A man who has given away millions of dollars and become known as Secret Santa for handing out Christmas cash to the needy is allowing his name to be publicized after 26 years.
But the reason for the revelation is an unhappy one. Secret Santa has cancer. He wants to start speaking to community groups about his belief in random acts of kindness, but he can't do that without telling people who he is.
Exposure to industrial chemicals in the womb or early in life can impair brain development but only a handful are controlled to protect children, researchers said on Wednesday.
Americans now rank climate change as the country’s most pressing environmental concern, a new survey reveals. This is a dramatic shift from just three years ago, when climate change ranked only sixth out of 10 environmental problems.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061103/ap_on_sc/politics_genetics
From this article:
"Genetic researchers are trying to prove that social attitudes can be
inherited, and have discovered strong correlations between the two.
So far, the political connection has relied on studies by Lindon Eaves,
professor of human genetics and psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth
University. About 8,000 sets of identical and fraternal twins answered a
series of questions on topics such as school prayer, nuclear power, women's
liberation and the death penalty.
Identical twins, who share their entire genetic code, answered more
similarly than fraternal twins, who are no more similar than non-twin
siblings."
Also:
"Some scientists, however, are not ready to embrace the theory.
"The very idea that something like a political ideology could be heritable
is incoherent," said Evan Charney, assistant professor of public policy and
political science at Duke University. "It doesn't make any sense, and it's
historically inaccurate."
Any similarities found in twins' political beliefs can be attributed to
environment, not genetics, Charney said."
But it seems to me that Charney's arguments are the one that are
"incoherent". The claim that "Any similarities found in twins' political
beliefs can be attributed to environment, not genetics," doesn't explain why
identical twins political beliefs are more similar than fraternal twins.
We know that genes influence such emotional attributes as the amount of
fearfulness toward new people and circumstances. I am sure the ability to
empathize with others is influenced by genes. Eg., a susceptibility to
autism is apparently caused by genes, and is characterized by an inability
to empathize.
Our politics are obviously influenced by such emotional factors. In fact,
there have been studies showing links between an adults political leanings
and their personality as children.
A couple of years ago there was an article in "Scientific American" about
why highly intelligent people sometimes have irrational beliefs. The answer
is that they form their beliefs on the basis of emotion; in other words,
they are perfectly normal. Their high intelligence then enables them to
rationalize their beliefs by sophisticated arguments that sound plausible.
It appears to me that Professor Charney is an example of this phenomenon.
_________________________________________________________________
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Dust storms swirling out of Africa's Sahara Desert may help reduce hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean, a new study suggests. The findings aren't conclusive, but researchers led by Amato T. Evan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that years with more African dust had fewer tropical storms and years with less dust had more storms.
In today’s Army, shouting is out and a calmer approach to molding young minds is in, says the head of Pentagon personnel.
Sept. 28, 2006 — Scientists have been trying to figure out for years why a buildup of atmospheric methane, the second most abundant greenhouse gas, slowed dramatically in the last decade after levels had nearly tripled since preindustrial times. Now, an international team of scientists, including two at the NOAA Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, Colo., attributes the 15-year lull to a temporary decline in industrial emissions during the 1990s, along with a slowdown in wetland emissions during prolonged droughts.
Typhoon Xangsane, potentially the most dangerous tropical cyclone to affect the world this year, is battering the Philippine Islands today with Category 4 winds. Xangsane was a mere tropical storm yesterday, and was expected to hit the Philippines as a tropical storm or weak Category 1 typhoon at worst. Xangsane confounded the experts and put on a remarkable intensification spurt that brought it from tropical storm strength to a Category 4 typhoon in just 24 hours. The intensification was not expected, since the typhoon's circulation hugged the coast for much of this periodWe're lucky the El Nina is decreasing the number and strength of hurricanes in the Atlantic. Unfortunately for Pacific nations, and for Mexico, the El Nina has been causing an increase there. Although there was the weird phenonmenon a few weeks ago of the super typhoon that traveled across the Pacific and circles around to pound Alaska>
The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.
In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took effect in Pueblo in 2003, hospital admissions for heart attacks for city residents dropped 27 percent, according to the study led by Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14951977/
Drug-resistant TB on the rise in U.S.
Often those with drug-resistant strains stop taking their medicine when they feel better but aren’t cured.That’s what happened with Pich Chhieng, 61, a teacher who was infected in his native Cambodia and carried it with him to this country. He took medication for eight months but abruptly stopped because he ran out of money and was feeling much better.
He didn’t know until he was hospitalized while visiting family in Los Angeles that by neglecting his treatment he had allowed the disease to mutate, and the drug-resistant bacteria had overwhelmed his lungs.
Many conservatives don't care about the poor. They don't care that 15,000 people in the U.S. die each year because they can't afford needed medical care. They don't care if elderly people starve to death because they weren't able to save enough when they were younger; I'm not kidding, they have told me so themselves, w/o any sign of guilt. But it is in our self-interest to help the poor. As in this example, if people stop taking antibiotics early, because they can't afford them, it leads to resistant strains of bacteria that threaten all of us. People who can't afford to get new glasses or a cataract operation endanger others on the road. People w/o hope can be a danger to society.
People who cannot or will not feel our connections to others are pitiful, and don't realize what they are missing.
British business mogul Richard Branson on Thursday pledged to commit all profits from his transportation businesses over 10 years to combat global warming — profits that he estimated would reach $3 billion.
Branson, the billionaire behind Virgin Atlantic Airways and the multi-platform Virgin brand ...
Air traffic controllers on late-night shifts at Indianapolis International Airport have been warned they face suspension if they sleep during rest periods.
The antidepressant drug Prozac (fluoxetine) can disrupt the reproductive cycle of freshwater mussels and increase their risk of extinction, says a U.S. study presented Monday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, in San Francisco.
Researchers Discover That Sheep Need Retroviruses For Reproduction. ... Studies in cultured cells have shown that a protein of a human endogenous retrovirus might have a role in development of the human placenta.
Air conditioning boom threatens Kyoto protocol
The units may keep people cool, but they also churn out carbon dioxide which could wreck European attempts to meet emissions targets
As a result of global warming, the Arctic Ocean has been getting less salty over the past half century and the trend looks set to continue.
... Disrupting this current could cause temperatures to plunge across northern Europe.
The gene that causes cystic fibrosis may persist in human populations because, although two copies of it kill, having just one copy protects against tuberculosis, researchers say.
Bruno Maddox says : Let me begin by assuring you I have nothing but respect for Dr. Stephen Hawking, the noted physicist and raconteur.
... Which is why I was perplexed this past June when Stephen went public with his view that humanity is doomed to extinction unless it finds another planet to live on. "It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," he told an audience in China. "Life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
... What bothered me was that Stephen should be troubling himself with such low-hanging fruit in the first place. Anyone blessed with even basic cable knows there are very real threats to the future of human life on this planet: mega-tsunamis, supervolcanoes, Ultimate Fighting Championships. Saying that the long-term future of life on Earth is uncertain is like saying that the future of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance? is uncertain. It's rather obvious. And once you have your brain around that rather straightforward premise, it doesn't take much intellectual heavy lifting to figure out that if we were able to establish an extraterrestrial outpost or two, our odds would improve dramatically.
Kids as young as 6 are tested, and tested again, to ensure they're making sufficient progress. Then there's homework, more workbooks and tutoring.
Some scholars and policymakers see clear downsides to all this pressure. Around third grade, Hultgren says, some of the most highly pressured learners sometimes "burn out. They began to resist. They didn't want to go along with the program anymore." In Britain, which adopted high-stakes testing about six years before the United States did, parents and school boards are trying to dial back the pressure. In Wales, standardized testing of young children has been banned. Andrew Hargreaves, an expert on international education reform and professor at Boston College, says middle-class parents there saw that "too much testing too early was sucking the soul and spirit out of their children's early school experiences."
Air bubbles show CO2 in 'scary' range well above previous 800,000 years
“It is from air bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has increased by about 35 percent in the last 200 years,” said Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey and the leader of the science team for the 10-nation European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.“Before the last 200 years, which man has been influencing, it was pretty steady,” he added.
The natural level of CO2 over most of the past 800,000 years has been 180-300 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of air. But today it is at 380 ppmv.
In its 2007 budget proposal, for example, the Bush administration eliminated a $93.5 million program to underwrite the development of smaller schools, specifically citing the increase in support for those schools from "nonfederal funds" from the Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York
This may be an example of the what I was talking about in an earlier blog, that when people have it everything easy when they are children and youths, it can cause boredom that leads, in some, to degrading behaviours. But we don't have nearly enough information to really make a good guess about what is causing this problem, other than the way right-wing politicians and talk show jerks have been expressing uncaring and negative attitudes towards the homeless and other poor people will inevitably lead to an increase in violence towards the unfortunate. Also, videos such as those noted in the article can be expected to have a negative effect. Those who think that young people are not affected by such things are either not around young people much, or don't pay attention to what they are doing. (Within a few days of the publicity about the baseball pitcher who spit on an umpire, I saw children playing in my neighborhood spitting on each other, which I had not seen before.)In cases where the perpetrator of attacks on homeless people is known, 76 percent are people 25 or younger, Stoops said. About 80 percent of attackers are white, he said.
The increase in violence may be loosely linked to the increasing popularity of so-called “Bumfights” videos and imitation videos which show homeless people fighting one another and performing dangerous stunts
the hostile media effect seems to apply only to news sources that strive for balance. News reports from obviously biased sources usually draw fewer charges of bias. Partisans, it turns out, find it easier to countenance obvious propaganda than news accounts that explore both sides.
Bankrupt Northwest Airlines advised workers to fish in the trash for things they like
not being “shy about pulling something you like out of the trash.”
While the British terror suspects allegedly were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives-detection technology.
The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from Homeland S&T's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and instead divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.
federal district court judge ruled on Thursday that cigarette makers conspired for years to hide smoking dangers but declined to impose major monetary penalties.... in Thursday’s opinion, Kessler said that remedy was also out of step with the appeals court ruling, which dictated that civil racketeering remedies focus on the prevention of future misconduct, not punishment of past misdeeds.
The idea that any plausible enhancements could end human suffering outstrips the wildest transhumanist fantasy. But what if it really happened? While it seems possible this may not be an unalloyed blessing, surely it is not clear that it would be a bad thing.
Teens Unaware Of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Until They Catch One, Carnegie Mellon Study Finds
Los Angeles officials never expected electricity demand would reach the levels it did during the recent heat wave, the Los Angeles Times says....Interviews and documents show the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power overestimated the quality of its equipment while underestimating how much power would be needed
America in recent years has been sweltering through three times more than its normal share of extra-hot summer nights, government weather records show.
But it is not surprising because climate models, used to forecast global warming, have been predicting this trend for more than 20 years, said Jerry Mahlman, a climate scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research and a top federal climate modeler.
One reason global warming is suspected in summer-night temperatures is that daytime air pollution slightly counteracts warming but is not as prevalent at night, said Bill Chameides, a climate scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense.
The law, enacted in April after the Massachusetts Legislature overrode vetoes by Gov. Mitt Romney (R), requires all state residents to purchase health insurance by July 1, 2007. In addition, among other provisions, the law will require employers in the state with 11 or more employees to provide coverage for workers or pay an annual fee of $295 per worker; establish a low-cost, state subsidized health insurance program for residents with annual incomes less than 300% of the federal poverty level; and expand Medicaid coverage for state residents
The state’s poorest — single adults making $9,500 or less a year — will have access to health coverage with no premiums or deductibles.
Those living at up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $48,000 for a family of three, will be able to get health coverage on a sliding scale, also with no deductibles....Individuals deemed able but unwilling to purchase health care could face fines of more than $1,000 a year by the state if they don’t get insurance.
"Hopefully, future studies can show us what it is that makes human cooperation so unique."
I've already been avoiding buying items from China because of human rights abuses, when possible. This outrageousness will strengthen my efforts.The killings prompted calls for a boycott of Chinese products from the activist group People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Injecting sulfur into the atmosphere to slow down global warming is worthy of serious consideration, according to Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.
...He adds that his experiment should only be used as an emergency measure: “the possibility of the albedo enhancement scheme should not be used to justify inadequate climate policies but merely to create a possibility to combat potentially drastic climate heating.”
Legislation passed by the Senate ... would require broadcasters to end their traditional analog transmissions by Feb. 17, 2009, and send their signals digitally.
...Under the converter box program, consumers with analog sets would be able to request two, $40 coupons to help buy the set-top boxes, which are expected to cost $50 to $60 each.Democratic lawmakers and consumer groups say that the $1.5 billion would fall far short of helping pay for every set eligible for a converter box.
...There is no income cap for those who may request the coupons. GOP supporters such as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, have said that lawmakers do not expect to subsidize wealthier homes.
Attorney General Tom Reilly has also launched a criminal investigation into the construction to determine if involuntary manslaughter charges are warranted.
Along with the latest GDP report, the government issued annual revisions that showed economic growth was slightly less than previously estimated for 2003, 2004 and 2005.
...
As a result, the economy last year grew by 3.2 percent, rather than 3.5 percent. In 2004, economic activity expanded by 3.9 percent, instead of 4.2 percent. And in 2003, the economy’s growth was 2.5 percent, versus 2.7 percent.
A study published late last year in the Journal of Research in Personality reported a link between certain childhood personality traits and adult political orientation in a test group followed over two decades. As nursery schoolers, the future conservatives were described as easily victimized, indecisive, rigid, fearful and inhibited. The budding liberals were described as self-reliant, prone to developing close relationships, energetic and somewhat dominating.
Shortsighted planning and faulty computer equipment led to long delays by the Small Business Administration in approving loans to companies that were slammed by Gulf Coast hurricanes last year, congressional investigators say.
Growing scientific evidence suggests the most widespread industrial contaminant in drinking water — a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers — can cause cancer in people....TCE, which is also widely used to remove grease from metal parts in airplanes and to clean fuel lines at missile sites, is known to cause cancer in some laboratory animals. EPA was blocked from elevating its assessment of the chemical's risks in people by the Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, all of which have sites polluted with it.
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Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.”
Coulter: Clinton a 'latent homosexual'Maybe she made a pass at Clinton and he turned her down.
NASA has reportedly eliminated the promise "to understand and protect our home planet" from its mission statement.
The statement now proclaims the agency's mission is "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."
U.S. space agency NASA says 2005 was the warmest globally in more than a century and that the preceding three years were also the warmest since the 1890s.
House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.
The amount of pay depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary, according to the Congressional Research Service report. By law, the starting amount cannot exceed 80 percent of their final salary.
Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at age 62, upon completing five years of service. Those who served only two years would only be eligible if they had five years of civilian federal service, including their time in Congress. But one could become eligible for retirement pay at age 50, if 20 years of service has been completed or at any age after completing 25 years of service.
Members elected after 1984 participate in the Federal Employees' Retirement System, unless they decline. They also contribute to Social Security.
"The unexpected storms that swept through St. Louis Wednesday night left the region stewing in sweat this afternoon, as nearly half a million AmerenUE customers coped without power. "http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/weather_forecast_august_dc;_ylt=Alj87fLH3MVDNbdtCBBS6RoDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhcmljNmVhBHNlYwNtcm5ld3M-
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Temperatures will average above normal in most of the United States in August, extending what has been the warmest year on record so far, the U.S.
National Weather Service said on Thursday."
I'm sorry for people who were affected by the storm in your area, and in other areas of the country and world that are being devastated by weather unprecedented disasters. But we reap what we sow. This is exactly the type of problem weather scientists have been warning about for years, and that environmentalists have tried to forestall, to no avail. If you have not been trying to reduce your use of energy, you have gotten what you deserved. Unfortunately, the few who have tried to be good citizens of the country and world have to suffer along with you. But at least you can be happy, because Congress and the President are working hard to pass a constitutional amendment banning a handful of attention-seekers from hurting your oh so delicate feelings by misusing the American flag.
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Surgery removes electric blanket from python
12-foot snake inadvertently swallows blanket, including cord, control box
CHICAGO - Special prosecutors investigating allegations that police tortured nearly 150 black suspects in the 1970s and ’80s said Wednesday they found evidence of abuse, but any crimes are now too old to prosecute.
In three of the cases, the prosecutors said the evidence was strong enough to have warranted indictments and convictions.
“It is our judgment that the evidence in those cases would be sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Robert D. Boyle and Edward J. Egan wrote.
Wildfires may be linked to global warming
A colon cancer drug being successfully used in Britain to combat blindness may be yanked from the market and replaced with a version 100 times the price.
In a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, 60% of Americans agreed with the statement: "Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others."
This placed Americans in the bottom third of the 43 national publics
surveyed, far behind counties such as Indonesia (90% completely or mostly agreed with the statement), South Korea (90%), Egypt (88%), Mexico (86%), India (85%), Mali (80%), Uzbekistan (77%), Bolivia (77%), Tanzania (77%), and Bulgaria (74%).
Among the publics of Western Europe, on the other hand, there was even less inclination to assert cultural superiority than in the United States. Just 55% of Italians agreed with the statement; as did just 40% of Germans; just 37% of the British; and just 33% of the French, the smallest percentage among any of the 43 nations surveyed. (So much for the arrogant French!)
U.S. patients rate their healthcare among the worst in the industrialized world, despite costs that surpass nearly all those in every other comparable country, a multi-national survey concluded Tuesday.
I am currently experiencing the problem of lack of availability of health care to many in our country. I don't have health insurance. I have cataracts, and am already legally blind in one eye. Because I worked at a low-paying job for four years before I got my current job last winter, I have little savings - only what I have been able to save since getting this job. I need to get surgery on one eye while I can still see well enough to drive and work with the other eye; I am beginning to have problems with my good eye. If I can get the surgery on my left eye in time, I'll be able to continue working and paying taxes, and of course I won't be drawing disability payments.
In regard to the U.S. government, I am not eligible for disability until I am legally blind in both eyes, and then I would not be eligible for Medicare for two years. Of course, of U.S. Congresspeople get medical insurance paid for with our taxes. I guess they're too busy, trying to pass constitutional amendments against the handful of people who burn American flags, to spend time on such unimortant things as our citizens who are becoming disabled, and dying, from lack of medical care and needed medication.
In regard to the state of Georgia, I am not eligible for Medicaid because I make too much money. In fact, when I was living in poverty while working for Waffle House, I made too much money for Medicaid!
I make too much money to get help from the Lions Club. ( I understand that they have limited funds, and their priority will be the poor.)
The local United Way doesn't have any member agencies that provide surgery, but they suggested a couple of agencies that might be able to help, including the National Federation of the Blind, which gave me another couple of referrals.
So, I am currently waiting to talk to the appropriate person from Prevent Blindness Georgia, who who has been out in the field. I have no complaints, she's doing her job, and there are many who need help. But I am feeling increasingly anxious as my good eye is getting worse.
I am going to get information about surgery in foreign countries, in case I have to do that, instead of waiting until I am legally blind in both eyes, and destitute, so I can get help in my own country.
"The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth,'' Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy. The former vice president's movie -- replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets -- mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press. "
"While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers. President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA
haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.""They are quite literally afraid to know the truth,'' Gore said. "Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day.''
It is certainly ironic that severe flooding of the kind to be expected from global warming is occuring right when the leaders of our country are asserting their allegiance to ignorance on the matter. Of course, we can't know that a particular piece of bad weather would not have occurred w/o the greenhouse effect, any more than we can know which of the small percentage of lung cancers would have occurred w/o exposure to tobacco smoke. What scientists can do is predict trends.
I think Gore is being too easy on our "leaders". To choose to avoid knowing the truth in such a matter is in itself immoral.
