A McGill University study suggests a new anti-depressant drug works by raising levels of endocannabinoids -- similar to a substance found in marijuana. The study suggests the new drug, called URB597, might represent a safer alternative to use of marijuana for treatment of pain and depression, and open the door to new and improved treatments for clinical depression. In pre-clinical laboratory tests researchers found URB597 increased the production of endocannabinoids by blocking their degradation, resulting in measurable antidepressant effects. "This is the first time it has been shown a drug that increases endocannabinoids in the brain can improve your mood," said lead investigator Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a researcher at Montreal and McGill Universities. The researchers, including scientists from the University of California-Irvine, (naturally, there had to be Californians involved!)
were able to measure serotonin and noradrenaline activity as a result of the increased endocannabinoids. "The results were similar to the effect we might expect from the use of commonly prescribed antidepressants, which are effective on only around 30 percent of the population," said Gobbi. "Our discovery strengthens the case for URB597 as a safer, non-addictive, non-psychotropic alternative to cannabis for the treatment of pain and depression." And who knows how much this will add to the CIA's arsenal of non-torturing encouragers of truth telling. I look forward to seeing the "Anti's" tie themselves into knots objecting to interrogators giving their subjects marijuana, when so many of them use it in the privacy if their own homes.
Twice she says it:
"The study suggests the new drug, called URB597, might represent a safer alternative to use of marijuana for treatment of pain and depression"
And
""Our discovery strengthens the case for URB597 as a safer, non-addictive, non-psychotropic alternative to cannabis for the treatment of pain and depression."
No one in there right mind has ever questioned the lack of toxicity and safety of pot. The only thing she could say is that you don't have to smoke it or eat it with a brownie or something.
As far as anti-nausea medication, it is first rate. I'd pull her funding.
#3
It's science, Penguin. They can't say anything definitive until they've done proper clinical studies involving several thousand human subjects -- one of at least eight weeks to establish efficacy vs. placebo, and a second, long term study to show consistency over time. One wouldn't want the doctor to unwittingly prescribe something that either stops working as the body becomes accustomed to it or, like Prozac, can actually cause problems (Prozac use amongst teenagers has been discovered to actually cause suicidal depression, kinda counterproductive in an anti-depressant). And for me at least, it was news that a marijuana-like substance could be used to manage pain or depression, although I did know about its traditional use as an anti-nausea agent for chemotherapy sufferers.
As for nobody questioning the safety of marijuana, I had always understood that smoking the stuff was a health risk not much less than smoking tobacco -- it can't be good for the lungs to absorb the smoke particles -- and there is a risk factor (not know to me) for sensitive individuals to become seriously addicted to the stuff. Not to mention damage to male sex cells with long term use, and so on. The risks to the occasional user are not high, to my limited understanding, but that changes for long term, heavy users.... separate from their tendency to sit around the bong singing Kumbaya. ;-)
#4
TW, regarding weed and lung damage -- it's true that pot smoke can't be good, but the amount of smoke inhaled is much, much, less than with tobacco. Even the heaviest pot smoker only inhales about 5% the volume of smoke that a pack-a-day tobacco addict would. Plus the water in a bong filters most of the bad stuff out. Trust me, I know.
#5
The CIA is ate up again! Don't they know the Dems have been taking this stuff for years! Look what it does, makes you stupid, just ask Dean!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/14/2005 6:22 Comments ||
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#6
I'm afraid my knowledge is theoretical, Scooter -- smoking things of all types make me cough too much to continue the experience! And I'm often awed at how much more experience other Rantburgers have packed into their lives compared to me. ;-) However, while I don't think there are many 3-packs of joints a day users out there, pot smokers draw the smoke much more deeply into their lungs when they do light up. FWIW.
#7
The author of the article has jumbled the pain and antidepression aspects of the URB597.
This is unfortunate. We do need better anti pain drugs for use with cancer patients. There are currently drugs which use cabbinol (a marijuana derivative) and these drugs are prescribed for cancer patients who are in chemo and radiation, but these drugs are not effective for many patients who need anti pain drugs. It may be that URB597 will be effective in some of these cases.
Anti depression is another story. There are many, many anti depressive treatments out there. The problem is that each one has side effects in some percentage of the people being treated. It is likely that URB597 also creates a side effect but it will take a lot of testing to get a fix on what that is.
#8
The uninformed, obstreperous comments regarding the toxicity of marijuana by some of the posters here is truly irksome. Marijuana is not physically addicting, unlike tobacco or alcohol. While not good for the lungs, one smokes far less of it than even a mildly addicting smoker, and unlike alcohol ... unlike alcohol ... oh dude, what were we talking about?
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
12/14/2005 9:19 Comments ||
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#9
I've said it before, but - it's nice to see so many young people who care passionately about the pain and suffering of glaucoma.
#10
Several follow up comments-
TW, people smoke it vice eat it because smoking is an effective way to control your high. It is an easier feedback loop. With eating it, the delay is up to two hours before you feel the effects, and you can get too high. Not overdose, but you could just be too high for it to be pleasant.
However, some people have sensitive lungs, and smoking anything is bad for you. In fact, smoking mj is probably worse for you by volume than tobacco because you hold it in.
Believe it or not, the effects of mj on male hormones and sex drive is false research published to keep young males from smoking it. (you have to read through the literature.)
Now, I am a veteran and a fairly conservative guy, who had a few years of extreme medical problems. I won't bore everyone with the details, but understand that when I was sick and nauseas, mj helped me a lot. Now I don't need it anymore, so I don't use it anymore.
But it is an effective and easily administered drug, that worked better than the stuff my docs first prescribed.
#11
With regard to the pulmonary toxicity of MJ, we pulmonary docs view the damage caused by a joint as being roughly equal to that caused by 10 to 20 cigarettes. There are no good scientific studies to back that up, it's based on clinical experience.
I've seen plenty of patients who are heavy MJ smokers with near end-stage COPD (emphysema).
At least as far as the lungs are concerned, MJ is not benign.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2005 10:58 Comments ||
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#12
Thanks for educating me, guys. Penguin, I always assumed people made pot brownies so their mothers wouldn't notice the funny smell -- certainly that was why one of my brothers (the one who later became a pharmacist) did so. And Mama was so proud of her son, the baker, too. And I am glad to know that mj doesn't damage male bits... the very idea of a chemical discriminating on the basis of sex in these modern times should be anathema. ;-)
And I still like the vision of those overly vocal anti-"torture" types trying to figure out how to object to interrogators giving mj-analogue to their subjects, as dessert at the end of the pre-discussion tryptophan-free meal. Forgive me, but I do have these nasty little moments.
#13
I think this could be a solution to all the potheads that would be in withdrawal if we ever get the borders sealed. American drug addiction is underestimated. Sounds like the CIA is atoning for the problem they helped create in Viet Nam but it won't stop the billion dollar turf wars that will ensue if they decide to take terrorism seriously.
#15
With regard to the pulmonary toxicity of MJ, we pulmonary docs view the damage caused by a joint as being roughly equal to that caused by 10 to 20 cigarettes. There are no good scientific studies to back that up, it's based on clinical experience
Marijuana burns at a rather higher temperature than tobacco, leading to hotter smoke & therefore more lung damage per hit.
#18
I'll mention it again -- using a bong takes care of most of the lung-damage issues. The water in a bong filters most of the harmful impurities (THC, the active ingredient is not water soluble) and it cools the hot smoke.
BIRITIBA MIRIM, Brazil â There's no more room to bury the dead, they can't be cremated, and laws forbid a new cemetery. So the mayor of this Brazilian farm town has proposed a solution: outlaw death. Mayor Roberto Pereira da Silva's proposal to the town council asks residents to "take good care of your health in order not to die" and warns that "infractors will be held responsible for their acts." The bill, which sets no penalty for passing away, is meant to protest a federal law that has barred a new or expanded cemetery in Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 people 45 miles east of Sao Paulo.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
A brazilian TV sitcom "telenovela" in portuguese called o "Bem Amado" were a village mayor fought to inaugurate the local cemetery...as such the mayor was always searching for some villager with health problems...:)
#3
Hey! I just came up with a great money making idea! I'm going to start a campaign to do this here. Gonna hook up with the liberals and get them to send me lots of money. This is just the sort of reality detachment idea that they could really get into.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Eritrean officials refused to meet the U.N. peacekeeping chief, who visited the country Tuesday in an effort to defuse tensions along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border amid fears of a new war, a U.N. official said.
Both Horn of Africa nations have been massing troops near the border, while Eritrea has been restricting the work of U.N. peacekeepers. Eritrea is angry that the United Nations has failed to force Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from a town awarded to Eritrea by an international commission set up under a 2000 peace agreement.
U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno was pressing for Eritrea to reverse its order for the expulsion of U.S., Canadian and European members of the U.N. mission monitoring the tense border, the U.N. official said. Eritrean officials were unlikely to meet Guehenno anytime soon, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with journalists.
On Wednesday, the United Nations was to begin pulling out the first 20 of the 180 peacekeeping staff affected by last week's expulsion order. The nearly 3,300-strong U.N. force is composed of peacekeepers and military observers from some 40 countries. The largest contingent, with more than 1,500 troops, is from India.
Earlier Tuesday, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his country needed to maintain enough troops along border to keep Eritrea from starting a new war. ``If the Eritrean government believes that it can ensure victory, there is no doubt it will do what it can to wage a war,'' Meles said in a report to parliament. ``The only alternative is to show the Eritrean government they will not win anything if a war is started.''
Diplomats estimate the two nations have 380,000 troops along the 600-mile border - about 130,000 on the Ethiopian side and 250,000 on the Eritrean side.
I suspect that 'troops' doesn't have the qualitative meaning in Eritrea that it does in the West.
Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin had announced Saturday his country would pull back troops in compliance with a U.N order. But as of Tuesday, there was no confirmation the pullback had begun.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2005 00:13 ||
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DAR ES SALAAM - Tanzanian voters are set on Wednesday to cast their ballots in elections widely expected to extend the mandate of the ruling Revolutionary Party (CCM) after 44 years at the helm of the east African nation. Some 16 million people are eligible to vote for the presidency of the union, created in 1964 between mainland Tanganyika and the Indian Ocean Zanzibar archipelago, and 232-seat national parliament.
Despite the impending retirement of incumbent President Benjamin Mkapa, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, the polls will almost certainly see the election of CCM nominee and current Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete, 55, to lead the Union of Tanzania, observers say.
While violent clashes and allegations of widespread fraud marred polling that went ahead as scheduled on Zanzibar for the islandsâ presidency and local legislature, the extended campaign on the mainland has been relatively calm for the countryâs third multi-party elections.
Ten of the 18 parties contesting the general election have put forward presidential candidates, but Kikwete looms large over Civic United Front leader Lipumba, 56, and the other main opposition candidate, Augustine Mrema, 60, of the Tanzanian Labor Party. Kikwete, who collapsed due to heat exhaution at his final rally on Tuesday, has spent much time in lavish state-funded campaign rallies, pledging to emulate Mkapa and his policies to fight poverty and boost development in the largely agrarian nation of 35 million.
More than half the population and more than 80 percent of its working population are estimated to depend on agriculture, which is still recovering from earlier disasterous socialist policies.
Wednesdayâs vote is Tanzaniaâs third since pluralism was restored in 1992, 31 years after it broke from British colonial rule and the opposition is hoping to boost its numbers in the parliament that sits in the northern city of Dodoma. CCM has been in power since the east African nation broke free from British colonists in 1961.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2005 00:09 ||
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#1
Tanzania is a interesting country.
The Zanzibar part had problems but it is Majority Muslim so its normal.
The Mainland is mostly Lutheran.
The government is structured as FAMILY SOCIALISM which means every clan has its designated connection to the government.
Election campaigns take place on a chautauqua circuit. All campaigning must take place on this circuit. You can't say anything bad about the other guy(s) only what you would do. You can not run ads and can not get campaign donations.
Its one party but everybody is in the party with multiple people running for positions. In that sense it could be one of the fairest election forms in Africa.
President Olusegun Obasanjo grounded two private Nigerian airlines Tuesday after plane crashes killed 224 people in seven weeks. Blaming corruption for some of the industry's problems, Obasanjo also announced a review of all aircraft flying in Nigeria, saying experts would be brought in from the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Do you get the impression Nigerians could introduce corruption into running a noodle stand?
One of the grounded carriers, Sosoliso Airlines, operated the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 that crashed Saturday in the southern city of Port Harcourt, killing 107 people, most of them schoolchildren. The second carrier grounded, Chanchangi Airlines, operated a plane that skidded off the runway in Lagos earlier this year and another craft that returned to Abuja this month after developing problems following takeoff. Obasanjo announced the groundings after meeting with airline carriers and government regulators to discuss public concerns over Nigeria's aviation industry.
"Get on one of those? No way, Jose!"
"People are asking when will this stop? How will this stop?" the president told officials in the capital. "And we have to answer these questions."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Earlier this month, the State Department warning for Nigeria mentioned that maintenance on their aircraft was not the best. I don't recall ever seeing that on a travel warning before. Ebola outbreaks, piracy, ethnic unrest....yeah, but never a warning on the quality of aircraft maintenance.
Turkey's most internationally-acclaimed novelist will go on trial here charged with "insulting Turkishness". The charges relate to a magazine interview in which Orhan Pamuk said 30,000 Kurds and one million Ottoman Armenians were killed in Turkey and no-one dares talk about it. He could face up to three years in jail.
This high-profile prosecution has caused a stir in Brussels. A delegation of MEPs will travel to Istanbul to observe the trial alongside international human rights campaigners.
Orhan Pamuk fled the country after the interview was published amid what he calls a hate campaign. Now he is back, determined to use his time in court to defend his comments, and his right to make them. "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo," the writer explains, at an Istanbul cafe overlooking the waterfront. "But we have to be able to talk about the past."
Armenia insists its people were victims of a genocide nine decades ago; Ankara denies any such thing.
Turkey implemented wide-ranging legal reforms as part of its bid for EU membership. But the new penal code still contains tight restrictions on what you can write and say. Under Article 301 it is illegal to insult Turkishness, the Republic or most state institutions. It is left to the prosecutor to decide what exactly constitutes an insult.
There are currently more than 60 writers and publishers besides Orhan Pamuk on trial in Turkey for what EU officials call their non-violent expression of opinion.
The strict taboo on the fate of the Armenians was cracked last September when Bilgi University hosted a controversial academic conference. Nationalists and staunch conservative protesters gathered outside the gates to shout their anger, convinced the event was sponsored by Turkey's enemies abroad.
Friday's trial has thrust a reluctant Orhan Pamuk into the role of political symbol. Now in the international spotlight, he says he feels responsible for less well-known writers suffering the same fate. But the novelist admits he longs to return to his books more than anything. "I feel this political responsibility, a solidarity with all these people who are being harassed. I am with them," he says.
#1
"But we have to be able to talk about the past."
Threats of jail time if one questions the events surrounding an atrocity. Hmmmm...where'd I hear that one before? Musta been that pesky Peloponnesian War.
There was a time when universities and their teachers were treated with respect bordering on awe. Few would have dared to investigate their actions or question their authority, and, for centuries, what went on behind study doors or in committee rooms and lecture halls was accorded near-holy reverence. Like a towerblock packed with dynamite, that blissful age of ivory-tower isolation crumpled with the rise of redbrick campus life...
One doesn't even need to work in a university to be put through the academic meat grinder.
Though it helps. As Henry Kissinger once said, "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
In the past week, Jung Chang, former university lecturer and author of the renowned memoir Wild Swans, has been given an unpleasant taste of academic knuckle-rapping, the intellectual equivalent of being summoned to the headteacher's office. This summer saw a fanfare of excitement when Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday, a research fellow at King's College in London, published their mammoth biography, Mao: The Unknown Story. Ten years in writing, it was billed as an astonishing work of revisionism, one that, the publisher promised, "will astonish historians and the general reader alike"...
This picture of Mao as irredeemably evil, his cruelty exceeding even that of Hitler and Stalin, is a gruelling read... I have tried to read it, but the sheer misery of the story it tells, the darkness and malevolence it reveals, is a little off-putting. Others have also found it hard to digest, more because of style than content, but as The Herald's books of the year round-up showed last weekend, Mao has been one of the most popular reads of 2005.
There were, however, a few bad reviews, one of which, by this paper's regular reviewer Frank McLynn, damningly concluded "this is neither serious history nor serious biography". Since then, the groundswell of criticism from experts rather than celebrity reviewers has grown, coming to a head in an article in the London Review of Books last month in which Andrew Nathan of Columbia University denounced the book for its "distorted, misleading or far-fetched use of evidence". More attacks are reputedly in the pipeline, their main complaint being that the authors' sources are suspect and their reinterpretaion of events such as the Battle of Luding Bridge, during the Long March (which they say did not happen), are unreliable.
Later this month Chang and Halliday will rebutt these accusations in a reply in the London Review of Books. Meanwhile, ordinary readers are left uncertain as to whether this new, even grislier version of Mao is accurate, or merely a projection of Chang's hatred for the man whose policies inflicted such trauma on her family. How can we possibly tell? What is clear, however, is that ... Chang and Halliday have put themselves in the path of the academic meat slicer, the scourge of the half-baked or sensationalist historian.
The rigorous standards by which academics work are rarely met by books aimed at the popular market, just as few academics write bestsellers. No-one can predict whether Chang and Halliday will persuade their intellectual jury of their factual credibility. What is certain is that, whatever the outcome, their work has been tarnished. Until the verdict is pronounced, however, their greatest error has been to treat academia as if it were a safari park when, as any campus novel would tell them, it is a jungle.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2005 00:00 ||
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For years one of my hobbies was to read firsthand account of historical events, that is unfiltered by 'historians'. In most 'history' the facts are filtered through the historians narrative and a lot of what comes out is just false.
To publish on blogger you have to hack around with their template to get something halfway decent for a novel format.
The novel explores how geeks and soldiers are using technology to fight the WoT. It mixes technology, geopolitics and what I hope is a realistic portrayal of soldiers experience of combat (since I have never been a soldier).
The scenario is that experimental autonomous weapons are developed and deployed to stop terrorists infiltrating into Azerbaijan from Iran. Without giving away the plot, it ends up with a US Special Services soldier needing to kill the robots in order to get rescued.
A huge IT skills shortage and poor physical infrastructure could threaten India's position as the leading offshore outsourcing location by 2010, according to a new report.
The report by consultant McKinsey and Indian IT body Nasscom warns that labor market pressures could leave India facing a shortfall of 500,000 IT staff equipped with the skills to work in the offshore outsourcing industry. Wonder if they'll start a H1-B visa program?
Jayant Sinha, partner at McKinsey, said that India faces a challenge in maintaining its dominant offshore IT position.
"The skills and quality of the workforce need to be improved, since only 25 percent of technical graduates and 10 to 15 percent of general college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO industries respectively," he said in the report. You mean that the creme de la creme is manning the Dell customer support lines???
Sinha said the country's urban infrastructure also needs "immediate attention" with better road and air links between India's high-tech hot spots.
"Urban infrastructure needs immediate attention, as offshoring companies' deal with bottlenecks ranging from power to cafeterias. Further growth will have come to from entirely new business districts outside of tier one and tier two cities," he said.
McKinsey predicts global offshore outsourcing spend to hit $110 billion by 2010 and tips India to capture more than 50 percent of the market if it overcomes its challenges.
S. Ramadorai, chairman of Nasscom and CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, said in a statement: "Today the Indian IT and BPO industry is estimated to be $22 billion. The industry is in a strong position to leverage the global software opportunity and establish India as the premier IT destination in the world."
I think this is a different quake than the one cited by Fred, but not sure.
SRINAGAR â Even before memories of the monster earthquake in October could die down, Jammu and Kashmir was rattled by powerful fresh tremors in the wee hours yesterday damaging a number of houses. There were no immediate reports of human loss in the quake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale.
The temblor had its epicentre in the Hindukush mountain ranges of Aghanistan and was also felt in Pakistan. In Jammu and Kashmir, it was felt in several areas including Uri, Poonch, Srinagar. Parts of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir also experienced the jolt. The tremors were also felt in the national capital and its adjoining areas.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/14/2005 00:07 ||
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A strong earthquake jolted Pakistan in the early hours of Tuesday, bringing frightened survivors of the October 8 earthquake out of their tents and panicking people across northern parts of the country. There were no deaths reported. The earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale struck around 2:50am and its epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan, some 340 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. The damage was minimal because the quake originated over 200 kilometres below the earthâs surface, a Met Office official told APP. The quake was not an aftershock of the October 8 temblor, as was initially reported.
The jolts were felt in the areas of NWFP and Kashmir devastated by the October 8 quake and in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Dir, Chitral, Abbottabad, Swat, Faisalabad, Lahore, Sialkot and Gujranwala. In Peshawar, several university students were injured in stampedes as they tried to rush out of their hostels. At least 40 university students were rushed to Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), most with minor injuries. Three more including a women were treated at Lady Reading Hospital. According to hospital sources, one Muhammad Haleem of the University of Peshawar jumped off his hostel roof and sustained serious head injuries.
"Ooooh! Moh! That hadda hurt!"
In Muzaffarabad, survivors of the October quake came out of their tents and homes and spent hours in the pre-dawn cold. âIt was very strong. People came out of their tents and started screaming and reciting verses from the Quran,â resident Sarfraz Ahmad told AFP.
Nope. Still not Unitarians. Bob! Start getting another one ready!
In Islamabad, the quake was felt for several seconds and people rushed out of their houses, particularly around the collapsed Margalla Towers, and into the bitter cold. Mobile phone networks were stalled after the earthquake as people made frantic calls to relatives. The earthquake triggered landslides in upper Hunza that blocked the Karakoram Highway. Gilgit residents said the quake also damaged boundary walls along hundreds of houses. In Afghanistan, some 100 houses were damaged and up to 400 cattle killed, but there were no reports of human casualties, Shamsur Rahman, deputy governor of Badakhshan province, told Reuters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Last time Allan got P.O.ed at the Pakis, He took out 79,000 of them.
Allan not happy. Maybe Paks need to pray more, fight less.
#2
A Syrian Christian friend of mine pointed out how the Bam earthquake and Aceh Tsunami both hit around Christmastime. She maintains that this is causing quite a stir amongst superstitious Muslims due to Christian holidays bringing such awesome retribution upon Islam. I consider it a fitting reward since being superstitious is bad luck to begin with.
#2
I'd like to see Kofi and Musharrif and some mullah's and some Saudi Arabians sacrifice a bit more for this.
Posted by: Neutron Tom is Back! ||
12/14/2005 7:25 Comments ||
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#3
It works like this: the dhimmi West dar al-harb sends tribute in the form of blankets tents food and lots of cash, the dar al-Islam sends holy men and boom belts.
After years of producing bug-free lettuce and other vegetables for Jewish farmers, the sands of Gaza have reverted to their old ways. PA farmers report failure in keeping the bugs away. The Gaza Arabs who have taken over the hothouses of what used to be Gush Katif reported to the Israel-PA Coordination Office that they have failed in raising bug-free vegetables. In addition, the PA workers complain that their wages from their compatriots and brethren are significantly lower now than what they received from the Israelis.
My surprise meter is busted. And so is my sympathy meter.
Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports that the Jews of Gush Katif operated 3,600 dunams (890 acres) of hothouses as of last year, of which the PA - with international help - has managed to activate three-fourths. The Arabs had hoped to build on the Jews' success, selling to the market the Israelis had built up over the years. The bug-free vegetables were particularly attractive to the religious and hareidi-religious publics, for reasons of kashrut.
The Jews who first arrived in Gaza some 30 years ago were repeatedly told by the Arabs who welcomed them that the land was "cursed" and that they would never succeed agriculturally. Benny Ginzberg, standing last May in the large Katif-Atzmona dairy he managed, pointed at the houses of the Arab city of Khan Yunis, several hundred meters away, and said,
"Those houses have been here since before the Six Day War. If they wanted this land, what stopped them from spreading out to here before? ... When we first came, they told us that we were crazy for even trying to build something here. 'The land is cursed,' they told us. Well, we built something, something very great..." Ma'yan Yadai, a 27-year-old mother of two who was thrown out of Gush Katif - she was originally a Croatian Catholic who converted to Judaism, fled Yugoslavia, and moved to Netzer Hazani - spoke about Gush Katif before a gathering of the National Council of Young Israel in New York recently. She said, "It is difficult for me to believe that this obviously blessed area is the very same area that our Moslem neighbors called the âcursed landâ of El Gâerara. They have told me that nobody lived in this area from the time that the last Jews left because there was not enough rain, and nothing could grow properly. They were happy when the Jews returned because the rain started again, and the land began to produce."
Farmers in Gush Katif were considered among Israel's most successful; their total annual exports totaled $100 million, or 15% of Israel's agricultural exports. Of Israel's exports abroad, Gush Katif exported to Europe 95% of the bug-free lettuce and greens, 70% of the organic vegetables, 60% of the cherry tomatoes, and 60% of the geraniums. Israel's largest plant nursery was in the Gush Katif community of Atzmonah. Other Katif produce included spices, green, red and yellow peppers, celery and more.
That was a huge economic hit for Israel. And no doubt the Euro farmers are dancing a little jig right now...
Israel's Defense Ministry sources told Huberman that the Palestinian Authority farmers were unable to develop the techniques necessary for bug-free produce. Some of the original Israeli greenhouses were damaged or destroyed by Arabs immediately after Israel withdrew, but the PA was able to rebuild them. As of now, the only crop the Arabs are raising successfully is strawberry.
#2
The Gaza Arabs who have taken over the hothouses of what used to be Gush Katif reported to the Israel-PA Coordination Office that they have failed in raising bug-free vegetables.
Life's tough, eh? It would probably be less tough had y'all had tried to learn something from the Jews instead of constantly trying to kill them.
In addition, the PA workers complain that their wages from their compatriots and brethren are significantly lower now than what they received from the Israelis.
But you guys got what you wanted, didn't you? Now shut the hell up with the complaints already.
Al-Reuters was the only MSM article I could find at all. Not even Fox.
The United States successfully tested a Boeing Co.-managed missile defense system aimed at thwarting a limited, long-range ballistic missile attack, but did not use a live target, the Pentagon announced. Boeing said in a statement that the interceptor will be flown against a live target in subsequent tests.
A ground-based interceptor missile was launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands against a simulated target, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said late on Tuesday night. The simulation was based on a hypothetical missile launch from Kodiak, Alaska, using data from previous launches, said the agency, known as MDA.
In full-fledged interceptor tests of the so-called Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, the system has successfully shot down five live targets in 10 tries.
The latest test was designed chiefly to evaluate the performance of the interceptor missile's rocket motor system and Raytheon Co.-built "exoatmospheric kill vehicle," the bit designed to smash into the target warhead and pulverize it in space, MDA said. It also successfully tested, among other things, silo support equipment, the agency said. The flight test on Tuesday validated the system's ability to track, acquire and provide the interceptor with the data for a "hit-to-kill" intercept, Chicago-based Boeing said.
#1
Well, YEAH! That's because everyone knows Star Wars was a Reagan fantasy, and a Bushhitler attempt to...wazzat again? Waste money to starve the poor?
Sumptin' like dat!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/14/2005 21:03 Comments ||
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Here around Guam the space lasers and missle trails are still going every which way but loose.
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 McGill University study suggests a new anti-depressant drug works by raising levels of endocannabinoids -- similar to a substance found in marijuana. The study suggests the new drug, called URB597, might represent a safer alternative to use of marijuana for treatment of pain and depression, and open the door to new and improved treatments for clinical depression. In pre-clinical laboratory tests researchers found URB597 increased the production of endocannabinoids by blocking their degradation, resulting in measurable antidepressant effects. "This is the first time it has been shown a drug that increases endocannabinoids in the brain can improve your mood," said lead investigator Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a researcher at Montreal and McGill Universities. The researchers, including scientists from the University of California-Irvine, 
President 
There was a time when universities and their teachers were treated with respect bordering on awe. Few would have dared to investigate their actions or question their authority, and, for centuries, what went on behind study doors or in committee rooms and lecture halls was accorded near-holy reverence. Like a towerblock packed with dynamite, that blissful age of ivory-tower isolation crumpled with the rise of redbrick campus life... 
A strong earthquake jolted Pakistan in the early hours of Tuesday, bringing frightened survivors of the October 8 earthquake out of their tents and panicking people across northern parts of the country. There were no deaths reported. The earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale struck around 2:50am and its epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan, some 340 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. The damage was minimal because the quake originated over 200 kilometres below the earthâs surface, a Met Office official told APP. The quake was not an aftershock of the October 8 temblor, as was initially reported.
