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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
sgeorge1701's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | | 2:06 pm |
| | Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | | 9:24 am |
| | Friday, June 12th, 2009 | | 3:04 pm |
[Politics] Obama likes the Sim City Solution
-- Bulldozing our way to prosperity http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5516536/US-cities-may-have-to-be-bulldozed-in-order-to-survive.htmlQuotes: The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature. Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area. The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes. Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis. | | Monday, June 8th, 2009 | | 4:37 pm |
[China] Chosing boys, by aborting girls
-- Many more boys than girls http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/bmj_chinas_gender_imbalance_is_wide_and_is_growing.htmQuotes: Overall sex ratios were high across all age groups and residency types, but they were highest in the 1-4 years age group, peaking at 126 (95% confidence interval 125 to 126) in rural areas. Six provinces had sex ratios of over 130 in the 1-4 age group. The sex ratio at birth was close to normal for first order births but rose steeply for second order births, especially in rural areas, where it reached 146 (143 to 149). Nine provinces had ratios of over 160 for second order births. The highest sex ratios were seen in provinces that allow rural inhabitants a second child if the first is a girl. Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males. One particular variant of the one child policy, which allows a second child if the first is a girl, leads to the highest sex ratios. Conclusions In 2005 males under the age of 20 exceeded females by more than 32 million in China, and more than 1.1 million excess births of boys occurred. China will see very high and steadily worsening sex ratios in the reproductive age group over the next two decades. | | Monday, May 25th, 2009 | | 10:22 am |
[Somalia] Pirates back down to local leaders
-- Pressured to halt piracy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8066996.stmQuotes: Around 200 Somali pirates are reported to have renounced piracy at a meeting in northern Somalia. Members of the group met local leaders and Somali expatriates in Eyl, in the autonomous region of Puntland, and promised to halt their activities. Pirate representative Abshir Abdullah told the BBC he urged other groups to free ships in return for amnesty. Pirates have been coming under pressure from local leaders, who have accused them of corrupting their communities. Notes: What kind of pirate takes orders from a tribal leader? These pirates are not REAL pirates. Maybe they'd feel better about themselves if they wore REAL piratey clothes, not just Jeans and T-Shirts. | | Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 | | 12:43 pm |
[Nuclear] Surviving two atomic bombs
-- On a business trip in Hiroshima, then home to Nagasaki http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7963581.stmQuotes: Japan has certified a man aged 93 as the only known survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by atomic bombs towards the end of World War II.Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb.
He suffered serious burns and spent a night there before returning to his home city of Nagasaki just before it was bombed on 9 August.He said he hoped his experience held a lesson of peace for future generations. | | Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | | 9:19 am |
[Russia] Pushing the wrong Button
-- HRC gives the wrong gift http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.9ca28ad2530b0d0029e1304762eca18f.8c1&show_article=1Quotes: Russian media has been poking fun at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she gave her Russian counterpart a "reset" button with an ironic misspelling. Clinton's gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at their meeting in Geneva on Friday evening was meant to underscore the Obama administration's readiness to "to press the reset button" in ties with Moscow. But instead of the Russian word for "reset" (perezagruzka) it featured a slightly different word meaning "overload" or "overcharged" (peregruzka). Daily newspaper Kommersant put a prominent picture of the fake red button on its front page and declared: "Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton pushed the wrong button." A correspondent for NTV television called it a "symbolic mistake," pointing out that US-Russian ties had become overcharged in recent years due to discord over such issues as missile defence and last summer's war in Georgia. "The friendly US gesture was upturned by a small amusing incident," the news website RBC.ru wrote in an article posted late Friday evening. "Yet this curious episode did not stop Clinton and Lavrov from pushing the button in front of television cameras." | | Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 | | 2:28 pm |
[Politics] America the Free
“We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”--President Barack Obama January 20th, 2009 | | Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | | 1:02 pm |
| | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | | 12:43 pm |
| | 12:07 pm |
[Not Politics] Free Coffee (voting is NOT necessary)
-- Starbucks offers free coffee for voting just because http://www.kirotv.com/news/17885256/detail.htmlQuotes: SEATTLE -- Seattle-based Starbucks is making fast changes -- after being accused of breaking the law with an offer to voters.Prior to Monday afternoon, Starbucks was promoting an ad that said anyone who says enters a Starbucks on Election Day and says that they voted would get a free cup of tall coffee. Election officials for the state of Washington told KIRO 7 that rewarding voters with free coffee is illegal. "No good deed goes unpunished," said Nick Handy, director of elections. Handy said there is a federal statute that prohibits any reward for voting.Notes: Just ask for a free tall coffee and they will give you one. | | Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | | 8:56 pm |
[Politics] Sheehan's HQ gets trashed
-- Windows shattered computer stolen http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081030.LATH152&show_article=1Quotes: SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Just 5 days before the election, at 3a.m. on October 30th, all of the front windows of the Cindy Sheehan for Congress campaign offices were shattered. Although staffers had been in the office less than an hour earlier, no one was in the building at the time of the incident. No one was hurt and there were no witnesses. Cindy Sheehan is a candidate for Congress in California's 8th Congressional District race against incumbent Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "It seems to have been a calculated intimidation tactic," said Tiffany Burns, the Cindy for Congress campaign manager. "One of our computers was stolen, but no other property was taken from our offices and no surrounding buildings were targeted. Clearly they wanted to both frighten us and to gather information." Total damage to the campaign office is currently estimated at more than $5,000. The Cindy for Congress campaign recently chronicled a series of unusual events, including other threats of violence, in a statement issued on October 13th. In that statement, Cindy Sheehan noted "[t]he past few weeks have been a little strange at Cindy for Congress [...] the things that have been happening could just be coincidences, or a run of bad luck, but the climate for the possibility of campaign hanky-panky certainly exists."Notes: Campaign intimidation is Serious - It is wrong and it is a crime.Now, is this self-inflicted? I haven't heard of Representative Pelosi doing anything like this, ever. (Ms. Pelosi is way ahead in the polls). I think the police (and maybe the feds) should investigate this - and get to the bottom of it. There is NO PLACE for Election Violence - PERIOD. | | Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | | 12:01 pm |
[Politics] Police prepare for election day...
-- Expecting unrest http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/police-prepare-for-unrest-2008-10-21.htmlQuotes: Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence. Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly. Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed. In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby. “Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department. “I think it is a big deal — you got an African-American running and [a] woman running,” he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. “Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south.” The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama’s loss badly. | | Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | | 5:16 pm |
| | 5:09 pm |
[Space] India to launch moon mission tonight!
-- Chandrayaan-1 launches at 5:20pm PDT http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_on_re_as/as_india_moon_missionQuotes: NEW DELHI – Scientists have better maps of distant Mars than the moon where astronauts have walked. But India hopes to change that with its first lunar mission. Chandrayaan-1 — which means "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit — is scheduled to launch from the Sriharikota space center in southern India at 8:20 p.m. EDT Tuesday in a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions. Chief among the mission's goals is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but what lies beneath. If the launch is successful, India will join what's shaping up as a 21st century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon. | | Saturday, October 18th, 2008 | | 9:25 am |
[Science] Mass Productions of Stem Cells
-- Hair follicles allow mass quanties of S.C. to be produced http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081017164917.htmQuotes: The first reports of the successful reprogramming of adult human cells back into so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which by all appearances looked and acted like embryonic stem cells, created a media stir. But the process was woefully inefficient: Only one out of 10,000 cells could be persuaded to turn back the clock.Now, a team of researchers led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, succeeded in boosting the reprogramming efficiency more than 100-fold, while cutting the time it takes in half. In fact, they repeatedly generated iPS cells from the tiny number of keratinocytes attached to a single hair plucked from a human scalp. Their method, published ahead of print in the Oct. 17, 2008 online edition of Nature Biotechnology, not only provides a practical and simple alternative for the generation of patient- and disease-specific stem cells, which had been hampered by the low efficiency of the reprogramming process, but also spares patients invasive procedures to collect suitable starting material, since the process only requires a single human hair."Having a very efficient and practical way of generating patient-specific stem cells, which unlike human embryonic stem cells, wouldn't be rejected by the patient's immune system after transplantation brings us a step closer to the clinical application of stem cell therapy," says Belmonte, PhD., a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and director of the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain. | | Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | | 4:49 pm |
[Politics] Presidential race could go either way!
-- Maybe Obama gets a landslide... Maybe McCain gets a landslide... http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20080925/NEWS01/80925009/1002/NEWSFull Story: The presidential election might be a tight race now, but one of the country’s top pollsters thinks the race will end in an electoral landslide. John Zogby, president of Zogby International, told a group of businesspeople today that it’s up to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to convince voters to go with him. If he’s not successful, the country will likely vote for “a comfortable old shoe”, that being Republican Sen. John McCain. Despite the books Obama has written, Americans are still asking, “Who are you, where are you from?,” Zogby said. Zogby spoke at the College at Brockport’s Business Briefings breakfast series at the college’s MetroCenter campus on St. Paul Street. He was promoting his new book, The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report of the Transformation of the American Dream. | | Thursday, September 11th, 2008 | | 1:14 pm |
[New York] McCain and Obama
-- Standing together on 9/11 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a7ksupIC9Ikw&refer=politicsQuotes: Barack Obama and John McCain will put their presidential ambitions on hold today to make an unprecedented joint appearance at a commemoration marking the seventh anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. With no speeches and little fanfare, the two candidates will walk together down a ramp into the pit where the World Trade Center towers once loomed over lower Manhattan and lay a wreath at Ground Zero for the Sept. 11 attacks. | | Thursday, August 28th, 2008 | | 11:19 am |
[Science] Supercritical water found in nature!
-- Deep sea vent has the hottest water on the planet http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwl1HW7heLzUysjkluIq9FrCP68wFull Story: The hottest water on earth has been found more than 3km beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.Spewing out of two volcanic vents, the water is in a "supercritical" state halfway between a fluid and a gas.Scientists made the discovery while exploring two "black smoker" vents called Two Boats and Sisters Peak. Geochemist Andrea Koschinsky, from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, said: "It's water, but not as we know it." Fluids are forced into a supercritical state when very high temperatures and pressures cause their gas and liquid phases to merge.For water, this fluid is denser than vapour but lighter than liquid water. The supercritical water found by Dr Koschinsky and her colleagues has a temperature of 407C. Geologists think water seeps into cracks in the seabed, growing hotter as it gets deeper, New Scientist magazine reported. Eventually it becomes supercritical, and being so light, shoots up and out into the ocean through the vents. | | Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 | | 12:44 pm |
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