Clipmarks | BobbyDelray's 'california' clips

Cops stop 8K from 'mooning' trains in California

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:54:30 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: Good example of cops hard at work.

Police officers had to break up a crowd of 8,000 people who were "mooning" Amtrak trains Saturday in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Clip Source: www.moonamtrak.org

30th Annual Mooning of Amtrak
4th Annual Mooning of Metrolink

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

The Orange County Register says this is the first time authorities have broken up the annual Mooning of Amtrak event since it began as drunken dare in 1979.

Nuclear Ghosts: On Anniversary, Three Mile Island Still Haunts Industry

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:19:12 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

As nuclear power races back into the energy agenda, it keeps getting waylaid by old ghosts. Today is the 29th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, when a partial core meltdown in one of the reactors led to five days of panic and 14 years of expensive clean-up.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes the nuclear revival on safety grounds, invoked the accident this week: “Three Mile Island was almost 30 years ago so perhaps the industry and the NRC have forgotten about it,” said Dave Lochbaum, the director of UCS’s Nuclear Safety Project.

It’s doubtful either the NRC or the industry have, but no one else has for sure. When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was in favor of using nuclear energy to help California meet its energy needs, he received a shower of editorial criticism. The L.A. Times, picking up on the Governor’s comments that Three Mile Island references are often just scare tactics, rebutted this week:

Tags: three mile island, nuclear, power, union of concerned scientists

Balding penguin gets a custom-made wetsuit

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:03:39 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

California Academy of Sciences have made a wetsuit that keeps Pierre warm while he's in the water with his more-feathery friends. Here's a story about Pierre.

Tags: bald, penguin, wetsuit

Rumblings of Calif. 'Big One': 'It's going to happen' by 2037

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:46:06 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

California faces an almost certain risk of being rocked by a strong earthquake by 2037, scientists said Monday in the first statewide quake forecast.

New calculations reveal a 99.7% chance that a magnitude-6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97% vs. 93%.

"It basically guarantees it's going to happen," said Ned Field, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Pasadena and lead author of the report.

The damage created by an earthquake depends greatly on where it hits. A magnitude-7.1 quake — much stronger than Northridge — hit the Mojave Desert in 1999 but caused few injuries and no deaths.

The analysis is the first comprehensive effort by the USGS, Southern California Earthquake Center and California Geological Survey to calculate earthquake probabilities for the entire state using newly available data.

Half Of Los Angeles Workforce Immigrants

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:11:16 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.upi.com

Los Angeles is at the leading edge of a U.S. demographic trend, with half of its workforce immigrants, many of them unskilled and speaking little English

As baby boomers retire, the same pattern will emerge across the country, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Demographers estimate that by 2025 most of the growth in the workforce will be from immigrants.

Are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and the majority at poverty or near poverty wages?" he asked. "Right now we're headed toward becoming a Third World city. But we can change that."

The Migration Policy Institute used U.S. Census data to determine that one-third of immigrants have not graduated from high school and 60 percent do not speak English fluently.

this week at the University of Southern California on how to train and integrate immigrant workers.

Bush to bypass laws to build border fence

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:54:37 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

The Bush administration will use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year, federal officials said Tuesday.

"Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement. "These waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward."

nvoking the two legal waivers — which Congress authorized — will cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of the Homeland Security Department building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly about it.

Big belly in middle age triples risk of dementia

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:28:50 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: iamanalzheimerscaregiver.blogspot.com

My mother has visceral fat. At her age it could be life threatening. There is no doubt this is a contributing factor to her Alzheimer's

Having a large belly in middle age nearly triples the risk of developing dementia

Researchers measured the abdominal fat of 6,583 people age 40 to 45 in northern California and some 36 years later 16 percent had developed dementia

Those who were overweight or obese but did not have a pot belly had an 80 percent increase in the risk of dementia compared to people with a normal body weight and abdominal fat level

The risk increase jumped to 230 percent among overweight people with a large belly and 360 percent among the obese with large abdomens.

"Where one carries the weight -- especially in midlife -- appears to be an important predictor for dementia risk," Whitmer said.

"These findings imply that the dangerous effects of abdominal obesity on the brain may start long before the signs of dementia appear."

Tags: belly, fat, alzheimer's

Home Prices in California Fall More Than 13%

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:53:13 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

The Associated Press is reporting that the median home price in a six-county region of Southern California plunged more than 13 percent in December versus a year ago, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

The average median price in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties hit $425,000 last month, the lowest level since February 2005, when the figure was $420,000, according to DataQuick. December’s median price dropped 2.4 percent from the November figure of $435,000.

Home sales in the region, one of the hardest hit in the nation by the mortgage crisis, also plummeted compared to December 2006, dropping 45.3 percent to 13,240 — the lowest sales total for any December in more than 20 years

“We’re in the midst of turbulence and we won’t know what really has been going on until things have settled down and we can look back,”

California’s housing market has been hammered by falling sales and home prices

Tags: real estate, home prices, california

'Instant' Alzheimer's Drug Claim

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:14:15 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: iamanalzheimerscaregiver.blogspot.com

Ten minutes after the injection, the researchers reported that the patient was calmer, less frustrated and more attentive. He could correctly identify California as his home state, but incorrectly identified the current year. At two hours, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment had improved from seven out of a possible 30 to 15. The man's wife and son confirmed the improvements.

A drug used for arthritis can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's 'in minutes'", the Daily Mail reported. Several newspapers covered the story of how an 81-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease improved within 10 minutes of being injected with a new drug, etanercept. The BBC reported that his wife described the effect on her husband as being "put back to where he was". His son said, "This was the single most remarkable thing I've seen".

Tags: alzheimer's, enbrel, etanercept

Alzheimer's Drug's Successful Test CTS-21166

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:31:36 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.omrf.org

CoMentis, a California/Oklahoma City-based pharmaceutical company, is developing a beta-secretase inhibitor, CTS-21166, discovered by Dr. Tang and Dr. Arun Ghosh of Purdue University. Unlike the existing Alzheimer’s drugs that treat only the symptoms, CTS-21166 inhibits, or turns off, the mechanism believed to lead to disease progression. The Phase I clinical trial results showed CTS-21166 to be safe and well tolerated in humans at various dose levels. Following the administration of a single dose, CTS-21166 reduced the levels of plasma beta amyloid, a potential cause of progression of the disease, by as much as 60 percent.

“CTS-21166 represents an entirely new approach to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease by inhibiting beta-secretase, an enzyme critical in the production of potentially toxic amyloid beta,” said Henry Hsu, M.D., CoMentis Chief Medical Officer. “It has the potential to become the first-in-class disease-modifying therapeutic agent.”

Tags: alzheimer's, treatment, drug, cts-21166, tang, doctor

Jessica’s Law

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:28:07 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

It's been a little more than one year since California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 83, known as "Jessica's Law," a measure that strengthens sex offender laws

California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can now evaluate incarcerated sex offenders who fit the profile of a sexually violent predator after one felony sex offense has been committed.

District attorneys now have the ability to file new petitions every two years to demonstrate that the offender still poses a danger to society.

Sexually violent predators are now required to serve their full parole in the event they are released from a mental facility.

Sex offenders who lure minors online for sexual purposes, posses child pornography or administer date-rape drugs face increased penalties.

Law enforcement officers are allowed to act as decoys to engage and capture Internet predators.

To date, 2,000 of the 3,000 paroled sex offenders are wearing global positioning satellite ankle bracelets.

Tags: sex, offender, predator, sexually violent predators

Crony capitalism

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:04:32 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Crony capitalism rears its ugly head. If this is as bad as it looks, the subprime mess has just entered a whole new level of scandal:

Countrywide Financial Corp. fell more than 10 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading after U.S. Senator Charles Schumer urged the regulator of the Federal Home Loan Bank system to probe cash advances to the largest U.S. mortgage lender.

Schumer said he was alarmed by the volume of advances the system’s Atlanta bank has made to Countrywide considering “the rapid deterioration'’ in the credit quality of some of the Calabasas, California-based company’s mortgages. Schumer expressed his concerns in a letter sent today to Federal Housing Finance Board Chairman Ronald Rosenfeld.

The Atlanta bank has made $51.1 billion in advances to Countrywide as of Sept. 30, representing 37 percent of the bank’s total outstanding advances, Schumer wrote, citing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Yves Smith makes an even stronger statemen

Tags: paul krugman, subprime, countrywide, schumer, federal home loan bank

California man dies in wood chipper

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:20:25 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

In a grisly scene reminiscent of the movie Fargo, a 24-year-old tree-service worker was killed yesterday in Orange County, California, when he was dragged into a wood chipper, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was throwing branches into the machine with co-workers nearby.

"One of them looked over, and he was gone," said Sgt. Pat Welch of the Tustin Police Department.

The chipper and its truck were taken to the coroner's office.

"We'll just be trying to gather as much of the remains as we can," said Deputy Coroner Larry Esslinger.

Tags: california, man, dies, in, wood, chipper, pat welch, tustin, police, department.

Genetic Crystal Balls Arrive on Internet

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:57:29 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

Tests that assess broad panels of genetic markers to predict a person’s risk of illness and death are becoming as simple as sending a sample of saliva to a lab and logging on via the Web for the results.

Then there are concerns about discrimination on the job or by insurers if a patient’s privacy is breached. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, is whether tests, such as one from a California start-up called Navigenics, will empower patients to make healthier choices or terrify them with misleading or discouraging information.

Navigenics isn’t the only company to tap the newly accessible information from the decoded human genome for health predictions. Another company, 23andme, backed by Genentech and Google, hopes to launch another direct-to-consumer test with genetic information taken from ancestries. DeCode already sells tests to for heart risks.

Would you pay $2,500 for a roadmap to your genetic health risks?

Tags: genetics, markers, tests, genetic crystal balls.

Wildfire Pictures Speak Louder than Words

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:43:39 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Tags: wildfrie, santa ana, winds, california, inferno, heat