Human

I for one WILL be getting the flu shot this year (I think that it's going to be a hard flu season this year. I don't have any facts to back it up, but I aint taking any chances this year.) By the way; JOIN THE REST OF US CHICKENS, and GET THE FLU SHOT. :)

There is alot going on in Latrin America, and Latin America does NOT revolve around hugo chavez. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/articl...ontentID=158086 Trump Plans Panama Canal Project 26 April 2006 PANAMA -- As reported by Reuters: "Celebrity property tycoon Donald Trump plans a joint venture to build a 65-story complex in Panama City as developers ride a wave of excitement generated by a proposed Panama Canal expansion. "Developers expect an influx of foreign professionals as the waterway undergoes its biggest overhaul in history. A referendum on the Canal project is expected later this year. "The 2.4 million-square-foot (223,000-sq-metre) Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower will cost more than $220 million and include 500 luxury condominiums, 312 hotel units, a private beach, a marina and a casino, the project's developers said on Tuesday. "Construction will start this year and be completed in 2009. "The Trump Organization, Panamanian luxury resort developer K Group and Colombian construction company Arias Serna Saravia will carry out the work…"

I wonder how many kids took that cough medicine? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Update; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061021/ap_on_...deadly_medicine PANAMA CITY, Panama - Thousands of health workers and students took to Panama's streets to collect bottles of cough syrup and lotions possibly contaminated with an industrial chemical as the death toll from the tainted medicine rose to 27 Friday. The deaths — which began in July — baffled authorities until last week, when U.S. health officials found traces of diethylene glycol, an industrial chemical related to antifreeze, in a red, sugarless cough syrup made by a government-run pharmaceutical factory. Panama sought assistance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after victims suffered mysterious kidney failure, paralysis and sagging of the facial muscles and other symptoms. Forty-three people remain hospitalized. The Health Ministry reported 27 deaths linked to the tainted medications. Authorities detained five people who allegedly sold contaminated raw material to the government factory. The five suspects allegedly bought the material from a supplier. Authorities have recovered about 3,750 bottles of the syrup — the medication which appears to have be implicated in the largest number of cases — but reports indicate that as much as 20,000 bottles may have originally been sold to the public, often poorer Panamanians who depend on government health services. The government has ordered the cough syrup and cold remedies removed from store shelves. Thousands of health workers and university students combed neighborhoods Friday in Panama City and elsewhere to collect the medications and convince those who may have taken them to have themselves examined "We have recruited people to make a sweep, going house-to-house even, in areas where we have information that people may have gotten prescriptions" for the contaminated medicines, said the government's health promotion director, Mayanin Rodriguez. About 30 collection centers have been set up to receive the old medications and offer the public replacements of safe equivalent medications. Most of those affected were patients over age 60 with a history of diabetes or high blood pressure. The victims experienced symptoms including nausea and diarrhea.

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticl...oryId=N19198228 Five people investigated for Panama medicine deaths Thu 19 Oct 2006 9:56 PM ET PANAMA CITY, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Panamanian authorities are investigating five people over the distribution of glycol-contaminated cough medicine that killed 26 people, the state prosecutor's office said on Thursday. The government-made cough syrup contained diethylene glycol, an industrial solvent commonly used for brake fluids or as an engine coolant. Twenty-six Panamanians, mainly in the capital, have died since September, when the outbreak first came to light. Another 44 are affected and receiving treatment. This month, experts from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration identified the toxin in cough syrups and other liquid drugs that are usually diluted with a safer but more expensive chemical, propylene glycol. The poisonous glycol was bought from a company in Spain, and Panama has requested assistance from Spain in investigating the affair, the office said in a statement. If found guilty, the five suspects could face eight to 10 years in jail for crimes against public health. The suspects are prohibited from leaving the country. The fraudulent or negligent use of diethylene glycol in the pharmaceutical industry has killed hundreds worldwide. A major diethylene glycol poisoning in the United States contributed to the creation of the FDA in 1938.

http://www.newrules.org/retail/news_slug.php?slugid=345 Oct. 19, 2006 Wal-Mart's Bait-and-Switch on Generic Drugs by Jeff Milchen and Stacy Mitchell Even with its massive marketing and PR budget, Wal-Mart could not buy advertising as powerful as these headlines. Over the last few weeks, hundreds of newspapers have run stories on the chain's new generic drug pricing initiative under sweeping titles like this one from the Chicago Tribune: "Wal-Mart to sell generic drugs for $4 a month." Consumers appear to have gotten the message. Only 13 percent currently get their prescriptions at a mass merchandiser. But, according to a new Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive poll, 50 percent of consumers now say they are likely to turn to Wal-Mart and Target, which has announced a similar program, for medications. But the media coverage has been grossly misleading. Few journalists have closely examined Wal-Mart's initiative, which is far more limited than most news accounts have led people to believe. Here are the facts: Although the program has been touted in newspapers nationwide, for now the special pricing is available only at Wal-Mart stores in Tampa, Florida. The chain has said it will expand some of the pricing to some stores in other regions later this year. There are thousands of generic drugs, but Wal-Mart has said it will offer the $4 per month pricing on only about 300 of them. This list actually includes fewer than 150 different drugs. That's because Wal-Mart counted different dosages of the same drug separately, including four versions of ibuprofen and a dozen of the antibiotic amoxicillin. Quite a few of these drugs, like the ibuprofen, are already widely available for $4 or less. Many older medications are on the list, while newer replacement medications that work better or have fewer side effects are not included. For example, Wal-Mart includes only one of the generic statins used to treat high cholesterol. It's the oldest one and the one with the worst side effects. Wal-Mart's program is a classic bait-and-switch, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association. People will go to Wal-Mart expecting to save money on their prescriptions, only to end up paying full price in most cases and probably also leaving the store with other merchandise that carries an even higher profit margin. Meanwhile, a robust body of research has found that consumers receive far superior health care and even save money if they opt for a locally owned pharmacy. A national study conducted by Consumer Reports in 2003 found that on a variety of measures—from the amount of personal attention provided by the pharmacist to the store's ability to obtain out-of-stock medications quickly—independent pharmacies outscored Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and other big chains by "an eye-popping margin." Several studies have compared prescription drug prices in states like Maine, New York, and Utah, and have found that independent pharmacies have lower prices than both drugstore chains, like Walgreens and CVS, and mass merchandisers, like Target and Wal-Mart. How are independents able to beat these global giants on price? Most belong to buying cooperatives, enabling them to marry the efficiencies of scale with the benefits of local ownership, including personal relationships with customers and often a deep involvement in their local communities. Now that's the kind of good news on health care affordability that ought to run in newspapers nationwide.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061019/dcth507.html?.v=1 NASA and NOAA Announce Antarctic Ozone Hole Is a Record Breaker Thursday October 19, 2:29 pm ET WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth. The ozone layer acts to protect life on Earth by blocking harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. The "ozone hole" is a severe depletion of the ozone layer high above Antarctica. It is primarily caused by human-produced compounds that release chlorine and bromine gases in the stratosphere. "From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite measures the total amount of ozone from the ground to the upper atmosphere over the entire Antarctic continent. This instrument observed a low value of 85 Dobson Units (DU) on Oct. 8, in a region over the East Antarctic ice sheet. Dobson Units are a measure of ozone amounts above a fixed point in the atmosphere. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument was developed by the Netherlands' Agency for Aerospace Programs, Delft, The Netherlands, and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland. Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., use balloon-borne instruments to measure ozone directly over the South Pole. By Oct. 9, the total column ozone had plunged to 93 DU from approximately 300 DU in mid-July. More importantly, nearly all of the ozone in the layer between eight and 13 miles above the Earth's surface had been destroyed. In this critical layer, the instrument measured a record low of only 1.2 DU., having rapidly plunged from an average non-hole reading of 125 DU in July and August. "These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere," said David Hofmann, director of the Global Monitoring Division at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. "The depleted layer has an unusual vertical extent this year, so it appears that the 2006 ozone hole will go down as a record-setter." Observations by Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder show extremely high levels of ozone destroying chlorine chemicals in the lower stratosphere (approximately 12.4 miles high). These high chlorine values covered the entire Antarctic region in mid to late September. The high chlorine levels were accompanied by extremely low values of ozone. The temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere causes the severity of the ozone hole to vary from year to year. Colder than average temperatures result in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer temperatures lead to smaller ones. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) provided analyses of satellite and balloon stratospheric temperature observations. The temperature readings from NOAA satellites and balloons during late-September 2006 showed the lower stratosphere at the rim of Antarctica was approximately nine degrees Fahrenheit colder than average, increasing the size of this year's ozone hole by 1.2 to 1.5 million square miles. The Antarctic stratosphere warms by the return of sunlight at the end of the polar winter and by large-scale weather systems (planetary-scale waves) that form in the troposphere and move upward into the stratosphere. During the 2006 Antarctic winter and spring, these planetary-scale wave systems were relatively weak, causing the stratosphere to be colder than average. As a result of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) peaked around 1995 and are decreasing in both the troposphere and stratosphere. It is estimated these gases reached peak levels in the Antarctica stratosphere in 2001. However, these ozone-depleting substances typically have very long lifetimes in the atmosphere (more than 40 years). As a result of this slow decline, the ozone hole is estimated to annually very slowly decrease in area by about 0.1 to 0.2 percent for the next five to 10 years. This slow decrease is masked by large year-to-year variations caused by Antarctic stratosphere weather fluctuations. The recently completed 2006 World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion concluded the ozone hole recovery would be masked by annual variability for the near future and the ozone hole would fully recover in approximately 2065. "We now have the largest ozone hole on record," said Craig Long of NCEP. As the sun rises higher in the sky during October and November, this unusually large and persistent area may allow much more ultraviolet light than usual to reach Earth's surface in the southern latitudes

The problem with all of this is that, if North Korea continues on its present course? It will embolden Japan and South Korea to go Nuclear. I don't think that china would appreciate a Nuclear Japan, considering that Japan STILL has issues with China on some territories in the region, and it's all really moving towards a re-newed Nuclear Arms race in that area. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay just for fun "since it was rainy today", and I was kinda bored. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NORTH KOREAN AIRFIELDS Air Ports - 7 NAME Chongjin Ihyon Kwail Onchon Pukch'ang Sunchon Unchon Up Airfields - 60 NAME Ayang Ni Highway Strip Changjin-up Changyon Highway Strip Chik-Tong Ch'o do Haeju Hoeyang Southeast Hwangju Hwangsuwon Hyesan Hyon-ni Ichon Ihyon Inchon Northeast Kaechon Kang Da Ri Kangdong Kilchu Hwy Kojo Koksan Koksan South Highway Strip Kuktong Kuum-ni Kwaksan Kyongsong-Chuul Maengsan Manpo Mirim Nuchon Ni Highway Strip Okpyong ni Ongjin Orang Paegam Panghyon Panghyon South Highway Strip Pyong Ni South Highway Strip Pyongsul Li Pyongyang Samjiyon Sangwon Highway Strip Sinhung Highway Strip Sinuiju Sohung South Sonchon Sondok Sunan Sunan-up North Highway Strip Sungam ni Taebukpo Ri Taechon Taechon Northwest T'aet'an-pihaengjang Toha Ri North Toksan Uiju Uthachi Wong Yo Ri Highway Strip Wonsan Yong Hung

China, US to hold meeting every year for space cooperation: official Space agency officials from China and the United States are to meet annually to discuss the development of bilateral space cooperation, said Sun Laiyan, administrator of China National Space Administration, on Thursday. He said the two countries would jointly explore fields of possible cooperation, such as space science, geoscience and space debris. Sun said his U.S. counterpart, Michael Griffin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), agreed to a four-point Chinese proposal to boost cooperation during formal talks in Beijing in September. Under the proposal, the two nations will strengthen exchanges and communication, increase mutual trust, foster friendship, and promote space cooperation. They would eliminate obstacles and boost mutual trust so as to develop constructive and cooperative ties, Sun said. Source: Xinhua http://english.peopl...012_311263.html

This is worth the read. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/htm...00610140003.asp By Annie I. Bang Who are driving North Korea's nuclear ambitions? Experts in Seoul point to three hawkish military generals whose influence has led the North's leader onto a dangerous path. They also mention two revered scientists who laid the groundwork for nuclear technology in the North. As the world ponders over North Korea's alleged first-ever nuclear test on Monday, experts in Seoul say the North's leader Kim Jong-il might have received pressure from his close generals to go ahead with the test. The generals are Park Jae-kyung, Hyun Chul-hee and Lee Myong-su. They belong to the North Korean People's Army and often appear in the North Korean media standing next to Kim. "It is very likely that the three and other military hard-liners set the stage for enforcing the nuclear bomb test, and then Kim Jong-il ratified the procedure," said Nam Sung-wook, a North Korean studies professor at Korea University. "Park and Hyun have insisted that North Korea must possess nuclear weapons in order to uphold its social and military structures," Nam said. As North Korea engages in its military-first policy, observers say its military strength is now stronger than ever. North Korea's bomb was made possible by noted scientists such as the late Do Sang-rok, who defected from South Korea to the North in 1946. "The first-class treatment received by professor Do from Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il tells us that they held a strong interest in developing nuclear weapons," a government source said. Do was born in 1903 in North Korea and died in 1990 after publishing several research papers on nuclear matters and nuclear energy. He had taught at Seoul National University before Korea declared its independency from Japanese colonization in 1945. He then left for Pyongyang and taught at the North's top Kim Il-sung University. Do was beloved by the North Korean regime's founder Kim Il-sung and his son Jong-il. He received numerous awards, including the Kim Il Sung Award in 1973 for his contribution in nuclear development. Aside from Do, there is another renowned scientist - Seo Sang-guk, a physics professor at Kim Il-sung University. Born in 1938, Seo has played a leading role in the development of nuclear bombs and taught at Kim Il-sung University after studying abroad in Russia in the 1960s. When Kim Jong-il celebrated his 60th birthday in 1998, North Korean media reported that he had sent a prize to Seo for his contribution to the nation's development in the field of science. It is reported that Seo is also a secret member of the North's defense committee and deals with its nuclear plans and policies. With the North's hard-line position becoming stronger, experts say it has become more difficult to deal with its nuclear ambitions. Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, who recently visited Pyongyang, said the financial sanctions against North Korea have made the nuclear issue more complicated. In May, North Korea abruptly canceled a test-run for the inter-Korean railways, citing military security concerns. And the Seoul government explained the North's military authorities have never been happy with implementing inter-Korean agreements. The North's hard-liners have also been opposed to the inter-Korean businesses in the North's border city of Gaeseong and at Mount Geumgang, saying the North has nothing to benefit from them.

It is NOT short term economic impacts that high oil prices has affected, IT's the long term IMPACT that the high oil prices has instilled "not just in the United States" BUT the WORLD. As well as Iran "with Venezuela’s support" it really is creating a dangerous atmosphere in the world in which MANY COUNTRIES WANT TO GO NUCLEAR. CAN YOU SAY DOMINO AFFECT? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34975 LATIN AMERICA: Nuclear Energy Reborn Diego Cevallos* MEXICO CITY, Oct 3 (IPS/IFEJ) - Just 3.1 percent of Latin America's electricity comes from nuclear sources, but if expansion plans in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico succeed, that proportion could more than double in a decade -- much to the annoyance of environmentalists. Carried by the global wave towards nuclear energy being driven by high petroleum prices, Brazil is proposing construction of the country's third reactor, while Argentina and Mexico will go from two to four nuclear energy plants each. Brazil, one of the nine countries worldwide that enriches uranium -- the essential input for nuclear energy -- is trying to make expanded production viable. And Argentina is picking up enrichment efforts begun in the 1980s, but halted in 1992. The nuclear plants in operation, with second-generation technology, had an estimated useful life of 15 to 20 years in the case of Mexico, and 30 to 40 years in Argentina and Brazil. But the plans imply prolonging their operation up to 60 years in some cases. The criticisms from ecologists, led by the environmental watchdog Greenpeace, point to the danger of accidents, the inevitable accumulation of toxic waste, and the lack of transparency that usually surrounds any nuclear activity. There is no effort to conceal, but "because it involves strategic industries with national security issues, there is information that is not appropriate to be made available to the public," Mexico's under-secretary for electricity, José Acevedo, said in an interview. The Mexican government announced in early September a plan to build two reactors, which would begin operating in 2010, and opened bidding for expanding the capacity of the two that have been in operation since the 1990s, at the Laguna Verde plant, 290 kilometres northeast of the capital. Five percent of Mexico's electricity is supplied by those nuclear reactors. In August, the Argentine government launched a similar plan, which includes completing construction of an unfinished nuclear power plant, studying the feasibility of opening a new one, and also producing enriched uranium. The two plants in Argentina supply seven percent of that country's energy needs: Atucha I, 100 km from Buenos Aires, and Embalse, in the north-central province of Córdoba. Built in 1974, Atucha I was the first nuclear-electrical plant in Latin America. Its productive life was originally set at 32 years, but government authorities plan to extend it to 42. Embalse began to produce energy in 1984 and its operating license expires in 2014. The government's plan is to invest 600 million dollars to complete Atucha II, on which construction began in 1981 but was abandoned in the 1990s. Brazil, with the sixth largest reserves of uranium in the world, wants to become a major producer of this strategic nuclear fuel. Two nuclear reactors operate in Brazil, in Angra dos Reis, 130 km west of Rio de Janeiro: Angra I, inaugurated in 1985, and Angra II, in 2000. Together they provide about four percent of the electricity consumed in Brazil. Equipment for Angra III has already been purchased. The nuclear power plants are second generation, with an original useful life of 40 years, but new studies have prolonged it to 60 years. They are safer than the world's first nuclear reactors, but will be surpassed by the third generation, which the United State will begin building in the next few years, says Aquilino Senra, nuclear engineering professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Nuclear scientist Juan Luis Francois of the Autonomous National University of Mexico sees this as good news. "There are currently 435 reactors in the world functioning safely and efficiently, despite statements like those from Greenpeace, a group that handles information in a way that is quite tendentious and not very clean," commented the expert. But Guilherme Leonardi, coordinator of Greenpeace-Brazil's climate and energy campaign, maintains that faults and accidents are "inherent to nuclear technology." Embalse and Atucha I in Argentina have suffered imperfections and accidents over the years. Mexico's Laguna Verde plant has seen administrative and security mistakes, as well as some fissures in the plant itself, according to reports from the World Association of Nuclear Operators, cited by Greenpeace. But the government says they were minor observations and have already been corrected. The waste from nuclear power plants will always be a problem, with the risk of accidents or theft, which in Leonardi's opinion defines the industry as "dirty, dangerous, and surpassed by alternative sources like wind and solar," and furthermore, "very costly." In the three Latin American countries, the waste is accumulating in storage sites at the plants themselves, and their final disposal has yet to be determined, because the governments assure that they have the capacity for storage for several decades. But the case of Laguna Verde in Mexico is one of "a very unsafe plant," where storage sites are full, says Arturo Moreno of Greenpeace-Mexico. Mexico's electricity under-secretary Acevedo assured that "around the world the waste is kept in storage adjacent to the plants until a definitive policy is developed," which does not exist "anywhere in the world," he said. Francois mentioned "highly advanced" studies about transmuting the waste (reducing and even eliminating its radioactivity) with technologies that could be available in 15 to 20 years. But that doesn't convince the environmentalists. Juan Casavelos, coordinator of Greenpeace-Argentina's energy campaign, maintains that "in the nuclear arena, everything is cause for worry." There is a lack of transparency in official information, and the evidence of errors and accidents at the nuclear plants is hidden, he said. Furthermore, say activists, in addition to the inevitable link with its use in weapons, nuclear development fell out of favor in 1986, when a reactor collapsed at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, causing the worst accident in the industry's history, leaving thousands of victims and contaminating the water and soil across a vast area. Since then, environmental activism has closed ranks against atomic energy. But now, that movement itself has developed some fissures. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, and the late Hugh Montefiore, who was trustee of the international network Friends of the Earth, spoke out in recent years in favor of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels because it does not produce climate changing greenhouse gases. The International Energy Agency, made up of wealthy countries and major petroleum consumers, will propose ending the virtual global suspension of nuclear development in its annual report in November, say sources close to that organisation. Several European countries and the United States have returned to nuclear energy in reaction to the high costs of fossil fuels and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an argument also put forth by Chile, where President Michelle Bachelet called for studying the feasibility of nuclear power. Worldwide, 16 percent of electricity comes from nuclear sources, while the six reactors operating in Latin America supply 3.1 percent of the region's energy needs, according to the Latin American Energy Organisation. In the opinion of Francisco Carlos Rey, vice-president of Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission, the negative responses are the result of myths, fueled in part by the tragedy in Chernobyl. The degree of safety at nuclear power plants today is 100 percent, he said. (*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS-Inter Press Service and IFEJ-International Federation of Environmental Journalists. Additional reporting by Maricel Drazer in Argentina and Mario Osava in Brazil. Originally published Sep. 30 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.) (END/2006)

Can't Both of you get together offline, and Iron out your differences????????? I think that it would be a great idea for you two to meet each other in person. :)

I DON"T want to KNOW who is who? THE INTERNET IS SCARY ENOUGH..................................................

Not the Computers. Computers are God (well till they break down, and become ahem on earth.) In anycase can the techs erase the old hard drives??? Ya know, by using a program that replaces the original information with a dummy file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenew...s-C1-Headline-6 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior officials from the United States and major powers will meet in London on Friday to establish the next steps against Iran over its refusal to give up uranium enrichment, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns would join political directors from France, Russia, China, Britain and Germany to discuss what action to take since Iran shunned an August 31 U.N. deadline to give up enrichment or face sanctions. "What we expect the political directors will do is take account and take stock of the situation and review where this process is and what our next steps might be," Casey said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been expected to meet her counterparts in London on Friday but that meeting has not been scheduled, indicating the timing was not right because differences still exist over sanctions. But Casey said there were "scheduling issues" and it was not because of differences. "I wouldn't read anything more into it than that," he told reporters. Rice was in Baghdad on Thursday. Casey reiterated the U.S. view that talks between Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana were "drawing to an end" and the next step was agreeing on U.N. sanctions against Iran. Iran again urged the West on Thursday to resolve the standoff through talks but repeated it would not shelve its enrichment program. Iran says the program is only for power generation but the West suspects it wants to make a bomb. While the United States is lobbying hard for sanctions, Russia and China have opposed this route and even some European allies say diplomacy must be given longer before sanctions are imposed. At the United Nations, Britain's U.N. ambassador said he expected the U.N. Security Council to begin discussing a resolution next week that could impose sanctions on Iran. "I expect the Iranian dossier to re-emerge in New York in the course of next week," Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters. He said Britain "will be discussing with its partners and with members of the council the basis for action by the council to adopt measures under Article 41 against Iran," referring to a provision in the U.N. Charter that allows the council to impose nonmilitary punitive measures. (Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations)

There is only one scandal here, and that is that if the democrats get in power, the African American community will become a permanent third in line in the minority business development group. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Be happy Joe, At least you got a functioning computer. Mine is starting to go bye bye "oh boy!! not good at all". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the solution, and it's brought to you by a republican; http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/3specpop.htm Also www.grants.gov I use to give it to the kids in my neighborhood till I found out that they never bothered to read up on the information "ON FLOPPY DISK". So now when I run into a kid getting ready for college, I give the floppy with the said information to the PARENT. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What this also brings up is a Fundamental Question as to how the counselors in school ARE really helping the kids?????? When I talk with the parents, the parents tell me that the counselors NEVER tell them about the Educational Grants out there for kids. Also when I went to college, the kids there didn't even know, nor did my group "the Adults" know that this type of information exists. It really is sad.

At least on this we can put our politics aside. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN total, there are only several handfuls of people who are fully disabled who work in congress at any given moment. If my group is to make a difference? Then we will have to get out more.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2002/n1..._200212093.html DoD Sets Five-Year Goal to Hire 32,000 People with Disabilities By Rudi Williams American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2002 -- Employment and retention of individuals with disabilities is a top priority in the Department of Defense. And DoD wants them to make their own decisions, fulfill their own goals and be rewarded and advanced on an equal footing with their nondisabled peers, said Ginger Groeber, deputy undersecretary of defense for civilian personnel policy. Groeber told more than 400 attendees at the 22nd annual DoD Disability Awards Ceremony in Bethesda, Md., what DoD is doing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's initiative to hire 32,000 employees who are qualified disability candidates. "Nothing is more important to the secretary of defense than the recruitment and retention of highly qualified and capable individuals who are willing to go the extra mile for their country," Groeber told the audience after they witnessed awards presentations to 16 outstanding DoD employees with disabilities. She said President Bush signed an executive order on July 26, 2000, directing the federal government to hire 100,000 employees with disabilities over the next five years. DoD quickly pledged to hire 32,000 candidates with qualified disabilities before September 2005, she noted. Groeber said the secretary further emphasized DoD's pledge by issuing a memorandum in October 2000 to the secretaries of the military departments and directors of defense agencies fully supporting the president's initiative. Rumsfeld asked them "to redouble your efforts to eliminate barriers in hiring and advancement of employees with qualified disabilities and to increase their opportunities for employment and advancement." The department took the secretary's request to heart and divided the five-year goal of 32,000 new hires by fiscal year, Groeber said. "In fiscal 2001 our goal was 4,763 and 5,801 for fiscal 2002 for a grand total of 10,564," she said. "Our actual hiring level was 11,963 new employees who have qualified disabilities. This exceeds the two-year goal by almost 1,400 additional employees. We fully expect the same success rate for the following fiscal years, as we look this year to hire over 6,600 employees with qualified disabilities." She said such success doesn't happen by "sitting back and waiting for people to come to us." DoD human resources and equal employment opportunity specialists have been committed to this goal and work together to aggressively seek those candidates who would like to come to work for the Department of Defense." At the beginning of the ceremony, Judy Gilliom, manager of the DoD program for people with disabilities, said, "Inclusion and empowerment are the things that make diversity great. People with disabilities are now part of the mainstream. We belong. Few would argue with that statement today, but few would have understood it 32 years ago, when I broke my neck and very suddenly joined this community of people with disabilities." Gilliom told the audience that, since her accident, many things have changed. "Opportunities are better today for people with disabilities to be employed at the Department of Defense than they have ever been before," she noted.

They "the government" probably implemented 508. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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I do some of my best postings at night. Maybe because it's nice and quiet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004995365 French Surgeons Perform First Human Operation At Zero-Gravity Conditions September 27, 2006 11:45 a.m. EST Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Staff Writer Merignac, France (AHN) - A team of French surgeons on Wednesday successfully performed the first zero-gravity operation on a human while on board a free-falling plane to create weightless conditions. The experimental surgery is part of a broader effort by the European Space Agency to develop robots for future space surgeries. Dominique Martin, head of Bordeaux University hospital's plastic surgery unit, and other five members of his team successfully removed a fatty cyst from the forearm of volunteer patient, Philippe Sanchot. The 10-minute operation was performed in 25 sequences, during which an Airbus 300 Zero G aircraft looped up and down, creating weightless conditions for 22 seconds each time during its free fall. The doctors strapped down to the walls of the plane operated during that 22 second-interval only. The surgery went "exactly as we had expected," Martin told reporters near Merignac airport, outside Bordeaux. "All the data we collected allow us to think that operating on a human in the conditions of space would not present insurmountable problems." Frederique Albertoni, a spokeswoman for the Bordeaux hospital where Martin works, said Sanchot was chosen for operation because he is an avid bungee-jumper, and accustomed to dramatic gravitational shifts. Prior to the operation Sanchot and the medical team underwent training in zero-gravity machines, like those used by astronauts. Martin said the cyst removal operation - what he called the "feasibility study" for possible space surgery - was chosen because it is relatively simple and involves a local anesthetic. Martin and his team had earlier performed a microsurgery under zero-gravity conditions in 2003. That operation mended an artery in a rat's tail. The operation, announced Monday by Martin and the French National Center for Space Studies, is aimed at developing earth-guided surgical space robots.