Wednesday News Bucket

16 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on January 23, 2008 at 7:13 am

   break down border wall and cross into Egypt to go shopping: Guardian

   Tens of thousands of Palestinians today poured into Egypt from Gaza after militants blew up part of the wall between the two territories in protest at an Israeli blockade.

   On foot, in cars or riding donkey carts, Gazans burst into the Egyptian border town of Rafah to buy cigarettes, plastic bottles of fuel and other supplies that have become scarce and expensive after months of economic isolation.

   “I have bought everything I need for the house for months. I have bought food, cigarettes and even two gallons of diesel for my car,” Mohammed Saeed told Reuters.

   Many of the Palestinians, some travelling from the northern Gaza Strip, found transport towards the Egyptian coastal town of El Arish, about 40km away.

   Others stayed on the Egyptian side of Rafah and clamoured to buy merchandise that has been in short supply in Gaza, even going as afar as emptying some shops.

   About that mideast peace thing….

2. 

   ask on January 23, 2008 at 7:18 am

   CG thought she had a tough day the other morning.
   This guy takes the prize, though:

   A man has been accidentally shot by a rescuer who was trying to free him from the jaws of a crocodile in northern Australia.

   The victim, in his late 20s, was attacked by the reptile near a popular tourist spot on the Mary River south-east of Darwin.

   […]

   Crocodile attacks and shootings are rare in Australia.

   To suffer both at once is – to say the least – unfortunate.

   • 

     CabinGirl on January 23, 2008 at 7:20 am

     A seriously bad day for that guy.  🙂

3. 

   CabinGirl on January 23, 2008 at 7:19 am

   about diabetes and obesity: NYT

   Weight-loss surgery works much better than standard medical therapy as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes in obese people, the first study to compare the two approaches has found.

   The study, of 60 patients, showed that 73 percent of those who had surgery had complete remissions of diabetes, meaning all signs of the disease went away. By contrast, the remission rate was only 13 percent in those given conventional treatment, which included intensive counseling on diet and exercise for weight loss, and, when needed, diabetes medicines like insulin, metformin and other drugs.

   In the study, the surgery worked better because patients who had it lost much more weight than the medically treated group did — 20.7 percent versus 1.7 percent of their body weight, on average. Type 2 diabetes is usually brought on by obesity, and patients can often lessen the severity of the disease, or even get rid of it entirely, by losing about 10 percent of their body weight. Though many people can lose that much weight, few can keep it off without surgery. (Type 1 diabetes, a much less common form of the disease, involves the immune system and is not linked to obesity.)

   Interestingly, the long-term costs of treating diabetes are so high that this type of surgery might actually prove to be cost-saving in the long run.

4. 

   ask on January 23, 2008 at 7:27 am

   More medical news:

   Work stress ‘changes your body’

   A stressful job has a direct biological impact on the body, raising the risk of heart disease, research has indicated.

   The study reported in the European Heart Journal focused on more than 10,000 British civil servants.

   Those under 50 who said their work was stressful were nearly 70% more likely to develop heart disease than the stress-free.

   The stressed had less time to exercise and eat well – but they also showed signs of important biochemical changes.

   • 

     CabinGirl on January 23, 2008 at 7:39 am

     I knew it – work really can be bad for your health!
     I can totally see how a stressful workplace can take a big toll on people.  

     • 

       Oui on January 23, 2008 at 9:06 am

       .
       Research under 10,000 British civil servants … finding stress??? That’s amazing.

       
       

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

5. 

   Man Eegee on January 23, 2008 at 10:45 am

   Woman raped in Texas concentration camp while her young boy looked on in the cell, then deported – the agent was fired, but that was it.

   The female detainee was examined by an emergency nurse at a Williamson County hospital, who reported to the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office that the woman sustained trauma to her vaginal area.

   The female detainee and her son were taken to a hotel before being transported to an “alternative facility,” according to ICE spokeswoman Nina Pruneda. The victim was later deported.

   Officially, ICE continued investigating the case under a possible charge of official oppression.

   Crime avoided both state and federal jurisdiction

   On Monday, May 21, the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case, according to the ICE report.

   linkage

   The silence from the big media players is maddening.

6. 

   Man Eegee on January 23, 2008 at 1:36 pm

   Vietnamese communities should start bracing for mass deportations.

   In two months, the U.S. government will begin deporting more than 8,000 illegal Vietnamese immigrants as the result of a long-sought repatriation agreement signed Tuesday by Washington and Hanoi.

   The pact deals with a once-verboten subject in the emigre community – the forced return of Vietnamese nationals to their communist homeland – and it underscores how close Vietnam and the United States have become.

   In addition, the muted reaction Tuesday in San Jose’s 100,000-strong Vietnamese community illustrated how much emigre politics have changed in the once rigidly anti-communist community. – linkage

   I need a drink

   • 

     esquimaux on January 23, 2008 at 4:36 pm

     I guess the San Jose Vietnamese are too busy arguing with each other to protest something significant.

     on one hand I think it is a step forward from a few years ago when any kind of discussions between the USA and Vietnam made the Vietnamese immigrants crazy.

     on the other hand I think that most of the asian-american communities are trying to duck immigration issues, and letting this go without protest continues that pattern.

     • 

       Man Eegee on January 23, 2008 at 4:40 pm

       dontchaknow, esquimaux?  immigration is a latino issue!!!  

       (thanks for the link, looks like the Mercury News has been on this beat for awhile)

       • 

         esquimaux on January 23, 2008 at 7:04 pm

         the vietnamese are a huge group in San Jose and the merc does a good job of covering them.

          a while ago someone (possibly at the Merc) wrote about how the asian communities seemed to prefer to not talk about immigration and continue letting people think that only mexicans could be illegal. This struck me as good analysis and still seems to hold. Not sure I blame them, Lou Dobbs would just start adding yellow people to his ranting.

         I live surrounded by immigrants from so many different places that the idea that it’s just a latino issue is really a joke.

         I’ve even run into a white people’s pro-immigrant group – this was in San Francisco. There’s a substantial Irish population in the city, apparently not all with papers.

7. 

   dada on January 23, 2008 at 1:38 pm

   in the face/midst of an economic melt-down, destined to put more families and their children on the “uninsured” list, the house, once again, fails to override chimpy’s veto of s-chip.

   Children’s health program veto upheld, again

   way to go RATublicans…the “ownership society” at it’s most blatant: “yer on yer own sucka!”

   lTMF’sA

8. 

   Man Eegee on January 23, 2008 at 1:55 pm

   Despite the hate, I’m glad to see the community uniting against it.

   BENBROOK – Dozens of civil rights activists and concerned citizens held a vigil Sunday at the home of a Hispanic family reeling from racially charged vandalism in their rural Tarrant County subdivision.

   Since September, the Sheriff’s Department has received 18 calls to the Bara family home for a variety of complaints – including a racial epithet and “White Power” painted on a family car, swastika graffiti, rocks thrown at the house, and gasoline poured on a relative by an unknown person.

   So far, investigators are baffled. The isolated subdivision, recently built with large lots on quiet rolling prairie outside Benbrook, includes other minority families who have reported no similar problems.

   “We’ve got an ongoing investigation trying to make any sense of this,” Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Sunday. “There’s not a real clear-cut motive.” – linkage

9. 

   Second Nature on January 23, 2008 at 2:32 pm

   but this had me snorting diet Squirt out of my nose this afternoon.  We’ve all seen the Tom Cruise Scientology video, right?

   Jerry O’Connell parody of Cruise on Funny or Die

10. 

    ask on January 23, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Missed this story yesterday:

    Whales in the Navy’s Way

    According to a federal district judge in California, the Navy’s own research predicted that its sonar training exercises off the California coast will cause widespread harm — and possibly permanent injury or death — to nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales. That still didn’t stop the Bush administration from rejecting the judge’s carefully crafted plan to protect these animals from avoidable harm.

    There is little doubt that the Navy’s mid-frequency active sonar is an effective tool for locating quiet-running submarines and that training is needed in shallow, offshore waters where sound propagates differently than in the open ocean. The rub is that the sonar, which generates extremely intense underwater sound, is harmful to marine mammals that depend on their own sensitive acoustical systems to feed, communicate and navigate. The waters off Southern California are teeming with vulnerable species.