Human

Here is a shameless plug for the Education Grants Directory, put out by the University of michigan. Remember Karl, give it to the parents, and not the kids. Cause you know how kids are? "in one ear, out the other". http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/2minor.htm -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chalk one up for Kermit the frog. He's cool "Kermit", he has to be Republican. :) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The incredible purple frog that's one of 24 new species discovered in South America Last updated at 11:07am on 7th June 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...ticle_id=459834 Scientists have discovered 24 new species of wildlife in the South American highlands of Suriname, including a frog with fluorescent purple markings. But conservationists have now warned that these creatures are threatened by illegal gold mining. The discovery of so many species outside the insect realm is extraordinary and points up the need to survey distant regions, said Leeanne Alonso of Conservation International, which led the expedition that found the new species. "When you go to these places that are so unexplored and so remote, we do tend to find new species...but most of them are insects," Alonso said. "What's really exciting here is we found a lot of new species of frogs and fish as well." The two-tone frog - whose skin is covered with irregular fluorescent lavender loops on a background of aubergine - was discovered in 2006 as part of a survey of Suriname's Nassau plateau, the conservation group said. Scientists combing Suriname's Nassau plateau and Lely Mountains found four other new frog species aside from the purple one, six species of fish, 12 dung beetles and a new ant species, the organization said in a statement. These creatures were discovered by 13 scientists who explored a region about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, including areas with enough clean fresh water sources to support abundant fish and amphibians. They also found 27 species native to the Guayana Shield region, which spreads over Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana and northern Brazil. One of these was the rare armored catfish, which conservationists feared was extinct because gold miners had contaminated a creek where it was last seen 50 years ago. Including the new species, the scientists observed 467 species at the two sites, ranging from large cats like panthers and pumas, to monkeys, reptiles, bats and insects. While these places are far from human civilization, they are totally unprotected and may be threatened by illegal gold-mining, Alonso said. These highland areas have also been investigated as sources of bauxite, used to make aluminum, but will most likely not be mined in the future, she said, at least not by the two mining companies that sponsored the study. The sponsors are BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname (BMS, a subsidiary of BHP Billiton) Suriname Aluminium Company LLC (Suralco, a subsidiary of Alcoa Inc). "It's an opportunity now for all the players, the mining companies who still have mining concessions there, the local communities, the government, the NGOs (non-governmental organizations), to try to make a regional plan for the area," Alonso said.

It's still a fun link to play with though "Luke". I could find um, it would just take me a while. But ya know, that's the fun thing about living, or working in D.C. ALL the information is here in D.C., some one around here has to know where the main maitime shipping database is located, or at the very least they would point me in the right direction "hoping" "crossing fingers" lol. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_6012082 Utah, Colorado rival OPEC oil reserves, lure Chevron, Exxon, Shell The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 05/29/2007 08:28:38 AM MDT Posted: 8:25 AM- Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined. That's not science fiction, according to Bloomberg News. Trapped in limestone up to 200 feet (61 meters) thick in the two Rocky Mountain states is enough so-called shale oil to rival OPEC and supply the U.S. for a century. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible. "The breakthrough is that now the oil companies have a way of getting this oil out of the ground without the massive energy and manpower costs that killed these projects in the 1970s," said Pete Stark, an analyst at IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado, research firm. "All the shale rocks in the world are going to be revisited now to see how much oil they contain." The U.S. imports two-thirds of its oil, spending $300 billion a year, or 40 percent of the record trade deficit. Every $10 increase in a barrel of crude costs an American household $700 a year, according to the Rand Corp., founded in 1946 to provide research for the U.S. military. Oil prices have risen 63 percent since 2004 and higher fuel costs have slowed growth in the world's largest economy to the lowest in four years. The last effort to exploit the Colorado and Utah shale fields foundered in the 1980s after crude prices tumbled 72 percent, resulting in a multibillion dollar loss for Exxon. Techniques developed to coax crude from tar sands in Alberta, 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometers) to the north, may help the U.S. projects' engineers. "The potential for shale is large," said Joseph Stanislaw, senior energy adviser for Deloitte & Touche LLP and co-author with oil analyst Daniel Yergin of "The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy" (Simon & Schuster, 464 pages, $26). "Assuming the technology proves out, the size and scale of the reserves are significant." Energy providers are investing in shale oil production because the reserves are large enough to generate higher returns than smaller fields in Oklahoma and Texas, where output is declining after eight decades. Shale is also a more attractive investment than new U.S. refineries, which Shell and Chevron say may lose money as rising use of crop-based fuels such as ethanol lowers domestic gasoline demand. Exxon says it isn't interested in building new fuel plants in the U.S. because the company expects North American fuel consumption to peak by 2025. "You're going to build refineries where demand is increasing, and that's the developing world," Scott Nauman, Exxon's manager of economics and energy planning, said in a May 18 presentation at a University of Chicago oil conference. In the high desert near Rifle, Colo., Shell engineers are burying hundreds of steel rods 2,000 feet underground that will heat the shale to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (370 degrees Celsius), a temperature at which Teflon melts. The heat will be applied for the next four years to convert the hydrocarbons from dead plants and plankton, once part of a prehistoric lake, into high-quality crude that is equal parts jet fuel, diesel and naphtha, the main ingredient in gasoline. Chevron, which helped build the Saudi Arabian energy industry when it struck oil in the kingdom in 1938, plans to shatter 200- foot thick layers of shale deep underground, said Robert Lestz, the company's oil-shale technology manager. Rather than using heat to transform the shale into crude, Chevron plans to saturate the rubble with chemicals to convert it. The method will reduce power needs and production costs, Lestz said in a May 24 interview. Using chemical reactions to get oil from shale also means fewer byproducts such as ash and fewer greenhouse gases, he said. Chevron scientists are working with researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to determine which chemicals work best for converting shale to crude oil. Shell's heating technique amounts to "a brute-force approach," said Lestz, who is based in Houston. Raytheon Co., the maker of Tomahawk missiles and the first microwave ovens, is developing a process that would use radio waves to cook the shale. Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil plans to shoot particles of petroleum coke, a waste byproduct of oil refining, into cracks in the shale. The coke will be electrically charged to create a subterranean hot plate that will cook the shale until it turns into crude. The company declined to discuss the progress of its oil shale tests. "These are quite remarkable technological approaches," said Jeremy Boak, a geologist at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, who spent 11 years cleaning up radioactive waste and disposing of weapons-grade plutonium at U.S. government sites. "The oil companies don't have the exploration problem of finding resources to drill. We know the oil is here. It's just a matter of getting it out." U.S. oil shale deposits likely hold 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, according to Jack Dyni, a geologist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey. All 12 OPEC countries combined have proved crude oil reserves of about 911 billion barrels, led by Saudi Arabia, with 264.2 billion barrels, according to statistics compiled by BP Plc. Skeptics of the potential for shale oil include Cathy Kay, an organizer for the environmental group Western Colorado Congress, who says the techniques will drain water supplies, scar the landscape and require so much power the skies will be choked with smoke from coal-fed generators. "They are going to do absolutely massive environmental damage," said Kay, a South African native who's been spearheading the Grand Junction, Colorado, group's anti-shale campaign since September. "Why don't these companies invest these giant sums of money developing the cheapest, cleverest solar panel or geothermal process, instead of chasing this elusive oil?" Kay asked. Shell, based in the Hague, estimates it can extract oil from Colorado shale for $30 a barrel, less than half today's price of $66 for benchmark New York futures. Shell's process includes surrounding each shale field with an underground wall of ice. The so-called freeze walls are to prevent groundwater from swamping the heating rods and to protect the local water supply from contamination as the organic material in the rocks turns to oil, according to Terry O'Connor, the Shell vice president in charge of the company's Colorado shale project. "There's a lot of testing to be done," O'Connor said in a May 24 interview. "We're proceeding cautiously." O'Connor declined to say how much oil Shell expects it could produce from shale. Stark at IHS and other analysts said Shell expects to get 500,000 barrels a day from its project, 25 percent more than comes from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field. "This is an amazing resource," said James Bartis, an oil analyst at Santa Monica, California-based Rand, whose researchers have included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson. Bartis says that success in the Rockies could cut crude prices by 5 percent, saving American consumers $20 billion a year. "It's been raised before as a panacea for impending shortages, but never before has it been shown to be competitive with conventional oil," Bartis said. Drillers, pipe-makers and metal fabricators such as Nabors Industries Ltd. and closely-held UOP LLC will be the first to profit as Shell, Chevron and Exxon drill thousands of wells a half-mile underground by 2011. The oil companies may begin pumping commercial quantities of oil from Colorado shale within a decade, about as long as Chevron will need to develop the 500 million-barrel Jack prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, according to Stark, who is a former Mobil Corp. geologist. "Given the state of the oil market, more and more effort is being put into making shale a viable source," said Stanislaw. He estimated it will take six to eight years before oil companies perfect their extraction methods. "The timeframe is very long," he said. In the 1970s, oil shale efforts involved mile-wide strip mines and factory-sized cookers to boil giant limestone boulders. This time, no company expects to bring in front-loaders, heavy- duty dump trucks or thousands of miners to haul shale from open pits. "The old technique required them to dig the equivalent of a new Panama Canal every month," said former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, whose tenure from 1975 to 1987 included the last attempt to extract oil from shale. "This new approach is a much more sane process, but that's all relative," Lamm said in an interview. "They're doing this in an immensely fragile area where wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail in the 1840s are still visible. It doesn't excite me because I think they're about to indelibly change our state." Local residents are also leery, recalling the ghost towns and job losses left behind from the last shale boom and bust. Battlement Mesa, Colorado, a town Exxon built to house an expected 25,000 shale workers, was abandoned when the company shut its mine on May 2, 1982, a day locals still refer to as "Black Sunday." The town is now a retirement community. "I don't think this is going to go anywhere," said John Savage, an attorney in Rifle whose father started a shale-oil company in 1956. "It's just too tough to get that oil out of the ground. There's trillions of barrels down there, but there's too much rock on top of it." Oil companies also are exploring shale fields in Jordan, Morocco and Australia, though preliminary assessments indicate none is as oil-rich as the Colorado and Utah deposits. The final approval for full-scale projects in the U.S. won't be made until after 2010. "If we waited a few million years, all this stuff would turn to oil," Rand's Bartis says. "Some people don't want to wait that long."

It could be, as to how he got the news on that, that ship was searching for gold ships. Sorry for the delay, my net connection is acting up. OKAY!!!! massively acting up. Half the time is up, and the other half down. Verizon is starting to look good "I just might switch over to verizon. Found whut I was looking fer. Nice ship tracker link http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/ There really is good info on the net "I just wish that some of the info that is on the net was not made public, fer security reasons".

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/nation/17309031.htm By Helen Kennedy New York Daily News NEW YORK - Avast matey - is John Edwards a pirate? The Spaniards say yes, and they want their plundered loot back. In a campaign twist right out of a summer movie, the Democratic presidential candidate turns out to have a share of the recovered treasure trove first revealed last week. Edwards is an investor in Odyssey Marine Exploration, the company that announced it found a 350-year-old sunken ship laden with 17 tons of silver coins and gold objects. The haul, which has already been spirited back to the U.S., is said to be worth more than $500 million. Now Spain is up in arms, saying the booty is rightfully theirs and accusing Odyssey of "plundering" the riches. James Goold, a maritime lawyer representing Spain, said he filed a claim in Florida "contesting Odyssey's right to . . . recover treasure from Spanish ships or Spanish property." He said he went to court after Odyssey refused to say where they found the wreck, code-named "The Black Swan." The Spaniards think the ship is the legendary "Merchant Royal," which sank in 1641 carrying the Spanish Army's payroll in a vast trove of silver coins. Odyssey said even if another party has a claim to the wreck, salvage law usually awards 90 percent of the loot to the finders. Edwards has already technically seen spoils from the sunken ship. He is a major investor in Fortress Investments, which has a 10 percent stake in Odyssey. The company's share price soared 81 percent after the spectacular find.

There was only 1 wrong done for 2000, and that was that your side "Democrats" tried stealing the elections by using legal technicalities. As for the 2008 elections; That WILL be decided by the people. Of course Nelson, you will vote democrat, and I republican, and I agree with you on 1 point; That the Public WILL come to the conclusion on who will be best for the Country "Whether it be a Republican President, or a Democrat President". -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From this Republican "Cindy"; Welcome to the World of Politics, and I really have to say this; You made your bed with the democrats, you lobbied for the democrats, and you really should try to work within your own party. Even though I am ENJOYING what the democrats did to you, the democrats still owe you alot. If it wasn't for you? the democrats would not have taken back the house or the senate. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.crawfordpeacehouse.orgSPAM63 It’s up to you know. By Cindy Sheehan May 28, 2007 Good Riddance Attention Whore" by Cindy Sheehan It's up to you now. I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti- war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes. I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me. The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system? However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong." I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don't find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don't see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person's heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat? I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey's brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times. The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most. I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won't work with that group; he won't attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions. Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children's children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity. I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble. Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too… which makes the property even more valuable. This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources. Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it. It's up to you now.

Not theory, the moon is moving away 1.6 inches a year. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/q0262.shtml ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah! Like the asphalt eating bacteria. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=mo...r=0&thold=0 Planet Vulcan Science fiction may soon become science fact Astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have recently concluded that the upcoming planet-finding mission, SIM PlanetQuest, would be able to detect an Earth-like planet around the star 40 Eridani, a planet familiar to "Star Trek" fans as "Vulcan." 40 Eridani, a triple-star system 16 light-years from Earth, includes a red-orange K dwarf star slightly smaller and cooler than our sun. Vulcan is thought to orbit that dwarf star, called 40 Eridani A. When pondering the idea that SIM might be able to detect Vulcan, astronomer Dr. Angelle Tanner at Caltech had two questions: Can a planet form around 40 Eridani A? Can SIM detect such a planet? She consulted a planetary theorist, Dr. Sean Raymond of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "Since the three members of the triple star system are so far away from each other [hundreds of astronomical units - the Earth-Sun distance], I see no reason why an Earth-mass planet would not be able to form around the primary star, 40 Eridani A," he said. If Vulcan life were to exist on the planet, the orbit of the planet would have to lie in a sweet spot around the star where liquid water could be present on its surface. Water is an essential ingredient for any organism to live long and prosper. For 40 Eridani A, this spot, or "habitable zone," is 0.6 astronomical units from the star. That means Vulcans would get to celebrate a birthday about every six months. The SIM PlanetQuest instrument will be so accurate, it could measure the thickness of a nickel at a distance from Earth to the moon. Using a set of mathematical models based on Newton's Laws, Tanner was able to conclude that SIM would be able to definitively determine whether there is an Earth-mass planet orbiting in the habitable zone around 40 Eridani A, and could also determine its orbit. This is quite an exciting prospect, since NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, planned for launch after SIM, would not only be able to take a rudimentary "picture" of the planet, but also could search for signatures of life such as methane and ozone. When asked what life would be like on Vulcan, Tanner speculated that the inhabitants might be pale. "A K dwarf star emits its light at wavelengths which are a bit redder compared to those from the sun, so I wonder whether it's harder to get a tan there," she said. The results of Tanner's simulations will be submitted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

I haven't seen a total one yet, but it still tickles me to know that our sun is traveling through space, and taking us along for the ride, so we are never in the same place twice in space. So for a time traveler to travel through time? that person would need a space ship. I think "though I'm not sure" that the sun travels through space at 4,000 miles a week?, "or there abouts". -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 28th All of North America will witness some portion of the eclipse, but western observers are favored. The early penumbral or umbral phases will be in progress at moonset for observers in Maritime Canada. From the eastern USA, the Great Lakes region and Ontario, the Moon sets in total eclipse. Only observers to the west of the Rockies (including Alaska) will be treated to the entire event. All phases of the eclipse are also visible from islands of the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand and eastern Australia. Various stages of the eclipse are in progress at moonrise for eastern Asia. No eclipse is visible from Europe, Africa and western Asia.

I’m actually holding back when it comes to the border fence. I only really need to post 1 link in order to make my case as to why “other than illegal immigration” we need the fence. Just 1 link, and a little commentary, and that’s it, and I can promise you that the link is sooooooooo Hardcore that neither the democrats would dispute it, and they would move so fast on the fence you would swear that some one took a blow torch and lit it underneath their chairs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://hezbollahmexicoborder.blogspot.com/...r-southern.html Saturday, May 19, 2007 Hezbollah Could Infiltrate Our Southern Border CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1985 Lebanese civil war. An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in Lebanon in 1982 that the United States has labeled an international terrorist organization. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials. U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. From the largely lawless region, it is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists. They are men like Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim whom Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the center of the Tri-border region. There is nothing particularly distinctive about him, but beneath the everyday T-shirt he wears beats the heart of a devoted Hezbollah militiaman. “If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead,” Meri said. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.” U.S. and South American officials warn that Meri’s is more than a rhetorical threat. It is surprisingly easy to move across borders in the Triple Frontier, where motorbikes are permitted to cross without documents. A smuggler can bike from Paraguay into Brazil and return without ever being asked for a passport, and it is not much harder for cars and trucks. The implications of such lawlessness could be dire, U.S. and Paraguayan officials said. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists. The CIA singles out the Mexican border as an especially inviting target for Hezbollah operatives. “Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico,” its Counter Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper. “Non-Mexicans often are more difficult to intercept because they typically pay high-end smugglers a large sum of money to efficiently assist them across the border, rather than haphazardly traverse it on their own.” Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Tri-border has become a top-level, if little-publicized, concern for Washington, particularly as tension mounts with Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor. Paraguayan government officials told Telemundo that CIA operatives and agents of Israel’s Mossad security force were known to be in the region seeking to neutralize what they believe could be an imminent threat. But long before that, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies regarded the region as a “free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism,” Louis Freeh, then the director of the FBI, said in 1998. Edward Luttwak, a counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group, described the Tri-border as the most important base for Hezbollah outside Lebanon itself, home to “a community of dangerous fanatics that send their money for financial support to Hezbollah.” “People kill with that, and they have planned terrorist attacks from there,” said Luttwak, who has been a terrorism consultant to the CIA and the National Security Council. “The northern region of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and even Brazil are large terrains, and they have an organized training and recruitment camp for terrorists.” “Our experience is that if you see one roach, there are a lot more,” said Frank Urbancic, principal deputy director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office, who has spent most of his career in the Middle East. Operating out of the Tri-border, Hezbollah is accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks in nearby Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the early 1990s in operations personally masterminded by Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mugniyah. Mugniyah is on the most-wanted terrorist lists of both the FBI and the European Union, and he is believed to work frequently out of Ciudad del Este. For President Bush and the U.S.-led “war on terror,” the flourishing of Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere demonstrates the worrying worldwide reach of Islamist radicalism. In the Tri-border, Hezbollah and other radical anti-U.S. groups have found a lucrative base from which to finance many of their operations. Smuggling has long been the lifeblood of the Tri-border, accounting for $2 billion to $3 billion in the region, according to congressional officials. Several U.S. agencies said that Arab merchants were involved in smuggling cigarettes and livestock to avoid taxes, as well as cocaine and marijuana through the border with Brazil on their way to Europe. Some of the proceeds are sent to Hezbollah, they said. Many Arabs in the Tri-border openly acknowledge that they send money to Hezbollah to help their families, and the man in charge of the local mosque in Ciudad del Este, who asked not to be identified by name, declared that Shiite Muslim mosques had “an obligation to finance it.” But the U.S. government maintains that the money ends up stained with blood when it goes through Hezbollah, which is blamed for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1980s, as well as the kidnappings of Americans, two of whom were tortured and killed. Patrick M. O’Brien, the assistant secretary of the Treasury in charge of fighting terrorist financing, acknowledged flatly that “we are worried.” “Hezbollah has penetrated the area, and part of that smuggling money is used to finance terrorist attacks,” he said. The biggest obstacle in the U.S. campaign to counter Hezbollah close to home is Paraguay, whose “judicial system remains severely hampered by a lack of strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism legislation,” the State Department said in a “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report. Since 2004, a draft bill to strengthen money laundering laws has been stalled in the Paraguayan legislature, and the government of President Nicanor Duarte has introduced no draft legislation of its own. Hampering reform efforts is an endemic reluctance in Paraguay to acknowledge the problem. Interior Minister Rogelio Benitez Vargas, who supervises the national police, claimed that Hezbollah-linked smuggling was a relic of the 1980s. Today, he said, the Triple Frontier is a safe and regulated “commercial paradise.” But authorities from the U.S. State and Treasury departments to Interpol to the front-line Paraguayan police agencies all paint a different picture. Eduardo Arce, secretary of the Paraguayan Union of Journalists, said the government was widely considered to be under the control of drug traffickers and smugglers. Without interference, thousands of people cross the River Parana every day from Paraguay to Brazil over the Bridge of Friendship loaded with products on which they pay no taxes. As police look the other way, he said, some smugglers cross the border 10 to 20 times a day. Earlier this year, Telemundo cameras were present as smugglers in Ciudad del Este loaded trucks headed for Brazil. They could have been laden with drugs or weapons, but no authorities ever checked. Direct link to Iran allegedJosé Adasco knows better than most why Hezbollah has the region in a grip of fear. In 1992 and 1994, terrorists believed to be linked to Hezbollah carried out two attacks against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital. In the first, a car bomb exploded at the Israeli Embassy, killing 29 people. Two years later, a suicide bomber attacked the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a Jewish community center, killing 85 more. Adasco, who represents the Jewish association, has never been able to forget that day and the friends he lost. “Really, to see the knocked-down building, [to hear] the screams, the cries, people running — it was total chaos. Chaos, chaos. It is inexpressible,” he said. An investigation by Interpol and the FBI found not only Hezbollah’s involvement, but Iran’s, as well. The Argentine prosecutor’s office said the Iranian president at the time, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ordered the attack to retaliate against Argentina for suspending nuclear cooperation with Iran. A warrant for Rafsanjani’s arrest remains outstanding, and the prosecutor’s office continues its investigation 13 years later. Alberto Nisman, the Argentine district attorney leading the investigation, said the connection between the Hezbollah attack and the Tri-border is unquestionable. Among other things, he said, the suicide bomber passed through the area to receive instructions. In the intervening years, Hezbollah has spread throughout Latin America. On their Web page, local Hezbollah militants in Venezuela call their fight against the United States a “holy war” and post photographs of would-be suicide terrorists with masks and bombs. There are also Web sites for Hezbollah in Chile, El Salvador, Argentina and most other Latin American countries. “The Paraguayan justice [ministry] and the national police have found propaganda materials for Hezbollah” across the hemisphere, said Augusto Anibal Lima of Paraguay’s Tri-border Police. And it is not only propaganda. In October, homemade bombs were left in front of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, which is next to a school. Police arrested a student carrying Hezbollah propaganda in Spanish. One of the pamphlets showed a picture of children and said, “Combat is our highest expression of love and the only way to offer a healthy and uncorrupted world.” Caracas police were able to detonate the bombs safely. Police Commissioner Wilfredo Borras said they appeared to be “explosive devices made to make noise and publicity” — very different from what would be used if the United States attacked Iran. “In [the] United States, there are many Arabs — in Canada, too,” said Meri, the Hezbollah member who spoke with Telemundo. “If one bomb [strikes] Iran, one bomb, [bush] will see the world burning. “... If an order arrives, all the Arabs that are here, in other parts in the world, all will go to take bombs, bombs for everybody if he bombs Iran.” SOURCE: Homeland Security Institute Newsletter http://www.homelandsecurity.org/bulletin/070511.htm Their source: MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17874369/

BlingBling, good to see you again, and I AGREE with ya. :) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You misunderstand, my family member is stable, and I'm the care giver "Probably out live us all". Plus for hospice care the person has to be diagnosed with 6 months or less to live, and I've been a very serious pain to my family members' doctors. If I took the doctors advice and let them operate, then my family member would have been dead “and horribly too in less then 6 months, and it's been FAR longer than 6 months and him or her is in no pain, and everything works. So there is no point in him or her being in hospice, and yes I did get other opinions. Insurance wise, him or her is fine. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/0705...87gprogover.htm Fact Sheets May 11, 2007 Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act A Law Enforcement Partnership Terrorism and criminal activity are most effectively combated through a multi-agency/multi-authority approach that encompasses federal, state and local resources, skills and expertise. State and local law enforcement play a critical role in protecting our homeland security because they are often the first responders on the scene when there is an incident or attack against the United States . During the course of daily duties, they will often encounter foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety. Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), effective September 30, 1996, added Section 287(g), performance of immigration officer functions by state officers and employees, to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This authorizes the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), provided that the local law enforcement officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. State and local patrol officers, detectives, investigators and correctional officers working in conjunction with ICE gain: necessary resources and authority to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling and money laundering; and support in more remote geographical locations. Memorandum of Agreement The MOA defines the scope and limitations of the authority to be designated. It also establishes the supervisory structure for the officers working under the cross-designation and prescribes the agreed upon complaint process governing officer conduct during the life of the MOA. Under the statute, ICE will supervise all cross-designated officers when they exercise their immigration authorities. Once the scope of limitations of the MOA has been reached, the assistant secretary of ICE, and the governor, a senior political entity, or the head of the local agency may sign the MOA, requesting the cross-designation. Success Stories ICE currently has 287 (g) MOAs with the Alabama Department of Public Safety/State Police, the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. ICE also has MOAs with the county sheriff’s departments in Maricopa County, Ariz.; Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, Calif.; Cobb County, Ga.; Alamance, Gaston and Mecklenburg counties, N.C.; and Davidson County, Tenn. 287 (g) partnership success stories include use of the program in the field and with persons already in custody: North Carolina The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office received its 287 (g) authority in February 2006. Sherriff’s deputies in county jail facilities check the immigration status of all non-U.S. born arrestees. According to county documents, in the first nine months of the program, deputies examined over 1,600 arrestees, placing 853 of them in deportation proceedings. The county reports that the success of their program has resulted in other law enforcement agencies contacting them for information about the 287(g) program. Alabama 287 (g) trained Alabama state troopers, working with motor vehicle licensing stations throughout the state, check the immigration status of all foreign nationals applying for driver's licenses. The partnership training from ICE enabled these troopers to identify 27 individuals who were later convicted of federal charges after using fraudulent documents in an attempt to obtain Alabama driver's licenses. In addition, 13 of these individuals were convicted of state charges including narcotics violations and possession of forged instruments. Though use of the program, troopers have identified and arrested, among others, a Laotian citizen determined to be a registered sex offender and a previously deported Mexican citizen who was originally convicted of drug trafficking. On two separate occasions in the fall of 2006, 287(g) certified state troopers identified and arrested illegal aliens (one from Mexico and the other, the Bahamas) and charged them with Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument. Form I-247 Immigration Detainers were filed with the respective holding jails. On November 18, 2006, a 287(g) cross-designated state trooper encountered a prisoner who was in custody after pleading guilty to Theft of Property 1st Degree, a Class B Felony. The trooper determined that he was removable as an alien who had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Upon the prisoner's release from the Cullman County jail, he was remanded to ICE as a mandatory custody alien not eligible for bond. The 287 (g) partnerships continue to generate hundreds of investigative leads, arrests and convictions for a variety of federal and state charges. Criminal Alien Program (CAP) Under current MOAs, 287(g) participants in Arizona , California , and North Carolina currently ensure that criminal aliens incarcerated within federal, state and local facilities are not released into the community upon completion of their sentences. ICE is working to expand 287(g) authority to local and county correctional facilities that are not operational within normal ICE jurisdictions. The expansion of the 287(g) program into smaller county and local correctional facilities will act as a force multiplier for CAP and have a positive impact on this important program. Officer Selection Requirement U.S. citizen; Current background investigation completed; Minimum two years experience in current position; and No disciplinary actions pending. Training Requirements ICE offers two training programs including a five-week program for field level law enforcement officers and a four-week program for correctional personnel. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Academy sets standards and testing. Certified instructors conduct the training. Contact Information For more information on Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, please visit the FAQ page or you may request an information packet via the Section 287g form.

Same ole same ole politics. Family is healthy "life is good". Oh!! my family member who has cancer is being KICKED off of Hospice, cause he or she will live far longer than 6 months.

Nice to be back. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.techshout.com/science/2007/22/c...iter-this-year/ China has already laid out plans to launch a lunar orbiter in the second part of 2007. This is one of the initial steps towards a lunar probe. The first half of any project to the moon involves a probe while the second and the most important part is to make an attempt to land it on the lunar surface. That means, the Chang’e I orbiter will have to be launched first, After that, China will have to send one more mission that will have to travel all the way to the moon, then land on the lunar surface and ultimately gather samples before returning to earth. In a speech at Beijing Jiaotong University, Sun Laiyan said, “The moon probe project is the third milestone in China’s space technology after satellite and manned spacecraft projects, and the foremost step for us in exploring deep space.” China became only the third country in 2006 after United States and the former Soviet Union to launch a ‘Taikonaut,’ as they are called in China, into space aboard its own rocket. Next year, China is also planning to carry out a full-fledged space walk. There are future plans to dock two orbiting vehicles. The National Space Administration of China is planning to send a moon rover by the year 2012. The Lunar Orbiter launch will mark a beginning of a new era in China and will begin a journey that could end with Taikonauts landing on the moon. Let’s hope our very own Chandrayaan, the unmanned lunar mission by the Indian Space Research Organization also goes off smoothly. We can sure expect a space race between the two new technology powerhouses, something similar to what happened a few years ago between the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union!

http://www.solutions.uiuc.edu/directory.cf...amp;Parents=0|5 <~~~~~~~~~ Hey!!!!! It's an edu link. :) That link has alot of good tips for All Sorts of Stains. And some of you think that just because I'm in politics, that people like me don't concentrate on the real issues in life.

And it’s over now, the democrats WIN, and the republicans lost. But this is OUR ELECTRAL SYSTEM "no matter what" it's the best system on earth. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DEMOCRATS. :) Now You ARE in the drivers’ seat, ENJOY the RIDE. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for allowing me to post in here Luke, It's been a pleasure.

The absentee ballots in Virginia STILL have to be counted "and those usually are military". Still it's been sweeping, and it REALLY IS A GREAT DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. IT'S BEEN A REFREREDUM ON THE BUSH POLICY. STILL THE PEOPLE HAVE VOTED. :)

From this Republican to the Democrats; Congratulations.

BlingBling, you are jealous, and in my district? Turn out has been high. Allen is WINNING :)