New Hampshire Health News Digest

BREITBART.COM - British town's pubs scan fingerprints to spot louts : "British town's pubs scan fingerprints to spot louts Apr 28 1:43 PM US/Eastern Email this story Revellers in a British town are to have their fingerprints scanned when they enter pubs and clubs in a scheme aimed at weeding out drunken troublemakers. The 'In Touch' project is the first of its kind in Britain. Biometric finger-scanning machines have been installed at six venues in Yeovil, southwest England. Clubbers will be asked to have their right index finger scanned and show picture identification to register on the system. The data is then stored on a computer network which other pubs and clubs in the scheme can access so that information on louts can be passed on quickly. 'It will identify those who have previously been intent on causing trouble,' said Sergeant Jackie Gold, of Avon and Somerset Police. 'If somebody is causing trouble in one pub and is removed from the premises, f...

Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English) London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Eight fundamentalist Islamist organizations have received large sums of money in the last month from the Iranian intelligence services, as part of a project to strike U.S military and economic installations across the Middle East Asharq Al-Awsat has learned. The plan, which also includes the carrying out of suicide operations targeting US and British interests in the region, as well as their Arab and Muslim allies, in case Iran is attacked, was drawn up by a number of experts guerilla warfare and terrorist operations, and was revealed by a senior source in the Iranian armed forces’ joint chief of staff headed by the veterinary doctor (?) Hassan Firouzabadi. The source added that the forces of the Revolutionary Guards’ al Quds Brigades, under Brigadier General Qassim Suleimani is responsible for coordinating and providing logistical support for the groups taking part in the execution of the plan, codenamed al Qiyama...

My (brief) career as an ISP | Perspectives | CNET News.com : "The FBI is convinced that I'm an Internet service provider. It's no joke. A letter the FBI sent on Sept. 19 ordered me to 'preserve all records and other evidence' relating to my interviews of Adrian Lamo, the so-called homeless hacker, who's facing two criminal charges related to an alleged intrusion into The New York Times' computers. There are a number of problems with this remarkable demand, most of which I'll get to in a moment, but the biggest is the silliest. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Howard Leadbetter II used the two-page letter to inform me that under Section 2703(f) of the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act, I must 'preserve these items for a period of 90 days' in anticipation of a subpoena. So far I haven't received such a subpoena, which would invoke a lesser-known section of the USA Patriot Act. Leadbetter needs to be thwacked with a legal clue sti...

Your ISP as Net watchdog | CNET News.com Your ISP as Net watchdog By Declan McCullagh The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers' online activities. Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept. In theory, at least, data retention could permit successful criminal and terrorism prosecutions that otherwise would have failed because of insufficient evidence. But privacy worries and questions about the practicality of assembling massive databases of customer behavior have caused a similar proposal to stall in Europe and could engender stiff opposition domestically. In Europe, the Council of Justice and Home Affairs ministers say logs m...

ABC News: Did Jesus Ask Judas to Betray Him? So what is in the Gospel of Judas? It is a dialogue that claims to be a conversation between Jesus and Judas in which Jesus asks Judas to betray him. "Judas has the terrible task of taking it upon himself to turn him over to the authorities for this reason," Pagels said. "Now, the Gospel of Judas also has Judas say to Jesus in fear and terror that he has a dream that the other disciples will hate him and will stone him to death, will attack him. "And Jesus says, 'Yes, in fact, they will think that you are a terrible person because of what you did. This is part of the burden that you bear. But they will be wrong about that.' So it is an extraordinary transformation of the ordinary understanding of Judas Iscariot." Pagels said the text shows that Christ, in fact, asked Judas to betray him for an undisclosed reason. "The Gospel of Judas does suggest that the betrayal of Jesus is not a reprehensible act, not...

Congress may consider mandatory ISP snooping | CNET News.com : "It didn't take long for the idea of forcing Internet providers to retain records of their users' activities to gain traction in the U.S. Congress. Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, gave a speech saying that data retention by Internet service providers is an 'issue that must be addressed.' Child pornography investigations have been 'hampered' because data may be routinely deleted, Gonzales warned. Now, in a demonstration of bipartisan unity, a Democratic member of the Congressional Internet Caucus is preparing to introduce an amendment--perhaps during a U.S. House of Representatives floor vote next week--that would make such data deletion illegal. Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal (click for PDF) says that any Internet service that 'enables users to access content' must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The recor...

ABC News: Sleep Eaters Have No Idea They're Eating : "Ever since she was little, Amy Koecheler, a 22-year-old college senior in Eau Claire, Wis., has done something unusual: In the middle of the night, she gets out of bed to eat, without even waking up. It is called sleep eating, which is a parasomnia, meaning an abnormal behavior during sleep. It's triggered by stress, alcohol, sleeping pills or, in Koecheler's case, genetics. She isn't conscious during her nocturnal noshing, and has no memories, despite all the times she's done it. 'Not until the next morning, when I saw the evidence of the bowl from my cereal, or I had left the milk out, or the chips were on the couch and they were still open,' Koecheler said."

US urged to be tougher on Russia�|�Reuters.com : "Republican Senator John McCain, a possible presidential contender, said Washington should be tougher on what he called President Vladimir Putin's autocratic rule and 'some perverted vision of a restoration of the Soviet empire'. 'In all the days of the Soviet Union, Russia never turned off the spigot of gas. Putin did,' McCain told an International Republican Institute lunch attended by Barroso. The EU Commission president said Moscow had been a reliable energy supplier in the past and had an interest in secure demand from the EU and also in European investment, technology and know-how to get oil and gas out of the ground. He criticized Moscow for refusing to ratify an international energy charter treaty that would force it to open its pipeline network to third-party suppliers. It was up to Russians to decide whether they wanted 'a real democracy or a half-democracy', the head of the EU executive said. ...

Report Sets Stage For Action on Iran : "The agency's toughest complaint concerned Iran's failure to provide a credible explanation for where it obtained materials used for small-scale experiments with plutonium. Plutonium separation is a process that can be used in weapons development. 'The agency cannot exclude the possibility -- not withstanding the explanations provided by Iran -- that the plutonium analysed by the agency was derived from source(s) other than the ones declared by Iran,' the report says. The report says that in addition to the 164 centrifuges Iran was previously reported to be using in uranium enrichment experiments, two additional 164-centrifuge systems known as cascades are under construction, an indication that Iran is trying to step up its experiments. Officials with knowledge of the Iranian program, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that several centrifuges had crashed during the enrichment ru...

Wired News: Terrorist, or Truth Seeker? : " Terrorist, or Truth Seeker? Reuters 12:00 PM Apr, 28, 2006 LONDON -- To the United States, he is a seriously dangerous man who put the nation's security at risk by committing 'the biggest military computer hack of all time'. But Briton Gary McKinnon says he is just an ordinary computer nerd who wanted to find out whether aliens and UFOs exist. During his two-year quest, McKinnon broke into computers at the Pentagon, NASA and the Johnson Space Center as well as systems used by the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. U.S. officials say he caused $700,000 worth of damage and even crippled vital defense systems shortly after the Sept.11 attacks. The unemployed computer programmer is now battling extradition to the United States, where, if found guilty, he faces up to 70 years in prison and fines of up to $1.75 million. His lawyer fears he could even be sent to Guantanamo Bay. It's all a far cry from how he first got into hacking: ...

An email alert from the disgusting American Lung Association, which by the way doesn't give any money to people with Lung Cancer, just finds unpopular minorities to blame it on: "Make a Difference by Cleaning Up Dirty Diesel Locomotive and Marine Engines More than 150 million Americans still live in counties where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution, according to the American Lung Association State of the Air: 2006 report, released on April 27. Pollution from marine and locomotive sources are major contributors to the continuing air pollution problem in many areas. Diesel locomotives and marine engines (boats, inland freighters, ferries, tugs and pleasure craft) are among the largest and most dangerous under-regulated sources of air pollution. They can legally pollute at levels higher than trucks, buses or heavy equipment (tractors, bulldozers) diesel engines. A typical train, for example, will emit as much particle pollution over its life as 500 trucks. ...

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Chirac unveils his grand plan to restore French pride : " Chirac unveils his grand plan to restore French pride Angelique Chrisafis in Paris Wednesday April 26, 2006 The Guardian The French president, Jacques Chirac, yesterday unveiled what he hopes will be his great legacy to France's struggle against the global dominance of the US: a series of technological projects including a European search engine to rival Google. Mr Chirac, who walked out of an EU summit last month when a fellow Frenchman committed the grave offence of speaking English, styles himself as the defender of France in the globalised world. After the biggest street protests in decades forced him to stage a U-turn on employment reform last month, Mr Chirac is keener than ever to be remembered for doing something positive for French pride. Yesterday, he announced that he would provide €2bn (�1.4bn) in funding for a series of innovative grands projets, including a Fran...

Iran has missiles that put Europe in range: report|Reuters.com : "JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran has received a first shipment of missiles from North Korea that are capable of reaching Europe, Israel's military intelligence chief was quoted on Thursday as saying. Known in the West as BM-25s, the Russian-designed missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles, giving them a longer reach than the Iranian-made Shihab-4 missiles which are capable of hitting Israel. The intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin, was quoted by Israel's Haaretz newspaper as saying in a lecture on Wednesday that some BM-25s had arrived in Iran. The BM-25 was originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where it was known as the SSN6, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Haaretz reported. After the Russians decommissioned the SSN6, the missiles were sold to North Korea, which adapted them to carry a heavier payload, the newspaper's military affairs correspondent said. In February, a Ge...

MySA.com: Business : "'I don't know what they are trying to accomplish,' she said. 'It's not going to make a difference on the cost of fuel, but it is a direct impact on us. It's ridiculous. There's nothing we can do about (gas prices).' Mu�oz said dropping the price of gas at the family's stores from $2.79, as it was Tuesday, to $1.30 would leave them bankrupt. But the concerns don't stop at the county government level. In Washington, there's widespread grumbling about why the federal government is handing out billions in subsidies and tax breaks to oil companies that continue to raise prices on taxpayers. Martinez said he hopes Bee County's resolution will further spark discussions in the board rooms of the nation's largest oil companies. 'The Commissioners Court said, 'Enough is enough,'' the judge said. 'We have to stand up for our people.' Not everyone in the county is embracing the reso...

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Rice and Rumsfeld hail Iraq's PM : "Rice and Rumsfeld hail Iraq's PM Nouri Maliki Mr Maliki's nomination ends months of wrangling over the role US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has praised Iraq's new prime minister, saying he is focused on and committed to forming a national unity government. Ms Rice was speaking after she and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met the PM, Nouri Maliki, in Baghdad. 'He was really impressive,' Ms Rice said after their talks, while Mr Rumsfeld said he was 'most encouraged'. Mr Maliki is trying to put together a government after months of deadlock and start the work of curbing Iraqi unrest. The visit by two of the most senior members of the Bush administration was aimed at encouraging Mr Maliki to push forward with assembling a broad-based coalition. They held a 50-minute meeting at the US ambassador's residence in the highly fortified Green Zone. 'He understood his role and the ro...

BREITBART.COM - Iran Ready to Transfer Nuclear Know-How : "Iran Ready to Transfer Nuclear Know-How By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran Iran's supreme leader said Tuesday that the country is ready to transfer its nuclear technology to other countries. Meanwhile, Tehran threatened to halt all cooperation with the U.N. atomic energy agency if the U.N. Security Council imposes sanctions, warning that it might hide its nuclear program if the West takes any other 'harsh measures.' Iran's warning to the U.N. watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, came from Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. They were the strongest words of defiance yet ahead of a Friday deadline, set by the Security Council, for Iran to suspend enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or material for warheads. 'Military action against Iran will not end our program,' Larijani said at a conference on the energ...

courant.com | FAT IS THE NEW SMOKING Here's How The Public Health War On Obesity Will Unfold : "FAT IS THE NEW SMOKING Here's How The Public Health War On Obesity Will Unfold April 23, 2006 By William Saletan Goodbye, war on smoking. Hello, war on fat. In a span of two months, smoking bans have been imposed in Scotland, enacted in England, Denmark and Uruguay, proposed by the government of Portugal and endorsed by the French public. China has banned new cigarette factories. In Virginia, our third most prolific tobacco-producing state, senators voted to ban smoking in nearly all public places. The Arkansas legislature, backed by a Republican governor, passed a similar ban and voted to extend this policy to cars in which a child is present. Tobacco companies have won a few skirmishes, but always in retreat. So we've found a new enemy: obesity. Two years ago, the U.S. government discovered that the targets of previous crusades - booze, sex, guns and cigarettes - were kil...

Flopping Aces � Blog Archive � The Democrat Mole In The CIA Fired Let's Play Connect the Dots Let’s connect some dots in the Mary McCarthy CIA leak tale, shall we? (Hat tip: WordWarp). Mary McCarthy leaks the secret CIA prisons story to Dana Priest, in what may have been a sting operation. Mary McCarthy and Joe Wilson served at the NSC together at the same time, both with African portfolios. Does Dana Priest’s Husband Get Joe Wilson Media Gigs? Did Mary McCarthy Send Joe Wilson To Niger?

The Observer | Magazine | Julian Dibbell repors on 'women's viagra' : " Let us spray Billed as libido in an atomiser, PT-141 will finally offer women the chance to turn on their sexual desire as and when they need it. Or so the science says. But there are concerns. Will sex in a spray usher in an age of 'McNookie' - quick easy couplings low on emotional nutrition? Julian Dibbell reports Sunday April 23, 2006 The Observer Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colourful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it is hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry - a small, white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odourless, colourless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years' worth of recorded medicinal aph...

Are Sodas the New Cigarettes? By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H. Posted: Thursday, March 16, 2006 EDITORIAL Publication Date: March 16, 2006 This piece originally appeared March 16, 2006 in the Washington Times: Judging from recent media coverage, soda is quickly gaining on cigarettes for the title of No. 1 Public Health Threat. Soft drinks now stand accused of being largely responsible for an epidemic of obesity in America -- especially among children. Public health advocates, university scientists, legislators, and litigators claim because of an overwhelming and consistent array of scientific evidence linking obesity with soda consumption, the time has come for punitive action against beverage manufacturers and their nefarious products. The purported solution to obesity in America? Ban soda in schools, put a stiff "junk food" tax on these drinks, put stringent restrictions on where the product can be sold and slap a stern health warning label on all the cans and bo...

Ethanol is good, except when it's not Carney Op-Ed in AFF Brainwash by Timothy Carney The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration, say that we subsidize ethanol because it's good for the planet. They explain that when ethanol is burnt in a car engine, it gives off much less pollution and CO2 than does petroleum. On that very specific claim, they are correct. However, some scientists argue that ethanol, on the whole, is worse for the planet: it leads farmers to plant only corn, thus degrading the soil; the fuel needed to grow, distill, and ship the ethanol is more than the end product yields; and it evaporates more easily, leading to more hydrocarbons in the air. But the federal government doesn't give these claims or studies much weight. So, ethanol producers and sellers get all sorts of tax breaks, free gifts, and waivers from environmental rules. Congress has recently voted to mandate we use ethanol. The mandates and subsidi...

Mayor Bloomberg, M.D. (from the New York Sun) By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H. Posted: Tuesday, April 4, 2006 EDITORIAL Publication Date: April 4, 2006 This article appeared on April 4, 2006 in the New York Sun: In an effort to curb the rapidly increasing health threat of diabetes in New York City, the Bloomberg administration earlier this year mandated that medical laboratories report the results of special diabetes-monitoring blood tests, along with the name and contact information of patients, to the City Department of Health. While efforts to reduce the devastating health consequences of diabetes are laudable, the violation of patient confidentiality and the precedent set by this new regulation should be the source of grave concern to all New Yorkers. Diabetes is now among the leading causes of death in the city -- and its incidence is rapidly increasing. Genetics (family history) plays a major role -- African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics are much more susceptible ...

ACSH > Facts & Fears > Archives : "Second, the anti-smoking movement has gone off the deep end over secondhand smoke (also known as environmental tobacco smoke). Sure, exposure to cigarette smoke has all types of negative acute effects, including increased risk of earaches, inner ear infections, asthma, upper respiratory ailments, and more. No argument about that. And it smells nasty, makes your clothes and hair stink, and can ruin a perfectly nice dinner (ACSH did a report in 1999 on the limited but real effects of secondhand smoke). But anti-smokers can't let it rest at that. They claim that even transient exposure to secondhand smoke causes everything from breast cancer to heart disease. A few egregious examples: a leading tobacco researcher made the improbable claim that the smoking ban in Helena, Montana resulted in a 40% decline in heart attack admissions in a six-month period after the ban. 'We used to think that heart disease came after years of exposu...

CNN.com - Doc's diagnosis: Nail gun caused headache - Apr 21, 2006 : "PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- An Oregon man who went to a hospital complaining of a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull from a suicide attempt with a nail gun, doctors say. Surgeons removed the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill, and the man survived with no serious lasting effects, according to a report on the medical oddity in the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery. The unidentified 33-year-old man was suicidal and high on methamphetamine last year when he fired the nails -- up to 2 inches in length -- into his head one by one. The nails were not visible when doctors first examined the man in the emergency room of an unidentified Oregon hospital a day later. Doctors were surprised when X-rays revealed six nails clustered between his right eye and ear, two below his right ear and four on the left side of his head. The study did not say how long the nails were, and a hospi...

USATODAY.com - Shiites choose nominee for Iraq prime minister : "BAGHDAD (AP) — The Shiite alliance nominated a tough-talking Shiite politician, Jawad al-Maliki, as prime minister Friday in a move that breaks the long impasse over forming a new government aimed at pulling Iraq out of its sectarian strife. Al-Maliki replaces outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose attempt to stay for a second term had raised sharp opposition from Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders and caused a deadlock that lasted months as the country's security crisis worsened in the wake of last December's election. ON DEADLINE BLOG: Who is Maliki? Sunni and Kurdish politicians signaled they would accept al-Maliki — a close ally of al-Jaafari in the Shiite Dawa Party — clearing the way for parliament on Saturday to elect top leadership positions, including the president, and launch the process of putting together a government. U.S. and Iraqi officials are hoping that a national unity government rep...

Iran’s leader hails rising oil prices - Oil & Energy - MSNBC.com : "TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s president said on Friday the rise in oil price was “very good,” Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported, emphasizing the hawkish position of the world’s fourth largest oil exporter as crude prices have hit record levels. “The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as he toured an oil exhibition in Tehran, the agency reported. He did not say what those real levels should be. But these and other earlier remarks suggest he believes crude prices should rise above this week’s record high of over $74 a barrel. On Friday, European Brent crude fell below $73."

Wave of Violent Crime Sweeps Venezuela Venezuela is among the most violent places in Latin America, and critics of President Hugo Chavez are increasingly accusing him of failing to make crime a priority. The government says it is making progress on the problem, but a series of particularly heinous murders sparked protests earlier this month by people demanding safer streets, and more rallies are planned for Saturday. While crime has long bedeviled Venezuelans, particularly the poor, some protesters say there's a new element to the danger now - class tensions incited by Chavez himself. "There has always been crime, but not like this. Now they open fire and that's it," said Freddy Dos Santos, standing beside his father, who lay wounded on a gurney at a public hospital. Relatives of 89-year-old Rodolfo Dos Santos, who was breathing through an oxygen mask, said he was shot while driving to a construction site to pay his workers. He had just braked at a hilltop when a te...

F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana - New York Times : "The Food and Drug Administration statement directly contradicts a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory agency. That review found marijuana to be 'moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting.' Dr. John Benson, co-chairman of the Institute of Medicine committee that examined the research into marijuana's effects, said in an interview that the statement on Thursday and the combined review by other agencies were wrong. The federal government 'loves to ignore our report,' said Dr. Benson, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 'They would rather it never happened.' Some scientists and legislators said the agency's statement about marijuana demonstrated that politics had trumpe...

Why a strong economy is no GOP asset | csmonitor.com : "WASHINGTON – Of all the problems Republicans face heading into the fall political season, one of the most exasperating is the economy. In many ways, they say, these are the best of times: Unemployment is at 4.7 percent, lower than the averages of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. The economy is showing strong, consistent growth, without significant inflation. And the stock market is roaring along."

We Need a Fence! : "... that's why we're promoting a state-of-the-art border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. The Fence: What kind of fence are we proposing? [LEARN MORE] The Problem: Understanding the illegal immigration problem: [LEARN MORE] * Illegal immigration into the United States is out of control, particularly across our southern border. * Several members of Congress and Governors have declared states of emergency. * The problem is not merely the number of illegal immigrants. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Central and South America, there are several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of illegal aliens from countries that sponsor terrorism or harbor terrorists entering the United States each year across our border with Mexico. Thus, it is a national security issue as well as an immigration issue. [LEARN MORE] The Solution: Why is a fence the right solution? [LEARN MORE] * A secure, state-of-the-art border fenc...

FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Iraqi PM's climbdown helps ease deadlock : By Steve Negus, Iraq correspondent The Iraqi prime minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari yesterday opened the way to the formation of a new government by agreeing to let his Shia allies reconsider his candidacy. Mr Jaafari, the candidate of the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, the largest group in parliament following December's elections, had become a major stumbling block to the creation of a national unity government, with both Kurdish and Sunni political leaders opposed to his candidacy. As late as Wednesday, Mr Jaafari - who won the nomination by a single vote in February - had insisted that he would remain in his post as prime minister despite the growing calls for him to step down from not just from Kurds and Sunni but also secularists, and even some fellow UIA members."

MercuryNews.com Joan Miro was today recognized as one of the worst artists of all time. His art was stupid, and indeed was not really art at all. People the world over are trying desperately to forget that he ever existed! The Artist's Forgetting committee has asked that people not speak of Miro, or exhibit his work, or even acknowledge that he ever existed. A member of the committee, asking not to be named, said he wished that Joan Miro had never been born. However by ignoring and deploring his work, hopefully no one will ever learn more about Joan Miro, or view his art, or ever think about him. Why waste your money buying books about someone who hated your guts anyway? Why waste money seeing some art snobs stuff in a museum when they detest you and mock you as a capitalist because you work 8 hours a day for your living, while artists are in fact the greediest people on earth? So greedy they don't want anyone to write about them, or learn about them, or talk about them...

Inflation Adjusted Crude Oil Prices Chart : "Are Oil Companies Ripping us off with Gas Prices? October 17, 2005 by Tim McMahon Recently Gas at the pump has jumped almost exponentially while crude oil prices have stabilized and even have fallen a bit giving rise to the question... are they really correlated? The chart to the right shows the correlation between the average annual price of gasoline and the average annual price of crude oil. By using the average annual price we eliminate brief spikes and get a better picture of what we really pay over the long term. If we see a brief spike many of us will put off buying gas as long as possible hoping to miss the spike so over the long term we will pay closer to the average price. But as we can see from the chart gas and oil prices are fairly closely related. They tend to rise and fall in tandem but at some extremes oil will rise faster while at others gas seems to rise faster. There is a simple explanation for this. Typically the oil ...

Tech industry attacks state anti-RFID laws | CNET News.com : "Tech industry attacks state anti-RFID laws By Anne Broache Staff Writer, CNET News.com ARLINGTON, Va.--In at least a dozen states, the electronics industry has been waging a battle against a rash of proposed laws aimed at limiting--and in some cases outlawing--use of electronically readable chips in personal identification documents. No states have enacted such laws yet, but bills have been up for debate in California, New Hampshire, Washington, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Illinois and Missouri, among others, during the past couple of years, panelists said Wednesday at an industry conference here about smart card use by the government. Those proposed laws have been introduced because of concerns raised by privacy advocates over the possibility that as radio-frequency identification, or RFID, chips, become more commonly used in government-issued IDs, they could be abused for secret tracking or unauthorized collection of in...

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Mexico -- Mexico wants migrant rights in U.S., but is harsh to undocumented Central Americans : "TULTITLAN, Mexico – While migrants in the United States have held tremendous demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central American migrants in Mexico suffer mostly in silence. Considered felons by the Mexican government, they fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take all their money. While Mexico demands the humane treatment of its citizens who migrate to the U.S., it appears to be unable to guarantee similar rights for Central American migrants to this country. The level of brutality Central American migrants face in Mexico was underscored on Monday, when police conducting a raid for undocumented migrants near a rail yard in central Mexico state shot to death a local man, apparentl...

Beyond the Geeks: 60 Million Americans Labeled 'Intellectually Curious' - Yahoo! News : "More Americans are interested in science news and information than is commonly thought, a new study suggests. But not everyone wears the intrigue on their sleeves. In fact some people are downright silent about their scientific interests, perhaps not wanting to be perceived as nerds. The study, based on online polling and focus groups, was conducted by the media communications agency OMD for Imaginova Corp., parent company of LiveScience and SPACE.com. Beyond the geeks The research aimed to get beyond the recognized geek population and gauge interest in science among the roughly 150 million Americans age 18-54. About 40 percent of them, or 60 million people, were found to be 'intellectually curious' about politics, the arts and science, all spending significant time with newspapers, related television channels and online media. Among the intellectually curious group, those who ...

Is France ungovernable? >> .:thebusinessonline.com:. Its economy is sick, its people refuse to accept much-needed reforms, there are riots on the streets, government ministers are at each others’ throats and Chirac sits brooding in the Elysée Palace like a lame-duck president [...] AT the heart of the French protests is a refusal to acknowledge economic reality. The French are now officially the most anti-capitalist nation on earth, according to a new Globescan poll. Only 36% of the French agree that a free-market economy “is the best system on which to base the future of the world”, by far the lowest of any country, and 50% disagree. It is an appalling indictment of France’s media, education system and elite that half the country has in effect no economic understanding whatsoever. In China, by contrast, 74% of the population now support capitalism, a system that theory and practice has shown to be immensely superior at generating and spreading wealth than socialism, fascism, ext...

Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War | The Brussels Journal Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War From the desk of Fjordman on Tue, 2006-03-28 21:49 Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it? In a new sociological survey (pdf in Swedish, with brief English introduction) entitled “Vi krigar mot svenskarna” (“We’re waging a war against the Swedes”), young immigrants in the troubled city of Malmö have been interviewed about why ...