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Inmates File Suit After Prisons Ban Some Religious Books Over Terrorism Fears

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 03:50:30 GMT

clipped by: cpltaiji
clipper's remarks: "Bookburning" is not going to solve the root problem here. The change needs to come from within. When change comes from within, books don't matter!

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

NEW YORK — Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., were stunned by what they saw at the chapel library on Memorial Day — hundreds of books had disappeared from the shelves.

The removal of the books is occurring nationwide, part of a long-delayed, post-Sept. 11 federal directive intended to prevent radical religious texts, specifically Islamic ones, from falling into the hands of violent inmates.

Three inmates at Otisville filed a lawsuit over the policy, saying their Constitutional rights were violated. They say all religions were affected.

"The set of books that have been taken out have been ones that we used to minister to new converts when they come in here," inmate John Okon, speaking on behalf of the prison's Christian population, told a judge last week.

Okon said it was unfortunate because "I have really seen religion turn around the life of some of these men, especially in the Christian community."

Tags: law, general interest, crime, bizarre, books, civil rights

UGA study finds that weaker nations prevail in 39 percent of military conflicts

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:30:54 GMT

clipped by: PatrisTimoris

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Athens, Ga. – Despite overwhelming military superiority, the world’s most powerful nations failed to achieve their objectives in 39 percent of their military operations since World War II, according to a new University of Georgia study.

Sullivan said the most important factor influencing whether the more powerful nation is successful is whether its strategic objective can be accomplished with brute force alone or requires the cooperation of the adversary.

Based on Sullivan’s model, the current war in Iraq has a probability of success of nearly 26 percent with an estimated duration of 10 years.

Sullivan analyzed all 122 post World War II wars and military interventions in which the United States, the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Britain or France fought a weaker adversary.

Tags: history, military, military strategy, war, conflict, statistics, iraq, russia, us

Woman Faces 3 yrs. for Stealing TP

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:48:37 GMT

clipped by: Heitz669

Clip Source: www.kcci.com

A Marshalltown woman faces charges of stealing three rolls of toilet paper from the local courthouse and could get prison time.

Courthouse employees said they thought something was up.

"They said they seem to go through a lot of toilet paper at the courthouse," said Marshalltown Police Chief Lon Walker.

Marshalltown police said one of the employees caught Suzanne Marie Butts, of Marshalltown, taking the two-ply from the women's bathroom and called police.

"I've heard they call it the toilet paper caper," said parking lot attendant Gene Seim.

she was hiding the toilet paper in her shirt.

"She's facing three years incarceration for three rolls of toilet paper," Walker said.

"Normally, that would be a simple misdemeanor," Walker said.

Police said that on Friday, Butts was arrested on charges of stealing $30 from a family member.

That makes four theft charges against her. A judge will decide what punishment fits this crime.

Tags: toilet paper, theft, stealing, iowa

FL Principal Gets Jail For Buying Crack Cocaine At School

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:09:48 GMT

clipped by: dorine
clipper's remarks: The NEA opposes background checks. Another reason to homeschool.

Clip Source: www.wftv.com

A former middle school principal has pleaded guilty to buying crack cocaine in his office and was sentenced to a year in jail.

Anthony Giancola was arrested in February when he made a deal to buy $20 worth of crack cocaine from an undercover officer while students were still on campus at Van Buren Middle School in Tampa.

Giancola was sentenced to 364 days in the county jail. If he completes a drug-treatment program in jail, the remainder of the sentence will be suspended.

Giancola also got three years probation, 200 hours of community service and must forfeit his teaching license.

Tags: crime, school, home school

Eye-Tracking Device Lets Billboards Know When You Look at Them

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:27:26 GMT

clipped by: nemesarial

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Billboards that know when you're looking at them will soon be a reality, if new eye-tracking gear from a Canadian startup makes good on its maker's claims.

The eyebox2 from xuuk is a palm-size video camera surrounded by infrared light-emitting diodes. It can record eye contact with 15-degree accuracy at a distance of up to 33 feet. A simple glance from a passerby scores an impression, providing a tally that enables new Google-like measurement metrics that real-world advertisers could only dream about until recently.

Tags: technology

China Likely Blocks Flickr

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:36:47 GMT

clipped by: tonya-yvonne
clipper's remarks: sounds like something Bush would do

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Flickr.com, one of the world's most popular online photo-sharing sites and owned by Yahoo Inc. , is likely being blocked by the Chinese government, Yahoo's Hong Kong unit said on Tuesday.

Flickr -- popular among a growing class of digital photo enthusiasts in the world's second-largest Internet market -- has not shown photos to users in mainland China since last week, amid rumors Beijing took action after images of the Tiananmen massacre in early June 1989 were posted.

"It appears that the Chinese government is restricting access to Flickr, although we have not received confirmation from them," the spokeswoman said in the email.

"It is our understanding that Flickr users in China are not able to see images on Flickr, and we have confirmed that this is not a technical issue on our end," a spokeswoman for Yahoo Hong Kong said in an email in response to a Reuters inquiry.

Officials from China's Ministry of Information Industry could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Tags: bush, flickr, camera, banned, censorship, internet, ministry

Peer-to-Peer Playgrounds for the Tech Savvy Toddler and Tween Set

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:49:28 GMT

clipped by: Amanda Mooney
clipper's remarks: A new generation of web users will be the first to completely grow up on the "world live web." For the net's youngest users, concepts like Second Life will seem like second nature.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Presleigh is part of a booming phenomenon, the growth of a new wave of interactive play sites for a young generation of Internet users, in particular girls.

Millions of children and adolescents are spending hours on these sites, which offer virtual versions of traditional play activities and cute animated worlds that encourage self-expression and safe communication. They are, in effect, like Facebook or MySpace with training wheels, aimed at an audience that may be getting its first exposure to the Web.

Tags: web 2.0, amanda mooney, social media, new york times, marketing, social networking, web users

Dinosaur 'feathers' are no such thing

Wed, 23 May 2007 12:38:07 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

The theory that dinosaurs gave rise to birds has been dealt a blow by palaeontologists who have examined critical evidence from a Chinese fossil.

The discoverers of the turkey-sized dinosaur Sinosauropteryx say it would have had primitive feathers, supporting the bird-from-dinosaurs theory.

But the latest research says these 'proto-feathers' are really frilly structures on the creature's back.

Researchers led by South African academic Professor Theagarten Lingham-Soliar at the University of KwaZulu-Natal publish their study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The debate focuses on Sinosauropteryx, a fossil found in 1994 by a farmer in Liaoning province, northeastern China.

The long-tailed, meat-eating dinosaur was covered with a down of fibres that its Chinese researchers said were primitive feathers.

As a result, a once-outlandish notion has become the mainstream concept for the ascent of Aves, as birds are classified.

Tags: dinosoars, birds, feathers, palaeontologists, fossil

Eat live rats to 'cure tummy ache'

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:29:30 GMT

clipped by: cpltaiji
clipper's remarks: Oh goody! Rat Szechuan to go!

Clip Source: www.metro.co.uk

Why bother with the Tums when you can just have a live rat: yummy

A man in southeast China says 40 years of swallowing tree frogs and rats live has helped him avoid tummy ache.

Jiang Musheng, a 66-year-old resident of Jiangxi province, suffered from frequent abdominal pains and coughing 20 years ago.

But he says an old man called Yang Dingcai suggested tree frogs as a remedy, the Beijing News said today.

'At first, Jiang Musheng did not dare to eat a live, wriggling frog, but after seeing Yang Dingcai swallow one, he ate two without a thought,' the paper said.

'After a month of eating live frogs, his stomach pains and coughing were completely gone.'

Over the years Jiang had added live mice, baby rats and green frogs to his diet, and had once eaten 20 mice in a single day, the paper said.

On top of that he never gets worms.

Tags: life, health, general interest, food, bizarre, animals

Wife gone cuckoo!

Wed, 30 May 2007 21:52:06 GMT

clipped by: Rashid Malik
clipper's remarks: Poor wife! Why do women want stupid husbands?

Clip Source: jo-kes.blogspot.com

other night I was invited out for a night with "the girls." I promised my husband that I would be home by midnight.

The hours passed and the champagne was going down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., drunk to the gills, I headed for home. Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hall started up and cuckooed three times. Quickly realizing he'd probably wake up, I cuckooed another nine times. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution (even when smashed), in order to escape a possible conflict with him.

The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, and I told him 12:00. He didn't seem disturbed at all. "Whew," I thought, "got away with that one!"

Then he said, "We need a new cuckoo clock." When I asked him why, he said, "Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said, "Oh shit!" cuckooed four more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the cat and farted.

Tags: wife jokes, women jokes, jokes

Race to be first to ‘hibernate’ human beings

Sun, 27 May 2007 10:24:43 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

TURNING science fiction into science fact, American doctors are preparing to chill volunteers into a state of suspended animation that could keep them asleep for months.

Medical teams in Los Angeles, Boston and Pittsburgh are racing to become the first to test out new theories of “induced hibernation” which could save lives and also help to send man towards the stars.

Hasan Alam, a surgeon at Massachusetts general hospital and consultant to the US army, is poised to start the first human trials before the end of the year.

Last week he said that he wanted to equip ambulances with a clear saline solution called plasma expander that would be injected into seriously injured victims at the scene of a car accident.

The plasma would rapidly send body temperature from 37C to 10C, slowing the metabolism, delaying the onset of shock and limiting damage from wounds

Tags: science, medicine, health, hibernation, plasma expander

Image: Gore's office. YIKES!

Mon, 21 May 2007 20:28:30 GMT

clipped by: BitDrifter

Clip Source: img.timeinc.net

Tags: gore, office, organization, images, president, elections, primary, character

Woman had bullet in head for 64 years

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:57:15 GMT

clipped by: dellarae

Clip Source: www.ananova.com

A Chinese grandmother who went to hospital with a headache was found to have had a bullet in her head for 64 years.

Jin remembers that she was shot in 1943 during the Second World War by the invading Japanese army when she was taking supplies to her guerrilla father.

"I was spotted by the Japanese army. They ran after me and opened fire. A bullet passed through the corner of my right ear. I hit the ground and lost consciousness."

The chief surgeon, who removed the rusty bullet, was amazed it had remained in her head for so long without causing major problems.

Tags: chinese, x ray, war, japanese, girl, grandmother