Swimming with dolphins appears to help alleviate mild to moderate depression, researchers have found.
A University of Leicester team tested the effect of regular swimming sessions with dolphins on 15 depressed people in a study carried out in Honduras. They found that symptoms improved more among this group than among another 15 who swam in the same area - but did not interact with dolphins. The study is published in the British Medical Journal.
All the volunteers who took part in the trial stopped taking antidepressant drugs or undergoing psychotherapy at least four weeks beforehand. Half the volunteers swam and snorkelled around dolphins for one hour a day over a two-week period. The others took part in the same activities, but without dolphins around. Two weeks later, both groups showed improved mental health, but especially so among patients who had been swimming with the dolphins.
The researchers say dolphins' aesthetic value, and the emotions raised by the interaction may have healing properties. Some have speculated that the ultrasound emitted by dolphins as part of their echolocation system may have a beneficial effect. The Leicester team believe that using animals in this way could be a productive way to treat leftism depression and other psychiatric illnesses.
Dr Ryrie said research had shown the symptoms of depression could be ameliorated by pet assisted therapy. The technique had also been shown to aid young people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and older people with dementia. "Animals, and especially mammals, can favourably change our social dynamic, which is typically one of withdrawal and increasing isolation among people with depression. Swimming with and caring for dolphins as a group activity in a vacation context is very likely therefore to alleviate depression."
However, he said researchers would probably do better to focus their efforts on animal interactions that were more readily available closer to home. Yep. Give Me a Samoyed and a fire on a cold day. I was never more content than reading on the couch with Coco sleeping on top of My feet.
#1
Nothing like curling up on a chilly night, under a goose-feather comforter, and three cats curled up around your feet and knees.
Besides, I'll bet dolphins don't purr when you skritch them on the top of their heads, or under their chins.
#2
I always sleep better with a cat on my lap - unless it's a jaguar or a tiger, then I have trouble sleeping. Luckily we don't have any of those, just a couple of "wannabees".
This isn't new. "Pet Therapy" has been a valid psychological program for two decades or more. People over 75 who have pets live longer than those who don't. Badly burned children respond better and heal faster when they can be around pets. Why knows why? Just accept it and be glad.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/30/2005 20:10 Comments ||
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#3
except for hungry Pit bulls and Rotts, I love animals. They have an inherent healing in all of us.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/30/2005 20:13 Comments ||
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#4
You want a friend in Washington, I highly recommend a dog.
#5
People over 75 who have pets live longer than those who don't.
Figured that a long time ago. Not sure if quantity influences quality, but decided not to take any chances and thus I have 8 purring felines. But since we are a family of 3, I have at least 2.66 cats to my name.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Adolescents who regularly smoke marijuana risk damaging a key brain pathway associated with language development and some predisposed to schizophrenia may contract the illness early, researchers said on Wednesday. Brain scans revealed microscopic abnormalities in a region of the brain that governs higher aspects of language and listening functions in adolescents who are heavy marijuana smokers. Similar damage to the bundle of fibers, called the arcuate fasciculus, that connect the Broca's area in the left frontal lobe and the Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe was found in the brains of marijuana smokers and schizophrenics studied.
"These findings suggest that in addition to interfering with normal brain development, heavy marijuana use in adolescents may also lead to an earlier onset of schizophrenia in individuals who are genetically predisposed to the disorder," said psychiatry professor Sanjiv Kumra of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
The researchers scanned the brains of 114 subjects, 26 of whom were selected because they were diagnosed schizophrenics. Of the schizophrenic group, 15 smoked marijuana. Another 15 subjects were nonschizophrenic adolescent male marijuana smokers who were matched against nonsmokers. It was those smokers whose scans showed abnormalities in the language and listening pathway. The brain's language pathway continues to develop during adolescence and is susceptible to neurotoxins introduced through marijuana use, the researchers said.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/30/2005 15:30 ||
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#1
Oh Thank God! I'm no longer an adolescent. You had me worried there for a second.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/30/2005 19:39 Comments ||
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#10
Uhhh, yawwwww. IR2.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/30/2005 19:46 Comments ||
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#11
I glad I arnt no injeneer - just a darned good tecknition.... an' I don't smoke pot! Utherwise, I mite be misttook fer un o' them durty traindrivers!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/30/2005 20:14 Comments ||
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#12
Since I have all you attention, please don't overlook pot's use against nausea and to some extent pain relief. From experience, it kicks ass over the prescribed anti-nausea drugs. I'm talking illness induced nausea, not that from reading the news. Pot may help that too, but that is a different issue.
Hopefully, none of you will ever be in the position where it is necessary.
Man pulls truck with penis Why? Because he can...pictures too. FREMONT â The ancient Greeks worshipped it. Sigmund Freud said women envy it. And on Tuesday, a man pulled a truck with it.
Yes, you read that right. He pulled a truck with his penis. Could come in handy for those rush hour breakdowns on the Expressway...
Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng, best known for his Iron Crotch, attached himself not once, but twice, to a rental moving truck and pulled it several yards across a parking lot in Fremont. In lace-up leather boots and a black tank top, the 50-year-old tied a strip of blue fabric around the base of his penis and testicles and tugged to make sure it was on tight. An assistant kicked him hard between the legs before he lashed himself to the vehicle. That'd be enough for me. He wouldn't have to pull the truck.
He groaned, grunted and pressed against two men for resistance.
Then, slowly, the truck began to roll forward. About 20 people, most of whom study Qigong, the ancient Chinese art of movement and breathing to increase energy and pulling trucks with your Johnson, gathered for the truck pull in an unassuming office park just off Interstate 880. Only 20 people? He probably could've sold out Candlestick. Definitely needs a new PR guy.
A documentary film director and producer from London were on hand to shoot the jaw-dropping feat for a three-part series called Penis Envy, scheduled to air next year on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. Footage from the truck pull will be used for the series piece on building the perfect penis. No thanks. It ain't perfect, but mine's just fine the way it is.
"He's very special. Powerful. Superman", said an awe-struck Shawnee Wang, who studies Qigong with Jin-Sheng at his gym in Cupertino. "I just came here to watch my master perform." ...and it's not like this will be on ABC's Wide World of Sports.
Jin-Sheng, the grandmaster of Iron Crotch, a branch of Qigong also known as 99 Qigong, is said to have 60,000 followers worldwide. Its practitioners are known to lift hundreds of pounds with their genitals to increase energy and sexual performance. One of Jin-Shengs most famous students, a 70-year-old man in Taiwan, is said to have lifted more than 660 pounds with his penis. Chubby chaser maybe?
The grandmaster teaches Iron Crotch and Qigong in Fremont and Cupertino. Tha Jin-Shengs performance drew a hearty applause (and only a few gasps) from the sparse crowd. He wrapped a piece of fabric around his waist to conceal his genitals from the crowd, but in the heat of the second truck pull, when he tied the cloth around his testicles only, it was pushed aside to reveal a ball of flesh that looked ready to burst. EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Jin-Sheng wiped the sweat from his brow after the show and said through an interpreter that he felt comfortable and warm. Oh, I'll bet.
When asked if he was in any pain, he laughed. If its painful, he said, then you will see it bleed. ...or it'll fly through the air and I'll be in deep trouble.
His wife, Sandy, snapped photos while her husband warmed up and then pulled the truck. The couple originally is from Taiwan and has lived in San Jose since 2003. They have four children, two boys and two girls, all of whom are top martial arts students.
So is Sandy the envy of her friends? Yes, she said, flashing a wide smile. Of course. He spins me like a tire iron! Whhhhhheeeeeeee!!!
Jin-Sheng was featured in the April 2005 edition of Penthouse magazine, in a story titled Facts and Phalluses of Americas Favorite Organ. In November 2003, he and his penis made the Weekly World News. I wonder if he's met Bat Boy or The Alien?
He believes that the sexual organs are a source of great power, said Gene Ching, associate publisher of the Fremont-based Kung Fu Magazine, which claims to have introduced Jin-Sheng to the United States and featured him on its March/April 2003 cover. So its sort of a vitality exercise. Ching, who does not study Iron Crotch, has heard that it does help in the bedroom. I imagine that if you can tow a truck, that is going to give you some skills, he said. I think if you just mention that you could pull trucks with it, that would grab a lotta chick's attention...
The grandmaster said the most challenging object he ever has pulled was a 60-foot truck â and that was with another man. These days, however, hes looking to up the ante. Jin-Sheng hopes to strap a dozen of his top students to a 747 for the biggest penis pull of all time. All he needs is an airplane. LET'S GET THIS MAN AN AIRPLANE!!!
What can you say? said Krishna Govender, the documentary film director who came from London specifically to meet Jin-Sheng and watch him work. The strength of this guy â its phenomenal. "What can you say" sums it up for me.
Govender has seen and heard many things during the making of the documentary. He flew to Russia to meet a doctor who grew a penis on a mans arm and later grafted it to his genitals. He interviewed countless men about their most private, and treasured, possession. But he never had seen a man pull a truck with one. Believe it or not, bub, that doesn't make you unique.
The most fraught relationship is that between man and his penis, he said. Its the most enduring one, as well. Wow. That sound like something right outta "Kung Fu"...
#6
Its practitioners are known to lift hundreds of pounds with their genitals to increase energy and sexual performance. One of Jin-Shengs most famous students, a 70-year-old man in Taiwan, is said to have lifted more than
660 pounds with his penis
.
this is way/NOT on my to do list.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/30/2005 14:29 Comments ||
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#7
Tu-Jin-Sheng. Ryder Truck wants to talk to you. Something about disclosure on the rental agreement.
Mugabe needs more than army to revive farming
THE Zimbabwean government's decision to turn to the army to revive the agricultural sector - the mainstay of the economy - is an admission of the failure of its land-reform policy and civilian administration. As starvation stalks millions in the country, President Robert Mugabe's regime has decided to rope in the army to launch a command agriculture operation to farm the vast tracts of land, now lying idle and derelict, which were seized from the country's (now displaced)EVICTED! white commercial farmers.
The agricultural sector, which was the backbone of Zimbabwe's economy, has practically collapsed due to the chaotic and often violent implementation of a necessary ???
but badly thought-through land reform programme. Instead of adopting a well-structured and adequately funded plan, Mugabe opted for a haphazard exercise, which has left a trail of destruction in its wake. The sector, which was infrastructurally sophisticated and highly mechanised, has been rubbished. Thousands of productive farms, modern equipment and crops were seized, while irrigation systems were vandalised in the name of land reform. In a space of five years, development which took nearly a century to achieve was reversed. In the end, the land reform programme became a great leap backwards. Don't give me the 'good idea, bad implementation' BS. It was a terrible idea that achieved exactly what Mugabe intended: a homeless, starving populace too weak to fight his goons. And South Africa's headed down the same blighted path.
Food shortages and the closure of downstream industries as well as foreign currency shortages due to the collapse of the sector have forced the government to resort to Stalinist agricultural planning. A feature, not a bug.
This illustrates that Mugabe has never had a consistent economic policy. He has adopted the command-agriculture (communist model) initiative in which farmers are given production targets. Those who fail to meet the targets risk having their farms confiscated, meaning the danger of another wave of farm expropriations remains high. Despite government's claims that land reform has ended, fresh land takeovers are under way. Farms are still being grabbed. But now the situation is worse because of a recent constitutional amendment that prohibits disposed farmers from resorting to the courts to protect their rights. The 'rule of law' how convenient.
Zimbabwe's Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga and other top government officials have, of late, been grabbing the headlines for seizing farms. Although some senior government officials have spoken out against more land grabs, the crusade will not stop if the rule of law and property rights are not restored. There is nothing that rattles investor confidence like the risk of arbitrary seizures of private property ...duhh, no shit.
No country in the world can prosper if government officials are practically above the law. Zimbabwe, a another failed African state by any measure, is today a classic case study of lawlessnessAfrican democracy. This is shocking considering that until quite recently it was one of the brightest spots in Africa. The cost of the land seizures, particularly the humanitarian cost, is extraordinarily high. The land grabs have undermined the economy and driven millions into poverty. Farm workers are the worst affected. The destruction of property and livelihoods has left Zimbabweans some of the poorest people on the continent. But the unique thing about Zimbabwe is that the poverty is man-made. While other countries suffer from a lack of resources, Zimbabwe has an abundance of resources ¡ª natural and human ¡ª but suffers a chronic drought of leadership. A parliamentary portfolio committee recently warned of more food shortages due to government¡¯s poor planning. The committee also said the command agriculture plan was bound to fail.
Meanwhile a report conducted by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, on which the government sits, recently revealed that 36% of the rural population was facing food shortages. Others have put the figure at around five million.
It will be interesting to see if Mugabe will, in the end, get away with his misrule. In any normal country there would be a political price to pay.
#4
besoeker - were you perhaps Rhodesiaforever before :-)
I still have hopes Bob and Grace won't die natural deaths
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/30/2005 18:06 Comments ||
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Instead of adopting a well-structured and adequately funded plan, Mugabe opted for a haphazard exercise, which has left a trail of destruction in its wake.
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Liberia's President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said on Wednesday a consensus would emerge on the future of former president and warlord Charles Taylor, after holding talks about him in Nigeria, where he is exiled. Johnson-Sirleaf said she had discussed Taylor, who is wanted for crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone, with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Nigeria's position is that it will only hand over Taylor to an elected Liberian government and will not send him to a third country. Some Liberian authorities believe any attempt to move him would upset the region's fragile recovery from war.
Asked whether her government was likely to request Taylor's extradition, she said: "We are still continuing our consultations on that issue. We've consulted with President Obasanjo. We believe that some consensus will be reached in due course. "We think with a little time we will find a solution that will preserve Liberia's peace and West African peace and meet the requirements of the international community," Johnson-Sirleaf told reporters in the Nigerian capital.
A nice heart attack comes to mind
Under Taylor, Liberia was seen as the epicentre of instability in the region. The country's own 14-year war, which spilled over into nearby countries, ended when Taylor went into exile in Nigeria in 2003.
Nigeria has come under intense pressure, including from the United Nations and the United States, to hand over Taylor to Sierra Leone, where he stands accused of backing rebels notorious for hacking off the limbs of their victims. Obasanjo has said Nigeria would not bow to such pressure. "Liberia is a good standing member of the United Nations and we abide by all the rules, but at the same time there are certain national and regional sensitivities that need to be taken into account," said Johnson-Sirleaf.
Translation: Chucky knows too much to go on trial in open court
Posted by: Steve ||
11/30/2005 12:03 ||
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Cleaning up the ballot by getting rid of all those messy opposition parties.
Insisting that congressional elections will be conducted fairly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is accusing the opposition of trying to derail the vote by pulling out just days before it's to take place. Two opposition parties withdrew Tuesday from the elections, saying conditions were biased toward allies of the leftist Chavez. A third party threatened to boycott unless the vote scheduled for Sunday is postponed to ensure fairness.
The Venezuelan leader, who is a paranoid lunatic vocal critic of President Bush, called the move a last-ditch political stunt pulled by an enfeebled opposition that analysts have predicted would be soundly defeated at the polls. "What fraud? They should accept the truth that they have no public," he said. "It's an attempt at political sabotage." Jimmy Carter agrees. So that settles it.
The defections boost Chavez's chances of winning the two-thirds congressional majority he needs to establish Marxist rule push through constitutional reforms. One of those reforms is an amendment that would strike down a limit on presidents to two six-year terms, a period that would expire for Chavez in 2012 if he is re-elected next year.
Currently, pro-Chavez lawmakers hold 52 percent of the 165-seat National Assembly. The defectors - major opposition party Democratic Action and the smaller Project Venezuela - together hold 30 seats. The Social Christian Party, or Copei, which has threatened to boycott, holds six.
Democratic Action and Copei long dominated national politics before Chavez's meteoric rise to power in 1998 elections. The centrist parties differ little in ideology and are united in their fierce opposition to Chavez, who says he is leading a socialist revolution to create many more help the poor. This election could mark the first time since Venezuela's last dictatorship fell in 1958 that neither party fields a candidate. Chavez said the two parties during their half-century of domination "did whatever they wanted, plundered the country and handed it over to imperialism."
The parties' influence has been flagging, and recent polls show Chavez has a nearly 70 percent public approval ratings. There was a book out, called The perfect Latin American Idiot.
A French author has taken a rare shot at one of the country's biggest heroes by casting Napoleon Bonaparte as a genocidal dictator and inspiration for Adolf Hitler in an incendiary new book. "One hundred and forty years before the Holocaust, a dictator, hoping to rule the world, did not hesitate to crush part of humanity under his boot," Claude Ribbe wrote in 'The Crime of Napoleon', which goes on sale Thursday.
As France prepares on Friday to mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Austerlitz -- considered the emperor's military masterpiece -- Ribbe's book lists a string of atrocities allegedly carried out under his rule.
A black academic who sits on a government panel on human rights, Ribbe accuses the emperor of "exterminating" part of the black population of France's colonial islands and of introducing a system of racial segregation. On the French island colony of Haiti, then known as Saint Domingue, Ribbe claims that Napoleon's troops launched a "vast operation of ethnic cleansing" in 1802, to stamp out a slave revolt. Relying on written accounts from some officers in the Napoleonic armies, Ribbe writes that French troops used sulphur dioxide to suffocate slaves held in ships' holds and conducted wide-scale killings. The troops were under orders to kill all blacks aged over 12, he writes.
"It is no surprise that he (Napoleon) served as a model for Mussolini, who wrote a play in his glory, or to Hitler, who saluted him with a 'Heil Napoleon' at the Invalides (in Paris) on June 28, 1940," writes the historian. "All the facts contained (in the book) are known to historians, but are willfully overlooked," Ribbe charges in his introduction.
Joined by a number of associations from France's overseas territories, Ribbe has been campaigning to bring such episodes to public attention, as France prepares to pay tribute to its legendary emperor. The groups have called for a march on Saturday in protest at the emperor's "glorification" and the "historical revisionism" surrounding his rule. "We cannot allow, in a supposedly law-abiding country, for history to be steered as it was done under the Soviet Union," they said in a joint statement.
#1
Which still survives today?
The Code Napoleon or the Nuremburg Laws?
Of course the behavior of Haitians towards other Haitians in history and contemporary society has been a model of respect of human rights. /sarcasm off
#2
On the topic of France... This link requires registration link but here is the short description:
Apparently France is positioning itself to gain control of thousands of square miles of Atlantic Ocean seabed beyond Canada's current 200-mile (320-kilometre) limit that include possible oil and gas reserves located south of the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, which are off the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, writes Dann Rogers. The proposed area of French control would require a globally unprecedented "leapfrog" over Canadian waters and set up a struggle between the French islands, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia over a planned 150-mile (240-kilometre) expansion of offshore economic zones under new provisions of the UN convention governing the Law of the Sea.
#4
Great painting. There were many similarities, but then again Napoleon shared similarities with many authoritarian dictators especially those that challenge the entire world at once.
I don't think Napolean did anything vile to specific ethnic groups or to the French people (beyond conscription and constant war for 20 years) the way Hitler did so the comparison falls apart.
#7
Seafarious: Napoleon ranks just behind Jesus as the most biographied man in human history. There are literally entire libraries devoted to just books about Napoleon.
In the beginning, Napoleon was villified far more than Hitler has been, this hatred lasting almost all the way to the time of the rise of Hitler.
Finally, starting in the 1980s, France began a systematic reconstruction of Napoleon as a noble French leader. Students are now taught that he deserves a place in the pantheon of French leaders beside DeGaulle, etc.
Ironically, the same fate probably awaits Hitler in Germany, and probably sooner. He will have lost immediacy, and his actions will be compared with other German leaders. Most people will be of an attitude of "Why should I care more about what my great grandfather did than what my great-great-great grandfather did?"
#8
What do they expect, that's the way you had to get things done in them days. Why doesn't france establish a "Fuck Napoleon" day if they're so worried about it.
#9
I don't think Napolean did anything vile to specific ethnic groups
Well, you should look at some Goya paintings for what happenned in Spain. Not only the universally known "3 de Mayo" where people are being shot after the crushing of Madrid's insurrection but also some hair-raising drawings. On teh other side this was aguerrilla war where the troops were harrassed by irregulars who didn't respect the usual rules of war (Goya has also some paintings about what happenned to those French who fell in guerrillero's hands).
Now in regular battles Napoleon was quite chivalrous with defeated foes. For instance after his last victory at Ligny he had wounded of both sides treated in the same hospital and usually visited them (of both sides again). However a couple days, after Waterloo, Prussians (1) under the command of Geneisenau evacuated the Allied wounded from that hospital and set it fire resulting in the French wounded being burned alive.
(1) Many testimonies both French and British tell about Prussian soldiers being very dangerous for women both in enemy country or in allied country. About their behaviour in battle Napoleon had little respect for them (he counted two or three prussians for a French soldier, and only one British for a French :-) ). After all both him and his generals have beated them even when severely outnumbered. At Ligny, he beat them despite being (slightly) outnumbered and Prussians fortified. Hoverever disobedience by some of his subordinates prevented him of anihilating the Prussian army who would come haunting him at Waterloo. But this was Napoleon's main weakness: selecting people for high positions: the good generals had got their positions during the Republic. The people, elevayted by him were uniformly very brave but with limited intellects (eg Ney, the main culprit of Waterloo).
#12
JMF, fighting brutally against partisans is somewhat different than rounding up the Jews and Gypsies and sending them to camps. The partisans were hunted down because they were partisans fighting his occupation (the NAZIs did that as well) not because they were of a specific ethnic group).
#14
Two shrinks were walking down the street when they were approached by third shrink. The third shrink said "Hi." As he passed, the first shrink said to the other, "I wonder what he meant by that?"
#15
The Mongols still revere Ghengis, and I don't see why they shouldn't. If I were French, I would fete Napoleon, though he is to great military leaders in history what the Buffalo Bills are to the Super Bowl - a memorable dynasty but he lost the championship twice.
The legacy of their Revolution is all convoluted and contradictory anyway. Democracy was still a novel concept at the time (at least the modern, non-ancient Greco Roman version - the U.S. was only 2 decades old). While the ideas and ideals of our modern world were born in the previous century, most of the World still revolved around empire, conquest, slavery, hereditary monarchy, piracy, etc.
Napoleon should be judged by the standards of his time. It is anachronistic to judge him by today's mores. To do so is as silly as criticizing Tamerlane for failing to follow the Geneva Convention in his campaigns against Persia.
1) Bush = Hitler
2) Bush -> Global Warming
3) Global Warming -> Hurricane Katrina
4) Hurricane Katrina -> Broken New Orleans levees
5) Broken New Orleans Levees -> Flooding of New Orleans
6) Napolean = Hitler
" The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning," says Hellyer. You donât understand, Paul. The entire war in Iraq is simply a warm up exercise for our eventual sinister American conquest of THE UNIVERSE ITSELF! To infinity and beyond!
Blame it all on the Bush administration, which Hellyer says has "finally agreed to build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them if they so decide." Good Lord I hope so! That would rock!
Not much happened when Hellyer announced in a public speech at the University of Toronto last September that "UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." *crickets*
For those wondering why Hellyer would wait 42 years to let the world in on UFOs as "real as the airplanes that fly over your head", it was classified information.
"The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalleled, The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in the loop," Hellyer told the Toronto audience.
The three Non-Governmental Organizations that joined Hellyerâs team have already approached Canadian Parliament to get the UFO debate out into the public spectrum. They include Canada-based Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, which brought Hellyer to the U of T for his September speech. The Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director undertook a 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House when Jimmy Carter was president, is also back knocking on the door of Canadian Parliament. Ok, that makes sense.
The Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, presented by the lobbying organizations to a Senate Committee panel hearing in Winnipeg last March, is proposing that the Government of Canada undertake a "Decade of Contact...a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial societyâs full cultural, political, social, legal and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth." If I were a space alien landing on the White Houseâs lawn and you broadcast that babbling diplospeak at me, my first thought would be âTo hell with this. Letâs take off and nuke this planet from orbit.â
Posted by: Jonathan ||
11/30/2005 14:03 Comments ||
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#5
I thought Canada was supposed to be a healthcare paradise.
It must not be true. They've obviously run completely out of psych medications.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/30/2005 14:15 Comments ||
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#6
Canada, whose September 11, 2001 Prime Minister blamed the west and the U.S. in particular for the terrorist attacks, is being coaxed by a former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister to protect vulnerable space aliens against the military aggression of the United States.
Edited for brevity.
First Lady Laura Bush believes U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would make a great president but predicts she will stay out of the race in 2008. "I'm all for her. She says isn't going to run, of course, and I really don't think she will. But she'd be terrific," Laura Bush told MSNBC in an interview on Wednesday.
Rice said in an interview published in USA Today newspaper on Tuesday that she was looking forward to going back to Stanford University, where she was provost before joining Bush's team, when the president leaves office. "When I go back to Stanford in 3-1/2 years I can guarantee you I will probably oversee dissertations that look at" what went wrong and right in Iraq, she told the paper.
Can't you go back to Stanford after you're president? Grr!
Posted by: Dar ||
11/30/2005 17:13 ||
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- A soldier accused of opening fire on fellow soldiers six weeks ago has been charged with attempted murder, Fort Campbell officials said Wednesday. No one was wounded. Pvt. Nicholas D. Mikel, 21, also was charged with attempted rape, stemming from an incident the day before the Oct. 13 shooting, the Army post said in a statement. Mikel was accused of firing five shots into the group of soldiers who were doing early-morning physical training. There were no injuries.
Wonder if the person he's charged with raping was in the group?
Fort Campbell officials said at the time that the suspect, arrested shortly after the shooting, had a handgun that was not issued by the military. The suspect's name was not released at the time.
We speculated at the time if the ROP was involved. Seems not the case
Mikel faces 42 counts of premeditated attempted murder and four of attempted murder, Fort Campbell said. He faces other charges, including larceny for the alleged theft of a government laptop computer and failure to obey an order by wrongfully possessing the weapon.
Mikel is a very bad boy
Soldiers on military installations are not allowed to carry personal weapons or have unregistered firearms in their quarters.
They really don't like you reloading ammo in your dorm room either........or so I've heard...look, Elvis!.
The charges were forwarded to the rear detachment commander for the 101st Airborne Division. The commander ordered a pretrial investigation, which was under way, officials said.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/30/2005 11:36 ||
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#1
Nicholas should plead that he is a gay muslim and they were harrassing him. That would get him a book deal and a seat next Okra Winfrey.
An Oakland bakery with a cheery red sign out front -- "Your Black Muslim Bakery" -- was thrust into the criminal spotlight again Tuesday when police arrested one of founder Yusuf Bey's sons in connection with vandalism to two liquor stores.
Surprising props to the SF Chronicle, most other sites refer to 19-year-old Yusef Bey the fourth as being "linked" to the group.
Bey created the bakery in 1968 and built a powerful enterprise based on baked goods, Muslim faith, local politics and, police say, strong-arm tactics.
For decades, members of Bey's religious sect have been suspected of using violence and intimidation to secure their business interests, which include four bakeries, a Muslim school, a security business and an apartment building across from the main bakery on San Pablo Avenue in northwest Oakland where many of Bey's relatives and bakery workers live.
Bey died of colon cancer in October 2003 while awaiting trial on charges of raping a minor. A year earlier he had been charged with 27 counts in the alleged rapes of four girls under the age of 14. Prosecutors said they had DNA evidence to prove that Bey fathered five children with his victims, two of whom gave birth when they were 13. His followers have claimed he fathered more than 40 children.
Hey, he was just following the teachings of the ROP
Born J.H. Stephens in Greenville, Texas, Bey moved to Oakland with his family when he was 5, according to his biography.
He joined the U.S. Air Force at 17 and was honorably discharged four years later. He worked in warehouses, enrolled in cosmetology schools and opened beauty salons in Santa Barbara and Berkeley. In the early 1960s, he began following the Islamic studies of the late Elijah Muhammad. He moved back to Oakland, set up a bakery like his father before him and began spreading his religious beliefs. Bey formed his own Black Muslim group, though it never was affiliated with the Nation of Islam or its mosque in East Oakland, said mosque spokesman David Muhammad.
Over the years, Bey and his followers had a love-hate relationship with the city: providing work and housing for convicts and running for political office while allegedly entangling themselves in some notorious crimes. Bey's followers have been accused of assaulting people with whom they had religious or business differences, and such stories have circulated in Oakland for decades.
In 1994, members of the organization allegedly beat an Oakland man with a police officer's heavy-duty flashlight and threatened to kill the white police officers who came to investigate. The same year, Bey ran for mayor and received 5 percent of the vote, and his 21-year-old son Akbar was shot and killed outside an Oakland nightclub. At the time, his father said the death was over "nothing important."
Bey was not afraid to espouse unpopular opinions. In the 1990s, he criticized Alameda County social workers for placing too many black children with white foster parents who live outside Oakland and vowed to recruit black parents to take troubled children. He riled gays and prompted the Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco to pull his bakery products when he said on his weekly cable TV show that he didn't want gay teachers to school his children. He claimed that in the Middle East, homosexuals were beheaded, but later he said he was not advocating violence against gays.
Must have been "misquoted"
When Oakland's homicide rate surged in 2002, Bey helped formed a grassroots outreach team called "Black Men First," which sent pastors and activists and Muslims to the streets at night for one-on-one conversations with black men entangled in criminal street life. His efforts brought national attention, but soon after he was forced out of the group. Bey turned himself in to police later that year after he was accused of having sex with a 13-year-old girl two decades earlier. The victim, then 34, told police she had had sex with Bey in 1981 and had given birth to his child the next year. DNA evidence confirmed that Bey was the father of the woman's child.
Barely four months after Bey died of colon cancer, his hand-picked successor to run the bakery chain and other businesses disappeared. Six months later, authorities found Waajid Aljawwaad's decomposing body near a trail in the city's foothills.
Tap...tap.....nope
Last month, another of his sons, Antar Bey, 23, was shot and killed as he filled his car's gas tank in North Oakland.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/30/2005 09:56 ||
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#1
Purely coincidental. This is the religions of peace. Move along...nothing more to see here.
#3
I have a suspicion about this that I need to check out this evening.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/30/2005 10:52 Comments ||
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#4
Sounds like any other religious group. Donât all churches use thugs to intimidate rivals and businesses that donât agree with? Also who hasnât had a local ministers son gunned down outside a nightclub or at a gas station? Finally, what priest or ministers hasnât dabble a bit in the parishioner pool of teenagers (male and female) for some âspiritual enlightenmentâ? I bet that if the store didnât have the video, we never would have heard about this.
Hypothetically speaking of course, try hanging a shingle outside your business with the two key words juxtaposed with...I don't know...say.."White Christian". Anybody want to fathom a guess as to the reaction?
#7
Partly true SM, it's an old saying: "You can take the man out of the Ghetto, but you can't take the Ghetto out of the man." The business practices of the Bakery are clear thugery and nothing says thugs than ghettos. Like I said before, if this wasn't on tape we never would have heard about it and if we did it would be dismissed as black or muslim bashing.
Back in 1973 and 1974, there was a string of murders in Oakland that were called the "Zebra Murders" (because of the radio channel assigned to the investigation). Eventually, the members of a Nation of Islam offshoot were arrested, and four of them convicted. Their motivation was to become "Death Angels" by killing a particular quota of whites -- with women and children counting extra towards their quotas.
At least one investigator tied more than the dozen murders involved in the trial to the "Death Angel" cult.
What had me intrigued was this tie to a Black Muslim bakery. I remembered that at least one of the convicted murderers worked at a Black Muslim bakery.
Well, it wasn't this one, it was a different one. Still, I think somebody should be doing some real digging on the level of criminal activity -- particularly violence -- associated with Oaklands Black Muslim cults.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/30/2005 22:21 Comments ||
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ISLAMABAD - Parents in northern Pakistan have complained that government-run schools have turned into âlabour campsâ as teachers force children to do their domestic chores, a news report said on Wednesday.
Daily Dawn quoted parents in northern Chitral valley as claiming their kids are used to clean offices and classroom despite all schools having a janitorial staff. âTeachers even take them home and force to help in construction of houses and harvesting and threshing crops,â an unnamed resident of Mastuj village told the newspaper.
However, officials in the education department said they were unaware about such illegal activities. âEngaging schoolchildren in any type of activity other than academic is disallowed. We will take disciplinary actions if we find anybody involve in such activities,â said Sherdil Aman, a senior district education officer.
Education acitivists believe corporal punishment and the indecent attitude of teachers are major reasons for the increasing dropout rates of students in Pakistan. According to the Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), about half of the children who enroll in school drop out before completing fifth grade and those who complete it have low learning achievements, especially in literacy and numeracy.
But they can chant all 6,000 verses of the Qu'ran, and that's what's important.
SPARC says out of 27 million children of primary school age (5-10 years) in Pakistan, 13 million are not enrolled in schools and more than half of those are girls. Pakistanâs government claims that the literacy rate, defined as all who can read and write their names, is over 50 per cent.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/30/2005 10:41 ||
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#1
well considering most of their names are 40 words long they may be able too read and write
#2
kids are used to clean offices and classroom learn sanitation, despite all schools having a janitorial staff.... zzzzzz zzzzz zzzzz. âTeachers even take them home and forceprovide them an opportunity to learn carpentry help in construction of houses and experience agriculture first hand by harvesting and threshing crops,â
Stupid gov'ment teachers! Don't they know muzzies are not supposed to werk? Thats why Allah created TCN's
The French International News Network (CFII) -- known colloquially as "CNN à la française" -- will be run by a joint company owned by the leading private French television broadcaster TF1 and the public broadcaster France Televisions, Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told a media conference. France Televisions will be in the driving chair of the entity, whose 240 staff will produce programmes beamed to Europe, Africa and the Middle East at first, then later also to Asia, Latin America and North America. News will be provided around the clock in French, though the plans also call for a four-hour slot of English programming and the option of adding Arabic and Spanish.
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FREMONT â The ancient Greeks worshipped it. Sigmund Freud said women envy it. And on Tuesday, a man pulled a truck with it. 
ISLAMABAD - Parents in northern Pakistan have complained that government-run schools have turned into âlabour campsâ as teachers force children to do their domestic chores, a news report said on Wednesday.
