AT

http://www.chippynews.com/worldclock.htm

The eggs of peregrine falcons living in California’s big cities contain some of the highest levels ever found in wildlife of a flame retardant used in consumer products, a new study has found.

Studies of peregrine falcon eggs and chicks by state scientists reveal that the birds hunting in San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego are ingesting the flame retardant called PBDEs, believed to leach out of foam mattresses, synthetic fabrics, plastic casings of televisions, electronics and other products. The research shows that the indoor chemicals can contaminate the outdoors and even humans.

“Urban wildlife are the sentinel species that can tell us about chemicals of emerging concern that are coming from city exposures. Information from these species can be useful to us in protecting the sensitive members of our population like infants, children and pregnant women,” said Kim Hooper, one of the leading research scientists with the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Chemistry Laboratory.

The prevalence of PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, is raising concern among research scientists. The flame retardants are known as endocrine disrupters because they interfere with the function of the thyroid hormone, which is critical to the proper development of the brain and nervous system. Scientists compare the flame retardants to the notorious PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, because of their potential for harming wildlife and humans, the persistence in the environment and the enormous amounts in commercial use.

The four major manufacturers of flame retardants - Albemarle Corp. and Chemtura in the United States, Tosoh in Japan and Israeli Chemicals Ltd. - oppose the legislation, as does the trade group Bromine Science and Environmental Forum.

SFGate.com

A Florida grand jury will decide whether a 15-year-old girl whose disappearance triggered an Amber Alert should be tried as an adult in the murder of a man she and her boyfriend allegedly beat and suffocated.

Authorities in Florida issued arrest warrants on first-degree murder charges against the teenager, Amanda Morgan Leppert, and Toby Lee Lowry, 22. Authorities say the couple fled the state April 25 in a stolen pickup truck belonging to murder victim James Thomas Stewart, 66.

Both remain in custody in El Paso, Texas, where police found them Saturday, 1,600 miles from home, panhandling by an interstate highway after a motorist recognized Leppert from a nationally publicized Amber Alert.

Stewart was found dead inside his Melrose, Fla., home May 1. His Toyota Tacoma was missing from his driveway. An autopsy found that he had been beaten, stabbed and suffocated before he died, authorities said.

“Mr. Stewart had been viciously beaten with two metal rods and had been stabbed multiple times with a knife,” Putnam County Sheriff Dean Kelly said at a press conference Tuesday. “The autopsy also revealed that Mr. Stewart had been suffocated with a plastic garbage bag that had been put over his head.”

ABCnews

Click here for another example of soulless youth.

THIS MATTERS. WE NEED BEES FOR POLLINATION BECAUSE POLLINATION PROVIDES FOOD!

A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation’s commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year’s survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent. As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it’s clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren’t enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

“For two years in a row, we’ve sustained a substantial loss,” he said. “That’s an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm.”

ABCnews

Just a couple of paragraphs from an extensive, convincing article at SKEPTIC MAGAZINE

There are several lines of evidence. We know approximately how much carbon dioxide is emitted as a result of human activities. Adding up the human sources of carbon dioxide — primarily from fossil fuel burning, cement production, and land use changes (e.g., deforestation) — one finds that only about half the carbon dioxide emitted as a result of human activities has led to an increase in atmospheric concentrations. The other half of the emitted carbon dioxide has been taken up by oceans and the biosphere — where and how exactly is not completely understood: there is a “missing carbon sink.”

Human activities thus can account for the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Changes in the isotopic composition of carbon dioxide show that the carbon in the added carbon dioxide derives largely from plant materials, that is, from processes such as burning of biomass or fossil fuels, which are derived from fossil plant materials. Minute changes in the atmospheric concentration of oxygen show that the added carbon dioxide derives from burning of the plant materials. And concentrations of carbon dioxide in the ocean have increased along with the atmospheric concentrations, showing that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations cannot be a result of release from the oceans.

An EPA official said Tuesday there’s a “distinct possibility” the agency won’t take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country. Democratic senators called that unacceptable. They argued that states and local communities shouldn’t have to bear the expense of cleansing their drinking water of perchlorate, which has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states — or the risk of not doing so.

The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses. Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency, told a Senate hearing that EPA is aware that perchlorate is widespread and poses health risks.

Boston.com

Update Re Wayne Bent, New Mexico End-Times “Messiah”

Wayne Bent, who also goes by the name Michael Travesser, was arrested at the compound that is home to his Lord Our Righteousness Church, called Strong City by members. . .the arrest warrant specified charges of three counts of sexual contact with a minor, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The arrests come after three children were removed from the compound late last month. . .Bent said on the Web site that God revealed to him in 2000 that he is the Messiah.

A post from Monday written by Bent said: “The current upheaval over me and the present contest is well under way. It was the same for Jesus. Jesus had not committed any crimes, so the authorities had to invent some crimes to crucify him over…It is the same for me also…Men are so stupid, though, for they do not know that they cannot kill Spirit.” A former member of the Lord Our Righteousness Church, however, told CNN affiliate KOAT that he left because Bent wanted to sleep with his daughters.

John Sayer said he split with the church after 16 years when Bent told him he was supposed to sleep with seven virgins — and that two of them were to be Sayer’s daughters, then 14 and 15 years old.

CNN.com

The Story.

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that is, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

From a much longer piece by Alexander Cockburn at CounterPunch

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won’t get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding whom to let die. Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn’t be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Health and Human Services…The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources - including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses - are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said. “If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing,” the report states.

To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike duty of deciding who will and who won’t get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific and include:

– People older than 85.

– Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.

– Severely burned patients older than 60.

– Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

– Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.

Sfgate.com

Retired General also speaks of Armageddon

[excerpts] April 10 saw yet another US Christian Zionist conference in Jerusalem: “Epicenter 08″, hosted by Christian author Joel C. Rosenberg (whom I blogged on in the very early days of this blog, here and here). The conference was organised in conjunction with the neo-Pentecostal Calvary Chapel, and Calvary’s leader Chuck Smith was one of the speakers. Smith, like Hal Lindsey, has published numerous books on the “Last Days”, including one which predicted the Rapture would occur by the end of 1981. Rosenberg scored rather better in 2001 with a tale of Islamic terrorists hijacking a plane and crashing it into an American city, with the result that enthusiasts have dubbed him to be a “modern Nostradamus”.

. . .Rosenberg was particularly excited by links between Russia, Iran, and Sudan, which he believes presages an alliance against Israel as predicted by Ezekiel….

Among those addressing the conference was ex-CIA director Porter Goss. . .Goss’s interview dealt with obvious subjects: chaos in Pakistan might lead to the wrong people getting their hands on nuclear bombs; Iran might use a surrogate to deliver a dirty bomb in Israel or the USA . . . Rosenberg followed up with a call for his audience to make sense of this “though the lens of scripture”. . .

Retired Lt-General William Boykin… sang from the same songsheet..[big snip]…Iran in particular represents an urgent danger – Ahmadinejad “seeks to bring apocalypse upon the world”…

Read the whole blog at:
Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

RELATED STORY: CREATIONISTS HAVE STRATEGIC MEETING WITH THE ARMAGEDDON-OBSESSED

Most of these characters, of course, need no introduction, although it’s fun to see them lined up together. Perhaps there will be a learned debate between LaHaye and Cornuke on the location of Noah’s ark: LaHaye once wrote a paperback entitled The Ark on Ararat, while Cornuke (whose archaeological qualifications come from Louisiana Baptist University) insists that he found it on Mount Suleiman in Iran. Maybe someone will give Shoebat the chance to clarify some of the weird inconsistencies in his account of his past as a terrorist, or ask him about his recent threats to sue those who have suggested he made it all up. And if we’re really lucky, Ray Comfort will be bringing along his banana to compare with Chuck Missler’s jar of peanut butter; both men have argued that these foodstuffs refute the theory of evolution (see here).

AND THAT IS ALSO FROM BARTHOLOMEW’S NOTES ON RELIGION

An unusually intense swarm of earthquakes — more than 1,000 over the past two months — has struck directly beneath a small suburb of Reno, leaving residents shaken and scientists puzzling over the cause. More than 20 quakes of magnitude 2 or higher have hit on some days, and the intensity and frequency of the quakes has been increasing over time rather than following the normal pattern of tailing off.

Although Nevada is the second most seismically active state in the continental United States, researchers say they have never seen anything quite like the “Mogul earthquake sequence,” as they have named it. “We don’t know what is going to happen next,” said geologist James Dolan of University of Southern California, who has been watching the unfolding seismic activity. But a swarm like this “makes you perk up your ears and start considering the possibility that you might be in a heightened period of hazard.”

The swarm of quakes has unnerved the roughly 3,000 residents who live around Mogul, a sparse community of ranch homes located about two miles west of Reno. “I lie in bed at night and I can feel” the quakes, said 72-year-old retired pressman Howard Seeman as he sipped a glass of white wine in Moxie’s, a neighborhood bar close to Mogul. “It’s scary, and you never know what is coming next.”

AZCentral

An Antarctic fur seal has been observed trying to have sex with a king penguin. The South African-based scientists who witnessed the incident say it is the most unusual case of mammal mating behaviour yet known.

The incident, which lasted for 45 minutes and was caught on camera, is reported in the Journal of Ethology. The bizarre event took place on a beach on Marion Island, a sub-Antarctic island that is home to both fur seals and king penguins.

The brazenness of the seal’s behaviour left those who saw it in no doubt as to what was happening. De Bruyn and a colleague were on Trypot beach at Marion Island to study elephant seals when they noticed a young, adult male Antarctic fur seal, in good condition, attempting to copulate with an adult king penguin of unknown sex.

The 100kg seal first subdued the 15kg penguin by lying on it. The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.

BBCnews

SoW note: This may actually be the result of the environmental toxicity observed to be spreading into the north and south poles. Many environmental pollutants are neurotoxins, affecting the brain.

Wash. Post and NY Times published more than 12 times as many articles mentioning Obama and Wright as they did mentioning McCain and [John] Hagee according to Mediamatters.org

According to the New York Times:

Most of the 55 million evangelical adults in the United States believe in the literal second coming of Christ, but Mr. Hagee is one of approximately nine million who are pre-millennial dispensationalists, said John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. By putting together passages from biblical books like Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel and others, they amass “a puzzle to produce an amazingly detailed scenario of the end of history,” said Timothy Weber, author of “On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend.”

For the prophecies to be fulfilled, proponents believe, Jews must control Israel.

However they also believe that Jews must accept Christ or burn in hellfire, come Judgment Day.

Global warming could gradually starve parts of the tropical oceans of oxygen, damaging fisheries and coastal economies, a study showed on Thursday. Areas of the eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with low amounts of dissolved oxygen have expanded in the past 50 years, apparently in line with rising temperatures, according to the scientists based in Germany and the United States. And models of global warming indicate the trend will continue because oxygen in the air mixes less readily with warmer water. Large fish such as tuna or swordfish avoid, or are unable to survive, in regions starved of oxygen.

“Reduced oxygen levels may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies,” according to the scientists writing in the journal Science. The north of the Indian Ocean, along with the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, is also oxygen-low but the available data showed no substantial change in the size of the oxygen-minimum zone in recent decades.

Reuters

A fast-spreading viral outbreak in eastern China has killed 22 children, sickened nearly 3,600 others and caused panic among parents in an impoverished corner of Anhui Province, government health officials said Friday. All of the fatalities have been in children younger than 6, the majority of them under 2.

The outbreak, caused by an intestinal virus, has been spreading in the city of Fuyang since early March but local health officials only announced the outbreak this week, raising questions about whether they were trying to conceal it.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization warned that the disease, which thrives in warm weather and passes easily between children, could spread in the coming summer months. The illness begins with a fever and often leads to mouth ulcers and to blisters on the hands, feet and buttocks. There is no vaccine or cure but most patients recover in a week without treatment. In severe cases, however, brain swelling can lead to paralysis or death. Rigorous hygiene dramatically reduces the spread of the pathogen.

New York Times

Three Children Taken from New Mexico End-Times Cult

State police have removed three children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers. The two girls and one boy - all under the age of 18 - were taken from the northeastern New Mexico compound following an April 22 investigation.

The three children were taken into state custody because of allegations of inappropriate contact between minors and the adult leader of the Lord Our Righteousness Church, Serna said.

Wayne Bent, 66, who is known in the church as Michael Travesser, established the church at a rural site called Strong City, north of Clayton in extreme northeastern New Mexico. He said God anointed him messiah in July 2000. Bent, on an April 27 posting on the church’s Web site, accused the state of kidnapping the children. “My children are kidnapped because some demon wrote a letter to people in authority accusing me of some crimes,” he wrote.

“When the state came against our children (seed), the state came against God, and this will NOT ever be forgiven them,” he wrote. In a lengthy discussion dated Sept. 11, 2007, Bent said his work is finished and he does not expect to be “in the earthly sphere” much longer. He acknowledged having sex with three women - the wives of two of his followers and his daughter- in-law. He said it was at the direction of God and the instigation of the women.

Associated Press

The Daily Kos has reported on an interesting development in the efforts of the Heartland Institute, an organization that opposes environmental regulations, to cast doubt on some of the science of global warming and the projections climate scientists have made.

Fixture climate skeptic Dennis T. Avery (listed as a Senior Fellow at the Heartland Institute) wrote an article originally published last fall by the Hudson Institute entitled, 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares. It turns out that the list might not hit such a nice round number, according to DeSmogBlog.

Avery’s article purports to list scientists whose work contradicts the evidence that global warming poses a major threat to us and other species. DeSmogBlog manager Kevin Grandia emailed 122 of the scientists to notify them of their inclusion on the list, and less than 24 hours later, he had 45 responses from rather unhappy scientists, many of whom have demanded to be taken off the list. An example:

“I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite.” - Dr. David Sugden, Professor of Geography, University of Edingburgh

“There are of course uncertainties inherent in climate model projections I don’t know a climate scientist who would say otherwise. But the fact that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are driving the current rise in global temperatures is certainly not disputed by any credible climate scientist, and we are already seeing some of the effects of this climate change.”

Articles like Avery’s are sadly misleading, and bring up many of the skeptic arguments that scientists have refuted again and again.

Livescience.com

Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years. Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001.

A Canadian research group found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion. A US forces spokesman denied its weapons were affecting the health of Afghans or the country’s environment. Doctors in Kabul and Kandahar showed data indicating that the incidence of a number of health conditions, including birth defects, has doubled in under two years. “We have premature births and malformations,” said one doctor, who wished to remain anonymous, in one of the main maternity and neo-natal hospitals in the country. The Canada-based Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) believes the cause might be depleted uranium. In 2002 and 2003 the group ran programmes analysing urine from Afghans.

In some, it found levels of uranium hundreds of times greater than in Gulf War veterans. DU is used in armour-piercing shells because its density means it can penetrate further than other metals. Dr Durakovic said his research showed that in Afghanistan, coalition forces had also used DU in “bunker buster” bombs, which can penetrate tens of metres into the soil.

BBC NEWS

Note: Some observers say that Depleted Uranium used by US and Brit military is spreading around the world on the winds and causing worldwide health problems.

NIKOLSKOYE (Penza Region), April 28 (Itar-Tass) — Doom’s Day sect members who are sheltering in a Penza cave and expected to come out onto the surface on Monday have stayed on in the cave contrary to the expectations. One of the sect leaders, Vitaly Nedogon, has set a new date - June 14 - set a new date - June 14 - Day of Holy Trinity when the sect is to finally re-emerge from its secluded hiding place, son of the sect leader, Sergei Nedogon, told Tass on Monday.

Shortly before the fixed time when the sect members were to have come up to the surface people came up to a pipe used to communicate with them. As soon as efforts were made to resume contact with the recluses the sect started singing religious songs. They are still under a vow of silence and refuse to abandon their underground shelter. Journalists still keep close to the cave; security cordons have been partly removed. The local population has been hanging around the cave, waiting for things to happen. But nothing has happened.

Last year 35 people fearing Doom’s Day went down into the cave, situated in the settlement of Nikolskoye. In March 2008, 24 sect members, including four children, left their abode. Previously, several other people who abandoned the cave had been sent to their homeland. The rest of the sect stayed on deep in the cave.