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Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The NASA Space Shuttle Discovery roared into the Florida sky at 10:39AM ET (14:39 UTC), 2 weeks after the launch was scrubbed due to a faulty sensor. The launch was the start of the STS-114 mission, which is planned to be completed on August 7, 2005.

Solid rocket booster separation was triggered two minutes and five seconds into the flight after burnout of the putty-like fuel packed inside each rocket. The firing of explosive bolts freed the twin boosters from the side of the external tank, allowing them to peel away from the space shuttle. Parachutes were then automatically deployed from the boosters, allowing them to slowly descend into the Atlantic Ocean where they will be towed back to shore.

Discovery initiated the command for main engine cutoff, or MECO, at the 8-minute, 23-second mark. MECO shuts down the orbiter’s three powerful engines in the rear of Discovery after completing the “uphill” climb into space.

With the ascent into space complete and fuel in the external tank exhausted, Discovery jettisoned the orange canister. Following jettison, Commander Eileen Collins pitched the orbiter up until the tank could be sighted through the orbiter´s upper windows. Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi then took digital photographs and video of the external tank from a distance of just 1,500 feet.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Three bombs were detonated near the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan on Monday. The attack occurred within hours of a suicide blast during a political rally which killed 38 people, according to officials.

According to reports, a gun battle followed the attacks. Smoke clouds were seen over the region; several buildings collapsed due to the blast. “I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then blasts went off,” eyewitness Siraj Afridi told Reuters news agency.

Other residents claimed the blast near the U.S. consulate was followed by two successive blasts in the same area. The US consulate in Islamabad denied receiving any information. Witnesses stated that soldiers had cut and ordered people to remain inside their houses. Helicopters of the Pakistani security forces hovered overhead.

A doctor at the principal hospital in the city, which is close to the Afghanistan border and has been affected by numerous bomb explosions in the past year, claimed one person had been killed and one wounded. No official information about the death toll was available. Security forces were in search of the attackers, according to officials.

“There were three blasts. The first happened at a security post while two others about 200 meters away, near the consulate,” an unidentified local security official, told Reuters news agency. “We don’t know exactly whether any attackers are left. The area has been cordoned off and forces are clearing it,” he added.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) has written a March 31 letter to Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The letter presents a number of complaints about the new HHS website for parents, called 4parents.gov.

An additional 145 advocacy groups have signed on to the letter, including notable liberal groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood, and the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Among the concerns expressed in the letter about the website:

• It contains factual errors and outdated terminology.
• It is politically biased, and only credits one non-governmental organization, the National Physicians Center for Family Resources (NPC), which the letter claims has “strong ties to right wing religious organizations like the California Family Council, Alabama Family Alliance, and Focus on the Family.”
• It introduces anti-abortion language, such as referring to the developing fetus as an “unborn child” and defining that pregnancy begins at fertilization, rather than at implantation, the definition previously accepted by the HHS.
• It also “does not address the needs of many youth, including sexually active youth, youth who have been or are being sexually abused, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.”

SIECUS further requested that the site be “immediately taken down and that a formal review of its content and techniques for communication and behavioral learning be launched,” in which SIECUS and its related associations would be assisting.

According to the 4parents.gov website, ” 4Parents.gov is part of a new national public education campaign to provide parents with the information, tools and skills they need to help their teens make the healthiest choices.” Whether this implies that other websites or educational materials will be released in the near future was not made clear.

The site appeared to particularly focus on parent-child communication and the delivery of sex-ed information to parents in order to support that cause. The stated goal of this campaign is improvement of public health through the reduction of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and other health-related issues that affect teens.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Security officials in Pakistan have stated that “[a]t least seven militants” have been killed by suspected US drone strikes. According to reports, US aircraft fired four missiles in North Waziristan, which killed seven or eight rebels and destroyed two cars parked outside a building.

An intelligence official informed AFP that at least seven militants were killed in the incident while three others were wounded. Two other officials from Miranshah confirmed the reports. The identities of those killed have not been confirmed. Officials said the area was a stronghold of a rebel group headed by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, which regularly attacks NATO officials in the country.

The first of the two attacks occurred when two missiles fired at a pair of cars beside a camp located near Mir Ali, North Waziristan, killed six people. The missiles destroyed a nearby compound as well as the vehicles according to officials. Officials added that two suspected rebels were killed by another drone which was fired near the bank of a river close to the camp. These were the ninth and tenth drone strikes carried out in the month of October. September had seen twenty one such strikes, which was the highest number of monthly airstrikes in Pakistan.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

A 17-year-old student faces expulsion by the Plainfield School District in Plainfield, Illinois as a result of blog posts he made on xanga.com which were critical of the school staff, alleging bullying and intimidation. The student has already been suspended for 10 days for the “inappropriate comments” and “threats” the school felt he had expressed on his blog. The posts were not made on school time or with school equipment.

On May 1, the student posted the following message that apparently initiated the suspension:

“dear plainfield school district 202:

i know you read this. and you suck. suspend me or what ever you would like to do. but this is my fuckin web site and i can put what ever i want on it. kinda goes with the first amendment. by suspending kyle again for his xanga you guys are pathetic and totally irrational. first amendment you fucks. freedom of speech. and who the fuck are you to say what some one can do from there own personal computer. one more thing kiss my ass.”

On May 2, the student continued his passionate rant, giving some background to the controversy:

“you are bully’s. I feel threatened by you. if you don’t like what you see here then do not come here its that simple. I’m pretty sure when you suspended Sam you brought her to tears, you are a bully and you make me sick. there’s nothing you can do about us posting about parties we’ve been to and how much liquor we had or how much pot was smoked, the police need to do a better job, you are not the police. and how is it that you feel threatened what was said that was so threatening. I feel threatened by you, I cant even have a public web page with out you bullying me and telling me what has to be removed. where is this freedom of speech that this government is sworn to uphold? none of this is posted at school, its all posted from our home computers, and once we step foot into our homes we are not on school property any more. you are just power hungry, don’t you ever think? did you stop to think that maybe this will make parents angry that you are bullying their children around? did you ever stop to think that maybe now you really are going to have a threat on your hands now that you have just pissed off kids for voicing their opinions? did you ever stop to think this will start a community backlash? The kids at Columbine did what they did because they were bullied. In my opinion you are the real threat here. None of us ever put in our xanga’s that they were going to kill or bring harm to any one. we voiced our opinions. you are the real threat here. you are depriving us of our right to learn. now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”

Attorney Carl Buck, who feels the school authorities have overstepped their boundaries, says, “The district is going to take away the student’s education for exercising his freedom of speech… I feel like they are trying to control his freedom of speech. … He is saying, ‘You can’t bully people and we have a right to object and you can’t throw people out of school for voicing their opinions.'”

Other students at the school posted messages of support in their own Xanga blogs. A blogger named Meghan wrote, “As Americans, we have the right to speak our mind.” Another student, Heather, who found out about the possible expulsion through the local news, wrote that “first of all, Xanga is outside of school … second of all … there was no threat towards anyone on his posts.”

In a related case in March 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an Alaska high school acted improperly by suspending a student for carrying a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” across the street from the school.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has confirmed that a case of ‘mad cow disease’ (BSE) has been found in a dairy cow in central California. The disease is described as “atypical.” None of the milk or beef from the cow made it to the consumption level.

“It (the cow) was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health. Additionally, milk does not transmit BSE,” said John Clifford, who heads the USDA’s veterinary department. Tom Vilsack, the USDA’s Agriculture Secretary also said the food supply is safe saying, “The beef and dairy in the American food supply is safe and USDA remains confident in the health of U.S. cattle. The systems and safeguards in place to protect animal and human health worked as planned to identify this case quickly, and will ensure that it presents no risk to the food supply or to human health. USDA has no reason to believe that any other U.S. animals are currently affected, but we will remain vigilant and committed to the safeguards in place.”

According to reports, the cow was found in a rendering facility where testing turned back a positive match for the disease. Clifford says the cow’s carcass will be destroyed. It is currently being held in a rendering facility in California under state authority.

“As part of our targeted surveillance system, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the nation’s fourth case of BSE in a dairy cow from central California,” said Clifford in a statement to the press. “Samples from the animal in question were tested at USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. Confirmatory results using immunohistochemistry and western blot tests confirmed the animal was positive for atypical BSE, a very rare form of the disease not generally associated with an animal consuming infected feed,” he added.

This is the fourth cow in the United States to test positive for the disease since December of 2003 when a cow from a Washington State farm, born in Canada, tested positive for the disease.

“We are sharing our laboratory results with international animal health reference laboratories in Canada and England, which have official World Animal Health (OIE) reference labs,” added Clifford.

Rumors of the find began to spread early Tuesday. As a result, cattle trading futures fell nearly US$3.00 per hundredweight for a live cow on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday morning, the price for a live cow was just under US$120.00 “The markets were very vulnerable due to a large ownership of live cattle futures by speculative fund managers, who quickly headed to the sideline with the rumor hit,” said Arlan Suderman a market analyst for Farm Futures.

According to the USDA statement, mad cow disease “is a progressive neurological disease among cattle that is always fatal. It belongs to a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Affected animals may display nervousness or aggression, abnormal posture, difficulty in coordination and rising, decreased milk production, or loss of body weight despite continued appetite.”