Palestinians stood by a temporary shelter next to their home’s ruins last month in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun. The war was a reminder of the wide perception gap of the terrorism label. If President Barack Obama is serious about repairing relations with the Arab world and re-establishing the United States as an honest [...]
Archive for February, 2009
A word standing in the way of peace: Terrorism
Posted in Conflicts and wars, tagged Israel, Palestine on February 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Double trouble
Posted in Law, Weird cases on February 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Twins in Italy have run into legal trouble for allegedly conducting a bold double act An unusual case in Italy rests on an allegation of double trouble: a woman who posed as her twin sister to argue cases as an advocate in court. Now both twins are due in court together, this time as defendants. [...]
Rapid HIV evolution avoids attack
Posted in Health, tagged HIV on February 26, 2009 | Comments Off
HIV evolves mutations to counter the immune system HIV is evolving rapidly to escape the human immune system, an international study has shown. The Nature study highlights just how tough it could be to develop a vaccine that keeps pace with the changing nature of the virus. The researchers showed HIV was able to adapt [...]
‘Oldest English words’ identified
Posted in Language, tagged English on February 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Medieval manuscripts give linguists clues about more recent changes Some of the oldest words in English have been identified, scientists say. Reading University researchers claim “I”, “we”, “two” and “three” are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years. Their computer model analyses the rate of change of words in English [...]
Clean living way to beat cancer
Posted in Health on February 26, 2009 | Comments Off
A healthy diet can help Over 40% of breast and bowel cancer cases in rich countries are preventable through diet, physical activity and weight control alone, experts say. Simple measures like cycling to work and swapping fatty foods for fruit can make all the difference for these and many other cancers, they say. Globally, [...]
No Man Is an Island
Posted in Poetry on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of they friends`s or of thine own were. [...]
Gmail Glitch Shows Pitfalls
Posted in Computers, Economy and business on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Services like Gmail run on vast computer farms. A Google center in Lenoir, N.C. __________ When Google Inc.’s online-email service shut off for over two hours earlier this week, it brought to light concerns about whether businesses can safely rely on software that their employees access over the Internet. Online software services like Google’s Gmail [...]
How the Crash Will Reshape America
Posted in Economy and business, History, Politics on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
My father was a child of the Great Depression. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1921 to Italian immigrant parents, he experienced the economic crisis head-on. He took a job working in an eyeglass factory in the city’s Ironbound section in 1934, at age 13, combining his wages with those of his father, mother, and [...]
German bakers angered by EU ‘taste police’
Posted in Law, Living, tagged Bread, European Union, Germany on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
German bakers said the EU rules would change the taste of their bread. ________ European Union officials have offered to break bread with German bakers in an attempt to defuse the latest uproar over proposed regulations handed down from Brussels. Echoing a recent backlash over legislation dictating the permitted size, shape and texture of fruits [...]
Suing a judge is asking for trouble
Posted in Law, Weird cases on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
A Canadian lawyer loses a case for a ‘scurrilous attack’ on a panel of judges A lawyer who advises a client to sue a trio of judges is asking for trouble. And trouble is what Canadian advocate Kimberly Townley-Smith now faces. In 2005, Townley-Smith represented Wyrd Sisters, a folk group, in a $40 million lawsuit [...]
Google joins inquiry into Microsoft as browser wars hot up
Posted in Computers, Economy and business, Law on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Google is seeking to play a part in the European Commission’s investigation into Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour, a move that represents a significant escalation in “browser wars” and the battle over how users view the internet. Yesterday, Google sought permission from European Union regulators to submit arguments in an anti-trust case against Microsoft. Google aims [...]
Bank of England welcomes Adolf Burger, the forger who shortchanged the Nazis
Posted in History on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Adolf Burger holds up one of the thousands of wartime British five pound notes that he was forced to forge by the Germans. The man who forged the equivalent of £3 billion in a Nazi plot to bring down the British economy during the Second World War was invited to the Bank of England this [...]
To Pay for Health Care, Obama Looks to Taxes on Affluent
Posted in Health, Politics on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
President Obama, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, spoke about the budget on Thursday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington. President Obama will propose further tax increases on the affluent to help pay for his promise to make health care more accessible and affordable, calling for [...]
Study of diets shows what truly counts: calories
Posted in Health on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Medical experts are embracing the back-to-basics idea that the simple act of cutting calories is most important when it comes to losing weight. __________ Two decades after the debate began on which diet is best for weight loss, a conclusion is starting to come into focus. And the winner is . . . not low-carb, [...]
Anza-Borrego’s desert wildflowers
Posted in Photo galleries on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
The rising moon slips over the eastern wall of Coyote Canyon, where brittlebush dot the landscape with golden bouquets. __________ The rumors of the lilies seemed to be just that — rumors. With my 10-year-old daughter, Isabella, in the passenger seat, I scanned the sands of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park from behind my bug-splattered windshield. [...]
Cradle Song
Posted in Poetry on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise; Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock them, lullaby. Care is heavy, therefore sleep you, You are care, and care must keep you; Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby Rock [...]
Russia: Famine That Killed Millions Not Genocide
Posted in History, tagged Famine, Russia, Ukraine on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
The head of the Russian Federal State Archives agency, Vladimir Kozlov, holds up a book titled “Famine in the USSR: 1930-1934″ during a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday. Russia issued a DVD and a thick book of historical documents on Wednesday to dispute claims that the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s amounted to genocide. [...]
Fish fossil clue to origin of sex
Posted in Natural sciences on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Placoderms may have copulated in a similar way to sharks. __________ A fossil fish from Australia was one of the earliest known vertebrates to reproduce sexually, a study suggests. Nature journal says the ancient fish was carrying a 5cm-long embryo. The fertilisation of eggs by sperm outside the mother’s body – external fertilisation – is [...]
Kenya police ‘ran death squads’
Posted in Other, Politics, tagged Kenya on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Kenya’s police have a reputation for brutality A UN investigator has called for the removal of Kenya’s police commissioner and attorney general over a wave of alleged extrajudicial killings. Philip Alston said: “Kenyan police are a law unto themselves. They kill often, with impunity.” His remarks came as video emerged of an officer saying [...]
Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind
Posted in Computers, Living on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Social networking sites, such as Facebook, are putting attention span in jeopardy, says Baroness Greenfield. Greenfield warns social networking sites are changing children’s brains, resulting in selfish and attention deficient young people. Social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky [...]
Grim world data stack up against hopeful Obama
Posted in Economy and business, Politics on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
News of plunging exports hit Japan and Germany, while home sales fell in the United States, painting a grim economic picture on Wednesday, the day after President Barack Obama offered assurances the United States would emerge strengthened from the financial crisis. U.S. stocks fell on disappointment that Obama’s speech, his first major address to Congress, [...]
The Bookseller of Kabul responds
Posted in Living, tagged The Bookseller of Kabul on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
An Afghan bookstore owner displeased with his portrayal in a bestseller based on him and his family has written his own book telling his angry, bewildered side of the story. THERE’S one bookstore where you’ll never, ever find a copy of The Bookseller of Kabul. That would be the Bookseller’s. The epic literary feud that [...]
In Climate Debate, Hype Is a Pitfall
Posted in Energy and Environment on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Former Vice President Al Gore, right, recently pulled a slide he used in a presentation on natural disasters and climate change. __________ In the effort to shape the public’s views on global climate change, hyperbole is an ever-present temptation on all sides of the debate. Earlier this month, former Vice President Al Gore and [...]
Google Explains Watery Mystery of ‘Atlantis’
Posted in Computers, tagged Atlantis, Google Ocean on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
The perfect rectangle, which is around the size of Wales, was noticed on the search giant’s underwater exploration tool. The bizarre markings spotted using Google Earth’s new underwater search tool last week unleashed a tsunami of theories and speculation across the Web about the origins of the grid-like pattern. The most popular theory was that [...]
Supreme Court Rules Sect Cannot Place Monument
Posted in Law on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
The Ten Commandments have stood at Pleasant Grove’s Pioneer Park since 1970. The Summum religion and the Society of Separationists have sued over the display. __________ The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a small religious group cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is [...]
All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters
Posted in Poetry on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan, Sad as the sea-bird is when, going Forth alone, He hears the winds cry to the water’s Monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them [...]
Facebook and MySpace are ‘most popular places to find love’
Posted in Living on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Three quarters of Brits believe there are fewer stigmas attached to meeting a love-match via Facebook, Friends Reunited or Bebo than normal internet dating websites like match.com __________ One in four British people are dating – or have dated – someone they met through online community websites. And over a third have got back in [...]
Jo King and Justin Case on list of Britain’s most unfortunate names
Posted in Language, Strange but true on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
They might sound like punchlines to very bad jokes, but real people have been named Helen Back, Jo King and Justin Case, according to researchers investigating Britain’s most unfortunate names. The team also managed to find people whose parents were inconsiderate enough to name them Terry Bull, Mary Christmas, Anna Sasin and even Doug Hole. [...]
Happy Clouds
Posted in Photo galleries on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
A pink smiley-faced cloud floats in front of St Paul’s Cathedral, in London, England. __________ 2,057 of these clouds were released in front of Tate Modern by artist Stuart Semple. The smiley faces are made of helium, vegetable dyes and soap bubbles. __________ The artist explains: “I just wanted to make a piece of work [...]
Google Gmail service hit by ‘phishing’ scam
Posted in Computers, tagged Gmail, Phishing scam on February 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Google’s web-based email service, Gmail, has been hit by a phishing attack, just hours after a system outage left millions of users unable to send and receive emails The scam targeted the Google Talk instant-message service, which is built in to Gmail. People targeted by the scam received an instant message that appeared to come [...]
