Thursday News Bucket

18 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 8:18 am

   is for cheaters: AP/Yahoo

   The Daytona 500 is a wreck before it even gets started. A cheating scandal that had already brought down four teams now has ensnared another — that of two-time winner Michael Waltrip — tarnishing
   NASCAR’s signature race and Toyota’s highly anticipated debut.

   “We’ve got people’s attention now,” NASCAR competition director Robin Pemberton said Wednesday.

   Waltrip lost his crew chief and team director right before Sunday’s Super Bowl of racing. The two were suspended indefinitely after an illegal substance was found during inspection for the season-opener.

   Waltrip, docked 100 points, will be allowed to participate in Thursday’s races that determine the field for the 500.

   The article goes on to say that Waltrip is blaming an unidentified individual on the team, not the 2 people who were kicked off his team.  

   Way to take ownership, dude. Not.

2. 

   CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 8:25 am

   The NY Times has a nice little write-up about the firedoglake folks live-blogging the Libby trial.

3. 

   Knoxville Progressive on February 15, 2007 at 9:16 am

   Brazil could produce enough ethanol to replace 10 percent of world gasoline demand in the next 20 years, if a proposed project is implemented.  The Brazilian project, developed with the participation of the government and state-owned oil giant Petrobas, would multiply by 15 times the country’s current production of ethanol from sugar cane.

   Multicellular life on earth was preceded by a glacial age 600-800 million years ago. According to the new theory, the coldness was due to low carbon dioxide concentrationn brought about by strong algal growth in the oceans. The algal growth was maintained by the lack of grazing animals and the ability of cold seawater to mix and transport nutrients efficiently.  Higher oxygen concentrations developed as a byproduct of the algal growth. This enabled diffusive breathing of primitive multicellulars which were larger than their unicellular counterparts. The ability of cold water to contain more dissolved oxygen also helped the multicellulars to thrive. This permitted the diversification of marine food webs which then slowed the rate of organic carbon sequestration, increased the atmospheric carbon dioxide level and allowed the earth to warm up for future ages.

   The Chinese government is preparing to adopt its first program to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming. Although some reports suggest the plan will not include quantitative reduction targets, a senior official said on Tuesday that the country would seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions “by 10% over the next five years”.

   Researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.  The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.  A vasectomy may raise the risk of PPA because the surgery breeches the protective barrier between the blood and the testes, called the blood-testis barrier.  This can then trigger autoimmune responses that also affect the brain.

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:11 pm

     I saw that vasectomy article yesterday, and wondered how many men are freaking out over it today.  Kind of reminds me of the whole “hormone replacement is bad for most women” thing a few years ago.

4. 

   ask on February 15, 2007 at 9:25 am

   Iraq invasion plan ‘delusional’

   The US invasion plan for Iraq envisaged that only 5,000 US troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, declassified Central Command documents show.

   The material also shows that the US military projected a stable, pro-US and democratic Iraq by that time.

   The August 2002 material was obtained by the National Security Archive (NSA). Its officials said the plans were based on delusional assumptions.
   (snip)
   The documents – in the former of PowerPoint slides – were prepared by the now-retired Gen Tommy Franks and other top commanders at the time.
   (snip)
   “First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by ‘D-Day’, then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere months’,” Mr Blanton said.

   “All of these were delusions,” he added.

   The NSA said it received the documents last month, after making a request in 2004.

   The NSA is an independent research institute at George Washington University.

   It obtained the papers under the Freedom of Information Act.

   Nothing surprises anymore, the level of incompetence is astounding.

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:09 pm

     The thing that’s really astounding is that we can’t yet impeach for incomeptence and delusional behavior.

5. 

   rba on February 15, 2007 at 11:13 am

   Al-Qaida e-Zine.  “CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi Arabian terrorist faction affiliated with al-Qaida has urged Muslim militants to attack oil facilities all over the world. . . to stop the flow of oil to the United States. . .Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said in its monthly magazine . . .“

   Two things:  MSNBC has sourced a terrorist org’s online magazine, and Al-Qaida seems to be offering franchises.

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:12 pm

     Scary on both counts.  If they’re publishing magazines, why can’t we find them?

6. 

   boran2 on February 15, 2007 at 11:14 am

   Perhaps god directed them to break the law and decimate the local leopard shark population.

   ENS Link

   Church Group Sentenced for Poaching Baby Leopard Sharks

   MONTEREY, California, February 14, 2007 (ENS) – Restitution and contributions collected as a result of federal prosecution of a church-based poaching operation that removed thousands of undersized California leopard sharks from San Francisco Bay will be used to create a $1.5 million fund to help restore habitat for sharks and other wildlife.
   Speaking at a press conference Monday at Monterey Bay Aquarium, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan joined representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration to announce the partnership fund. …

   The three year investigation involved enforcement officers from California Department of Fish & Game, the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Fish Health Inspectorate and The Netherlands General Inspection Service. …

   California’s investigation, led by Game Warden Rebecca Hartman, focused on Ira Gass of Azusa, California, who had continued poaching sharks even after being previously prosecuted by the state for the illegal take and possession of undersized leopard sharks.

   Eventually, Thompson, 48, and five others including Gass, were indicted on federal Lacey Act charges in January 2006. The Lacey Act prohibits the interstate commercialization of wildlife taken in violation of state laws. California law prohibits the possession, take, buying or selling of leopard sharks less than 36 inches in length. …

   In addition to paying $100,000 restitution, the pastor was sentenced January 22, to one year and one day in prison.

   The five other defendants pleaded guilty to Lacey Act charges and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to eight months and varying terms of home confinement and probation. They paid restitution ranging from $20,000 to $100,000.

   The defendents admitted church vessels were used to fish for the undersized sharks, which were stored at a facility in San Leandro owned by a business associated with the church.

   Sharks were shipped out of Oakland and San Francisco airports for sale to dealers throughout the country and abroad for $9 to $25 each. One defendant admitted selling the them through his business, Amazon Aquarium, Inc. located in Alameda, California, and another sold them through through his business in Oakland, Bayside Marine Aquatics.

    

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:13 pm

     Bizarre.

7. 

   idredit on February 15, 2007 at 1:11 pm

   A Classic Case of feathering one’s Nest or no, make that Bed:   Hmmmm. Read on…

   Lobbyist, federal lawyer share vacation home

   WASHINGTON – Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government’s top environmental prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company’s top lobbyist.

   Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

   Just before resigning last month, Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen Wooldridge signed two proposed consent decrees with shared investment : one giving the company as much as two to three more years to install $525 million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.[..]

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:17 pm

     Our tax dollars at work…

8. 

   Limelite on February 15, 2007 at 1:13 pm

   Yep.  Mr. Alexandre Battle of Miami Beach paid $325 to apply for the trademark “Obama bin Laden” so he could have exclusive rights to a picture of the senator from Illinois,  “dressed in a white robe and headcover and holding a machine gun.  Standing next to him is a cartoon image of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wearing a black robe.”  Miami Herald

   He wants to plaster the image all over coffee mugs and the like and make his fortune selling them at his website, http://www.obamabinladen.net/.

   Mr Battle’s application was denied by the US Patent and Trademark Office.  Yet, he continues to sell his “souvenir” items online.

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:16 pm

     That’s messed up.  

     Although I must admit, Hillary does look pretty spiffy in black.

9. 

   Man Eegee on February 15, 2007 at 1:17 pm

   The University of Arizona’s Mexican-American Studies Dept. has released a report, in conjunction with the American Immigration Law Foundation, highlighting the humanitarian crisis experienced along the U.S./Mexico Border

   For almost a decade now, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of deaths each year among unauthorized border-crossers in the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona. The official statistics compiled by the U.S. Border Patrol consistently undercount the actual number of deaths in Arizona and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border. But various academic and government studies estimate that the bodies of between 2,000 and 3,000 men, women, and children have been found along the entire southwest border since 1995, including at least 1,000 in the inhospitable terrain of southern Arizona. Experts, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), now explain this crisis as a direct consequence of U.S. immigration-control policies instituted in the mid-1990s.1

   The Binational Migration Institute (BMI) of the University of Arizona’s Mexican American Studies and Research Center has undertaken a unique and scientifically rigorous study of all unauthorized border-crosser (UBC) deaths examined by the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office (PCMEO) from 1990-2005.2 [Read the complete BMI study] Because the PCMEO has handled approximately 90 percent of all UBC recovered bodies in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, an analysis of such deaths serves as an accurate reflection of the major characteristics of all known unauthorized border-crosser deaths that have occurred in this sector since 1990.

   Linkage to Policy Brief

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 15, 2007 at 1:20 pm

     Between 2000-3000 people dead, and nothing is done about it because they’re border crossers.

     Thanks for everything you do to bring this to people’s attention, ManEee.

10. 

    Man Eegee on February 15, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    Urinal cakes?  Who devised that name?

    New Mexico is hoping to keep drunks off the road by lecturing them at the last place they usually stop before getting behind the wheel: the urinal.

    The state recently paid $21 each for about 500 talking urinal-deodorizer cakes and has put them in men’s rooms in bars and restaurants across the state.

    When a man steps up, the motion-sensitive plastic device says, in a woman’s voice that is flirty, then stern: “Hey, big guy. Having a few drinks? Think you had one too many? Then it’s time to call a cab or call a sober friend for a ride home.”

    The recorded message ends: “Remember, your future is in your hand.”

    linkage

    • 

      boran2 on February 15, 2007 at 1:48 pm

      Yep, that sounds like a sure-fire method for successfully combatting the carnage on our roads.  But what if they are pooping instead?  Flirty-voiced charmin?