The late Steve Erwin and his daughter Bindi

Morning Papers - continued

Zoos

Scientists Gather For Orangutan Symposium At Oregon Zoo
PORTLAND, Oregon - In the film classic "Planet of the Apes," chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans speak English. Scientists are now exploring the abilities of orangs using symbols and syntax to express their thoughts. The public can learn more about this research and conservation issues facing orangutans during the Orangutan Symposium, Saturday, Nov. 4, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the Oregon Zoo.

http://www.medfordnews.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=332989&cp=10996



Extreme Animals Takeover San Diego Zoo
Extreme Animals have just signed a deal with San Diego Zoo to perform shows for zoo-goers that include rare and bizarre animals to teach people about the many different species on this planet. The shows will begin summer 2007. Cindy Johnson, founder of "Entertainment for Zoo!" the San Diego Zoo's own version of a live concert series, tells Noisebloid the show will include "bonobos, monkeys, pandas, hippos, giraffes, and other exotic animals." What kind of exotic animals? "Well, we are going to leave that a surprise, but I can assure you they will be 'extreme'!"

http://noisebloid.blogspot.com/2006/10/extreme-animals-takeover-san-diego-zoo.html



Wellington Zoo Celebrates Centenary
Wellington zoo is kicking off its centenary celebrations today.

The zoo started as an exhibit at the botanical gardens in 1906, after the donation of an ex-circus lion dubbed “King Dick” in honour of Prime Minister Richard Seddon.

The zoo moved to its current site in Newtown the following year.

To mark its centenary, today the Zoo is giving the first 100 children free admission, and is offering historic tours of the site.

Wellington Zoo's chief executive, Karen Fifield, says traditionally the city's inclement weather has been a problem for visitors.

She says the zoo also wants to encourage repeat visits by having regularly changing attractions.

http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.aspx?storyid=343624


Students take time to serve zoo
Christina Holtzen

Despite busy college lives, students said they're still making time in their schedules to volunteer at the 15th annual Boo at the Zoo.

Nicole Barendt, senior economics major, said about 15 Alpha Phi Omega members planned on attending the Fort Worth Zoo event.

"Its a fun way to get community service hours," said Barendt, service vice president of Alpha Phi Omega, a community service fraternity.

The Fort Worth Zoo festival provides fun that's not too scary for children, said Lyndsay Nantz, the Zoo's public relations and development director.

About 150 volunteers a night, including 20 to 50 are TCU students, help out at the event, said Dennis Myrick, assistant human resources director of the Fort Worth Zoo.

http://www.tcudailyskiff.com/media/storage/paper792/news/2006/10/27/News/Students.Take.Time.To.Serve.Zoo-2406385.shtml?norewrite200610310814&sourcedomain=www.tcudailyskiff.com


Threatened frogs are VIPs for hotel — and Houston Zoo
The critters in Panama are being lodged in style amid rescue effort from fatal fungus
By JEANNIE KEVER
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Like something from the pages of a fast-paced biological thriller, zookeepers from Houston and elsewhere have haunted the cloud forests of Panama for months, trying to save the revered Panamanian golden frog from a ruthless fungus slowly making its way southward, suffocating virtually all amphibians in its path.
As a result, about 300 frogs are lodged in relative splendor at the Hotel Campestre in El Valle de Anton, a town nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano about 50 miles southwest of Panama City.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4293861.html


Family of sick girl sues fair petting zoo
HILLSBOROUGH -- A Chapel Hill girl who allegedly suffers from permanent kidney and pancreas damage after getting sick from a petting zoo at the State Fair two years ago sued the petting zoo and its owner last week.
According to the lawsuit filed by Aedin Gray and her parents, the family visited the Crossroads Farm Petting Zoo on Oct. 23, 2004. The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, is against the fair petting zoo and its owner, Jason Wilkie.
Aedin, then 2, contracted E. coli after visiting the animals, the lawsuit says. Within two weeks, she became ill with diarrhea, which got worse and forced her to be hospitalized for a month with complications that included kidney failure, pancreatic failure and then blood-clotting problems.
Two years later, Aedin's kidneys work at about 50 percent, according to the lawsuit. Her pancreas has stopped producing insulin, requiring constant monitoring, the lawsuits says.

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/106/story/3215.html


Discover tropics at the zoo
Throughout the cold and gray months of winter, plants will remain green inside the new Procter & Gamble Discovery Forest at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Avondale.
The three-story-high Discovery Forest, inside the zoo's new Harold C. Schott Education Center, includes plants and animals that could be found in a tropical forest. Many of the trees are 20 feet tall; most are from Florida. Some of the plants, such as papayas and star fruit, were started from seed.
Kids and adults can see the plants that produce some common food items: coffee, vanilla, bananas, chile peppers, cinnamon, pineapples, papayas, star fruit and chocolate.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061028/LIFE0803/610280308/1079/rss04


15 Foot Elephant on Video

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/60741/Oregon_Zoo_15_ft_elephant.html


Zoo Expansion's Impact Has Earth in the Balance
By Charles Rabin, The Miami Herald
Can wildlife officials manage one of Miami-Dade's last reserves of pine rockland by setting controlled burns if a dramatic expansion of Metrozoo tourism facilities is built on land next door?
That's one thing voters must take into account on Nov. 7 when they decide whether to turn over 69 acres of public land at Miami Metrozoo to developers -- a move that some way could affect the adjacent pine rockland reserve for decades to come.
The only county question during November's midterm elections asks voters whether to authorize the county to contract for construction of a hotel, water park, restaurants and other amenities.
Backers say the facilities will significantly boost tourism. They also argue that protection of the 350-acre reserve is paramount and that the need to set controlled burns there at least once every seven years will be accommodated.
"I look at this whole thing as a mall, with us being like the anchor store," said zoo spokesman Ron Magill. "If they can't have controlled burns, I'll be the first against this project. I will go ballistic if I see things being done that are contrary to the environment."
Not so fast, say some conservationists.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/710575/zoo_expansions_impact_has_earth_in_the_balance_miamidade_voters/?source=r_science

In response to your inquiries…
Posted at 3:34 pm October 27, 2006 by Suzanne Hall
Once again, I thought I would take some time to answer a few of the questions that many of you have posed on the panda blog.
A few of you have asked about the fates of “senior pandas,” ones that are no longer contributing to the reproductive efforts of the captive panda population. Since space is limited at the Wolong center, older animals often do not live at the breeding facility. Instead, they are transferred to other zoos throughout China where they live out the rest of their lives as representatives of their species, visited by Chinese tourists who may not have the opportunity to visit Wolong. It seems, as in the case of Shi Shi, that the bears become honored members of that particular zoo’s population. To the best of our knowledge Shi Shi is living a pretty good life in Guangzhou.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/wordpress/general/in-response-to-your-inquiries/


Updated veterinary center boosts zoo's accreditation hopes
By Jennifer Gokhman
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Last updated: Saturday, Oct 28, 2006 - 08:40:50 am PDT
Comments(0)
For many years at Micke Grove Zoo, staff have used one room to do veterinary procedures, hold quarantined animals and store items. Now, the veterinary and quarantine area has expanded and is officially open with some updated equipment.

The veterinary center was dedicated Friday as the Matt McCarty Veterinary Center for Matt McCarty Construction.
A stuffed bear receives anesthesia at the expanded veterinary center as the new equipment is on display at the Micke Grove Zoo on Friday. (Jennifer Gokhman/News-Sentinel)
"The project has expanded the space significantly," said Ken Nieland, zoo and interpretive services manager.

It is one step toward the zoo being accredited again. It lost its Association of Zoos and Aquariums accreditation in April.

The Micke Grove Zoological Society has been working on projects such as improving the east end of the zoo and building the veterinary center to boost the zoo back to accreditation status.

http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2006/10/28/news/8_zoo_061028.txt

ZOO in Rotteram

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5131983


John T. Baron: Zoo millage upholds region's quality of life
Ingham County voters will be making critical decisions Nov. 7, as a number of quality of life issues are on the ballot. But one of the most important decisions voters will make is not really even a political issue - it's about supporting our zoo and the vital role it plays in our community.
From the educational and entertainment value Potter Park Zoo presents to the region, to the importance of attracting businesses to this community, the passage of the zoo proposal makes sense - and means just a few cents a day.
The zoo educates more than 40,000 youngsters each year through lessons from wildlife experts, observing animal behaviors and researching animals from all over the world. The week-long BIG Zoo Lesson brings the classroom into the community using innovative tools to teach conservation and develop compassion in our children for wildlife.

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20061029/OPINION02/610290652/1087/opinion

Human Zoo – how was it for you?
For those of you who didn’t make it down to London Zoo for this unique exhibit, here’s what happened.

The Human Zoo ran for four days from Friday 26 – Monday 29 August and was a unique event in that it gave a group of volunteers the opportunity to experience life as zoo exhibits, plus our visitors had the unique experience of viewing man in his essential form.
The event aimed to demonstrate the basic nature of man as an animal and examine the impact that Homo sapiens have on the rest of the animal kingdom.
The Human Zoo sparked international media coverage, with opposing opinions fuelling the debate.
Here are some examples of what the public thought of the Human Zoo:
I think that is a fabulous idea and personally I hope the exhibit - or at least the idea of the exhibit - travels to other countries.

Mychel Russell-Ward

Now I've seen just about everything! A "Human Zoo"? There is not one minuscule shred of evidence that evolution is true. Send me any of your so-called "evidence" and I will return ample and well-researched refutation of it.
John Battles


BRAVO! On the Human Zoo!!!
It's wonderful!! Please make it a permanent attraction. What a great idea.
Roy Moore


Equating the value of human life with that of "other animals" is dangerously wrong. It exhibits a frightening trend in modern society, and it is also an outrageous folly.
Emily Miller


FABULOUS! FANTASTIC!! BRILLIANT!!!
While this exhibit may be short lived I better understand why London Zoo stands out as one of the best in the world.
Jack Martin

http://www.zsl.org/london-zoo/news/human-zoo-how-was-it-for-you,185,NS.html


Zoo: All of Ingham County has chance to invest in better zoo, future
A Lansing State Journal editorial

Ingham County voters could choose to reject a small property tax increase to operate Potter Park Zoo.
But what would that accomplish for taxpayers in Lansing and the rest of Ingham County?
By contrast, a "yes" vote on Nov. 7 would create clear benefits for Lansing, Ingham County and the entire region.
That's why we endorse voting "yes" on the Ingham County/Potter Park Zoo millage.
This issue is on the November ballot for a single reason - the financial struggles of the city of Lansing. Under the strain of mid-Michigan's sputtering economy, the city is prioritizing spending. And the $1.6 million the city now spends on Potter Park Zoo could go to other needs.
But the benefits of a millage passage go far beyond budgetary relief for Lansing.
Even getting the zoo millage on the ballot was the result of persistent and high-minded discussion among city and county officials. And it flows from a realization that the zoo isn't just a Lansing asset, but a mid-Michigan one.
And if the zoo helps the entire region, it makes obvious sense to have the entire region support it.
Ingham County, of course, is not all of mid-Michigan. But by having Ingham County assume this burden, the first step is taken toward full regionalization of this particular community treasure.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/OPINION01/610290653/1086/opinion


Portland, Oregon
Hiking, salmon, beaches, vineyards, shopping, eating -- there's plenty to do in a week or more
By Mary Milz
Gannett News Service
He said: Let's go to Portland for a week.
She said: A week? Is there enough to do?
He said: Way too much.
Men's Journal recently ranked Portland as "The Best City to Live in the U.S." It's not a bad place to visit, either.
Situated where the Columbia and Willamette rivers meet in northwestern Oregon, the city is warm and welcoming, often described as having a small-town personality with big-city amenities. Its metro area of 1.7 million enjoys a temperate climate with average highs between 70 and 90 degrees in the summer and 35 to 45 degrees in the winter, and enough precipitation to keep the city very green. Portland has 9,400 acres of parks, including the 5,000-acre Forest Park just west of downtown.
Downtown is dense and vibrant, its streets lined with a diverse mix of distinctive shops, galleries, restaurants and nightclubs.
Not far from the city center, endless outdoor adventures await. Head an hour west and you're at the rugged Oregon coast. Go east, and you're downhill skiing on 11,235-foot Mount Hood -- year round. To the southwest, you'll find Oregon's burgeoning wine country.
Whether you're a rugged adventurer or an urban tourist, the Portland area is a great spot to spend a few days or a few weeks -- even with someone whose idea of perfect vacation is a bit different than yours.
She said: Take a hike!He said: Hot dam! Let's goto Bonneville
For a scenic excursion, nothing beats a drive along the Columbia River Highway, east of Portland. The historic two-lane road winds through the Cascade Mountain Range, providing breathtaking views of the Columbia River Gorge.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20061029/FEATURES05/610290341



Freak Bear in Zoo – the bear just loves to dance – very cute

http://shrekonline.blogspot.com/2006/10/freak-bear-in-zoo.html


Cameroon wildlife sanctuary awaits "Taiping Four"
By Tansa Musa
DOUALA, Cameroon, Oct 29 (Reuters) - An animal sanctuary in Cameroon, home to dozens of primates endangered by the illegal bushmeat trade, is preparing to welcome some famous guests: the "Taiping Four" gorillas smuggled to Malaysia four years ago.
Felix Lankester, director of the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon's main port city of Douala, said the centre had gone to great lengths to be ready for the return of the western lowland gorillas, currently held in Pretoria Zoo in South Africa.
Taiping Zoo in Malaysia acquired the animals, smuggled out of the West African country via Nigeria, in 2002 but Cameroon has been lobbying for their return ever since.
"We have constructed a quarantine facility as an annex to our existing gorilla facility," Lankester told Reuters at the weekend, dismissing earlier suggestions by Pretoria zoo that his centre did not have the right facilities to host the gorillas.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29870379.htm


Peguins at the zoo

Originally uploaded by KatColorado. What a stunning penguin photo this is! The colour and clarity are superb and I love the way they are standing. Fantastic photo KatColorado and a big congratulations on having it chosen as today's icon!

http://twtme-icon-of-the-day-winners.blogspot.com/2006/10/peguins-at-zoo.html



Visiting the National Zoo in Malaysia

Malaysia is known internationally to be a multi racial country that is rich in tradition and culture. Last week the country was busy celebrating the Deepavali and Hari Raya festival and I was on a long holiday with my kids. My son love animals, he never misses any shows featured on Animal Planet. He was practically pestering me to take him to the zoo.
So last week I took my two kids to the National zoo located in Kuala Lumpur.

A concrete jungle of building and houses now surrounds the zoo that was once in a virgin jungle. This is because it is only 13km from the heart of Kuala Lumpur, which is one of the busiest cities in Malaysia. The best time to visit would be in the morning, as it could get quite hot during the afternoons. You will not be allowed to bring your own food or water but it should be purchased from the shops that are in the premises of the zoo.

http://www.travguides.com/2006/10/visiting-national-zoo.html



Irwin's fears for Bindi
The late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin explains in a previously unpublished interview how "awful" it would be for his daughter Bindi to grow up without him.
Irwin also reveals how the family employs armed bodyguards to protect them from stalkers and the paparazzi.
Terrorism and drugs scared him and he said "there are a lot of weirdos in this world".
Despite regularly dicing with crocodiles and venomous snakes, he said he wasn't "that worried about getting killed by animals".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/irwins-fears-for-bindi/2006/10/25/1161749184501.html

concluding …

The Antarctica Ice Chime

Click on for animation

October 30, 2006

9:00 AM

Antarctica is hot. It's going to be a long, hot summer. Not fun. This is not fun to watch either. The countries with camps there need to dispatch teams now, but, with strict instructions for vigilance to any change in ice conditions. The seas are going to be torturous this year with much more sea ice and large ice flows. There probably will be early icebergs of larger size. To all on the way to Antarctica, be careful, this will be a dangerous season with no ozone over head either. I would expect to see an abundance of marine mammals. It was a good freeze over the winter so there should be plenty of phytoplankton and algae with the first melt. Good luck to all.

There are many more 'temperate' areas this week. Vostok is 53 degrees C with a humidity of 35 percent (click on). I would anticpate a rise in humidity if there was significant sublimation/vaporations of the ice.

Photographer states :: Stormy Morning

October 27, 2006

Tynemouth, United Kingdom

With a severe storm the photographer went to the mouth of the Tyne River in the early hours of morning light to find out how the boats entering the river were managing. He was obviously concerned for their ability to navigate the passage. It takes a skilled and knowledgable person to attempt such a brave task. I am confident he sat vigilant with cell phone in hand.  

October 27, 2006

Tynemouth, United Kingdom 

Photographer states :: Rough Passage

October 27, 2006

Car transporter entering the Tyne River, United Kingdom 

The car transport is safely in the river

October 27, 2006

Tynemouth, United Kingdom 

Morning Papers - concluded

The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:

Scott Base

Some cloud

-12.0°

Updated Monday 30 Oct 9:15PM


Glacier Bay Weather (Crystal Wind Chime) is:

34 °F / 1 °C
Overcast

Humidity:
65%

Dew Point:
23 °F / -5 °C

Wind:
Calm

Pressure:
30.41 in / 1030 hPa

Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers

UV:
0 out of 16

Clouds:
Scattered Clouds 2900 ft / 883 m
Overcast 5000 ft / 1524 m
(Above Ground Level)

concluded

Flooding, High Wind to 50 mph and High Water in Penobscot, Maine

October 29, 2006

Photographer states :: Ridge (dog's name) has no fear. Here he is today, playing on the boat ramp in 50 mph winds. Doesn't bother him a bit, if he goes into the bay he loves to swim, so no problem.

I little bit of a casual attitude but it keeps the photographer on high ground and watchful rather than seeking rescue of a dog who has his circumstances under control. I am sure Ridge has seen it all.

The Blog seems to be damaged. It's not operating well. Correction, it wasn't operating well last night. It has nothing to do with Google.

There has been a tracker program with an independent 'Window' obstructing access. No lie. It's a high level 'program' not a virus.

I didn't detect it until I started to shut the computer down. The independant window appeared for only a brief moment and I wasn't able to capture the address. I am convinced it's on the laptop in memory somewhere so I'll take it for evaluation.

The strange part was the windows I had opened appeared and disappeared and reappeared at will. It was strange. I think they were being viewed by someone else whenever I couldn't see them on the screen. I wasn't doing anything significant except a little blogging, but, there was someone else within the connectivity between my laptop and the net.

Just thought I'd pass it on.

The purpose for this entry tonight was to bring to light the benign changes, such as Daylight Savings Time, that occurred under the current Ruling Class in DC. These changes were accomplished for one reason, not to govern and improve the lives of Americans but to estrange from them any orientation to freedom and the understanding of life as it existed Pre-"W" Bush.

The authority of the country seeks not correctness but influence, it seeks to accomplish that through disorientation and reorientation. There are changes in language and focus that is troubling. This is one of the more benign areas of change but yet when measured on a global scale is the most insulting to the American society. In changing 'accepted' aspects of society will there be 'insistance' to reorient the international standards we all find function in, namely The International Date Line/Grenwich Mean Time.

The reason for estranging benign standards is not benevolent and expansive in coming to terms with a complex subject such as democracy but to create chaos in an ordered/structured world.

One other thing, I am exceptionally concerned over the 'lack of authority' noted in reporting news and information to the people of the USA. In the recent statements regarding the Southern California Wildfires there has been no concrete proof provided that would assist the public in bringing arsonists to justice. There is simply the statement that arson is the cause. That is unacceptable and while the public seeks solice in knowing authority has 'control' over all events so adverse it is far better for the public to demand prooof rather than blindly accept statements of that nature.

In realizing the extent to which 'disorientation' has taken place in the USA, it is reasonable to not only criticize the current government over falling SAT scores but to seek acknowledgement of changes in textbooks used by children in the learning environment and come to understand the 'disinformation' that might be causing a decline in achievement of our future brain trust.

Basically, the people of the USA have a lot of work to do in reclaiming their government from the hands of incompetence.

Later.

It's Saturday Night

Time by Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to nought
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

Morning Papers - It's Origins (Web connection temporarily offline for changes)

The Rooster

Utility bills for New Orleans. Today....

... six months from today ...

... a year from today .... 

Global Warming

Global Warming Worries Iowa Farmers
By AMY LORENTZEN 10.25.06, 5:53 AM ET
Gary Larsen, who grows corn and soybeans in western Iowa, is among a growing number of farmers who are concerned about the potential effects of global warming.
Like Larsen, many in the agriculture industry are developing or adopting new technologies and farming methods to brace for the possibility of widespread drought and crop-pounding storms.
The industry has been especially aggressive in breeding and developing crops that more efficiently use soil moisture and nutrients and developing pest-resistant and drought-tolerant crops.
"We don't know how the world could actually turn out, but doing absolutely nothing and sticking your head in the sand is not an option," said Larsen, a 63-year-old grandfather who lives near Elk Horn.
In the past century, the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit and could climb another 5 to 10 degrees over the next century, according to government officials. The Environmental Protection Agency has blamed human activities for most of the warming over the last 50 years, including the buildup of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.
"It's dire in the sense that this problem is already with us, and it's hard to see how it can go away," said Kevin E. Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Crops that more efficiently use soil moisture and nutrients can ward off disease and pests that stress plants trying to cope with increased temperatures, experts say.
William Niebur, vice president of DuPont (nyse: DD - news - people ) Crop Genetics Research and Development, said the evidence of climate change includes the migration of successful corn production north 100 miles over the past three decades.
Niebur's company is developing pest-resistant and drought-tolerant crops. "It's really a holistic approach, understanding that the ecosystem is changing," he said.
Emerging technology has already been aiding crop production, said Jon Doggett, vice president of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association. "You are seeing good corn yields under conditions that would have probably been a crop disaster 20 years ago," he said.
Improved soil management methods are reducing greenhouse gases. No-till farming, for example, where farmers plant crops without using machines to plow or turn over the soil, cuts down on energy use and keeps carbon in the ground instead of releasing it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Farmers also are planting crops that require less fertilizer and herbicides; using alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel; capturing methane gas from livestock for energy production; and harnessing wind power.
Many are beginning to sort out water supply problems as warm, dry areas expand. This includes examining water rights before shortages happen and studying dwindling mountain snowpacks that supply farmers with water during spring melting. Faced with fiercer storms that cause rain to hit the ground and run off rather than be absorbed, researchers are exploring ways to capture the precipitation.
Francis Thicke, an organic dairy farmer and soil fertility expert from Fairfield in southeast Iowa, said he provides his 130 animals with grassy areas to forage for food. He said that cuts down on fuel needs because he's not growing as much grain for feed and allows carbon to remain in the soil because there's no need for tilling.
Thicke said he believes politicians should end subsidies to farmers who grow crops such as corn and soybeans in a way that robs the soil of nutrients and requires lots of energy.
"Our whole farming system really contributes a lot to global warming and it could be made to be much more sustainable," he said.

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/10/25/ap3117922.html



The £50 'global warming' jet tax
Kirsty Walker, Daily Mail
25 October 2006
Holidaymakers could be hit with a 'global warming' tax of up to £50 under plans aimed at forcing airlines to reduce gas emissions.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett yesterday said the new charges should be imposed by as early as 2008 or Britain will be thrown into ' climate chaos'.
In a keynote speech in Berlin, she urged Brussels to speed up plans to enforce the levy on airlines to encourage them to fly more fuel-efficient planes and deter people from travelling by air.
The cost is almost certain to be passed on to holidaymakers as budget airlines would be worst affected by what the aviation industry describes as a 'tax on holidays'.
Experts say the scheme could put £50 on the cost of flying from London to California, £35 on tickets to New York and between £5 and £10 on flights within Europe.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=414018&in_page_id=2



Gore scoffs at Reichert's stance on global warming
By Alex Fryer
Seattle Times staff reporter
Environmental policy took center stage in this year's congressional races on Tuesday, with candidates for U.S. Senate holding dueling news conferences across the state and former Vice President Al Gore expressing incredulity at Republican Rep. Dave Reichert's views on global warming.
At a Seattle University conference room, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell — flanked by Gore and Reichert's Democratic challenger, Darcy Burner — cited her legislation to end subsidies to oil companies and refocus energy policy on alternative fuels.
"We want to get on with this revolution," she said.
Campaigning in Eastern Washington, Republican Mike McGavick, a former insurance executive, spoke at a viewpoint overlooking Ice Harbor Dam near the Tri-Cities.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003321663_gore25m.html



Ski resorts fight global warming
Renewable energy sources supply power
10-27) 04:00 PDT Norden, Nevada County -- For the ski industry, both in California and rest of the nation, there is no greater truth than global warming, with its threat of a shrinking snowpack and the point that Yogi Berra once made so succinctly: "The future ain't what it used to be.''
Since 1950, spring temperatures in the Sierra Nevada have increased 2 to 3 degrees, bringing peak snowmelt two to three weeks sooner. Twenty-five years ago, snow-making machines were unusual in the area. Today, the majority of Sierra winter sports facilities make snow as soon as conditions dictate.
If nothing is done to curb emissions, greenhouse gas emissions could raise Sierra temperatures another 5 or 6 degrees by the end of the 21st century, according to some projections. The snowpack could be reduced by 89 percent.
The same is true for Aspen, where global warming could give the Colorado town the climate of Los Alamos, N.M., by 2100.
Climate change has become Topic A in the industry. And many resort owners are trying to do something about it. About 46 U.S. resorts are spending to help expand the market for renewable energy sources, particularly wind. Nineteen are offsetting 100 percent of their energy use by purchasing wind-power credits. The list includes many of the nation's major ski resorts.
These resorts are still receiving power from the electrical grid at regular rates. But they're also paying a premium to renewable energy retailers. The retailers in turn contract with wind farms or generate alternative power themselves to add wind-generated energy to the nation's electrical grid. This expands the market for wind power and reduces the need for fossil fuels such as coal and gas.
"We're not going to defeat global warming, but we can mitigate it,'' said Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association. "People say you can't do anything about it. That's sophistry. I don't think you can make the case for its inevitability and sit back and watch our grandchildren fry.''
Wind is fastest-growing

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/27/SKI.TMP



Sea change: why global warming could leave Britain feeling the cold

· No new ice age yet, but Gulf Stream is weakening
· Atlantic current came to halt for 10 days in 2004
James Randerson, science correspondent
Friday October 27, 2006

Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics. The slowdown, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.
Most alarmingly, the data reveal that a part of the current, which is usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon river, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1932761,00.html



Pacific islands to sink under global warming, forum warned

1.00pm Wednesday October 25, 2006
By Kathy Marks
While rich nations tinker with policies that may shave their carbon dioxide emissions, low-lying South Pacific nations like Kiribati are sinking beneath the waves.
Kiribati, an archipelago of 33 coral atolls barely 6ft above sea level, is vanishing as global warming causes the oceans to rise.
Yesterday its president, Anote Tong, warned Australia and New Zealand - the two developed countries in the region - to prepare for a mass exodus within the next decade.
Speaking at the annual South Pacific Forum in Fiji, Mr Tong said that rising sea levels would create countless environmental refugees.
"If we are talking about our island states submerging in ten years' time, we simply have to find somewhere else to go," he said.
Environmentalists have warned that the effects of global warming, caused by a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, will include thermal expansion and a meltdown of glaciers.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10407508


Captains of commerce turn heat on global warming
Kimina Lyall
October 28, 2006
BUSINESS and government should take unilateral action to arrest climate change instead of waiting for a consensus to emerge on the issue, ANZ Bank chief executive John McFarlane said.
Adding to a growing chorus of business voices urging action on global warming, Mr McFarlane urged market-based solutions including penalties for the most polluting forms of energy and subsidies for cleaner forms.
"Even before the costs of carbon emissions are fully reflected in market prices, business should be willing to pay more for sustainable products, clean sources of energy, more efficient energy use and embrace five-star environmental building policies," Mr McFarlane writes in an article for The Weekend Australian.
"Climate change is no longer a 'far in the future' issue. It is affecting us right now."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20658495-643,00.html



Michael Moore Today

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

"They shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records..."
-- George W. Bush, April 24, 2003

October 27th, 2006 2:04 am
‘Shut Up & Sing’ is right in tune
Documentary is a piercing look at free speech and celebrity image
Associated Press
The Dixie Chicks would probably think of themselves as mothers first, then musicians.
They became accidental political figures — then they had to figure out how to reinvent themselves.
“Shut Up & Sing,” a documentary from directors Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, follows the country trio after lead singer Natalie Maines’ offhanded on-stage comment that the group was ashamed that President Bush was a fellow Texan.
It’s not that the remark itself was shocking or even terribly provocative. But the backlash from the country music industry, from the South, from the core of the Chicks’ fan base was just stunning in its vitriol and hypocrisy. The same people who are so proud to live in a country where freedom of speech is an inalienable right wanted to silence these women — and worse.
Many complained that Maines shouldn’t have said such a thing on foreign soil (a 2003 concert in London) as the United States was about to go to war in Iraq. And as fiddler Martie Maguire so astutely points out, it’s the source of the comment that made it seem offensive: These were America’s sweethearts from the heartland, the top-selling female act of all time. At the film’s start, they’re singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. You can’t get much more patriotic than that.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8211


Currently 3926 Friends. Join the Blog. Join Free Speech.

http://myspace.com/shutupandsing

Lots of cities added November 10th

http://myspace.com/dixiechicks


October 27th, 2006 11:47 am
Confession that formed base of Iraq war was acquired under torture: journalist
LONDON (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.
Iban al Shakh al Libby told intelligence agents that he was close to Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and "understood an awful lot about the inner workings of Al-Qaeda," former FBI agent Jack Clonan told the broadcaster.
Libby was tortured in an Egyptian prison, according to Stephen Grey, the author of the newly-released book "Ghost Plane" who investigated the secret US Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA) prisons that housed terror suspects around the world.
US President George W. Bush confirmed the existence of the network of CIA holding facilities overseas during a September 6 speech defending controversial US interrogation practices.
Libby was apparently taken to Cairo, Clonan told the broadcaster, after being captured in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"He (Libby) claims he was tortured in jail and that would be routine in Egyptian prisons," Grey said.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8214



October 27th, 2006 11:43 am
White House denies Cheney OK'd torture
By Terence Hunt / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House said Friday that Vice President Dick Cheney was not talking about a torture technique known as "water boarding" when he said dunking terrorism suspects in water during questioning was a "no-brainer."
Human rights groups complained that Cheney's comments amounted to an endorsement of water boarding, in which the victim believes he is about to drown.
President Bush, asked about Cheney's comments, said, "This country doesn't torture. We're not going to torture." He spoke at an Oval Office meeting Friday with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
Earlier, White House press secretary Tony Snow denied that Cheney had endorsed water boarding.
"You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will," Snow said. "You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."
In an interview Tuesday with WDAY of Fargo, N.D., Cheney was asked if "a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8213



October 26th, 2006 4:37 pm
Cheney endorses simulated drowning
Calls use of water boarding a ‘no-brainer’ to get intelligence on terrorists
By Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times
WASHINGTON - Dick Cheney, US vice-president, has endorsed the use of "water boarding" for terror suspects and confirmed that the controversial interrogation technique was used on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior al-Qaeda operative now being held at Guantánamo Bay.
Cheney was responding to a conservative radio interviewer who asked whether water boarding, which involves simulated drowning, was a "no-brainer" if the information it yielded would save American lives. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney replied.
The comments by the vice-president, who has been one of the leading advocates of reducing limitations on what interrogation techniques can be used in the war on terror, are the first public confirmation that water boarding has been used on suspects held in US custody.
"For a while there, I was criticized as being the 'vice-president for torture'," Cheney added. "We don't torture ... We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth.
"But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture and we need to be able to do that."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8206



October 27th, 2006 12:42 pm
Witness Grilled in CIA Leak Case
By Matt Apuzzo / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took on the first witness in the CIA leak case Thursday, dissecting an expert witness until she acknowledged errors and misstatements in her research.
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, hoped the hearing would persuade a judge to let him call a memory expert at his obstruction and perjury trial in January.
At the outset of the procedural hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton indicated that he was not inclined to allow a memory expert to testify at the trial. Still, he allowed Libby's lawyers to present a witness to bolster their claim that memory experts would help in his defense.
When it came Fitzgerald's turn, the veteran prosecutor launched into a nearly three-hour cross-examination of the witness — psychologist Elizabeth Loftus — that had some members of the audience shaking their heads.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8217



October 27th, 2006 1:34 pm
IG: Halliburton subsidiary abused rules
By Anne Plummer Flaherty / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday.
The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it was giving the government as proprietary, whether it actually was or not. The government promises not to disclose proprietary data so a company's most valuable information is not divulged to its competitors.
By marking all information proprietary — including such normally releasable data as labor rates — the company abused federal regulations, the report says.
In effect, Kellogg, Brown & Root turned the regulations "into a mechanism to prevent the government from releasing normally transparent information, thus potentially hindering competition and oversight."
Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann did not provide immediate comment.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8219



October 27th, 2006 12:50 pm
Ex-Bush aide Safavian gets 18-month prison term
By Richard Cowan / Reuters
WASHINGTON - Former Bush administration official David Safavian was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Friday for lying and obstructing justice in connection with the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal that has ensnared Republicans.
Safavian, 39, a former chief of staff of the General Services Administration (GSA) and ex-White House budget office appointee, received the prison term less than two weeks before elections that will determine whether Republicans keep control of the U.S. Congress.
Besides the Iraq war, ethics breaches have dominated many Senate and House of Representatives campaigns, allowing Democrats to accuse Republicans of fostering a "culture of corruption" in Washington.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman sentenced Safavian, who had faced up to 20 years in prison after being convicted on four counts, to 18 months.
"I stand here contrite and ashamed," a tearful Safavian said at his sentencing. He acknowledged he should not have given disgraced Washington lobbyist Abramoff information on the GSA, but did not admit to the charges.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8218



We need videographers and volunteers to help document the 2006 elections
We are asking citizens in all states to become journalists on November 7th and be on guard to document potential problems that may occur in your area. We especially need you or anyone you know to help us if you are located in the following key states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

http://www.endtheblackout.org/


You don't have to be a registered voter to be a videographer

We need videographers and volunteers to help document the 2006 elections
We are asking citizens in all states to become journalists on November 7th and be on guard to document potential problems that may occur in your area. We especially need you or anyone you know to help us if you are located in the following key states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

http://www.endtheblackout.org/

You don't have to be an American citizen to be a vidoegrapher

We need videographers and volunteers to help document the 2006 elections
We are asking citizens in all states to become journalists on November 7th and be on guard to document potential problems that may occur in your area. We especially need you or anyone you know to help us if you are located in the following key states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

http://www.endtheblackout.org/

VOLUNTEER !!!

Thank you.

Marshall’s Walking Itinerary:
Everyone is welcome to walk with Marshall where there are sidewalks (in the cities and towns). Keep in mind that the times listed are approximations so please try to arrive early and check the website for any updates or changes. We encourage you to bring signs that promote peace, such as PEACE IN IRAQ, PLAN FOR PEACE, RESPONSIBLE WITHDRAWAL, etc. We will be walking in pairs (single file).

http://www.soldierspeace.com/route.htm


Marshall's Journal

http://www.soldierspeace.com/journal.htm

Friday, October 27th, 2006
'My Son's Last Blanket' ...by Amy Branham
We all know the history of the American flag. We know its symbology. White signifies purity and innocence; red signifies valor and bravery; and blue signifies vigilance, perseverance and justice. Each star represents one of the states in the Union .
Driving through my typical American neighborhood, I see that many of my neighbors fly American flags in their front yards. They fly their flags to show their support and love of their country. To them, displaying the flag in their yards is a sign of patriotism.
I do not ever fly or display my flag. My flag is encased in a triangular shaped wooden box on the top of a bookcase in my living room. It is easily visible to all who enter my home. Also encased in this wooden box are the medals my son earned during his service in the Army and the bullet casings from a salute done at his funeral. Each of those casings represents a different element taught in the United States Army -- Duty, Honor, Country.
The American flag means many things to many people. Some wrap themselves in the security of the flag and call themselves "patriotic." Some people burn the flag in an effort to show their displeasure with the American government.
These days, the flag carries and entirely different meaning for me. My flag was my son's last blanket. It covered his wooden coffin, used to signify that he died in the service of his country. My flag carries on it tears of sorrow and mourning for the loss of the son that I will never see again. I followed the colors of my flag in the funeral procession to my son‚s last resting place.
There have been too many of these flags covering the coffins of our war dead from the Iraq war. There have been too many families that have been presented with these flags that covered these coffins.
Please, help those of us who are trying to end this illegal, immoral war. Help us by getting out and voting this election season for the candidate who will do what is right by ending the Iraq war. Honor America's fallen sons and daughters and their sacrifices by voting.
If you do not vote, you have failed them. If you do not vote, their sacrifice will have been for nothing.
Amy Branham
Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith
Nov. 1981 -- Feb. 2004
www.gsfp.org

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=749



*NEW MESSAGE FROM CINDY
Sit Down for Peace, Justice, and Accountability
Cindy Sheehan

I usually end my articles with a call to action, but today, I begin with one. Maybe readers get bored with my pieces before the end and don't get to the action part, which is the most important part.

Gold Star Families for Peace is calling for an action in front of the White House on the days of November 6th to November 9th (due to the urgency of our situation, we are beginning the sit-in on Monday, Nov. 6th) to perform a Gandhi-like sit down for peace and justice. Join us to sit down for all or part of the time we will be there. We might as well face it, the White House is where the power is. Congress has spent 6 years invalidating themselves and creating a Unitary Executive Branch that pats Congress on the head for being obedient and circumvents the Supreme Court and goes whining to the same agreeable Congress when the Court (in rare cases) slaps Georgie on the wrist. The potential Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) has already said that if the Democrats take back the House, impeachment proceedings will not be forthcoming. Who's going to sit down with us to hold the war criminals in power accountable for their war crimes and crimes against humanity and peace?

http://www.gsfp.org/article.php?id=265



The Times Picayune

WHAT A DRAG
In the continuing trudge toward recovery, all you need is a piece of paper: a copy of an act of sale, a property deed, a mortgage certificate. Do you have 36 hours to spare?
Friday, October 27, 2006
By James Varney
Eraina Shorty lost her home in the Lake Carmel subdivision to Hurricane Katrina, but that tragedy occurred in a few hours. The headaches associated with trying to be made whole have dogged her for months.
Shorty confronted the most recent of them this week at the makeshift headquarters of the Orleans Parish Mortgage and Conveyance Office on the 18th floor at 1340 Poydras St. It is a place where people wait for hours -- sometimes, more than a day -- to navigate a paperwork labyrinth. Most of the waiting homeowners seek routine documents they need to unlock loan money promised, but not yet secured, either through a loan from the federal Small Business Administration or a grant from Louisiana's Road Home program.
They need a copy of an act of sale or deed. They need a property description. They need a certified copy of an SBA mortgage recorded to get their loan released.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1161927863115360.xml&coll=1



Entergy N.O. deal would soften increases
Electric rates frozen, gas bills to slowly rise
Friday, October 27, 2006
By Pam Radtke Russell
New Orleans electric and gas rates will rise minimally in the next year under an agreement the New Orleans City Council will consider today.
"This is much lower than anyone predicted," said Council President Oliver Thomas, who has been involved in the negotiations. "It's a home run.
"Within the law at this time in our history, this is a best-case scenario," Thomas said.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1161931153272760.xml&coll=1



IRS to delay enforcement actions in Katrina-hit areas
10/27/2006, 10:48 a.m. CT
By JIM ABRAMS
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS will put off until after the new year enforcement action against people in Hurricane Katrina-hit areas who are late in paying their income taxes, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said Friday.
Everson, in an interview with The Associated Press, said that, after consultation with career officials at the agency, he decided not to further extend the Oct. 16 deadline for the approximately 1.2 million taxpayers in hurricane-hit areas of Louisiana and Mississippi to file their 2005 returns.
The deadline had previously been extended several times in light of the many people who lost homes or financial records in the storm

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-28/1161964442158430.xml&storylist=louisiana



BUILDING BLOCKS
In hard-hit neighborhoods, the return of commercial strips will help decide whether residents come back. Along Gentilly Boulevard, a slow revival is taking shape.
Friday, October 27, 2006
By Jaquetta White
The businesses that bookend the two-block-long retail hub along Gentilly Boulevard tell the story best.
On one end, the parking lot of Liberty Bank at 3002 Gentilly Blvd. is overflowing with cars. Business was fast to return when the bank reopened in March and has not slowed.
At the other end, the 3216 Gentilly Blvd. address of what once was the flagship store of Zuppardo's Family Supermarket, now marks only rubble.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1161931986272760.xml&coll=1



Who's coming back ?

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/graphics/wide.ssf?/katrina/graphics/102706_gentillymap.jpg


Lee, NAACP to meet today over controversial Lee remarks
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee and officials with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have made plans to meet this afternoon and discuss Lee's recently announced anti-violence tactic of making random searches of black neighborhoods.
In a television interview that aired Thursday night on WWL, Lee said that crime is historically concentrated in black communities, and that's where he will focus his efforts. Lee said his deputies would perform searchers of people in those high-crime neighborhoods, possibly for just standing in a crowd on a street corner.
While Danatus King, president of the New Orleans branch of the NAACP, called the remarks offensive Thursday after watching the tape in the WWL studio, he declined to comment further on Friday. King opted, instead, to meet with Lee first and address the matter in a press conference scheduled for 2 p.m.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_27.html



Beating draws federal interest
FBI, U.S. attorney checking Folsom case
Friday, October 27, 2006
By Richard Boyd
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said Thursday that his office will review Saturday's beating of a black man by two white construction workers in Folsom to determine whether the pair can be prosecuted under federal civil rights laws.
Letten said he has assigned a federal prosecutor to the case to coordinate efforts with Folsom Police Chief Beau Killingsworth and the St. Tammany Parish district attorney's office. The FBI has been consulted and will look into the matter, he said.
One of the suspects, Denny Griffin, 35, of Flint, Mich., was rearrested Wednesday and booked at the parish jail in Covington on a felony charge of second-degree battery and commission of a hate crime. A $10,000 bond was set on the battery charge, but bond on the hate crime charge will not be set until today.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1161930769272760.xml&coll=1



FEMA OK's $18.2 million more for Plaquemines Parish
St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
An additional $18.2 million in federal hurricane recovery money was approved for Plaquemines Parish this week, officials said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the additional money brings to $195.8 million the total approved for the parish since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered it last year.
The money has been dedicated to a number of projects, FEMA said in a news release. Among them:
-- $8.3 million for removal of asbestos containing materials throughout the parish.
-- $59.1 million to the Plaquemines Parish public school district for schools and materials.
-- $3.8 million for the Plaquemines Parish Medical Center for vehicles, buildings, furniture and equipment.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_27.html



Protesters in Mexico block roadways
10/27/2006, 3:50 p.m. CT
By REBECA ROMERO
The Associated Press
OAXACA, Mexico (AP) — Protesters cut off highways and beefed up street barricades in the southern city of Oaxaca on Friday, vowing not to abandon their fight to oust the state governor even though their movement appears to be splintering.
The blockade of four main roads into this colonial city, one of Mexico's top tourist destinations, came a day after teachers agreed to end their 5-month-old strike that has kept 1.3 million children out of classes in the state of Oaxaca — a move expected to take the sting out of the anti-government protests.
The teachers have been camped out in Oaxaca city's colonial center since May when they first walked out to demand higher pay and better working conditions.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-9/1161982748170530.xml&storylist=topstories

continued …

October 24, 2006.
Erwin, Tennessee.

Photographer states :: On top of Unaka Mt - Frozen Fog.

Exactly.

From the same photographer as below. This is during the 'blizzard.' It's a very good picture. It releases to me a severely cold Arctic Storm with a lot of freezing water in the direction of wind movement. Hence. Strong wind.

However.

The 'denser' water vapor is near the ground as opposed toward the second floor of the building. That mositure density could be fog near the ground where extremely cold air met with far warmer ground. So, why the freezing at all? Because water coming from the sky in the arriving storm is already frozen. It percipitated out of the storm as ice and snow. The items without the ability of 'heat retention' will become cold enough for frozen water to refreeze. However, the ground has a far higher heat retention than just the passing storm. It should not be a surprise when a storm this cold arrives over warmer ground that there might be fog.

An early start to avy season? (click on)

October 26, 2006. Colorado Springs, Colorado

Photographer states :: My friend Rob lives in Colorado Springs and have these incredible Blizzard Pictures!!

The picture reveals a heavy 'slush' in Colorado. The weight of the snow and the wind in combination did a lot of damage. It was a displaced Arctic Storm that met with the reality of Human Induced Global Warming temperatures after the Arctic Wind stopped. I don't know quite what to think about people calling this a blizzard. I guess if one is not familiar with a real blizzard it might seem like one. On the other hypothesis of that question is: "Has the biotic nature of Earth gotten to be so benign currently as it warms that the extremes need definition in some form and this is the new definition of blizzard?"

If the snows of this season are destined to melt as quickly as it percipitated there will be a real threat to water sources come this spring when there is no water runoff from melting snow fields.

When is a cloud not a cloud? (click on)

When it is burning biomass without moisture content leading to rain.

Relentless Santa Ana Winds Fan Esperanza Fire

Between one and two thousand firefighters on the ground and more than 40 aircraft -- helicopters and planes -- greeted the relentless Esperanza wildfire in the San Jacinto Mountains just west of Palm Springs on Friday morning, NBC4 reported.

Video: Friday Report, 6 a.m.

Santa Ana winds refused to die down overnight, fanning a fire that began at 1 a.m. Thursday to more than 24,000 acres -- 38 square miles -- by late Thursday night. It was just 5 percent contained.


Four dead, hundreds flee California wildfire (click on)

By Jill SerjeantLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A brush fire blamed on arsonists swept through the desert hills near Palm Springs on Thursday, killing four fire-fighters, sending residents fleeing and trapping hundreds more in a rural park for recreational vehicles.

Whipped by warm winds after a long, dry summer, the fire roared out of control through about 24,000 acres (9,700 hectares) in less than 24 hours, destroying at least 10 homes and engulfing a firetruck, fire officials said.

By nightfall, the fire line stretched 15 miles (24 km) along canyons and rugged hills 90 miles (145 km) east of Los Angeles and 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Palm Springs.

But Riverside County Fire Department Chief John Hawkins said the more than 1,000 fire-fighters were finally making progress. "We are doing better with it. We are saying 5 per cent containment. That might not sound like a lot but it really, truly is," Hawkins said.

Morning Papers - continued

asahi.com


Coast guard subs for MSDF on inspections
10/25/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Tokyo plans to call on the Japan Coast Guard, not the Maritime Self-Defense Force, to inspect vessels entering or leaving North Korea under a United Nations Security Council resolution, sources said.
The measure, for the time being, was planned after government officials concluded that Washington needs more time to decide how its military will inspect cargo on ships going to and coming from North Korea.
There is also the unresolved legal problems concerning the dispatch of MSDF vessels to support U.S. ships inspecting cargo in international waters.
In fact, the government has put off plans to compile a special measures law that would enable the MSDF to provide logistics support for U.S. military vessels inspecting ships for cargo that could be used to enhance or fund North Korea's weapons programs, the sources said.
But the MSDF will not sit by idly while the international community imposes sanctions against Pyongyang for its Oct. 9 nuclear test.
The MSDF is stepping up its information-gathering activities to monitor suspicious vessels heading for and leaving North Korea, the sources said.
Tokyo will decide on further action against the reclusive state depending on Washington's countermeasures and how Pyongyang responds, the sources added.
During her recent swing through Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized that the United States has no intention of escalating the crisis concerning North Korea's nuclear program.
She also informed leaders of each country that Washington will inspect vessels only when it has solid information that the vessels pose a risk.
"The United States will stress a diplomatic approach for the time being," a senior Foreign Ministry official said. "I assume it will take some time (for Washington) to discuss how to deploy the U.S. military for cargo inspections and other purposes."
The Japanese government plans to instruct the coast guard to bolster its measures to inspect ships entering or leaving North Korea, mainly in Japanese territorial waters, the sources said.
The coast guard can also board a vessel in contiguous waters--the maritime zone stretching 12 nautical miles adjacent to Japan's territorial waters--if the vessel is suspected of breaking Japanese laws, such as violating customs clearance procedures and immigration control.
On the other hand, the MSDF can inspect a vessel only when the situation is acknowledged as an emergency in areas surrounding Japan.
Debate is continuing over whether North Korea's nuclear test can be considered such an emergency.
The Defense Agency, meanwhile, has deployed MSDF P3C patrol aircraft for monitoring activities over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. The agency will also use escort vessels and Air SDF AWACS surveillance planes for that purpose.
If a suspicious vessel is detected, an MSDF destroyer will track it down and pass on information to the coast guard, U.S. Navy vessels deployed off the coast of North Korea and other related authorities, the sources said.
The government is also considering ways to provide fuel, water and other supplies to U.S. Navy vessels calling at the SDF's Maizuru base in Kyoto Prefecture and elsewhere, the sources said.
On the basis of the UNSC resolution condemning North Korea's nuclear test, Japan is also scrambling to determine the luxury goods that will be banned from entering North Korea.
Customs houses will crack down on such items as soon as they are identified, the sources said.(IHT/Asahi: October 25,2006)

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250142.html




U.S. missile defense under way in Okinawa
10/27/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Launchers for the PAC3 missile defense system are seen at the U.S. Air Force's Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture on Wednesday. (Jun Kaneko/ The Asahi Shimbun)
OKINAWA, Okinawa Prefecture--The deployment of a state-of-the-art, ground-to-air Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC3) missile defense system is proceeding apace at U.S. Kadena Air Base.
The system's launchers were observed on the base Wednesday. The U.S. military plans to have the system partially up and running by the end of the year, according to sources.
Fifteen launchers, both for PAC3 and PAC2 missiles designed to intercept short-range ballistic missiles, are lined up at the base barely 200 meters from Kadena town hall.
The deployment follows a recent series of military actions on the part of North Korea, including missile test launches on July 5 and a nuclear test on Oct. 9.
Tokyo and Washington agreed to deploy the PAC3 system at U.S. bases around Japan as part of a May agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.
That plan includes relocating about 8,000 U.S. Marine Corps personnel and 9,000 of their family members from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam. It also transfers the functions of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from populated Ginowan to Nago's Camp Schwab, both in Okinawa Prefecture, and returns some land in the prefecture now used by the U.S. military.

Pasted from <http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270150.html>




Bills to upgrade Defense Agency will likely be passed in Diet session
10/27/2006
The Asahi Shimbun
With opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) now on board, bills to give the Defense Agency more power and independence will likely be passed during the current Diet session, sources said.
Minshuto decided Thursday to comply with the ruling parties' plan to upgrade the agency to a ministry to maintain support from conservative voters amid the nuclear crisis involving North Korea.
One of the bills will revise the law on the establishment of the Defense Agency to give the agency the higher status. Currently, the Defense Agency must go through the prime minister to submit bills to the Diet or ask for Cabinet meetings. If it is upgraded to a Defense Ministry, it can take such action on its own.

Pasted from <http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270242.html>





SBI Holdings hid 3 billion yen through shady stock transactions with subsidiaries
10/27/2006
The Asahi Shimbun
SBI Holdings Inc. failed to report about 3 billion yen ($25.3 million) in income over a three-year period until March 2005, sources close to tax authorities said.
The venture capital firm sold stock to several subsidiaries and later bought back the same shares at inflated prices in an attempt to improve the financial standing of those subsidiaries. That action was considered a "donation" from SBI Holdings to its subsidiaries.
Sources said SBI Holdings has paid about 1 billion yen in back taxes and penalties.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270240.html



254 high schools skipping compulsory classes
10/27/2006
The Asahi Shimbun
In a further embarrassment for the education system, The Asahi Shimbun found that more than 250 senior high schools are not teaching compulsory subjects for graduation, and some have covered-up the practice.
Earlier, The Asahi Shimbun learned that 87 public senior high schools were not teaching world history, a compulsory subject, to their students.
A further investigation shows that the practice is more widespread and that other compulsory subjects, such as health education and information, are being skipped.
The reason is that schools were so focused on getting students into the best universities that they emphasized subjects, such as math, needed for university entrance exams. The other courses, although compulsory for graduation, were often left out of the students' schedules.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270288.html



More breast cancer patients fully recovering
10/25/2006
The Asahi Shimbun
The number of breast cancer surgeries with a nearly 100 percent rate for a complete recovery has more than doubled since 2002, thanks largely to the growing use of mammography tests, a survey showed.
Such surgeries are for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which has been dubbed "breast cancer at the super-early stage."
Patients can expect a complete recovery if they are treated during that stage, which underscores the importance of health checks and mammographies, according to medical experts.
The survey has been conducted annually since 2002 by a breast cancer conference comprising about 20 advanced medical facilities, including St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo's Chuo Ward.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250230.html



LDP victories signal promising start for Abe
10/24/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got a boost Sunday when two ruling Liberal Democratic Party candidates won by-elections for the Lower House. Passing this test a month after being sworn in gives Abe's administration a much needed sense of stability. Abe is now expected to push through the Diet such key bills as a revision of the Fundamental Law of Education. "The voters have given power to the ruling coalition. I will do my best to steadily fulfill my policy pledges," Abe told LDP Secretary-General Hidenao Nakagawa by phone.


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610240115.html



LDP to retract proposal that allows "illegal" interest rate
10/25/2006
The Asahi Shimbun
The Liberal Democratic Party plans to scrap a provisional measure for the revised moneylending system that would enable consumer loan companies to continue charging interest rates beyond the legal limits. In the face of heavy criticism, executives of the LDP's Research Commission on the Finance and Banking Systems decided Tuesday to remove the measure from the package of bills to revise moneylending laws. The LDP plans to make other modifications to better protect consumers. The bills are intended to close loopholes and eliminate confusion concerning the interest rates charged by consumer finance companies and to prevent desperate borrowers from falling victim to shady lending and debt-collecting practices. Critics of the bills, however, say the some of the initial revisions, including the provisional measure, favor the lenders instead.


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250233.html



Asia/ In China, booming scrap metal industry poses hidden dangers
10/25/2006
BY KAZUTO TSUKAMOTO,THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
ALASHANKOU, China--It used to be that China couldn't get enough scrap metal. Pots, pans, old military tanks, guns, anything that could be sold off to be resold to dealers, who then sell it on to smelters and other factories throughout the country. But here in western China's only railway port, which links the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Kazakhstan, border officials are being forced to turn away scrap by the ton. In a rush to feed China's thirst for scrap metal, dealers from throughout Central Asia are apparently including radioactive waste in their scrap exports. According to Xinjiang Uyghur custom houses and waste importers, iron scrap and other metals that contained radiation levels higher than the permitted standard have been discovered at two locations--Alashankou, which is about 450 kilometers from Urumqi, the capital of the autonomous region; and the Torugart Pass, a rugged mountain road that provides access into Kyrgyzstan. It sits high in the mountains about 130 km from Kashgar, a major city in Xinjiang Uyghur. While radiation has been detected in imported scrap since the 1990s, the situation has been getting steadily worse since the volume of imports began to increase in 2000. During the five-year period from 2001 to 2005, a total of 9.58 million tons of scrap metal entered the autonomous region through the two points. Of that, roughly 2.27 million tons were imported in 2005 alone, creating a record annual high. Although levels dropped significantly to only 550,000 tons in the first six months of this year, mainly due to the fall in domestic iron prices in China, officials say contaminated imports still pose a grave danger. From January through June this year, radioactivity was detected in 9,995 tons coming through Alashankou. All of it was sent back. According to one customs officer in the border town, most of the scrap is sent to Kazakhstan from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, where it is collected and then sent by train to the autonomous region. The situation is getting so bad that both China and Kazakhstan have now appointed permanent customs and quarantine officers at the checkpoint specifically to implement radiation tests of scrap imports. Those tests, according to Chinese newspaper Guojixianqudaobao (International Herald Leader), are turning up imports that contain radiation levels 2,000 to 4,000 times higher than what is found in the natural environment. At Torugart Pass, the problem is similar, only the waste is brought in by truck rather than railway. In January last year, above normal radiation levels were detected in 91 tons of metallic waste. Authorities point to the many nuclear-related facilities throughout Central Asia, most of which are left over from the Soviet era. Of particular concern is Kazakhstan's uranium mine as well as the Semipalatinsk Test Site, which was once one of the world's largest nuclear test sites. It was closed in 2000. Zhang Yao, a vice director of the Department of Russian and Central Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, is one of many deeply concerned about scrap trading at the western border. "It is suspected that the scraps (that were found to be contaminated with radioactivity) were those that had been produced in uranium mining sites, nuclear facilities and radioactive waste processing centers (in the Central Asian countries)," he said.(IHT/Asahi: October 25,2006)


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250120.html



Asia/ Off the Beaten Track： Afghan women learn to bring home the honey
10/25/2006
BY MANABU KITAGAWA,THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
JALALABAD, Afghanistan--Life hasn't always been sweet for women in Afghanistan, but the United Nations hopes that the beekeeping program run by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees will give female refugees the chance to earn a living by making honey. About 50 women are taking part in the program that first started in a Jalalabad suburb in late June of this year. The women are learning everything they might need to know about bees, including their behavior and how to make beehives. The average beehive produces 40 kilograms of honey a year, earning a beekeeper about $200 (about 23,000 yen). Since the Taliban regime collapsed in 2001, an estimated 3.5 million Afghan refugees have returned to the country. However, for many, returning home has not been without its own problems. A shortage of work opportunities has meant that returnees often struggle to support themselves.(IHT/Asahi: October 25,2006)


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250117.html



EDITORIAL/Nobel Peace Prize
10/25/2006
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank (bank of villages) that he established in Dhaka in 1976. Borrowing money from financial institutions was never an option for the poor in developing nations. Lenders avoided these people because they lacked guarantors and carried the risk of being unable to pay back their delinquent loans. Yunus came up with the concept of microcredit when he set up Grameen Bank. It is a system for small-sum lending without collateral extended to any group of five borrowers who assume joint liability. Poor people also have an entrepreneurial spirit. What these people need most is capital that encourages self-reliance, not economic aid or charity. Over the years, Yunus's concept of microcredit spread from South Asia to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. And by limiting the borrowers mainly to women, his bank helped to raise the status of women who have always been prone to discrimination.


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250114.html



POINT OF VIEW/ Masazumi Yoshii：Ministry to blame for the Minamata fiasco
10/25/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
In spring last year, I agreed to the Environment Ministry's request to serve as a member of the ad-hoc panel set up by then Environment Minister Yuriko Koike to review the government's policy response to the outbreak of Minamata disease. With the nation set to mark the 50th anniversary of the official recognition of the cases of neurological syndrome due to mercury poisoning on May 1 this year, the panel was asked to scrutinize how the government responded to the outbreak and draw lessons from the experience to prevent similar mistakes. But the panel's submission of proposals was delayed to September this year. Since the ministry requested a fresh look into the mistakes made in the past, I thought we were supposed to offer candidly critical opinions about the government's handling of this public health disaster. So I offered candid criticism. Instead of getting serious attention from the officials in charge, however, my criticism actually displeased them and drew negative reactions from them. The focus of debate at the panel soon shifted from the responses made by the organizations involved, which failed to contain the outbreak quickly, to the ways compensation and relief have been provided to victims. Since many victims are not officially recognized as Minamata disease patients under the Environment Ministry's criteria, four different types of approaches to victim relief have been devised, including "political" relief and "judicial" relief. There are clear inequities among these approaches. And a 2004 Supreme Court ruling on the issue has triggered fresh applications for relief from more than 4,000 people. Nobody could deny that the ministry's strict criteria for recognition as Minamata patients are at the root of this confusion. But the ministry has been insisting that the criteria are based on scientific opinions of experts, adding that the Supreme Court ruling didn't reject the criteria. Indeed, the top court didn't strike down the criteria, but it didn't support them either. The court used its own, far less rigid criteria to recognize many additional sufferers as Minamata disease patients eligible for compensation. That should be interpreted as calling the appropriateness of the ministry's criteria into question. I urged the government to establish an independent council of experts from a wide range of fields, including medical, legal, social and administrative areas, and seek its proposals on the compensation and relief regime as a whole. This idea was included in the draft report of the Minamata panel for the ministry. My proposal was by no means a radical one. When the government embarks on an important new reform it usually sets up such an independent advisory panel to tap a wide range of opinions. But the Environment Ministry fiercely objected to the idea, saying it had not asked the panel to debate the issue of the criteria. The ministry said it would refuse to accept any proposal that is not related to the areas designated for the panel's work. It was quite clear that such an independent council would address problems with the criteria, and the ministry apparently thought it was the best strategy to forestall any serious debate on the subject by blocking the creation of such a panel. This attitude indicates the ministry is regressing from openness and transparency in policymaking to exclusivity and secrecy. The ministry appears to be more interested in saving its own skin than in rescuing Minamata disease patients. It is intent on defending its current policy to prevent any embarrassment for the minister and avoid shouldering any additional burden. I even began to wonder if the ministry was the major obstacle to solving the problem. There were no signs that Minister Koike asserted political leadership to pressure bureaucrats into taking action. A contentious issue on which public opinions are deeply divided can never be sorted out if the people responsible for the matter are trying to deflect criticisms. Such people should rather be willing to put their reputation at risk. As it turned out, the proposal to create an independent advisory council on the question of compensation and relief was not adopted as the Minamata panel's recommendation. But the panel's recommendations instead include the development of a permanent framework for providing compensation and relief for all victims of the disease. The panel also pointed out that bureaucrats tend to pay less than enough attention to the protection of human lives and rights during emergencies and that the government lacks an effective crisis management system to cope with such situations. As a step to tackle these problems, the panel proposed the creation of a new public safety committee with the power to conduct investigations into cases of public health disasters related to pollution, drugs and foods in order to find out how they occurred and recommend preventive measures. Realizing this idea requires high-level political decisions transcending the jurisdictions of the ministries and agencies. I really hope former Environment Minister Koike, now a special adviser to the prime minister, will tackle this challenge. In order to make good use of the panel's recommendations, though, it is more important than anything else for the Environment Ministry to demonstrate willingness to risk its reputation and accept its share of the blame for the historic policy failure. * * * The author is a former mayor of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture.(IHT/Asahi: October 25,2006)


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250113.html



North Korean nukes and the wash basin maker
10/25/2006
Recent events reminded me of the old adage about the wash basin maker, often used to explain how serendipity can lead to unexpected results. The story goes that a wooden wash basin maker mused one day, "I wish a strong wind would blow. "If a strong gale were to blow, it would lift sand and grit into the air. If sand got into people's eyes, some of them would go blind. If people go blind, they will learn to play samisen to earn a living. Since that musical instrument is made with the skin of cats, those animals would soon become scarce," he said. "If there were fewer cats around, the mice would have a field day and start chewing holes in wash basins." And that is why the wash basin maker hoped a gale would blow. Thus, the familiar maxim "When the wind blows strong, basin makers strike it rich." The passage is from the Edo Period (1603-1867) story collection called "Usokanwa," included in "Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei" (Japanese essays) published by Yoshikawa Kobunkan. The Liberal Democratic Party's wins of two seats in Lower House by-elections in Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures on Sunday remind me of this old adage. It seems the wind blown by the North Korean nuclear issue influenced the outcome in these two polls.


http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250110.html



Assad: Syria not seeking to be nuclear state
10/27/2006
BY DAIJI SADAMORI ,AND JUNJI TACHINO
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
DAMASCUS--Far from seeking nuclear weapons of its own, Syria's ultimate aim is to make the entire Middle East nuclear-free, according to President Bashar Assad.
Assad recently granted an exclusive interview to The Asahi Shimbun, his first with a Japanese media organization since he assumed the presidency in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez Assad.
In response to North Korea's first underground nuclear test on Oct. 9, Assad reiterated that Syria was not seeking to become a nuclear power.
He said the international community should also apply pressure on Israel to abandon its nuclear arsenal.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270143.html



Government backs atomic plant sales
10/27/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
The government and industry are joining in a double-team promotion of nuclear power plants in Asian export targets.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is leading the drive to better compete with overseas rivals, such as France, which is conducting aggressive public-private campaigns.
The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) organized a meeting this summer with the Vietnamese government to study nuclear power plant projects.
"We are prepared to send nuclear experts from Japan to help Vietnam train government regulators, researchers and plant operators," a JETRO official said at the meeting.
Vietnam plans to build two nuclear power reactors between 2017 and 2020.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270138.html



POINT OF VIEW/ Yasushi Akashi: What a new Asian U.N. chief means for Japan
10/27/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
The United Nations General Assembly has named South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, as its next secretary-general.
As someone who personally knows him, I welcome this decision from the bottom of my heart. Ban is known as an even-tempered man who excels in his ability for coordination based on careful consideration. I believe he is well qualified to be the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and its 192 members.
Some people question whether the fact that he comes from a divided country means he can deal fairly with the North Korean problem. But I think such worries are groundless. I am confident that Ban will act fairly and selflessly in his capacity as the top U.N. public servant, not as a South Korean government official. We should be confident in the ability of a U.N. secretary-general who is well informed about East Asian affairs, and who earnestly hopes to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610270128.html



North Korean nukes and the wash basin maker
10/25/2006
Recent events reminded me of the old adage about the wash basin maker, often used to explain how serendipity can lead to unexpected results.
The story goes that a wooden wash basin maker mused one day, "I wish a strong wind would blow.
"If a strong gale were to blow, it would lift sand and grit into the air. If sand got into people's eyes, some of them would go blind. If people go blind, they will learn to play samisen to earn a living. Since that musical instrument is made with the skin of cats, those animals would soon become scarce," he said.
"If there were fewer cats around, the mice would have a field day and start chewing holes in wash basins."
And that is why the wash basin maker hoped a gale would blow.
Thus, the familiar maxim "When the wind blows strong, basin makers strike it rich." The passage is from the Edo Period (1603-1867) story collection called "Usokanwa," included in "Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei" (Japanese essays) published by Yoshikawa Kobunkan.
The Liberal Democratic Party's wins of two seats in Lower House by-elections in Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures on Sunday remind me of this old adage.
It seems the wind blown by the North Korean nuclear issue influenced the outcome in these two polls.
Beforehand, voters likely had this train of thought: "Nuclear tests cannot be tolerated. The North Korean test is a real threat; it is not bluffing. We need a government that is strong against such threats. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken a hard stance against the North in the past. I'm going to vote for the LDP, this time."
Abe's visits to China and South Korea after his inauguration started another wind blowing. But the former Koizumi administration also left a legacy of ill will in the region.
While Abe's diplomacy turned that minus into a plus, had it not been for Koizumi's missteps, the summit meetings with Chinese and South Korean leaders could have happened sooner.
As the "nuclear wind" blew stronger, many voters must have sensed the disarray within the Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) ranks. The opposition party seems to lack the ability to perceive subtle public sentiment.
The phrase "When the wind blows" also connotes pinning one's hopes on unpredictable events. But there's no way an opposition that simply waits for the wind to bring down the ruling party can attain power.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 24(IHT/Asahi: October 25,2006)

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610250110.html



Thoroughbred's drug test leaves deep impact
10/26/2006
Shuji Terayama (1935-1983) was not only an avant-garde dramatist, writer and director, he was also a horse-racing critic of some note.
In his "Yoroppa Keiba Nikki" (European horse-racing diary), he describes the 1972 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe race in Paris, in which Japan's Mejiro Musashi ran.
"Paris ... It's the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and darn, I overslept." He continues: "Mejiro Musashi was not the favorite, and he also lacked fighting spirit."
The essay is in "Keiba Mushuku" (Horse racing wanderings) published by Shinshokan Co. Mejiro Musashi finished a dismal 18th that day.
On Oct. 1 this year, Japan's Deep Impact placed third in the same prestigious race at Longchamp. But the horse had tested positive for a drug banned in Europe.
Traces of ipratropium, a tracheal relaxant used to aid breathing, were detected in the horse's urine sample. Ipratropium is not banned in Japan.
How could this have happened? Was it intentional, or was it a careless slip? The shock was felt everywhere. There have been calls for a thorough investigation and a full explanation.
The intentional use of performance-enhancing drugs, known as doping, goes back a long time. According to "Kusuri" (Medications), published by University of Tokyo Press, the English word is said to derive from the word dop, an alcoholic beverage that was imbibed by a tribe in South Africa during ceremonies.
In ancient Rome, horses competing in chariot races were given honey mixed with alcohol as a byproduct of fermentation.
That, apparently, is when doping began in the sporting world. The practice is said to have spread widely into cycling and soccer in the 19th century.
Contrary to human doping practices, at least Deep Impact cannot be blamed, and bears no responsibility for breaking the rules. That is some consolation.
But at the same time, I feel sorry for the horse. Couldn't his human handlers have looked out for him better?
The horse traveled a great distance to stand proud in Paris, and he competed bravely in what turned out to be a close race against powerful rivals all striving to come in first.
In my mind's eye, I can still see the beautiful image of Deep Impact's strong body pounding down the turf.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 21(IHT/Asahi: October 26,2006)

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610260108.html



The Phildelphia Inquirer

N.J. court stops short of legalizing gay marriage but affirms rights of same-sex couples
By Kristen A. Graham and Terry Bitman
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled today that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the same benefits and rights as heterosexual couples. But the justices left it to the State Legislature to decide whether that equality will come in the form of full marriage or civil unions.
The Legislature has 180 days to either "amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure," Justice Barry Albin wrote in his decision for a divided 4-3 court.
New Jersey has always been considered a prime battleground for a gay marriage case. It is one of five states without a law or constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and its court is considered quite independent.
Nationwide, two states - Vermont and Connecticut - permit same-sex couples to form civil unions.
Only Massachusetts, by virtue of a 2003 high court ruling, allows gay and lesbian couples to marry.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15846616.htm



Geno’s: Where’s the beef (from)?
By Michael Klein
Geno's, the South Philly cheesesteak stand that recently made worldwide news over its order-in-English signs, has a foreign accent after all.
In a cheeky Internet posting on DailyKos.com, a Philadelphia blogger known as DebtorsPrison on Tuesday put up photos taken outside Monday night. The photos show boxes of beef bearing labels from Frigorifico Elbio Perez Rodriguez - a meat packer not in South Philly but in South America.
Uruguay.
"Those cheesesteaks are made from 'immigrant' beef!" DebtorsPrison wrote in what appeared to be mock indignation.
The box markings were in English, by the way.
Owner Joey Vento drew a complaint in June from the city Human Relations Commission after it decided that Vento's signs - declaring, "This is America," and asking customers to please order in English - violated the city's Fair Practices Act.
"We buy wherever we can find the best steer rib eye," said Geno's day manager Jimmy Reds, when asked about this latest tempest-in-a-Cheez-pot. "Some of it comes from South America, some from Australia. But we buy locally, from American companies."
Vento was not available for comment.
According to an informal survey, many steak shops - including Geno's archrival Pat's King of Steaks - say they buy foreign beef. It is, on average, about 15 percent cheaper than domestic.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15846428.htm



N.J. rejects federal sex ed money over abstinence rules
Associated Press
TRENTON, N.J. - The Corzine administration has rejected federal abstinence education money because new rules won't let teachers discuss contraception and require them to describe sex outside marriage as potentially mentally and physically damaging.
State health and education officials sent a letter Tuesday to the federal government, saying such requirements contradict the state's sex education and AIDS education programs.
The state had accepted the $800,000 each year since 1997, but said new rules give them little flexibility.
"Some of the elements required are inconsistent and violate our own educational standards," State Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs told the Star-Ledger of Newark for Wednesday's papers.
New Jersey is the fourth state to reject the abstinence education money, after California, Pennsylvania and Maine.
"Monogamy is not a bad idea, but having the government of New Jersey dictate these things for families is not something we wish to do," Jacobs said.
The state's AIDS Prevention Act also permits schools to discuss contraception.
Conservatives questioned the decision.
"We should take a step back and try a new approach," said Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life. "What we have now is not working, as reflected by the rates of abortions and high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases."



Reputed mobster Filipelli arrested on federal charges
Associated Press
CAMDEN, N.J. - Authorities have arrested a reputed organized crime family member on charges stemming from an investigation into illegal sports gambling, state police said Wednesday.
State police, working with the FBI's Philadelphia office, arrested Vincent Filipelli, 53, at his Cherry Hill home on Tuesday. They seized anabolic steroids and drug paraphernalia valued at $10,000, two stun guns, gambling records and cash, according to state police.
Filipelli faces state and federal charges related to a sports betting operation and the distribution of illegal drugs, specifically anabolic steroids, said state police Sgt. Stephen Jones.
He was being held without bail Wednesday at the Camden County jail, pending a federal hearing.
According to state police, Filipelli was a former bodyguard for John Stanfa, boss of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra organized crime family.
During an undercover investigation that included two state police detectives, Filipelli threatened one of the undercover detectives, whom he believed owed him a debt, telling him he would put him in the hospital for a year, according to state police.



Santorum seeks moderate votes in Phila. suburbs
MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - In a hunt for votes in the Philadelphia suburbs, Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign brought four Senate colleagues to town Wednesday to portray Santorum as a moderate in conservative clothing.
"The caricature that is so often drawn of him as being an extremist is not the senator that I see," Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, said at a morning news conference.
"None of us agree with Rick Santorum on every issue. I am pro-choice," Collins said. "(But) Rick is someone who works well with senators of all ideologies."
Santorum is facing an uphill battle against his challenger, state Treasurer Bob Casey. Independent polls have shown Santorum's approval rating this year hovering below 40 percent and Casey with a lead over the senator.
Fellow Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Norm Coleman, of Minnesota, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Collins all set aside the day to campaign for Santorum in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs. Santorum hopes to woo enough moderates there to win the Nov. 7 election over Casey, a socially conservative Democrat.
Santorum clenched his fists and looked tense as his colleagues talked of what they called his unheralded work on social issues, from AIDS research to Amtrak funding. They spent less time discussing the war in Iraq.
"It's very easy to stereotype ... to play off the old themes and ignore what goes on," said Santorum, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.
He said he knows some people may wonder if he is trying to run away from his record or his conservative stance. "Absolutely not. But there's more to the story," Santorum said.
Santorum offered an "alternative story line" about his 12 years in the Senate, describing his work on Amtrak, energy assistance programs and puppy mills.
"Those are the kinds of things that are real meat and potatoes for people in southeastern Pennsylvania," Santorum said.
Santorum has drawn headlines for his remarks comparing homosexuality to polygamy and bestiality and for suggesting more parents could afford to quit their jobs and stay home with their children.
Specter acknowledged that Santorum's candor draws attention.
"He has very strongly held views and he insists on saying them," Specter said. "My father taught me to know what you say, don't say what you know."




NRA backs Santorum, but it likes Casey, too
In a hunter-heavy state, gun policy is one area where the U.S. Senate candidates mostly agree.
By Carrie Budoff
Inquirer Staff Writer
No matter who wins Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race, the National Rifle Association probably won't be complaining.
On gun issues, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and Democrat Bob Casey Jr. could be twins.
Santorum earned an A-plus and an endorsement from the NRA - whose leaders campaigned with him yesterday. Casey got an A, the highest mark for a nonincumbent.
Both oppose renewing the federal ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons. They support child-safety locks on guns, but back immunity for gun manufacturers from lawsuits and reject calls to limit handgun purchases to one a month.
Such overlapping on a fractious issue defies party labels, but it highlights an abiding rule of Pennsylvania politics: To win statewide, side with sportsmen, hunters and gun owners. The NRA says Pennsylvania has more members per capita than any other state.
Santorum and Casey may appear out of sync with Philadelphia-area voters, particularly in the city - which is having one of its deadliest years in more than a decade. Suburban and urban residents generally favor tighter gun laws, analysts say, but their intensity rarely matches those of gun-rights advocates.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15840571.htm



Easing the stress children feel at the sight of a needle
By Lauran Neergaard
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Vaccinations and other needle sticks are more than pinpricks to little children, and often to older ones, too. They cause fear that can turn a simple checkup into a stress-filled battle.
It sounds too easy, but distracting your tot can reduce the distress, concludes a new review that examined psychological techniques for easing the pain.
Nothing will stop all the crying. But pick a distraction suitable for the child's age and stage of development, and anything from a low-tech trick such as blowing bubbles to bringing a video game can take a child's mind off the impending pain long enough to make a difference.
"Needle procedures are really common, and among the most fear- and anxiety-provoking for children," notes Lindsay Uman of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who led the review by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international network that assesses the evidence behind health-care practices. "A parent can very easily help."
Children can get 20 shots by age 2 from vaccinations alone, not counting blood tests or other needle-stick procedures for various illnesses.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15832607.htm



Marriage as social contract
Stephanie Coontz
teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and is author of "Marriage: A History: How Love Conquered Marriage"
For the first time in 150 years, households headed by single adults and unmarried couples now outnumber married-couple families. In 1960, married-couple households represented more than 78 percent of American households. As late as 2000, married couples were 52 percent of all households. But in 2005, according to the recently released American Community Survey, households with a married couple at their core made up less than 50 percent of all households.
That's a psychologically significant number, of course. Headlines trumpet that "Married people are now a minority." But there are some things that this news means and others that it doesn't. It doesn't mean marriage is doomed. It does mean we have to start thinking differently about the way we design our social policies. They are founded on 60-year-old assumptions about marriage that are now definitively outdated.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15816409.htm



All-embracing free love seizes city
Unsuspecting passersby hugged in the park.
By Natalie Pompilio
Inquirer Staff Writer
Inviting the public’s embrace, Laurie Elder and two other West Philadelphia women offered "free hugs" in Center City for about two hours yesterday
Pigtails bobbing, Laurie Elder bopped up to a stranger walking by LOVE Park yesterday afternoon, waved her sign, then outstretched her arms.
Seconds later, the two were hugging.
A few feet away, Debs Hoy was doing the same thing - wrapping her arms around someone she'd never met. Near her, Fran Staret was approaching a group of walkers while waving her torn sign: "Free Hugs," it read.
The three West Philadelphia women were spreading a little sisterly love in a city where, with the growing violence problem, it seems love is lacking. They were encouraging people to slow down rather than hurry by, to connect with a stranger rather than ignore one. They were offering "free hugs" for about two hours yesterday, and hundreds of people took them up on their offer.
"All the people who don't usually look at me are hugging me," said Elder, 29. "We've had so many hugs. I don't want to stop."
Hoy, 26, said she noticed that, post-hug, people were smiling and their shoulders were less hunched.
"I've had a few people say to me, 'I really do need a hug,'" Hoy said. "That's great. Sometimes that makes all the difference."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15840607.htm



Girl wasted away under DHS care
City review of teen's neglect was key to ouster of leadership.
By John Sullivan, Ken Dilanian, Craig R. McCoy and Nancy Phillips
Inquirer Staff Writers
Fourteen-year-old Danieal Kelly, bedridden and nearly paralyzed with cerebral palsy, wasted away in her stifling Mantua apartment, gaping bedsores exposing her bones. When she died, she weighed just 46 pounds.
The tragedy happened in plain sight of Philadelphia's troubled Department of Human Services - an agency that failed her, city officials acknowledged yesterday.
As Danieal faded, a private company was being paid by the city to visit the home at least twice a week. How often the visits actually occurred is in dispute.
She died, dehydrated, in a record heat wave Aug. 4, nine days after the last scheduled visit. Maggots were found in her wounds.
"I'm outraged and saddened," acting DHS commissioner Arthur C. Evans Jr. said yesterday. "The system clearly failed with this kid. There's just no way you can look at a situation like this and say there wasn't a failure."
The story of Danieal Kelly is the latest revelation of a child death that might have been prevented by DHS, the agency responsible for protecting the city's vulnerable children. A DHS caseworker visited the home at least three times in nine months without spotting the neglect, according to a city review of the death.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15840612.htm



Editorial Joe Sestak for Congress
Pa. Seventh District
Historically Republican, the district covering most of Delaware and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties voted Democratic in the last three presidential elections.
The Case for Sestak
Retired admiral, U.S. Navy
Democrat, 54
Wallingford
This seat, held by Weldon for 20 years, is ripe for a change. Sestak, a career naval officer, is a political novice - and it shows. But he's benefited from the mounting ethical woes of the GOP majority on Capitol Hill, including Weldon's.
Sestak's experience commanding a battle group in Iraq and Afghanistan is key. He'd bring valuable military expertise to Pentagon oversight. He seems eager to push for needed ethics reforms.
The Opponent
Curt Weldon
U.S. representative
Republican, 59
Thornbury
The Case for Weldon
Weldon wields the influence of seniority on the Armed Services Committee. He knows the district and has brought defense jobs back home. This centrist enjoys rattling government cages.
Character / Ethics
The Justice Department is investigating whether Weldon used his position to help his daughter's lobbying/consulting firm. Another daughter was hired by a defense contractor after Weldon helped the company to get a federal contract. This smells as bad as it looks.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15840636.htm



This Sunday in Currents: Meet the Candidates
This Sunday, nearly all of Currents will be turned over to profiles of the major candidates in the three biggest political races in our area. In the Pennsylvania gubernatorial contest, Gov. Ed Rendell and Lynn Swann trade answers to Inquirer questions on property taxes, gun violence, and other issues. In the Pennsylvania race for U.S. Senate, Sen. Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. discuss immigration, taxes, and the war on terror, as do New Jersey's U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and Tom Kean Jr. Besides answers to campaign-related questions, the candidates also answer our Influences questionnaire about their favorite books, movies, TV shows, and personal role models. This begins a big week of election coverage in The Inquirer's opinion pages.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15840629.htm



'You have to live on the edge'
A Center City paralegal enters a 150-mile race through Egypt's desert.
By Joseph A. Gambardello
Inquirer Staff Writer
Jacqueline Eastridge during a Monday workout at the Aquatic & Fitness Center in Bala Cynw
Jacqueline Eastridge admits that, yes, she is a little crazy.
Starting on Sunday, the 46-year-old senior paralegal for a Center City law firm will join 59 other runners in a week-long, 150-mile trek through the sands and dunes and the dry, relentless heat of Egypt's Sahara desert. The event was organized by the sports-adventure company RacingThePlanet.
Eastridge will do it carrying only one change of clothing and all the food she will need in a pack on her back that she hopes will weigh no more than 15 pounds.
"You have to live on the edge a little," said Eastridge, of Wynnewood, who is making the trip alone at a personal cost of over $2,000 (her employer paid the entrance fee).
From the sound of it, the 5-foot-6, 125-pound Eastridge is up to the challenge while at the same time elevating fund-raising for a cause - in this case Children's Hospital - to new extremes compared to the walks, runs and bike tours so common around the region.
"It's fully in keeping with who she is," said her boss, Michael Friedman, chair of the corporate and securities group at Pepper Hamilton L.L.P. "She is energetic, she is enthusiastic, she is committed to quality, and she is committed to helping people."
Born in Switzerland, Eastridge and her mother, Kriemhild, came to this country when she was 4 and moved to Willingboro.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/15840640.htm



Unisys narrows third-quarter loss to $77.5 million
By Akweli Parker
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Unisys Corp., of Blue Bell, narrowed its third-quarter loss to $77.5 million, or 23 cents a share, from $1.63 billion, or $4.78 a share, in the third quarter of 2005, which included a $1.57 billion tax-related charge.
Unisys chairman and chief executive officer Joseph W. McGrath said today that the results were evidence that the beleaguered company was on its way to profitability through cost-cutting and trying to focus on growth areas, such as security, outsourcing, and systems that use "open source," or nonproprietary, software.
Revenue inched up to $1.41 billion from $1.39 billion in the third quarter of 2005, aided in part by contracts to electronically monitor the U.S.-Mexico border, along with prime contractor Boeing Co.; develop an advanced DNA-tracking system for the FBI that would allow local, state and federal law enforcement to link DNA samples with previously convicted offenders; assist coffee-shop chain Starbucks Corp. as it expands outside the United States; and other deals.
The firm said it had identified 100 positions to cut, mostly in Europe, in addition to the 5,500 it had announced previously as part of a companywide restructuring.
Also as part of that restructuring, Unisys said yesterday that it was launching a "Security Unleashed" marketing campaign that portrays one of its main product lines, information-technology security, as a competitive business advantage, rather than a costly, "necessary evil."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15845679.htm



Boeing shares sink on profit decline, higher costs for new 787 jet
By Dave Carpenter
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO - Boeing Co., the No. 2 commercial airplane maker behind Airbus SAS, said today its third-quarter earnings fell 31 percent and raised concerns on Wall Street by predicting higher costs than expected for its 787 jet program.
Quarterly profits were hurt by a hefty charge for discontinuing in-flight Internet service Connexion. That offset higher jet sales and a 19 percent increase in total revenue, reflecting a thriving commercial plane business that prompted Boeing to raise its guidance for 2007 earnings and revenue.
But investors focused on the company's comment that its 787 jet program is coming under increasing pressure concerning weight and supplier-related issues and it will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than anticipated this year and next on research and development for the plane, which is due out in 2008.
Wall Street's concerns about the possibility of 787-related cost overruns sent shares in the company down $2.45, or 2.9 percent, to $81.14 in late morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/15845725.htm



Airline takes aim at baggage problems
By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer
US Airways wanted to trumpet a $100 million quarterly operating profit.
But the airline's senior executives spent more time yesterday explaining what they are doing to fix chronic baggage-service problems at Philadelphia International Airport.
Philadelphia's largest airline plans to hire 200 baggage handlers and triple the number of managers overseeing airport service from 30 to 90, the executives said during a conference call with analysts and reporters about the company's third-quarter financial results.
The airline budgeted $2 million for equipment and facilities at the airport, on top of more than $20 million already set aside, they said.
"It is the No. 1 focus of this organization," president Scott Kirby said. "I think we're going to ultimately get it fixed."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15858883.htm



Santorum keeps focus on defense
America must react to the "gathering storm" of terror, Rick Santorum said in a defining speech.
By Carrie Budoff and Jeff Shields
Inquirer Staff Writers
As other Republicans attempt to steer away from Iraq and terrorism, Sen. Rick Santorum argued yesterday that America must stop "sleepwalking" while "evil enemies" plot the nation's destruction - making foreign policy a focal point in the final days of his campaign.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15863292.htm


Phila. opposes U.S. observers at polls
In a suit, the government alleges violation of the rights of Hispanic voters. Local officials warn of too much intrusion.
By Marcia Gelbart
Inquirer Staff Writer
Two weeks before Election Day, the city is fighting an attempt by the U.S. Justice Department to appoint federal observers for Philadelphia elections beginning Nov. 7 and lasting past next year's presidential race, until the end of 2009.
The effort to appoint the observers stems from a lawsuit filed by the federal government 14 days ago alleging that the city has violated the rights of its Hispanic voters.
Specifically, it charges that the city hasn't adequately recruited and trained bilingual poll workers, failed to provide sufficient election-related materials in Spanish, and prohibited Hispanic voters with limited English from choosing someone to help them inside the voting booth, which law permits.
"The record in this case clearly demonstrates that the city does not exercise sufficient control over its voting places to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act," the lawsuit states. It alludes to 50 Hispanic city residents who encountered problems in elections here, most since 2003. One, Myrna Cruz, testified that a poll worker forced her to vote for John Street for mayor in 2003, when she wanted to vote for Sam Katz. Others said they were ridiculed by poll workers who asked why they hadn't learned English.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15858843.htm



Soft-spoken, low-key casino magnate
The developer has been called "Chicago's answer to Trump."
By Suzette Parmley
Inquirer Staff Writer
Second in an occasional series
CHICAGO - While many people vying for slot-machine licenses in Philadelphia can be considered wealthy, only two are on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans:
Donald J. Trump and Neil G. Bluhm.
Trump has made sure everyone knows Trump. But outside Chicago, not many could tell you about soft-spoken Bluhm, even though his stable of hotels, malls and office buildings may rival The Donald's.
Bluhm, who fell short in his quest for a gambling license in his home state of Illinois last year, is now pursuing Philadelphia. Bluhm and a team of investors, including Philadelphia's Daniel Keating, have proposed a $500 million waterfront casino in the city's Fishtown section.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15858888.htm



Sestak owns up to wordy style
He joked about his clumsy rhetoric while picking up an endorsement in his bid against Curt Weldon.
By Todd Mason
Inquirer Staff Writer
Joe Sestak has an impressive list of advantages heading into the final days of the Seventh Congressional District race: abundant cash, favorable political winds, and a wounded opponent in U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.).
But mesmerizing speech craft isn't among them.
"I have found, although I don't express it at the right times, that there is a need to start grabbing ahold of new technology that will help us improve the quality of life," he told Sierra Club members Wednesday, joking at one point about his wordy style.
The group endorsed Sestak at a rally in Willistown Township, Chester County. The Seventh District covers most of Delaware County and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.
Weldon had his own news conference that day in King of Prussia and faced questions about the federal probe of his daughter and a longtime political ally and friend.
In Willistown, Sestak fielded questions about his oratorical skills after the event. "People have always told me how to talk. I can only be me," he said.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15858851.htm



Murphy lashes out over TV ads
In Bucks, he called Mike Fitzpatrick "a liar and a coward" for questioning his prosecution record.
By Christine Schiavo and Keith Herbert
Inquirer Staff Writers
The campaign rhetoric spiked in the Eighth District congressional race yesterday as Democrat Patrick Murphy called the incumbent "a liar and a coward" during a debate in Fairless Hills.
A rumble went through the crowd of about 100 businesspeople at the Lower Bucks Chamber of Commerce debate as Murphy used his opening statement to confront Republican Mike Fitzpatrick about televised ads that questioned his prosecution record.
Fitzpatrick's ad questions Murphy's contention that he did work for the U.S. Justice Department and that, as an attorney with the Army, he prosecuted some of the toughest criminals in New York.
"Mike, you are a liar and a coward," Murphy said.
He later offered reporters an affidavit of his appointment as a special assistant U.S. attorney in New York in 2001.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15860760.htm



Editorial Rush Holt for Congress
N.J. 12th District
It includes parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Somerset Counties.
During his four terms representing New Jersey's 12th District, Rush Holt, a former Princeton University physicist, has impressed with his diligent constituent service and his championing of open-space preservation and science and technology.
In the process, with a little help from redistricting, he has turned a reliable Republican seat into one that favors Democrats.
Holt, 58, did the right thing on the highly charged Terri Schiavo issue, going to the House floor to vehemently oppose the circuslike involvement of federal officials in what was a tragic personal issue.
The present national mood on the war in Iraq also vindicates Holt. He was among the minority in the House that voted against authorizing the war in 2002. Eighty-one Democrats voted for the war, joining 215 Republicans.
Holt now wants "an immediate, phased withdrawal of our forces" from Iraq while keeping U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
If his party regains control of the House and tries to reshape Iraq policy, it will need to carefully consider Holt's position against those who argue that leaving Iraq too rapidly would create greater chaos.
A former arms-control expert at the U.S. State Department, Holt is the ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Policy Subcommittee. He rightly decries total abandonment of this nation's human-rights ideals in the detention of suspected terrorists.
Holt also correctly calls for expiration of the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, as a means to a balanced budget. That must be accompanied by genuine efforts to cut fraud and wasteful spending, he says.
Holt has done a good job. Even Republicans must think so, given the feeble challenge they have put up. GOP candidate Joe Sinagra was not available to meet with The Inquirer Editorial Board and did not respond to a questionnaire.
Sinagra, 59, CEO of My Plumber Inc., is vice chairman of the Republican Party of tiny Helmetta Borough. According to his Web site, Sinagra favors more oil exploration and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. In debates, he has favored staying in Iraq.
In RUSH HOLT, the district has a proven legislator worthy of reelection.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15858908.htm



Google Bombs
Go to Google and type in the Danish words that mean primitive troll. You'll find the home page of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Try looking for "mouton insignifiant" - or unimportant sheep - in French. That will bring you to the official biography of Quebec Premier Jean Charest.
Here, in this country, "miserable failure" will yield President George W. Bush. "Waffles" will get you John Kerry.
Take a second. Try it. It's known as Google Bombing - the dense planting of key search terms to steer Internet traffic - and it gained political traction in the 2004 presidential election.
Those bombs are raining hard again.

http://blogs.philly.com/blinq/



Camden's celebrity adoption
By Dwight Ott
Inquirer Staff Writer
While Angelina Jolie and Madonna have adopted orphans from impoverished countries, comedian/actor Joe Piscopo has adopted an entire city - Camden.
This week, former Saturday Night Live comedian Piscopo arrived in the Whitman Park neighborhood in his black Hummer to discuss Camden, its problems, and ways to showcase one of his favorite organizations - the Unity Community Center.
Because of the center's investment in young people, Piscopo said, the Unity Community Center - hidden in one of Camden's worst ghettos - is a model for other organizations to help revive ailing cities throughout the country.
Piscopo, who's from Passaic, adopted the group back in 1998 when a state official told him about the organization. Piscopo was searching for meaningful organizations to promote through his Positive Impact Foundation. The Unity Community Center, he said, has given him new insight into Camden and its problems.
"I see shining stars all around here - the children. I love what these kids can do... . Their fathers may be in jail, their brothers, and even some mothers... . It's hard to sidestep those problems."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15860773.htm



Halloween curfew revived for sex offenders
For the second straight year, registered offenders will be barred from opening their doors during trick-or-treating hours - unless law enforcement knocks.
By Sam Wood
Inquirer Staff Writer
For the second straight year, New Jersey believes a curfew will help protect the little monsters on Halloween.
The state Parole Board yesterday reimposed a curfew prohibiting registered sex offenders from opening their doors during trick-or-treating hours. If a parole officer or other law enforcement official comes knocking, though, the offenders are ordered to let them in.
Sex offenders also are forbidden from attending Halloween parties, from going trick-or-treating, and from wearing any costume that obscures their identity.
Any offender who is spotted handing out candy could be cited for a parole violation and sent back to jail for up to 24 months.
The curfew - which will be imposed on about 2,200 sex offenders - will run from 3 p.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday. The Parole Board will make exceptions if the offender needs to go to work. If a community holds Halloween events on a different day, the same rules will be in effect.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15860754.htm


The Moscow Times

NATO Presses Putin Over Georgia
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer NATO's chief on Thursday urged President Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions on Georgia and tried to narrow the gap with Moscow over NATO expansion and arms control.
But Putin and other senior officials refused to budge an inch -- at least publicly.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he had sought to defuse tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi and had asked Putin to restore transportation and trade links that had been cut after Georgia arrested four purported Russian spies early this month.
"I hope that in this framework it will also be possible that some of the measures that had been taken in this conflict by the Russian Federation could be lifted," de Hoop Scheffer said at a news conference.
He said he also had asked Putin to resolve peacefully a standoff over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow claims Tbilisi is planning to reclaim by force.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/27/001.html


A Georgian Master
Otar Iosseliani makes his best film in years - but its Russian premiere is overshadowed by the political tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi.
By Tom Birchenough
Published: October 27, 2006
Oh, dear. I'm interviewing Otar Iosseliani about his new film "Gardens in Autumn," and the director is certainly up there for me in the pantheon of the Soviet film world, and it isn't going well. It probably doesn't help that just outside the central Moscow apartment where we're meeting, it's pouring rain, and traffic is totally gridlocked.
Perhaps not surprisingly for a veteran Georgian director who has made a film called "In Vino Veritas," he kindly offers me a glass of white wine. His chosen tipple of the day, however, has been a somewhat stronger sort of spirit. In fact, his PR minder tried to hide the bottle somewhere, but in vain.
Elsewhere in the world, this kind of publicity work would be done in a neutral hotel space, where attendants from the companies concerned would step in at the first sight of trouble. Here, I think I can see his luggage on the floor of the bedroom next door.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/27/102.html



S. Korea Moves to Enforce Sanctions
By Jack Kim
Reuters
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea announced Thursday it would ban the entry of North Koreans who are part of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, the first step taken by Seoul to adhere to United Nations sanctions.
The decision came after North Korea said any action by Seoul under the UN resolution would "drive the inter-Korean relations to a catastrophe" and would be "a grave provocative act," which could lead to war.
U.S. President George W. Bush said Pyongyang's threats were aimed only at dividing the five nations that have been in talks with North Korea on ending its nuclear program.
"The leader of North Korea likes to threaten," Bush told a news conference Wednesday. "What he's doing is just testing the will of the five countries that are working together to convince him there is a better way forward for his people."
He also reiterated the United States would keep up diplomatic efforts to end the crisis.
South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said Seoul would take action against the North beyond the UN Security Council resolution that mandated trade and financial sanctions.
"The government will ban the passage and stay [in the South] of persons and their family designated by [the UN Security Council] sanctions committee," Lee told a parliamentary committee.
The UN Security Council voted on October 14 to impose financial and arms sanctions on North Korea after it staged its first nuclear test earlier this month, but how those measures will be implemented remains a matter of debate.


Rage and Politics 4 Years After Dubrovka
By David Nowak
Staff Writer
That night, Marat Abdrakhimov couldn't sleep. Crammed into his seat, he was unable to stretch out. What he did next saved his life: He lay down on the floor of the theater and tucked his head under his arm.
"The sound of shooting woke me up," said Abdrakhimov, 32. " I walked out of the theater hall, past all the special forces and threw up."
On Thursday, Abdrakhimov was one of several hundred mourners who descended on the Dubrovka theater where Chechen rebels held 912 people hostage during a performance of "Nord Ost."
The storming of the theater in southeastern Moscow -- which took place exactly four years ago Thursday -- left 130 innocent people dead. Of that, 125 are thought to have perished from poisonous gas used by special forces to root out the terrorists.
As in the case of the 2004 Beslan school crisis, survivors, family members and their supporters sounded just as angry at the government as they were at the terrorists.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/27/002.html



Extremists Could Face Tougher Sentences
The Moscow Times
Legislators in the coming weeks will consider a series of amendments to the current law on extremism that would impose harsher sentences for those convicted of extremism, tighten registration rules for religious groups and clamp down on extremist web sites.
The Federation Council's Security and Defense Committee will issue recommendations to law enforcement agencies next month based on a wide-ranging State Duma hearing, which addressed increasing extremism in the country, committee adviser Mikhail Zarubin said Thursday.
At Wednesday's hearing, First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin suggested increasing prison terms for anyone convicted of extremist crimes to a minimum of five years in prison.
At present, organizing an extremist group, for example, is punishable by a maximum of four years behind bars.
Chekalin also suggested punishing owners of RuNet web portals for hosting web sites that publish extremist content.
"We need to continue perfecting the law in order to prevent extremist instructional materials from entering Russia," Chekalin said.
President Vladimir Putin in July signed off on controversial changes to the law on extremist activity that critics say could be used to silence opposition politicians and the press.
The revised law expanded the definition of extremist activity to include public slander of a government official related to his duties, using or threatening violence against a government official or his family, and publicly justifying or excusing terrorism.
Supporters of the revised law argue it would allow the state to combat racist and nationalist groups more effectively.
But critics of the legislation, which sailed through both houses of the Duma this month, say it could be used to stifle opposition political parties during the 2007-2008 election cycle.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/27/012.html


U.S. Paper Company Buys 50% of 4 Mills
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
U.S.-based International Paper on Wednesday announced a billion-dollar deal to buy half of a Russian timber company and form a joint venture to make office paper, packaging and pulp.
The substantial investment comes amid jitters that the government is putting pressure on foreign ventures as it reasserts control over the economy.
International Paper will pay about $400 million for 50 percent of Swiss-registered Ilim Holding, an Ilim Pulp subsidiary that controls four paper and pulp mills and valued at $1.3 billion.
The new joint venture, Ilim Group, will invest $1.2 billion in upgrading its assets and technology over the next three years, International Paper chairman and chief executive John Faraci told reporters.
The four mills now produce 2.5 million tons of forest products every year, bringing pre-tax profits of $250 million, Ilim Pulp chairman Zakhar Smushkin said.
After the investments, they will boost capacity by 40 percent, or by 1 million tons, Faraci said.
Each company will have an equal number of directors on the eight-member board, he said.
The venture will be registered in Russia and have its headquarters in St. Petersburg.
The deal should be finalized in the first quarter of next year.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/003.html



Touting the Path Out of 1990s Chaos
By Maria Levitov and Anna Smolchenko
Staff Writers
President Vladimir Putin said he would retain influence after 2008 -- when he will presumably step down from office -- and tiptoed around thorny issues like extremism and contract killings in a live television call-in show Wednesday.
The president also defended the goverment's economic policies, stressing that the country's prospects had improved dramatically since the chaotic 1990s.
And he hailed the surge in investment, taming of inflation and diversification away from energy. "Diversification is the super task for the next decade," Putin said.
"Success in any country," the president declared, "is determined first of all by what happens in the economy."
Beside the economy, ethnic tension and bread-and-butter issues like wages and affordable housing dominated the three-hour show, Putin's fifth since taking office.
As if to underscore how seriously the Kremlin takes ethnic violence, two live video cameras were set up in the Karelian town of Kondopoga, where riots broke out between ethnic Slavs and natives of the Caucasus this fall. No cameras were set up in Moscow.
Popular state initiatives, including plans to slash the number of gambling establishments and crack down on bootlegged liquor, were also featured.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/001.html



Trutnev Grills Sakhalin-2 Chief on Violations
By Miriam Elder
Staff Writer
YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK -- Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev on Wednesday publicly clashed with the head of Shell-led Sakhalin Energy and called for a criminal case against the company over at least five environmental violations.
After touring work sites around Sakhalin Island, Trutnev said he had prolonged an audit of the project by four months after seeing the extent of the environmental damage.
He gave Sergei Sai, head of the ministry's environmental agency, two weeks to hand over a criminal complaint to the Prosecutor General's Office.
"I don't know why a company working on the territory of the Russian Federation thought itself above the law," Trutnev told reporters after presenting his findings at a conference in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Ministry inspectors and environmental campaigners told Trutnev the company had broken codes relating to rivers and forests, improper handling of soil and unapproved rerouting of pipelines. "It's hard to say these are random mistakes," Trutnev said.
Trutnev said he would meet with Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko after returning to Moscow. Sakhalin-2, the country's largest foreign investment project, could come to a standstill if the government decides to withdraw its environmental license.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/002.html



Kiev Says Gas Deal Not Yet Set in Stone
By Catherine Belton
Staff Writer
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's deputy chief of staff cast doubt on the country's new gas deal with Russia on Wednesday, a day after the two countries' prime ministers announced an agreement to raise the gas price by 40 percent next year.
Olexander Chaliy criticized the hike and said it was unclear whether the pro-Western president would sign off on it.
"It's still not clear how the price formula of $130 per thousand cubic meters has been reached," Chaliy told reporters in Kiev, Interfax reported. "It's not clear today whether the intergovernmental agreements will be signed."
Pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych trumpeted the deal Tuesday as a breakthrough in talks key to ensuring smooth supplies to Ukraine, a crucial transit state to Europe. During a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, Yanukovych said he had received telephone confirmation that the gas price for Ukraine would be raised to no more than $130 from the $95 Ukraine currently pays. But opposition politicians warned Wednesday that the deal could be used to exert more pressure on Kiev to move back into Moscow's fold.
Tension had been growing after Central Asian suppliers said they wanted significant price increases next year. Europe has been on tenterhooks since Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine in January, demanding a price hike to $230. The standoff was resolved when Swiss-registered trader RosUkrEnergo stepped in to lower the overall price by adding cheaper Central Asian gas to Ukraine's supplies.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/041.html



Russia Will Not Allow Bloodshed in Abkhazia
By David Nowak
Staff Writer
President Vladimir Putin voiced concern Wednesday that Georgia would attack Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
If Tbilisi does so, he warned, Russia will take action. "We must prevent it," the president said.
Putin's comments came during a live question-and-answer session broadcast on state-run television.
Putin also dismissed accusations that Georgian nationals in Russia were being targeted for deportation, saying more people from two other, unidentified countries have been deported.
The deportations have been viewed as part of a wider attack on Georgian interests in the wake of an espionage spat ignited last month.
Pressure on Georgian-owned businesses seemed to ebb this week, as two casinos and one restaurant that had been shut down were reopened.
Georgia's Foreign Ministry issued a complaint late Tuesday to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights over Russia's actions.
High commissioner Louise Arbour had been in contact with Russian and Georgian officials, UN spokesman Jose Luis Diaz said by e-mail Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is to meet with his Georgian counterpart, Gela Bezhuashvili, next week for the first meeting between senior officials since the spy scandal erupted.
Abkhazian separatist forces opened heavy-weapons fire on neighboring Georgian-controlled territory Wednesday while Georgia's interior minister was in the vicinity, the Interior Ministry said, The Associated Press reported.



Jailed Police Officer Now the Focus in Politkovskaya Case
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer
A jailed former police lieutenant in the western Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk appears to be the focus of the investigation into the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Politkovskaya, who reported for Novaya Gazeta, accused Sergei Lapin of committing atrocities against Chechen civilians in a September 2001 article in the newspaper.
The journalist soon after received e-mailed threats that Lapin would seek revenge, prompting her to flee to Austria. Nizhnevartovsk authorities brought charges against Lapin in 2002, but later dropped them.
Lapin, who served as an officer in the elite OMON special forces in Chechnya, is now serving time in a Chechen prison for one of the crimes he was originally accused of committing by Politkovskaya.
But two of Lapin's former colleagues who were also implicated in Politkovskaya's article were recently spotted in Nizhnevartovsk, Kommersant reported. International warrants were earlier issued for the two colleagues, Alexander Prilepin and Valery Minin.
A team of investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office arrived in Nizhnevartovsk a week ago to pursue the investigation into Politkovskaya's Oct. 7 slaying, police spokeswoman Tatyana Abdulina confirmed Wednesday.
Abdulina declined to give further details about the investigation. Viktor Potapov, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, also declined to comment.
The investigators tried unsuccessfully to track down Prilepin and Minin but did question friends and relatives of the two men and of Lapin, Kommersant reported.
In his televised call-in show on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin pledged that those who had killed Politkovskaya and Andrei Kozlov, the Central Bank's former No. 2 official, would be brought to justice.



Sochi Makes Push for Olympics
By Nick Mulvenney
Reuters
BEIJING -- The Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi is one of the world's safest cities and will give the Olympic movement a golden legacy if it is chosen to host the 2014 Winter Games, bid leader Dmitry Chernyshenko said.
Sochi, which is competing with South Korea's Pyeonchang and Austria's Salzburg in the race for the Games, lies on the Russian border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, a cause of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi.
Chernyshenko said he would not discuss the politics of the situation but, while not over-confident, he was convinced that any concerns over security were misplaced.
"It's one of the safest cities in Russia and all of the world," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Forum of Sport.
"Not only because it's the summer residence of our president, but because it's also the home of the training center for all our emergency services.
"It's a very special place that has recently hosted more than 27 international events.
"The whole of Russia is behind this bid, including President Putin. He's the best promoter of our bid because he spends one-third of his time there. It's like Russia's second capital."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/091.html



Malkin-Inspired Penguins on the Up
By Alan Robinson
The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH -- Evgeni Malkin has needed only four games to show the NHL he might be a very special player. He proved it to star goaltender Martin Brodeur with one shot.
Malkin, 20, moved up to Pittsburgh's top line with Sidney Crosby for the first time, secured the young Penguins' 4-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night with exactly the kind of "did-you-see-that?" goal that made him a No. 2 draft pick in 2004.
Taking a cross-ice pass from Crosby, Malkin split two defenders and did a spin move near the net to beat Brodeur on a backhander to restore Pittsburgh's two-goal lead midway through the third period. Malkin, the Russian Olympic star who sneaked away from his pro team there to play in the NHL this season, has a goal in each of his first four NHL games. He is the first player to do so since Steven King of the Rangers in 1992.
"I came right from the bench and I had a lot of energy," Malkin said, speaking through interpreter George Birman. "A lot of guys on their team were wanting to change. He made a nice pass, saw me there and it was just me and the defender."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/092.html



Bloodthirsty Dinosaur Leaving Home
By Kevin O'Flynn
Staff Writer
Marusya the Tyrannosaurus Rex came out of the second-floor window on Kutuzovsky Prospekt and stared angrily at the sky.
"What is that monster?" muttered an old pensioner on the street outside.
It was not a monster but a 3 1/2-meter-long, 150-kilogram model of a T-Rex built in the spare room of British reporter Nick Allen's apartment.
Allen bade farewell to the dinosaur on Wednesday, when a crane turned up to transport it to the Darwin Museum, in the south of Moscow.
"It was supposed to be able to get through the door, but it just got bigger and bigger," said Allen, who works for Deutsche Press Agentura, the German Press Agency.
Allen donated the model to the museum, which provided the crane.
Founded in 1907, the Darwin Museum is dedicated to, well, evolution and natural history. It has almost 350,000 exhibits in storage, displaying a small sample of that at any one time.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/26/015.html



Putin Blames Lack of Success on Foreigners
The Moscow Times
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for a reduction in the number of foreign players in Russian football.
Speaking during a live television call-in show Wednesday, Putin said that the national team's lack of success in recent years was the result of the large number of foreign players in the Russian Premier League.
"The problem lies in the excessive number of foreign players in Russian teams -- there are too many of them," Putin said. "In my view, this number should be limited, because when it comes to selecting the national team, it seems like there is no one left to choose from."
Putin praised national team manager Guus Hiddink, however, calling him a "fine specialist."
Among other problems facing Russian football, Putin noted the poor quality of pitches and the insufficient attention paid to youngsters who want to get involved in sports, including football.
The Russian Football Union on Wednesday fully supported Putin's diagnosis of the sport's current woes, in particular the recent influx of foreign players.
"We are pursuing a consistent policy on this issue," Russian Football Union spokesman Andrei Malosolov told Interfax. "This year the number of foreign players cannot exceed eight per team. Next year that number will fall to seven, and by 2009 it will drop to five."
Malosolov said the football authorities were also working to bring more pitches around the country into compliance with international standards.



Wanted
The corruption in Central Asian football makes the Russian game look like an intra-Vatican tournament for nuns.
By Kevin O'Flynn
Published: October 20, 2006
Rusal was a very good swearer. He was explaining how Boris Yeltsin had destroyed the country, not an unusual complaint among the residents of Moscow. Though he wasn't a native Russian speaker, he knew all the right chords and melodies of the oft-repeated conversation, all the right swear words and all the right intonations of passion and anger.
"What you need to do," he said, "is take away all of the politicians and shoot them all." Simple enough. "Then you move up a generation," he said.
Not that the generation in question is going to be his. He is too bitter for that, and too realistic.
"I stlll have energy. I'm only 30," he explained.
Politics, however, is not his game. Football is. A few years ago, Rusal strode the pitches of Central Asia as a professional football player. But he was earning only $30, maybe $50 per month, so he left for Moscow.
"We were unlucky with the time we were born in," he said. "This is no time to play football."
And football wasn't all that was played on those pitches in Central Asia. The game there isn't controlled by the nicest people, to put it mildly, he said, and the corruption makes the Russian game look like an intra-Vatican tournament for nuns.
Refs were beaten up regularly. Players, too, and not necessarily by fans.
One day, he was playing with his team when he got the ball in his half and ran with it all the way up the pitch. As he bore down on the goal, the whistle blew for offside -- a physical, spiritual and metaphysical impossibility, Rusal insisted -- and he started screaming at the referee.
The referee merely waved him away, telling him to get lost in simple peasant language and explaining that, of course, he had blown the whistle because Rusal's team was playing away from home, so he had no right to expect anything different.
Later in the game, he received the ball again, and as he ran, the defender grabbed on to his shirt. "I kept on running," Rusal said, "because I knew he wouldn't blow the whistle."
So he ran and he ran, and his shirt began to tear as the defender hung on. Still no whistle. Rusal finally collapsed when the defender pulled him to the ground. No foul was given.
The ref ran up, laughed (and swore at him) and repeated, "You're playing away from home."
He won't have any home games soon, either. But he insists that he can still play.



Laboratory of the Soul
Scientists conduct a mysterious experiment on human subjects in "977," the debut feature from Cannes prize-winner Nikolai Khomeriki.
By Tom Birchenough
Published: October 27, 2006
An enigma, wrapped in a mystery -- or is it the other way around? -- with something else on the side. Absent-minded Slavists keep going back to Winston Churchill's classic description of Russia, which almost sounds like a dish on a restaurant menu in Moscow today.
It's also a pretty good description of "977," the new film by Nikolai Khomeriki that was the sole Russian contender in this year's Cannes film festival. Screened in the supporting competition, it followed his black-and-white short "A Deux," which took a prize at the same event last year.
Go ahead and watch it -- and wonder what it's all about. There are no easy answers, and Khomeriki creates a sense of mystery, not willfully, but as part of his art. Just don't watch it late at night (as this critic did at June's Kinotavr film festival, where it was once shown after midnight) because it's a work that demands more discerning attention than most. The ghost of classic Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky, not to mention the presence of living legend Kira Muratova, roam within its spaces fairly freely.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/27/110.html

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