Breast news story ever!!

Must be bad news for local beauty pageants...

Jul 13, 8:24 AM (ET)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants, officials said on Tuesday.

"It happened last week, but we only learned about it recently as our clients started complaining. It is the hottest period of the year in terms of implant sales," said Margaret Figueiredo, director of silicone implant manufacturer Silimed.

A spokesman for the state Postal Service confirmed that assailants, apparently men, robbed the postal van with implants on Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro. Each Silimed breast implant costs nearly $400.

The popularity of Brazil's plastic surgery pioneer and trendsetter Ivo Pitanguy, whose clients include celebrities like Sophia Loren, has made the tropical country one of the leading international nip and tuck venues.

Figueiredo explained demand is the highest in July, during the southern hemisphere winter, as women schedule surgery during the winter school holidays, which precede the beach season.

Figueiredo said the implants, each bearing an individual number, could now only be sold for clandestine surgeries. Horrific stories abound in Brazil about the illegal operations that can cause gangrene and death.

Shuttle not safe.

The shuttle is going to blow up once its finally launched, that creaky craft is what, 20+ years old?? Nasa better start cooking on that space plane, like it should have been entering production just as the last shuttle flight happens, but that's not the case, as there is no new craft in the pipeline to replace the shuttles. How did Nasa become so flawed. I blame Sean O'Keefe, man that guy was a fuckin' idiot. Newspapers and broadcast media outlets should start preparing their 'shuttle disaster' stories now, so that they are prepared once this flying coffin blows up.

Technical fault forces shuttle launch cancellation
13/07/2005 - 18:54:34

A faulty fuel-tank sensor forced Nasa to call off today’s launch of Discovery, which would have been the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster two-and-a-half years ago.

The space agency did not immediately set a new launch date.

The decision came with less than two-and-a-half hours left in the countdown.

Up until then, thunderstorms appeared to be the only obstacle to an on-time lift-off.

Launch control said it would take some time to figure out the problem.

The problem was with one of the four engine cut-off sensors, which are responsible for making sure the spacecraft’s engines shut down at the proper point during the ascent.

Nasa said it appeared that the sensor was showing a low fuel level, even though the tank was full.

The sensors “for some reason did not behave today and so we are going to have to scrub this launch attempt,” launch director Mike Leinbach told the launch team.

“I appreciate all we have been through together, but this one is not going to result in a launch attempt today.”

So i got hit by a car

Out skating on Sunday night I went to cross the street on my skateboard while riding down a decent hill. I checked the traffic coming from the road behind me and saw that it was clear, so I ollied off the curb and made for the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Unfortunately this particular intersection accepts incoming traffic from an adjoining cross-street, Arkansas Ave. I got enough of a glimpse of the oncoming car to brace for impact and kind of get my legs out of the way of the cars bumper, the force of the impact sent me hurtling onto the cars hood with incredible force, I estimate the cars speed at least was 15-20mph. I jumped back up, surprisingly I didn't loose my glasses during all of this, my board went sailing across the road. Immediately I knew something was wrong with my left shoulder, cause it wouldn't move and was generating intense pain. It was dislocated, out of it's socket, omg it hurt. I hadn't ever dislocated a shoulder before so this was a new experience for me. Luckily a bystander knew how to put it back into its place and as soon as it fit back together the pain went away, I was like, "hey that did it, ALL BETTER". I retrieved my skateboard and told the VERY FREAKED OUT driver of the Honda Accord that struck me that I was ok and didn't need an ambulance. He didn't get out of his car but he didn't leave the scene either, I think he was afraid of being sued or something, or that a cop would show up. Now it's Wednesday and my bruises are starting to change color and I'm almost out of Aleve. I'll be back on my board next week!

Free food from Chick-fil-A!

Free food from Chick-fil-A on July 15th, a free combo meal in fact. The only catch is that you have to come intto the store dressed in a cow costume to claim your food.

check it out...

I'm gambling and can't stop!!

You know casinos are going to jump all over this opportunity and put this into the water supply at Bailey's, Mandalay Bay, Harrah's, etc.. This is actually really irresponsible of this drug company to put that out there knowing that this drug may invoke compulsive behavior. good luck with the class action suit.

Study Links Parkinson's Drug to Gambling

Jul 12, 7:03 AM (ET)

By LINDSEY TANNER

CHICAGO (AP) - Joe Neglia was a retired government intelligence worker with Parkinson's disease when he suddenly developed what he calls a gambling habit from hell. After losing thousands of dollars playing slot machines near his California home several times a day for nearly two years, Neglia stumbled across an Internet report linking a popular Parkinson's drug he used with compulsive gambling.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, this must be it,'" he said. Three days after stopping the drug, Mirapex, "all desire to gamble just went away completely. I felt like I had my brain back."

A Mayo Clinic study published Monday in July's Archives of Neurology describes 11 other Parkinson's patients who developed the unusual problem while taking Mirapex or similar drugs between 2002 and 2004. Doctors have since identified 14 additional Mayo patients with the problem, said lead author Dr. M. Leann Dodd, a Mayo psychiatrist.

"It's certainly enough for us to be cautious as we are using it," Dodd said. "We wouldn't want them to have some kind of financial ruin or difficulties that could be prevented."

Dr. Leo Verhagen, a Parkinson's specialist at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center who was not involved in the study, says he and some colleagues all have a few patients who developed compulsive gambling while taking Mirapex, a drug that relieves tremors and stiffness. The behavior usually disappears when the drug dose is lowered, Verhagen said. He praised the Mayo article for raising awareness for doctors and patients.

Neglia, 54, now living in Millersville, Md., was not treated at Mayo or involved in the study. He said the problem is underreported "because of the embarrassment factor" and is one of several patients suing manufacturer Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., accusing the company of failing to adequately warn patients about the potential side effects.

California attorney Daniel Kodam, who filed the lawsuit last year, said he's spoken with more than 200 Mirapex patients who developed compulsive behaviors, including excessive gambling, sex and shopping. He is seeking to have the complaint certified as a nationwide class-action lawsuit. A similar suit has been filed in Canada, Kodam said.

Neglia said he has contacted the Food and Drug Administration but that the agency has failed to act on numerous adverse reaction reports about Mirapex. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency is examining the reports to determine if there's any connection to the drug but declined to say how many it has received.

Katherine King O'Connor, a spokeswoman for the Ridgefield, Conn.-based Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, said there's no scientific evidence that Mirapex causes the problem. Still, the company revised Mirapex's package insert earlier this year to include compulsive behavior among potential side effects after receiving "rare" reports - all after the drug was approved for U.S. use in 1997, O'Connor said.

Mirapex was among top-selling Parkinson's drugs last year, with more than $200 million in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.

Mirapex, or pramipexole, reduces tremors and the slow, stiff movements that are a hallmark of Parkinson's disease. It belongs to a class of drugs that mimic the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical that controls movement and is deficient in Parkinson's disease.

Mirapex targets dopamine receptors in a brain region associated with emotions that include pleasure and reward-seeking behavior, Dodd said. It can also cause extreme sudden sleepiness.

It is sometimes used alone or with the mainstay Parkinson's drug, levodopa.

Though a few of the Mayo patients took related drugs, Dodd said most used Mirapex. They included a 68-year-old man who lost more than $200,000 at casinos over six months and a 41-year-old computer programmer who became "consumed" with Internet gambling, losing $5,000 within a few months.

Dodd said Mayo doctors now ask patients using the drugs if they have suddenly taken up gambling. Affected patients are usually switched to different drugs or doses, and the result is often dramatic, "like a light switch being turned off when they stopped the drug," she said.

---

On the Net:

Archives of Neurology: http://www.archneurol.com

crazzieeee cat lady

Someone on another board brought up a good point, there's no crazy dog people that make the news, are there? You don't hear about 300 dogs, half of them being dead, crammed into a 1,000 square foot house. that's odd.

Elderly woman in U.S. hoards more than 300 cats

Jul 12, 10:37 AM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman's Virginia home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house, police said on Tuesday.

The house, less than a mile from late President George Washington's historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, feces and urine.

"Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them," Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry told Reuters.

He said animal control officers removed 273 cats -- 86 of them dead -- over the weekend and slapped a condemnation order on the door of the house. The woman, her husband and daughter were told to leave.

Later on, Henry said, the woman returned and attempted to smuggle an additional 30 cats from the house. These animals were confiscated, bringing the total to more than 300.

Ruth Knueven, 82, was charged with failing to care for her animals and of improperly disposing of them. Dozens of dead cats were found in plastic bins around the house.

Most of the cats were inbred and sick and were unfit for adoption, said Henry. "These were feral cats who were given free range of the house and almost all of them will, unfortunately, have to be put down," he said.

Two weeks earlier, a 58-year-old woman in nearby Falls Church, Virginia, had her home condemned after neighbors complained of an overpowering stench coming from the property. She had hoarded 88 cats and 29 of them were dead.

.........and he did it!

now skateboarding is going to take off in china, ironic cause that's where all the crap boards are made, buy Canadian maple people.

Skateboarder jumps China's Great Wall

Jul 11, 9:11 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California skateboarder Danny Way jumped over a 61-foot (18.6-meter) gap in the Great Wall of China, becoming the first person to clear the ancient fortification without motorized aid, his sponsor said.

Way then went on to jump the wall three more times on Saturday, taking off from a specially built ramp at the nearly 3,000-year-old Ju Yong Guan Gate, and adding in 360-degree spins as spectators looked on.

"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a statement.

Way, of Carlsbad, California, was sponsored by Quiksilver Inc., which makes skateboard apparel.

Others have tried to jump the Great Wall before. In 2002, Wang Jiaxiong, a mountain biker, fractured his skull and died after overshooting his planned landing area. Way was the first person to try the jump on a skateboard.

Way already holds the world records for distance jumped by skateboard and for height at 79 feet and 23.5 feet, respectively.

Update from Pamplona

Wow, just wow.

Four gored in brutal bull run

Jul 11, 9:14 AM (ET)

PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - Four people, including an on-duty policeman, were gored by bulls on the fifth day of the bull-running festival in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona Monday, officials said.

Every morning from July 7 to 14 six half-tonbulls are released into Pamplona's historic center where thousands of thrill-seekers, many from the United States and Australia, pack the cobbled streets to run with them.

Monday's run was the most violent this year as a bull separated from the herd and charged at several members of the crowd.

One man was trapped between a wall and bull's horns for several seconds as fellow runners hit the huge beast and tried to pull him off by his tail.

The man finally escaped and the bull carried on its way through the adrenalin-pumped crowd to the bull ring where it tossed a Colombian runner, Anibal Agudero, 32, and ripped a 14 cm (5-1/2 inch) gash in his thigh.

State radio said a 41-year-old police sergeant was gored as he tried to warn the crowd that the last bull had turned back and was heading down the course the wrong way.

Spaniards Xavier Salillas and Jesus Angel Merino were also gored in the thigh, a note on the festival's Web site said.

Ernest Hemingway's 1920s novel "The Sun also Rises" made the fiesta famous and hundreds of Americans and Australians come each year.

Fifteen people have died running with the bulls in Pamplona since 1910, most from being gored.

No one has been gored to death this year but two people died at the weekend when they fell from the city walls.

The bodies of a 24-year-old American man from Louisiana, whose name was given as Joseph R.L., and a Spanish woman, were found in the river, a government spokesman said.

Seven more people were badly hurt in the stampede of bulls through the streets Monday, officials said.

One man was grazed by a bull's horn and 24-year-old Christopher Seaton from Florida, broke his wrist. The other injuries included skull trauma and fractures, the note said.

It took more than five minutes to herd all the bulls down the 825 meter (900 yard) route into the bullring -- where they face a matador's cape and sword in the evening -- instead of the usual two or three minutes.

Wifi hippies unite!!!!

Ok, this is cool and all, I especially appreciate the addition of the solar panels, but there has to be a better way. $599 plus the cost of the cell modem service, ouch. Why not plug the cell modem into a laptop then connect an Ethernet cable to a plain vanilla 802.11b access point and then use internet connection sharing to allow folks to connect to the net? Seems to me this would be a better solution than this seven hundred dollar ($699.00 without a service agreement) wonder box. I guess the addition of the laptop and AP would draw on the battery more than the dedicated device (wonder box) but you could use the cost savings to purchase a larger, more powerful battery or solar panel. Eh, go fish.

Be Your Own Hotspot
Turn a backpack into a portable, solar-powered Wi-Fi hotspot, and share a high-speed connection anywhere

By Mike Outmesguine

I love the fact that more and more devices are sporting built-in Wi-Fi—the Sony PSP, smartphones, even Kodak’s EasyShare-One digital camera. The lone hitch: Wi-Fi is useless without a hotspot. Sure, thousands of spots are available, but few are free, and coverage is far from ubiquitous. What if you could marry the short-range power of Wi-Fi with the huge coverage areas of high-speed cellular services such as EV-DO to create a portable hotspot? You could use any Wi-Fi-enabled gadget anywhere you’ve got a cell signal. Play multiplayer games with friends in the park, or blog an event in real-time. Since EV-DO works at freeway speeds, you could even give Internet access to an entire road-trip caravan.

Those are exactly the kinds of things you can do with the backpack below. Its secret ingredient: the Junxion Box. Plug a cellular-network card into the book-size open-source-based device, and voilà—instant Wi-Fi hotspot, with speeds averaging around 700 kilobits per second. To power the box, I wired it to a 1.2-amp-hour battery and dropped both into the Voltaic Systems backpack, which has a built-in solar charger. Now I can surf for as long as three hours without being tethered to anything but a cell signal. The project isn’t cheap, but prices for the components and service are sure to come down in the next year or so. In the meantime, you can find me in the hills around Southern California. I’ll be the one surrounded by PSP-packing hikers.

take a look for youself...
link to wonder box...

Fly High in P.A.!!

omg, it was legal to fly an airplane while drunk in Pennsylvania. Too funny.

Rendell signs bill that would outlaw flying while drunk

Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pilots who are too drunk to drive legally can be prosecuted for trying to fly while intoxicated under a bill signed by Gov. Ed Rendell.

Violators could be fined $1,000 to $5,000 and go to prison for up to three days under the measure, which Rendell signed Tuesday. If an accident happens while a member of the flight crew is deemed to have been under the influence, the penalty would rise to a fine of $5,000 to $10,000 and imprisonment of at least 30 days.

The proposal was originally part of a mass-transit stopgap funding bill that Rendell vetoed in December. Rep. Katharine Watson, R-Montgomery, sought to revive it this year.

Watson introduced the legislation last year after a pilot was arrested for flying loops around Philadelphia International Airport and a nuclear power plant in Limerick. Montgomery County prosecutors said the pilot had a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent.

But they discovered that Pennsylvania did not have a law making it a crime for a pilot to fly while intoxicated. A district justice upheld charges of risking a catastrophe and reckless endangerment, but threw out a count of driving under the influence.

Gas prices drive theft, drive-offs, etc..

This type of shit is going to get much worse as gas prices soar past $3 a gallon and beyond. This is merely the beginning of the crazy shit. Most of the gas stations around my neighborhood (ghetto ass hood) require an upfront payment before pumping gas can begin.

Theft of gas rises as price goes up

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
Thefts of fuel from service stations are rising with the price of gasoline, and states are cracking down with stiffer penalties for pump-and-run pirates.

As the average price of a gallon of regular gas, $2.21, stands near record levels this holiday weekend, gas station owners say thefts are soaring. In response, at least 10 states have stiffened penalties this year or are considering it.

"Our drive-offs are up probably 100%" this year, says Jeff Miller of Norfolk, Va., president of a company that operates 88 gas stations and convenience stores selling gas. "We're on track to lose about a quarter of a million dollars" in 2005.

Gas retailers lost $234 million to theft in 2004, more than double the amount in 2003, the National Association of Convenience Stores reports. The annual loss averaged $2,141 per store.

Catching drive-away thieves is difficult, even in states that allow judges to suspend drivers' licenses on top of criminal penalties. "It's a huge problem," says Jeff Lenard, an association spokesman. "It's something you see when the prices increase."

Lenard notes another alarming trend: theft of fuel by the tank load. In Alabama, a man was arrested when his specially designed truck blew up while he was pumping gas into it from an underground storage tank. In Miami, 55 have been arrested in a theft ring that siphoned fuel from tanks.

At least 28 states have toughened penalties so judges can yank licenses for gas-and-dash drivers, starting with Georgia in 1998.

"When you've got 10 states ... looking at this issue, it's pretty clear it's in response to something. It's rising prices," says Christie Rewey of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Requiring a cash or credit card payment before pumping would prevent gas theft, but Lenard says some retailers oppose that because it discourages drivers from going inside to buy more profitable items.

Cities are looking at requiring prepayment to reduce the time law officers spend on the crime.

Oklahoma state Rep. Paul Roan sponsored a bill to do that but saw it changed to a stiffer penalty. Roan, 62, a former Oklahoma state trooper, says cops don't like gas-and-dash calls. "You've got more things to do than be a bill collector for a service station," he says.

the tradition continues

In case you didn't know, I didn't until I saw this, the bull run is going on right now. One of these years I want to go there and do this, I hear it's one hell of a party.

Hundreds dodge gorings in packed bull run

Jul 8, 11:25 AM (ET)

By Emma Ross-Thomas

PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - Hundreds of thrill seekers from around the world raced through the streets ahead of six half-tonbulls Friday but all avoided gorings in the second day of Pamplona's running of the bulls.

A 37-year-old man from this northern Spanish city, Josetxo Espada, was taken to hospital with a head injury but was then discharged, a hospital spokesman said. Bulls trod on two others and another 22 were slightly injured, the Red Cross said.

Bull running, part of the week-long San Fermin fiesta, has killed 15 people since 1910, the last two years ago. Each morning six bulls are set loose on a 825-meter (2,700-foot) course through the cobbled streets of the northern Spanish city where thrill seekers run with the half-ton animals to the bull ring.

While most of the adrenalin-pumped runners avoid the huge beasts, the experts try to get in front of the bulls' horns.

Jose Manuel Garcia, a 35-year-old Spaniard, said he was more anxious about not getting close than about being pierced by a horn. "You endure the fear, get the people out of the way, and get the bull," he said.

Runners often tumble, sometimes into heaps, where they get trampled by each other and by the bulls.

"People are falling, you see people really scared, you see the sheer terror and you just run," Neil Warner, a 31-year-old from Watford, Britain, said.

The centuries-old fiesta became known internationally after Ernest Hemingway's 1920s novel of thwarted love and heavy drinking "The Sun Also Rises." The party is particularly popular with Americans, Australians and Britons.

Rick Musica, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, attends every year to meet a group of Americans, who have been coming for 30 years.

"Every day I envision the perfect run and one of these days it's going to happen ... My goal is to be part of the herd," the 39-year old flight attendant said.

Fans of former American basketball star Dennis Rodman shouted with delight as the giant athlete appeared on the course Friday, for a second year.

Women were forbidden from running for decades but this year several ran and Thursday a young Canadian woman was trampled.

But fellow Canadian woman Paige Campbell was unruffled.

"I was nervous and excited but I wasn't terrified. I felt I'd thought it out well," the 32-year-old from Edmonton, said.

Camera phones define news coverage of London attacks

Much in the way the coverage of 9/11 was shaped by the emergence of the 24 hour news channel, now the news coverage following the terrorist attacks in London are being defined largely by camera phone usage. I wonder what might have been different had these technologies been as widely proliferated back in 01? I heard a new term for the first time in this article, moblogs, mobile phone blogs. that's hot.

Mobiles capture blast aftermath
By Jo Twist
BBC News website technology reporter

The bus blast

Amateur footage from mobile phones provided some of the more immediate and vivid images of the bomb attacks in London.

Mobile video footage shot by commuters from inside London Underground carriages appeared quickly on global news networks and across the net.

As video mobiles grow more popular in Europe, they are letting people capture the first scenes of chaos before TV.

The attacks on the London Underground and a double-decker bus killed more than 50 and left 700 injured.

Flood of photos

Hundreds of mobile photos and several mobile videos have surfaced documenting the moments after the four blasts.

Blogs, photo sharing websites, online news sites, and TV news used their images in the minutes and hours immediately following the attacks.

Net surge strains news sites
Many people commenting on online photo sharing community site Flickr said it was their first port of call to get news and images.

Within minutes and hours, news of explosions filtered through other blog sites and many moblogs - blogs which use mobile phone photos - collected the images.

The BBC News and Sky News websites, among others, immediately responded and called for readers to send in their images, footage and accounts of the events.

Around 1,000 photos and 20 pieces of amateur video were sent in to the BBC News website, with many being featured on the site.

continue reading...

Interview w/ Danny Way

Preparing to jump the great wall of China on a wooden toy is no joke. A mountain biker died trying a similar stunt in 2002. I wish this was going to be televised.

Skateboarder Way to try great leap in China
USA TODAY's Sal Ruibal talks strategy with U.S. skateboarder Danny Way, who will attempt a jump Saturday across the Great Wall of China at the Juyongguan Gate near Beijing.

Q:What are the human aspects of making this jump, such as your body position at the start, in the air and on the landing?

A: Well, I think the human aspects of making this jump would be to make it over The Wall in one piece and stay alive. You have to maintain your balance in the air, and obviously your weight has to be correct when you land. Because if it's off, you'll fall forward or backward or left or right.

It's essential that when you're flying through the air you maintain your balance and stay square so that you can actually land the jump with everything positioned correctly.

Q:How much force is created on landing, and how do you absorb that force while also maintaining forward motion?

A: There's a zone on the landing ramp I call the sweet spot. It's probably a 10-foot-long zone. If you land in the right area, it breaks your fall completely and you feel almost weightless. If you overshoot the landing, you drop further down. It's a longer drop, so the impact is a lot harder. If you come up short and you land a little bit on the knuckle — there's a little bit of transition on the top — it jars you. It doesn't allow you to move forward.

continue reading...

Sleeping walking teen goes on adventure

ha ha, crazy. that reminds me of the Popeye cartoon from back in the day, Olive Oil sleep walks through a construction site, Bluto and Popeye try and save her all the while trading punches, in the end Popeye eats spinach and kicks Bluto's ass and rescues Olive. good times.

LONDON (Reuters) - A teenage sleepwalker was rescued after being found fast asleep 130 feet up on the arm of a crane, police said Wednesday.

Emergency services were called to a building site in London after a passer-by spotted the 15-year-old girl curled up on top of a concrete counterweight high above the ground.

The teen-ager, who has not been named, had climbed up the crane and walked across a narrow metal beam while fast asleep during the incident, which happened on June 25.

It is believed the teen-ager had walked out unnoticed from her home near the site in Dulwich, southeast London.

She was brought down in a hydraulic lift after a two-hour rescue operation.

"Police and London Fire Brigade attended and the woman was brought down from the crane at around 4 a.m. and taken to hospital for precautionary checks," a police spokeswoman said.

The girl was unharmed and later went home.

Cell phones and terrorism

They are right to shutdown cell service once an attack is first detected to be in progress, it's fairly easy to rig a cell phone to detonate a bomb, or trigger any other electric device for that matter, an old roommate in college did this to trigger a set of Christmas lights to switch on, it's a simple matter of wiring the speaker into whatever your trying to trigger. This seems to be a commonly used tactic by the enterprising young terrorist as it's easy, cheap and effective. I remember reading this was how that Madrid explosions were triggered as well.

London Attacks Roil Networks

Terrorist strikes on London’s transportation system led to communication breakdowns.
July 7, 2005

The coordinated terror attacks in London on Thursday set off a shutdown in the mobile phone network as officials in the United Kingdom decided to turn off the phone networks out of fear that terrorists would try to set off more bombs remotely using a cell phone.

Cell phone users also overwhelmed the networks trying to check with friends and loved ones to ask after their welfare. Internet connections were also spotty as many people swamped landline phones as well with their calls.

Vodafone, the U.K.’s largest network, released a statement on its web site, saying, “Understandably we are experiencing significant network congestion but we are working closely with the emergency services. In these circumstances, we would ask all of our customers in Central London to avoid making unnecessary or lengthy phone calls.”

keep reading...

Al Qaeda; a western invention

omg, they must hate america.

Does al-Qaeda exist?
Not in the way that we think, say some terrorism experts.
by Brendan O'Neill

'Al-Qaeda bombing foiled' says the front page of today's UK Sun, reporting the arrest yesterday of 24-year-old student Sajid Badat in Gloucester, England, on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity. Other reports have referred to Badat as 'having links with al-Qaeda' and being a potential 'suicide bomber' (1).

Also this week, media reports claim that al-Qaeda may have developed 'car-bomb capability' in the USA, and that al-Qaeda has compiled a 'kidnappers' manual' and is plotting to snatch American troops from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Every day since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 there have been media reports about al-Qaeda - its leaders, members, capabilities, bank accounts, reach and threat. What is this al-Qaeda? Does such a group even exist?

Some terrorism experts doubt it. Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud reckon it's time we 'defused the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network and call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda'. Dolnik and McCloud - who first started studying terrorism at the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies in California - claim it was Western officials who imposed the name 'al-Qaeda' on to disparate radical Islamic groups and who blew Osama bin Laden's power and reach 'out of proportion'. Both are concerned about the threat of terror, but argue that we should 'debunk the myth of al-Qaeda' (2).

keep reading...

Child dies while parents play WOW

As shallow and jaded as I have become over the last 3 years, I just can't bring myself to laugh outloud at this. I guess there is hope for me yet. It also dosen't seem compltely fair to blame the game for the death of this kid, the parents involved could easily have neglected the child in favor of some other hobby or vice. I'm sure they feel awful about it.

Infant Daughter Dies as Parents Play Online Game

A thoughtless couple in their 20s who left their four-month old daughter at home while they played Internet computer games at a nearby PC café have been booked by police after the child died.

According to Incheon Police Station on Tuesday, a 29-year-old man husband identified by his family name of Yu and his wife put their four-month daughter in the bedroom of their home and went to a neighborhood PC café at around 4:00 p.m. on May 24 to play the online game "World of Warcraft.

Time flew by as the couple lost themselves in the game, and when they returned home at 9:00 p.m., their daughter was lying on her stomach, dead of suffication.

The couple told police, "We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day."

Police said an investigation turned up that the couple, who wed last year, used to play "World of Warcraft" whenever they had time.

Police said, "It's unfortunate, because the tragedy could have been averted if the couple had just left their daughter with Yu's mother-in-law, who lived upstairs from them... We booked the pair on criminal charges, judging that when you consider the situation, they were responsible for their daughter's death."

Major U.S. online game producer Blizzard, which grew famous with the game "Starcraft", produced the game to which Yu and his wife were addicted, "World of Warcraft." The game allows multiple players to form teams to fight battles and enjoy various adventures.

(Lee Yong-su, hejsue@chosun.com)

The Saudi Facade

The world is rapidly running out of oil during a period of unrestrained groth in demand. I'm going to get a copy of the book mentioned in this article, although it will proably serve only to confirm my worst fears.

Even with a major oil field showing strain, the promises are flowing
by James Ridgeway

July 5th, 2005 12:05 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. Three months ago, when gas prices hit $2 and oil was at more than $50 a barrel, the administration said relief would come because Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase short-term production, and would spend $50 billion to increase output over the next decade. Last week gas prices were climbing higher and oil hit $60 a barrel. Some predict it can go over $100, maybe as high as $200.

As for Saudi production, Matthew R. Simmons—one of the world's experts on the oil business and chair of Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank specializing in petroleum—is the author of a new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which suggests in the politest of terms that the Saudis are a bunch of liars: They either don't know their own reserves or, more likely, have phonied the books to make it appear as if they have more oil than they do. His assessment adds weight to the alarms set off by oil experts who warn that the world is running out of oil.

The response of Congress to these warnings lies in an energy bill that rewards the oil and gas companies, already enjoying windfall profits, with additional revenues in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies—$8 billion in the Senate version, $16 billion in the House—and forces liquefied natural gas terminals down the throats of coastal cities, which fear conflagrations if an LNG ship blows up on its own or becomes a terrorist target. Congress and federal agencies, meanwhile, push ahead with alternative energy in the form of nuclear power. There is the usual pittance for such things as solar, wind, and conservation, as there has been since the mid 1970s.

The symbol of international oil and the base of the Saudi oil industry is the Ghawar oil field, which runs for 174 miles under Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is the biggest oil field in the world, providing between 6 and 8 percent of total global production. Since it was first tapped, Ghawar has yielded an astounding 55 billion barrels of oil, at the current rate of 5 million barrels per day. Its output represents about two-thirds of total Saudi production.

Up to now politicians and oil publicists have regarded Ghawar as some kind of eternal bubbling spring. In fact, as Simmons points out, details of its workings are pretty much a state secret. In February 2004, Saudi Aramco officials for the first time publicly discussed data on the field at a workshop on oil at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It was at this workshop that Simmons aired his own suspicions about the field. But Saudi officials reassured the group that Ghawar could keep on producing 5 million barrels a day, and if need be, yield 10 or 12 or even 15 million barrels a day. This increased production is probably what the Bush administration is referring to when it talks about Saudi Arabia increasing production to ease the worldwide oil shortage and bring prices down.

But as technical reports show, Ghawar is in trouble. The field is rent with fractures and faults, letting in unexpected amounts of water, which complicates production. Masses of tar were discovered, and that makes extraction more difficult. The authorities claim that problems will straighten out as they drill wells north to south along the long reservoir. But Saudi experts admit that as production moves south, the permeability and porosity of the rocks decrease. Taken together, these technical reports portray the oil field in real trouble, with production inevitably decreasing, in the end making the 5 million barrel a day figure unrealistically high. It is unlikely that Saudi Arabia's other oil fields could take up the slack; their output has declined over the years.

Possible new production in areas such as the depths of the Red Sea and land along the Iraqi border is considered dubious. "Unless some great series of exploration miracles occurs soon," writes Simmons, "the only certainty about Saudi Arabia's oil future is that once its five or six great oil fields go into steep decline, there is nothing remotely resembling them to take their place."

Sudanese army training children

12 year olds shouldn't be in basic training, can we not agree on this?

Sudan: Southern Forces Still Training Children

July 1, 2005
Posted to the web July 1, 2005

Nyal

Twelve-year old Riek Torgom, wearing an oversized army uniform and carrying a gun that appeared too heavy for him to lift, was among 50 child soldiers undergoing training at Majak military centre, western Upper Nile State in southern Sudan.

"I was recruited recently," Riek said in May. "I like nothing about the army. I only want to go to school, even if I am retained as a soldier."

Training alongside Riek was 14-year old Matiach Par.

"When our headman chose our family to offer a child to go for recruitment, I knew it was going to be me because I do not have another brother at home," he said. "I thought school and the army were the same. But if I could be allowed to go to school, I would."

He added: "The bad thing about the army is that there is nothing with which I can help my parents."

"We estimate that there are about 4,000 child soldiers remaining in the SPLM/A [Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army]," Una McCauley, child protection officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Operation Lifeline Sudan, said.

Continue reading...