Mr. Adams at his swearing-in party Jan. 5. He won 59 percent of the vote. The politician was in his 40s, a rising star, a man with the pilot light of ambition burning bright. The intern was just 17, sorting through emotions about his sexuality, a boy who said he needed someone to mentor him [...]
Archive for January, 2009
The Great Gay Hope
Posted in Politics on January 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Iraqi women on the edges of power
Posted in Politics, tagged Iraq on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Nisreeen Yaseen, a candidate for provincial council in Iraq, speaking to women about the importance of voting as she campaigns in Najaf on Tuesday. Amal Kibash, a candidate for the Baghdad provincial council, is running a bold and even feverish campaign by most standards. With elections coming Saturday, Kibash never wastes a chance to reel in [...]
No longer lost in translation
Posted in Language on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Christopher Middleton tests two devices that speak foreign languages on the streets of Chinatown. Just as every group of partygoers has its designated driver, so every group of travellers has its own lumbered linguist: the person who is nominated by the rest of the party as “good at languages”, and who is pushed forward at [...]
Top 5 best complaint letters
Posted in Other, Popular culture, Strange but true on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Following on from the hilarious airline food rant, complete with pictures, sent to Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson, here are some other notable entries in the art that is the complaint letter. This man clearly felt mere words could not express his horror Plane passengers seem prone to depicting as well as explaining complaints. The pictures [...]
It’s snowing on Mars or at least in the sky above it.
Posted in Physical sciences, Space on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Cape St Vincent, one of the cliffs of the Victoria crater. High in the sky above Mars, it is snowing right now. Very gently snowing. The snow does not settle on the rubble-strewn land below – not these days, anyway – but instead vaporises into the thin atmosphere [...]
Exercise for the lazy, or busy
Posted in Health on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Rigorous workouts lasting as little as three minutes may help prevent diabetes by helping control blood sugar, British researchers said on Wednesday. The findings published in the journal BioMed Central Endocrine Disorders suggest that people unable to meet government guidelines calling for moderate to vigorous exercise several hours a week can still benefit from exercise. [...]
Obama to visit Canada Feb. 19
Posted in Other, Politics on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Canada on Feb. 19, the Prime Minister’s Office says. Stephen Harper and Mr. Obama spoke by phone Friday and set the economy, Afghanistan and the environment as the key issues for discussion during the U.S. leader’s visit to Canada, his first foreign trip as President. The Prime Minister addressed [...]
Troubled Times Bring Mini-Madoffs to Light
Posted in Law, tagged Ponzi scheme on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Nicholas Cosmo in federal custody in Hicksville, N.Y., after his office was raided. Their names lack the Dickensian flair of Bernie Madoff, and the money they apparently stole from investors was a small fraction of the $50 billion that Mr. Madoff allegedly lost of his clients’ savings. But the number of other people who [...]
Blagojevich Asks to Speak at Impeachment
Posted in Law, Politics, tagged Blagojevich on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich being interviewed Tuesday at The Associated Press in New York on Day 2 of his impeachment trial. After boycotting his impeachment trial for three days, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich announced Wednesday that he wanted to address the State Senate on Thursday before legislators begin deliberations on whether to remove him from [...]
Sternipark, a day care center lodged in a handsome villa in this wealthy city, has everything children might need, from knee-high banisters to pint-size wash basins, to sleeping mats for nap time. The children themselves, however, are long gone — victims, at least for now, of a neighbor’s lawsuit over the noise they make that [...]
Wildly ambitious
Posted in Animals, Photo galleries on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
A beaver swimming in a Scottish river. Beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK by the end of the 16th century for their fur, glands for medicine and because their building of dams interfered with other land uses. It’s been over 400 years since a wild beaver roamed an English river, but freedom will [...]
Russia scraps plan to deploy nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
A missile is fired during exercises outside Kaliningrad Russia today announced it was abandoning plans to deploy nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in its European Kaliningrad outpost – a sign that Moscow wants improved relations with the new US administration. Defence officials said the Kremlin’s proposals to station short-range missiles in the small Baltic territory next to [...]
Interior Ignored Science When Limiting Water to Grand Canyon
Posted in Energy and Environment, Politics on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Last March, Interior experimented with high water flows from Glen Canyon Dam to rebuild beaches on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Interior Department officials ignored key scientific findings when they limited water flows in the Grand Canyon to optimize generation of electric power there, risking damage to the ecology of the spectacular national [...]
Pope Voices Support for Jews, Rejects Holocaust Denial
Posted in Religion on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Pope Benedict’s decision to lift the excommunication of four ultra-traditionalist bishops, including one who has denied the Holocaust, has angered many Jews and Catholics who say the bishops represent repressive and anti-Semitic currents in Catholicism that they want the pope to now explicitly repudiate. Church officials have been scrambling to downplay the decision announced over [...]
Repeated concussions lead to severe brain disease, research shows
Posted in Health on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Researchers examining brains of six deceased former NFL players find similar degeneration. All suffered emotional problems after their playing days, often culminating in drug abuse or suicide. _____ The headbanging collisions that thrill sports fans have lifelong effects on the athletes, with impairments in movement and thinking skills showing up 30 years or more after [...]
Surgery wasn’t in U.S., so state won’t change sex on birth record
Posted in Law on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Two transgendered women are challenging an Illinois rule the blocks them from changing their sex from male to female on their Illinois birth certificates because their sex change surgeries were done outside the country,. The ACLU, with help from the Jenner and Block law firm, charges the Illinois law is a violation of state constitution [...]
A painting of Martin T. Manton, a federal appeals court judge who was found guilty of corruption. Charles L. Brieant Jr., a federal district judge in New York for 37 years, died last summer at 85, and as court personnel began packing up his chambers, they confronted an unusual legacy. Hanging on the wall, along [...]
Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab
Posted in Practical advice on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them. At least, that is what the evidence suggests. Booksellers, hobbled by the economic crisis, are struggling to lure readers. Almost all of the New York publishing houses are laying off editors [...]
U.S. Consulate Mistakenly Sells Secret Files in Jerusalem
Posted in Strange but true on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Hundreds of files — with social security numbers, bank account numbers and other sensitive U.S. government information — were found in a filing cabinet purchased from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem through a local auction. “We couldn’t believe what we found,” said Paula, who purchased the cabinets and asked that her last name not be [...]
A short snooze during the day will boost your mood and your intelligence – but there’s more to it than simply closing your eyes
Posted in Health, tagged Sleep on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
How long should you rest for? In designing the optimal nap you need to grasp its potential components. During sleep, your brain’s electrical activity goes through a five-phase cycle. A short afternoon catnap of 20 minutes yields mostly Stage 2 sleep, which enhances alertness and concentration, elevates mood, and sharpens motor skills. To boost alertness [...]
Virgin passenger raises complaining to an art form
Posted in Other, Popular culture on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
“Which one is the starter? Which one is the desert (sic)?” …the incriminating in-flight meal These days fury and green ink are not enough: you need jokes and supporting evidence, writes Patrick Barkham “To make wail and lament for one’s ill fortune, when one will win a tear from the audience, is well worthwhile,” wrote [...]
Pedigree’s nothing without the chops
Posted in Other, Politics on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Two famous female faces in the news last week told a tale of dynastic power, its privileges and its limitations. The underlying message was that you can have the most impressive pedigree or spousal connection in the world, but to get a plum job you’ve also got to have the chops. There was Hillary Clinton, [...]
Tintin to be played by Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell in Spielberg film
Posted in Arts on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Blistering barnacles, as Captain Haddock would have it. Tintin is to be portrayed by a British actor best known for his role as a ballet prodigy. Jamie Bell, who appeared as the title character in Billy Elliot at the age of 14, has been cast as the lead in Steven Spielberg’s big-screen adaptation of [...]
Europe’s Pipeline War
Posted in Economy and business, Energy and Environment, Politics on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The Gazprom-led Nord Stream consortium is planning to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea, while a rival consortium is working on the Nabucco pipeline which will pass through Turkey. Here, a worker checks a pipeline in Siberia. The Battle for Gas The most recent conflict between Moscow and Kiev over natural gas supplies has [...]
Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy
Posted in Biological sciences, Natural sciences, Physical sciences on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
All right, I was weeping too. To be honest, the restoration of science was the least of it, but when Barack Obama proclaimed during his Inaugural Address that he would “restore science to its rightful place,” you could feel a dark cloud lifting like a sigh from the shoulders of the scientific community in this [...]
John Updike, a Lyrical Writer of the Ordinary
Posted in Literature, Photo galleries, Poetry, tagged John Updike, Perfection Wasted on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The author around 1997. Perfection wasted And another regrettable thing about death is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, which took a whole life to develop and market – the quips, the witticisms, the slant adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched in [...]
Believe Me
Posted in Poetry, tagged Believe Me, Thomas Moore on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Like fairy-gifts fading away, Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my [...]
Lonely hearts club band
Posted in Living on January 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Lonely hearts sections have raised their game. The picture depicts a heart-shaped biscuit. Despite the lofty reputation of the London Review of Books, its classified ads are often hilarious. And yet, when all’s said and done, their purpose is to attract a mate. Their absurdity and humour [...]
Repeatedly using vulgar and racial insults, Superior Court Judge E. Curtissa Cofield argued with a police officer — addressing him as “Negro trooper” at one point — who was trying to process her on a charge of drunken driving in Glastonbury last October, a police video released Monday shows. Cofield also is heard twice on [...]
