Teacher Has Students Vote On Whether 5-year-old Can Stay In Class
May 27, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her sons kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.
After each classmate was allowed to say what they didnt like about Bartons 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.
By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.
Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspbergers, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under the suggestion of Morningside Principal Marsha Cully.
Alex has had disciplinary issues because of his disabilities, Barton said. The school and district has met with Barton and her son to create an individual education plan, she said. His teacher, Wendy Portillo, has attended these meetings, she said.
Barton said after the vote, Alexs teacher asked him how he felt.
“He said, I feel sad,” she said.
Big-bang Machine Raises Doomsday Fears – Atomic Particle Smasher
May 24, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Could the upcoming launch of the worlds biggest atomic particle smasher – nicknamed the Big Bang Machine – touch off a cataclysmic event that dooms our planet?
Thats the fear of some critics of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, which is built to slam protons together at an unprecedented peak energy of 14 trillion electron volts – nearing levels scientists believe were reached in the first microseconds after the “big bang.”
The critics have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government and the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, known as CERN, as scientists prepare to bring the collider online in July.
Co-plaintiffs Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho fear that when the collider reaches full power, it could create black holes or strangelets that would grow and eventually consume the Earth.
A black hole is a region of space so dense that light cannot escape its gravitational pull. Scientists have not proved the existence of strangelets, a hypothetical cosmological object containing an exotic form of matter.
Jindo Moses Miracle – Parting Of Waters In South Korea
May 23, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
It’s not exactly The Splitting of The Red Sea but it’s pretty close.
Jindo Island, in South Korea, is host to one of the world’s most amazing natural phenomenons, called the Moses Miracle. Two times a year, during a low tide, a land path 2.8 kilometers long and 40 meters wide is revealed, uniting the islands of Jindo and Modo for a period of one hour. A festival is dedicated to this natural wonder and people from all around the world attend every year. However the Moses Miracle was largely unknown until 1975, when a French ambassador visited South Korea and wrote about in a French Newspaper.
The legend behind this Korean phenomenon goes like this: a Jindo village was attacked by tigers and all the villagers ran to Modo island for shelter. All, except for a helpless old woman who was left behind, out of despair she prayed to the Sea God, who split the sea and helped her escape the bloodthirsty animals.
The Moses Miracle just took place on May 18th.
McCain Rejects Endorsements From John Hagee, Rod Parsley
Republican John McCain on Thursday rejected endorsements from two influential but controversial televangelists, saying there is no place for their incendiary criticisms of other faiths.
McCain rejected the months-old endorsement of Texas preacher John Hagee after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment “crazy and unacceptable.”
He later repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent.
McCain issued a statement Thursday afternoon announcing his decision about Hagee.
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well,” he said.
Later, in Stockton, he told reporters: “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable.”
Then in an interview with The Associated Press, McCain said he rejected Parsley’s support, too.
“I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn’t endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement.”
Drought and Soaring Food Prices Leaves Ethiopian Children Facing Famine
A year of drought and soaring food prices has threatened the lives of tens of thousands of Ethiopian children.
Tens of thousands of Ethiopian children are facing a severe risk of famine.
“We have nothing to feed our children,” said Egu’s village elder. “We are losing our children day by day.”
Ethiopia’s Health Ministry, along with UNICEF, monitors the health of thousands of children here, but the number of areas they have been able to regularly visit has been cut in half this year.
The small rains that normally allow Ethiopian farmers to plant a second crop each year did not come this year, adding to a critical food shortage.
“It’s an open crisis, and there are more people than we expected, than the government expected, who need additional food,” said Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of UNICEF Ethiopia.
There is a crucial shortfall in the supply of therapeutic foods used to treat children with severe acute malnutrition, the UNICEF official said.
The U.N.’s children’s agency is appealing for $50 million to pay for emergency needs.
UNICEF estimates that 6 million Ethiopian children under the age of 5 are at risk and that more than 120,000 have only about a month to live.
China Preparing For Nuclear War
Knocking out the satellites would leave Taiwan, Japan and other countries around the Pacific Rim effectively without a key warning system. An attack also would disrupt vital communications between U.S. battle squadrons in the region and Washington.
Satellite images studied by GCHQ, Britain’s spy in the sky intelligence gathering organization based at Cheltenham that works closely with the U.S. National Security Agency, have confirmed the entrance to the base is through no fewer than 11 separate tunnel openings.
A Royal Navy nuclear submarine, one of those in the Typhoon Fleet, now has joined another from the U.S. Pacific Fleet to build up a clear image of what is happening inside the secret base which, as well as China’s nuclear subs, could house “a host of aircraft carriers.”
Calif. Earthquake Scientists Detail Impact of ‘The Big One’
The “Big One,” as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California’s mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.
The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes – 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.
Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.
Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.
Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region – too many for firefighters to tackle at once.
A team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year. Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.
Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.
Tornados Strike Southern California, Colorado
A wild weather system lashed Southern California on Thursday with fierce thunderstorms that unleashed mudslides in wildfire-scarred canyons, spawned a tornado and dusted mountains and even low-lying communities with snow and hail.
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for parts of Riverside County about 55 miles east of Los Angeles and area residents flooded TV stations with pictures and video of funnel clouds and at least one tornado on the ground.
Powerful wind or a funnel cloud toppled a tractor-trailer on a highway and freight cars on nearby railroad tracks, said Riverside County fire spokeswoman Jody Hageman. One person was rescued from the wrecked truck.
Images
Colorado
The town hall and several other buildings in Windsor were hit by a mile-wide tornado around lunch time, and at least one person died as the twister carved a swath of destruction through Weld County.
Colorado State Trooper Ryan Sullivan said the tornado caused multiple crashes and multiple injuries on highways in Weld County.
The Weld County coroner’s office has confirmed at least one death. The man was a resident at a campground outside Greeley, the county said in a statement.
Pete Ambrose, the caretaker at the Missile Park campground, told the Associated Press the man was in a recreational vehicle that was destroyed by the storm. Two other people camping at the park “got beat up, but they were still OK,” said Ambrose, who
Undersea 6.0 Earthquake Strikes Off Alaskas Aleutian Islands
Authorities say a strong undersea earthquake has struck in the North Pacific Ocean near the Western end of the Aleutian Islands, but no tsunami is expected.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.0 preliminary magnitude quake hit at Monday at 4:53 a.m. Alaskan, some 250 miles east-southeast of Attu.
White House Denies Army Radio Report On Plan To Attack Iran
The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran’s push for a nuclear weapon “through peaceful diplomatic means.”
Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.
The official reportedly went on to say that “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic for the time being.
The Army Radio report, which was quoted by The Jerusalem Post and resonated widely, stated that according to assessments in Israel, the recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah has de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack.
UK Approves Use of Mixed Human-animal Embryos In Research
British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.
An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.
The Government is braced for defeat today, however, on a separate clause that would scrap the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father before treating patients. MPs will also consider amendments tonight that would cut the legal limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks.
A second amendment, which would have banned the creation of “true hybrids” made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was also defeated yesterday by a majority of 63. Another free vote last night was expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create “saviour siblings” suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.
Millions of Rats Plague Bangladesh Destroy Crops
The UN’s World Food Programme began distributing emergency food aid on Sunday to 120 000 people facing famine in south eastern Bangladesh, where an invasion of rats led to widespread crop destruction.
People from the affected areas in the Chittagong hill tracks were struggling to feed themselves and had been eating wild roots from the jungle ever since the area was overrun by millions of rats, the WFP said.
It said its food aid would meet the immediate needs of over 25 680 households from May to August this year and would help “maintain adequate food consumption and protect livelihood”.
“Thousands of poor tribal families would have remained destitute due to the loss of their crops, and livelihoods,” said the acting WFP representative in Bangladesh Edward Kallon.
“The donor assistance has enabled WFP to respond quickly to feed these vulnerable poor families who are in need of food,” he said.
Average Price of Gasoline Close to $4 a Gallon
The average price of gasoline has jumped another 17 cents a gallon in the past two weeks to a record-breaking $3.79 a gallon for self-serve regular, according to a national survey released Sunday.
This climb in prices makes it a “high possibility” that many cities will see $4 a gallon regular gas soon, said survey publisher Trilby Lundberg.
“We are within 21 cents of $4 a gallon,” said Lundberg. “There seems to be very good chance that we will reach it.”
Four dollars a gallon of regular unleaded happened in two metro areas in the latest survey, according to the biweekly Lundberg Survey.
Did Toads and Other Signs Foretell of China Earthquake
According to recent estimates, the earthquake that hit China on Monday could leave 50,000 people dead. Web users are saying that the catastrophe could have been avoided, if only they had listened to the toads.
Two days before the quake thousands of toads suddenly decided to move across a bridge in Taizhou, a town in the Jiangsu province (see photos). Chinese web users are wondering why the local authorities didn’t relate the event to the imminence of an earthquake, and why scientists didn’t take notice of the bizarre disappearance of a lake in Enshi, in the Hubei province, on April 26 (see photos).
A seismologist tells us that the Chinese have long relied on the behaviour of animals to predict earthquakes. Although there’s no scientific study to back up the farmers’ claims, the idea that toads sensed the earthquake should not be ruled out.
