Tuesday News Bucket

22 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on January 8, 2008 at 6:52 am

   that goes with the photo: NYT

   Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was about to deliver a line that has become a centerpiece of her campaign since her loss in Iowa.

   “Everybody in this race is talking about change. But what does that mean?”

   “Iron my shirt!” yelled a man, who stood up in the middle of a jammed and stuffy auditorium at a high school in Salem, N.H., and held up a yellow sign with the same text. He repeated it over and over.

   Mrs. Clinton asked for the lights to be turned on, and the shirt man was removed along with another man who had stood up too.

   “Oh, the remnants of sexism are alive and well,” Mrs. Clinton said.

   When everyone had settled down a bit, she said, “As I think has just been abundantly demonstrated, I am also running to break through the highest and hardest glass ceiling.”

   BTW, that sign reminds me of some of my ‘favorite’ stories about my former in-laws in NH…

   • 

     Salunga on January 8, 2008 at 4:03 pm

     CabinGirl shouldn’t you be knitting….just kidding. 🙂

     • 

       CabinGirl on January 8, 2008 at 4:49 pm

       You better watch yourself with that, Salunga. I’m armed with long pointy needles. 🙂

2. 

   Oui on January 8, 2008 at 7:10 am

   .

   McCain, Obama win in Dixville and Hart’s Location

   

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     CabinGirl on January 8, 2008 at 7:33 am

     Hillary is in fourth?  And McCain is ahead by a landslide margin?

     Oh my.  

     • 

       Oui on January 8, 2008 at 8:04 am

       .

       "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     idredit on January 8, 2008 at 10:00 am

     Dixville Notch (in my backyard) is considered a bell weather. As Dixville goes so goes NH.

3. 

   CabinGirl on January 8, 2008 at 7:32 am

   Angry Ron Paul supporters chase Sean Hannity in NH:

   Faux News is taking a beating in NH: first Obama disses O’Lielly, and now this.  What is the world coming to?  😉

4. 

   CabinGirl on January 8, 2008 at 7:40 am

   Waking her boy up in a fire:  AP/Yahoo

   A black Labrador that bit a 13-year-old boy’s foot repeatedly, waking him up, is being credited with saving the boy and two of his friends from a house fire. Christopher Peebles said he woke up Friday morning to feel his dog Laney biting his foot repeatedly in the basement of his family’s home, where he and two friends had spent the night.

   “I thought she had to go to the bathroom, but she never bites me,” Peebles said Friday.

   He and his friends walked upstairs with Laney and noticed smoke everywhere in the home.

   “We came up the stairs and thought it was a dream, but it was cold when we opened the door — then we knew it wasn’t a dream,” Pebbles said.

   • 

     Salunga on January 8, 2008 at 4:06 pm

     That is too cool. I’m still keeping the smoke detectors though. No offense to our dog but he has shown a tendency to be unreliable in the past.

     • 

       Gaianne on January 9, 2008 at 12:33 am

       not to jump on my face every sunrise (the ability to toss her across the room while still asleep played a big role in that) I was surprised to find her once again jumping on my face.  As it happened, it was almost time for me to get up anyway.  It was a late summer day, and the pollution was a little worse than usual, but other than that . . .

       As I staggered drowzily into the kitchen, I saw the pool of smoke that had formed in one corner on the floor, and then I knew . . .

       It turned out to be an electrical short downstairs that, being only partial, had gotten hot without blowing the fuse.  My cat had just saved the building from being lost to fire.  

       Possibly my life, also.  

5. 

   idredit on January 8, 2008 at 10:28 am

   That other show – the CES (Consumer Electronics Show)

   GADGET OF THE DAY:  – a little music with your Taser. Fashion with a bite.  (can’t make this Up!)

   “Worry no more.

   Today at CES, Taser International introduced the Taser MPH — the first combination hand-held music player and Taser.

   The player, which has a 1-GB capacity that can hold about 150 songs, is embedded in a holster that slips on your belt. Feel the need to zap someone and you can unholster the Taser, use the built-in laser pointer to aim, and blam — a couple of darts carrying 50,000 volts hits your victim.

   And you don’t have to miss a beat.”

   (h/t: The Daily Dish

   See, I did. not. make. it. up.

   • 

     Man Eegee on January 8, 2008 at 12:24 pm

     note to self:  read other comments before posting.  D’oh!

     • 

       ignorant bystander on January 8, 2008 at 1:16 pm

       heh.  the sticky is worn out on my yellow sticky note.

       • 

         Man Eegee on January 8, 2008 at 1:49 pm

         mine too, and the henna tattoo has all but disappeared from my forearm.  😉

     • 

       idredit on January 8, 2008 at 1:16 pm

       Man Eegee, that’s OK . Glad to share with you my 15 mins/hr of whatever.

       Happy New Year. Be well.

       • 

         Man Eegee on January 8, 2008 at 1:49 pm

         same to you, idredit!

   • 

     Salunga on January 8, 2008 at 4:08 pm

     It was only a matter of time.

6. 

   Man Eegee on January 8, 2008 at 12:19 pm

   For those of you feeling left out of the digital music revolution:

   SCOTTSDALE — Taser International’s newest weapons for the public will come in leopard print and fit in a holster that’s embedded with an MP3 player, the stun gun maker said Monday.

   Taser spokesman Peter Holran said the company wanted to make it easy for people to integrate its C2 “personal protector” stun guns into their lives. – linkage

7. 

   Knoxville Progressive on January 8, 2008 at 4:32 pm

   If this holds up, it would be good news that the tropical forests are in better shape than we thought:

   No Convincing Evidence For Decline In Tropical Forests

   Claims that tropical forests are declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, according to new research from the University of Leeds. This major challenge to conventional thinking is the surprising finding of a study published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences [PNAS] by Dr Alan Grainger, Senior Lecturer in Geography and one of the world’s leading experts on tropical deforestation.

   PNAS is a serious, reputable part of the scientific community.  We’re not talking global warming deniers here…

   Apparently each country reports its own deforestation data to the UN’s FAO, and the error bars are rather on the large side:

   Dr Grainger first examined data published every 10 years by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 1980. These cover all forest in the humid and dry tropics and appear to indicate decline. FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, for example, showed that all tropical forest area fell from 1,926 million hectares to 1,799 million hectares between 1990 and 2000.

   Ten years earlier, however, FAO’s previous report said that tropical forest area fell from 1,910 million ha to 1,756 million ha for the same 90 countries between 1980 and 1990.

   So either the data are bad, or there’s a lot more regeneration of the tropical forests going on than we previously thought.

   Despite the large errors attached to present estimates, the lack of apparent decline in tropical moist forest area suggests that deforestation is being offset by natural reforestation at a higher rate than previously thought. Dr Grainger uses data from FAO’s latest report, published in 2006, to show that in a few countries, such as Gambia and Vietnam, forest area has actually expanded since 1990, as the reforestation rate has exceeded the deforestation rate.

   Of course, you know Rush Limbaugh will take this and run with it… 🙁

   Dr. Grainger says (not surprisingly, for a scientist) that the answer is mo’ betta data:

   To give us more reliable data Dr Grainger says we need a World Forest Observatory to monitor changes in forests in the tropics and elsewhere. “What is happening to the tropical forests is so important, both to the peoples of tropical countries and to future trends in biodiversity and global climate, that we can no longer put off investing in an independent scientific monitoring program that can combine satellite and ground data to give a reliable picture,” he said.

   “A World Forest Observatory would bring together existing research teams in Europe, the USA and elsewhere and ensure they are properly funded to continue mapping tropical forest at least every five years. It could also undertake a massive project to analyze all available satellite and other data from the past and reconstruct the trend in tropical forest area since 1970. Only then will we really know what has happened to tropical forests over the last 40 years.”

   This would not only mean less global warming, but also fewer species going extinct than we thought (as their habitat is more resilient than we had realized).

   Here’s to hoping this research is confirmed.

8. 

   anna in philly on January 8, 2008 at 6:08 pm

   DAWSONVILLE, Ga. – A drifter agreed to lead investigators to a hiker’s decapitated body in the woods of northern Georgia only after prosecutors pledged not to seek the death penalty against him, authorities said Tuesday.

   ****

   another good reason to keep the death penalty….besides using it on all those child molesters.

9. 

   Oui on January 9, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   .
   A few days back I read the heartbreaking news from a German zoo that three tiny polar bear cubs were to let die.

   Today the headline is: Zoo takes cub from polar bear mom

   
   Cub Knut II eats and sleeps well. (n-tv.de)

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."