Tuesday, October 14, 2014


Iowa Woman Accused of Theft


Abigail Louise Roberts

(Clear Lake, Iowa) A 29-year-old woman, Abigail Louise Roberts, has been accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Clear Lake Pharmacy.
Roberts of Rockwell is charged with ongoing criminal conduct and 1st degree theft. She allegedly stole between $30,000 and $50,000 from Clear Lake Pharmacy while employed there between July 2012 and July 2014.

Authorities say Roberts repeatedly falsified refunds and delivered medication to relatives without charging a co-pay.
Details on booking not reported.

Texas Naked Woman Gets DWI with Child on Lap


Lyndsey Baker

(Corpus Christi, Texas) A 28-year-old local woman, Lyndsey Baker, has been accused of driving drunk and naked with her 3-year-old child on her lap.
Around 5:30 Sunday, a witness told police she saw a woman standing outside of a car and removing all of her clothing. She then got into the car and drove away.

Police caught up with the woman in the 1500 block of Kennedy Street.

As officers approached her car, they discovered that she was indeed driving nude, with her 3-year-old child sitting in her lap.
Details on booking not reported.


How donuts cause global warming

What they fail to mention is that food firms use palm oil because food freaks have demoninized first saturated fats and then trans fats.  Palm oil is what is left.  So it is the do-gooders who have created the demand for palm oil -- and the resultant cutting down of native trees to grow the trees that produce the palm oil.  So it is clear who is to blame for any adverse effects

McDonald's, Burger King, Yum Brands (Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut) and other members of the fast food industry are often the focus of negative attention for the effect on our heath, but did you know they are also having a big effect on our climate?

America's top fast food brands use palm oil, an ingredient linked to climate change and deforestation, in their products. As tropical forests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, carbon is released into the atmosphere, driving global warming and shrinking habitats for endangered species. Tropical deforestation currently accounts for about 10 percent of the world's heat-trapping emissions.

The good news is that two of the country's largest fast food chains, Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Brands (who owns both Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins), just pledged to buy deforestation-free palm oil. The rest of the fast food industry should also set the bar high and make a firm commitment to use only deforestation-free palm oil.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


British Teacher Walks in Sex Case


Charlotte Parker

(Chelmsford, England)
A married teaching assistant sent thousands of lewd texts after starting a two-year affair with a schoolboy, 14, and threatened suicide when his parents found out.

Charlotte Parker, 32, admitted engaging in sexual activity with the teenage pupil whilst she was working at Hylands Academy in Chelmsford, Essex.

A jury at Basildon Crown Court today heard that the relationship began when the victim was 14 and sent her a Christmas card before spiralling into a two-year love affair.
Parker has pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child, making indecent images of a child and encouraging a child to perform a sex act on himself.

Parker received a suspended sentence.

Tip: JR

Mississippi Woman Accused of Murder


Krystal Kersey

(Rio Grande City, Texas)
A woman set for trial Monday in Mississippi on a charge of murdering her husband has been arrested in far South Texas near the Texas-Mexico border.

Krystal Kersey is held in Rio Grande City in Starr County awaiting extradition to Mississippi after her arrest following a traffic stop Friday. Authorities say her 3-year-old and 18-month-old children were with her.[…]

Kersey was free on $100,000 bond and facing trial for the 2013 slaying of her husband of two months, 24-year-old Justin Stork, in Jackson County, Mississippi.

She's accused of running him down with her car between two apartment buildings.
Married for two months? Holey-moley, one would think the honeymoon lasted longer.

Monday, October 13, 2014


Virginia Teacher Accused of Sex with Juvenile

(Henrico County, Virginia) A 31-year-old teacher at Highland Springs High School, Tessa Monique Hairston, has been accused of engaging in sex with a juvenile.

Hairston was arrested and charged with indecent liberties of a person less than 18 years of age while in a custodial or supervisory relationship.
Police say the charge comes from an inappropriate relationship involving a juvenile male that occurred at Highland Springs High School while Ms. Hairston was employed as a teacher by Henrico County Public Schools.
Details on booking are unavailable.

Beer Temperature Law



From Tuoitrenews.vn:
Beer products should not be served in places where the temperature is higher than 30 degrees Celsius, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade has suggested, the latest in a series of controversial propositions it put forward about beer management.

While its other draft decree which oversees the sales of alcoholic products still generates opposition from beer makers and sellers, the ministry continues introducing the draft of another fiat, intended to ensure food safety in beer making and selling places.

Beer selling locations strictly follow regulations stipulated by the Ministry of Health for the sake of food safety, the trade industry demanded in the draft legislation.
Temperatures in Vietnam regularly exceed 30 degrees C (86 degrees F).

Sens. Paul, Grassley challenge climate group’s spending on lobbying, alcohol and parties

The Washington Post reports that a climate research group got caught partying and boozing on taxpayer funds in a draft audit, but what’s worse, the National Science Foundation and Defense Department officials are under investigation because they signed off on it. A whistleblower leaked the sordid story, and now two US Senators are investigating. They warn that this may be a widespread practice because NSF documents show the foundation knew what the expenses were but still paid them.

Two senators are investigating whether the National Science Foundation and Defense Department auditors skirted federal laws by signing off on a nonprofit organization’s use of taxpayer money for “unallowable expenses,” including alcohol, lobbying and extravagant parties.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said the practice came to his attention earlier this year when a whistleblower provided him with a draft audit that showed a climate change group used federal funds to pay $112,000 for lobbying, $25,000 for an office Christmas party, and $11,000 for “premium coffee services” and an unspecific amount on French hotels.

The partiers were the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) — who received $90 million this year from the NSF.

On its Web site, NEON says it will collect data on the impacts of climate change, land use change and invasive species on natural resources from 106 sites across the nation over a 30-year period. The sites where scientists will collect their data are still largely under construction, and NEON says it will not be in full operation until 2017.

From 2009 to 2013, NEON classified all the expenses that Grassley and Paul are questioning as a “management fee.”

But it’s the cover up that is even uglier:

Internal documents show that the NSF was told by NEON that it was having a difficult time covering the costs because it had little in the way of private funds.

 Not once but twice:

According to Grassley’s staff, the auditor said two levels of supervisors signed off on his work. However, he told the senator’s staff that he said he believes the audit had stalled because DCAA management was concerned about spark a controversy for the high-profile program, the foundation, and the defense department.

Grassley’s staff said the auditor came forward because he believed the audit was going to be “whitewashed.”

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Sunday, October 12, 2014


Judge: Upskirt Photos 'Totally Legal'



Certainly, many folks will not welcome the following decision.
A Washington, D.C. judge has ruled that taking indecent photos of unsuspecting women without their consent is totally legal, because women have no expectation of privacy in a public space. The ruling forced prosecutors to abandon charges against D.C. man Christopher Cleveland, who ABC 7 reports was arrested after he was caught taking photographs of women near the Lincoln Memorial.

Judge Juliet McKenna agreed that the "fact that the Defendant was intentionally photographing publicly exposed areas of women's clothed and unclothed bodies ... is repellant and disturbing," but ultimately concluded that since Cleveland did not go to "extraordinary lengths" to obtain the photographs he did not commit a crime.

"This Court finds that no individual clothed and positioned in such a manner in a public area in broad daylight in the presence of countless other individuals could have a reasonable expectation of privacy," she ruled. "The images captured were not 'incidental glimpses' and in fact were images that were exposed to the public without requiring any extraordinary lengths whatsoever, to view."
More . . .

Dubious support for a popular health scare

There is a substantial body of people who get their jollies out of finding "threats" to health in popular products. They obviously want to appear wiser than the rest of us poor sods.  There seems to be no accepted name for them but I call them "food & heath freaks".  They are probably best known for their unfounded demonization of salt, saturated fat and artificial sweeteners  such as Aspartame.  Sugar is their current big boogeyman.
   
A somewhat less well-known scare is about Bisphenol A, a component of many plastics.  A few molecules of BPA have been shown to leach out of plastic bottles into the liquid contained in the bottle.  For that reason plastic bably bottles have been more or less banned and glass baby bottles are mostly used instead.  Glass is of course fragile and dangerous when broken but any decrease in safety from its use in baby bottles is ignored by food & health freaks.

The question is, however, how toxic is ingested BPA?  Rats given enough of it certainly fall ill but as Paracelsus pointed out long ago, the toxicity is in the dose.  And it seems unlikely that a few molecules received from a plastic bottle are harmful.  And that is what most studies of the matter show.  Like a terrier that won't let go of a bone, however, "research" to detect harm goes on among the  food & heath freaks.

The latest stab at BPA has just come out in JAMA and I give the abstract below.  I have however read the whole article and I would summarize the results rather differently.  What they found was that the amount of BPA in the pregnant mother's blood correlated marginally significantly (p = .03) with the infant's lung function 4 years after birth but not 5 years after birth.  That is a very shaky finding indeed and shows, if anything, that BPA is safe.  They also looked at the correlation between mother-reported wheezing in the kid and BPA levels but that correlation failed to reach statistical significance (p = .11).

They do however rather desperately hang their hat on a correlation with wheeze drawn from the BPA concentration in the mother at 16 weeks.  That correlation had vanished at 26 weeks gestation however so again the results actually show that BPA is safe  -- no lasting ill-effects.

Not much there for the BPA freaks. I am not alone in that conclusion.   The abstract follows:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bisphenol A Exposure and the Development of Wheeze and Lung Function in Children Through Age 5 Years

Adam J. Spanier et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance
Bisphenol A (BPA), a prevalent endocrine-disrupting chemical, has been associated with wheezing in children, but few studies have examined its effect on lung function or wheeze in older children.

Objectives
To test whether BPA exposure is associated with lung function, with wheeze, and with pattern of wheeze in children during their first 5 years.

Design, Setting, and Participants
A birth cohort study, enrolled during early pregnancy in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area among 398 mother-infant dyads.
We collected maternal urine samples during pregnancy (at 16 and 26 weeks) and child urine samples annually to assess gestational and child BPA exposure.

Main Outcomes and Measures
We assessed parent-reported wheeze every 6 months for 5 years and measured child forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration (FEV1) at age 4 and 5 years. We evaluated associations of BPA exposure with respiratory outcomes, including FEV1, child wheeze, and wheeze phenotype.

Results
Urinary BPA concentrations and FEV1 data were available for 208 children and urinary BPA concentrations and parent-reported wheeze data were available for 360 children. The mean maternal urinary BPA concentration ranged from 0.53 to 293.55 ‘g/g of creatinine. In multivariable analysis, every 10-fold increase in the mean maternal urinary BPA concentration was associated with a 14.2% (95% CI, -24.5% to -3.9%) decrease in the percentage predicted FEV1 at 4 years, but no association was found at 5 years. In multivariable analysis, every 10-fold increase in the mean maternal urinary BPA concentration was marginally associated with a 54.8% increase in the odds of wheezing (adjusted odds ratio, 1.55; 95% CI, 0.91-2.63). While the mean maternal urinary BPA concentration was not associated with wheeze phenotype, a 10-fold increase in the 16-week maternal urinary BPA concentration was associated with a 4.27-fold increase in the odds of persistent wheeze (adjusted odds ratio, 4.27; 95% CI, 1.37-13.30). Child urinary BPA concentrations were not associated with FEV1 or wheeze.

Conclusions and Relevance
These results provide evidence suggesting that prenatal but not postnatal exposure to BPA is associated with diminished lung function and the development of persistent wheeze in children.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Saturday, October 11, 2014


Texas Teacher Gets No Jail for Improper Relationship

(Orange, Texas) A special education teacher formerly at Oak Forest Elementary School, Sondra Reed, has been convicted of engaging in an improper relationship between an educator and a student.

Consequently, Reed was sentenced to six years probation and fined $2,000.
“A lot of people confuse this charge with that of having sex with a minor,” said John Kimbrough, Orange County District Attorney. “This student was not a minor. It’s a different charge because it’s a different crime than that involving an underage student.”

Kimbrough said part of the agreement with entering the guilty plea is that Reed will permanently surrender her educator’s certification and will never be able to teach in the state of Texas again.
OK

Lego Bows to Greenpeace



A 1-minute, 45-second video has ended a long-term relationship between Lego and Royal Dutch Shell. The Danish toymaker said today that it will not renew a co-promotion deal with Shell, after a Greenpeace video linking Lego with the oil company’s Arctic drilling program went viral.

The video, which shows an Arctic landscape built of Lego blocks being swallowed up in a pool of black oil, “may have created misunderstandings among our stakeholders about the way we operate,” Lego Chief Executive Jørgen Vig Knudstorp said in a statement. Greenpeace has been pressing Lego to end a partnership signed in 2011, in which co-branded Lego toy cars are sold at Shell stations in some countries.
So, Greenpeace squeaks and Lego becomes mousey.

A Western Heart

Most of what I put online in my blogs is commentary and news reports written by others that I find interesting from a libertarian/conservative point of view.  So I could possibly be seen as a sort of Readers Digest for libertarian/conservatives.  In fact, however, on most days I do put up commentary somewhere on one of my blogs that I have written myself.  When such comments stretch to more than a sentence of two, therefore, I put them up on the blog A Western Heart (AWH) -- as a convenient way of keeping together my own writings  for my own reference.

The blog was originally created by a group of Australian bloggers but the rest of them all gradually burnt out -- leaving me as the only surviving blogger.  I am persistent if nothing else.

But another important reason for using AWH has to do with a certain search engine whose name begins with G.  For some reason not clear to me AWH gets a much higher priority in searches than do any of my other blogs.  If I search for some content that I have put up in more than one place, the AWH entry comes up first by far.  I don't know why but I am glad to take advantage of it

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Friday, October 10, 2014


Russia Bans Beef and Pork, Replaces with Crocodile



(Moscow, Russia)
Russia's food safety watchdog has approved the import of crocodile meat from the Philippines to replace the beef and pork banned under Moscow's restrictions on foods from Western countries, a news report said.

The veterinary and sanitary inspection agency, Rosselkhoznadzor, has added a Filipino producer of frozen crocodile meat, Coral Agri-ventures Farm, to its list of companies allowed to supply food to Russia's markets, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

After Russia banned Western food imports in response to sanctions against Moscow for its policies on Ukraine, Russian officials have also visited India to consider imports of buffalo meat after dismissing it for years over quality concerns.
No burgers, no BBQ ribs, how will the people survive?

Nevada Teacher Gets No Jail in Student Sex Case - Update

(Las Vegas, Nevada)
A former substitute teacher who pleaded guilty in a case of sex involving an underage student was given a suspended prison sentence and five years of probation.

Tanikka Queen, 22, appeared for her sentencing in Las Vegas Justice Court on Thursday.

A judge gave Queen a suspended six to 15 years sentence in prison. She was also sentenced to five years of probation, community service and was required to register as a sex offender. She was ordered to lifetime supervision as well.
Arguably, Queen has been treated quite leniently.

* * * * *

Nevada Teacher Guilty of Sex with Boy - Update
[Previous 4/24/14 post]
(Las Vegas, Nevada)
A former substitute teacher is facing as many as two decades in prison after pleading guilty on charges she had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student.

Tanikka Queen, 22, faced numerous counts including kidnapping, sexual assault and statutory sexual seduction involving a child under 16. Most of the 45 counts were dropped in exchange for her pleading guilty to luring a child and sexual contact with a student.

According to her arrest report, Queen exchanged 2,400 text messages with the 15-year-old boy and said she knew what she was doing was wrong.
Details on sentencing were not reported.

* * * * *

Nevada Teacher Accused of Sex with Boy
[Previous 3/13/14 post]
(Las Vegas, Nevada) A 22-year-old geography teacher who substituted at Hyde Park Middle School, Tanikka “Bella” Queen, has been arrested for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

Queen faces counts of first-degree kidnapping, sexual assault against a child under 16, statutory sexual seduction and luring a child to engage in a sex act.
The affair was uncovered when the parent of a female student, with whom Queen had a close friendship, found text messages on the girl’s phone referring to the affair.

The boy’s father also became suspicious when his son came home with a hickey.

According to a 24-page Las Vegas police report, Queen, who taught geography, initially denied having an affair with her student. In one interview with Metro detectives, Queen described the boy as a troubled eighth-grader.

Detectives were able to recover from a cellphone about 2,400 text messages, 108 phone calls and 38 photographs sent between Queen and the boy which showed a burgeoning love affair.
Queen was booked into custody at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.

Thursday, October 09, 2014


Pennsylvania Mom Faces Drug Charges


Patricia Davenport

(Montgomery County, Pennsylvania) A 35-year-old local woman, Patricia Davenport, has been accused of introducing her 15-year-old daughter to heroin, even taking the girl to Philadelphia to buy drugs.

Davenport faces multiple counts including corruption of minors, child endangerment, reckless endangerment and drug offenses.
Details released by District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman Wednesday afternoon focus primarily on allegations against Davenport and allegations that Davenport introduced her child to what Ferman called “the devil’s poison.”

“I can’t fathom these allegations,” said Ferman. “It’s incomprehensible to me that any parent would introduce their children, their child, to drugs like this. And not just introduce them, but then perpetuate that addiction and obtain (the drugs) and inject them on multiple occasions.”

Ferman said that the drug investigation began on the first day of school at Souderton High School when a report came in that a 15-year-old girl was using drugs supplied by her mother.
Davenport was booked into custody with bail set at $50,000.

Conservatives ask: What would Milton Friedman do about warming?

Really? Friedman would put a price on carbon dioxide -- a harmless, odorless chemical that is essential for plant growth? Friedman spent most of his life defying the consensus so the present semi-consensus is unlikely to have impressed him.  But  Milt was a clever guy and good at making people think.  He might therefore have said that what they should do is what Ross McKitrick says - set the price of carbon based on the rate of warming.  i.e. $0.00

If the late free-market economist Milton Friedman were alive today, he'd probably support pricing carbon.

That was the argument made by two economists on a panel today at the University of Chicago, where Friedman taught for more than 30 years.

Steve Cicala of the university's Harris School of Public Policy and Michael Greenstone, a former adviser to President Obama who holds a chair named for Friedman, argued that the anti-regulatory economist would have supported government policies aimed at protecting and compensating victims of man-made warming. Friedman, who died in 2006, would have viewed climate change as a negative externality associated with burning fossil fuels and would have believed that society was entitled to recover its losses from those who emit carbon to advance their economic interests, they said.

While there is a market for the products that are associated with greenhouse gas emissions -- like electricity, fuel and steel -- there is no market for the pollution inflicted by their manufacturers on the public.

"It is theft," said Cicala. "That's a loaded term, but if someone else has a better term for taking something from someone without their consent and without compensating them, I'd be happy to hear it."

"We do have a climate policy, and it's just that it's fine to pollute," said Greenstone, who now directs the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

The way to internalize greenhouse gas emissions is for the government to create a market for emissions and then get out of the way, he said. The cost to emit should track with a rigorous estimate of the social cost of carbon -- the incremental cost to society of each additional metric ton of CO2 emissions. The Obama administration's often-controversial figure is $37 per metric ton.

The panel was moderated by former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), whose stance on climate change contributed to his 2010 loss in the Republican primary. He now heads the Energy and Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University.

Inglis, who still describes himself as a conservative, argues that his colleagues on the right would be more receptive to the issue of climate change if there were a conservative policy model to address it. His initiative proposes a revenue-neutral carbon tax, which would return all the revenue from a levy on emissions to the public in the form of other tax cuts.

Inglis said any carbon tax that could garner support from conservatives like himself would have to include border protections to keep emissions from relocating overseas and would have to be revenue neutral.

Cicala said the key was to give high-emitting industries in other countries an incentive to reduce their emissions rather than just hitting them with a border adjustment cost that might spark a trade war.

While it may be difficult to persuade developing companies to tax their fossil fuels resources, he said, taxing consumption in wealthy countries will cover most emissions for the simple reason that rich countries consume more.

More HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


US Navy Port Protection


Blackfish

(Naples, Italy) The US Navy has completed testing of unmanned water craft designed as remotely-operated port security vessels.
The 10-foot-long “Blackfish” recently underwent tests by the Office of Naval Research, spokesman Peter Vietti said. The prototype was developed by defense company QinetiQ and consists of a commercially available water craft, such as a jet ski, that is equipped with sonar, scanners and cameras.

It can patrol an area on its own, or be remotely controlled by a sailor, according to Mark Hewitt, a senior vice president for QinetiQ North America.
The primary function of the Blackfish is to patrol port facilities to identify potential threats to warships.

Wednesday, October 08, 2014


Cow Dung Substitutes for Glue



From thestar.com.my:
Glue-sniffing addicts have found an alternative to feed their addiction - cow dung.

The disgusting substitution was chosen because it is free and can purportedly feed their addiction up to 12 hours. An investigation at a condominium in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, showed a shocking discovery as a group of addicts approached a few cows nearby.

According to a resident, the addicts held a plastic bag behind the cow's anus and collected the waste as the animal defecated.
Pretty nasty, eh?

Hackers Stealing Millions from ATMs



Reportedly, there's an upswing in ATM attacks worldwide.
A criminal gang is using a piece of malware to allow them to steal millions in cash from ATMs around the world without having to use a credit or debit card.

The hackers are using a piece of malware called Tyupkin, which once installed on an ATM, allows the criminals to steal huge amounts of money by simply entering a series of codes.

The malware has so far been detected infecting ATMs in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

The attack was detected by Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, which was asked by an unnamed financial institution to investigate the cyber-attack.
Interpol has been alerted.

It's happening



Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Australia Moves in Iraq


Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) F/A-18F Super Hornets

SOURCE:
Australian special forces soldiers have been cleared to start working on the ground in Iraq with local troops against Islamic State, according to reports.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to tell the nation today the Iraqi government has given its final legal approval for the ground forces, which number up to 200 and have been awaiting the all-clear from an air base in the United Arab Emirates, Fairfax Media reports.

The elite troops include experts who will work with the RAAF Super Hornets and Wedgetail surveillance and control planes to call in air strikes on moving IS targets.
OK.

Giant Mushroom Found



(Ban Me Thuot City, Vietnam) A 5 and one-half foot by 4 foot reishi mushroom was found by an Ea Kar District man in the Central Highlands. It weighed 485 lbs.

Mr. Dao Duc Dai purchased the mushroom for 200 million Vietnamese dong.

The reishi mushroom has been treasured by Far Easterners for 2,000 years as medicine. Reishi mushrooms reportedly cure virtually every ailment and deficiency mankind experiences.

Tuesday, October 07, 2014


Giant Ear Bug



(Tamil Nadu, India)
An Indian man who complained of a tickling sensation in his ear was stunned when doctors pulled out a giant insect.

A video of the procedure, at the South Zone Ear Nose and Throat Centre in Viluppuram, Tamil Nadu, is going viral on YouTube.

The stomach churning clip shows what appears to be a large cricket being pulled from the man's ear cavity.
Frankly, I believe someone would have to be near comatose to not notice a large insect crawling into the ear canal.

Delaware Mom Charged After Daughter Takes Heroin to School



(Selbyville, Delaware) A 30-year-old local mother, Ashley Tull, faces charges after her 4-year-old daughter took heroin packets to school.

Tull faces counts of maintaining a drug property and endangering the welfare of a child.
The white powdery substance, which was still enclosed in the bags, was removed by the teachers and immediately taken to the Selbyville Police Department where it was determined to be heroin.

Police say a 4-year-old girl unknowingly brought the small bags of heroin into the childcare in a backpack that her mother gave her after hers had become ruined by the family pet sometime in the night.

Upon thinking the packets were candy, she began passing them out to her classmates.
Tull was booked and released on $6,000 bond.

Australia: The crooked BOM again

Canberra Thermometer Is Carefully Sited Next To A Huge Parking Lot



They are frantic Warmists at the Bureau of Meteorology so will do anything to pump the official temperature up.  This is a classic example of an urban heat island effect

I have heard that the station has finally been moved to a more reasonable location so it would be interesting to see what "adjustments" accompany that.  Adding a constant to the new measurements would be my guess but they are unlikely to tell us.  Like all Warmists they are secretive

SOURCE

Monday, October 06, 2014


Nebraska Woman Leaves Toddler Home Alone


Vanessa Ramirez

(Omaha, Nebraska)
An intoxicated woman who was removed from a bar early Thursday had been bragging about leaving her 2-year-old daughter home alone, according to police.

KETV reported that police were called to the Pheasant Tavern in Omaha to remove 28-year-old Vanessa Ramirez because she was too intoxicated.

Police later learned that Ramirez had left her child home alone and that she had been bragging about it at the bar.
Ramirez faces one count of intentional child abuse.

Disease Plagues Illegal Immigrants


Illegal Immigrants in Holding Cell

Communicable diseases continue to be a problem at the New Mexico facility built to house illegal immigrant families surging across the U.S.-Mexico border, and the immigrants themselves aren’t taking their own health care very seriously, according to an audit released Monday.

While the Border Patrol is doing a good job of handling the surge of illegal immigrant children traveling alone without their parents, the families who are being housed at a special facility continue to have health problems and trouble using the bathroom, the Homeland Security inspector general said.

“Family unit illnesses and unfamiliarity with bathroom facilities continued to result in unsanitary conditions,” Inspector General John Roth wrote in a memo to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
So the illegals entering the U.S. are uneducated, filthy and sick. Just lovely, eh?

Explosion at Iranian Nuclear Facility


Iranian Nuclear Facility

(Tehran, Iran)
Two people died in an explosion that ripped through an explosive material production unit at a nuclear facility near Tehran, according to Iranian press reports on Monday.

The incident occurred at the Parchin military compound, not far from the Iranian capital, according to the Iranian Students News Agency.

The BBC said on Monday that a pro-opposition website was also reporting an explosion at the site.

The BBC cited the pro-reform website Sahamnews as saying that the explosion on Sunday evening was “so intense that windows of buildings 15 km (nine miles) away were shattered.”

“The glare from the blast could also be seen from a great distance,” the report said.

ISNA quoted Iran's defense industries organization as saying that “[u]nfortunately, due to the incident, two workers of this production unit lost their lives."
The cause of the explosion hasn't been reported.

The time's up, boys

A lineup of global warming heavyweights said in 2011 that a 17 year period in the temperature record was needed to evaluate the theory.  That time has now passed with no warming -- so the theory is plainly wrong.  Journal abstract below

Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale

B. D. Santer, C. Mears, C. Doutriaux, P. Caldwell, P. J. Gleckler, T. M. L. Wigley, S. Solomon, N. P. Gillett, D. Ivanova, T. R. Karl, J. R. Lanzante, G. A. Meehl, P. A. Stott, K. E. Taylor, P. W. Thorne, M. F. Wehner, and F. J. Wentz

Abstract

We compare global-scale changes in satellite estimates of the temperature of the lower troposphere (TLT) with model simulations of forced and unforced TLT changes. While previous work has focused on a single period of record, we select analysis timescales ranging from 10 to 32 years, and then compare all possible observed TLT trends on each timescale with corresponding multi-model distributions of forced and unforced trends. We use observed estimates of the signal component of TLT changes and model estimates of climate noise to calculate timescale-dependent signal-to-noise ratios (S/N). These ratios are small (less than 1) on the 10?year timescale, increasing to more than 3.9 for 32?year trends. This large change in S/N is primarily due to a decrease in the amplitude of internally generated variability with increasing trend length. Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming. A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.

Citation: Santer, B. D., et al. (2011), Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D22105, doi:10.1029/2011JD016263.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Taliban Tweet


Zabihullah Mujahid

(Sindh, Pakistan)
An apparently errant tweet by the Taliban's spokesman in Afghanistan has given his location as being in neighbouring Pakistan.

On Friday, the tweet by Zabihullah Mujahid, which was claiming an attack, included geolocation information that suggested he sent the message from Sindh, Pakistan.

Mujahid later sent a tweet on Saturday describing the location leak as an "enemy plot".

He also offered his Afghan telephone number to confirm his identity and wrote: "With full confidence, I can say that I am in my own country."

Twitter says such geolocation data is based on latitude and longitude data or other information provided by users at the time of their message.
OK. So he's pretending to hide out in Afghanistan while enjoying the comforts of Pakistan.

Sunday, October 05, 2014


Drug Seeker Advice

Doctors, nurses, and others who have worked in a typical hospital Emergency Room will arguably get a kick out of this "advice" from an ER doctor.




Advice to drug seekers

OK, I am not going to lecture you about the dangers of narcotic pain medicines. We both know how addictive they are: you because you know how it feels when you don't have your vicodin, me because I've seen many many many people just like you. However, there are a few things I can tell you that would make us both much happier. By following a few simple rules our little clinical transaction can go more smoothly and we'll both be happier because you get out of the ER quicker.

The first rule is be nice to the nurses. They are underpaid, overworked, and have a lot more influence over your stay in the ER than you think. When you are tempted to treat them like shit because they are not the ones who write the rx, remember: I might write for you to get a shot of 2mg of dilaudid, but your behavior toward the nurses determines what percent of that dilaudid is squirted onto the floor before you get your shot.

The second rule is pick a simple, non-dangerous, (non-verifiable) painful condition which doesn't require me to do a four thousand dollar work-up in order to get you out of the ER. If you tell me that you headache started suddenly and is the 'worst headache of your life' you will either end up with a spinal tap or signing out against medical advice without an rx for pain medicine. The parts of the story that you think make you sound pitiful and worthy of extra narcotics make me worry that you have a bleeding aneurysm. And while I am 99% sure its not, I'm not willing to lay my license and my families future on the line for your ass. I also don't want to miss the poor bastard who really has a bleed, so everyone with that history gets a needle in the back. Just stick to a history of your 'typical {back/head/joint/tmj} pain that is totally the same as I usually get' and we will both be much happier.

The third rule (related to #2) is never rate your pain a 10/10. 10/10 means the worst pain you could possibly imagine. I've seen people in a 10/10 pain and you sitting there playing tetris on your cell phone are not in 10/10 pain. 10/10 pain is an open fracture dangling in the wind, a 50% body surface deep partial thickness burn, or the pain of a real cerebral aneurysm. Even when I passed a kidney stone, the worst pain I had was probably a 7. And that was when I was projectile vomiting and crying for my mother. So stick with a nice 7 or even an 8. That means to me you are hurting by you might not be lying. (See below.)

The fourth rule is never ever ever lie to me about who you are or your history. If you come to the ER and give us a fake name so we can't get your old records I will assume you are a worse douchetard than you really are. More importantly though it will really really piss me the fuck off. Pissing off the guy who writes the rx you want does not work to your advantage.

The fifth rule is don't assume I am an idiot. I went to medical school. That is certainly no guarantee that I am a rocket scientist I know (hell, I went to school with a few people who were a couple of french fries short of a happy meal.) However, I also got an ER residency spot which means I was in the top quarter or so of my class. This means it is a fair guess I am a reasonably smart guy. So if I read your triage note and 1) you list allergies to every non-narcotic pain medicine ever made, 2) you have a history of migraines, fibromyalgia, and lumbar disk disease, and 3) your doctor is on vacation, only has clinic on alternate Tuesdays, or is dead, I am smart enough to read that as: you are scamming for some vicodin. That in and of itself won't necessarily mean you don't get any pain medicine. Hell, the fucktards who list and allergy to tylenol but who can take vicodin (which contains tylenol) are at least good for a few laughs at the nurses station. However, if you give that history everyone in the ER from me to the guy who mops the floor will know you are a lying douchetard who is scamming for vicodin. (See rule # 4 about lying.)

The sixth and final rule is wait your fucking turn. If the nurse triages you to the waiting room but brings patients who arrived after you back to be treated first, that is because this is an EMERGENCY room and they are sicker than you are. You getting a fix of vicodin is not more important than the 6 year old with a severe asthma attack. Telling the nurse at triage that now your migraine is giving you chest pain since you have been sitting a half hour in the waiting area to try to force her into taking you back sooner is a recipe for making all of us hate you. Even if you end up coming back immediately, I will make it my mission that night to torment you. You will not get the pain medicine you want under any circumstances. And I firmly believe that if you manipulate your way to the back and make a 19 year old young woman with an ectopic pregnancy that might kill her in a few hours wait even a moment longer to be seen, I should be able to piss in a glass and make you drink it before you leave the ER.

So if you keep these few simple rules in mind, our interaction will go much more smoothly. I don't really give a shit if I give 20 vicodins to a drug-seeker. Before I was burnt out in the ER I was a hippy and I would honestly rather give that to ten of you guys than make one person in real pain (unrelated to withdrawal) suffer. However, if you insist on waving a flourescent orange flag that says 'I am a drug seeker' and pissing me and the nurses off with your behavior, I am less likely to give you that rx. You don't want that. I don't want that. So lets keep this simple, easy, and we'll all be much happier.

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood ER doctor

Originally Posted: 2007-03-27 9:56am on SF Bay Area Craig's List post id: 301345524

Posted by Note Taker
Studies fault warming in much of 2013 wild weather

The article below is just an example of people living inside a little bubble of belief and operating only on its assumptions.  How COULD global warming be responsible for wild weather when there has been NO global warming for many years?  Something that doesn't exist can't be responsible for anything, can it?

And the report is based on very limited data anyway.  I was amused by this:  "The influence on Australia's hottest year in more than a century is glaring".  That may be true of the limited time-frame they used but what if we go back over 200 years?  How do they explain the huge heat-wave in Australia of 1790? (Yes. 1790. not 1970).  There was NO fossil fuel being used in Australia at that time and there weren't even any sheep farting.

And Steve Goddard draws our attention to the clipping below, with the question: "I wonder what caused the "wild weather" of 1927"?



Scientists looking at 16 cases of wild weather around the world last year see the fingerprints of man-made global warming on more than half of them.

Researchers found that climate change increased the odds of nine extremes: Heat waves in Australia, Europe, China, Japan and Korea, intense rain in parts of the United States and India, and severe droughts in California and New Zealand. The California drought, though, comes with an asterisk.

Scientists couldn't find a global warming link to an early South Dakota blizzard, freak storms in Germany and the Pyrenees, heavy rain in Colorado, southern and central Europe, and a cold British spring.

Organized by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researchers on Monday published 22 studies on 2013 climate extremes in a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

"It's not ever a single factor that is responsible for the extremes that we see," said NOAA National Climatic Data Center director Tom Karl said. "Natural variability is always part of any extreme climate event."

For years, scientists said they could not attribute single weather events — like a drought, heat wave or storm — to man-made global warming. But with better computer models and new research, in some cases scientists can see how the odds of events increase — or not — because of climate change. Other researchers question the usefulness and accuracy of focusing on single extreme events.

The editors of the 108-page compilation of studies wrote that people and animals tend to be more affected by extreme weather than changes in averages, so they pay attention to it. The public often connects extreme events to climate change, sometimes wrongly, so scientific analysis like this "can help inform the public's understanding of our changing environment."

The report seeks to find how much and how man-made warming has influenced the weather, said NOAA research meteorologist Martin Hoerling, an editor of the report.

The influence on Australia's hottest year in more than a century is glaring, the report's editors said.

"It's almost impossible" to explain Australia's hot 2013 without climate change, said Peter Stott of the United Kingdom's meteorology office, another report editor.

The most complicated issue is the California drought, the only extreme that has continued into this year.

Three teams studied that state's record drought in different ways. Two teams couldn't find a link to global warming and water and air temperatures, but the third from Stanford University looked at high pressure patterns in the air and found a connection.

A high pressure system parks over the northern Pacific during California's winters, which is normally when it gets rain. Higher atmospheric pressure usually means less storms and rain. The pressure was so strong last year that study lead author Daniel Swain called it "a ridiculously resilient ridge."

The Stanford team ran computer models with and without man-made warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The warming from greenhouse gases showed that the rain-blocking ridge of high pressure was more than three times more likely with man-made factors than without, Swain said.

"There's definitely a climate change signal," Swain said.

Earlier peer-reviewed studies looking at atmospheric patterns have also connected California's drought to climate change. However, the editors of the journal's special edition said that with the studies in Monday's report that couldn't find a man-made signal in California and the indirect nature of the Swain report, it is unclear whether a global warming connection can be pinned on California's drought.

Hoerling said there were still questions about the Swain study. Other scientists said Swain's study was convincing.

"The report as a whole is a reflection that more and more future climate extremes around the globe will be attributed to human-caused climate change," said University of Arizona climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn't part of the research.

In two extreme events — the British cold spring and the September northern Colorado rains — the report found global warming actually decreased their likelihoods and yet they happened.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


Saturday, October 04, 2014

Another knock on the head for acupuncture

Placebo effect only -- and even that was temporary

Acupuncture for Chronic Knee Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Rana S. Hinman et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance
There is debate about benefits of acupuncture for knee pain.

Objective
To determine the efficacy of laser and needle acupuncture for chronic knee pain.

Design, Setting, and Participants
Zelen-design clinical trial (randomization occurred before informed consent), in Victoria, Australia (February 2010-December 2012). Community volunteers (282 patients aged ≥50 years with chronic knee pain) were treated by family physician acupuncturists.

Interventions
No acupuncture (control group, n = 71) and needle (n = 70), laser (n = 71), and sham laser (n = 70) acupuncture. Treatments were delivered for 12 weeks. Participants and acupuncturists were blinded to laser and sham laser acupuncture. Control participants were unaware of the trial.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Primary outcomes were average knee pain (numeric rating scale, 0 [no pain] to 10 [worst pain possible]; minimal clinically important difference [MCID], 1.8 units) and physical function (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index, 0 [no difficulty] to 68 [extreme difficulty]; MCID, 6 units) at 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes included other pain and function measures, quality of life, global change, and 1-year follow-up. Analyses were by intention-to-treat using multiple imputation for missing outcome data.

Results
At 12 weeks and 1 year, 26 (9%) and 50 (18%) participants were lost to follow-up, respectively. Analyses showed neither needle nor laser acupuncture significantly improved pain (mean difference; −0.4 units; 95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4, and −0.1; 95% CI, −0.9 to 0.7, respectively) or function (−1.7; 95% CI, −6.1 to 2.6, and 0.5; 95% CI, −3.4 to 4.4, respectively) compared with sham at 12 weeks. Compared with control, needle and laser acupuncture resulted in modest improvements in pain (−1.1; 95% CI, −1.8 to −0.4, and −0.8; 95% CI, −1.5 to −0.1, respectively) at 12 weeks, but not at 1 year. Needle acupuncture resulted in modest improvement in function compared with control at 12 weeks (−3.9; 95% CI, −7.7 to −0.2) but was not significantly different from sham (−1.7; 95% CI, −6.1 to 2.6) and was not maintained at 1 year. There were no differences for most secondary outcomes and no serious adverse events.

Conclusions and Relevance
In patients older than 50 years with moderate or severe chronic knee pain, neither laser nor needle acupuncture conferred benefit over sham for pain or function. Our findings do not support acupuncture for these patients.

JAMA. 2014;312(13):1313-1322. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.12660

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


'Top Gear' Crew Attacked in Argentina


Top Gear Car Attacked

(Buenos Aires, Argentina)
The host of the popular BBC television program "Top Gear" and other members of the crew have fled Argentina after being pelted with rocks by people who believed one of their cars had a license plate alluding to the Falklands War.

Officials said a crowd of about 50 people began hurling rocks at the BBC group Thursday as they drove in a caravan under police escort to the Chilean border with Argentina's southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego.

Host Jeremy Clarkson and the others were forced to abandon the cars in an area between Tolhuin and Rio Grande. One minor injury was reported and images by local newspapers showed broken windows and other damage to the cars, which were taken into police custody.
The 'Top Gear' crew had one car which sported a license plate believed to reference the Falklands War. The Argentines believe the license plate was a provocation.

Friday, October 03, 2014


Woman Gets Prison for Sex with Boy, 14


Karen Ackland

(Kent, England) A 44-year-old local woman, Karen Ackland, has been sentenced to two years in prison for doing the nasty with a friend's 14-year-old son.
Ackland, a former sailor was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court in July after admitting three counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child.

The charges related to offences committed in April 2013 against the then 14-year-old son of a friend.

The boy’s mother said: 'I never expected her to do this, you trust your friends. And he was just a child.

'She was always a party animal and when she had too many drinks she completely loses all self-respect and embarrasses herself.
In addition to prison, Ackland was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register and pay court costs.

Tip: JR

Alabama Woman Steals Medicine

(Lauderdale County, Alabama) A local woman, Carolyn Watson, has entered into a plea deal by admitting to posing as a nurse and breaking into elderly people's homes to steal medicines.

Watson pleaded guilty to burglary charges and exploitation of the elderly.
According to the plea deal, she was sentenced to one year in Lauderdale County drug court.

This means Watson will have to stay drug and alcohol free for at least one year, pay restitution and complete the program

If for some reason she is terminated from the program, the DA said she will be sentenced for the felonies and sent to prison.
Reportedly, Watson used a small child to distract her victims.

Thursday, October 02, 2014


Tennessee Teacher Accused of Drug Possession

(Rogersville, Tennessee) A 40-year-old teacher at a Bulls Gap School, Melissa Ellen Williams, has been accused of drug and public intoxication charges.

Williams faces counts of public intoxication, possession of schedule II drug in a drug-free school zone and possession of legend drugs
Deputies reportedly spoke with Williams who they observed stumble to her seat when entering the office. They said she had difficulty speaking with other.

The assistant principal at the school searched Williams' purse with deputies present, where they found a number of medications in prescription bottles.
Williams was booked into the Hawkins County Jail.

Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Sex with Boy


Elizabeth R. Goshorn

(York Haven, Pennsylvania) A 24-year-old local woman, Elizabeth Goshorn, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 15-year-old boy at two houses, including her mother's home.

Goshorn has been charged with statutory sexual assault and other related offenses.
Documents state Elizabeth Goshorn was living with her boyfriend, Dean Brinker, at his home on Walton Street. She and the boy allegedly had sex at Brinker's home and at Goshorn's parents' home in the first block of Pheasant Run Lane, documents state.

Brinker told police July 7 he witnessed Goshorn and the boy having sex at her parents' home, documents state.
Goshorn was booked and released on $25,000 bond.

Undersea Cables Sliced Open


SE Asia to US Undersea Cable Route

(Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) Within the last eight months, undersea cables connecting Southeast Asia with the United States were cut. Reportedly, Internet connectivity between Vietnam, Hong Kong and the US was reduced by 40 percent.

The openings in the cables occurred in February, July and September. One open cable was off the coast of Vietnam, another near Hong Kong and the third location was not reported.

Why the cables were severed has not been reported. One must assume it is a common occurrence.

Satellite Data: No Global Warming For Past 18 Years

 The Earth’s temperature has “plateaued” and there has been no global warming for at least the last 18 years, says Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at the University of Alabama/Huntsville.

“That’s basically a fact. There’s not much to comment on,” Christy said when CNSNews.com asked him to remark on the lack of global warming for nearly two decades as of October 1st.

The "plateau" is evident in the climate record Christy and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer compiled using actual raw temperature data collected from 14 instruments aboard various weather satellites.

CNSNews.com asked Christy why the United Nations’ climate models, which all predicted steeply rising temperatures over the past two decades, were all proven wrong.

“You’re going back to a fundamental question of science that when you understand a system, you are able to predict its behavior. The fact that no one predicted what’s happened in the past 18 years indicates we have a long way to go to understand the climate system,” Christy replied.

“And that the way the predictions were wrong were all to one direction, which means the predictions or the science is biased in one direction, toward overcooking the atmosphere.”

Christy added that basing government policy affecting millions of Americans on “very poor” climate models that have been shown to be inaccurate is “a fool’s errand.”

“Our ignorance is simply enormous when it comes to the climate system, and our understanding is certainly not strong and solid enough to make policy about climate because we don’t even know what it’s going to do, so how can we make a policy that says ‘I want to make the climate do something' when we don’t know what makes the climate do what it does?” he asked.

“A policy is supposed to have a goal. Well, if you don’t know how the system works, that means you don’t know how to make it go toward that goal. And that’s certainly the case now, since none of the climate models are able to tell us what the future is going to be. They’ve certainly failed in the past. And so the policy is really a fool’s errand at this point.”

However, he noted that “there is still a strong belief system that greenhouse gases control the climate, and so if that is your belief system, then it doesn’t really matter what the evidence shows.”

Christy said he has “no idea” if the Earth’s temperature will go up again in the future.  “I’m a climatologist, which means I’m driving the car and looking in the rearview mirror, not out the front windshield, so I don’t try to forecast,” he told CNSNews.com.

But earlier predictions that the El Nino will drive up temperatures this year were off the mark, he says.

“There was a big pulse in what was a precursor to the El Nino back in May, and so it looked like it was going to be a very strong El Nino, but that pulse of warm water in the ocean – the heat content, actually – just faded away, basically. And so this wasn’t going to be a 1997/98 El Nino again. I don’t think they’re going to see the big spike in temperature” that was originally predicted.

“But you know, El Ninos come and go, and they shouldn’t be factored in what the overall temperature does over decades.”

Christy countered claims by some climatologists that the satellite data doesn’t show an increase in surface temperature because the "missing heat" was absorbed by the oceans.

“That would require a change in wind speeds. It also means the climate models don’t have the oceans right,” he pointed out. “The other alternative is that the heat never was stored in the climate system, and that it escaped into space. That is just as plausible.”

"I predicted this in 1999," Dr. Don Easterbrook, a climate scientist and glacier expert from Washington State, said of the 18-year period with no global warming. "My prediction has now happened."

"The same year the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) models were predicting that the Earth would warm by one degree per decade, I was predicting that the Earth would cool for the next three decades," he noted. "They were way off the mark, while my prediction is still on target."

Easterbrook added that with the sun entering a period known as a Grand Minimum, "it's a sure thing it's going to get cooler. It's just difficult to tell how much. It looks like it may get one degree cooler and maybe more," he said. "That may not seem like a lot, but it only warmed up one degree during the entire last century."

SOURCE

Wednesday, October 01, 2014


Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Doing Nasty with Teen


Lisa Winarchick

(Upper Macungie Township, Pennsylvania) A 50-year-old local woman, Lisa Winarchick, has been accused of performing a sex act on a 15-year-old boy.

Winarchick faces counts of statutory sex assault, corruption of minors and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Colonial Regional Police on Aug. 12 received a report from Winarchick's sister that Winarchick had performed a lewd act on a 15-year-old boy that she knew, according to court records.

The boy told police Winarchick had allegedly performed oral sex on a porch at a Bath home sometimes between July and August 2013. The boy said both he and Winarchick were both intoxicated at the time of the sex act, court records say.
After arraignment, Winarchick was released on $25,000 bail.

China: 10,000 Pigeon Anus Search




(Beijing, China)
Officials in China this week examined the anuses of 10,000 pigeons that were set to be released today in celebration of National Day, amid government fears of a possible terrorist attack.

According to reports from state-run media outlets, the birds had their feathers, legs, and anuses searched for "suspicious objects" yesterday, before being packed onto a truck and sent to Tiananmen Square in Beijing for today's ceremony.[…]

The reports did not clarify what "suspicious objects" the inspectors were looking for, but security concerns are high following a spate of attacks that Beijing has blamed on separatist groups.
Pigeon anus examiner I suggest is an award-winning crappy job.

Carolina Teacher Accused of DUI, Child Endangerment


Dedra Kiser

(Spartanburg County, South Carolina) A math teacher and cross country coach at Spartanburg High School, Dedra Kiser, has been arrested on charges of DUI and child endangerment.
On Friday, troopers received a report of blue, Chevy Suburban driving recklessly in Charleston County. Troopers spotted the SUV and pulled the driver over.

The Trooper says he noticed a strong smell of alcohol coming from the driver, which he identified as Kiser. There were also seven students in the SUV.

Troopers called the parents to come and get their children.
Details on booking not reported.

The persistent perchlorate panic

The Greenies have been struggling for some time to produce evidence of harm from the ingestion of small quantities of perchlorate.  But various official enquiries have found nothing convincing.  Below however we have a new study which does indeed show a strong effect.  But it is not a study of normal people.  It is a study of people who already have serious thyroid dysfunction.  How that generalizes to normal people is therefore anyone's guess.  As the authors of the original journal article themselves conclude: "These results require replication in additional studies, including in the euthyroid population".  Where the "euthyroid population" is normal people

A chemical used in rocket fuel that is found in some regions' drinking water has been linked to significantly lower IQ's in the children of mothers exposed while they were pregnant, a new study has found.

Perchlorate, which is also found in fireworks, explosives and is a byproduct of using fertilizers, may cause this by disrupting the thyroid's normal hormone production.

'Our report highlights a pressing need for larger studies of perchlorate levels from the general pregnant population and those with undetected hypothyroidism,' the authors wrote.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, identified pregnant women in Cardiff, Wales and Turin, Italy who had iodine deficiency and thyroid dysfunction.

Researches then tested their perchlorate levels. Three years later they tested their children's IQ.  They found that women with the highest 10 percent of perchlorate levels were over three times more likely to have children with an IQ score in the lowest 10 percent.

Perchlorate is found in around 4 percent of the U.S. public drinking water, according to Scientific American. That affects 5 to 17 million people.  Perchlorate is most prevalent in the Western U.S., specifically near Las Vegas and Southern California.

A Canadian survey released in May reported that all samples of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products and infant formulae analyzed for perchlorate were safe for consumption.

The CFIA tested a total of 611 samples, including 433 fresh fruit and vegetable, 89 dairy product , and 89 infant formula samples, collected from Canadian retail stores.

The 2010-2011 study found that 65 percent of fresh fruit and vegetable, 87 percent of dairy product, and 63 percent of infant formula samples analyzed were found to contain very low levels of perchlorate, in the range of 2 to 540 parts per billion.

EPA officials have long gone back and forth as to whether to cap the amount of perchlorate allowable in drinking water.

In 2002, an EPA draft risk assessment found that 1 part per billion should be considered safe. Six years later, the Bush administration decided not to regulate the chemical, instead recommending that concentrations not exceed 15 parts per billion.

At the time, federal scientists estimated that 16.6 million Americans could be exposed to unsafe levels through their drinking water.

California and Massachusetts in the meantime have set state-level drinking water standards.

Currently, the EPA plans to unveil new standards for perchlorate in water in summer 2015.

SOURCE

Maternal perchlorate levels in women with borderline thyroid function during pregnancy and the cognitive development of their offspring; Data from the Controlled Antenatal Thyroid Study

Peter N Taylor et al.

Abstract

Objective:
Thyroid dysfunction is associated with impaired cognitive development. Perchlorate decreases thyroidal iodine uptake, potentially reducing thyroid hormone production. It is unclear whether perchlorate exposure in early life affects neurodevelopment.

Design:
Historical cohort analysis.
Patients:
During 2002–2006, 21,846 women at gestational age less than 16 weeks recruited from antenatal clinics in Cardiff, UK and Turin, Italy were enrolled in the Controlled Antenatal Thyroid Screening Study (CATS). We undertook a retrospective analysis of 487 mother-child pairs in mothers who were hypothyroid/hypothyroxinemic during pregnancy and analyzed whether first trimester maternal perchlorate levels in the highest 10% of the study population were associated with increased odds of offspring IQ being in the lowest 10% at age 3 years.

Main Outcome Measures:
Maternal urinary perchlorate, offspring IQ.

Results:
Urine perchlorate was detectable in all women (median 2.58μg/liter); iodine levels were low (median 72μg/liter). Maternal perchlorate levels in the highest 10% of the population increased the odds of offspring IQ being in the lowest 10% OR=3.14 (95%CI 1.38, 7.13) p=0.006 with a greater negative impact observed on verbal OR=3.14 (95%CI 1.42, 6.90) p=0.005 than performance IQ. Maternal levothyroxine therapy did not reduce the negative impact of perchlorate on offspring IQ.

Conclusions:
This is the first study using individual-level patient data to study maternal perchlorate exposure and offspring neurodevelopment and suggests that high-end maternal perchlorate levels in hypothyroid/hypothyroxinemic pregnant women have an adverse effect on offspring cognitive development, not affected by maternal levothyroxine therapy. These results require replication in additional studies, including in the euthyroid population.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

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