Script

Only with your donations am I able to continue this blog. Please
consider donating.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Odd Stories: 13-Year-Old Steals AK-47



Spring Hill, Florida -  The son of a housekeeper was arrested after he stole an AK-47 from her employer.

The 13-year-old teenager stole the assault rifle earlier in the month and said the only reason he did it was because he really liked it and knew his mother wouldn't get one for him. He claims he had no intention to use it for any other reason. He gained possession of the gun when he was helping his mother clean a house.

His mother was told about the lost gun and after looking around the house for it, she found it in her son's closet. With it she found ammunition and several magazines.

He is currently facing a charge of grand theft of a firearm, which is a felony.

Odd Stories: Gunman Shows Ultimate Stupidity



Bradenton, Florida - A man who robbed two people at a motel room later returned to buy back his own gun.

Cedrick Mitchell, the alleged robber, went to the motel room with a demand to be given pills. When he was told there weren't any he changed his demand to "Everything you got." Instead of giving him money or jewelry however, the two men jumped and pepper-sprayed his face. In his attempt to escape, Mitchell dropped his gun.

Realizing his mistake later, Mitchell returned to the scene and tried to buy the firearm back from his two victims. Once more he got sprayed in the face and one of the men called 911. One of the officers who responded to the call spotted the attempted gunman who tried to escape once more, only to be captured by the police.

Odd Stories: Man Charged After Cooking Own Meal at Denny's


Police say a Wisconsin man took the Denny's restaurant chain slogan "America's diner is always open" too far, marching into one of the restaurants, announcing he was the new boss and cooking himself dinner.

James Summers walked into a Madison Denny's on Tuesday dressed in a maroon tie and black trench coat and carrying a briefcase, according to police. He strode into the manager's office, told her he was the new general manager and then fixed himself a burger, fries and a soda before police arrived.

"This is why you don't dine and dash, kiddies," Summers yelled out to diners as officers took him away, police said in a release.

Police found a stun gun in a hip holster under his coat and crack pipes in his briefcase, a criminal complaint showed. Prosecutors charged him Wednesday with disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors, and felony possession of an electronic weapon.

According to the complaint and the police news release, Summers, 52, entered the Denny's and found restaurant manager Tracy Brant counting out the day's receipts in a back office. He announced he was her new general manager and would be starting work that evening.

Brant challenged him, saying corporate headquarters hadn't notified her of any new general manager. She suggested he had the wrong restaurant.

But Summers maintained his story, growing more confrontational after Brant told him she didn't believe him. He told her he was starting and that was final, investigators said in the complaint.

She was able to get Summers out of the office and close her door. She called a hiring manager who confirmed Summers didn't work for Denny's.

While she was on the phone, her cooks knocked on the door and told her Summers had prepared himself a meal. He was in the middle of eating when Brant confronted him again. She told him he didn't work for Denny's and he had to leave.

Summers shot back that he had worked for Denny's for 30 years and Brant wasn't going to tell him he couldn't work there. When Brant asked him how he planned to pay for his $10 meal, he told her he wouldn't — and couldn't — pay.

Brant called 911. Police found Summers as he was walking across the restaurant parking lot. He told officers that he had an alcohol and drug addiction, according to the complaint.

Summers' initial court appearance was Wednesday. Court records show a public defender represented him. A spokesman for the state public defender's office declined comment Thursday, saying the office won't represent Summers as the case progresses.

A Denny's employee referred calls to a Denny's area manager, who didn't immediately return a message left by The Associated Press. A manager told a reporter who visited the Madison restaurant Thursday afternoon no one would comment.

Summers is due back in court March 6 for a preliminary hearing.

Odd Stories: Bllind Cricket Sportscaster


Odd Stories: Hot Tub on a Cold Rooftop



Ann Arbor - It's believed by officials that a creative group of students are responsible for the installation, and later removal, of a hot tub on top of one of the University of Michigan's buildings.



The hot tub was first noticed on the rooftop of the Bob and Betty Beyster Bubbler Building February 18th and was removed on the following Monday.  On at least one occasion the hot tub was used by a group of people.



Computer Science and Engineering building spokesman Steven Crang said about the event "People were kind of flabbergasted. It was obviously unexpected. It was pretty creative and now it's gone. It left a buzz in its wake."




Crang continued on to say it's most likely it's the doing of people with some type of connection to the department because "they were able to gain access to the building and install the tub," and said the most intriguing thing is "that it was on the fourth-floor balcony. It's a large hot tub and the doors that lead out to the balcony are not real big, so they had to do some work to get it out there."

Odd Stories: Large Lobster Captured in Maine



Maine - A lobster big enough to break a man's arm with one snap was released into the ocean after being trapped in a shrimp net.

Named "Rocky", the lobster weighs approximately 27 pounds and measured to be about 40 inches long. It was released instead of eaten due to a law in the state mandating any lobsters larger than five inches from its eye to the start of its tail can't be kept.

Elaine Jones of Maine's Department of Marine Resources, said "All the weight is in the claws, it could break your arm."

Although it's usually accepted that each pound of a lobster represents five to seven years of age, Jones said scientists weren't able to discern its age but didn't elaborate.


The largest lobster recorded was 44 pounds caught in Nova Scotia on 1977. Its age was believed to be more than 100 years old.

Odd Stories: World's Shortest Man Discovered in Nepal




I am very happy to be in Katmandu for the first time in my life. I am here so I can take the Guinness title."

Odd Stories: From Winner to Prison in Under 12 Hours


Altoona, Pennsylvania - A man went from winning $2,500 in a casino to ending up in jail without ever leaving the building.

Mateen Johnson won the money from playing blackjack but things turned for the worst when he tried to cash out.

Detective Sargent Troy Johannides police were notified "When they swiped his ID [and] it came back that he had a warrant." Johnson was wanted by the Blair County Drug Task Force and the Attorney General's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation for his part in a cocaine ring which operated out of a bar.

Johnson said he was at the casino to raise money which he could use to make his bail after turning himself in to the authorities.  It isn't enough however; a judge set his bail at $200,000.

Odd Stories: Cop Charged With Stealing From Co-Workers


Friday, February 24, 2012

Infragard Latest Victim of Anonymous



Once again FuckFBIFriday has proven to be a thorn in the side of governments, corporate, and law enforcement groups.  This time the victim is the Ohio chapter of Infragard, a result of government-private businesses coming together to fight crime.

Here is a mirror.

Along with this hack comes another one aimed at GeoGroup.Visitors to the site were welcomed with the song "Mumia 911", a song that's an homage to Mumia Abu Jamal.

Anonymous said the hack was "Part of our ongoing efforts to dismantle the prison-industrial complex" while an organization linked to the company, to which calls were routed, chose not to discuss the incident according to the Associated Press.

IRA Admits Role in Death of Nine-Year-Old Boy in 1973



Dublin, Ireland - After stating the death of a nine-year-old boy was the deed of the British army for decades, the infamous Irish Republican Army, or IRA, officially apologized for the death of Gordon Gallagher.

Gordon was a nine-year-old who accidentally stepped on a bomb in his parents' yard, leading to his death.

His father, Billy, said of the apology "I am glad they take full responsibility and accept that they were to blame and no one else," a reference to when two unknown IRA members approached him and said they planted the bomb but without a detonator. Instead they insisted British soldiers added it on in an attempt to make the IRA look bad. Billy says he "Never believed that for a second."


The admission and apology comes after Gordon's parents asked Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander in Londonderry, to tell them who planted the bomb and why.  McGuiness didn't fulfill the request short of admitting it was the act of the IRA. He himself was in jail at the time.

Scientist Admits Taking, Leaking Think-Tank Papers


In the field of climate science, when someone — especially skeptics — did something ethically questionable or misrepresented facts, scientist Peter Gleick was usually among the first and loudest to cry foul. He chaired a prominent scientific society's ethics committee. He created an award for what he considered lies about global warming.

Now Gleick admits that he posed as a board member to get and then distribute to the media sensitive documents from a conservative think tank that is a leader in denying mainstream climate change science.

And ethicists are criticizing the man who took others to task for what they say was stepping way over the ethical line. The think tank, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, is considering legal action against him.

Gleick, who won a MacArthur genius award and is co-founder of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, was chairman of the American Geophysical Union's ethics committee. He also had a column at Forbes.com where he criticized climate skeptics and trumpeted the resignation of a scientific journal editor who published a disputed study. He admitted taking Heartland documents Monday night in a blog on The Huffington Post.

Gleick resigned chairmanship of the ethics panel last week.

"What a mess," said Mark Frankel, head of scientific responsibility for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's leading scientific society, which also had Gleick as a panel member on some committees. "It's compounded by the fact that he was chairman of the ethics committee of a professional society. ... It's an ethical morass that he finds himself in."

And Gleick's actions cast unwarranted doubt on the work of other scientists, Frankel said.

Last week, someone identifying himself as "Heartland insider" sent 15 media members and others six documents, purportedly from Heartland. They included a fundraising document, a budget and a two-page "climate strategy." They showed the think tank receiving millions of dollars — more than $14 million over six years from one anonymous man — in big contributions with plans to teach school children to question mainstream climate science. It also showed funding of scientists who are climate-change skeptics.

Heartland said the two-page strategy document was a fake and the others were stolen. The Associated Press, which received the documents, was able to verify the accuracy of several of the most sensational parts with the individuals named. The documents caused a stir, mirroring the hacking of climate scientists' emails two years earlier from a British research center.

"My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous well-funded and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists," Gleick wrote. "Nevertheless, I deeply regret my own actions in this case."

Not good enough, Heartland president Joseph Bast said in a press release: "It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts and organizations we work with."

The issue is about deception and there are only a few things that could possibly warrant that — and embarrassing Heartland isn't one of them, said Dani Elliott, who teaches ethics at the University of South Florida.

The geophysical union, a scientific society, said in a statement that Gleick's actions are "inconsistent with our organization's values."

Exxon Sues for Return of Document It Gave Law Firm by Mistake


By David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff
 
United States - ExxonMobil is suing to recover a document it accidentally gave to attorneys of plaintiffs who are battling the oil company in court over environmental-related injuries. ExxonMobil wants the information returned because it supposedly contains evidence that the corporation deliberately withheld air sample data.
 
Over the past decade, ExxonMobil has been sued by thousands of people who claim that they or deceased members of their family were harmed by exposure to radioactive materials that accumulated in pipes used in the production of oil. In March 2010, a jury in New Orleans ruled that 16 former employees of Intracoastal Tubular Services (ITCO) who had cleaned the pipes without being warned they were dangerous deserved compensation for increased risk of cancer. Exxon had previously been forced to compensate the owners of the property where the pipes were cleaned. One of the property owners happened to be a retired state judge, Joseph Grefer. When the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal upheld that judgment, the justices called Exxon’s behavior “reprehensible.”
 
On August 28, 2008, Exxon inadvertently turned over a 1988 memorandum from Exxon attorney Rosemary Stein regarding the results of air sample tests performed by an ExxonMobil industrial hygienist on an experimental pipe cleaning unit. The oil giant is trying to stop the document from being used in a punitive damage claims trial due to commence on March 5.
 
The attorneys being sued after refusing to return the paperwork are Timothy Falcon and Jeremiah Sprague of the Falcon Law Firm, and attorney Frank M. Buck Jr. The Falcon firm was the one that received the information by mistake, and then shared it with Buck.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Qnexa Poses Heart and Birth Risks



United States - The experimental drug known as Qnexa won the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration despite the side-effects which are cause for concern.

Qnexa, a combination of the appetite suppressant phentermine and the anti-seizure drug topiramate, is the first weight-loss drug to be approved by the agency in more than a decade.  The last one, Xenical, was given approval in 1999 shortly after the "fen-phen" scandal.

The health concerns with Qnexa mainly deal with the heart which is the same with "fen-phen" and Meridia, another weight-loss medication that was pulled from the shelves in 2010.

Citing obesity and its associated health risks as a reason, a panel of experts outside of the FDA voted to approve the drug. They will make their final decision on April 17th.

Patients are said to be able to lose at least ten percent of their weight using the drug, patients also complained of memory loss and higher-than-usual heart rates.  There are also worries it may increase the chances of birth defects

Survey Reveals Alcoholism in Surgeons; Numbers May Be Higer



United States - A survey from the University of Washington revealed approximately 15 percent of surgeons have an alcohol abuse or dependency problem, but those numbers may be higher.

The survey, which was sent out to more than 25,000 surgeons but answered by only 722, showed a correlation between alcohol problems and major medical errors.

The fact only about 29 percent of the surveys were returned concerns Dr. Edward Livingston, a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who was unrelated with the study.

"If you have a low response rate, you don't know if it represents the universe of people you're trying to study because I think the folks who are less likely to respond may have shame and guilt and fear associated with their alcohol abuse and dependence that they don't want to report on the survey," he said.

The study didn't say why alcoholism is more prevalent than the general population, which is estimated at about nine percent, but some factors may be work, lifestyle, mood-related.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Thousands Die of Mystery Illness; Work-Related Dehydration Suspected

By Noel Brinkerhoff

From AllGov


Thousands of workers in Central America are dying from kidney disease that has turned into an epidemic, according to health experts.
 
More than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua have died since 2000 from kidney failure, which usually occurs in patients with diabetes and high-blood pressure. But the patients for the most part don’t suffer from these disorders.
 
Some people have blamed the problem on the agricultural chemicals used on sugar cane plantations, where many of the victims have worked. But many others have toiled in mines and other manual labor occupations, leading others to speculate that repeated bouts of extreme dehydration are causing the workers’ kidneys to shut down.
 
While the majority of the cases have been identified in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the condition has appeared as far south as Panama and as far north as Mexico.

Kim Dotcom Out on Bail; Megaupload Still Offline

Wellington, New Zealand - The founder of the site formerly known as Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, is out on bail after the presiding judge in his case found there was no reason to believe he poses a flight risk.

The judge came to his conclusion based off the fact Dotcom's accounts were frozen.

About the judgment an elated Dotcom said to reporters "I am relieved to go home to see my family, my three little kids, and my pregnant wife and I hope you understand that that is all I want to say right now."

Dotcom's company, the infamous Megaupload, was shut down after United States authorities raided his offices on the claim he's hosting millions of illegal downloads. The arrest happened the same day SOPA was delayed in Congress through actions of both internet activism and big corporations such as Google and Wikipedia. The United States is still seeking to extradite Dotcom and three of his partners for racketeering charges.

Supreme Court Judges Torn on Stolen Valor Act

Washington D.C. - Should it be a crime to lie about being awarded a top military honor? It's a question on which the Supreme Court seems to be divided.

February 21st the judges debated over a 2006 law known as the Stolen Valor Act's constitutionality.  The Stolen Valor Act is meant to make false claims about military exploits a punishable act. The spirit of the debate is based off the possibility that laws about lying about one's academic credentials or affair may arise as well.

The judges who are in support of upholding the Stolen Valor Act however say the law is carefully drawn to make sure people don't wrongly use the system of military honors to their favor.

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease High in Vietnam But Low Overall

Hanoi - More than 6,000 children are sick and nine are dead from the hand, foot, and mouth disease in Vietnam, more than seven times the amount of last year's numbers at this time.

The more common form of the disease causes a fever and rash amongst its victims. This strain, known as EV-71, is worse in that it can cause severe neurological disease. There is no known antivirus at the moment.

Last year more than 100,000 people fell ill and 166 died, most of whom were children.

However, the country's health ministry stated, the numbers have slowed since September 2011's numbers of 3,000 infections per week.

42% of Women Die Within a Year of a Heart Attack, but Only 24% of Men


By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky

From AllGov
 
Women are less likely than men to survive a heart attack, according to recent statistics. A study found that 42% of women who have heart attacks die within one year compared with 24% of men.
 
Researchers attribute the discrepancy in heart attack survivals to a variety of possible factors. For one, women tend to develop heart disease about 10 years later in life than men, and they are more likely to have coexisting chronic conditions, such as breast cancer involving chemotherapy that may affect some women who have heart attacks. Also, women may not be diagnosed or treated as aggressively as men for their heart problems.
 
A 2004 study of 5,887 people who made 911 calls found that, on average, women arrived at the hospital 2.3 minutes slower than men. Another study, published in the Journal of Stroke and Cardiovascular Diseases, concluded that “female and black stroke patients are less likely than others to receive care to prevent subsequent strokes.”
 
Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women in the United States, with about 50% of female mortalities attributed to either heart attack or stroke.

Obama Shoots for Science Increase

By Ivan Semeniuk, Meredith Wadman, Susan Young, Eric Hand, Eugenie Samuel Reich, and Richard Monastersky

From Nature Magazine

“It’s not every day you have robots running through your house,” Barack Obama quipped last week at the White House science fair, a showcase for student exhibitors that also gave the US president a chance to reiterate a favourite theme. Science and technology, he said, “is what’s going to make a difference in this country, over the long haul”.

Obama would clearly like to see many more robots, as well as researchers and engineers, running around in the future, a wish reflected in his budget request for fiscal year 2013, released on 13 February. The document’s message is one of big ambitions with fewer resources.

A year ago, Obama proposed bold increases for science agencies, but a Congress intent on curbing government spending refused to back many of them. This time, the White House has scaled back in several areas but boosted overall funding for non-defence research and development by 5%, pushing it up to US$64.9 billion.


“Overall, the budget sustains an upward trend,” says John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington DC. “Because of fiscal restraints, it’s not at the rate we preferred.”

With an election coming this November, House Republicans are unlikely to be generous with the president’s request. As in previous years, Congress could delay action on the budget, especially if it decides to wait for voters to weigh in on Obama’s presidency before making its decision. And the spectre of a severe across-the-board cut dangles over the government because of an act introduced last year that aims to chop $1.2 trillion from spending, starting in January 2013.

Here is an overview of what the president’s request would mean in key science domains (see ‘Tough decisions’).

Biomedicine and public health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, by far the largest US research agency, sees its budget held level at $30.7 billion — a far cry from the $1-billion increase Obama proposed a year ago. Despite the ceiling, Lawrence Tabak, the NIH’s principal deputy director, sees the budget as “continuing our priorities in basic science”, and it allows the agency to boost the number of new and competing grants it funds by 8%.

The newly launched National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) in Bethesda will grow by 11%, to $639 million. Much of the rise goes to the Cures Acceleration Network, an effort to spur development of badly needed medicines through bold, multimillion-dollar grants. The programme’s allocation grows fivefold next year, to $50 million.

Accomplishing all this within a flat budget requires cuts. Losers include the National Children’s Study, a long-term study of early influences on the health of more than a hundred thousand children, which received $194 million in 2012, but has been cut by $29 million; and the Institutional Development Award programme, aimed at developing research infrastructure in rural and undeserved states, which loses nearly $48 million.
To pinch the pennies that will make new grants possible, the NIH plans to eliminate inflationary increases for some existing grants, cut others by 1% and keep grants seeking renewal at current levels. The agency predicts that these measures would boost the success rate for grant applications, currently at a historic low of 18%, but only to 19%.

The flat-lined budget has drawn bleak appraisals from NIH advocates. “We are talking about a budget that is probably close to 20% smaller than it was a decade ago, adjusted for inflation,” says David Moore, senior director for government relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington DC.
Jennifer Zeitzer, director of legislative relations at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Bethesda, says that her organization will work with research champions to persuade Congress to boost the allocation for the NIH. The president’s request, she says, “is not what we need to take advantage of the scientific opportunities that are before us”.

The outlook is even less favorable for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, which has had its budget cut by 12%, to make a total of 22% in cuts since 2010. Those cuts are, in part, counterbalanced by bringing in funds from a long-standing health-services evaluation fund and from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which is part of the health reform law that Obama introduced in 2010.
The dependence on the Prevention and Public Health Fund worries public-health advocates. Using the fund to patch holes in the CDC’s budget is “troubling”, says Emily Holubowich, executive director of the Coalition for Health Funding, based in Washington DC. “The future of the fund is tenuous at best.”

Obama has also kept the budget mostly flat for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, Maryland. However, the agency will receive a $583-million bolus from new industries, mainly from food-registration and inspection fees and from makers of generic drugs and biosimilars.

The FDA has already been criticized for becoming too reliant on industry funding, but Margaret Hamburg, the FDA’s commissioner, says that the fees are needed to ensure effective and timely drug and device review. “There is a common good here,” she says.

Physical sciences

The White House continues to support a long-term doubling of budgets for physical-science agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Virginia; the Department of Energy’s Office of Science in Washington DC; and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The doubling, relative to 2006, is a goal of the America COMPETES Act, introduced under former President George W. Bush that year, and signed into law in 2007. Congressional appropriators have, however, slowed the pace of these agencies’ growth considerably since then (see ‘A long way to go’).
The budget also shifts funding towards the applied end of the research spectrum, where advances should translate into economic gains more quickly. It continues to fund I-Corps, a programme launched last year that partners entrepreneurs with scientists seeking to test the marketability of their research. And advanced manufacturing, which supports industry by developing measurement capabilities and standards to guide new product development, gets $149 million — money that NSF director Subra Suresh says will help to stem a decline in US manufacturing. “In times of constrained budgets, we need to be crystal clear about why NSF matters,” Suresh says.

The NSF emerges as a clear winner in Obama’s request, with a 5% boost to its bottom line. And one thing is very clear at the agency: researchers pursuing interdisciplinary research will be rewarded, with $63 million allocated to a programme that supports such work.

The NIST also gets a large increase, much of which is aimed at advanced manufacturing, including both a robotics programme and a ‘materials genome’ initiative that aims to speed up the development of new materials.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science receives a more modest rise, much of which goes to its national laboratories and Energy Innovation Hubs. Several basic-research programmes are trimmed, including nuclear physics and high-energy physics, a shift that is consistent with the administration’s emphasis on applied research that is most relevant to energy technology.

“Basic research is systematically down,” says Milind Diwan, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, and co-spokesman for a planned particle physics experiment that received a drop in funding. “Those of us in fundamental-research have to live within those priorities.”

At NASA, the talk is of “tough but sustainable choices” for an agency that would receive $17.7 billion in 2013, $59 million less than in 2012. Its science budget drops by 3.2%, but planetary science bears the brunt of that, with a cut of 21%. For years, NASA has been pursuing plans with the European Space Agency for joint missions to Mars in 2016 and 2018. But on Monday, NASA administrator Charles Bolden pulled the plug. “We just cannot do another flagship right now,” he said. Officials fear that the costs for these missions would spiral out of control, as they have for the $8.8-billion James Webb Space Telescope, a follow-on to the Hubble telescope that is slated for a 2018 launch.

The pinch will perhaps be felt most keenly at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the traditional home of the Mars Exploration Program. Last year, the laboratory had to lay off the equivalent of 246 full-time employees, reducing its staff to 5,047. When the $2.5-billion Mars Science Laboratory lands in August, the JPL will have to quickly find new work for a few hundred employees so the latest Mars cancellations make more lay-offs likely. “Our expectation was that we’d have another mission to move these people on to,” says Richard O’Toole, the JPL’s manager of legislative affairs. “We definitely feel the pressure.”

Energy, Earth and environment

In Obama’s plan, spending on energy efficiency and renewable energy rises by $457 million, to $2.3 billion, with the largest increases targeting advanced manufacturing, and vehicle and building technologies. These programmes, run by the Department of Energy, are aimed at bolstering the competitiveness of industry. “Our motto is ‘Invented in America, made in America, sold worldwide’,” says energy secretary Steven Chu.
Included in the package are increases for research in solar energy, bioenergy and fossil fuels, including $155 million for carbon capture and storage systems. But there are reductions and shifts as well: the budget for wind power remains unchanged but is allocated mainly to offshore technologies. Spending on nuclear energy continues an ongoing move toward small, modular reactors.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Washington DC receives a boost of 3%. That isn’t enough to offset both inflation and rising salaries, but nonetheless protects a core agency priority: a programme of polar-orbiting weather and environment satellites that has been troubled by delays and cost overruns. Last year, NOAA requested a hefty increase of $688 million to get the programme back on track, but received just under two-thirds of that. This year, the satellite programme is boosted by $169 million.

NOAA watchers looking for signs of the president’s proposed reorganization of the Department of Commerce, which would move NOAA from there to the Department of the Interior, found no trace of the plan in the 2013 budget. The budget is also silent on another big initiative, the creation of a climate service within NOAA.

In what could be a third straight year of declining budgets for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington DC, the agency’s funding has been slashed by 1%, to $8.3 billion, almost $2 billion less than in 2010. Nonetheless, funding for initiatives that target climate change and the environment rises slightly, to $807 million, protecting core science and regulatory efforts. To compensate, the White House has cut $359 million from a pair of clean-water grant programmes. These programmes are popular in Congress, and law-makers have reversed similar cuts in the past.

“They did a pretty good job in making sure we are not hurting our environment and conservation programmes,” says Scott Slesinger, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington DC. But Slesinger expects Congress to inflict further cuts.

With a 3% rise for its overall budget, the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia, fares better than most mission-oriented science agencies. The agency’s research and development portfolio expands from $675.5 million to $726.5 million. Part of the increase includes an extra $13 million for research on the effects of hydraulic fracturing, the process used by the oil and gas industry to squeeze hydrocarbons out of non-porous rock. The president has also pumped an extra $10.3 million into natural-hazards work, including $2.4 million for research on quick responses to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides, and $1.6 million to study the risk of earthquakes in the eastern United States, which was shaken by a magnitude-5.8 tremor last August.

Daniel Sarewitz, a geoscientist and co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University in Tempe, supports the increase for the USGS. “The survey doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it does things that are important for the nation and it’s structured in ways that make its science very useful.”

Education

The administration has taken pains to advertise a $3-billion effort to increase and strengthen the future US science and technology workforce. For example, a combined expenditure of $135 million by the Department of Education and the NSF aims to boost the number of science and mathematics teachers by 100,000 over the coming decade. An even more ambitious effort allocates an additional $81 million to increasing the number of science graduates by one million — roughly 30% more than there are today — over the same period. According to Carl Wieman, associate director for science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, simply reducing the attrition of science majors, which currently runs as high as 60%, could drive much of that increase.

Obama made a point of previewing both initiatives during the White House science fair, telling students there, “You give me confidence that America’s best days are still to come.” Now, as the budget goes to Congress, the battle to support lofty goals with real dollars begins a new round.

A Decision

As of late I've been a little lax in updating the blog, but there's a reason.

I have decided to go into podcasting.

I'm not sure if it will be meant to take over for this blog, as it's a lot of work and I've received not only no donations, but the little bit of help I've received has disappeared.  I imagine people are still reading, as the numbers show, but it can be a little disheartening. There are those times when I wonder "What's the point when almost nobody is responding, my personal writing has taken a sideline, and when I do find the time I discover how much of my day has gone by?" I don't want to leave the blog, but there is that chance.

With Molotov Mouthpiece I take a more personal stance on what's happening in the world.  It's definitely more militant than this blog is or will ever be as long as I'm running it. There will also be guests, such as personal friends, and hopefully with time more well-known voices in the atheist, progressive, black, and vegan movements, as well as others. Who knows, there might even be some videos or photos popping up at some point.

This isn't to say goodbye at all.  I plan to see Daily Alt News until it's either no longer feasible to do or I completely burn out and throw myself off the nearest cliff (hopefully the former as I'd feel bad for the person who'd have to clean up after me). However a few bucks here or there or a response to get some debate/talk going does help to stop me from feeling like I'm posting in a wasteland.

With that expressed, there should be more posts within a few hours.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Justices Will Review Racial Preference for College


The Supreme Court is setting an election-season review of racial preference in college admissions, agreeing Tuesday to consider new limits on the contentious issue of affirmative action programs.

A challenge from a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas flagship campus will be the high court's first look at affirmative action in higher education since its 2003 decision endorsing the use of race as a factor.

This time around, a more conservative court could jettison that earlier ruling or at least limit when colleges may take account of race in admissions.

In a term already filled with health care, immigration and political redistricting, the justices won't hear the affirmative action case until the fall.

But the political calendar will still add drama. Arguments probably will take place in the final days of the presidential election campaign.

A broad ruling in favor of the student, Abigail Fisher, could threaten affirmative action programs at many of the nation's public and private universities, said Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick.

A federal appeals court upheld the Texas program at issue, saying it was allowed under the high court's decision in Grutter vs. Bollinger in 2003 that upheld racial considerations in university admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.

But there have been changes in the Supreme Court since then. For one thing, Justice Samuel Alito appears more hostile to affirmative action than his predecessor, Sandra Day O'Connor. For another, Justice Elena Kagan, who might be expected to vote with the court's liberal-leaning justices in support of it, is not taking part in the case.

Kagan's absence probably is a result of the Justice Department's participation in the Texas case in the lower courts at a time when she served as the Obama administration's solicitor general.

Fisher, of Sugar Land, Texas, filed a lawsuit along with another woman when they were denied admission at the university's Austin campus. They contended the school's race-conscious policy violated their civil and constitutional rights. By then, the two had enrolled elsewhere.

The other woman has since dropped out of the case. The state has said that Fisher is a Louisiana State University senior whose impending graduation should bring an end to the lawsuit. But the Supreme Court appeared not to buy that argument Tuesday.

The Project on Fair Representation, which opposes the use of race in public policy, has helped pay Fisher's legal bills. "This case presents the Court with an opportunity to clarify the boundaries of race preferences in higher education or even reconsider whether race should be permitted at all under the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection," said Edward Blum, the group's director.

The project also issued a statement in Fisher's name. "I hope the court will decide that all future UT applicants will be allowed to compete for admission without their race or ethnicity being a factor," she said.
Most entering freshmen at Texas are admitted because they are among the top 10 percent in their high school classes. Fisher's grades did not put her in that category.

The Texas Legislature adopted the Top Ten Percent law after a federal appeals court ruling essentially barred the use of race in admissions.

But following the high court ruling in 2003, the university resumed considering race starting with its 2005 entering class. The policy at issue applies to the remaining spots beyond those filled by the top 10 percent and allows for the consideration of race along with other factors

Texas said its updated policy does not use quotas, which the high court has previously rejected. Instead, it said it takes a Supreme Court-endorsed broader approach to enrollment, with an eye toward increasing the diversity of the student body.

"We must have the flexibility to consider each applicant's unique experiences and background so we can provide the best environment in which to educate and train the students who will be our nation's future leaders," said Bill Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin.

Before adding race back into the mix, Texas' student body was 21 percent African-American and Hispanic, according to court papers.

By 2007, the year before Fisher filed her lawsuit, African-Americans and Hispanics accounted for more than a quarter of the entering freshman class.

Fisher's challenge says the Top Ten Percent law was working to increase diversity and that minority enrollment was higher than it had been under the earlier race-conscious system.

Fitzpatrick said two other states, California and Florida, use similar "top 10" plans, although California law 
explicitly prohibits the consideration of race.

"But the vast majority of schools that are selective are using affirmative action, though they don't like to advertise it for fear of being sued," he said.

The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 11-345.

Occupy 4 Prisoners Protest Outside San Quentin Prison


San Quentin - Occupy Oakland joined together with prison reform activists, forming Occupy 4 Prisoners, outside the infamous prison February 20th to protest against the high incarceration and living conditions.prevalent in the facility. Some of their issues involved the strict sentencing, ending solitary confinement, and children being tried as adults.


"I myself experienced more than 14 months of solitary confinement and after only two months my mind began to slip," said Sarah Shourd.  Shourd was one of three people, along with her friends Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were imprisoned for in an Iranian jail in 2009. They have since focused their efforts toward prison reform.



"We have merged the prison rights movement with the Occupy Movement. The 99 percent has to be concerned about the bottom 1 percent," said activist Barbra Becnel said, quoting a message she said came from death row prisoner Kevin Cooper.


Demonstrators also held a moment of silence for Christian Alexander Gomez who died February 2 while on a hunger strike in California's Corcoran State Prison. He was one of the prisoners who staged a wave of hunger strikes in solidarity with other prisoners who united against the isolation unites in Pelican Bay State Prison.

Monday, February 20, 2012

San Francisco Sues U.S. Government Over Deadly Pipeline Explosion


By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky 
 
San Francisco - The U.S. Department of Transportation and one of its agencies is being sued by the city of San Francisco for the deadly gas pipeline explosion that occurred two years ago.
 
According to its lawsuit, the city claims the department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) “has been shirking its duty for over a decade, if not longer” and has failed to properly maintain national safety standards and adequate oversight of pipelines. The PHMSA is also accused of not ensuring that pipelines in the state complied with federal safety standards under the Pipeline Safety Act.
 
San Francisco authorities accuse PHMSA of creating “a regulatory scheme that improperly delegates to gas pipeline operators responsibility for the safe operation and maintenance of gas pipeline facilities.”
  
The Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) pipeline explosion occurred in San Bruno, where eight people were killed on September 9, 2010, and destroyed more than 100 homes. The lawsuit also cites another deadly PG&E natural gas line explosion in Rancho Cordova in 2008 and a non-lethal explosion in Cupertino in 2011.

Obama Fights to Retain Warrantless Wiretapping


By Matt Bewig and David Wallechinsky
 
United States - Despite being propelled to victory by progressive supporters critical of the Bush administration’s record on civil liberties, President Barack Obama has directed the Justice Department to defend many of the policies of George W. Bush, including warrant-less wiretapping. Last week, the Justice Department filed papers asking the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that allowed the continuation of an ACLU lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2008 law giving the government unprecedented authority to monitor Americans’ international emails and phone calls.
 
That monitoring has its origins in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when, a few years later, President Bush instructed the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept Americans’ telephone calls without warrants, which were required by the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA, a post-Watergate statute meant to rein in domestic surveillance, created a special court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), to approve or reject requests for domestic surveillance.
 
Between 1978 and 1992, presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presented 7,030 applications for warrants and the court approved all of them as submitted. During his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton and his Justice Department presented 6,057 warrant applications. The FISC approved 6,055 of them, modified one and rejected one.
 
However, the harmonious relationship between the executive branch and the FISC changed after George W. Bush became president. The court rejected six requests outright and modified 179. It is worth noting that all eleven members of the Bush-era FISC were selected by conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Annoyed by the FISC judges’ refusal to rubber-stamp his policies, Bush bypassed the law and ordered the NSA to secretly conduct illegal wiretapping.
 
When Bush’s secret program was revealed by The New York Times in 2005, the Bush administration first agreed to seek FISC approval, and when that failed, got Congress to permit the previously prohibited warrantless wiretapping by passing the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. President Bush signed the bill into law on July 10, 2008, and the ACLU filed its challenge less than an hour later. The provisions of the act are scheduled to end at the end of 2012.
 
The appeals court ruling, which was issued in March 2011, rejected the Obama administration’s argument that the case should be dismissed because the ACLU’s clients could not prove their communications would be collected under the law, which was true largely because the law creates great secrecy around the wiretaps in the first place–a true “Catch-22.”

NYPD Monitored Muslim Students All Over Northeast

One autumn morning in Buffalo, N.Y., a college student named Adeela Khan logged into her email and found a message announcing an upcoming Islamic conference in Toronto.

Khan clicked "forward," sent it to a group of fellow Muslims at the University at Buffalo, and promptly forgot about it.

But that simple act on Nov. 9, 2006, was enough to arouse the suspicion of an intelligence analyst at the New York Police Department, 300 miles away, who combed through her post and put her name in an official report. Marked "SECRET" in large red letters, the document went all the way to Commissioner Raymond Kelly's office.

The report, along with other documents obtained by The Associated Press, reveals how the NYPD's intelligence division focused far beyond New York City as part of a surveillance program targeting Muslims.

Police trawled daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges in the Northeast. They talked with local authorities about professors in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.

Asked about the monitoring, police spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations, which the NYPD referred to as MSAs. They included Jesse Morton, who this month pleaded guilty to posting online threats against the creators of the animated TV show "South Park." He had once tried to recruit followers at Stony Brook University on Long Island, Browne said.

"As a result, the NYPD deemed it prudent to get a better handle on what was occurring at MSAs," Browne said in an email. He said police monitored student websites and collected publicly available information in 2006 and 2007.But documents show other surveillance efforts continued for years afterward.

"I see a violation of civil rights here," said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University. "Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has."

In recent months, the AP has revealed secret programs the NYPD built with help from the CIA to monitor Muslims at the places where they eat, shop and worship. The AP also published details about how police placed undercover officers at Muslim student associations in colleges within the city limits; this revelation has outraged faculty and student groups.

Though the NYPD says it follows the same rules as the FBI, some of the NYPD's activities go beyond what the FBI is allowed to do.

Kelly and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeatedly have said that the police only follow legitimate leads about suspected criminal activity.

But the latest documents mention no wrongdoing by any students.

In one report, an undercover officer describes accompanying 18 Muslim students from the City College of New York on a whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York on April 21, 2008. The officer noted the names of attendees who were officers of the Muslim Student Association.

"In addition to the regularly scheduled events (Rafting), the group prayed at least four times a day, and much of the conversation was spent discussing Islam and was religious in nature," the report says.

Praying five times a day is one of the core traditions of Islam.

Jawad Rasul, one of the students on the trip, said he was stunned that his name was included in the police report.

"It forces me to look around wherever I am now," Rasul said.

But another student, Ali Ahmed, whom the NYPD said appeared to be in charge of the trip, said he understood the police department's concern.

"I can't blame them for doing their job," Ahmed said. "There's lots of Muslims doing some bad things and it gives a bad name to all of us, so they have to take their due diligence."

City College criticized the surveillance and said it was unaware the NYPD was watching students.

"The City College of New York does not accept or condone any investigation of any student organization based on the political or religious content of its ideas," the college said in a written statement. "Absent specific evidence linking a member of the City College community to criminal activity, we do not condone this kind of investigation."

Browne said undercover officers go wherever people they're investigating go. There is no indication that, in the nearly four years since the report, the NYPD brought charges connecting City College students to terrorism.

Student groups were of particular interest to the NYPD because they attract young Muslim men, a demographic that terrorist groups frequently draw from. Police worried about which Muslim scholars were influencing these students and feared that extracurricular activities such as paintball outings could be used as terrorist training.

The AP first reported in October that the NYPD had placed informants or undercover officers in the Muslim Student Associations at City College, Brooklyn College, Baruch College, Hunter College, City College of New York, Queens College, La Guardia Community College and St. John's University. All of those colleges are within the New York City limits.

A person familiar with the program, who like others insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, said the NYPD also had a student informant at Syracuse.

Police also were interested in the Muslim student group at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2009, undercover NYPD officers had a safe house in an apartment not far from campus. The operation was blown when the building superintendent stumbled upon the safe house and, thinking it was some sort of a terrorist cell, called the police emerency dispatcher.

The FBI responded and determined that monitoring Rutgers students was one of the operation's objectives, current and former federal officials said.

The Rutgers police chief at the time, Rhonda Harris, would not discuss the fallout. In a written statement, university spokesman E.J. Miranda said: "The university was not aware of this at the time and we have nothing to add on this matter."

Another NYPD intelligence report from Jan. 2, 2009, described a trip by three NYPD officers to Buffalo, where they met with a high-ranking member of the Erie County Sheriff's Department and agreed "to develop assets jointly in the Buffalo area, to act as listening posts within the ethnic Somalian community."

The sheriff's department official noted "that there are some Somali Professors and students at SUNY-Buffalo and it would be worthwhile to further analyze that population," the report says.

Browne said the NYPD did not follow that recommendation. A spokesman for the university, John DellaContrada, said the NYPD never contacted the administration. Sheriff's Departments spokeswoman Mary Murray could not immediately confirm the meeting or say whether the proposal went any further.

The document that mentions Khan, the University at Buffalo student, is entitled "Weekly MSA Report" and dated Nov. 22, 2006. It explains that officers from the NYPD's Cyber Intelligence unit visited the websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student associations as a "daily routine."

The universities included Yale; Columbia; the University of Pennsylvania; Syracuse; New York University; Clarkson University; the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers; and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam; Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

Khan was a board member of the Muslim Student Association at the University at Buffalo at the time she received the conference announcement, which went out to a mailing list of Muslim organizations.

The email said "highly respected scholars" would be attending the Toronto conference, but did not say who or give any details of the program. Khan says she never went to the conference, was not affiliated with it and had no idea who was speaking at it.

Khan says she clicked "forward" and sent it to a Yahoo chat group of fellow students.

"A couple people had gone the year prior and they said they had a really nice time, so I was just passing the information on forward. That's really all it was," said Khan, who has since graduated.

But officer Mahmood Ahmad of the NYPD's Cyber Intelligence Unit took notice and listed Khan in his weekly report for Kelly. The officer began researching the Toronto conference and found that one of the speakers, Tariq Ramadan, had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004. The U.S. government said it was because Ramadan had given money to a Palestinian group. It reinstated his visa in 2010.

The officer's report notes three other speakers. One, Siraj Wahaj, is a prominent but controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of authorities for years. Prosecutors included his name on a 3 ½-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged.

The other two are Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir, two of the nation's most prominent Muslim scholars. Both have lectured at top universities in the U.S.. Yusuf met with President George W. Bush at the White House following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

There is no indication that the investigation went any further, or that Khan was ever implicated in anything. Browne, the NYPD spokesman, said students like her have nothing to fear from the police.

"Students who advertised events or sent emails about regular events should not be worried about a 'terrorism file' being kept on them. NYPD only investigated persons who we had reasonable suspicion to believe might be involved in unlawful activities," Browne said.

But Khan still worries about being associated with the police report.

"It's just a waste of resources, if you ask me," she said. "I understand why they're doing it, but it's just kind of like a Catch-22. I'm not the one doing anything wrong."

The university said it was unaware its students were being monitored.

"UB does not conduct this kind of surveillance and if asked, UB would not voluntarily cooperate with such a request," the university said in a written statement. "As a public university, UB strongly supports the values of freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, and a reasonable expectation of privacy."

The same Nov. 22, 2006, report also noted seminars announced on the websites of the Muslim student associations at New York University and Rutgers University's campus in Newark, New Jersey.

Browne said intelligence analysts were interested in recruiting by the Islamic Thinkers Society, a New York-based group that wants to see the United States governed under Islamic law. Morton was a leader of the group and went to Stony Brook University's MSA to recruit students that same month.

"One thing that our open source searches were interested in determining at the time was, where (does the) Islamic Thinkers Society go — in terms of MSAs for recruiting," Browne said.

Yale declined comment. The University of Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other colleges on the list said they worried the monitoring infringed on students' freedom of speech.

"Like New York City itself, American universities are admired across the globe as places that welcome a diversity of people and viewpoints. So we would obviously be concerned about anything that could chill our essential values of academic freedom or intrude on student privacy," Columbia University spokesman Robert Hornsby said in a written statement.

Danish Munir, an alumnus adviser for the University of Pennsylvania's Muslim Student Association, said he believes police are wasting their time by watching college students.

"What do they expect to find here?" Munir said. "These are all kids coming from rich families or good families, and they're just trying to make a living, have a good career, have a good college experience. It's a futile allocation of resources."