'Star Trek' Actor George Takei Comes Out
AP
George Takei, who as helmsman Sulu steered the Starship Enterprise through three television seasons and six movies, has come out as a homosexual in the current issue of Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles magazine covering the gay and lesbian community.
Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in "Equus," helped inspire him to publicly discuss his sexuality.
Takei described the character as a "very contained but turbulently frustrated man." The play opened Wednesday at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles, the same day that Frontiers magazine featured a story on Takei's coming out.
The current social and political climate also motivated Takei's disclosure, he said.
"The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay," he said. "The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young."
The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.
Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.
"It's against basic decency and what American values stand for," he said.
Takei joined the "Star Trek" cast in 1966 as Hikaru Sulu, a character he played for three seasons on television and in six subsequent films. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986.
A community activist, Takei ran for the Los Angeles City Council in 1973. He serves on the advisory committee of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and is chairman of East West Players, the theater company producing "Equus."
aC. Sidebar
Serious, this month is Coming-Out Month, which is funny because October is also Breast Cancer Month too. So, sex and boob. That's the topic of the month. I'm surprised to hear about all of these people that are coming out. I'm very proud of my sexuality and I'm proud that these people are proud of their sexuality. Granted there are some homophobic tendencies in me, but in overall sincereness, the accomplishments and the value of a person in Sheryl Swoops and George Takai should not be misinterpreted by their sexuality. What I mean is, the American Coalition for Family group should not be saying, "Ban All WNBA and Star Trek film. Boycott for family values!"
Give me a break, the family dynamics are changing. Unfortunately, not like these conservative groups. Yes, I'm bashing my own peers in a way, but I realize that the TV dinner generation and the TV reality show generation shows that we may not always be a big happy family. The happiness is in the extended family. Divorced parents, same-sex partners, single-parents, and other non-traditional family nucleus are becoming more of a focal point in today's family dynamics. I'm not saying that one kind of nuclei is correct, political correct, or even preferable. I'm saying that respects is in the order and if there is a same-sex core family dynamics next door to your traditional white picket fence style family, you should go over there and say, "Hi, I'm Anthony, this is my wife, and my kids. Welcome to the neighborhood." Granted this situation is different if you’re slightly more modest and those neighbors have been next door for a long time. Still, hospitality, generosity, and respect should not deter you from build a Wisteria Lane situation. You should be in a Tom Hanks situation in the movie The 'burbs.
Because if you saw the movie, the consensus group drove him nuts, granted the neighbors were killers, but seriously, same-sex couples or by-product children will not try to kill you and your family or convert you or you family. Your fear should be in the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, I apologize to these last groups. They've done nothing wrong or for that matter much in their religious dynamics for hundreds of years. May this is something we should look at in our own religions and upbringings.
Why do we truly fear or subjugate to suppress people that are "different". I could go on, but I'm mentally ill-prepared and scholarly untrained to answer this question. Even a computer science student can be well-versed in socio-cultural matters. I'm disappointed that Scotty will never beam me up again, but knowing Sulu is having fun in the sun on Risa gives me some comfort that boldly going where now man has gone before is not a quote, but something someone can follow. Now, about those Pricedot.com ads with Spock and Kirk...
Friday, October 28, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
New York Times Editorial...
In White Sox Nation, the Boders Are Secure
Lawrence Downes (Sunday New York Times, 10/23/05)
In the next week or so, if God lightens up and lets Chicago win its first World Series since 1917, who knows what else might happen? Last time it was the Russian Revolution, followed by a global flu pandemic. This time might be completely different. Packs of rabid wolves sweeping down from Canada, maybe. Sinkholes swallowing Nebraska. An asteroid. Whatever it is, it seems safe to say this: In half of the city - the Cubs half - nothing much will happen.
Chicago's divided baseball loyalities - Cubs vs. Sox, North Side vs. South Side, the oldest vs. the second oldest championship droughts in baseball - look quaint from a distance, like the rivalries that energize high school pep rallies or cause politicans to make lame wagers with one another on the TV news.
But in Chicago, team affiliation is form of ethnicity, passed on to sons and daughters like genetic disease or silverware. You would think a city that never wins at baseball might suspend hostilities for the World Series, an event it sees roughly once every World War or Great Depression.
But no. When the Sox and Huston Astros opended the Series last night at U. S. Cellular Field, the concentrations of people going bonkers were highly localized. Many in the larger, more visible Cubs tribe conspicuously went on with their lives. This reinfoced the outward impression, at least, of a city that was handling the World Series like a really big trade convention - accommodating the fuss, but not caring all that much.
This is sad, especially when you consider the large-scale affection other teams enjoy. The Red Sox Nation covers all New England, from Maine down to the edges of Yankee territory in southwest Connecticut. The St. Louis Cardinals own the alligiance of several rectangular and trapezoidal states. In New York, the city is so big and playoff games so frequent that Met-Yankee tensions can be quite tolerable. Fans live and work side-by-side, and newspapers and TV stations are nonaligned.
White Sox turf by contrast, extends only a few square miles south from Madison Street in the Loop, through neighborhoods like Bridgeport and Hyde Park and into the south suburbs. The Cubs hold pretty much everything to the north, and much in the wide world beyond, thanks to their lucrative yuppie branding and the media hegemony of the Tribune Company, which owns the team, major TV and radio stations, and a big local newspaper.
So you can forget the lofty example set by Abraham Lincoln ("A house divded against itself cannot stand"), Mayor Harold Washington ("Chicago is one city") and Senator Barack Obama ("There is no conservative America and liberal America"). Many Chicagoans are down with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has said he "bleeds Cubby blue" and will not wear a Sox cap to a Series game.
The Great Rift, as Mr. Obama, a White Sox fan, desribed it, has left the Sox and their fans feeling pretty much alone in a big, oblivious world - baseball's Little Red Hen.
"Who will help us win the division?"
"Not I," said the North Side.
"Who will help us sweep the Red Sox, eliminate the Angels, and polish off the Astros?"
"Not I," said the North Side.
"Then we will do it ourselves."
A World Series triumph may not happen, of course. Chicago has an old and sturdy tradition of losing, and the Astros are an impressive team. But if it does happen, you can't blame Sox fans if teir celebration is invitation-only - no bandwagons allowed.
On that amazing night, when the cold wind whistles off Lake Michigan and rattles windows along the empty streets of Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park, where people are indoors making lattes or banking online or whatever it is Cubs fans do in October, the party on the South Side will go on and on. And that, it seems, will sui this strange, severed city just fine.
aC. Sidebar
F**ked the borders, from a Cubs fan, "Good Soxs, lets see a parade!"
Lawrence Downes (Sunday New York Times, 10/23/05)
In the next week or so, if God lightens up and lets Chicago win its first World Series since 1917, who knows what else might happen? Last time it was the Russian Revolution, followed by a global flu pandemic. This time might be completely different. Packs of rabid wolves sweeping down from Canada, maybe. Sinkholes swallowing Nebraska. An asteroid. Whatever it is, it seems safe to say this: In half of the city - the Cubs half - nothing much will happen.
Chicago's divided baseball loyalities - Cubs vs. Sox, North Side vs. South Side, the oldest vs. the second oldest championship droughts in baseball - look quaint from a distance, like the rivalries that energize high school pep rallies or cause politicans to make lame wagers with one another on the TV news.
But in Chicago, team affiliation is form of ethnicity, passed on to sons and daughters like genetic disease or silverware. You would think a city that never wins at baseball might suspend hostilities for the World Series, an event it sees roughly once every World War or Great Depression.
But no. When the Sox and Huston Astros opended the Series last night at U. S. Cellular Field, the concentrations of people going bonkers were highly localized. Many in the larger, more visible Cubs tribe conspicuously went on with their lives. This reinfoced the outward impression, at least, of a city that was handling the World Series like a really big trade convention - accommodating the fuss, but not caring all that much.
This is sad, especially when you consider the large-scale affection other teams enjoy. The Red Sox Nation covers all New England, from Maine down to the edges of Yankee territory in southwest Connecticut. The St. Louis Cardinals own the alligiance of several rectangular and trapezoidal states. In New York, the city is so big and playoff games so frequent that Met-Yankee tensions can be quite tolerable. Fans live and work side-by-side, and newspapers and TV stations are nonaligned.
White Sox turf by contrast, extends only a few square miles south from Madison Street in the Loop, through neighborhoods like Bridgeport and Hyde Park and into the south suburbs. The Cubs hold pretty much everything to the north, and much in the wide world beyond, thanks to their lucrative yuppie branding and the media hegemony of the Tribune Company, which owns the team, major TV and radio stations, and a big local newspaper.
So you can forget the lofty example set by Abraham Lincoln ("A house divded against itself cannot stand"), Mayor Harold Washington ("Chicago is one city") and Senator Barack Obama ("There is no conservative America and liberal America"). Many Chicagoans are down with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has said he "bleeds Cubby blue" and will not wear a Sox cap to a Series game.
The Great Rift, as Mr. Obama, a White Sox fan, desribed it, has left the Sox and their fans feeling pretty much alone in a big, oblivious world - baseball's Little Red Hen.
"Who will help us win the division?"
"Not I," said the North Side.
"Who will help us sweep the Red Sox, eliminate the Angels, and polish off the Astros?"
"Not I," said the North Side.
"Then we will do it ourselves."
A World Series triumph may not happen, of course. Chicago has an old and sturdy tradition of losing, and the Astros are an impressive team. But if it does happen, you can't blame Sox fans if teir celebration is invitation-only - no bandwagons allowed.
On that amazing night, when the cold wind whistles off Lake Michigan and rattles windows along the empty streets of Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park, where people are indoors making lattes or banking online or whatever it is Cubs fans do in October, the party on the South Side will go on and on. And that, it seems, will sui this strange, severed city just fine.
aC. Sidebar
F**ked the borders, from a Cubs fan, "Good Soxs, lets see a parade!"
Monday, October 24, 2005
God Bless You...
Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92
16 minutes ago
Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.
Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers D-Mich. Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement." At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.
The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat. Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14. Speaking in 1992, she said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."
Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."
The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern civil rights movement.
The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.
After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in Conyers' Detroit office from 1965 until retiring Sept. 30, 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.
Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a street and middle school were named for her and a papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.
"Rosa Parks: My Story" was published in February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth."
She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the Million Man March in October 1995.
In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."
The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November 2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded Parks' arrest.
"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.
"No," Parks answered.
"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.
"You may do that," Parks responded.
Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.
In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.
The Parks Institute struggled financially since its inception. The charity's principal activity — the annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to the sites of key events in the civil rights movement — routinely cost more money than the institute could raise.
Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who planned to auction Internet domain name rights to http://www.rosaparks.com.
After losing the OutKast lawsuit, attorney Gregory Reed, who represented Mrs. Parks, said his client "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.
She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.
Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that black young people took legal equality for granted. Older blacks, she said "have tried to shield young people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we seem to have a more complacent attitude.
"We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an incentive and the will to study our heritage and to know what it means to be black in America today."
At a celebration in her honor that same year, she said: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."
aC. Sidebar
Today America has lost its courage and humanity its compass. You were my hero and this generation is proud to have known you. May your courage and inspiration continue to inspire preceding generations. Thank you, and God Bless You. St. Peter is waiting with the gates open.
16 minutes ago
Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.
Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers D-Mich. Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement." At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.
The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat. Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14. Speaking in 1992, she said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."
Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."
The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern civil rights movement.
The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.
After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in Conyers' Detroit office from 1965 until retiring Sept. 30, 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.
Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a street and middle school were named for her and a papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.
"Rosa Parks: My Story" was published in February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth."
She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the Million Man March in October 1995.
In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."
The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November 2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded Parks' arrest.
"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.
"No," Parks answered.
"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.
"You may do that," Parks responded.
Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.
In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.
The Parks Institute struggled financially since its inception. The charity's principal activity — the annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to the sites of key events in the civil rights movement — routinely cost more money than the institute could raise.
Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who planned to auction Internet domain name rights to http://www.rosaparks.com.
After losing the OutKast lawsuit, attorney Gregory Reed, who represented Mrs. Parks, said his client "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.
She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.
Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that black young people took legal equality for granted. Older blacks, she said "have tried to shield young people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we seem to have a more complacent attitude.
"We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an incentive and the will to study our heritage and to know what it means to be black in America today."
At a celebration in her honor that same year, she said: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."
aC. Sidebar
Today America has lost its courage and humanity its compass. You were my hero and this generation is proud to have known you. May your courage and inspiration continue to inspire preceding generations. Thank you, and God Bless You. St. Peter is waiting with the gates open.
Japan Delays Decision to End U.S. Beef Ban
Associated Press
A Japanese government panel on mad cow disease delayed a decision Monday on whether to recommend easing a two-year-old ban on U.S. beef imports, despite preparing a draft report concluding the risk from American beef is very low.
The panel had been widely expected to send the report to the Food Safety Commission, setting in motion a process that could lead to the reopening of Japan — U.S. beef's most lucrative overseas market — to the imports by the end of the year.
Japan bought about $1.5 billion worth of U.S. beef in 2003, making it the most lucrative overseas market for American beef products. The delay risked flaring tensions with the United States ahead of a visit in mid-November by President Bush. U.S. beef producers and their supporters have argued that the ban was unnecessary and have accused Japan of dragging its feet on lifting it.
Yasuhiro Yoshikawa, chairman of the panel, said he hoped the panel would reach a final decision as early as at the next meeting, which is expected later this month or early next month.
"In today's meeting we were not able to reach an agreement," Yoshikawa said.
He said the decision was delayed because two key members were unable to attend, and other members said they wanted more information about two other diseases in the United States that could be related to mad cow disease.
Japan imposed the ban on Dec. 24, 2003, after the discovery of the first case of mad cow in the United States, in Washington state. After lengthy negotiations, the two governments this year agreed that Japan would reopen its markets to meat from American cows of less than 21 months old. Mad cow disease has never been detected in cows that young.
The panel had already prepared a draft report concluding that the difference in risk between Japanese and American beef was very low, as long as proper precautions were taken. Japan has discovered 20 domestic cases of mad cow disease since 2002, but tests every cow going to market. Several panelists, however, raised questions about reliability of U.S. safeguard measures and how they can be ensured.
"The risk would be very low, if proper precautions are strictly followed," Yoshikawa said. "And even if imports are resumed, we must consider halting (imports) once again if those conditions are not met."
After the panel's failure to reach conclusion, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters that "I think the conclusion should be reached from the viewpoint of food safety."
Scientists agree that beef infected with mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, causes a fatal brain disorder in humans. Since the 1990s, the death toll from the disease topped 150 people, mostly in Britain.
The U.S. frustration over the import ban and Tokyo's dragging examination of U.S. beef safety has been building up recently. Earlier this month 20 U.S. senators sent a joint letter to U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), formally asking "to employ retaliatory economic measures against Japan" if its import barrier is kept in place.
On Monday, visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said officials in Washington — from members of Congress to officials in the Bush administration — were growing impatient with the slow process.
"There is a great deal of frustration in the United States that this problem has not been resolved after such a long time," he told reporters in Tokyo, calling for a quick resumption of beef imports.
aC. Sidebar
What would an extra 1.5 billion dollars do for this economy? It would not solve everything, but at least it would help. What would you do with an extra 1.5 billion dollars?
Associated Press
A Japanese government panel on mad cow disease delayed a decision Monday on whether to recommend easing a two-year-old ban on U.S. beef imports, despite preparing a draft report concluding the risk from American beef is very low.
The panel had been widely expected to send the report to the Food Safety Commission, setting in motion a process that could lead to the reopening of Japan — U.S. beef's most lucrative overseas market — to the imports by the end of the year.
Japan bought about $1.5 billion worth of U.S. beef in 2003, making it the most lucrative overseas market for American beef products. The delay risked flaring tensions with the United States ahead of a visit in mid-November by President Bush. U.S. beef producers and their supporters have argued that the ban was unnecessary and have accused Japan of dragging its feet on lifting it.
Yasuhiro Yoshikawa, chairman of the panel, said he hoped the panel would reach a final decision as early as at the next meeting, which is expected later this month or early next month.
"In today's meeting we were not able to reach an agreement," Yoshikawa said.
He said the decision was delayed because two key members were unable to attend, and other members said they wanted more information about two other diseases in the United States that could be related to mad cow disease.
Japan imposed the ban on Dec. 24, 2003, after the discovery of the first case of mad cow in the United States, in Washington state. After lengthy negotiations, the two governments this year agreed that Japan would reopen its markets to meat from American cows of less than 21 months old. Mad cow disease has never been detected in cows that young.
The panel had already prepared a draft report concluding that the difference in risk between Japanese and American beef was very low, as long as proper precautions were taken. Japan has discovered 20 domestic cases of mad cow disease since 2002, but tests every cow going to market. Several panelists, however, raised questions about reliability of U.S. safeguard measures and how they can be ensured.
"The risk would be very low, if proper precautions are strictly followed," Yoshikawa said. "And even if imports are resumed, we must consider halting (imports) once again if those conditions are not met."
After the panel's failure to reach conclusion, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters that "I think the conclusion should be reached from the viewpoint of food safety."
Scientists agree that beef infected with mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, causes a fatal brain disorder in humans. Since the 1990s, the death toll from the disease topped 150 people, mostly in Britain.
The U.S. frustration over the import ban and Tokyo's dragging examination of U.S. beef safety has been building up recently. Earlier this month 20 U.S. senators sent a joint letter to U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), formally asking "to employ retaliatory economic measures against Japan" if its import barrier is kept in place.
On Monday, visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said officials in Washington — from members of Congress to officials in the Bush administration — were growing impatient with the slow process.
"There is a great deal of frustration in the United States that this problem has not been resolved after such a long time," he told reporters in Tokyo, calling for a quick resumption of beef imports.
aC. Sidebar
What would an extra 1.5 billion dollars do for this economy? It would not solve everything, but at least it would help. What would you do with an extra 1.5 billion dollars?
Friday, October 21, 2005
WARNING: Low-Brow Humor Below...
Idiot of the Day...
Man Allegedly Robs Bank With Pay Stub Note
Thu Oct 20
A note handed to a bank teller demanding $20, $50 and $100 bills "the quicker the better" was written on a pay stub that led police to a robbery suspect even though the name and address were crossed out with a marker.
"It wasn't a huge forensic undertaking," Steven Moran, Bensalem director of public safety, said Wednesday. "We just put it under a light."
The FBI charged Michael Drennon, 26, of Philadelphia, with robbing the Wachovia Bank in Bensalem on Friday. Drennon, who had been living in a halfway house while on probation, was being held at the federal detention center in Philadelphia pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. It couldn't immediately be determined if he had an attorney.
The man who slipped the teller the note Friday left the bank with about $2,500, authorities said. Police said Drennon had about $1,800 on him when he was arrested.
aC. Sidebar
Where did our educational system go wrong? Were the afterschool specials not enough to help this guy when he was young? I do have say one thing, he's making money. Seriously, he had a pay stub, so you know he's not a drain to Welfare. That's the only light at the end of this tunnel. Have fun in jail Michael. He's a word of advice for you, if your cell mate is named Nasty Nate, you're the bitch.
Thu Oct 20
A note handed to a bank teller demanding $20, $50 and $100 bills "the quicker the better" was written on a pay stub that led police to a robbery suspect even though the name and address were crossed out with a marker.
"It wasn't a huge forensic undertaking," Steven Moran, Bensalem director of public safety, said Wednesday. "We just put it under a light."
The FBI charged Michael Drennon, 26, of Philadelphia, with robbing the Wachovia Bank in Bensalem on Friday. Drennon, who had been living in a halfway house while on probation, was being held at the federal detention center in Philadelphia pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. It couldn't immediately be determined if he had an attorney.
The man who slipped the teller the note Friday left the bank with about $2,500, authorities said. Police said Drennon had about $1,800 on him when he was arrested.
aC. Sidebar
Where did our educational system go wrong? Were the afterschool specials not enough to help this guy when he was young? I do have say one thing, he's making money. Seriously, he had a pay stub, so you know he's not a drain to Welfare. That's the only light at the end of this tunnel. Have fun in jail Michael. He's a word of advice for you, if your cell mate is named Nasty Nate, you're the bitch.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Intergalatic Carry-Out
The Peking Restaurant franchise is currently in negotiation with the Alpha Centauri Solar System, but NASA and the McDonald's are currently attempting to enforce the Sherman Act. Stay tuned to this intergalatical litigation.
Friday, October 14, 2005
The Next Catholic Schism...or so they say...
Scientist Wins Male Contraceptive Grant
(AP)
A Norfolk State University researcher who has worked nearly 20 years to create a male contraceptive will share in a $3.6 million grant to help him further his work.
The funding for Joseph C. Hall's research is from the National Institutes of Health. The grant, Hall said, will bring to his research the world of "computer-assisted drug design" to speed the time he can produce compounds for testing. The grant, distributed over five years, will support Norfolk State's Center for Biotechnology and Biomedical Sciences, which Hall directs.
Hall's research, which has received money from the National Science Foundation, seeks to blunt sperm's ability to fertilize eggs. His focus is the enzyme that penetrates the sugar coating that surrounds the egg. He is seeking a compound that can bind to the enzyme, deactivating the sperm. While Hall has reached a solid success rate of 92 percent, he wants his contraceptive to be 100 percent foolproof. He expects the final product to be in the form of a patch.
The university's first NIH grant in 13 years will also will be used on protein research, which could improve cancer treatments; add at least a handful of faculty positions; and provide opportunities for students and faculty members to collaborate with their counterparts at Eastern Virginia +Medical+ School and the University of Virginia.
"So often, Norfolk State has had to be the school that follows new leads that come up in generally established programs," said Hall, an associate professor of chemistry. "We decided to take an initiative role and be a leader for a change."
By supporting the emerging field of computer-assisted drug design, the NIH grant will help Hall make and test compounds more quickly.
"Right now, at the rate I'm going, synthesizing one compound at a time, it would take me five to six years to test to get the right one," Hall told The Virginian-Pilot. "This will shorten the time to six months or a year."
The grant also will pay for new supplies and equipment, lab renovations and training and travel for researchers, said Sandra J. DeLoatch, the dean of the School of Science and Technology.
"For undergraduates, it's tremendous," she said. "It allows us to provide very valuable research experience to students to hopefully motivate them to go to graduate school to continue their studies."
aC. Sidebar
So if you don't believe high school girls should be on the pill or if your against contraceptive, how do you feel about this? Would this weaken the masculinity of males? How will men take it? If this is cheaper than a pack of rubbers then i'll take it, as long as it also improve sexually performance. Nothing is more sad than not being able to raise your crane when you need to, but can't. Which is to say, ED can be a contraceptive all in itself. The male pill...I wonder what it will be called. If you have Yasmin for women what about Cobra for men, because you can't have some silly, sensitive name marketed towards men. You can't reference that it will make you BUTCH, because your little Johnnys aren't really doing anything. I think COBRA would be a good name because it does take a bite out of you, but the pill still enables you attack. Can't you just feel the sexual innuendos from the name.
Okay, it's a Friday, I can be a little silly.
(AP)
A Norfolk State University researcher who has worked nearly 20 years to create a male contraceptive will share in a $3.6 million grant to help him further his work.
The funding for Joseph C. Hall's research is from the National Institutes of Health. The grant, Hall said, will bring to his research the world of "computer-assisted drug design" to speed the time he can produce compounds for testing. The grant, distributed over five years, will support Norfolk State's Center for Biotechnology and Biomedical Sciences, which Hall directs.
Hall's research, which has received money from the National Science Foundation, seeks to blunt sperm's ability to fertilize eggs. His focus is the enzyme that penetrates the sugar coating that surrounds the egg. He is seeking a compound that can bind to the enzyme, deactivating the sperm. While Hall has reached a solid success rate of 92 percent, he wants his contraceptive to be 100 percent foolproof. He expects the final product to be in the form of a patch.
The university's first NIH grant in 13 years will also will be used on protein research, which could improve cancer treatments; add at least a handful of faculty positions; and provide opportunities for students and faculty members to collaborate with their counterparts at Eastern Virginia +Medical+ School and the University of Virginia.
"So often, Norfolk State has had to be the school that follows new leads that come up in generally established programs," said Hall, an associate professor of chemistry. "We decided to take an initiative role and be a leader for a change."
By supporting the emerging field of computer-assisted drug design, the NIH grant will help Hall make and test compounds more quickly.
"Right now, at the rate I'm going, synthesizing one compound at a time, it would take me five to six years to test to get the right one," Hall told The Virginian-Pilot. "This will shorten the time to six months or a year."
The grant also will pay for new supplies and equipment, lab renovations and training and travel for researchers, said Sandra J. DeLoatch, the dean of the School of Science and Technology.
"For undergraduates, it's tremendous," she said. "It allows us to provide very valuable research experience to students to hopefully motivate them to go to graduate school to continue their studies."
aC. Sidebar
So if you don't believe high school girls should be on the pill or if your against contraceptive, how do you feel about this? Would this weaken the masculinity of males? How will men take it? If this is cheaper than a pack of rubbers then i'll take it, as long as it also improve sexually performance. Nothing is more sad than not being able to raise your crane when you need to, but can't. Which is to say, ED can be a contraceptive all in itself. The male pill...I wonder what it will be called. If you have Yasmin for women what about Cobra for men, because you can't have some silly, sensitive name marketed towards men. You can't reference that it will make you BUTCH, because your little Johnnys aren't really doing anything. I think COBRA would be a good name because it does take a bite out of you, but the pill still enables you attack. Can't you just feel the sexual innuendos from the name.
Okay, it's a Friday, I can be a little silly.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
What Did The Smurfs Ever Do To You?
I knew it, Saddam never had any WMDs, it was acutally Gargamel. The search for Weapons of Mass Destruction are over. It's a still a sad day for the Smurfs though. Interesting enough you get to see Smurfette to the left. Was UNICEF also trying to say that whoring yourself is as bad as the consequences of war? Where's Brauny Smurf, shouldn't he be armed with an assault rifle or on a turret someplace in the background? Regardless, this is a f**ked up. Effective, but f**ked up.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
You though the Foremans had it bad...
Arkansas Mother Gives Birth to 16th Child
Associated Press
Michelle Duggar just delivered her 16th child, and she's already thinking about doing it again.
Johannah Faith Duggar was born at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and weighed 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces.
The baby's father, Jim Bob Duggar, a former state representative, said Wednesday that mother and child were doing well.
He said Johannah's birth was especially exciting because it was the first time in eight years the family has had a girl.
Jim Bob Duggar, 40, said he and Michelle, 39, want more children.
"We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," he said.
The Discovery Health Channel filmed Johannah's birth and plans to air a show about the family of 18 next May. The Learning Channel is doing another show about the family's construction project, a 7,000-square foot house that should be finished before Christmas. The home, which the family has been building for two years, will have nine bathrooms, dormitory-style bedrooms for the girls and boys, a commercial kitchen, four washing machines and four dryers.
Jim Bob Duggar, who sells real estate, previously lost his bid for the U.S. Senate. He said he expects to run for the state Senate next year but isn't ready to make a formal announcement.
Michelle Duggar had her first child at age 21, four years after the couple married.
Their children include two sets of twins, and each child has a name beginning with the letter "J": Joshua, 17; John David, 15; Janna, 15; Jill, 14; Jessa, 12; Jinger, 11; Joseph, 10; Josiah, 9; Joy-Anna, 8; Jeremiah, 6; Jedidiah, 6; Jason, 5; James, 4; Justin, 2; and Jackson Levi, 1.
aC. Sidebar
Okay, I feel bad for the children. I thought all the George's and Georgina's in the Foreman family had it bad, this is like their family with a side of the Waltons. Frankly, I want 26 children myself. One for each letter of the alphabet. Maybe even more. I'll even start thinking about naming them by numbers. "Okay, number 5901234. It's time for you to go sleep."
Associated Press
Michelle Duggar just delivered her 16th child, and she's already thinking about doing it again.
Johannah Faith Duggar was born at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and weighed 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces.
The baby's father, Jim Bob Duggar, a former state representative, said Wednesday that mother and child were doing well.
He said Johannah's birth was especially exciting because it was the first time in eight years the family has had a girl.
Jim Bob Duggar, 40, said he and Michelle, 39, want more children.
"We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," he said.
The Discovery Health Channel filmed Johannah's birth and plans to air a show about the family of 18 next May. The Learning Channel is doing another show about the family's construction project, a 7,000-square foot house that should be finished before Christmas. The home, which the family has been building for two years, will have nine bathrooms, dormitory-style bedrooms for the girls and boys, a commercial kitchen, four washing machines and four dryers.
Jim Bob Duggar, who sells real estate, previously lost his bid for the U.S. Senate. He said he expects to run for the state Senate next year but isn't ready to make a formal announcement.
Michelle Duggar had her first child at age 21, four years after the couple married.
Their children include two sets of twins, and each child has a name beginning with the letter "J": Joshua, 17; John David, 15; Janna, 15; Jill, 14; Jessa, 12; Jinger, 11; Joseph, 10; Josiah, 9; Joy-Anna, 8; Jeremiah, 6; Jedidiah, 6; Jason, 5; James, 4; Justin, 2; and Jackson Levi, 1.
aC. Sidebar
Okay, I feel bad for the children. I thought all the George's and Georgina's in the Foreman family had it bad, this is like their family with a side of the Waltons. Frankly, I want 26 children myself. One for each letter of the alphabet. Maybe even more. I'll even start thinking about naming them by numbers. "Okay, number 5901234. It's time for you to go sleep."
Tomb Raider for President..
Yes, I'm voteing for Angelina for the next President of the United States of Kick-Ass America. Hmm. Brad Pitt will be the first bitch. Yes! I think every straight man in America would vote for her.
Don't Get Me Wrong...
Root Cause Analysis...finding the real cause of the problem and dealing with it rather than simply continuing to deal with the symptoms.
Okay, here me out. Big companies wants to pocket a lot of money. Clear? Who wouldn't? So the question is why do companies want to pocket money from the Capitol? Symptoms? Lobbyiest, Robber-Barons, and such. Corporate greed. Arthur Anderson to Enron to WorldCom. So, what is the root cause?
People want money, but why would a CEO or President want to pocket so much money? Greed is clearly evident, but why is it at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and Halliburton? My reasoning is opportunity and demand. People need gas, phone lines, cable tv, security, and peace. People will pay for it. It's the greatest quick-rich scheme ever. People need to drive their cars to work. People need to heat their houses. There is a demand.
Yes, in a certain way I am defending the big oil companies. They're not the hogs of Washington. Just look at you and me. When I say you and me, I'm talking about your cousin in China, Africa, Brazil, and Soviet Russia where car drives you. We live in a colossus global economy and a very demanding environment. I'm almost finishing reading the book Collapse by Jared Diamond. The book defines the impact of human existance in respect to local and global economies and environment. Face it. Gas prices will continue to sky rocket. You know why? Because births are exceeding deaths. We have more mouths to feed, and some of our mouths have silver spoons in them.
The 5 cent hot dog at the local drive-in theater has to feed more mouths these days. That's why they're $5.00 at the local AMC. I'm taking a hard look at the world. We're simply consuming too much than that's replaceable. I'm talking about the trees in the Amazon, the water ways near the Three Gorges Dam, overfishing in every part of this earth, and the other detrimental effects of humans on our precious ecosystem.
So don't blame the oil companies if they want to pocket mega-million deals in Washington for building oil refineraries in your back yard. We need to drive our Hummers you know, and if every people wants a Hummer, Porsche, or an Escalade with 20 inch dubs then whose going to fill it up? Don't blame drug companies for wanting to inflat prices up on new drugs. You know how expensive approval and liability insurances are? I don't really know much about the drug world, but I know regulatory processes are long and agonizing. There are complex sides to every story, compliant, and pamphlet. I don't really care if you take a particular side or not, but think about it, there always are. Unfortunately I like to eat chicken, so are you going to defend the innocent chickens?
I would like to mention that tact is for me the issue. I'm an ethical man. I know the money that corporations receive do not all go to R & D, or their needed channels. I'm really upset to hear about the corporate spending and irresponsbility. I'm really upset about the sex party that Fred Smoot and the Minnesota Viking players were involved in this past Thursday. Yes, sinning is easier than doing the right thing. I digress. I don't want to see our environment or ecosystem damaged. I love Mother Earth. In fact we've hooked up several times. She provides the air I breath, the water I drinking, and the soft green grass I need to walk on when it's 3am, I'm coming home from the bars, and I'm too drunk to walk and I fall down.
So corporate raiding is okay, as long as no orgies, parties at Chanel and Louis Vuitton, or consuming a gallon of milk in under a hour are involved. Excess, that's what's all it about baby. Sorry Dick Vitel, but truely, mind the gaps. Drug, Oil, and Airline companies need your money. Frankly, they need it. I don't know if a double standard is involved or not, but i'm willing to pay for it. Just not for Ted, Mr. Ringas, Ken Lay, or any other unethical greedy bastard. That's my two cents, but because of inflation I can say your getting two dollars worth. So continue to save the world, walk don't drive, don't pee in the public pool, buy recycled paper, and drink water from the tap, because its your local Evian source.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Let's Do It...
World needs Kyoto climate pact: scientist
The world must stick with the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and the United States needs to show leadership in limiting climate change instead of being an obstacle, a top British scientist said on Monday.
Officials from 150 nations meet in Canada next month to discuss how to take the Kyoto pact beyond 2012, when its first phase ends.
The pact, which came into force this year, obliges only developed nations to meet emissions targets while developing nations, including big polluters China and India, are excluded until at least 2012.
"We are faced with a situation in which the United States is not prepared to get on board Kyoto, so taking it forward from there is difficult," said Sir David King, chief scientific adviser for the British government.
President George W. Bush pulled the United States, the world's top polluter, out of Kyoto in 2001 saying that emissions targets could threaten economic growth and that excluding large developing nations didn't make sense.
Australia refused to ratify the pact for the same reasons, while India does not believe setting targets is the right solution.
Under Kyoto, agreed by governments at a 1997 U.N. conference in the Japanese city, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries should be cut by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels during the five-year period 2008-2012.
But many countries are already well behind their targets and refusal by the United States and Australia delayed the pact finally coming into force.
Asked if he believed such disagreements meant Kyoto needed to be scrapped or amended, King said: "No, I don't."
"I think the White House is keen to push the whole technology debate forward without putting forward any global emissions plan. I don't see within the U.S. something that will bring global action into play," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a climate change forum in Singapore.
The United States, Australia and four Asian nations including China, unveiled their own pact in July that focused on harnessing cleaner energy technology to curb greenhouse emissions.
STICK WITH KYOTO
This pact, dubbed "beyond Kyoto," was described as complimentary to Kyoto but the different approaches in curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by big polluters could bog down the Montreal talks.
Last week Britain played down hopes of a breakthrough and host Canada was equally gloomy.
But King said nations should stick with Kyoto.
"What I believe is that first of all we need to get Kyoto up and running and then to go to Kyoto plus," he said, adding that emissions trading is crucial to force utilities and energy companies to become more efficient.
"I think that is absolutely crucial and it would be wrong to abandon Kyoto," he said.
Asked the best way to bring China and India into the second phase of Kyoto, he said it was crucial to recognize that both countries were heavily dependent on their own coal reserves.
"We need to recognize that and in recognizing that we therefore need to be working with them on technologies such as carbon capture and storage, on alternative energy and demonstrating the idea is not to cut their economic growth."
He hoped Montreal would yield a breakthrough or at least demonstrate a way forward.
"The point is that as we move forward, the seriousness of the issue is becoming more apparent and everyone realizes it's in all of our interests to get some agreement out of this. That has to be crucial to the process."
Crucial, too, was the United States' role. "I think it's very important that America finds a way to play a similar leadership role," he said pointing to Britain's commitment to cut emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
aC. Sidebar
Scientist including me suggests this as well. Granted, I'm a computer scientist. Conservation is the best way to save on the consumption on gas, thus slowing the demand of gas and bringing down the cost of gas (oline). Much of the the crude process of burning coal is inefficient. Although cheap, the long-term cost of maintainence is expensive. To third world countries, this approach is the old way of making money. First world nation like US, Australia, and UK, should participate in changing this. We're in the generation of outsourcing and utilizing globalization. If companies like GM, Dell, and Nike who have investments and businesses in those countries can fight for strict standards and for more strategic investments of money and responsbilities. The Kyoto Protocol can be feasible according to Bush. This change does cost money, but asking a corporation to invest in technology and more specifically technology that have no direct effect on sales and revenue is hard for management to agree with. You have to approach like project management. There is a need. You have to say that the current world of emissions and pollution is not right.
I think we're all know of the need, but there isn't a global consensus on the approach. It's like needing to score a touchdown to win the game. You need to score, plain and simple. Do cut emissions and offer standards that are more strict or do you develop new technology to produce cleaner emissions. Either way, pollution has to decrease. That's the principle of the Kyoto Protocol. So, lets get a champion, in aC. we trust. Let me lead this movement, because if there is no strong willed person to direct this inititive then it won't get done.
We know, we agree, lets go with a plan. Ends always justify the means my friend. That's me talking, not the Prince.
The world must stick with the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and the United States needs to show leadership in limiting climate change instead of being an obstacle, a top British scientist said on Monday.
Officials from 150 nations meet in Canada next month to discuss how to take the Kyoto pact beyond 2012, when its first phase ends.
The pact, which came into force this year, obliges only developed nations to meet emissions targets while developing nations, including big polluters China and India, are excluded until at least 2012.
"We are faced with a situation in which the United States is not prepared to get on board Kyoto, so taking it forward from there is difficult," said Sir David King, chief scientific adviser for the British government.
President George W. Bush pulled the United States, the world's top polluter, out of Kyoto in 2001 saying that emissions targets could threaten economic growth and that excluding large developing nations didn't make sense.
Australia refused to ratify the pact for the same reasons, while India does not believe setting targets is the right solution.
Under Kyoto, agreed by governments at a 1997 U.N. conference in the Japanese city, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries should be cut by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels during the five-year period 2008-2012.
But many countries are already well behind their targets and refusal by the United States and Australia delayed the pact finally coming into force.
Asked if he believed such disagreements meant Kyoto needed to be scrapped or amended, King said: "No, I don't."
"I think the White House is keen to push the whole technology debate forward without putting forward any global emissions plan. I don't see within the U.S. something that will bring global action into play," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a climate change forum in Singapore.
The United States, Australia and four Asian nations including China, unveiled their own pact in July that focused on harnessing cleaner energy technology to curb greenhouse emissions.
STICK WITH KYOTO
This pact, dubbed "beyond Kyoto," was described as complimentary to Kyoto but the different approaches in curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by big polluters could bog down the Montreal talks.
Last week Britain played down hopes of a breakthrough and host Canada was equally gloomy.
But King said nations should stick with Kyoto.
"What I believe is that first of all we need to get Kyoto up and running and then to go to Kyoto plus," he said, adding that emissions trading is crucial to force utilities and energy companies to become more efficient.
"I think that is absolutely crucial and it would be wrong to abandon Kyoto," he said.
Asked the best way to bring China and India into the second phase of Kyoto, he said it was crucial to recognize that both countries were heavily dependent on their own coal reserves.
"We need to recognize that and in recognizing that we therefore need to be working with them on technologies such as carbon capture and storage, on alternative energy and demonstrating the idea is not to cut their economic growth."
He hoped Montreal would yield a breakthrough or at least demonstrate a way forward.
"The point is that as we move forward, the seriousness of the issue is becoming more apparent and everyone realizes it's in all of our interests to get some agreement out of this. That has to be crucial to the process."
Crucial, too, was the United States' role. "I think it's very important that America finds a way to play a similar leadership role," he said pointing to Britain's commitment to cut emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
aC. Sidebar
Scientist including me suggests this as well. Granted, I'm a computer scientist. Conservation is the best way to save on the consumption on gas, thus slowing the demand of gas and bringing down the cost of gas (oline). Much of the the crude process of burning coal is inefficient. Although cheap, the long-term cost of maintainence is expensive. To third world countries, this approach is the old way of making money. First world nation like US, Australia, and UK, should participate in changing this. We're in the generation of outsourcing and utilizing globalization. If companies like GM, Dell, and Nike who have investments and businesses in those countries can fight for strict standards and for more strategic investments of money and responsbilities. The Kyoto Protocol can be feasible according to Bush. This change does cost money, but asking a corporation to invest in technology and more specifically technology that have no direct effect on sales and revenue is hard for management to agree with. You have to approach like project management. There is a need. You have to say that the current world of emissions and pollution is not right.
I think we're all know of the need, but there isn't a global consensus on the approach. It's like needing to score a touchdown to win the game. You need to score, plain and simple. Do cut emissions and offer standards that are more strict or do you develop new technology to produce cleaner emissions. Either way, pollution has to decrease. That's the principle of the Kyoto Protocol. So, lets get a champion, in aC. we trust. Let me lead this movement, because if there is no strong willed person to direct this inititive then it won't get done.
We know, we agree, lets go with a plan. Ends always justify the means my friend. That's me talking, not the Prince.
I'm Carnac the Magnificent...
Psychic seeks $25 million reward for Saddam
Fri Oct 7
A Brazilian court will consider a psychic's claim that the U.S. government owes him a $25 million reward for information he says he provided on the hiding place of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Brazil's second-highest court, the Superior Court of Justice, decided Thursday the Brazilian justice system could rule on the matter and told a court in the psychic's home state of Minas Gerais to judge the case.
The lower court had earlier told Jucelino Nobrega da Luz it could not take up his claim and it would have to be judged in the United States, but the higher tribunal ruled otherwise.
"The Minas Gerais court will work with the claim," said a spokesman for the Superior Court of Justice.
"Jucelino da Luz alleges that the U.S. armed forces only found Saddam based on his letters that provided his exact location, the very hole where he was hiding in Iraq. So he filed a court case to claim the reward."
The U.S. government offered the award for Saddam in July 2003 after the U.S.-led forces occupied the country. He was captured in December of the same year.
The court said Da Luz sent letters to the U.S. government from September 2001, describing Saddam's future hiding place -- a tiny cellar at a farmhouse near Tikrit. He never received a reply.
"His lawyers attest that the author has an uncommon gift of having visions of things that will come to pass. ... Via dreams, he sees situations, facts that will happen in the future," a court statement said.
In case the court upholds the claim, it will be sent via diplomatic channels to the U.S. State Department.
aC. Sidebar
... A dark room, bars, bed, and sleeping
... Tell me where, behind what, in what and what Saddam will be doing tonight at 10:30pm?
I think I'm a psychic...where's my money?
Fri Oct 7
A Brazilian court will consider a psychic's claim that the U.S. government owes him a $25 million reward for information he says he provided on the hiding place of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Brazil's second-highest court, the Superior Court of Justice, decided Thursday the Brazilian justice system could rule on the matter and told a court in the psychic's home state of Minas Gerais to judge the case.
The lower court had earlier told Jucelino Nobrega da Luz it could not take up his claim and it would have to be judged in the United States, but the higher tribunal ruled otherwise.
"The Minas Gerais court will work with the claim," said a spokesman for the Superior Court of Justice.
"Jucelino da Luz alleges that the U.S. armed forces only found Saddam based on his letters that provided his exact location, the very hole where he was hiding in Iraq. So he filed a court case to claim the reward."
The U.S. government offered the award for Saddam in July 2003 after the U.S.-led forces occupied the country. He was captured in December of the same year.
The court said Da Luz sent letters to the U.S. government from September 2001, describing Saddam's future hiding place -- a tiny cellar at a farmhouse near Tikrit. He never received a reply.
"His lawyers attest that the author has an uncommon gift of having visions of things that will come to pass. ... Via dreams, he sees situations, facts that will happen in the future," a court statement said.
In case the court upholds the claim, it will be sent via diplomatic channels to the U.S. State Department.
aC. Sidebar
... A dark room, bars, bed, and sleeping
... Tell me where, behind what, in what and what Saddam will be doing tonight at 10:30pm?
I think I'm a psychic...where's my money?
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Welcome to Earth??? (Part 2)
Families End Up With Porn DVD by Mistake
A Utah-based film company will try to maintain its squeaky-clean image by offering compensation to customers who bought the "Sons of Provo" DVD but found "Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" inside the case.
Two families reported the problem after purchasing DVDs at Deseret Book stores, which are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
HaleStorm Entertainment is offering $100 to anyone who mistakenly ended up with the "Adored" DVD instead of "Sons of Provo."
HaleStorm also plans to donate an additional $100 per DVD to CP80, an anti-pornography initiative.
"We are committed to producing family friendly entertainment and are devastated that some of the 'Sons of Provo' DVDs out there contain illicit material," Dave Hunter, HaleStorm's president and CEO, said in a statement.
The movies got mixed up at a Los Angeles firm that replicates both films for mass distribution.
"Sons of Provo" is a PG-rated film about the ups and downs of a Mormon boy band. "Adored" is an unrated independent film about a gay porn star's attempt to reconnect with his family.
aC. Sidebar
HAHAHAHAHA...craze Mormons.
A Utah-based film company will try to maintain its squeaky-clean image by offering compensation to customers who bought the "Sons of Provo" DVD but found "Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" inside the case.
Two families reported the problem after purchasing DVDs at Deseret Book stores, which are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
HaleStorm Entertainment is offering $100 to anyone who mistakenly ended up with the "Adored" DVD instead of "Sons of Provo."
HaleStorm also plans to donate an additional $100 per DVD to CP80, an anti-pornography initiative.
"We are committed to producing family friendly entertainment and are devastated that some of the 'Sons of Provo' DVDs out there contain illicit material," Dave Hunter, HaleStorm's president and CEO, said in a statement.
The movies got mixed up at a Los Angeles firm that replicates both films for mass distribution.
"Sons of Provo" is a PG-rated film about the ups and downs of a Mormon boy band. "Adored" is an unrated independent film about a gay porn star's attempt to reconnect with his family.
aC. Sidebar
HAHAHAHAHA...craze Mormons.
Welcome to Earth???
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes expecting
The couple has been dating since June of this year
The Associated Press
Oct. 5, 2005
NEW YORK - Let the couch-jumping begin: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are expecting a baby.
Holmes’ pregnancy was reported Wednesday by People magazine. The couple have been dating since April and became engaged in June.
“Tom and Katie are very excited, and the entire family is very excited,” Lee Anne Devette, Cruise’s spokeswoman, told People.
It would be Holmes’ first child. Cruise has two children, Connor, 10, and Isabella, 12, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.
No further details were available. Devette added that Holmes, 26, “has never felt better.”
Cruise, 43, is now shooting “Mission” Impossible 3.”
aC. Sidebar
Okay...boy or girl? Either way the child will be the next anti-Christ. Oops, did that slip out? I guess now all young professional-aged (late 20's-early 30's) women know what it feels like to sleep with Tom Cruise. The child should be cute, it'll be a cross between Joey and Maverick.
The couple has been dating since June of this year
The Associated Press
Oct. 5, 2005
NEW YORK - Let the couch-jumping begin: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are expecting a baby.
Holmes’ pregnancy was reported Wednesday by People magazine. The couple have been dating since April and became engaged in June.
“Tom and Katie are very excited, and the entire family is very excited,” Lee Anne Devette, Cruise’s spokeswoman, told People.
It would be Holmes’ first child. Cruise has two children, Connor, 10, and Isabella, 12, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.
No further details were available. Devette added that Holmes, 26, “has never felt better.”
Cruise, 43, is now shooting “Mission” Impossible 3.”
aC. Sidebar
Okay...boy or girl? Either way the child will be the next anti-Christ. Oops, did that slip out? I guess now all young professional-aged (late 20's-early 30's) women know what it feels like to sleep with Tom Cruise. The child should be cute, it'll be a cross between Joey and Maverick.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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