Thursday, March 31, 2011
A final goodbye to Brian W. Taylor, killed in Christchurch earthquake 22.02.2011
Yesterday the 31 st of March in Christchurch, over 1300 people turned up to farewell Brian Warrington Taylor who was killed when the Canterbury TV building collapsed on 22 February, 2011.
From talking to many people he was not only a wonderful and very close friend of mine for over 49 years, but a loving and helpful husband, father, brother, friend, teacher, scientist, coach and mentor to many.
You were fittingly farewelled yesterday Brian and I am just sorry I couldn't make it for the service, and for the rip-roaring wake that I am sure followed where all your old friends from your running days gathered to honour, and toast to your memory. My two daughters Aroha and Ruia represented me and were deeply moved by the service. This presentation below has helped me grieve and mourn for you Brian, I hope it will help others too.
Here is a comment from my daughter Aroha who attended the service: From talking to many people he was not only a wonderful and very close friend of mine for over 49 years, but a loving and helpful husband, father, brother, friend, teacher, scientist, coach and mentor to many.
You were fittingly farewelled yesterday Brian and I am just sorry I couldn't make it for the service, and for the rip-roaring wake that I am sure followed where all your old friends from your running days gathered to honour, and toast to your memory. My two daughters Aroha and Ruia represented me and were deeply moved by the service. This presentation below has helped me grieve and mourn for you Brian, I hope it will help others too.
Thank you for introducing me to Brian. He was very generous with his time and he always encouraged me to go beyond my best. Brian’s Funeral was truly amazing and he was described by many as positive, generous with his time, interested in people and passionate. A record of achievments was remarkable. He was very ambitious as are you Dad and it is both admirable and honorable. I know he will be greatly missed by many, the running group will continue to do so well and sure they will forever recall those words of positivity and encouragement as I will. An outstanding Man. May Gods peace & love comfort Prue and Brian’s loved ones.
Palin Rumor Mill Turns Out April Fools Joke
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Don't believe the hype. Sarah Palin, despite rumors to the contrary, won't be making a major announcement about her political future this Friday, sources tell Fox News.
They say the rumors she may announce a 2012 presidential run where just that -- rumors. One source, Meg Stapleton, Palin’s former spokeswoman, said that there would be no major announcement of any kind on Friday. Stapleton has remained in contact with the Palin family and also spoke with Tim Crawford, Palin’s chief fundraiser, about the rumor.
The rumor that Palin was going to appear on an Anchorage radio station at 7:30 a.m. local time to make a major announcement was first reported by the celebrity news website Hollywood Life and cited unnamed sources. It was repeated on the Huffington Post.
The big news was supposedly going to be broken on KWHL’s “Bob and Mark In the Morning” show. The two hosts did nothing to shoot down the speculation.
Bob Lester, one of the hosts, responded to inquiries in an email saying he did not know what Palin would be talking about Friday. “We can only hope she announces something ‘Big,’” he wrote
But Todd says that Sarah Palin is not even going to be a guest on the show.
Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and a Fox News contributor, has said that if and when she does make an announcement about her future she would do it on the “Bob and Mark In the Morning” show, and she’s already been on the show several times.
Stapleton says the hosts are more like "shock jocks" than newsmen, although Bob is described as a conservative who has been very good to Palin.
When asked about a timetable to announce her 2012 intentions, Palin has repeatedly said she is in no rush. April has traditionally been a busy month for candidates to throw their hats in the ring, but now we can safely put to rest any talk about the former Alaska governor making her
We have no clue at this point if Sarah will be on, or if she will make any type of announcement. Here is the link to the show, we suggest listen in; see what happens. The Bob and Mark show runs from 9:00 till 1:00 pm cst. http://www.kwhl.com/
We have no clue at this point if Sarah will be on, or if she will make any type of announcement. Here is the link to the show, we suggest listen in; see what happens. The Bob and Mark show runs from 9:00 till 1:00 pm cst. http://www.kwhl.com/
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/30/palin-rumor-turns-april-fools-joke/#ixzz1IEGx9oz1
Pro-life Watch Dog Group Says Senomyx Uses Cells from Abortions to Test Their Product
After pouring a total of 30 million dollars into research and development, the companies that have invested into Senomyx's products have been secretive about their involvement within the company. Some, like Kraft, have declined to divulge any specifics regarding their relationship with Senomyx, but instead stated that Kraft was committed "to reducing the sugar and salt levels in many products."
A relatively young company, Senomyx, is responsible for the sodium and sugar levels falling in your favorite grocery store item. How are they doing this without affecting the taste? They may be putting this chemical into your food without telling you. [1]
Senomyx masks bitter flavors by turning off bitter flavor receptors on the tongue and enhancing salty and sweet flavors. This would allow the companies to tout claims such as "less sugar" or "lower sodium" by reducing the actual sugar and/or salt by approximately half, but the foods will retain the same level of sweetness or saltiness when they touch the tongue by fooling your brain.[2]
Since Senomyx's flavor compounds will be used in small proportions, the company is able to bypass the lengthy F.D.A. approval process required to get food additives on the market. Getting the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association status of generally recognized as safe, it took Senomyx less than 18 months, including a 3-month safety study using rats. In contrast, the maker of the artificial sweetener Sucralose spent 11 years winning F.D.A. approval, and is required to list the ingredient on food labels.
Kraft, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Campbell Soup and Solae have contracted with the biotechnology company Senomyx, for exclusive rights to use the ingredients in certain types of food and beverages. [3]
The Children of God for Life claims that Senomyx is using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to assist in producing this chemical that will turn off receptors. This pro-life watch dog group that has been monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and cosmetics for years. The watch dog group is calling on the public to boycott products of major food companies that are partnering with Senomyx, unless the company stops using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products.
The spokesman for Children of God for Life stated, “They could have easily chosen COS (monkey) cells, Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, insect cells or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors,” Vinnedge added.
In writing to their collaborators, Nestlé finally admitted the truth about their relationship with Senomyx, noting the cell line was “well established in scientific research".[4]
Since a pro-life group announced that a biotech firm, Senomyx, is using aborted fetal cell lines to test their artificial flavor enhancers, two companies have announced they have disaffiliated with the firm. Within hours of its press statement to LifeNews.com, the pro-life group received notice from Campbell Soup has severed its ties with Senomyx. Solae, LLC, indicates it, too, has severed its ties with the controversial biotech firm. [5]
A new Kat is born, while WIPO clamps down on dissident IP weblogs
laden ladenfam is pleased to announce the appointment of a seventh member of its team, and a very special member he is too. Now that the formal approval of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Coordination Committee has been obtained, following an out-of-cycle meeting that was convened late last month, the path has been cleared for the organisation's Director-General Dr Francis Gurry to assume the mantle of the GurryKat.
The terms under which Francis has been permitted to contribute to this weblog are strictly circumscribed: he may not comment on specific provisions of national law of WIPO Member States; nor may he discuss (i) matters which are the subject of review by the organisation’s Standing Committees, (ii) topics that have been placed on the Agenda of the General Assembly or (iii) any matter that properly falls within the scope of the organization’s Development Agenda. Francis has however been given the go-ahead to post items relating to the provision of mediation and dispute resolution services, the value of intellectual property rights in social, cultural and economic dialogue between nations and the aspirational role played by intellectual property in incentivizing the next generation of young creators.
Prima facie it seems surprising that the Director General of a United Nations agency should be prepared to expose his thoughts to the robust forum of thought which is the intellectual property blogosphere. In retrospect, however, one can see why Dr Gurry would have agreed. While he is a career diplomat who respects the rules and conventions which that role demands, those close to his office say that he has in recent months been seen to have been showing signs of being a visionary in his field, a role that is difficult to fulfill within what laden ladenfam and Merpel would regard as the chafing confines and stifling etiquette of the diplomatic environment in which he dicharges his official functions.
Geneva-based journalist, international institution expert and WIPO-watcher Chad R. Bocks, a keen observer of diplomatic trends, has reacted by confessing to “giddy anticipation” over the news of Gurry’s appointment. “When they take the step of letting an inventive visionary of Dr Gurry’s calibre stretch his intellectual wings, we will all finally understand the patent’s true place in the universe. He’s an industrious thinker, but don’t expect a novel,” he said. “Now that’s letting the spiritual leader of the creative industries get creative!”
In a presumably unrelated development, the WIPO Council has approved in outline the establishment of a two-tier “watch-list”: there would be an “A-List” of intellectual property weblogs which are considered to be potentially harmful to the intellectual property environment and a “B-List” of those which are seen as being positively detrimental to the aims and objectives of rights protection.
Weblogs on the “A-List” will be monitored by a panel of peers for signs of deviation from the generally agreed norms of intellectual property blogging. Egregious breaches of these norms will be met by the issue of a warning notice. Under a proposed “three strikes” policy, any blog receiving three such warnings will be transferred to the “B-List”. It is intended that weblogs placed on the “B-List” may only be accessed by clicking through a front page which carries an IP “health warning” that its contents are contrary to good intellectual property policy and morals. If there is any further infraction, the weblog will be taken down and the blogmeister will be ordered to undergo an initial six-month period of rehabilitation in which he will be required to read a prescribed list of corrective materials which reportedly will include all publications that emanate from the WIPO Press Room.
In response to a request for further information made by William New of the excellent and ever-reliable Intellectual Property Watch, which is based locally in Geneva, a spokesperson --who asked not to be identified by name -- explained that neither list has yet been ratified, but possible blogs for inclusion on the “A-List” include Howard Knopf’s Excess Copyright, which is known to have targeted the much-admired United States ‘301 reports’, Gene Quinn’s IP Watchdog (for shameless self-promotion) and Marty Schwimmer’s Trademark Blog for persistently applying humour to serious issues and vice versa. Favourites for inclusion on the “B-List” are the Lessig Blog, which is generally held responsible for undermining copyright values among impressionable young readers and remains visible nearly two years after its author went into hibernation, Against Monopoly, for allegedly defending the right to innovate, and the IPKat for its persistent criticisms of WIPO’s failure to protect the rights in its own logo [“surely some mistake!”, whimpers Merpel]. Implementation of these proposals may be accelerated to ensure that they govern blogposts from the GurryKat, who has affirmed his willingness to be bound by WIPO's weblog protocol.
For further particulars of these WIPO-related developments, click here
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| The Doc, as WIPO Director General ... |
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| ... and as readers of this blog will meet him |
Geneva-based journalist, international institution expert and WIPO-watcher Chad R. Bocks, a keen observer of diplomatic trends, has reacted by confessing to “giddy anticipation” over the news of Gurry’s appointment. “When they take the step of letting an inventive visionary of Dr Gurry’s calibre stretch his intellectual wings, we will all finally understand the patent’s true place in the universe. He’s an industrious thinker, but don’t expect a novel,” he said. “Now that’s letting the spiritual leader of the creative industries get creative!”
In a presumably unrelated development, the WIPO Council has approved in outline the establishment of a two-tier “watch-list”: there would be an “A-List” of intellectual property weblogs which are considered to be potentially harmful to the intellectual property environment and a “B-List” of those which are seen as being positively detrimental to the aims and objectives of rights protection.
Weblogs on the “A-List” will be monitored by a panel of peers for signs of deviation from the generally agreed norms of intellectual property blogging. Egregious breaches of these norms will be met by the issue of a warning notice. Under a proposed “three strikes” policy, any blog receiving three such warnings will be transferred to the “B-List”. It is intended that weblogs placed on the “B-List” may only be accessed by clicking through a front page which carries an IP “health warning” that its contents are contrary to good intellectual property policy and morals. If there is any further infraction, the weblog will be taken down and the blogmeister will be ordered to undergo an initial six-month period of rehabilitation in which he will be required to read a prescribed list of corrective materials which reportedly will include all publications that emanate from the WIPO Press Room.
In response to a request for further information made by William New of the excellent and ever-reliable Intellectual Property Watch, which is based locally in Geneva, a spokesperson --who asked not to be identified by name -- explained that neither list has yet been ratified, but possible blogs for inclusion on the “A-List” include Howard Knopf’s Excess Copyright, which is known to have targeted the much-admired United States ‘301 reports’, Gene Quinn’s IP Watchdog (for shameless self-promotion) and Marty Schwimmer’s Trademark Blog for persistently applying humour to serious issues and vice versa. Favourites for inclusion on the “B-List” are the Lessig Blog, which is generally held responsible for undermining copyright values among impressionable young readers and remains visible nearly two years after its author went into hibernation, Against Monopoly, for allegedly defending the right to innovate, and the IPKat for its persistent criticisms of WIPO’s failure to protect the rights in its own logo [“surely some mistake!”, whimpers Merpel]. Implementation of these proposals may be accelerated to ensure that they govern blogposts from the GurryKat, who has affirmed his willingness to be bound by WIPO's weblog protocol.
For further particulars of these WIPO-related developments, click here
Are we ready for Baby Googles?
"It's a familiar story - a scrappy little underdog launches a competition complaint in Brussels about the giant that dominates its industry. Ten years ago it would have been Netscape accusing Microsoft of abusing its monopoly power - today it's Microsoft charging Google with the same crime.This member of laden ladenfam team is not surprised. He has been telling his friends for the past four years that the only thing that can stop Google taking over the world, if people want to stop it doing so, is to focus on its crushingly powerful market position. It is effectively impossible for any other business to compete with the combination of forces -- Google Book, Chrome, YouYube, AdWord and AdSense -- which together will inexorably drive so much individualised information into its marketing and advertising facilities that no other electronic or printed media will be remotely able to provide value for the money advertisers are prepared to spend in marketing their goods and services.
Microsoft's first ever competition complaint is not just a wonderfully ironic turn of events, it's a measure of how the balance of power on the web has shifted. A decade ago control of the desktop and what applications lived on it was still all important - now it's the control of search which delivers huge power and billions of advertising dollars to Google.
... Microsoft is determined that its Bing search engine should make serious headway. In Europe at least, that's not happening. According to Microsoft, Google has 95% of the search market. Now it claims that Google is using its power unfairly to maintain that dominance. Its complaint - which as Google points out is just an addition to an existing antitrust case in which a Microsoft subsidiary was already a complainant - is that the search company is putting walls around content that rivals need if they are to compete.
In a long blog post, Microsoft's chief legal counsel Brad Smith outlines a series of areas where he says Google is impeding competition. He claims that it's very difficult, for example, for rivals to get proper access to YouTube - owned by Google - for their search results.
He points to the Google Books plan - blocked by a US court last week - as another case where any other search engine will get poor access to valuable content, in this case millions of books.
And he says that Google uses its business relationship with leading websites to block them from installing competing search boxes on their sites. ..."
Is there a solution? It has always been axiomatic in European competition terms that the existence of a dominant position in a marketplace is not harmful unless it is abusive, but Google is so ominpowerful and omnipresent, and is such an essential facility for all traders in all markets at all times, that there is no way to deal with it other than by breaking it up into lots of Baby Googles that will be forced to compete with one another, by analogy with the Baby Bells and Standard Oil.
Goo-Goo Baby here
Japan's Nuclear Rescuers: 'Inevitable Some of Them May Die Within Weeks'
AP
March 14: A Red Cross rescue worker, in red, is scanned for signs of radiation upon returning from Fukushima to his hospital in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture.
Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News.
The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online.
Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.
“He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.”
The woman spoke to Fox News on the condition of anonymity because, she said, plant workers had been asked by management not to communicate with the media or share details with family members in order to minimize public panic.
She could not confirm if her son or other workers were already suffering from radiation sickness. But she added: “They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months. They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.”
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (or TEPCO), says medical teams conduct regular testing on the restoration workers for signs of contamination-related illness. It claims there have been no further cases following the three workers who were treated last week after coming into direct contact with radioactive water. There are no reports of new members of the Fukushima 50 developing radiation sickness.
Although two suffered radiation burns to their legs and ankles and absorbed radiation internally, they have since been released from the hospital and are regularly being checked for signs of any deterioration in their condition, says TEPCO.
The company has pledged to improve the tough conditions for workers who stay on the site due to the short turnaround of shifts on safety grounds.
Some restorers directly tackling the problems with the fuel rod containment chambers are limited to 15 minutes at a time inside the reactor buildings or working near highly radioactive substances, including traces of plutonium that have appeared at numerous locations within the plant complex.
Living conditions for the hundreds of employees staying within the plant’s perimeter to support the restoration efforts are also equally as hazardous, say the authorities.
Banri Kaieda, the interior minister who also acts as a deputy head of the nuclear disaster task force jointly set up by the government and TEPCO, said 500 to 600 people were at one point lodging in a building within the complex. He told a media conference it was “not a situation in which minimum sleep and food could be ensured.”
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says that workers were only eating two basic meals of crackers and dried rice a day, and sleeping in conference rooms and hallways in the building.
According to Kaieda, not all of the workers had apparently been provided with lead sheeting to shield themselves from potentially radiation-contaminated floors while sleeping.
“My son has been sleeping on a desk because he is afraid to lie on the floor. But they say high radioactivity is everywhere and I think this will not save him,” said the mother of the worker who spoke to Fox News.
Meanwhile, bad weather has delayed TEPCO's plans to limit the spread of radiation from the plant. It has intended to spray a water-soluble resin to affix radioactive particles and substances to the debris sent scattered across the devastated complex to prevent it from being dispersed by wind and moisture.
It will now attempt on Friday test the synthetic solution using remote control vehicles to spray an area of 95,000 square yards at reactors four and six. The company hopes the resin will provide sufficient protection to allow restoration workers better access to areas critical to restoring the reactors' cooling systems to prevent a meltdown.
Growing pools of dangerously radioactive water and deposits of plutonium have been inhibiting access to important parts of the plant.
A large sea tanker is also being prepared to siphon and ship the water from the plant after it was discovered that run-off containers and drainage tanks were almost full at three of the most critical reactors.
The government says it has yet to be decided where they will dispose of that water.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/japans-nuclear-rescuers-inevitable-die-weeks/#ixzz1IDD1u5rh
It's Official...14 Year Old Muslim Girl Is Dead From Lashing After Adultery Accusation
Let me begin with this...in the world of Islam, when an older man, a married man, rapes and beats the shit out of a 14 year old girl, the girl gets charged with adultery. This was the case of a 14 year old girl in Bangladesh...we all know how many 14 year old girls live to have affairs with 40 year old men, right? Anyway, the girl was accused of adultery and under sharia law was sentenced to 100 lashes. Only problem this time is that 100 lashes was too much for this young girl and after being taken to the hospital, she died.
The pukes of Islam in Bangladesh even went so far as to try and pawn the cause of death off as a suicide. Well, the truth is out there now for the whole world to see and cringe from.
Let's be candid, no one is save from this perverted extremism - when the so-called "prophet" of your "religion" sets the mark by marrying a girl under 10 years old, what kind of behavior do you expect from followers? Perhaps this married man in Bangladesh saw a connection to Aisha in this girl and figured that if Mohammed enjoyed some young meat, perhaps he should too.
I've said it many times before, when a Muslim woman gives birth and she looks down to see that her newborn child is a female, she must sob in grief for the life of her new daughter.
Here's the full story from CNN:
Only 14, Bangladeshi girl charged with adultery was lashed to death
Shariatpur, Bangladesh (CNN) -- Hena Akhter's last words to her mother proclaimed her innocence. But it was too late to save the 14-year-old girl.
Her fellow villagers in Bangladesh's Shariatpur district had already passed harsh judgment on her. Guilty, they said, of having an affair with a married man. The imam from the local mosque ordered the fatwa, or religious ruling, and the punishment: 101 lashes delivered swiftly, deliberately in public.
Hena dropped after 70.
Bloodied and bruised, she was taken to hospital, where she died a week later.
Amazingly, an initial autopsy report cited no injuries and deemed her death a suicide. Hena's family insisted her body be exhumed. They wanted the world to know what really happened to their daughter.
Sharia: illegal but still practiced
Hena's family hailed from rural Shariatpur, crisscrossed by murky rivers that lend waters to rice paddies and lush vegetable fields.
Hena was the youngest of five children born to Darbesh Khan, a day laborer, and his wife, Aklima Begum. They shared a hut made from corrugated tin and decaying wood and led a simple life that was suddenly marred a year ago with the return of Hena's cousin Mahbub Khan.
Mahbub Khan came back to Shariatpur from a stint working in Malaysia. His son was Hena's age and the two were in seventh grade together.
Khan eyed Hena and began harassing her on her way to school and back, said Hena's father. He complained to the elders who run the village about his nephew, three times Hena's age.
The elders admonished Mahbub Khan and ordered him to pay $1,000 in fines to Hena's family. But Mahbub was Darbesh's older brother's son and Darbesh was asked to let the matter fade.
Many months later on a winter night, as Hena's sister Alya told it, Hena was walking from her room to an outdoor toilet when Mahbub Khan gagged her with cloth, forced her behind nearby shrubbery and beat and raped her.
Hena struggled to escape, Alya told CNN. Mahbub Khan's wife heard Hena's muffled screams and when she found Hena with her husband, she dragged the teenage girl back to her hut, beat her and trampled her on the floor.
The next day, the village elders met to discuss the case at Mahbub Khan's house, Alya said. The imam pronounced his fatwa. Khan and Hena were found guilty of an illicit relationship. Her punishment under sharia or Islamic law was 101 lashes; his 201.
Mahbub Khan managed to escape after the first few lashes.
Darbesh Khan and Aklima Begum had no choice but to mind the imam's order. They watched as the whip broke the skin of their youngest child and she fell unconscious to the ground.
"What happened to Hena is unfortunate and we all have to be ashamed that we couldn't save her life," said Sultana Kamal, who heads the rights organization Ain o Shalish Kendro.
Bangladesh is considered a democratic and moderate Muslim country, and national law forbids the practice of sharia. But activist and journalist Shoaib Choudhury, who documents such cases, said sharia is still very much in use in villages and towns aided by the lack of education and strong judicial systems.
The Supreme Court also outlawed fatwas a decade ago, but human rights monitors have documented more than 500 cases of women in those 10 years who were punished through a religious ruling. And few who have issued such rulings have been charged.
Last month, the court asked the government to explain what it had done to stop extrajudicial penalty based on fatwa. It ordered the dissemination of information to all mosques and madrassas, or religious schools, that sharia is illegal in Bangladesh.
"The government needs to enact a specific law to deal with such perpetrators responsible for extrajudicial penalty in the name of Islam," Kamal told CNN.
The United Nations estimates that almost half of Bangladeshi women suffer from domestic violence and many also commonly endure rape, beatings, acid attacks and even death because of the country's entrenched patriarchal system.
Hena might have quietly become another one of those statistics had it not been for the outcry and media attention that followed her death on January 31.
'Not even old enough to be married'
Monday, the doctors responsible for Hena's first autopsy faced prosecution for what a court called a "false post-mortem report to hide the real cause of Hena's death."
Public outrage sparked by that autopsy report prompted the high court to order the exhumation of Hena's body in February. A second autopsy performed at Dhaka Medical College Hospital revealed Hena had died of internal bleeding and her body bore the marks of severe injuries.
Police are now conducting an investigation and have arrested several people, including Mahbub Khan, in connection with Hena's death.
"I've nothing to demand but justice," said Darbesh Khan, leading a reporter to the place where his daughter was abducted the night she was raped.
He stood in silence and took a deep breath. She wasn't even old enough to be married, he said, testament to Hena's tenderness in a part of the world where many girls are married before adulthood. "She was so small."
Hena's mother, Aklima, stared vacantly as she spoke of her daughter's last hours. She could barely get out her words. "She was innocent," Aklima said, recalling Hena's last words.
Police were guarding Hena's family earlier this month. Darbesh and Aklima feared reprisal for having spoken out against the imam and the village elders.
They had meted out the most severe punishment for their youngest daughter. They could put nothing past them.
France ousted adviser on diversity, says the president's conservative party "plague of Muslims"
Plague of Muslims ~ Sarkozy has place curbs on immigration ~ respectfully you now must ~ have a job before you can marry and bring a cousin from the Islamic world [whose paying for this?] ~ you must now show or demonstrate that you want to be a part of France ~ so that a passport is not automatically given ~ but after a probationary period of some 8 years ~ the new immigrant must show that they want to be a part of French life ~ if not bye bye [no Islamic state], burqas have been banned [that's your religion, others shouldn't have to follow it and so it should not be imposed on them].
It is time for Muslims to pull their weight ~ if you want to live in the modern world ~ this is the modern world. Most French Muslims are from Algeria or Morocco ~ if you don't like modernity ~ rights and freedoms and so on ~ go back across the Mediterranean.
PARIS – French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ousted adviser on diversity says the president's conservative party is the "plague of Muslims."
Abderrahmane Dahmane was fired last month, in part for criticizing an upcoming debate on secularism and Islam organized by Sarkozy's UMP party.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Thursday he won't take part in the debate, which has drawn widespread criticism.
Dahmane told The Associated Press on Thursday that he wants to engage the Muslim community against the UMP and its leader, Jean-Francois Cope.
Dahmane has urged French Muslims to gather in front of the UMP headquarters to protest the debate next Tuesday.
He and other critics have said the UMP party is not the right forum for such a debate.
Fox News
It is time for Muslims to pull their weight ~ if you want to live in the modern world ~ this is the modern world. Most French Muslims are from Algeria or Morocco ~ if you don't like modernity ~ rights and freedoms and so on ~ go back across the Mediterranean.
PARIS – French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ousted adviser on diversity says the president's conservative party is the "plague of Muslims."
Abderrahmane Dahmane was fired last month, in part for criticizing an upcoming debate on secularism and Islam organized by Sarkozy's UMP party.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Thursday he won't take part in the debate, which has drawn widespread criticism.
Dahmane told The Associated Press on Thursday that he wants to engage the Muslim community against the UMP and its leader, Jean-Francois Cope.
Dahmane has urged French Muslims to gather in front of the UMP headquarters to protest the debate next Tuesday.
He and other critics have said the UMP party is not the right forum for such a debate.
Fox News
A New Definition Of Courage
By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle
Since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, the world has witnessed the remarkable strength and fortitude of the Japanese people. While other nations experience looting, rioting, and the full spectrum of criminal behavior whenever a disaster (man-made or natural) occurs. Not so with the nation of Japan. Politeness, sharing and the concept of community embodies this nation's soul. No where in Japan this is unquestionable than with the 50 men who have volunteered to stay at the doomed nuclear facility at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
Dr. Masaru Emoto released this statement:
Since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, the world has witnessed the remarkable strength and fortitude of the Japanese people. While other nations experience looting, rioting, and the full spectrum of criminal behavior whenever a disaster (man-made or natural) occurs. Not so with the nation of Japan. Politeness, sharing and the concept of community embodies this nation's soul. No where in Japan this is unquestionable than with the 50 men who have volunteered to stay at the doomed nuclear facility at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News.True Bravery knows no skin color, no one faith, no one nation. It comes from the depths of one's soul, stirred by conviction and nourished by one's conscience.
The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online.
Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.
“He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.”
The woman spoke to Fox News on the condition of anonymity because, she said, plant workers had been asked by management not to communicate with the media or share details with family members in order to minimize public panic.
She could not confirm if her son or other workers were already suffering from radiation sickness. But she added: “They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months. They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.”
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (or TEPCO), says medical teams conduct regular testing on the restoration workers for signs of contamination-related illness. It claims there have been no further cases following the three workers who were treated last week after coming into direct contact with radioactive water. There are no reports of new members of the Fukushima 50 developing radiation sickness.
Although two suffered radiation burns to their legs and ankles and absorbed radiation internally, they have since been released from the hospital and are regularly being checked for signs of any deterioration in their condition, says TEPCO.
The company has pledged to improve the tough conditions for workers who stay on the site due to the short turnaround of shifts on safety grounds.
Some restorers directly tackling the problems with the fuel rod containment chambers are limited to 15 minutes at a time inside the reactor buildings or working near highly radioactive substances, including traces of plutonium that have appeared at numerous locations within the plant complex.
Living conditions for the hundreds of employees staying within the plant’s perimeter to support the restoration efforts are also equally as hazardous, say the authorities.
Banri Kaieda, the interior minister who also acts as a deputy head of the nuclear disaster task force jointly set up by the government and TEPCO, said 500 to 600 people were at one point lodging in a building within the complex. He told a media conference it was “not a situation in which minimum sleep and food could be ensured.”
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says that workers were only eating two basic meals of crackers and dried rice a day, and sleeping in conference rooms and hallways in the building.
According to Kaieda, not all of the workers had apparently been provided with lead sheeting to shield themselves from potentially radiation-contaminated floors while sleeping.
“My son has been sleeping on a desk because he is afraid to lie on the floor. But they say high radioactivity is everywhere and I think this will not save him,” said the mother of the worker who spoke to Fox News.
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Dr. Masaru Emoto released this statement:
To All People Around the World,The Fukushima 50 will all certainly die of Radiation Sickness from their heroic efforts. Let us all pray that their sacrifice will not be in vain. That they will be able to do the impossible, and stop this disaster from destroying a good chunk of Northern Japan.
Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan.
By the massive earthquakes of Magnitude 9 and surreal massive tsunamis, more than 10,000 people are still missing. It has been 16 days already since the disaster happened. What makes it worse is that water at the reactors of Fukushima Nuclear Plants started to leak, and it's contaminating the ocean, air and water molecules of the surrounding areas.
Human wisdom has not been able to do much to solve the problem, but we are only trying to cool down the anger of radioactive materials in the reactors by discharging water to them.
Is there really nothing else to do?
I think there is. During over twenty year research of hado measuring and water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration of human prayer no matter how far away it is.
The energy formula of Albert Einstein, E=MC2 really means that Energy = number of people and the square of people's consciousness.
Now is the time to understand the true meaning. Let us all join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet earth.
I would like to ask all people, not just in Japan, but all around the world to please help us to find a way out the crisis of this planet
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