Humble and Perplexed: NASA Scientists Seek To Understand Space Probes' Anomalous Movements

Now Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer John Anderson and his colleagues — who originally helped uncover the Pioneer anomaly — have discovered that five spacecraft each raced either a tiny bit faster or slower than expected when they flew past the Earth en route to other parts of the solar system.

The researchers looked at six deep-space probes — Galileo I and II to Jupiter, the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros, the Rosetta probe to a comet, Cassini to Saturn, and the MESSENGER craft to Mercury. Each spacecraft flew past the our planet to either gain or lose orbital energy in their quests to reach their eventual targets.

In five of the six flybys, the scientists have confirmed anomalies.

"I am feeling both humble and perplexed by this," said Anderson, who is now working as a retiree. "There is something very strange going on with spacecraft motions.

'Stand Up' Says Mike Huckabee In New Television Ad

Lying Expediently: Hillary on Her Supposed Namesake, Sir Edmund Hillary

Snopes.com discusses Hillary Clinton's public claim in 1995 that her mother named her after the famed mountain climber, Sir Edmund Hillary. Turns out, Hillary Clinton was born 6 years after Sir Edmund became world famous for reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

Japanese Girl Drops Rape Charges Against U.S. Marine

The marine’s arrest on Feb. 11 incited protests on Okinawa, where there are raw memories of a 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three American servicemen.

The accused marine in this case, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, was returned to Marine custody after Japanese prosecutors dropped the rape charges. Sergeant Hadnott had denied the charges, saying that he only kissed the girl as he gave her a ride home.

It was unclear why she retracted her story. Japanese authorities seemed to suggest that she had decided against legal action, possibly to avoid the glare of public attention. Some media commentators and blogs had begun to question why the girl was in a car with the marine.

Thousands Declared Dead By The Feds

“The accuracy of death information is critical to [Social Security Administration] SSA and its beneficiaries, as well as other federal, state and local government agencies,” [acccording to]...a 2006 report. “Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.”

Amazing red tape: it is easier to be declared dead by the SSA than it is to be 'resurrected' by it. Once declared dead by the SSA, banks cancel credit card accounts, the IRS declines to refund overpayment of taxes, and even health insurance is canceled.

Prince Harry Pulled Out Of Afganistan

Prince Harry is being pulled out of Afganistan now that it has become public that he has been serving on the front lines there. The Queen has commended him for his "good job," but she is worried now that he has become a target.

Heard Of DoCoMo? Japan's Big Wireless Phone Company

Christian Caryl writes for NEWSWEEK:

Heard of DoCoMo? Probably not, unless you happen to live in Japan. NTT DoCoMo is one of the world's biggest wireless phone companies. It operates in a ferociously competitive market, boasts about 50 million customers and has been known to produce cutting-edge technology. By all rights it ought to be a star performer in the increasingly global business of wireless communications. Yet DoCoMo's brand is still virtually unknown outside its home country. This is one story that could've had a very different ending. At the turn of the century, DoCoMo executives announced they were setting out to conquer the world. Their company's star mobile Internet application, known as i-mode, was leading the pack in its home market, and DoCoMo planned to leverage that success into a bid to dictate wireless Internet standards around the world. The company went on a buying spree, trying to gain footholds by purchasing stakes in overseas companies—stakes that soon made for painful losses, and not much else, when the dot-com bubble popped soon thereafter.

The would-be worldbeater proved tone-deaf. DoCoMo was so enraptured with its state-of-the-art Internet service that it failed to notice that the long, intricate menus favored by Japanese consumers didn't impress foreign customers who were looking for more-intuitive interfaces. One reason for the failure to communicate: not a single person in senior management was non-Japanese. "With the right approach they could have become a Google," says Gerhard Fasol of the Tokyo consultancy Eurotechnology Japan. "They had the chance—but they blew it."

Incarcerated America: More Behind Bars

Barack Lands At Least One Jab And Then Cuts A Rug With Ellen Degeneres

AAA Says Four Dollar Per Gallon Gasoline Price Unlikely

Chris Graham writes at THE NEW DOMINION:

Here’s some good news from AAA - maybe.
Predictions of $4-a-gallon gas this summer are unlikely, AAA Mid-Atlantic said today.

Wire stories have raised the spectre of $4-a-gallon gasoline, but AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesperson Martha Meade likens the talk to “the Chicken Little factor.”

“We do expect prices could go up before they go down, but we do not expect to reach the average of $3 or $4 a gallon for self-serve regular gasoline,” Meade said today.

'Maus': The Other Holocaust Comic Book

''Maus'' is a comic book! Yes, a comic book complete with word balloons, speed lines, exclamations such as ''sob,'' ''wah,'' ''whew'' and ''?!,'' and dozens of techniques for which I simply lack the terminology. The average frame is two to three inches square and crowded, even shaggily drawn (except for one starker section, called ''Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History,'' involving the author's mother's suicide) though subtly elegant and expressive if one pays attention to details. The style is eclectic, echoing everything from ''Krazy Kat'' to ''Gasoline Alley.'' Naturally, the effect of treating such a subject this way is shocking at first. But with a speed that is almost embarrassing to confess, this reader was transported back to the experience of reading World War II comics such as ''Blackhawk'' or ''Captain Marvel.''

Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, the Jewish characters in the book are all portrayed as mice (''Maus'' is, of course, German for ''mouse''), while the Nazis are cats, the Poles are pigs and the few non-Jewish Americans that appear are dogs. To portray a game of cat and mouse is one obvious purpose of Mr. Spiegelman's provocative gambit, as well as ironically to echo the book's epigraph, which is Adolf Hitler's remark, ''The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.''

But the impact of what Mr. Spiegelman has done here is so complex and self-contradictory that it nearly defies analysis. One obvious point would seem to be that by scaling down the Holocaust to the dimensions of an animal fable - or approaching ''the unspeakable through the diminutive,'' as the jacket copy so felicitously puts it - the experience of European Jewry becomes something to be contemplated in less than apocalyptic terms. But leaving aside whether such an effect is desirable, I don't think that it is the main purpose of ''Maus,'' and even if it is, then it remains somewhat beside the point.

Instead, the medium is the message. By claiming the Holocaust as a subject fit for comic-book art, Mr. Spiegelman is saying that the children of the survivors have a right to the subject too and have their own unique problems, which are comic as well as tragic. Even the narrative content reflects that point. By having Vladek recount the farcical elements of his prewar courtship of the author's mother, Mr. Spiegelman is saying that life went on before catastrophe struck. By making bittersweet comedy of life in Rego Park with Vladek, he is saying that life continues to go on.

Thanks to Jeff Mazarate

Sprint: A Flood Of Defections

I,for one, am not surprised that Sprint is losing customers and money. I have been a Sprint customer since 2001 and I dislike Sprint's customer service beyond explanation. Never consistent! Fees that vary from month to month, sometimes up to 15 dollars in poorly explained recuperation costs. Ridiculous contracts that are not honored - for example, when we first signed up with Sprint, we were promised three lines for the same amount of money each month. At the time, we only needed two lines, so we asked if we could have the third line later on. Sure thing! Well, when we decided to add the third line - oh, sorry, we don't offer a third line on this plan. Oh, you were promised this. Oh, you were. Here it is in your contract. Well, we don't offer that plan anymore, so... sorry. You have to pay 20 dollars a month for that line. And on and on.

Great Britain's Prince Harry Fights In Afganistan

CNN reports that Prince Harry has been serving in Afganistan for approximately 10 weeks.

Revirginization Versus Abstinence

She [a born-again conservative Chrisian woman] wished she could step back in time and recapture her lost virginity. Thinking of how “I could have ruined one of greatest fulfillments of my life,” the first time having sex with a husband, she wanted to “have that opportunity again. I know my [future] husband deserves a whole person.”

So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”

Across the country, "revirginization" appears to be gaining steam. Spiritual efforts to reclaim virginity emerged back in the early 1990s and now, prompted by abstinence-only school courses taught to thousands of girls nationwide, and by religious teachers, there are reports of more and more young women like Watts attempting a sexual do-over. Other women are opting for a more radical route to reclaim their virginity: surgical replacement of the hymen, the small membrane that stretches from the walls of the vagina and that typically breaks when a woman first has intercourse

William F Buckley, Jr Has Died At 82 Years

He was found at his desk in the study of his home, his son said. “He might have been working on a column,” Mr. Buckley said.

Mr. Buckley’s winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater’s, hosted one of television’s longest-running programs, “Firing Line,” and founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine National Review.

He also found time to write at least 55 books, ranging from sailing odysseys to spy novels to celebrations of his own dashing daily life, and to edit five more. His political novel “The Rake” was published last August, and a book looking back at the National Review’s history in November; a personal memoir of Barry Goldwater is due to be publication in April, and Mr. Buckley was working on a similar book about Ronald Reagan for release in the fall.

Domestic-Violence in Bristol, Tennessee: Once Again A Young Murderer

A Fourth Victim Has Died In Edgemont Towers Shooting

Bristol, Tennessee Police officials say a fourth shooting victim has died at Bristol Regional Medical Center.

Police also confirmed that the shooter, Rusty Rumley, has also died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

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UPDATE: Edgemont Towers Shooting Suspect is Dead

Carter County Sheriff's Office had originally reported to News Channel 11 that the suspect was taken into custody earlier. Carter County Sheriff's Office then reported to News Channel 11 that Rusty Rumley died. Our news teams are working to clarify the sequence of events.

------------------------------

BRISTOL, Tenn. - Three people are dead and another "gravely injured" in a shooting this morning at Edgemont Towers, Police Chief Blaine Wade said this afternoon.

The victims have not been identified.

Meanwhile, police said they are searching for Rusty Rumley Jr., 26, of Watauga, Tenn., in connection with the shooting. Wade said the shooting is believed to be "domestic-violence related."

A number of law enforcement officers from four agencies are on Rasnick Hollow Road, just across the Carter County line, trying to find Rumley, who is believed to have abandoned his pickup truck and fled on foot, according to Wade. Rumley and his parents are believed to live on the road.

Sgt. L.C. Tester with the Carter County Sheriff's Office said Rumley has military experience and is believed to be armed and dangerous.

Rumley is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighing about 155 pounds with black hair.

Seacoast, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina Ranked No. 5 On 'Most Innovative Churches' Listing

Church Relevance writes:

Outreach magazine has published the list of the 25 Most Innovative Churches in America for 2008 in their January/February ‘08 issue. As usual, they also publish an in-depth article exploring some of the most innovative things these 25 churches have done over the past year.

While the 25 Most Innovative Churches list is fascinating by itself, I find it equally fascinating to see which previous “church lists” these 25 churches have also been included on. Most of them have been featured on lists of the “fastest-growing,” “the largest,” and “the most influential churches.” So is their “innovation” the key to their success? I’m sure it is a big factor. At the same time, their inclusion on previous lists (as well as other factors) often brings these churches’ innovative methods into the limelight.

Some of the most innovative churches in America may not be on this list because it is impossible to be aware of what all the churches in America are doing. But despite this challenge, Outreach magazine did a pretty good job. Here are the top 15...

Responsible For Crime, Noise, And Pollution: A Heavy Load on U.S. Military Stationed In Japan

CNN Reports:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed hope Wednesday that the arrest of a U.S. Marine on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa would not damage Washington's relations with Tokyo.

The arrest and a series of other damaging criminal accusations against some of the 50,000 American troops based in Japan have stirred anger at the U.S. military presence, which critics blame for crime, noise and pollution.

"We certainly hope that there will not be lasting effects. It's a long-standing and strong alliance," she said.

"Our concern right now is to see that justice is done, to get to the bottom if it and our concern is for the girl and her family."

Japanese officials have demanded further step by U.S. forces to control their troops. The Americans last week restricted thousands of military personnel and their family indefinitely to bases, homes and work places, and pledged to review anti-sexual assault guidelines and training programs.

New German Textbook Takes A Fresh Look At The Holocaust

With the Second World War passing from living memory, the Holocaust remains a subject taught as a singular event and obligation here, and Germans still seem to grapple almost eagerly with their own historic guilt and shame. That said, few German schoolchildren today can go home to ask their grandparents, much less their parents, what they did while Hitler was around. The end of the war is now as distant from them in time as the end of the First World War was from the Reagan presidency.

Paradoxically, this seems to have freed young Germans — adolescent ones, anyway — to talk more openly and in new ways about Nazis and the Holocaust. Passing is the shock therapy, with its films of piled corpses, that earlier generations of schoolchildren had to endure.

In the [newly introduced textbook,] comic ['The Search', the character of] Esther recounts to her grandchildren what happened to her family, and in the process facts emerge about Hitler’s rise, about deportations and concentration camps. Without excusing anyone or spreading blame, the story, rather than focusing on Hitler and geopolitics, stresses instances where ordinary individuals — farmers, shopkeepers, soldiers, prison guards, even camp inmates — faced dilemmas, acted selfishly or ambiguously: showed themselves to be human. The medium’s intimacy and immediacy help boil down a vast subject to a few lives that young readers, and old ones too, can grasp.

Since last fall when my son enrolled in a graphic novel English course in college, I have begun to read graphic novels or comics, including 'Town Boy,' and 'The Rabbi's Cat.' Both are very good novels which can be read relatively quickly, but must be re-read for a full impact.

'Been A Little Busy' Says Clinton

Asked during the debate [in Cincinnati, Ohio] whether he accepted the endorsement that he received from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has made anti-Semitic remarks, Sen. Obama issued a blunt rejection: "I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan. I did not solicit his support." The issue has been a sensitive one for Sen. Obama, who met with Jewish leaders Saturday in Cleveland.

Sen. Clinton said she faced a similar situation in New York when she ran for the senate. "I made it very clear that I did not want their support," she said.

During the presidential campaign, much has been made of Sen. Clinton declining to release her income-tax returns. Asked last night when she might make the returns public, Sen. Clinton said she would do so soon, but not before the contests Tuesday. "I'm a little busy right now. I hardly have time to sleep," she said.

I have no doubt that Barack declined Farrakhan's support; I have much doubt that Hillary has been too busy to provide her tax returns.

Highest Impact Probability of Colliding With Earth: 99942 Apophis

In 2004, a newly discovered 320-m asteroid, 99942 Apophis (previously called 2004 MN4), achieved the highest impact probability of any potentially dangerous object. The probability of collision on 13 April 2029 was estimated to be as high as 1 in 17 by Steve Chesley of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory though the worst published figure was 1 in 37 calculated in December 2004.

Later observations showed that the asteroid will miss the earth by 25,600 km (within the orbits of communications satellites) in 2029, but its orbit will be altered unpredictably in a way which does not rule out a collision on 13 or 14 April 2036 or later in the century.

These possible future dates have a cumulative probability of 1 in 45,000 for an impact in the 21stcentury.

Hand Over Heart: Is This Really What Makes Us Patriotic?

Asked during a town hall meeting in Lorain, Ohio, about "an attempt by conservatives and Republicans to paint you as unpatriotic," a questioner cited the fact that [Barack] Obama once failed to put his hand over his heart while singing the national anthem.

The questioner also noted that the Illinois senator does not wear an American flag lapel pin, has met with former members of the radical anti-Vietnam War group, Weather Underground, and his wife was quoted recently as saying she never felt really proud of the United States until recently.

Asked how he would fight the image of being unpatriotic, Obama said, "There's always some nonsense going on in general elections. Right? If it wasn't this, it would be something else. If you recall, first it was my name. Right? That was a problem. And then there was the Muslim e-mail thing and that hasn't worked out so well, and now it's the patriotism thing.

"The way I will respond to it is with the truth: that I owe everything I am to this country," he said. Obama said it was a speech about his love for this country that put him in the national spotlight. He shot down the idea that failing to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem makes him unpatriotic.

Both Democratic Candidates Take Aim And Fire At One Another

[Hillary Clinton] clutched two negative fliers sent to Ohio voters by the Obama campaign that she says make false claims about her position on health care and trade agreements. "Shame on you Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign that is consistent with your messages in public. That's what I expect from you," Mrs. Clinton said.

Mr. Obama quickly fired back. "These are accurate," he said of the fliers. He also accused his rival of hypocrisy in denouncing the negative campaigning. "We have been subject to constant attack from the Clinton campaign, except when we were down 20 points. And that was true in Iowa. It was true in South Carolina. It was true in Wisconsin. And it is true now."

He also questioned why Sen. Clinton raised the issue of the fliers now, weeks after they were first mailed to Ohio voters. "It makes me think there was something tactical about her getting so exercised this morning," he said at a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio.

Young Murderers (Serial Killers?) In American Movie "Funny Games"

The Right to Life: The Basis of Our Freedoms

Deacon Keith Fournier writes:

Even if you call what is wrong a “right”, and even if unelected Justices create a “penumbra” out of whole cloth behind which to hide the evil, you cannot make it right. The natural law and science confirm what we have always known, that the child in [the] womb is our neighbor.

We simply should not kill our neighbor.

Without the freedom to be born, there are no other freedoms. Freedom is a good of the person. Children in the womb, like all of us, are human persons. Personhood cannot be limited to only those perceived to not be “dependent” on any other persons or we will soon eliminate many other categories of human persons.

Beside which, it is our dependency upon each other which actually makes us human. Our claims of compassion, the etymology of which means to “suffer with”, are exposed as a fraud when we do nothing to stop the killing of innocents in the womb, once the safest place on earth, with chemical weapons and surgical strikes.

A Nation of Terrorists?

My daughter called me from Chicago early this afternoon and told me that while walking in the downtown area near Union Station, she walked into a rally protesting the United States' support of Kosovo's declaration of independence. She said the banners proclaimed that the United States is a nation of terrorists.

Feeling a bit alarmed, I suggested that she "get out of there."

She laughed into her cell phone, and agreed.

Eating Whole Grain Cereal Reduces Risk of Heart Failure

...men who eat whole-grain breakfast cereal regularly are less likely to develop heart failure than those who eat it rarely or never.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is unable to pump blood as effectively as it should. The risk of developing heart failure is about one in five for the average 40-year-old man or woman, the study's researchers say.

Other studies have suggested that a diet rich in whole grains, such as nonrefined breakfast cereals, can provide a variety of health benefits. But researchers say it's the first study to look at the relationship between breakfast cereal and the risk of heart failure in a large group.

If further studies confirm these results, adding whole-grain cereal may be a relatively risk-free way to reduce the risk of heart failure.

Iraq's Humanitarian Needs: No Flags There

In the conflict zones of Darfur, Somalia and the eastern Congo the fluttering flags and wide signs of UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, CARE International, World Vision, Save the Children, Oxfam and many others announce their presence on cars, offices and projects. But no such flags fly in Baghdad. Not one of these groups has a presence there. Even as levels of violence have gone down — January was the safest month in Baghdad in two years — aid agencies have still been extremely slow to return to the Iraqi capital.

Joining the Candidates for U.S. Presidency: Yep, It's Ralph Nader!

Consumer rights activist Ralph Nader, accused by many Democrats of handing the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush, said Sunday he was running again in this year's White House race.

"I'm running for president," he said on the NBC program "Meet the Press," while denying he was playing a spoiler role in the hard-fought campaign.

If the Democrats cannot win by a "landslide" this year, he said, "they should just close down."

Whole Grains Aid Sleek Belly And Make For Healthy Heart

In a study of obese adults at risk of heart disease, researchers found that those who trimmed calories and increased their whole-grain intake shed more belly fat and lowered their blood levels of C- reactive protein or CRP.

CRP is a marker of chronic, low-level inflammation in the blood vessels, and both abdominal fat and CRP, in excess, are linked to heart attack and stroke.

In contrast, dieters in the study who mainly ate refined grains, like white bread, were able to lose weight, but they trimmed less fat from the middle and showed no change in CRP.

The findings offer yet more incentive for Americans to opt for whole grains over highly processed versions, according to the researchers.

Who Or What Is A Friend In Washington: John McCain and Iseman

In response to reporters, McCain referred to the lobbyist Vicki Iseman as his "friend." But what, exactly, is a friend in Washington? Journalists are friends with their sources to get them to leak information. Politicians are friends with journalists to spin them. Lobbyists are friends with politicians to get them to support legislation that helps clients. Politicians are friends with lobbyists to get campaign contributions. "If you want a real friend in Washington," goes the old saying, "get a dog."

It's often more complicated than that. Iseman, who was a 32-year-old, attractive, single woman when she began lobbying McCain in 1999, may have enjoyed flirting with a war hero who is fun to be around. If McCain, a married man who was 63 at the time, wasn't a little flattered by the attention, he would be unusual. But that doesn't mean they were sleeping together or that he was performing legislative favors for her.

Still, The New York Times implied as much. In a front-page article reviewing McCain's long history with lobbyists, but zeroing in on Iseman's ties to the Arizona senator when he was preparing to run for president in 1999, the Times wrote: "Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself—instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity."

Murder-Suicide in California

Five people were found dead, three of them children, in what appeared to be a murder-suicide in a home across the street from the Richard Nixon Library, police said Sunday.

A 14-year-old boy called 911 about 11 p.m. Saturday to report that his father had shot him and his brother at their condominium, said Sgt. Peter Rodriguez of the police department in Brea, which was investigating the shooting in neighboring Yorba Linda.

Police found the body of a woman on the doorstep. Inside, they found the bodies of a 5-year-old boy and two girls, ages 8 and 9. Officers also found the body of a man with a shotgun beneath him.

Police did not immediately know the motive for the shootings or the relationship of the victims.

Kenya Roots of Barrack Obama

A barefoot old woman in a ripped dress is sitting on a log in front of her tin-roof bungalow in this remote village in western Kenya, jovially greeting visitors.

Mama Sarah, as she is known around here, lives without electricity or running water. She is illiterate and doesn’t know when she was born. Yet she may have a seat of honor at the next presidential inauguration in Washington — depending on what happens to her stepgrandson, Barack Obama.

Investigating Waterboarding

The Justice Department revealed Friday that its internal ethics office was investigating the department’s legal approval for waterboarding of Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency and was likely to make public an unclassified version of its report.

The disclosure by H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was the first official acknowledgment of an internal review of the legal memorandums the department has issued since 2002 that authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Mr. Jarrett’s report could become the first public accounting for legal advice that endorsed methods widely denounced as torture by human rights groups and legal authorities. His office can refer matters for criminal prosecution; legal experts said the most likely outcome was a public critique of the legal opinions on interrogation, noting that Mr. Jarrett had the power to reprimand or to seek the disbarment of current or former Justice Department lawyers.

The cloak of secrecy that long concealed the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program and its legal underpinnings has gradually broken down.

Eloquence From An English Professor At Northern Illinois University

I'll be going back to room 209 in Reavis Hall, right next door to Cole, where I teach creative nonfiction in the English department. I took a walk Thursday through the building. It was eerily quiet. I peeked in the window at my empty classroom. It looked the same, but somehow it looked very different.

In some ways, it will seem odd returning to the subject matter of English 303, dwelling on things like syntax and grammar, narrative voice and imagery. It will seem a bit strange to talk, as I usually do, about the absolute imperative of getting the facts straight at a time when the truth seems all wrong.

Like everyone else here, I worry about my students. Are they all going to come back? Will they be able to go back to what college life is supposed to mean, whatever that is for them?...

...It hits home. My daughter worked on the high-school paper last year with a student who was shot and wounded. Surveys at Virginia Tech after the massacre there last year found that 50 percent of students knew a victim.

Teachers will make sure students know about places to find counseling services. But they are not trained as counselors, and the experts tell us not to try to fill the role. "The classroom is not the place for group therapy," Dr. Flynn [Director of Counseling at Virginia Tech] said. "I had an organic chemistry teacher ask me, 'I don't know what to talk about?" And I told him, 'Talk about organic chemistry'."

Dr. Flynn reminded us that, contrary to the popular notion, targeted shootings on American campuses have been declining in the last 10 years. That's little comfort, of course, if you were sitting in the lecture at Cole Hall a week ago Thursday, or if your son or daughter, your sibling or your friend, was sitting there.

Pilots Eject From Stealth Bomber Before Crash In Guam

photo credit: Air Force, Getty Images

HAGATNA, Guam - A B-2 stealth bomber crashed Saturday at an air base on Guam, but both pilots ejected safely and were in good condition, the Air Force said.

It was the first crash of a B-2 bomber, said Capt. Sheila Johnston, a spokeswoman for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

The Ninth Most Miserable City in the U.S. Is Charlotte, North Carolina

The biggest surprise on the [most miserable cities] list is Charlotte, North Carolina, which is ranked ninth.

Charlotte has undergone tremendous economic growth the past decade, while the population has soared 32%. But the current picture isn't as bright.

Employment growth has not kept up with population growth, meaning unemployment rates are up more than 50% compared with 10 years ago.

Charlotte scored in the bottom half of all six categories we examined and ranked 140th for violent crime.

Odd, I remember in 1982 my husband and I researched cities in the U.S. that were considered favorable places to live; and Charlotte, North Carolina was one of the top ten, as I recall. We didn't decide to relocate there from Ohio, however. Instead, we wound up in Atlanta which I believe is still ranked as a pretty nice place to live. Now, I live in the low country of South Carolina, a great place for me.

Gavialosuchus Americanus: Crocodile Tooth of the Miocene

Heavy Terrorist Losses in Northern Iraq

Turkey said its ground forces had crossed the border [into Northern Iraq] to tackle [Kurdish] rebels late on Thursday after an air and artillery bombardment.

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the offensive is limited in scale and troops will return as soon as possible.

The UN secretary general and the US have urged Turkey to show restraint in the offensive [against the PKK.]

A Turkish army statement said: "It has been understood from preliminary information that the terrorists have suffered heavy losses under long-range weapons fire and air strikes."

Lobbyists on McCain's Campaign Team Honorable

Sen. John McCain said Friday that while lobbyists serve as close advisers to his presidential campaign, they are honorable and he is not influenced by corruption in the system.

McCain, who has styled himself as an enemy of special interests, defended having lobbyists working for his campaign. He is the expected Republican presidential nominee.

"These people have honorable records, and they're honorable people, and I'm proud to have them as part of my team," McCain told reporters following a town hall meeting in Indianapolis.

The issue of lobbying and influence has arisen in published reports, first in The New York Times and then in The Washington Post, suggesting that McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist and advanced the interests of her clients. McCain on Thursday emphatically denied the reports.

Siding with McCain, the White House accused the Times of repeatedly trying to "drop a bombshell" on Republican presidential nominees to undermine their candidacies.

Protesting Kosovo's Independence in Belgrade: Attacking U.S. Embassy

The US embassy's outer office was set on on fire on Thursday and several windows were broken [in Belgrade.]

Western officials have called on Serbia to do more to protect diplomatic offices in Belgrade, after overnight rioting, which left at least one person dead, damaged a number of embassies.

Boris Tadic, the Serb president, called an emergency meeting of the national security council on Friday, saying such riots must "never happen again".

He said in a statement: "There is no excuse for the violence. Nobody can justify what happened yesterday."

Rioters attacked US and other Western embassies in the Serbian capital late on Thursday to protest Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence last weekend.

The Appearance of Corruption: John McCain, Paxson, and Iseman

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

'Over the Top': Mike Huckabee Campaign Gets Dramatic!

John McCain Subtly or Not So Subtly Attacked By the NEW YORK TIMES

photo credit: Stephen Boitano, Getty Images

Alarming Triple Increase in Strokes in Middle-Aged U.S. Women

Strokes have tripled in recent years among middle-aged women in the U.S., an alarming trend doctors blame on the obesity epidemic.

Nearly 2 percent of women ages 35 to 54 reported suffering a stroke in the most recent federal health survey, from 1999 to 2004. Only about half a percent did in the previous survey, from 1988 to 1994.

The percentage is small because most strokes occur in older people. But the sudden spike in middle age and the reasons behind it are ominous, doctors said in research presented Wednesday at a medical conference.

Arizona Federal Judge Recognizes the Cost of Illegal Alien Workers

A federal judge...upheld an Arizona law that prohibits businesses from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and rescinds the business licenses of those that do.

The ruling by the judge, Neil V. Wake of Federal District Court, was a defeat for employers who argued that it was an unconstitutional effort by a state to regulate immigration.

The ruling was a victory for advocates of tougher immigration enforcement who reject the position that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.

Judge Wake rejected arguments by business groups that federal immigration law severely restricted Arizona’s ability to punish people who knowingly employed illegal immigrants.

He concluded that the Arizona law did not conflict with federal immigration law...

Lifting Americans Up To Higher Ground: Mike Huckabee On the Road in Texas

MIKE HUCKABEE emails from Texas:

My candidacy is, and always has been, about convictions – and the issues and core values that are critical to our country’s future, such protecting traditional marriage, the sanctity of life, individual empowerment and a revamping of our federal tax code to encourage productivity. It’s about lifting Americans up, from hope to higher ground, with a positive vision for America’s future that is grounded in a belief in our nation’s basic goodness, and defined by a ‘can—do’ spirit that knows how to gets things done. My goal is to offer Republican voters, a voice and a choice in this election.

The last four out of five U.S. Presidents have been governors, and there is a reason for this: the challenges facing our nation require steady, experienced, executive management. As governor of Arkansas for 10 ½ years, I delivered on my promises to cut taxes 94 times, reduce welfare by half, reform health care for children and our education system, and transform our transportation infrastructure. My record of results, achieved with a Democrat legislature, gives a meaningful viability to my candidacy.

There are millions of Republicans from across this country who have yet to be heard from. Clearly we were disappointed by the results in Wisconsin, but I look forward to campaigning hard in Texas and Ohio this week – and taking my case before the good people of those states.

McCain and Clinton Attack Obama

Steven Kazmierczak On Three Medications, Including Prozac

In her [Jessica Baty] second conversation with CNN, on Tuesday, Baty said [Steven] Kazmierczak began seeing the psychiatrist shortly after they transferred from NIU to the University of Illinois in Champaign in June 2007.

A psychiatrist not familiar with the details of the case said the three-drug combination was not necessarily either unusual or dangerous.

"It's not terribly unusual to prescribe all three," said Dr. Nada Stotland, professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

Xanax typically has a sedating, calming effect on users, she said.

"If you take a lot of that class of medication, you can be sort of like somebody who is drunk, out of it, but not violent," she said.

A person who had stopped taking it might feel anxious and edgy, she said.

And Ambien is commonly prescribed to overcome sleeping difficulties sometimes attributed to Prozac, she said.

Baty also said that Kazmierczak had been on the computer recently, but she did not know what he was doing and did not ask.

"He was being secretive with his computer," Baty said. "When he would sit on the couch with his laptop he would turn it away from me so I couldn't see what he was looking at."

McCain Takes Wisconsin; Obama Beating Clinton

February 20, 2008 10:36 P.M. EST Total Eclipse of the Moon

Barack and Hillary Getting Nasty Again

Clinton's aides initially signaled she would virtually concede Wisconsin, and the former first lady spent less time in the state than Obama.

Even so, she ran a television ad that accused her rival of ducking a debate in the state and added that she had the only health care plan that covers all Americans and the only economic plan to stop home foreclosures. "Maybe he'd prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions" the commercial said.

Obama countered with an ad of his own, saying his health care plan would cover more people.

In San Antonio on Tuesday, Obama said her idea to freeze the monthly rate on adjustable rate mortgages for at least five years would raise rates on new mortgages. "Even more families could face foreclosure," he said. "That's why one economic analyst called her plan disastrous."

The campaign grew increasingly testy over the weekend, when Clinton's aides accused Obama of plagiarism for delivering a speech that included words that had first been uttered by Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor and a friend of Obama.

"I really don't think this is too big of a deal," Obama said, eager to lay the issue to rest quickly. He said Clinton had used his slogans, too.

Even before the votes were tallied in one state, the campaigners were looking ahead.

Cuban People Deserve Free Elections, Says Mike Huckabee

- Former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee has issued the following statement in response to the resignation of Cuban President Fidel Castro:

"The Cuban people deserve nothing less than free and fair elections which would provide the only hope for a prosperous and democratic Cuba. Until Fidel Castro is dead there can be no significant movement towards reform in Cuba. Raul Castro has proven that he's as much a tyrant and dictator as his brother Fidel. Simply providing more power to another dictator does nothing to promote freedom and democracy to the Cuban people."

Steven Kazmierczak Sent Baty A Good-Bye Package on Valentine's Day

"The person I knew was not the one who went into Cole Hall and did that," Baty told CNN. "He was anything but a monster. He was probably the ... nicest, (most) caring person ever."

The day of the shooting or the day after, Baty received a package from Kazmierczak containing two textbooks, a cell phone and what she characterized as a "goodbye note."

"You've done so much for me," the note said, according to Baty. "You will make an excellent psychologist and social worker someday."

Another package contained a gun holster and ammunition. She confirmed that he had stopped taking an antidepressant about three weeks ago because "it made him feel like a zombie," but she denied that his recent behavior was unusual.

Having A Cardiac Arrest? Well, Have It 9 to 5 Monday Through Friday If You Want the Best Chance to Survive

If you could control when you got sick enough to need hospital care, it might be worth doing. According to a new study coming out in the Feb. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, hospital care may be significantly worse on the weekends and at night than on weekdays. After reviewing the survival rates among patients across the country who experienced cardiac arrest during their hospital stays, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that patient mortality rates were higher at certain times of day and on weekends, even when they factored in clinical variables like the patient's condition and what the different heart rhythms were.

"We looked at a tremendous number of patients at a comprehensive cross-section of hospitals around the country and found that survival was substantially lower at night, compared to day and evening, and on weekends regardless of what time of day it was," says Dr. Mary Ann Peberdy, who directed the study.

Peberdy and her colleagues looked at data on 86,748 adult in-hospital cardiac arrests occurring at 507 hospitals between 2000 and 2007, and found that the survival rate during weekdays and weekday evenings was 20.6 percent, while the survival rate on the weekend was only 17.4 percent and an even more disturbing 14.7 percent at night. That means patients were about 41 percent more likely to survive if they were treated during the day from Monday to Friday.

Polling Map: Republican Candidate Mike Huckabee

Through A Psychological Barrier: Crude Oil Above $100

CLIFFORD KLAUSE writes:

Crude oil closed above $100 a barrel for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, vaulting through a longstanding psychological barrier amid persistent concern about whether production can keep up with rising global demand.

The day’s price rise of more than 4 percent capped a weeklong run-up that began when President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States over a legal struggle with ExxonMobil.

Just as Mr. Chávez appeared to back off from his threats, an explosion at a Texas refinery on Monday reminded traders and hedge fund managers of the gasoline shortages and price increases that accompanied similar refinery failures last year. Even though the Alon USA refinery at Big Spring, Tex., was relatively small and American inventories are considered adequate, traders and hedge funds took the explosion as a buying signal.

Isaiah Gearing Up for T-Ball

September, 2007

Pakistani Electors Strike A Blow Against Musharraf and U.S.

photo credit: Wally Santana

Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, the former speaker of Parliament and six ministers.

Official results are expected Tuesday, but early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a Parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

The Choking Game

...a game that teens today sometimes call Space Monkey, Airplaning, Space Cowboy or Flat Liner.

The names may sound funny, but the game is deadly serious. The nicknames refer to what is more accurately called the “choking game,” in which youngsters wrap everything from dog leashes to bungee cords around their necks to temporarily cut blood flow to their brains, as this AP story explains. The goal is a dreamy, floating-in-space sensation when blood rushes back to the brain.

In a first, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an estimate of the death toll from the choking game that relied on reports in the media and on two Web sites. Death certificates, the researchers wrote, aren’t precise enough for the task. The researchers found 82 probable deaths among youths aged 6–19 years, from 1995 to 2007, due to the choking game.

This is one idiotic game; I say this because I know a much safer and much easier way to feel something very similar. Sit on a swing, push yourself higher and higher until you are as high on the swingset as you can manage; then lean as far back in the swing as you can while holding on tight; put your head back; then keep swinging. Suddenly, pulling with your arms, bring your head and body back up; the blood that has rushed into your head while down will rush out of your head then slowly back in. You will feel awesome for a few moments. As far as I know, this is not dangerous for a healthy teenager. It's a nice 'high.'

Ryan Newman Wins Daytona 500 on 50th Running

Heller Vs. District of Columbia: Gun Control and the Second Amendment

Anything But Erratic, Says Jessica Baty of Her Boyfriend, Steven Kazmierczak

CNN reports:

The girlfriend of the gunman who killed five people and then himself at Northern Illinois University last Thursday told CNN that there was "no indication he was planning something."

Jessica Baty said her boyfriend, Steve Kazmierczak, gave no warning of the terror he planned to unleash at NIU.

"He wasn't erratic. He wasn't delusional. He was Steve; he was normal," Jessica Baty tearfully said in an exclusive interview Sunday.

Baty, 28, had been dating and living with Steven Kazmierczak for two years.

"He was a worrier," she said. He once told her he had "obsessive-compulsive tendencies" and that his parents committed him as a teen to a group home because he was "unruly" and used to cut himself.

He had been seeing a psychiatrist, Baty said, and was taking an anti-depressant to treat depression. But Kazmierczak had stopped taking the medication three weeks ago, "because it made him feel like a zombie," she said.

"He wasn't acting erratic," she said. "He was just a little quicker to get annoyed."

She knew he had purchased at least two guns. He told her they were for home protection.

On Valentine's Day, Baty was in class at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she and Kazmierczak were graduate students studying criminal justice. The students began to talk about a mass shooting taking place at Baty and Kazmierczak's alma mater, NIU in DeKalb.

She didn't think much of it, and her mind drifted to where her boyfriend told her he would be that day -- with his godfather in another town in Illinois.

California Beef Recalled by USDA

USDA recalls largest amount of beef in its history from Westland, a California plant which is being investigated for cruelty to its cattle.

David Tarloff Sought Revenge But Murdered Wrong Doctor

photo credit: Andy Kropka

At A Dogfight Competition in Afganistan, 80 Killed In Suicide Bombing

A suicide bombing at an outdoor dogfighting competition killed 80 people and wounded scores more Sunday, an Afghan governor said, in what appeared to be the deadliest terror attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

'Get It Together, Baby' Applebee's Campaign Ain't So Hot

APPLEBEE's Media Release describes:

In one spot, the apple sits on a park bench with a young man who is sending text messages to friends. The apple asks, "That's how you carry on a friendship, baby? With your thumbs? Of course, it ain't my business."

The man turns to the apple and replies, "Well, if it ain't your business, why are you all up in mine?"

The apple replies, "Cause you people need to get eyeball-to-eyeball over the flavors that bring people together."

Next, viewers see the man enjoying dinner with his friends at an Applebee's restaurant. He turns to the apple and asks, "Can everyone hear you or is it just me?"

The Apple replies, "Talk to your buddies." The spot ends with a voice over, "Applebee's. Get it together, baby."

'The Fox' Is Killed

..."The Fox" (or) Mugniyah, who by the mid-1980s was being hunted by the world's most powerful intelligence agencies for his role in a string of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings, would choose a different safe house—and a different persona—for each encounter. Sometimes he would show up wearing a Western-style business suit, other times a simple pair of blue jeans, but never a uniform that would betray him as one of the guerrilla force's most prominent tacticians. "It wasn't just plastic surgery," says Mohammad Yassin, a Palestinian leader in Lebanon who met frequently with Mugniyah during the 1980s and 1990s. "It was masks, it was mustaches, it was hair." Sometimes the militant would playfully pinch his own cheek, signaling that it was really him. Such meetings continued, intermittently, for nearly 20 years. Then, one day in the late 1990s, according to Yassin, "he just disappeared completely."

Somebody found Mugniyah last Tuesday night, as he pulled open the door of his black Mitsubishi Pajero in a wealthy suburb of Damascus. The force of a powerful car bomb flung his body into the lobby of a nearby apartment complex, severing his limbs and showering the street with glass. "The brother commander Hajj Imad Mugniyah became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis," the Hizbullah-controlled Manar TV station reported on Wednesday morning. Israeli officials issued something of a nondenial denial: "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said. "We have nothing further to add." The truth is, it may never be known who pressed the detonator; by the time of his death Mugniyah had collected many enemies. The FBI had placed Mugniyah on its 25 Most Wanted list after the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, offering a $5 million bounty for his capture. "There are many intel agencies who had a score to settle with this guy—including the U.S.," says Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad official. "This guy had it coming to him."

Kosovo: "Proud, Independent, and Free"

photo credit: Getty Images

"From today onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free," said Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which battled Serbian troops in a 1998-99 separatist war that claimed 10,000 lives. "We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do."

Have Coffee with Mike Huckabee in Hudson, Wisconsin

Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 8:00 a.m. For Coffee at the Hudson Bagel & Coffee Co. 800 Carmichael Road - Hudson, WI For more information or to RSVP: Robert.Kuykendall@explorehuckabee.com or (515) 473-8298

More Substance And Poetry: Barack Obama

...Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (has) critic(ized) that (Barack's) words offer more poetry than substance.

Yet as he traveled across Wisconsin last week, Mr. Obama seemed to have let loose a little more of his inner-wonk, which his strategists had once urged him to keep on the shelf.

Even as he was dismissing Mrs. Clinton’s criticism, he appeared to be taking it at least mildly to heart — a suggestion that as a line of attack, she might be on to something.

Suddenly, he was injecting a few more specifics into his campaign speeches. Giant rallies that had sustained his candidacy through a coast-to-coast series of contests on Feb. 5, notable for their rhetorical flourishes and big applause lines, were supplemented with policy speeches and town-hall-style meetings, complete with the question-and-answer sessions he abandoned as he roared out of Iowa and into New Hampshire.

Violinist Falls, Crushing His 1772 Guadagnini Instrument

David Garrett...said he tripped while carrying his 18th century violin as he was leaving London's Barbican Hall after a performance, smashing it to bits.

"I had it over my shoulder in its case and I fell down a concrete flight of stairs backward," Garrett said Thursday. "When I opened the case, much of my G.B. Guadagnini had been crushed."

Garrett said he bought the 1772 violin for US$1 million in 2003, and he is now hoping to get it repaired in New York, where he is based.

"I hope and pray that it can be fixed, but if it can't, I hope my insurance policy will let me buy another great violin," the 26-year-old musician said.

Contradictory Views of Steve Kazmierczak

What people initially told police about the Northern Illinois University shooter — a portrait of a happy, stable young man who was a bright, helpful scholar — didn't add up.

Now investigators searching for what triggered Thursday's bloody attack, in which five students were killed and several injured before Steven Phillip Kazmierczak committed suicide, are finding some disturbing details.

He had spent time in a mental health center, had disturbing tattoos covering his arms and had developed a recent interest in guns.

Brianna Denison's Body Found

A 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago was strangled by a serial rapist who has attacked at least two other women and may strike again, Reno police said Saturday.

An autopsy confirmed that a dead woman found Friday in a brush-covered field near a business park was Brianna Denison and that she died of strangulation, Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said.

Her body had been in the field for more than a week about 8 miles from the house where she last was seen early January 20 at the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno, he said.

"I would say this is a serial rapist," Johns said at a news conference. "We have two, probably three (cases) linked through DNA."

"The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime," he said. "I'm worried this guy is still out there, and I'm worried somebody else is going to get hurt."

Man Arrested In Vicious Slaying of Therapist

New York City police said a Queens man with a history of mental problems has been arrested in the vicious slaying of a psychologist attacked in her office with a meat cleaver.

David Tarloff, 39, was taken into custody Saturday after investigators matched him with three palm prints found at the bloody crime scene, police said.

Harold Ng, NIU Student, Writes Of His Ordeal During Campus Shooting

A first person account of being shot in the classroom at Northern Illinois University by gunman.

A Small Solar System Discovered Not Unlike Our Own

Astronomers said Wednesday that they had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.

'Doubt' Opened At South Carolina Repertory Theatre in Hilton Head

photo credit: Jay Karr

"Doubt" actually follows a trend of "thinking" films, plays and stories that are more multi-dimensional -- in other words, it's not a formulaic theatrical vehicle with beginning, middle and end. "It's a one-act play," (Blake)White (Production Associate) says. "The second act is the ride home."

In fact, critics hailed "Doubt" on Broadway as a play that ignites conversation among its viewers, citing its multiple layers of issues involving racism, religion and politics. "It played on Broadway for 500 performances," White says. "It was one of the best plays written in the past 15 years."

John Patrick Shanley, an Academy Award-winning screenplay writer, wrote "Doubt" in 2004 and is now set to direct it a film version starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Tom Evans, the play's director, and Barbara Farrar, who plays Sister Aloysius, decided to bring "Doubt" to the Repertory Company's stage after seeing it on Broadway two years ago.

"The curtain came down and we turned to each other afterward and said, 'We have to bring it to the SCRC.' "

Pat and Hank Haskell, the Repertory Company's founders, loved the play so much that "Doubt" is the longest-running play the company has ever had.

"Our audience is great," Evans says. "They like plays that challenge them."

Ordering Guns Via Internet

Web site used to buy gun accessories by Steven Kazmierczak is owned by the same company that operates a site patronized by Seung-Hui Cho, the company said.

Kazmierczak ordered two 9 mm Glock magazines and a holster for a Glock handgun from the Web site February 4, said a statement released by TGSCOM Inc.

He received them February 12, two days before the NIU shootings, it said.

"TGSCOM Inc. also operates the Web site used by Seung-Hui [Cho] to purchase a firearm used in the Virginia Tech shootings last April," the statement said.

Cho killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself in that incident.

Once more, I am amazed that anyone can order a firearm over the internet! How stupid can we get? Anonymity is the name of the game when you have decided to end your own life and take as many others with you as you can in a few minutes. What easier way is there than to order a weapon via online shopping? Once more, you've got to be kidding.

Deadly Illegal Drag Racing Kills 8 in Maryland

photo credit: Haraz Ghanbari

ACCOKEEK, Md. - Police in Maryland say an eighth person has died after a car roared into a crowd that was watching a drag race on a suburban highway.

Authorities say the driver accidentally drove into the crowd but wasn't part of the race. The spectators had just watched two other cars speed off.

Seven people died at the scene. Police say the latest victim died at a hospital. Six others were injured.

Oliver Sacks on Migraines and Visual Patterns

Though migraine causes great suffering for millions of people, there has been much success, in the last decade or two, in understanding what goes on during attacks, and how to prevent or minimize them. But we still have only a very primitive understanding of what, to my mind, are among the most intriguing phenomena of migraine — the geometric hallucinations it so often evokes. What we can say, in general terms, is that these hallucinations reflect the minute anatomical organization, the cytoarchitecture, of the primary visual cortex, including its columnar structure — and the ways in which the activity of millions of nerve cells organizes itself to produce complex and ever-changing patterns. We can actually see, through such hallucinations, something of the dynamics of a large population of living nerve cells and, in particular, the role of what mathematicians term deterministic chaos in allowing complex patterns of activity to emerge throughout the visual cortex. This activity operates at a basic cellular level, far beneath the level of personal experience. They are archetypes, in a way, universals of human experience.

Blast in Pakistan Kills 37

Ted Kooser's Poem: 'Skater'

Ted Kooser's

Skater

She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she'd been just an instant before.

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Quick Response From Authorities at NIU Shooting: Only 90 Seconds

MSNBC reports,

Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old NIU (Northern Illinois University) graduate, opened fire Thursday afternoon in a lecture hall, killing five students and injuring more than a dozen others in a rapid-fire assault that lasted just a few minutes. He committed suicide on the stage.

Authorities responded quickly; the first 10 police officers were on the scene in 90 seconds. NIU launched its emergency alert system — a carefully rehearsed plan developed after Virginia Tech — sending out e-mails and messages on Web sites to notify students that a possible gunman was on campus and they needed to find a safe area.

We should be proud that our police officers responded in such a timely manner, in only 90 seconds. If Mr. Kazmierczak had not committed suicide immediately, he may have tried to go into other buildings on campus to shoot other students and professors. The police response would have prevented this additional tragedy. We should be relieved that authorities responded so quickly.

Holocaust Curriculum in France Sparks Protests

President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped an intellectual bombshell this week, surprising the nation and touching off waves of protest with his revision of the school curriculum: beginning next fall, he said, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

“Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,” Mr. Sarkozy said at the end of a dinner speech to France’s Jewish community on Wednesday night. He added that every French child should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust.”

Adding to the national fracas over the announcement, Mr. Sarkozy wrapped his plan in the cloak of religion, placing blame for the wars and violence of the last century on an “absence of God” and calling the Nazi belief in a hierarchy of races “radically incompatible with Judeo-Christian monotheism.”

Sign A Petition Calling On Democratic Party Superdelegates to Represent Constituents

You've probably heard about the "superdelegates" who could end up deciding the Democratic nominee.

The superdelegates are under lots of pressure right now to come out for one candidate or the other. We urgently need to encourage them to let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama—and then to support the will of the people.

I signed a petition urging the superdelegates to respect the will of the voters. Can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/superdelegates/?r_by=12150-7851719-8VyiFg&rc=paste

Thanks!

Delay in MRAP Armored Vehicle Approvals Cost American Lives in Iraq War

Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the trucks for more than two years.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the MRAPs — an acronym for mine-resistant, ambush-protected — according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.

Follow-Up: China Factory Manufacturing Deadly Ingredient in Heparin Not Inspected

A Chinese factory that supplies much of the active ingredient for a brand of a blood thinner that has been linked to four deaths in the United States is not certified by China’s drug regulators to make pharmaceutical products, according to records and interviews.

Because the plant, Changzhou SPL, has no drug certification, China’s drug agency did not inspect it. The United States Food and Drug Administration said this week that it had not inspected the plant either — a violation of its own policy — before allowing the company to become a major supplier of the blood thinner, heparin, to Baxter International in the United States.

Baxter announced Monday that it was suspending sales of its multidose vials of heparin after 4 patients died and 350 suffered complications. Why the heparin caused these problems — and whether the active ingredient in the drug, derived from pig intestines, was responsible — has not been determined.

"The Lie": A True Story

The Lie
By Val Evans (Carley Eason Evans)

Once a year, he sat her down on their couch and told her in no uncertain terms that she no longer loved him. “And,” he never failed to add, “you have no respect for me as your husband. Oh yes, you have ample respect for me as an individual, but not as a husband.”
No matter how many times she heard them, his words still came against her like blows. Nevertheless she managed to ask, “How is that?”
In response, he compared their relationship to their neighbors. “Joan treats Charles like a king, you know.”
“Oh sure! But I’ve never seen her kiss him or show him the least affection. I don’t see that Charles has it any better than you.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. They’re different, that’s all.”
“How are they different?”
“They just are." Finally, it seemed to her in desperation, he listed items she failed to do and items she did but which were not done with a proper attitude. The list was not long, but was all inclusive. In every area of their lives together, she did something wrong, according to him.
Every year she heard the same lie. At least she presumed it to be a lie, because soon afterwards all returned to normal; and she tried to chalk it up to his mood, to suppose it to be a passing feeling.
This time round she sat stunned as usual, wondering what brought it on him. She looked at him with as much tenderness as she could muster as she vainly tried to convince him of her devotion and her deep respect. If she didn’t love him, she was unaware of the absence of the feeling. She knew wholeheartedly she was committed to him. This seemed enough to her. After all she believed in that old-fashioned magic which makes one flesh of two persons.
She remembered their wedding day, specifically the intensity of her husband’s blue eyes as he recited his vows to her. He seemed able to communicate in a way she couldn’t how much he meant what he was saying despite someone else having written the words. His entire expression told her of the depth of his love. She recalled her own voice sounding hollow and devoid of sincerity as she repeated the same words. Even then, as she affirmed her love and gave him his ring, she felt lacking and guilty.
She guessed his present attack was his way of asking her to take notice of him, his method of saying he wasn’t getting from her all that he needed or wanted. Why the outburst came only annually, she never wondered before. This year she pondered it, allowing her mind to mull it over and over. Her heart remained heavy for weeks afterwards, even though everything on the surface was better. She supposed his release valve being cleared, he was free to be happy with her again. He seemed pleased with her, with all she did and said despite no obvious or subtle change on her part.
Confusion and then anger dropped in on her like vultures descend from above to their dead prey below. She set about her chores listlessly. She banged dishes around in the kitchen sink, cooked all her best meals without noticing aromas or tastes, and vacuumed up anything and everything from the living room floor. She began to study herself in the mirrors placed about the apartment and saw a wife dissatisfied. She was genuinely surprised. Never before was she the one dissatisfied. Always it was her husband who seemed displeased with their marriage, as if he were aiming higher than she was capable of reaching.
One afternoon that same week, she fumbled through the yellow pages to locate a marriage counselor. She decided she needed to talk to someone else, someone who could give her a fresh perspective. She dialed the number to hear a recorded voice at the other end. The man on the answering machine introduced himself and gave the usual instructions. She laughed when he said, “You’ll only get what you are willing to put up with.” She couldn’t help her response: it came with such spontaneity. “I’m not willing to put up with anything.” Then, slightly embarrassed at herself, she reluctantly left her name and phone number. When the man called later, his voice was soft. He seemed warm and engaging. She asked how much he charged. The amount was beyond their budget. She said, “I love my husband very much.”
“It sounds as if you do,” he said after she told him what was happening. He added, “He may actually mean the things he is saying to you, or he may be pushing you away.”
When she put down the receiver, she felt her face steadily turn to stone as she thought of her husband’s complaints. She wondered if he might in fact be pushing her away. His words echoed in her head. “I want more from you,” he said. “You’re so passive, so, I don’t know, so passive. You’re not a team player!” She never figured exactly what he meant by a team player. Perhaps it was a term he picked up from soccer when he played in college. He did explain one aspect of what he meant. He said, “When it’s time to plan our vacation, you leave all the planning to me.” She thought, big deal. So what?
In an attempt to help matters, she arranged a soccer match with all their acquaintances. Everyone came, played hard, ate hot dogs and drank; but no one was that team player her husband looked for and expected.
In the days following, she saw her husband try to chisel away the granite she felt around her mouth and eyes. He spoke gently to her, brought home flowers once, and even remembered to call her from the office. She smiled with each of his attempts, but noticed a forced quality to it as if the feeling was gone, drained away like dirty bath water from the tub.
She questioned him that evening. She wanted to know which was the lie, his words or their life together.
“Did you lie that night?”
He asked, “What night?”
“Come on! You know which night.”
Finally he answered, “No, I didn’t lie.”
“You meant what you said?”
“Certainly.”
“You’re not sorry?”
He averted his gaze, then said, “No, why should I be?”
She looked at him, her mouth cemented shut. She deliberately widened her eyes, taking his hands in hers and squeezing ever so slightly. She took this action on the advice of the marriage counselor because her husband was no longer looking at her. She thought perhaps he would feel in his fingers how hurt and angry she was. She tried to speak softly when she asked, “How then can you bring me flowers and smile at me and say you love me if you feel in your heart I don’t love you and respect you? How can you go on as if nothing happened, as if you didn’t hurt me, as if I didn’t hurt you?”
“It was just how I was feeling.” Then he said what he said every year, “Let’s not talk about this right now. I’m feeling good about us right now and I don’t want to spoil it.”
Usually upon hearing this, her anger surfaced. Every year in their six year marriage she cried at this point. This was her cue to release her tears, her anger. Tonight she sat numbed by the predictability. Having heard and having participated in this dialogue every fall, she knew what he was saying. It didn’t matter to her either that she suddenly realized his annual attack came near his birthday, or that she recognized he was terrified of growing older. She knew he felt he wasn’t accomplishing his dreams. He seldom found time to play soccer. How many of his friends even played football? For her, now, it didn’t make any difference.
She stepped back, only to discover she was slipping, losing her footing. She felt herself falling off a cliff, tumbling into darkness while she watched clouds against a blue sky become tiny white dots. Her husband was someone she definitely knew at some time, but she was unable to remember. As her heart turn cold, she vowed to make sure her eyes remained brown and clear and as tender for her husband as her love was once.

Young Murderers

Another School Shooting/Another Young Murderer

NY TIMES reports:

Confronted with the scene of horror, people who knew him at the campus he attacked and the one he was currently enrolled in, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, struggled with shock.

His adviser in Champaign, who saw him earlier this year, used words like “nice,” “engaging,” “motivated” and “responsible” to describe him. "I saw nothing that would suggest that there was anything troubling about his behavior or him,” Professor Jan Carter-Black told reporters today, according to USA Today. “I enjoyed having him as a student.”

When Mr. Kazmierczak was a graduate student in sociology at Northern Illinois University, he appeared to be a model student, earning a dean’s award in 2006.

He also served as vice president of the Academic Criminal Justice Association, a student group focused on educating the community. In a biography posted to the college’s Web site, he vowed to serve as treasurer “best of my ability.”

“I’ve worked very hard as a student,” Mr. Kazmierczak wrote. “I feel that I’m committed to social justice.”

He wrote a paper on prison issues, “Self Injury in Correctional Settings,” with several co-authors, including the group’s president.

Cloverfield Monster Concept Art

Waterboarding? Not Sure What Mike Huckabee Believes, But...

MIKE HUCKABEE states:

I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are not a conventional enemy.
The top priority of the President as Commander in Chief is first and foremost protecting our own citizens.
With a focus on renewed diplomacy and inclusion, we can accomplish the goals of our nation without having to go it alone.
During the Cold War, we had hawks and doves, but this new war requires us to be a phoenix, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity.
As President, I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight it smart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligence weapons as well as our military might.
The terrorists train in small, scattered groups. We can accomplish a great deal with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units.
We have to get tough with President Musharraf who has allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to have bases in Waziristan.
We don't have a dog in the fight between Sunnis and Shiites - our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises.
The long-term solution is to empower moderates in the region by attacking the underlying conditions that breed terror.
Part of winning the war on terror is achieving energy independence.
I believe in the Powell Doctrine of using overwhelming force to accomplish a mission.
I have the executive and crisis management experience, the judgment and the temperament to be an effective commander in chief.
I will expand the army and increase the defense budget.

I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life. They have sworn to annihilate each of us who believe in a free society, all in the name of a perversion of religion and an impersonal god. We go to great extremes to save lives, they go to great extremes to take them. This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are not a conventional enemy. I will fight the war on terror with the intensity and single-mindedness that it deserves.

The top priority of the president as Commander in Chief is first and foremost protecting our own citizens. While we live in a neighborhood of nations and must strive to be good neighbors, as President, I will ensure the peace, safety, and well-being of American citizens at home and abroad.

While I prefer America to be safe and secure within her own borders rather than loved and appreciated abroad, I believe we can accomplish both goals. We can resurrect relationships with our allies and neighbors. With a focus on renewed diplomacy and inclusion, we can accomplish the goals of our nation without having to go it alone.

When the sun rose on September 11, we were the only superpower in the world; when the sun set that day, we were still the only superpower, but how different the world looked. During the Cold War, you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be a phoenix, to rise from the ashes of the twin towers with a whole new game plan for this very different enemy. Being a phoenix means constantly reinventing ourselves, dying to mistakes and miscalculations, changing tactics and strategies, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity.

As president, I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight it smart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligence weapons as well as our military might. The terrorists unfortunately have a great many sympathizers all over the world, folks who are happy to show up and be filmed shouting "Death to America," but the actual number of those willing to blow themselves up is relatively few, and they train and plot in small, scattered groups.

It's an enemy conducive to being tracked down and eliminated by using the CIA and the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. We can accomplish a great deal, we can achieve tremendous bang for the buck, with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units, working with friendly governments, as we've done with the Ethiopians in Somalia. These operations are impossible without first-rate intelligence. When the Cold War ended, we cut back on our human intelligence, just as we cut back on our armed forces, and both have come back to haunt us. As President, I will beef up our human intelligence capacity, both the operatives who gather information and the analysts who figure out what it means.

Right after September 11, with wounds fresh and emotions running high, President Bush declared that all other countries were either for us or they were for the terrorists. Such a black-and-white stance doesn't work in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where there are more shades of gray than you'll find at Sherwin-Williams. Is President Musharraf of Pakistan for us 100%? No, since September 11, he's been playing both ends in the middle to survive. At the moment he's pulled too far away from us. While we have been focused on Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have expanded their training camps in the Waziristan region of Pakistan with impunity. This bodes ominously not just for Afghanistan, but also for Al Qaeda's plotting and training for more attacks all over the world, including here in the United States. This is the direct result of an ill-conceived autonomy agreement President Musharraf made with Waziristan's tribal leaders. In fact the tribal leader Musharaff has praised for fighting foreign terrorists, Mullah Nazir, recently said that he would protect Osama bin Laden! We have to get tough with Mursharraf and re-calibrate the carrots and sticks we use with him. Pakistan is the fifth largest recipient of American aid, and right now we're not getting real good value. We're in a game of chicken with this military dictator: he warns us not to pursue terrorists across the border with Afghanistan, not to strike their bases on his territory because it could cause his government to fall and an even less friendly figure to take his job. But we have to make clear to him that he is of no use to us if he allows the Taliban and Al Qaeda to use his territory with impunity. The current situation highlights that, despite our generous aid, both the Taliban and Al Qaeda enjoy a disturbing degree of popularity in Pakistan. Ultimately it is this popularity contest, this war of ideas, that we have to win. Creativity and flexibility are Musharraf's keys to retaining power.

Creativity and flexibility are our keys to dealing with him and other Muslim leaders. Instead of asking if someone is for us, instead of demanding that every ally be at the level of Great Britain, I will ask if we should be for them, if they can be useful in any way, however limited, however temporary.

The terrorists have succeeded in dividing us over how to fight them, but we are not taking full advantage of their divisions and of the broader divisions in the region. For example, Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Hezbollah are all terrorist groups, but Hamas and Al Qaeda are Sunni and hate Hezbollah, which is Shiite, as much as they hate us. We are worried about the Iranians extending their sphere of influence west, but so are the Sunni Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, who dislike the Iranians not just because they are Shiites, but because they are Persians. Fighting smart means learning the neighborhood, achieving a level of political, religious, and cultural sophistication about the Arab and Islamic worlds that will pay huge dividends for us. We have to know the cast of characters, not just the national political leaders and their leading opponents, but the clerics, the tribal and clan leaders. We get criticized for our arrogance, but it's our ignorance that's killing us.

As for the underlying dispute between Sunnis and Shiites that's been going on for fourteen hundred years, we don't have a dog in that fight. Our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises. The Saudis want us to support extremist Sunni groups to counter growing Iranian influence. The Saudis assure us that they can control these groups and keep them from turning against us. We saw how well that turned out with Al Qaeda. I will support moderates, not extremists, with no favoring of Sunnis or Shiites.

The long-term solution to terror is to empower moderates in the region. My goal in the Middle and Near East is to correctly calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy. It's self-defeating to try to accomplish too much too soon, you just have elections where extremists win, but it's equally self-defeating to do nothing. First, we have to destroy the terrorists who already exist, then we have to attack the underlying conditions that breed terror, by creating schools that offer an alternative to the extremist madrassas that take impressionable children and turn them into killers, by creating jobs and opportunity and hope, by encouraging a free press and other institutions that promote democracy. The recent rising appeal of Al Qaeda across North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia - shows why we have to do better in the war of ideas - and soon.

In the past, we've been constrained from helping some of the good guys because our dependence on oil has forced us to support repressive regimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind our back. It's time, it's past time, to untie that hand and reach out to the moderates with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreign policy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to be able to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel - literally - for way too long. The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term. We will explore, we will conserve, and we will pursue all avenues of alternative energy - nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass.

If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force. The notion of an "occupation with a light footprint" that was our paradigm for Iraq always struck me as a contradiction in terms. Liberating a country and occupying it are two different missions. Occupation inevitably demands a lot of boots on the ground. Instead of marginalizing General Shinseki when he said we needed several hundred thousand troops for Iraq, I would have met privately with him and carefully weighed his advice and his underlying analysis.

Our current armed forces aren't large enough - we have been relying far too heavily on our National Guard and our Reserves, we have worn them out. When our enemies know that we are spread thin, they're more apt to test us by provoking a crisis. Having a sizeable standing army actually makes it less likely that we'll have to use it. So I will increase the defense budget. We have to be ready to fight both conventional and unconventional wars against both state and non-state enemies. Right now we spend about 3.9% of our GDP on defense, while we spent about 6% in 1986 under President Reagan. I would return to that 6% level. I believe we can do this without raising taxes. I will limit increases in other discretionary spending and rely on the normal increase in federal tax revenue that is generated annually as Americans' incomes rise.

Crises arise suddenly and unpredictably, and no one has the database for every possible scenario. What we have to evaluate is the strength of a leader's operating system, because if that's sound, he can always add the data. I'll be an effective commander in chief because I have executive experience and crisis management experience. My record as Governor shows that I'm intellectually curious, a quick study, and have sound judgment. I will get advice from a broad circle with differing perspectives and portfolios; encourage dissent and stay out of the bubble; refuse to wilt under criticism, but also be flexible and ready to change course if a policy isn't working. I will communicate my rationale for our foreign and defense policies clearly and frequently to Congress and to the American people.