said China is building up its military for the long-term goal of projecting its power well beyond Taiwan â a self-governing island China claims as its own territory.
The annual survey said the Chinese military is buying new weapon systems while developing new doctrine for modern warfare and improving training standards.
âThe big question is whatâs it for?â Roughead said. âItâs still a little unclear what their intentions are in developing a military with the type of capability and reach they have.â
Last month, Adm. William Fallon, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the AP he didnât see any nation posing a threat to China and that U.S. forces should not be interpreted as threatening Beijing.
As head of the Pacific Fleet, Roughead commands close to 240,000 sailors, Marines, and civilians from the U.S. West Coast to the East Coast of Africa â an area spanning half the earthâs surface.
Until last month, Roughead was Fallonâs deputy at the Pacific Command, which is responsible for all branches of the U.S. military in the Asia-Pacific region.
The name Peace Mission 2005 is, of course, an oxymoron for a blockade, an amphibious landing and a forced evacuation that involve live fire maneuvers.
Chinese and Russian military forces are preparing a joint naval blockade and amphibious landing as part of an exercise involving nearly 10,000 personnel and a wide range of weaponry.
âMilitary vessels, fighter jets and amphibious tanks will start three-day live-ammunition combat practice tomorrow,â a senior officer of the Chinese Peopleâs Liberation Army (PLA) was quoted by the China Daily as saying.
The two armies will focus on an offshore blockade involving guided missile destroyers and jet fighters, a joint amphibious landing by air force and marine paratroopers and a forced evacuation, the paper said.
This is due to take place when the third phase of the eight-day âPeace Mission 2005â exercise begins on Tuesday on east Chinaâs Shandong peninsula, the paper said.
During the second phase of the exercise, which ends Monday, the two sides engaged in joint command operations and the deployment of troops including paratroopers, press reports said.
Chinese state press said the exercises were taking place against the backdrop of âthe fight against terrorism, separatism and extremismâ - usually cited by China within the context of its endeavors to control the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to a Muslim separatist movement.
But experts say the drills are more likely to be aimed at Taiwan. China considers the island part of its territory and threatens to invade if it formally declares independence.
âWith amphibious landings and naval operations involved, I donât think that the purpose of these exercises is anti-terrorism,â Arthur Ding, an expert on the PLA at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, told AFP.
âChina and Russia are sending a signal to Taiwan not to go down the road to independence and to the United States not to push them (China) into a corner by backing Taiwan independence forces.â
According to a report last week in the Russian daily Kommersant, the exercise is being funded by China and reflects a wish in Beijing to send a warning to Taiwan.
Some 7,000 Chinese troops and more than 1,800 Russians are involved in the drills.
The first phase of the exercise, involving warships, submarines, bombers, helicopters and fighter planes, began Thursday near the city of Vladivostok on Russiaâs Pacific coast.
Russian equipment being tested in the drill included the Il-76 transport plane, the Il-78 refueling plane, the A-50 early warning plane, the Tu-95 MS and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers, the Su-24M2 bomber, and the Su-27SM fighter jet, the paper said.
Chinese hardware used in the drill was not specified.
#1
There is a different sense of "peace mission" - of rebel or barbarian pacification, i.e. wars to subdue unruly domstic fiefdoms or barbarians on the frontier. It may be in this archaic sense that the name was decided upon.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/23/2005 15:23 Comments ||
Top||
#3
What will Russia do in 20 years when China takes by force the huge chunk of Siberia now being settled by Ethnic Han Chinese immigrants?
Retired Russian generals can watch approvingly
"Yes, we taught them that"
Posted by: john ||
08/23/2005 18:12 Comments ||
Top||
#4
john: What will Russia do in 20 years when China takes by force the huge chunk of Siberia now being settled by Ethnic Han Chinese immigrants?
Retired Russian generals can watch approvingly
"Yes, we taught them that"
Russians aren't stupid. Maybe they figure that more arms they sell the Chinese, the more likely the Chinese will be to invade Taiwan. Upon which Uncle Sam will completely rearrange China's force structure, thus neutering the China as a military power for decades.
Posted by: john ||
08/23/2005 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
#6
What I described above - with respect to what the Russians might be up to - is the ancient tactic of setting one barbarian (China) against another (the US).
#7
john: But will the US really go to bat for Taiwan?
We won't really know until the balloon goes up, will we? The mutual defense treaty with Taiwan was revoked by Jimmy Carter in 1979. The Taiwan Relations Act isn't quite as robust. Still, Uncle Sam went to the defense of South Korea and South Vietnam without the benefit of a treaty. With respect to China's nuclear threats, I think they're worse than useless - they're an invitation for Uncle Sam to launch a first strike if China's nuclear forces even twitch.
AUSTRALIA'S tourism pitch into North America will soon hit the road, with a bus touring dozens of cities to publicise the virtues of the land Down Under as a holiday destination. Tourism Australia said today it had also joined forces with influential publisher National Geographic in a multimillion-dollar campaign to target North America. Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said the marketing and public relations partnership would extend Tourism Australia's reach and penetration through one of the world's most powerful brands.
As part of the year-long campaign, a bus will travel around north-eastern USA and eastern Canada visiting and educating travel agents and media on quality Australian product and experiences. Ms Bailey said the six-week, 36-city, Australian Rolling Roadshow tour was a creative and exciting way to raise awareness and knowledge of some of the many fantastic experiences a vacation in Australia has to offer. The campaign will focus on indigenous and ecotourism, identified by the Australian government as key niche tourism experiences.
If I go to Australia, I don't want "indigenous and ecotourism." I want to see kangaroos and koala bears, drink beer, and go to the beach to look at babes. I can stay home for most other things.
The $US1 million ($A1.33 million) campaign will include advertising in key National Geographic magazines and on National Geographic's website. The website will include a dedicated Australian site that will feature content on Australian tourism. Ms Bailey said National Geographic's two key travel magazines, Traveller and Adventure, reached nearly eight million readers each issue in the US alone, while the website boasted 6.3 million unique visitors each month. The ongoing partnership with National Geographic had been expanded this year to include a rolling roadshow with US-based wholesaler Qantas Vacations, she said. "Over recent years, Tourism Australia has worked closely with partners such as National Geographic and Qantas to target high-yield, fully independent travellers who tend to travel widely throughout rural and regional Australia," Ms Bailey said. "Partnerships such as these will increase awareness of Australia's unique and cultural tourism experiences and encourage more international tourists to view Australia as the number one must-see holiday destination." The campaign will begin in mid-September.
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
08/23/2005 04:38 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wonder if they've thought of cruise ships? With all the retirees having done the Med, the Crib, Mexico, and Alaska, I wonder how many would opt for a long cruise?
#2
If you do go to Oz near Christmas, pay the outrageous prices and stay in downtown Sydney for New Year's Eve. The fireworks are incredible. From the roof of the hotel, you can see three or four shows doing exactly the same display at exactly the same time in different parts of the harbor. Positively the best New Year's Eve Party anywhere and the streets are clean at 7:00 am New Year's Day. I don't know how they did it, but my daughters said something about rows of Police horses clearing the streets at 3:00 am followed by the waste trucks.
But reserve early; school summer vacation starts at Christmas, and everybody is out and about.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/23/2005 9:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
WC: Wonder if they've thought of cruise ships? With all the retirees having done the Med, the Crib, Mexico, and Alaska, I wonder how many would opt for a long cruise?
That would be a really long cruise. It takes 20 hours to fly from LA to Sydney. Average speed for a 747 tends to be about 500 knots. Cruising speed for a typical cruise ship is 20 knots. That's 25*20 = 500 hours = 20+ days at sea. For people who get sea-sick and decide cruises are not for them, there's nowhere to get off - the Pacific Ocean is mainly empty expanse. Then there's the problem of lining up Australian tourists for the return trip to the US - since few Americans are likely to sign up for a 40+-day round-trip cruise.
#5
I lived in Sydney for three years. Many fatheaded Aussies cringed because Paul Hogan made some tourism ads. "Why don't they show Australia's sophisticated nightlife, culture, museums?" they whined.
Because, you morons, we don't need to leave the US for that stuff. We want to see the whole Paul Hogan -- Steve Irwin schtick, we want to see wild kangaroos hopping through the forest. We don't want to go to the freakin' NSW museum of modern crap art, or whatever it's called (seriously, I think St. Louis has as many cultural attractions as Sydney).
Of course, after we get through staring at the kangaroos and the koalas and the Barrier Reef and Uluru (the PC name for Ayers Rock), then it is nice to be able to go to Sydney and find a good cup of coffee and maybe a nightclub, if you're into that sort of thing. That's how they should have advertised it.
#6
Haven't been there in 20 years, but down under is great.
First trip was about 3 months after the Aussie's won the America's Cup race and they were still partying!! Saw Kangaroos and Koalas and honkin' big crocs, drank beer and watched babes on the beach (Bondi, Botany Bay and several others) oh and went to Cairns and Port Douglas to see the reef. Want to go back and do everything west of the "mountains" (Blue Ridge?) that're just west of Sydney.
Having been there a number of times recently, I heartily recommend going down there for anyone contemplating the trip. I especially loved the various little towns on the NSW mid-north coast.
#13
Use the first part of the cruise to get over the jet-lag.
It was 14 hours Sydney to LA non-stop (thank goodness cause there weren't nothing to stop on)
Oh, and when you're jet lagged in Port Douglas, don't go sit under a Palm Tree to watch the sun rise. There may be a Kookaburra in said Palm tree and their call (famous from every jungle movie ever written) 5 feet over your head will cost you at least 10 years off your life.
A powerful group of American fashion chains, including Gap Inc, has thrown its support behind a proposal to end the war between US animal rights activists and Australian wool groups. The retailers, with combined annual sales of more than $US25 billion ($A33 billion), have urged two influential Australian wool groups who refuse to accept the peace deal to support the plan. "It is an extremely powerful group of retailers," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign co-ordinator Matt Rice told AAP.
The plan agreed to by PETA and the Australian Wool Growers Association (AWGA) and supported by the US retailers would lead to the gradual phasing out of mulesing in Australia by 2010. Mulesing is the controversial rear end skin stripping procedure that Australian farmers use on sheep to protect them from maggot infestation. The plan also proposes a new "non-mulesed" label on clothing to clearly inform shoppers the wool in an item did not come from a mulesed sheep.
The PETA-AWGA proposal would also lead to more humane treatment of Australian sheep exported live to other countries, particularly the Middle East.
While the AWGA supports the plan, two other wool grower representative groups, Australian Wool Innovation and the Australian Sheep and Wool Industry Taskforce, have heavily criticised it and refused to accept the plan. PETA hopes the support of the major retailers will sway Australian wool farmers to support the proposal it has put forward.
The major retailers are: Gap Inc, Liz Claiborne, Lands End, LL Bean, Eddie Bauer, Jones Apparel Group and yuppie slut clothier Ann Taylor. The retailers are found in most North American shopping malls.
They signed a letter sent to the Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and the Australian Sheep and Wool Industry Taskforce by the global retailer organisation, the Business for Social Responsibility. The letter urges the two wool groups to embrace the PETA-AWGA proposal. Last week, three other international fashion retailers, Talbots, Nordstrom and H&M, pledged to support the PETA-AWGA agreement.
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
08/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
cows talk, horses talk, sheep lie!
Posted by: bk ||
08/23/2005 10:48 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I looked up "Mulesing" essentialy it's removing a strip of wool bearing folded skin around the anus and vagina area so the sheep do not die of maggot infestation.
This is a perfect PETA bullshit "Cause" poorly thought out, and very detrimental to the very sheep they claim to be "Helping"
In short, it's more harmful to the sheep to NOT remove the strip of wool bearing skin.
Having it PETA's way will cause sheep to die painfuly of maggots in the ass area.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/23/2005 11:26 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Redneck Jim I agree with you.
Too bad these PETA types couldn't channel their energy in doing something more useful.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/23/2005 15:54 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Maybe I'm missing something here, but is it any less cruel to let a sheep get eaten from the inside out by maggots?
#5
I have a proposal. For every sheep that dies from maggot infestation, one PETA member gets to die the same way. I feel this is an equitable solution that the farmers would find agreeable and fair to all sides.
Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old, representing part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humanity's closest ancestors ever found in Europe. The Homo erectus skull was found this month in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said Georgian National Museum director David Lortkipanidze, who took part in the dig.
In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991, Lortkipanidze said by telephone. The skull, however, was in the best condition of the five. It was unearthed on Sunday and sent to the museum for further study. "Practically all the remains have been found in one place. This indicates that we have found a place of settlement of primitive people," he said of the spot, where archaeologists have been working since 1939.
The findings in Georgia, which researchers said were a million years older than any widely accepted pre-human remains in Europe, have provided additional evidence that Homo erectus left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought.
A well-preserved skull from the Dmanisi site would be "very important" in helping to track the development and migration of human ancestors, said Brian Richmond, a professor at the Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology at George Washington University in Washington. Study of the skull could help scientists understand "what it is about these individuals that allowed them to move outside of Africa" â how their bodies and their use of tools advanced to enable them to move more freely, Richmond said.
Million-year-old fossils of hominids â extinct creatures of the extended ancestral family of modern humans â have been found in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, but not in Western Europe. Georgia is south of the Caucasus Mountains, east of the Black Sea and northeast of Turkey, but is considered part of Europe. "I'd like the class to open your textbooks to chapter 8 through 11. Now please tear them out and throw them away as you leave today. They are wrong."
#1
Orthodoxy is all. When a 'concept' takes hold within a community, the amount of energy spent protecting that concept eventually morphs into a stone wall. We are stuck with the 'Out of Africa' theory for generations because of PC and the laziness of tenured professors to do real science. You will see the establishment keep pushing back what is 'human' as older and older bones are found outside the Rift Valley. If you look in one place, you'll only find in one place. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and some opening up of Central Asia, I suspect you are in for some interesting 'new' finds. However, watch as the establishment fights to discredit every piece of evidence that does not conform to its vision of the world, and unfortunately, one that is anchored upon PC doctrine not science.
#2
The find doesn't disprove "Out of Africa"; it just shifts the date back a bit.
(But the Clovis First theory was drowned like a sack of kittens earlier this year.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/23/2005 9:11 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The Out of Africa theory is largely a result of mathmatical ignorance. Each one of us had a nominal several hundred million ancestors 80K years ago. Since the number of actual humans at that time was far fewer, statistically we all share the same pool of ancestors starting considerably more recent than that and of course going all they way back to the first organism that swan through the primeval soup. There were people in Africa at that time and people at an unknown other number of places. We are decended from all of them (assuming a population was not completely isolated).
#4
There are lots of odd twists and turns to genetics. For example, the only way to trace back that far is through mothers' mitochondrial RNA, which has been described as a "more primitive" precurser to DNA, now retained primarily as a cellular engine, instead of a blueprint like DNA. DNA is far more complex, but also terribly prone to error, transmitted fault, and mutation. It also might be not uncommon for humans to "swap" DNA with animals and even plants. In addition, some people may have DNA "repair" mechanisms that fix DNA deviations from the other parent to the offspring--keeping the species' genes from too much incremental degeneration. Interestingly enough, because humans no longer have to compete to survive in harsh nature, we have large amounts of defective genes that would have otherwise been purged--far more than most common mammals. Over time, this may accellerate our breaking apart into separate species.
In the tradition of aid concerts that have raised money for everything from poverty in Africa to hurting farmers, a pro-illegal immigrant activist in Arizona has planned a series of concerts intended to push federal amnesty for illegal aliens currently in the U.S.
Elias Bermudez says he's raised more than $43,000 to pay for the concerts scheduled for October in Glendale, Ariz., the Arizona Republic reported. Be a real shame if some biker gang ruined the concert.
The convicted felon activist has made appearances on Spanish-language radio asking for donations for the events, which will feature Mexican superstar singers.
According to the report, Bermudez hopes to raise $1 million from concertgoers and business donations to pay for national suicide immigration-reform television ads.
Despite Bermudez's goal, some illegal immigrant-rights group are skeptical, questioning his motives and the fund-raising strategy of collecting money from illegal aliens by telling them help is on the way.
Bermudez acknowledged he will benefit if the feds approve immigration reform because he will have new clients at his Phoenix-based Centro de Ayuda, or the Help Center, where he assists illegal immigrants in filling out immigration and tax documents.
"I can't stop the critics," Bermudez told the Republic. "But they are not going to stop me from trying to help illegal immigrants."
Bermudez was convicted of money laundering in 1996 and sentenced to 18 months behind bars. He maintains his innocence. "I wuz framed."
The convicted felon activist says he supports a proposal by Sens. John McCain, R-media Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-runk Mass., that would give illegal aliens in the U.S. the chance to earn permanent residency over an extended period. President Bush has also pushed a "guest-worker" plan that critics claim amounts to an amnesty program.
Abel Ledezma is a soon to be deported legal immigrant living in Arizona. If you don't want to assimilate and be American, get out of My state.
"It's not about making money or just listening to music," he is quoted as saying. "It's about sending a message to Congress about the need to stop border deaths." I agree. Tell Congress to fund a wall and an adequate border guard, with orders to reply overwhelmingly to any violence by coyotes or federales.
James Edwards, author of "The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform," slammed the McCain-Kennedy legislation.
"[Under the legislation], aliens get to keep the job they stole in the first place," he wrote recently. "They donât have to worry about most inadmissibility standards. They and their family go to the front of the line, ahead of every legal immigrant. They can in turn sponsor as many family members as they want. ... In short, the bill amounts to a cruel joke on the American people."
#1
It's mildly amusing that when there's talk of "guest workers", the word "families" is never too far behind. If some field absolutely has to have guest workers, get legal guest workers, but leave the families out of it. Families that want to come here to stay need to get in line like everybody else.
Oh, and that sponsorship crap? Eliminate it. If not, then severe curtailment will suffice.
#2
"The activist says he supports a proposal by Sens. John McCain, R-media Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-runk Mass."
If any of these so-called activists support any proposal it should be a huge Red Flag.
#3
maybe use this as a means of rounding them up (the illegals) at the concert to deport them.
When is something concrete going to be done about this very serious problem. I get so angry and frustrated with nothing getting accomplished, meanwhile it keeps getting worse. Yes we have identified the problem now let's act on it!
Posted by: Jan ||
08/23/2005 15:34 Comments ||
Top||
#4
ID and citizenship checks at the exits
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 16:26 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Is it just me or does Senor Bermudez smell like a scam artist?
A faculty group has sent the investigation of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill to the next level.
Seven complaints of alleged plagiarism, historical fabrication and other research misconduct by Churchill have been recommended for a deeper investigation, while two other complaints that were part of the original inquiry were dropped, his lawyer said. The report from the faculty subcommittee that had spent about four months looking into the allegations was delivered Monday, said David Lane, who represents Churchill.
The subcommittee made its recommendation to the faculty's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. The next step is for that committee to decide whether to conduct a full investigation. CU rules call for the faculty group to study the recommendations and receive more input from Churchill before deciding.
If it proceeds, the investigation could take five months. It could lead to anything from exoneration to dismissal for the professor, who opened a maelstrom of controversy with his view that America - and especially the "little Eichmanns" working in the World Trade Center - deserved the retribution of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "This is really a victory for professor Churchill," Lane said.
He pointed out that two complaints were dropped. And he claimed that the subcommittee members felt unqualified to pass judgment on the others.
The subcommittee, however, wasn't meant to make a final ruling on the merits of the allegations, according to the university's rules. Its job was to pass along its recommendation.
Still, Lane said, they felt out of their element.
"They said, 'Look, this isn't our area. We're biochemists and physicists,' " Lane said. "These guys were doing the best they could, but how is it that a biochemist is cross-examining Ward Churchill on the General Allotment Act of 1887?"
Generally called the Dawes Act, that law removed American Indian land from communal ownership by tribes and divided it into individually owned homesteads. Nearly 120 years later, it still outrages Indians. Churchill has been accused of misrepresenting the law repeatedly in his writings. That is among the charges recommended for further investigation, along with plagiarism and fabrication.
But, Lane said, the subcommittee dropped a complaint over the controversial ethnicity issue - whether Churchill falsely laid claim to having American Indian heritage to bolster his academic career and gain wider acceptance of his scholarship in Indian affairs.
The second dismissed complaint was a matter uncovered by the Rocky Mountain News - alleged copyright infringement in Churchill's publishing of three works that, while credited to their authors, had been used without the authors' permission.
CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale said the university cannot comment on an ongoing personnel investigation and wouldn't confirm or acknowledge the information disclosed by Churchill's lawyer. Lane went public with the report on KHOW-AM's Caplis and Silverman show.
"The subcommittee jettisoned the ethnicity complaint," Lane told the News later. "They said it's irrelevant to his scholarship."
A News investigation in June found that while Churchill has maintained for decades that he is part Cherokee and Creek, there is no evidence of any Indian ancestry in his family tree.
However, the belief in some form of Indian ancestry is widespread among Churchill's extended family, including some who didn't know they are related to Churchill. Churchill himself has said that his mother and grandmother told him the family Indian legend when he was a child.
As for the dropping of the copyright-infringements complaint, Lane said the three authors involved had no problem with Churchill having published their works.
"The people who hold the copyrights said there's no issue here," Lane said.
But one of those authors, Robert T. Coulter, a lawyer and member of the Potawatomi Nation, told the News in a story published June 3 that while he would not pursue a copyright lawsuit, he was upset that Churchill made editing changes and especially that the CU professor added 15 endnotes to Coulter's article.
"That I never would have agreed to, and didn't know it happened," Coulter told the News for the June 3 story. "I would never have permitted that - especially Ward Churchill. He's not a lawyer. He doesn't have the skill or expertise to add to a paper on my own subject."
The university process is long and cumbersome, filled with numerous decision points aimed at ensuring due process. If the standing committee votes to proceed, it can conduct the investigation itself or appoint others to do it. The investigating panel can have from three to five members. They can come from within or outside the university.
Churchill has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing. Among the complaints being moved ahead for examination:
⢠That in his published writings, Churchill has mischaracterized the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, along with the General Allotment Act.
⢠That Churchill has repeatedly advanced a theory charging the U.S. Army with an act of genocide against the Mandan Indians in 1837, citing sources that contradict his claim.
⢠That Churchill plagiarized the work of professor Fay Cohen of Dalhousie University in Canada.
⢠That Churchill plagiarized a defunct Canadian environmental group's pamphlet on a shelved water-diversion project. This is being reported elsewhere in the MSM as a "victory" for Churchill, with no mention of the other charges, or that the investigation has not only continued, but has been elevated to a higher level.
#1
no victory - big chief will make his remaining money on the Move-On lecture circuit to disaffected lib arts studnts on their way to shoveling fries. No CU pension
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 20:32 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I heard his Indian name is "Walking Eagle" because he is so full of bull he doesn't fly.
...Why this new virus is so deadly is not entirely understood, although scientists have hints.
Influenza viruses invade cells lining the throat and windpipe, where they replicate and cause inflammation but are eventually suppressed by the immune system. In some cases, the microbe invades the lungs and leads to viral or bacterial pneumonia. Some H5N1 strains, however, have two features that make them even more dangerous.
Normally, the flu viruses can replicate only in the throat and lungs. With H5N1, however, the protein that triggers replication can be activated in many other organs, including the liver, intestines and brain. What is usually a respiratory infection can suddenly become a whole-body infection. Simultaneously, a second "defect" in the virus unleashes a storm of immune-system chemicals called cytokines. In normal amounts, cytokines help fight microbial invaders. In excessive amounts, they can cause lethal damage to the body's own tissues...
...H5N1's potential as the next pandemic virus is all a matter of probability and opportunity.
Influenza A is a simple virus. That is one of the things that makes it so adaptable and potentially dangerous. It flourishes in hundreds of animal species with only 10 genes and a genome of 13,600 nucleotides, or "letters." (The human genetic code, in comparison, has about 25,000 genes and 3 billion nucleotides.) Of course, influenza virus needs more than 10 genes to replicate itself and spread. Like all viruses, it gets what it needs from the cells it invades, hijacking their molecular machinery.
Influenza A's adaptability arises, in part, because its genes are carried on eight unconnected strands, called "gene segments."
The segments can be traded like cards in a game of hearts, producing new strains of flu, the equivalent of new hands of cards. But that can happen only if two different viruses find themselves in the same cell, which is a very rare event. However, when millions of people, chickens and pigs -- the last animal can be infected by both human and bird influenza viruses -- live close together, as they do in China, rare events happen.
This gene-trading is called "reassortment." In the 1960s, Webster hypothesized that something like reassortment -- the process had not yet been discovered -- must explain the really big changes that appeared every once in a while in human flu viruses. This is the theory he tested in his London experiment decades ago.
There he asked for a little space at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill and access to the famous lab's collection of human serum and influenza viruses.
He mixed antibody-rich serum from victims of the 1957 flu pandemic with samples of avian flu viruses. In a matter of hours, he saw the human antibodies attack some of the microbes. This showed that the 1957 human virus shared features with some of the bird viruses.
"It's the only paper I've ever done based on just one day of experiments," he recalled recently, still both proud and amazed.
It turns out that of the Asian flu's eight gene segments, three had recently arrived from birds, according to an analysis of the genes' molecular fingerprints that was done much later. Two of the bird genes were for surface proteins that give a flu virus its immunological identity -- hemagglutinin and neuraminidase (denoted "H" and "N").
Something similar happened in 1968, when the Hong Kong flu strain got a new "H" from birds through reassortment, as well as a bird version of another, less important, gene segment. That strain, too, caused a pandemic.
The other way avian flu viruses can adapt to become human viruses is by slowly acquiring mutations. As small changes pile up, the virus's behavior can evolve. One trait that can appear is the capacity to enter human cells easily. That, and the ability to replicate efficiently once inside, are the two requirements for contagiousness.
Evolution of flu viruses is inevitable because the microbe is prone to making mistakes as it copies its genes. The more times a virus replicates, the more opportunity there is for a new mutation to arise that allows easy person-to-person transmission. For that reason, suppressing H5N1 outbreaks in birds -- where the microbe is replicating trillions of times a day -- is a crucial tool in preventing a human outbreak. China and Indonesia have vaccinated poultry flocks against H5N1, and Vietnam this month is starting a two-year, $35 million campaign to do so, too.
The highly lethal H5N1 viruses isolated from last year's human cases of avian flu were genetically 99 percent identical to each other. The slightly less lethal -- but perhaps more transmissible -- virus taken from patients in northern Vietnam early this year is only 98 percent identical to last year's; more important, it isn't completely inhibited by antibodies to last year's strain. It may be on its way to becoming a new, human-adapted strain.
But H5N1 flu isn't evolving just in human hosts. It's also changing in birds in a dangerous way.
Decades ago, Webster demonstrated that waterfowl are the true "home range" of influenza A viruses -- another of his key scientific contributions. For nearly 30 years, he and his colleagues have annually sampled wild ducks in the birds' nesting grounds in Alberta, looking for new flu strains. Since 1985, they have also sampled the feces of more than 5,000 migrating shorebirds along Delaware Bay.
H5N1 strains with slightly different traits have appeared several times in East Asia since the first one emerged in southern China in 1996. Last fall, while analyzing a strain circulating after an outbreak in Hong Kong in 2002, one of Webster's post-doctoral researchers, Diane Hulse, made an unusually important observation.
Many ducks experimentally infected with the virus didn't die, even though the strain was highly lethal to chickens. But one of the duck viruses was highly lethal to ferrets, the animal whose susceptibility mirrors that of people. This meant that killing infected chickens wasn't going to be enough to stop the spread of the microbe. Ducks could serve as a permanent reservoir of H5N1 virus.
Webster immediately informed officials at the WHO, who in turn sounded the alarm. They announced that ducks -- there are 2 billion domestic ones in East Asia -- might be "silent carriers" of H5N1 influenza strains potentially fatal to people.
The discovery by Hulse and Webster led, in part, to an extreme program Thailand mounted last November. About 70,000 investigators went into every village in the country looking for sick ducks and sampling the feces of healthy-looking ones. Flocks carrying H5N1 influenza virus were killed.
The strategy appears to have worked. Last year, Thailand had 12 human deaths from H5N1 flu. So far this year, it has had none.
Stretching out before Webster and public health experts is a long list chores the world must complete if it is to abort the bird-to-man transfer of disease he long ago proved could happen.
Last month, two teams of scientists based in China, one assisted by Webster, proved that H5N1 is now circulating in several species of migratory birds capable of carrying the virus to India, Australia and Central Asia. Tests announced last week suggest that some of those long-distance fliers have already carried H5N1 into Mongolia, where it hadn't been seen before.
A task equal in importance to charting the spread of H5N1 is developing and distributing a good duck vaccine for the billions of those birds in East Asia.
Those countries, which collectively are the likely ground zero of pandemic flu, also need to improve their disease surveillance. In particular, they need to develop laboratories capable of safely isolating and testing influenza viruses.
And while they are doing that, they -- and the rest of the world, Webster believes -- would be well advised to draw up a plan to limit human movement and distribute vaccine and antiviral drugs should a pandemic flu strain emerge despite the efforts to prevent it.
#1
A couple of potentially useful "home remedies", as far as prevention go, are first, cranberry juice, which has shown some ability to prevent cell transfer of some viruses. Second, are metallic zinc and silver, which if uptaken by the mucous membranes inhibit pathogen reproduction. The best overall method of limiting exposure remains hand sanitizing at reasonably frequent intervals and staying out of close quarters with other people during a flu outbreak.
There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository. The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame.
Of course, no one's bothered to go after the young men involved ...
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting. EFL - When will science ever find the cure?
The newspaper also reported that students will face mounting tensions created by unplanned child-rearing responsibilities, causing students to quit school and plan for a GED. This will make it difficult for the Canton City School District to shake its academic watch designation by the state.
Yes, the pregnancies might be a problem in that regard, as might the fact that many of the young wymyms & boys can't read or write at grade level. That would be obvious to me but I don't have an Education Ph.D.
According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July show that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between 11 and 19. The newspaper reports that the non-Canton rate was 7 percent.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 15:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame."
Heh... Do I need to tell them that none of these things as presently understood can get you pregnant?
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/23/2005 15:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies
#3
..statistics through July show that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between 11 and 19.
Lemme guess; small town? Not much in the way of activities other than humping?
#4
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting.
Yep, brought to you by the people who eat up your local, state, and federal education money and can't get students in the 12th grade to pass 9th grade level tests. Is there any wonder why sex education wouldn't show the same collapse in comprehension that math, reading, and writing does? Sex education was rationalized as a means to prevent teenage pregnancy. See how effective our professional educators are.
#6
The nonprofit group, 'Americaâs Promise-The Alliance for Youth' surveyed Stark County teens about their potential of achieving the American Dream.
âGetting married, having a family and a dog and all that stuff still works, but itâs not our first goal,â Holly Taylor; 17 said. âGirls want to go out and do their own things first and not be settled."
Sheeeeesh, at the very least, haven't these kids ever heard of a condom? What the hell do they teach in sex ed other than abortion? What ever happened to tab A fits into slot B and produces object C after nine months?
#8
in addition to pregnancy, prevention and parenting they should be covering paternity and palimony. I think there's another p involved, but I can't put my finger on it.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/23/2005 16:34 Comments ||
Top||
#9
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies,
I'm beginning to think noone's told them yet...
Young Child:... and then Mommy kissed Daddy, and the angel told the stork, and the stork flew down from heaven, and put the diamond in the cabbage patch, and the diamond turned into a baby!
Pugsley: Our parents are having a baby too.
Wednesday: They had sex.
Posted by: Phil ||
08/23/2005 17:41 Comments ||
Top||
#10
When young girls give birth to babies it's important to keep them in school if possible so they have some type of a future other than welfare.
Some high schools allow these girls to attend school and bring along their kids, with daycare etc programmed in. (not many girls even take advantage of these programs) The well meant intentions seem to be backfiring with these girls getting alot of attention, and free gifts from various groups, while the girls that haven't gotten pregnant aren't getting this attention making it look to them like this is the way to get it.
Also I've found that the mothers of these young girls feel sorry for them having to stay home to care for their new babies, so take care of the baby for them to go out and have some fun. Which they do and their fun is transformed into another pregnancy.
It is not uncommon to see teenagers giving birth to more than one baby. I see families actually happy about their young daughter giving birth to a second sometimes third baby still being unmarried or without the father involved, and no support other than the US Government.
Still being under the magical age of 21 they can't get their tubes tied, so end up getting pregnant yet again. To afford birth control of any sort seems unheard of in some circles which is very sad. If the religion followed in the household doesn't believe in birth control, at least have your family teach abstinence until you're prepared as parents that know parenting skills and can nurture these children to become happy and well adjusted etc. Not many give their babies up for adoption either. Then tack on the housing and additional gifties that are handed out here. Very hard to get father's to pay when they themselves are young teens as well, or sometimes they don't know the father.
Lot's of sexually transmitted diseases, drugs, and several layers of abuse here too.
Sad very sad.
I must say that I like how Israel has their youth join the military out of high school then go on to school. With there being many areas that need assistance, some could serve stateside. There are many ways to serve our country and I'd like to see our youth give to our country first. This would be a valuable tool/lesson I think.
We all need to show our support for our country with our actions before we slide down and out the gutters.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/23/2005 18:00 Comments ||
Top||
#11
COPY EDITOR!! Get in here!
-- Perry White
65 Girls At Area School Pregnant
School To Unveil Three-Prong Program
#15
"I must say that I like how Israel has their youth join the military out of high school then go on to school."
There is a reason for that. If Hamas and the PLF weren't at their doorstep, there would be plenty of teen pregnancies in Israel because they wouldn't have to join the military.
#16
This is not "girls gone wild" -- this is a community destroyed:
Median Household Income: $9,455
Average Household Size: 1.4 persons
Median Age of Housing: 63 years
Median Value of Housing Unit: $30,300
% Renting: 96%
% Students Eligible for Free Lunch: 45%
Graduation Rate: 51%
#17
that didn't happen at once...this has been a downhill city with lack of moral outrage and action for decades, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 21:23 Comments ||
Top||
#18
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies
There is a possibility that there have been a lot of unprotected turkey basters being passed around. But that possibility is in the 1/100th percentile.
Freedom without responsibility is license. It sounds like parents' teaching of responsibility to their children is in the 1/100th percentile, also.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/23/2005 22:15 Comments ||
Top||
#19
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies
Anyone have their email address? I want to tell them:
Fucking causes pregnancies
Geeze.. and these people are educating our kids? Now how can I spend that Nobel Peace Prize money....
(pardon my french....but sometimes you just have to call it like it is....)
In three separate cases, the California Supreme Court yesterday ruled a child legally can have two mothers, effectively expanding the make-up of a family in the state.
The rulings are the first in the nation to grant full parental status to both members of same-sex couples who participated in planning and rearing a child.
In Elisa B. v. Superior Court., the court held that a lesbian who had agreed to raise the children born to her partner, but then split up with her partner, was required to pay child support for the children as a parent.
In K.M. v. E.G., the court held that the existence of a written waiver of rights was no bar to a lesbian woman who had donated ova to her partner to assist in an in vitro fertilization from asserting rights as a parent.
And in Kristine H. v. Lisa R., the court found that a stipulation signed by the natural mother conferred a legal right to her lesbian partner to exercise the role of a parent over the child.
"The California Supreme Court is determined not to be outdone in the aggressive fashioning of new social policy under the guise of deciding legal cases," Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, said in a statement. "These cases, read together, demonstrate beyond question the social and political agenda of the court. They have little or nothing to do with law."
Continued Crampton: "The arrogance of the California court in attempting to redefine the family by the mere stroke of a pen is nothing short of extraordinary."
In the K.M. v. E.G. case, the state high court, in a 4-2 decision, found lesbian K.M. to be a legal parent.
"A woman who supplies ova to be used to impregnate her lesbian partner, with the understanding that the resulting child will be raised in their joint home, cannot waive her responsibility to support that child," the majority opinion stated. "Nor can such a purported waiver effectively cause that woman to relinquish her parental rights."
In Elisa B. v. Emily B., the court explained that there is no "reason why both parents of a child cannot be women."
"Today's ruling defies logic and common sense," [Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel] said. "By saying that children can have two moms, the court has undermined the family. This ruling establishes a policy that essentially says moms and dads are mere surplus. Thousands of studies conclude that children need moms and dads, not two moms and two dads, but one of each. Gender does matter to children.
#1
Today's ruling defies logic and common sense...
Only if you don't understand that law and the constitution are written in an ancient and arcane language that is only comprehensible to lawyers and judges and not by us mere mortal peasant folks. Shhh...and quit questioning your betters.
New York Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel says many blacks' woes can be traced back to an 18th century Englishman, insisting, "In 1712, British slave owner Willie Lynch ... [came to] Virginia to teach his methods of keeping slaves under control ... Almost 300 years later, the techniques that he prescribed seem to have not only been successful in controlling slaves, but lasting as a means of weakening and destroying the black family."
Thing is, Willie Lynch never existed according to a history professor at Spelman College, an historically black school in Atlanta. Professor Jelani Cobb, quoted by the Washington Times, says Willie is an urban legend, which first "appeared" on the Internet a few years ago.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/23/2005 01:09 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Charlie Rangel is another one of those prime examples of why the Democrats cannot be trusted. He's David Duke in blackface.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/23/2005 7:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Who is Charlie if not a usually bigotted, loud- mouthed and largely ignorant politician who never lets the truth get in the way of his ambition and agenda? This one is him at his best.
#3
Charlie is about 10 years behind Farrakhan. Louie told his audience of 1500 people at the 1995 Million Man March of the Willie Lynch speech.
Professor Jelani Cobb's assessment of the veracity of the Willie Lynch speech is here. There are many problems with this document â not the least of which is the fact that it is absolutely fake.
#7
Since Willie Lynch's speech seems to have originated in the early 1990s from someone's imagination, there's no reason not to believe that the term "lynching" originated during the Revolutionary War. Which is probably more evidence that the supposed 1712 speech is a hoax and the name "Lynch" was chosen to further provoke the black community.
#10
This just in....a second source has surfaced to collaborate Congressman Charlie Rangel's speech about Willie Lynch. The source remains in secret behind a white sheet.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/23/2005 14:36 Comments ||
Top||
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Fewer than 50,000 whites remain in authoritarian governed Zimbabwe, down from a peak of nearly 300,000 under white rule, according to recent census data published Monday.
The number of white Zimbabweans has continued to drop since the census was conducted in August 2002 amid the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans, analysts said. Some independent experts estimate fewer than 30,000 whites remain. The so-called fast-track land reform, coupled with years of drought, has crippled Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy. Inflation and unemployment have soared and an estimated four million people are in need of food aid in what was once a regional breadbasket.
Initial results of the 2002 census published in December that year showed that 3 million to 4 million Zimbabweans had fled the country as economic refugees, bringing the total population down to below 12 million.
Adding to the problem has been widespread and confirmed allegations of human rights abuses leveled as President Robert Mugabe's authoritarian government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently labeled Zimbabwe an outpost of tyranny, while world governments and human rights groups have accused his party of rigging elections, repressing opponents and driving agriculture to the brink of collapse.
A detailed analysis of the results of the latest census was completed recently and published Monday in the state-owned Herald newspaper. Among the findings were that whites numbered just 46,743 in 2002, The Herald reported. Nearly 10,000 of them were over the age of 65, and less than 9,000 were under 15. The white population peaked at 293,000 in 1974. White rule ended six years later.
Zimbabwe's loss; the people who have left -- white or black -- are the ones who could, and usually those who could are the smart ones.
Other African nations, including Mozambique and Nigeria, have welcomed Zimbabwe's experienced white farmers in the hopes they can help boost commercial agricultural production. But Zimbabwe officials have appeared undisturbed by the dwindling population.
Didymus Mutasa, now head of the country's feared Central Intelligence Organization, told the British Broadcasting Corp. at the time of the census that he would be happy to see Zimbabwe's population halved. "We would be better off with only 6 million people, with our own people who supported the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people," he said.
Seems like that's just where they're headed once the Four Horseman finish the job.
Last week, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa slashed spending on health and education even further to fund the reconstruction of homes and businesses destroyed in a widely condemned slum clearance campaign.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/23/2005 00:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#5
Well get one of them over here to do my plantin.
Posted by: Farmin B. Hard ||
08/23/2005 12:08 Comments ||
Top||
#6
We Americans should somehow encourage this remnant Boer population to emmigrate here. There is pleanty of farmland available in several of the western states.... and I don't see these folks voting moonbat, either.
#9
Issue is White Africans are just as African as the black ones. This reverse discrimination is what drives the Kleptocracies to turn a blind eye whenever Countries on the dark continent try to RE-Africanize. I agree let them come Stateside, they are hard workers and would not vote monnbattery. Let Africa implode.
LUDZIDZINI (Swaziland) â A five-year no-sex rite for Swazi girls aimed at halting the spread of Aids ended yesterday as more than 20,000 young women symbolically dropped their woollen âdonât touch meâ tassels in a ceremony.
Swazilandâs maidens have forsaken their tassles and the âumchwashoâ chastity pledge ahead of the annual reed dance ceremony where the king is expected to choose yet another new bride. âWe are happy that we are through with this and I am very proud that I have been faithful to this rite,â said Ntombi Dlamini, as the ânational flowersâ (maidens) tossed their tassles on a large heap at the Queen Motherâs royal residence in Ludzidzini, in central Swaziland. âI have abstained for the past five years,â the 19-year-old woman told AFP.
"Lookout boys, here I come!"
Thembi Tsabedze, 17, said at first she did not like the idea of wearing woollen tassles â a symbol of chastity â âbut now I appreciate the purpose that it was intended for,â she said.
Introduced by King Mswati III in September 2001, the rite was aimed at reducing the spread of HIV and Aids in a country wedged between South Africa and Mozambique, and with the worldâs highest infection rate, where close to 40 per cent of adults live with the disease.
Breaching the chastity vow before marriage was punishable and any person who violated a maiden was fined one cow, or around 1,300 emalangeni (200 dollars). But the practice had been attacked by social workers who said it was ineffective. Mswati himself breached the ban and was fined a cow for picking a teenaged girl as his ninth wife.
Parents of young Swazi men said they were also glad to see the end of umchwasho, which they said left them impoverished as they had to help their sons pay for their transgressions. The annual reed dance, where bare-breasted maidens perform before the king, will start on August 28 and last for two days.
As a 14 year old, that was one of the best parts of the movie Zulu.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/23/2005 00:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Planetary scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out sites for potential human bases on the Moon. Previous missions have observed the Moon at a range of wavelengths. But none have boasted Hubble's sharp resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths - it can identify spectral features just 50 metres across over swathes of lunar terrain. "We're trying to ascertain the potential of ultraviolet spectra for indicating lunar resources," says Bruce Hapke, a planetary scientist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, US. He is one of a team of six researchers led by NASA's chief scientist, Jim Garvin, using Hubble to view the Moon.
#1
C'mon guys... can we beat the Chinese in setting up a moonbase alpha. Please?
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
08/23/2005 0:56 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Or the Iranians for that matter.
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
08/23/2005 0:56 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Overlooking the golf course would be nice.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/23/2005 1:14 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Who are we to dream, our country is stuck on a dumb archaic shuttle. The Hubble will probably be closest we gringos get an eye on the moon in the next few decades.
And since the Hubble depends on shuttle maintenance runs, mama mia. We screwed.
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
08/23/2005 1:18 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Dismantle NASA, go private
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/23/2005 1:20 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The Chinese would buy out any privatized based stuff we got going.
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
08/23/2005 1:24 Comments ||
Top||
#7
...our country is stuck on a dumb archaic shuttle... the Hubble depends on shuttle maintenance runs...
Interesting observations, Mac. Point the Hubble at the Earth instead of celestial bodies, and what do you call it? KH-11. And why was the shuttle built at all?
A brief history of the National Reconaissance Office (NRO) will reveal a series of bureaucratic fights between the USAF and the CIA. The CIA had the upper hand from NRO's birth through the '80s, but the proportion of blue suiters has increased steadily in the past 15 years, indicating that the CIA has lost interest.
Image processing is all fine and dandy, but perhaps the Directorate of Technology had a deeper motive than eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was. Perhaps the CIA was actually after the delivery vehicle.
Taken in isolation, such a theory might qualify me for the schizoid/paranoiac olympics, but there is another data point. This one in "inner space." After the hub-ub created by the book Blind Man's Bluff, John P. Craven felt compelled to tell some of his sea stories, and in so doing correcting a few errors in Bluff.
Craven's volume was not a best-seller. It should have been. I will not repeat Craven's deeply disturbing account of the K-129 fiasco. After Craven retired from US gov't service, he found that the Glomar Explorer represented a significant obstacle to his dreams of commercial exploration, exploitation, and perhaps even human settlement of Neptune's domain.
The Explorer's official cover story of Manganese-nodule mining excited big corporations and prompted them to spend lots of money in R&D. These companies discovered that such mining was not commercially feasable, but not before vast amounts of time and capital vanished forever. The overtly covert nature of the Explorer did not matter -- perceptions were engraved. A good portion of the UN's Law of the Sea Treaty is devoted to a mindless code for manganese nodule mining. Craven could not speak his mind at the time due to security restrictions.
Re-reading Blind Man's Bluff, I came a cross one sentence that struck me. In the '60s, the CIA attempted to set up something called the NURO - National Underwater Reconaissance Office. The Navy fought it, after seeing what happened with the NRO. Sontag and Drew don't give any indications of the NURO's fate.
All inference, I know. But there was a remarkable article posted on Rantburg a few weeks ago.Link. It has stuck in my mind since I saw it.
#8
Rory, What? The CIA was after the delivery vehicle? Meaning the shuttle? Why the hell would they want that when they can and have put up satellites of their own? Why put up a seperate survelliance sat when all communications goes through current sats that they could bug prior to launch if they really wanted to (since the US did the bulk of launching for some time).
#9
Why the hell would they want that when they can and have put up satellites of their own?
They didn't want the shuttle so they could launch satellites, exactly. I contend that the CIA wanted to influnce the shuttle design to ensure that it never became an efficient launch system. NASA couldn't get funding for the shuttle, until they agreed to make it large enough to carry a KH-11, which is basically a Hubble pointed at the Earth.
Like the Glomar Explorer, the Shuttle was designed to soak up huge amounts of development capital, planting the notion that space travel is ruinously expensive.
In the article that I linked to, Jonathan Huebner contends that the rate of technological innovation is slowing down dramatically. The advances we have nowadays are mostly refinements instead of break-throughs. I think he is broadly correct, and the main reason is that several governments, and especially the US gov't, is sitting on large amounts of technology. Mind you, I'm not saying I disagree with the policy.
#10
In the article that I linked to, Jonathan Huebner contends that the rate of technological innovation is slowing down dramatically. The advances we have nowadays are mostly refinements instead of break-throughs. I think he is broadly correct, and the main reason is that several governments, and especially the US gov't, is sitting on large amounts of technology. Mind you, I'm not saying I disagree with the policy.
My God. It looks like the Co-Dominium is actually going to take place
Seriously if the PRC does sucees in placing men on the lunar surface watch for them to claim the whole Moon for themselves. Not that many people would care, at least until the Rods From God started hitting.
#11
CIA had nothing to do with the shuttle, it was the United States Air Force that wanted to be able to put military satellites up and insisted on the massive payload. Besides that the Hubble is not some extra large special satelite, what makes it special is that it is put into a higher orbit than most satelites which makes it difficult/expensive to fix.
A spy satelite wouldn't need to be in that higher orbit and putting something up there doesn't require a shuttle, just a a large rocket (which the Air Force shifted to after the Challenger disaster).
The connections are not there, the logic is not there, I think you have been misinformed.
#12
I think he is broadly correct, and the main reason is that several governments, and especially the US gov't, is sitting on large amounts of technology. Mind you, I'm not saying I disagree with the policy.
Like what? And why?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/23/2005 17:51 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Don't forget about the willful turning away from electro-gravitation-love beams back in 1964. Someday it will become clear that we became a nation of liquid propelled rocket nutz right when Venus was rising. It's a shame. Someone needs to pay. This is why we lost the Battle of the Harvest Moon and the Betty Crockercrats have the upper hand.
#14
What was that TV show back in the '70's where a junk yard owner launched shots into orbit to 'salvage' space junk? I think Andy Griffith played the owner.
Ah... IMDB is your friend. The name of the show was Salvage....
from 1979...
#15
Back to the Moonbase... I see it as functionally different from a Mars base. Moon operations will need to be mostly underground, because of the severe abrasiveness of Lunar dust and the need for large amounts of living and working area. Ironically, the above ground activities will center on scooping up large quantities of the dust and taking it below ground--for processing--concentrating the H3 for shipment back to Earth. This means that the some of the first equipment that goes to the Moon will have to be mining equipment. Digging shafts and tunnels to accommodate the processing equipment. Physical constraints would probably mean that this tunneling would have to be done slowly--too slowly for human supervision--so would have to be done by mining robots. The new US, 100-ton heavy lift rocket will be of great help in getting these heavy systems to the Moon.
#16
rjschwarz:CIA had nothing to do with the shuttle, it was the United States Air Force that wanted to be able to put military satellites up and insisted on the massive payload. If first glance, yes, the CIA had nothing to do with the shuttle. But the satellites the shuttle was required to lift were CIA-designed. As per the NRO history link: "By informal agreement, the Air Force provided launchers, bases, and recovery capability for reconnaissance systems, while the Agency was responsible for research, development, contracting, and security. Essentially, the agreement allowed the Agency to decide which systems would be deployed, and the Air Force challenged the CIA's jurisdiction." The informal arraingments were formalized in 1965. A three-man executive comittee was established, made up of the DCI, an ass't sec. of Defense, and the President's scientific advisor. This panel reported to the Secretary of Defense. The arrangement put the DCI in charge of establishing "collection requirements in consultation with USIB." If he disagreed with the SecDef, the DCI could appeal directly to the President. Estabilishing collection requirements would in effect put the CIA in charge of designing the satellites.
Furthermore, this document link suggests that the KH-11 represented a leap in technology the prior satellite programs. Page 15 (as marked in pen in the bottom right) specifically mentions that the leap approach was favored by the CIA, and the Land Panel, which advised the President's Scientific Advisor. This organizational history (link) states: "...although CIA usually handled IMINT and Air Force had primary responsibility for SIGINT." The KH-11 is (was?) most decidedly imint.
I believe the spy satellite requirement was intended to hobble the shuttle, which brings us to LotR: Like what? And why?
I could not say with any degree of confidnece what they have and don't have. What I see are programs designed to stifle development, commercial and otherwise, in certain spheres.
Huebner cites two examples of "trunk" technology (as opposed to the small branches we're filling out now.): "major fields like transportation or the generation of energy." Shuttle and the Glomar Explorer would qualify as transportation. Last time man had a major breakthrough in energy production, man learned to split the atom (and we learned fusion, but we can't control that, yet). This was of course, preceeded by advances in our knowledge of the physical world. There is certainly room for improvement in physics today in unifying different theories.
And that leads us to "why" The last time there was a breakthrough, the nuclear bomb, pound for pound, humbled the chemical explosives that had preceded it. We may have found something more powerful than the atom bomb. I don't know.
Our main opponents for the past 60 years, Russia and China, display remarkably little technical innovation. This is due to their economies. What breakthroughs they get, they steal through espionage, either traditional or industrial. Limiting our own development, commercial and military, also slows our opponents.
#17
A lunar base would likely be built on or around a lava tube. This is what the Artemis folks have suggested at least. Natural hollow that you could take over, expand out and only worry about sealing the top.
Rory B. Bellows, Nasa could easily have designed a dual system, a smaller shuttle and large lift vehicle. They made a bad call try for the simplicity of all in one design. There was no conspiracy involved, just a number of engineering trade-offs over time and some bullshit guesses on how much per pound the shuttle could deliver product to orbit.
Look at the history of space station freedom, begun under Reagan and totally unrecognizable from the ISS of today. Design tradeoffs combined with politics.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A devastated Newton-John is said to be clinging to the hope that Patrick Kim McDermott, 47, is still alive because his body has not been recovered two months after he failed to return from an overnight fishing trip off California. But police suspect the photographer may have staged his disappearance. 
BRITAIN could be facing a bra shortage after an EU ban blocked £50million of Chinese-made clothing heading for the UK, a trade body warned today. It means some shops could run out of trousers, pullovers, blouses and other items in the coming months, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said. And the number of bras on shop floors could also drop, a spokeswoman for the BRC said.
AUSTRALIA'S tourism pitch into North America will soon hit the road, with a bus touring dozens of cities to publicise the virtues of the land Down Under as a holiday destination. Tourism Australia said today it had also joined forces with influential publisher National Geographic in a multimillion-dollar campaign to target North America. Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said the marketing and public relations partnership would extend Tourism Australia's reach and penetration through one of the world's most powerful brands.
A powerful group of American fashion chains, including Gap Inc, has thrown its support behind a proposal to end the war between US animal rights activists and Australian wool groups. The retailers, with combined annual sales of more than $US25 billion ($A33 billion), have urged two influential Australian wool groups who refuse to accept the peace deal to support the plan. "It is an extremely powerful group of retailers," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign co-ordinator Matt Rice told AAP.
In the tradition of aid concerts that have raised money for everything from poverty in Africa to hurting farmers, a pro-
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Fewer than 50,000 whites remain in authoritarian governed Zimbabwe, down from a peak of nearly 300,000 under white rule, according to recent census data published Monday.
Planetary scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out sites for potential human bases on the Moon. Previous missions have observed the Moon at a range of wavelengths. But none have boasted Hubble's sharp resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths - it can identify spectral features just 50 metres across over swathes of lunar terrain. "We're trying to ascertain the potential of ultraviolet spectra for indicating lunar resources," says Bruce Hapke, a planetary scientist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, US. He is one of a team of six researchers led by NASA's chief scientist, Jim Garvin, using Hubble to view the Moon.
