Burton Terrace

The Case Of The Hot Chocolate

2007-04-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

This month, learn about the greenhouse effect

"What a great day to be outside," said Danielle. She dropped an empty soda can into a bulging trash bag. She and her friend Peter were celebrating Earth Day with their science class by picking up trash in a local park.

"It is really warm out today," Peter agreed. "I wonder what the temperature is."

Danielle spotted their teacher walking over. "Maybe Mrs. Woodward knows." she said.

"Mrs. Woodward, do you know what the temperature is today?" asked Peter as their teacher approached.

"I don't know," replied Mrs. Woodward. "But we can check.

I have some thermometers for an experiment we are doing later Let's go and find out."

Danielle and Peter followed their teacher to a nearby picnic table. Mrs. Woodward handed each of them a thermometer.

Peter peered at the thermometer she passed him. "It's 70 degrees out!" he said.

"Wow! That's very warm for this time of year," said Mrs. Woodward. "You two can hang on to those thermometers until later. Now, it's time for lunch."

HEATING UP

Peter and Danielle were eating lunch with their classmates.

As they ate, Mrs. Woodward stood in front of the class. "After lunch, we are going to continue our Earth Day celebration by planting trees," she said. "This activity could help prevent global warming."

Danielle raised her hand. Mrs. Woodward called on her. "How does planting trees help fight global warming?" Danielle asked.

"Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air," said Mrs. Woodward.

"That's interesting," said Danielle. "But how does carbon dioxide affect global warming?"

"Carbon dioxide is one of many gases that surround Earth," replied Mrs. Woodward. "This layer of gases is like a blanket that traps the sun's heat. That process is called the greenhouse effect. But if there is too much carbon dioxide in the air, extra heat will be trapped."

"And that can cause global warming?" asked Danielle.

"That's what scientists say," said Mrs. Woodward. "OK. It's time to finish eating and then we can plant some trees."

LEFTOVERS

As Danielle and Peter finished their lunch, they each had a small piece of chocolate left over.

"Are you going to eat that?" asked Peter, eyeing Danielle's chocolate. "If not, I'll take it."

"Sorry, but I am going to save it for later," said Danielle.

"Oh, OK. I'll save mine too" said Peter. "I'm going to put mine in my sandwich container. Do you want to put yours in there?" "That's OK," said

Danielle. "I'll just leave it here." She placed her chocolate candy on the picnic table. Peter placed his in a container and wrapped a piece of plastic wrap over the top.

"Let's go help with the planting of the trees," said Peter.

SPECIAL EARTH DAY ISSUE

Read the story below. The use the materials listed at the end to solve the mystery.

MELTED MESS

"Planting trees is hard work!" said Peter a little later. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

Danielle patted down the dirt around a newly planted tree. "I know. Our chocolate would taste great right now," she said.

"I'll get them," said Peter.

A minute later, Peter returned with the two chocolate candies. He handed one to Danielle.

"Oh no!" said Danielle as she unwrapped her candy. Melted chocolate oozed from the wrapper and dripped onto the dirt. "Our chocolate is ruined!"

She looked over at Peter. He had his back turned to her.

"Hey," she said. "Isn't your chocolate melted too?"

"Um … no," he said, popping the piece of chocolate into his mouth. "Mine must have stayed cool because it was covered with plastic wrap," he said.

Danielle looked at Peter suspiciously. "You took my chocolate, didn't you?" she exclaimed, sounding angry.

"No I didn't!" said Peter. "Why would I do that?"

"It was your chocolate that melted!" said Danielle. "I can prove it." She stomped toward the picnic tables. Peter followed her.

Danielle picked up one of the thermometers from the picnic table. She placed it inside Peter's plastic container and covered it with his plastic wrap. She placed the other thermometer directly on the picnic table next to his container. "We'll know the truth soon," she said.

A half hour later, Danielle peered at the two thermometers. "I know whose chocolate was melted!" she said.
solve the mystery Whose chocolate treat melted?

To solve the mystery, grab these materials:

* plastic wrap
* scissors
* plastic container (large enough to hold a thermometer)
* 2 thermometers
* large rubber band
* lamp or sunny windowsill

Cut a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover the top of the plastic container. Place one of the thermometers inside the container. Lay the plastic wrap over the container and use the rubber band to hold it in place. Put the container beneath a lamp or on a warm, sunny windowsill. Place the other thermometer next to the container. Position the lamp so that it is equally far away from each of the thermometers. After 30 minutes have passed, check the temperature on each thermometer. The thermometer that is warmer is the one that solves the mystery.

By Britt Norlander, Scholastic SuperScience, Apr2007

Plum Greek

2007-03-08T04:06:00.000-08:00

Dinah was in charge of herself. She did her homework and fixed dinner every day but Sunday--not too much for a nine-year-old going on 10, not if the nine-year-old was Dinah, her father said. At school she was in third grade, reading books with chapters and no pictures, and mastering multiplication. When the afternoon school bus dropped Dinah at the ranch gate, she walked the quarter mile to the low-water bridge across Plum Creek, where Mama's more-or-less terrier, Bird, waited under a live oak, rain or shine. Once Dinah crossed the creek, she was home.

Dinah knew that doing things in a regular way made time pass. The minute she got to the house, she changed her school dress for dungarees, checked that the meat for dinner was truly thawing and that they had their starch, usually rice. Daddy didn't get home until six. His work as a county extension agent took him from one end of the county to the other. His office was all the way in Luling, the next big town.

Because Mama had left them in the spring when the bluebonnets were starting and before the garden amounted to much, the first few months she was gone, Dinah picked their dinner vegetables from the big bags of English peas, green beans, and broccoli in the freezer. Most afternoons, Dinah raced through her homework at the kitchen table with a pair of binoculars by her side to watch for a squirrel they called Notcho because his ear had been cut in a fight. Bird waited with only a small show of impatience--a twitch of her tail, her brown eyes slantwise to check on Dinah. After homework, they'd head out to see what the day had done. They inspected Daddy's flats of seedlings on the big plywood tables on sawhorses. They checked the clematis on the fence, the mountain laurel, and the Mexican plum, the first to bloom each year, and then they took off around the ranch and into the woods, returning in time to cook dinner. In the brief moment after she opened the kitchen door, Dinah couldn't help herself. She looked for her mother.

Dinah had no clear idea of why her mother was gone; she had memories of voices in the night and talk of money, money, money, money. Moira once told Dinah, Your daddy's not the least bit ambitious, so you and I must do our best with second best. Another time, there was a door flung open, a sudden shaft of light in her dark bedroom, and the sound of loud voices when her mother and father thought she slept. Try as she might, Dinah couldn't hear their words. Dinah pictured her mother in the vegetable garden, and when she held the image long enough she heard Moira sighing, but her mother might as easily have sighed from being hot and tired as from yearning for a different life with a man who was ambitious and gave her first best. Whatever her mother's reasons, Dinah's imagination couldn't take her past the irreducible fact that one day she came home from school and her mother was gone.

DINAH'S FATHER DR, claimed that he had little interest in people. The world that held him was botanical. Hybrids and imports inspired his scorn; he only respected the uncultivated natives. If he had his way, he once told Dinah, he'd spend his life wandering and be happy if he saw even half of the species to be found across Texas. DR had graduated from Texas A&M University, his father's alma mater, in the mid-1930s. DR's father had died at an early age, electrocuted in a farm accident. It wasn't a question of whether DR would attend A&M; it was a given. He majored in plants--as he called the science of growing bigger, better, and more bug-resistant crops to feed the increasing numbers of livestock and people--and after graduation he became a county extension agent and worked in one rural area of Texas after another.

David Rangel Warren met Dinah's mother, Moira O'Brien, when he was in Fort Worth for a convention. He married her and took her west, where there were plant-devouring cattle and money-producing oil fields, and then to counties south, where there was so much land, all of it flat, that it was like standing on a great ocean. There, crops tore up the native habitat and cattle overgrazed. Moira's family had not wanted her to marry DR. They had toiled for decades in Fort Worth, selling automobiles for a harvest of cash, and wanted her to have a businessman or a banker for a husband.

In driving from ranch to ranch, small town to small town, Dinah's father became a keen observer of the landscape. Anyone who wasn't blind could see the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes blanketing in spring, but DR's view was keener; he taught Dinah to read the signs the plants gave in their cycle.

DR's longest assignment, the one he said he would retire from, was in Central Texas, Caldwell County, 30 miles south of Austin. In exchange for minimal caretaking duties, he and Moira and Dinah lived on a ranch on Plum Creek. There he conceived the idea of saving at least one Texas wildflower from what he called the three horsemen: cattle, highways, and development. He chose Amoreuxia wrightii, the fragile Yellowshow, and began by gathering seeds and finding the best conditions to propagate them in pots, flats, and beds. He collected the Yellowshow's tiny seeds and distributed them free of charge to whoever would take them. Because of his conviction that the abundant wildflowers of Texas were in grave danger, DR endured the amusement of his fellow citizens, and Dinah went through school as the daughter of a crank.

ONE AFTERNOON, when the school bus pulled up to the ranch gate, Bird wasn't waiting for Dinah under the live oak. Mr. Christie, the bus driver, took a look at the sky and ordered Dinah to get to the house and stay there.

"Go to the center of the house," he told her. "Don't tarry. Tornado possibilities."

Daddy always said that Vernon Christie looked for the cloud and ignored the silver lining, but that afternoon the sky was as green as a lima bean, and it throbbed as if something wanted out.

When Dinah got to the house, Bird was there. The dog wormed inside the kitchen before Dinah opened the door more than a crack. Bird hated thunder, lightning, and rain, and probably wasn't fond of tornadoes. She didn't fear snakes, though, and alerted Dinah to ratters on their walks. Now she was whining. Maybe she could hear the tornado and Dinah couldn't. Dinah noticed at that moment how very still everything was, and then she heard a new noise like a train far off but coming closer, the biggest train the world had ever known, bearing down on them.

Go to the center of the house but where was that?

They had no storm cellar. They had no cellar at all. The house rested on cedar posts.

Not upstairs, which was all Dinah's, all three rooms now that Mama was gone and Daddy had moved downstairs.

Not the porch or the kitchen or Daddy's room.

Bird was whimpering. The house had two windows on each of its four sides. The windows matched, up and down, so many windows, windows all around. Dinah checked the kitchen clock, as if the tornado were a real train, due any minute, and she and Bird might miss it. The fur along the ridge of Bird's spine was standing straight up. Dinah ran into the hall and opened the door of the big closet. Bird pushed past, and Dinah closed the door behind them. The sound of the train was muffled in the dark among the suitcases and cardboard boxes. Dinah found a free place at the back of the closet and sat with her knees to her chin, her head touching the hems of jackets and coats hanging empty above them. Bird leaned into Dinah, shivering like she was cold through and through, and smelling like earth. There was another smell in the closet, a familiar one, sweet and brisk and maybe something sharp beneath the sweetness: Mama in the garden brushing a drop of sweat away and inspecting the row she'd hoed with a look on her face that said her own storm of temper and discontent was coming.

One day, Dinah had arrived home from school and her mother's things were gone. Clothes gone. Bible gone. And gone was the embroidered runner Mama kept on her vanity, along with the jars of Noxema and Jergen's lotion and her bottle of lily of the valley cologne, her silver-backed brush, and the Breck shampoo bottle from the side of the bathtub. Where were all of Mama's things, Dinah had wondered. And where was Mama herself? Dinah's father didn't make it possible to voice either question.

Now, in the wind and the howling of the train, in the pounding of the metal roof trying to free itself, Dinah's first question was answered by the boxes that her father in his fury and misery had shut in the closet. Now, when the sounds were bearing down upon her, Dinah was grateful for her mother's presence even if it was just her things. If she closed her eyes and breathed in as deep as she could, Dinah might catch the train.

THE TORNADO CAME CLOSE, knocking down their mailbox, taking the scrubby trees alongside the road, missing the house, missing Dinah and the dog.

Two years later, Moira's oldest brother telephoned one Thursday night, while DR and Dinah were listening to The Lone Ranger, to say that Moira was dead. Inexplicably, she had been living in Los Angeles, and her car had been hit by a truck on her way to work. Her body was with her parents, and if DR wanted to attend the funeral he'd better get to Fort Worth in a hurry.

The church in Fort Worth had tall white columns in front. DR wouldn't let go of Dinah's hand as he walked her down the aisle and sat her close to the altar. They were just one row behind the family, and the sight of Moira's well-known features on their unsmiling faces--her long nose and the shape of her eyes--was dizzying. As soon as Dinah got settled, her grandmother turned around and called her by name, telling Dinah to go up front to pay her respects to her mother. The top of the casket was closed. Dinah took courage and touched her hand to the polished wooden surface. The coffin looked both too small and too large. Dinah couldn't decide whether or not it was a good fit for Moira, but, then, she wasn't convinced that her mother was inside.

The sermon and the prayers were nothing that couldn't have been said of any human being who'd been born and died.

Dinah and DR rode out to the cemetery in the pickup, following the hearse and the limousines, and after the cemetery, at Dinah's grandmother's invitation, they went to the house, which was grander than the best houses in their town, even though it was the county seat. When the guests left, and the food and drink had been cleared away by a maid in a white apron, the family sat in the living room. Dinah had eaten too many lemon bars, but she knew better than to complain to her father.

"We can offer Dinah things you can't, David," her grandmother was saying. "And we'd like nothing more than to have her with us. We've had this discussion before--"

"I haven't forgotten your kind offers," DR said, in the accepting tone he used for the weather and the failure of an experiment. Dinah wondered when these offers had been made. DR, dressed in his one suit, white shirt, and the red tie he'd ironed that morning, was next to Dinah on a plush couch A strand of enormous pearls curled on her grandmother's bosom. City and country, her grandmother and father might as well have been from separate galaxies.

"We can educate the girl," an uncle said. He was the one closest to Moira in age, the one who looked most like her, and Dinah concentrated on his eyebrows. "Fort Worth has a lot to offer a girl like Dinah. Dancing lessons. Piano. Or another instrument if she prefers. We have the resources. We can send her to college in the East. She'll have real opportunity."

Dinah was in no way musical. Dancing was not her strong suit. She knew they wouldn't let her keep her mother's dog, and in that moment the after-school walks with Bird seemed precious above all else. Besides, who would see that dinner was waiting for her father?

Her grandfather's voice was gravelly, like he hadn't talked in days. "If Dinah doesn't come live with us, that's the end of it. No money from this family, no trust fund, no inheritance. Not a dime."

Dinah's father got up from his chair. "Your offer is generous," he said. "I appreciate it. Still and all, I don't think making a rich orphan of Dinah is any solution."

Only then did DR look at Dinah, but she was already on her feet. She gave a curtsey, the best she could manage, and raised her hand in a wave. She couldn't do what manners dictated and kiss her grandparents and uncles farewell. She walked out beside her father and drove with him home to Plum Creek.

By Laura Furman, American Scholar, Spring2007

Vikings

2007-02-22T17:01:00.000-08:00

New entrants may benefit UK beef trade

2007-01-14T01:56:00.000-08:00

Romania and Bulgaria's entry into the EU this year could boost exports of British beef.

The two countries, which brought 30m new citizens to the EU when they joined on 1 January, consumed 93,000t of imported beef last year, according to latest Meat and Livestock Commission figures. About 73,000t of this came from Brazil.

But higher EU import tariffs on low quality beef mean it is no longer economically viable for South American countries to ship cargoes to Bulgaria and Romania. Export restrictions in Brazil and Argentina are also reducing shipments from South America.

Peter Hardwick, MLC international manager, said this meant Bulgaria and Romania would be forced to look elsewhere for supplies, which could offer opportunities for

UK farmers. "Romania and Bulgaria consume high amounts of beef, and while it isn't high quality at the moment, that could change and there could be future opportunities for quality beef. In the short term, offal markets show most potential."

Robert Forster, National Beef Association chief executive, said: "As standards of living rise and their economies develop, Romania and Bulgaria will become massive meat eaters, and there is no way they will produce enough for themselves."

And the eastern European market for our breeding cattle is bottomless. While exporting more pedigree cattle won't compensate for the loss of support in 2012, it will certainly help farmers."

But the accession of the two new countries could mean increased competition for the UK sheep industry. Romania exported 1.2m sheep in the first nine months of last year, a 6% increase on the year.

Mr Hardwick said a lack of EU-approved abattoirs meant the countries would be held back for some time, but they would see greater market presence in future. "Romania is already an active exporter of live animals to neighbouring countries such as Greece," he said.

* Independent consultant Peter Crichton said prospects for UK pig producers after the EU's expansion looked promising. "I don't think this will have any impact initially, but the hope is that pigmeat consumption will increase."

"Meat traders are reporting that new member states are already placing orders, which should help the EU pig market."

Farmers Weekly, 1/12/2007

How to Read Between the Lines During your Next Whitecoat Conversation

2006-12-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

By Ron Geraci, Men's Health

The test result is slightly abnormal, and it could be several things.

This could mean:

"It's definitely one of two things, and I hope it's not the first one."

"We may tell the patient initially that there's a 'slight abnormality' because we don't want to worry them," says Leonid Poretsky, M.D,, an endocrinologist at Beth Israel Medical Center, in New York City. For example, there are blood-test irregularities that could mean cancer, pneumonia, or nothing at all--but be assured your doctor is thinking of the most serious possibilities. If you want to hear them, ask the right question, Dr. Poretsky advises: "I know you can't tell definitively what it may be, but what are the diagnoses you're considering?"

I've performed many of these operations.

This could mean:

"I'd choose a more experienced surgeon."

A good measure of a surgeon's skills is how many times he or she has performed the procedure in question--both the Lifetime total and the number per year. "Thousands" is a comforting answer for the first tally, but the annual number is the critical one to know. Replies such as "Quite a few," "Enough," or "I'm comfortable with this" could mean the surgeon is still on his learning curve, says Dr. Oz. You need a specific number,

Dr. Smiddle? He's a great guy.

This could mean:

"I wouldn't let him touch me."

Asking a doctor to rate another doctor can put him in a delicate position. The weasel words? "He's a nice guy," "He's at one of the better centers" (which means not the best center), and the like. What you want to hear are superlatives about the doctor's specific skills.

Our team decided that it was the best course of action.

This could mean:

"There's a 0.5 percent chance we can sew it back on."

Most patients ask vague questions, such as "How serious is this?" and "Is everything going to be all right?" These elicit vague answers. "Make your question as specific as possible, and ask for facts, not his judgment,' says James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin.

You need an ESR test.

This could mean:

"I have no clue what's wrong with you."

The ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) test measures inflammation, says Mehmet Oz, M.D., coauthor of You: The Smart Patient. It can be a shot in the dark ordered for patients with fatigue, weird fevers, or symptoms that might be all in their head. A full-body CAT scan may also signal a doctor's befuddlement.

Our team decided that it was the best course of action.

This could mean:

"I don't know what happened during the shift change."

People are more likely to avoid first-person pronouns-"I," "me," and "my"--when lying, according to research by Pennebaker. "One hypothesis is that [deceivers] are psychologically trying to distance themselves from the situation," he says. Reply by asking what he or she specifically did (or failed to do) at the time.

That growth may be nothing, but I want you to see a specialist.

This could mean:

"I'm about 99 percent certain that it's cancer, but I'd rather let another doctor tell you that."

A lump. A mass. A shadow on the x-ray. These can be code words for the C-word and signal that the doctor wants you to hear the news from a specialist who has the "you have cancer" talk 20 times a week. If you want the full story ASAP, say so. "If a patient asks if I think it's cancer, I'll tell them," says Tan Blumer, M.D., author of What Your Doctor Really Thinks.

Hot Tip: Save Energy $$$

2006-11-23T00:38:00.000-08:00

Lower your thermostat by a barely noticeable 1°F this winter, and you'll save up to $40 a year on your energy bill, according to the United States Department of Energy. This easy move will also keep 250 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, say experts at the Environmental Defense Fund. That's about the equivalent of driving a car from Boston to New York City.

Merkel as a world star

2006-11-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

BERLIN Germany's chancellor wants Europe's economic powerhouse to play a bigger role on the world stage. But how many Germans are ready for that?

WITH more than 80m people and the world's third biggest economy, Germany squats like a giant in the centre of Europe. For most of the six decades since the second world war, it has been a giant in chains. The desire to tie it down was one of the chief motives of the German and French politicians who founded what has become the European Union. Memory has added fetters, too. The horrors of the Nazi period have imbued today's Germans with a profound antipathy to war and foreign entanglements.

At the beginning of this decade, however, the giant stirred. Under the chancellorship of Gerhard Schröder, Germany began cautiously to use military power outside its borders, in the Balkans. When America and Britain embarked on their Iraq adventure, Mr Schröder made a dramatic break with the United States, vigorously opposing the war and showing a new readiness to assert Germany's own power and interests. Now a new chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spent a year in office at the head of a grand coalition, the forced marriage of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). Next year she will occupy the rotating presidency of both the EU and the G8 rich-country club. Where will she take German foreign policy?

When she took over the chancellery last November, many observers expected her to be a German version of Margaret Thatcher (minus the threatening handbag), and knock the economy back into shape. Instead, she has turned out to be more of a foreign-policy chancellor. To avoid political quicksands, she let visits abroad dominate her first few months. She was more effective in helping to bring about a ceasefire in Lebanon than in putting an end to annoyingly narrow-minded fights about health care and other domestic matters. And next year, she is expected to star, not just because she will lead the EU and the G8, but because so many of the other world leaders are lame ducks while she is just starting out.

In ten years from now, says one of her close advisers, the grand coalition may be remembered not for the disappointments on the home front but for the fact that it has helped to reconcile Germans to the truth that unification and the end of the cold war did not create a peaceful world, but a brutal one full of conflicts, "and that Germany must assume responsibility to solve them." But if Germans can no longer shield themselves from the harsh realities of world affairs, how they react to this "reality shock" remains an open question.

The change, of course, was not sudden. Germany began assuming a stronger world role once the end of the cold war brought the country not just unification, but full sovereignty. Its foreign policy, much like its welfare state, was obliged to face up to the consequences of globalisation. But whereas the welfare state could not be easily adapted to fit with the way the world was going, Germany's foreign policy turned out to be far more in tune with the new challenges of an interdependent world. The catastrophe of the second world war, and decades of living with limited sovereignty, taught the Germans the virtues of soft power and multilateralism. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a long-time former foreign minister, once famously said that Germany had no national interests, because its interests were identical with Europe's interests.

But where Germany long differed from its allies was in the ability and the willingness to send troops abroad. The Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, was set up to defend the homeland against attacks from the east. It would not have been politically possible, until the 1990s, to deploy soldiers in foreign interventions: most Germans were staunchly pacifist. Only in 1994 did the constitutional court rule that German soldiers could be allowed outside the NATO area, and then only if parliament had given its approval.

It took a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, both with strong pacifist leanings, to send the Bundeswehr into armed combat, thus breaking the post-war taboo. In 1999, Mr Schröder risked a vote of confidence to dispatch fighter planes to take part in NATO's war in Kosovo. Nowadays, Germany is one of the larger providers of peacekeeping troops, with nearly 9,000 men and women spread over a dozen missions that range from Afghanistan to Sudan (see chart).

Mr Schröder reconciled Germans to the use of military power but without compromising the country's belief in non-military intervention. Armed forces are still seen as one instrument only in dealing with a conflict. In northern Afghanistan, for instance, Germany is testing out a new type of provincial reconstruction team (PRT), which truly mixes military and civil groups. The German PRTs are led jointly by a military commander and a diplomat, and the soldiers are complemented by teams of civil servants and aid workers.
A new sort of German nationalism

Mr Schröder also introduced another novelty into Germany's post-war foreign policy: a kind of German Gaullism. Foreign policy, he insisted, "is decided in Berlin", and he vowed to defend Germany's interests. This partly explains his opposition to the war in Iraq, an opposition which helped him to get re-elected in 2002, but badly damaged transatlantic relations. His more nationalist approach led to close friendships with the French and Russian presidents, and also to the pursuit of a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

As a result, Germany was no longer perceived as a fixed star in the European firmament, let alone stolidly in mid-Atlantic. It was seen to be much freer, prepared to act on its own. Ms Merkel's contribution was to move swiftly to return the perception to what it had been. She has realigned Germany's position, putting some distance between herself and Jacques Chirac, and between herself and Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, while edging closer to America's president, George Bush.

This effort to reposition Germany has guided her foreign policy. Mr Chirac's frequent hand-kissing notwithstanding, relations with France have cooled significantly. And when Mr Putin visited Germany in October, Ms Merkel did not hesitate to address the murder of a Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya. This was in sharp contrast to Mr Schröder who, during his tenure, called Russia's president "a democrat through and through".

At the same time, she has established an excellent relationship with Mr Bush, though she does not flinch from criticising the United States on such issues as Guantánamo and the CIA "rendition" flights. During her time in the EU presidency, her government would like to start a new transatlantic project. This would be a joint American-EU effort to come up with common standards in such areas as hedge-fund regulation and intellectual property.

An even more important difference between Ms Merkel and her predecessor is her position on EU enlargement, particularly the question of Turkish membership. Mr Schröder was a staunch proponent of Turkish accession, mainly for geopolitical reasons, seeing Turkey as a link between Europe and the Muslim world. Although Ms Merkel wants negotiations to go ahead, she thinks Turkey's relations with the EU should stop short of full membership — a position that is now supported by a large majority of Germans. This could spell trouble within the coalition, since the SPD still wants Turkey inside the union.

The quest to become a permanent member of the Security Council has been quietly abandoned, for now. Instead, Germany is playing an important part in foreign issues where it believes it can make a difference. Witness the negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme, in which Germany's involvement, together with the five permanent council members, is signalled by the shorthand "P5 plus one".

Germany, says Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, is now pretty much where it belongs: squarely at the centre. Whether it wants to be or not, the country is a Mittelmacht, or middle power. It is not a superpower, able to throw its weight about, but it is in a good position to take responsibility in cases where it can bring something to the table. This is so, for instance, in Central Asia, where Germany is not just the only European country with embassies in all five countries, but has also developed good links with civil society across the region.

It is hardly surprising, then, that Germans, so full of domestic gloom, are relatively happy about their current place in the world. But they are warned by Michael Zürn, dean of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, that this is no reason for self-congratulation. In a recent paper, he tries to assess whether Germany is doing enough to live up to its self-image of being "a power of peace". His sobering conclusion is not exactly, at least compared with other countries.
Hesitant power for peace

A direct comparison of Germany's defence spending (1.4% of GDP) with that of the United States (3.7%) is somewhat unfair: the whole point of Germany's foreign policy has been to avoid putting resources mainly in the military basket. But even if you add together the budgets of the ministries of defence, development and foreign affairs, Germany's record is not stellar. This share of "international policy" in Germany's federal budget has dropped from more than 20% in the early 1990s to 12% last year — not just because of less money for defence but also because there is less for development aid. Other indicators confirm that Germany is only a Mittelmacht when it comes to committing resources to development aid.

Moreover, the number of German troops abroad do not tell the full story. The Bundeswehr has been slow to adapt to a world in which conventional war in defence of the homeland is unlikely. Despite 253,000 soldiers and a budget of €24 billion ($28 billion), it has a lot of trouble mustering and equipping its peacekeepers. And these troops have rarely been at the centre of the action: in Afghanistan, they stay in the relatively calm north; in Lebanon, they patrol at sea, not on land.

More important in the long run, argues Mr Zürn, is the degree to which foreign-policy questions play a role in Germany's public debates. Though the coverage of international affairs in leading newspapers and broadcasts has increased, particularly when it comes to matters to do with the EU, domestic issues continue to dominate, even more than they do in other European countries. Politicians seem less and less interested in foreign-policy matters that pay no dividends on election day. Of the 109 new members who entered the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, at last year's election, only one admitted to an interest in foreign policy. Nor does it help that Germany is rather short on foreign-policy experts. "Foreign policy has no lobby of its own," says Mr Perthes.

Even though the public seems fairly content, at least for the moment, with the way that foreign policy is going, the country's leaders have not yet done enough to ensure that support will continue for the policy of sending troops abroad. In urging the dispatch of troops to Kosovo, Mr Schröder used strong moral imperatives ("Never again Auschwitz") to convince the public to allow fighter planes to go into combat. It is hard to follow so emotional an approach with less passionate justifications. There has seldom been any open talk about military dangers. And only low-risk missions are proposed.

There are obvious reasons for this. Pacifism remains deeply rooted. Moreover, parliament's powers in military matters is a German speciality: even a mission composed of two envoys in Ethiopia must be approved and its mandate renewed annually. But what this means is that, although the public now accepts the need for intervention and peacekeeping, the support is not all that solid. Most people see soldiers as little more than armed development-aid workers, who expend goodwill and good works, but do not get harmed. There may well be a backlash, says Josef Janning of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think-tank, if something really bad happens, such as a busload of soldiers dying while fighting the Taliban.

Fortunately, the Bundeswehr has been lucky so far. Since 1991, 64 German soldiers have been killed, most of them by accident. But this state of affairs may not continue. In Afghanistan, for instance, the north is no longer an oasis of calm and German soldiers are regularly attacked. Germans are also discovering that their soldiers can come home as traumatised war veterans, and sometimes do nasty things in action. Witness the uproar created by pictures of German soldiers in Afghanistan holding up skulls. More to the point, NATO allies are turning up the heat on Germany to let its soldiers fight in Afghanistan's much more dangerous south.

The battlefield is not the only place where the rules of engagement are changing. For Germany, the negotiations with Iran were supposed to be an example of effective multilateralism. But now, with Iran unresponsive, Germany may one day soon have to decide whether it is willing to accept the price of tougher sanctions.

And this summer, Germany found that it, too, is not entirely safe from Islamist terrorism, despite its opposition to the war in Iraq. Two Lebanese students placed bombs on regional trains, though these fortunately failed to explode.

For decades, Germany was happy fighting culture wars over nuclear versus renewable energy, while conveniently forgetting that it was increasingly dependent on Russian gas imports. But a recently leaked memo by the foreign ministry's internal think-tank has triggered a heated debate that is reminiscent of discussions about the Soviet Union during the cold war — and also exposes frictions between the foreign ministry and the chancellery. The leaked paper argues that the EU should strengthen its economic and cultural links with Russia, an approach it calls "growing closer by interweaving" (which explains why some have dubbed it a "new Ostpolitik ", given that this was based on the mantra "change through becoming closer"). To critics, this amounts to ignoring both the issue of human rights in Russia, and the danger, for Germany, of energy dependence.

But, at least in the short run, the EU remains the most pressing issue for Germany. Although the government is trying to lower expectations, hopes still run high that Germany can salvage the proposed EU constitution. Yet the presidential election in France next May means that there is not much time, during Germany's six-month presidency, to tackle the issue.

In a sense, this presidency will really begin only on March 25th, when leaders of the EU's member states gather in Berlin for the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the union's founding document, and adopt a "Berlin Declaration". This is supposed to be only a few pages long and drafted in direct talks between governments rather than by the Brussels bureaucracy. The hope is that it will re-launch the union, by stating common values and committing members to a genuine effort on the EU constitution.

Germany will need to be more creative than that if it is to accomplish what Ms Merkel calls "squaring the circle": tweaking the constitutional treaty to make it more acceptable to critics, notably in France, but without obliging the 15 member states that have already ratified it to do so again. Ms Merkel will consult to find out what members can accept, and when decisions would fit into their political schedule. At the EU summit next June, Germany will present a report that outlines how the constitution might be salvaged until France takes over the presidency in 2008.

If there is a European leader to find a solution, Ms Merkel may be the one. Among her colleagues, says Gerd Langguth of Bonn University, who has written her biography, she stands out as being extremely rational, wanting to get things done and not making a big fuss about herself. At home, this has become somewhat of a weakness, argues Mr Langguth: she tends to underestimate the importance of emotion in politics and the need to demonstrate leadership. On the international scene, however, it may be a strength: international issues are mostly about interests and law — and not about calming erratic state premiers from Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia.

A successful EU presidency would give her the authority she needs to breathe life into the grand coalition, says Wolfgang Nowak, of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, a think-tank. This would be welcome, for things are not so good at home. Yet, in more than one way, Germany's political system is simply doing what it was built to do after 1945: protect democracy by making it hard to bring about fundamental change. In no other rich country do so many players have a say in how their nation is governed: the state premiers, the coalitions, the constitutional court. Many had hoped that this latest coalition would somehow manage to overcome the "joint-decision-making trap", bringing the country up to speed with the rest of the world.

In the coalition's first year, it was probably a good thing that it did not. Not trying too hard to cut the budget deficit encouraged the economy to recover nicely. Growth is likely to reach 2.4%, the highest rate in five years. Unemployment is down by nearly 500,000 on a year ago, to some 4.3m people. And, thanks to booming tax revenues, even the budget deficit is likely to fall to its lowest level since the country's unification 16 years ago.
A tough learning process

The real problem is that Germans are continuing to lose faith in their political system — mainly as a result of the bickering within the coalition. Both the CDU and the SPD are hovering around 30% in the polls. Worse, according to a recent survey, a majority of Germans now say, for the first time, that they are no longer satisfied with how their democracy works.

Such a snapshot should not be misread: Germans are not about to ditch democracy. But there is a danger that, unhappy about direction, they may rediscover isolationism. Already, Euroscepticism is on the rise. And two-thirds of Germans now think that their soldiers should not be sent on any new missions. "Germans are still learning that they have to take over more responsibility," says a top official at the chancellery. "The problem could become that the world will ask us to do too much at this stage of our learning process." Germany has made great progress at finding its place in the world since unification, but it is not yet over the hump of history.
Widely, but still fairly safely, spread German troops on foreign assignments[*]

Mission Number
Afghanistan, Uzbekistan 2,898
Kosovo 2,875
Lebanon 1,021
Bosnia 847
Congo 754
Norn of Africa 332
Sudan 37
NATO Mediterranean patrol 23
Georgia 11
other 44
Total 8,842

Source: Economist, 11/18/2006

Cancer Prevention News Tips

2006-11-17T14:35:00.000-08:00

LOWER CHOLESTEROL MAY CUT RISK OF AGGRESSIVE PROSTATE CANCER

Men with lower cholesterol are less likely to experience high-grade prostate cancer — an aggressive form of the disease with poor prognosis. Johns Hopkins epidemiologists, in a prospective study of U.S. men, say lower blood levels of the heart-clogging fat may reduce a man's risk of this form of cancer by one-third.

Cholesterol, often stored in tumors, may change the structure of fatty cell membranes to produce signals that influence cancer cell growth and survival.

In the study, Elizabeth Platz, Sc.D., M.P.H., epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Kimmel Cancer Center and her colleagues compared a group of 698 men with prostate cancer to an equal number with no evidence of the disease. All participants were part of Harvard's Health Professionals Follow-up Study. There were no differences in blood cholesterol levels in either group when matched up to the incidence of low-grade disease. But men with higher levels of blood cholesterol were one-third less likely to get high-grade cancers that tend to spread and grow faster.

Platz and her colleagues previously linked lower risk of advanced prostate cancer to men taking cholesterol-lowering statin-drugs. These two studies suggest that we may be able to prevent dangerous prostate cancers by tampering with cholesterol metabolism, she added.

This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Co-authors include Steven K. Clinton from Ohio State University and Edward Giovannucci from Harvard University.

ASPIRIN MAY REDUCE BREAST CANCER RISK ASSOCIATED WITH SEARED FOOD

Searing meats in on open-flame grills or with other forms of direct heat creates tasty bits of char but also carcinogens called heterocyclic amines or HCA. Now, researchers have found that aspirin may reduce the cancer-causing effects of flame-broiled foods in women who eat the seared meats often.

In a study of 312 women with breast cancer and 316 cancer-free study subjects, women who reported eating flame-broiled food more than twice a month were 1.7 times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who never ate them.

Breast cancer risk was further increased in those who ate flame-broiled foods more than twice a month and had genetic traits that helped them rapidly metabolize enzymes called N-acetyltransferases that are often found in the gut, liver and breast. The digested enzymes activate the cancer-causing HCAs.

We also found that within the highest risk group, women who reported using aspirin significantly reduced their breast cancer risk to the same levels as those who never ate flame-broiled foods, says Johns Hopkins epidemiologist and oncologist Kala Visvanathan, M.D., M.H.S., who is the first author of the study.

The researchers say further lab work to better understand the biological connection between aspirin, flame-broiled foods, and breast cancer.

To cut HCA exposure, experts suggest marinating meat, frequently flipping it while cooking, or microwaving it. Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

This study is based in the CLUE Cohorts of Washington County Maryland and the participants of this research are part of the CLUE 2 cohort. In addition to Visvanathan, authors include K. J. Helzlsouer from Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore; X. You, S.C. Hoffman and P.T. Strickland at Johns Hopkins; D. Bell from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; and A.J. Alberg from the Medical University of South Carolina.

Ascribe Newswire: Health, 11/17/2006

Tips on Being at the Cutting Edge

2006-11-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

Practical tips on plasma cutting from Mick Andrews, Welding Process superintendent at ESAB, are relayed by Andrew Pearce

After our introduction to plasma cutting and the way it works (FW, 30 June), here's a look at the practicalities. Setup begins at the torch, which has an on-off trigger and, in some cases, a stepped tip to follow a guide or template - useful in thin material. When working with precision in thicker stuff, rest the outer nozzle rather than the tip on a guide.

Torch components are few and fit together logically (picture 1). Switch off mains power before delving into the innards and don't lose the ceramic swirl baffle. If this is not in the fight place or damaged, plasma won't form properly and arcing inside the torch is likely.

The electrode and tip are both consumable. Use an electrode until it's about 5mm shorter than a new one. Wear beyond this makes it difficult for the pilot arc to jump to the tip, so the torch won't fire up.

The tip itself both constrains and directs the plasma jet, and cutting performance will suffer as the central hole erodes. With proper setup and a good tip, the cut line or kerf will be clean, narrow - much narrower than with a gas torch - and square-shouldered. Replace a tip as soon as its outlet elongates or grows (picture 2), or when the kerf widens and becomes untidy. The outer ceramic/fibre nozzle will gradually deteriorate but unless whole segments break away, this won't affect cutting performance.

PLANT SETTING
The workshop compressor must be able to deliver ample air without flagging, or cutting performance will go downhill. About 120 litres/ rain air (4-5cfm) should serve single-phase sets, while bigger ones need 165 litres/min (5.5-6.0cfm). Fit the air supply point with a water trap and turn off or remove any lubricator. Use air hose of at least 8mm bore if a short extension is needed.

A good plasma cutting set has its own inbuilt water trap/regulator. This, and the one on the supply outlet, must be empty and clean. Set air pressure to the maker's requirement on the set's own regulator, using an air check facility where provided to mimic cutting conditions. Typical pressure will be 5.5-6bar (80-90psi).

All that's left to dial in is the amperage required for a clean, full-depth cut in the material you're working with. Experimenting is the best way forward, at least until you can see what your set will do.

The thermal conductivities of aluminium and stainless steel are different from those of carbon and cast steels, so cutting capacity is lower in these metals. Naturally, thickness has an effect. Using high current on thin material won't cause problems as long as you speed up forward travel to suit, while in thick stuff` you'll have to slow down progressively. The set's upper limit is reached when the kerf won't clear and slag blows back towards the torch.

TECHNIQUE
A caution or two to start. When slicing with gas, even a tiny air gap stops the cut - but not so with plasma. The good news is that you can stack-cut several sheets at once. The negative is that when you're trying to separate one thing from another (say, a damaged bearing from its housing), you can no longer rely on the gap between parts to stop the cut. On top of that, you'll need to take more care when working over something you might not want damaged, such as an anvil.

And watch out where you put the set's return lead. As with any arc process, if current passes through the small contact points of bearings or bushes on its way back to the set, resistance heating can flat-spot them.

Cuts in thin materials or at low currents (below 45A) are made with the torch tip resting on the work. For higher currents and thicker materials, leave a 2-3mm stand-off gap between tip and work. A specially-designed stand-off nozzle can be used where consistent top-quality results matter.

To start a cut, position yourself where you can see the tip all the while. Hold the torch so the tip's central hole is just in contact with the work (picture 3). This allows the plasma stream to initiate quickly. Then squeeze the trigger. After a burst of compressed air, the arc fires up and the cut starts. Move off at a speed that keeps a steady stream of molten slag flowing from below (picture 4).

On thin sheet, hold the torch vertical. In thicker stuff; the plasma column bends on its way through, so allow for this by angling the torch slightly away from the direction of travel (picture 5). At the end of a cut, keep the trigger down until the sliced plate falls away. If you let up too soon, the plasma stream won't clear the bottom edge and leave a tiny island uncut.

MAKING HOLES, GOUGING
Plasma can pierce holes in any conductive material, although maximum depth is limited to about 60% of the set's cutting thickness capability.

Like when starting to pierce with gas, molten metal will splash up from the surface. If fine metal spray interferes with the magnetic field around the plasma column, the column can sway into the tip and damage it. Or if molten metal bridges between the tip and plate, high current will flow through this bridge and wreck the tip completely.

Sidestep both problems by starting to pierce with the torch canted over at roughly 45°. Once the initial splash has subsided and a crater opens up, gradually bring the torch upright. Maintain a stand-off gap of about twice the normal cutting height between tip and plate, or as much as the set will allow. Work round the embryo hole until it is the required size.

Unless you're blessed with a good eye and a steady hand (or a circle cutting attachment), some shape modification is usually needed. While you can carve slices from the edge of a hole to round it out or increase its diameter, this is not as easy as with gas, because the plasma stream stops immediately when there is no conductive metal below it.

Gouging is a good way to open a preparation U-groove before welding. Plasma is ideal for the job, but you'll need a three-phase set - single-phase units don't have the grunt to produce a long plasma column. Which is a pity, because gouging with plasma is faster, more effective and less fume-ridden than with a MMA rod. Use a wide tip, hold the torch at around 40° and blow metal away, repeating if necessary, until the fight profile/depth is reached.

STAY SAFE
Plasma cutting is an arc process, so cover up exposed areas and use a welding filter specified for arc use. Gas welding goggles will not do. Torch maintenance must never be carried out with the plasma cutter switched on, either.

By Andrew Pearce

Feeder Wagon Maintenance

2006-11-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

By Charlie McCarron

With grass burning off fast around the UK, diet feeders are being wheeled out to start bolstering rations. Charlie McCarron runs through a few tips to keep wagons running smoothly

As often is the case, the only service preparation a diet feeder will receive is a shot of oil around the pto - and that's only because it's seized and makes hitching up a headache.

At the risk of teaching proverbial grandmothers to suck proverbial eggs, we aim to point out a few key areas of attention before the season gets into full swing.

The Hi-Spec Mix Max wagon sold in large numbers across the country and is as good an example as any to use in highlighting what to look out for on the maintenance front.

* If the scales seem dodgy it could be down to the weigh-cells - one on each corner of the machine. The two smaller bolts should be tight, but the larger one should turn freely.

* On older machines the door ram mounting bracket was welded directly on to the tub. If this is the case, when the tub is wearing thin the bracket can be seen to flex when the door is operated. It is also a good idea to check the bracket for cracks and stresses even if it has been chassis mounted. - it may prevent a breakage later on.

* The majority of Mix Max feeders were fitted with side-door elevators. Underneath is one of the first places to wear thin. Fold up the elevator and tap the plate underneath to check for thinning. On some machines a door knife is fitted to ensure material doesn't snag as feed is being dispensed. Ensure it is kept sharp.

* An important aspect of diet feeding is getting weights and measures right, so you need to make sure the scales are functioning. A simple check to see if all is well is to hang off the scale arm. If you know how much you weigh, the display should read that amount.

* The chain-and-slat elevator is adjusted by two tensioners on either side. Two fingers are a good guide for chain tension, as illustrated.

* The bolts which hold the nylon rollers in place are fitted with grease nipples. Ensure the rollers are free-turning to avoid rapid wear.

* At the front of the wagon check the main drive gear 1 teeth for wear and ensure that the nylon guide 2 isn't worn on one side. If so, loosen the bolt and rotate it. Loosening the four bolts on the bracket 3 and winding the adjuster 4 adjusts the main chain tension.

* To ensure that the machine empties completely, the rubber pads on the mixing paddles should be in good nick. This makes for increased accuracy when working with strict mixed rations.

* Many thanks to Philip Male and the team at Bigwood & Partners, Taunton, Somerset for advice offered for this report

Tricks For Halloween Treats

2006-10-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Did you know that each American eats an average 11 of 25 pounds of candy a year? That’s a lot of sweet stuff. It can be fun to trick-or-treat and then pig out on candy. But you have to admit that it can also leave you feeling … icky. Here are five ways to enjoy a healthier, happier Halloween.

1 Instead of going candy crazy all night, limit the number of houses you go to and get just a few pieces. Then settle in with friends and watch a scary movie.
2 Pace yourself by creating a schedule. For example, you can choose to eat eight pieces of candy on Halloween and then one piece a day after that until it’s all gone. Or decide that you will eat no more than three pieces a day for a week.
3 Separate your candy into three piles: what you really like, what you sort of like, and what you couldn’t care less about. Then give away all but the first pile.
4 Stay in and make your own healthy Halloween recipes with friends. Try this recipe for Bloody Finger Pizza.

You’ll need:

• chopped red bell peppers

• low-fat string cheese sticks

• cooked pizza crust

• pizza sauce

Spread pizza sauce on cooked crust. Arrange cheese sticks on the pizza. Then place bell pepper pieces at tips of cheese to look like fingernails. Heat in the oven for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees or until the cheese starts to melt.

http://tiptrick.net/

Pest Control

2006-10-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

A woman was having a passionate affair with an inspector from a pest-control company. One afternoon they were carrying on in the bedroom together when her husband arrived home unexpectedly.

"Quick," said the woman to her lover," into the closet!" and she pushed him in the closet, stark naked.

The husband, however, became suspicious and after a search of the bedroom discovered the man in the closet. "Who are you?" he asked him.

"I'm an inspector from Bugs-B-Gone," said the exterminator.

"What are you doing in there?" the husband asked.

"I'm investigating a complaint about an infestation of moths," the man replied.

"And where are your clothes?" asked the husband.

The man looked down at himself and said,... "Those little bastards."

Steve Irwin Killed in Freak Accident

2006-09-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin is dead after being attacked by a stingray on the Great Barrier Reef during the filming of a new TV series.

The 44-year-old' s heart is believed to have been pierced by the stingray barb.

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He was filming an underwater documentary at Batt Reef near the Low Isles about 32 nautical miles off Port Douglas when the accident occurred.

According to a Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman, a Cairns ambulance chopper made an emergency flight to an island in the area just after 11am today.

An intensive care doctor and a paramedic attempted to treat the popular crocodile wrangler – who had a puncture wound in the left side of his chest - without success.

He was pronounced dead on the island, and his body is now being flown to Cairns.

Irwin - known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter - is famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchcry "Crikey!".

He's also starred in movies and has developed the Australia Zoo wildlife park, north of Brisbane, which was started by his parents Bob and Lyn Irwin.

Irwin and his wife Terri have two children: a daughter, Bindi Sue Irwin, eight, and a son, Robert (Bob) Clarence Irwin, three.

Bob was involved in a controversial incident in January, 2004, when his father dangled him near a crocodile at Australia Zoo.

Child welfare and animal rights groups criticised his actions as irresponsible and tantamount to child abuse.

Irwin said any danger to his son was only a perceived danger and that he was in complete control of the situation.

In June 2004, Irwin came under fire again when it was alleged he came too close to and disturbed some whales, seals and penguins while filming a documentary in Antarctica.

Interacting with Antarctic wildlife in a disapproved manner may be a breach of Australian federal and international laws. But the issue ended without charges being filed.

Irwin had close links with Prime Minister John Howard and was a guest at The Lodge during a function for US President George W Bush in 2003.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who used a photograph of his family at Australia Zoo for his official Christmas card last year, hailed Mr Irwin for his work in promoting Australia.

Irwin was heavily involved in last year's "G'Day LA" campaign.

"The minister knew him, was fond of him and was very, very appreciative of all the work he'd done to promote Australia overseas," a spokesman said.

Irwin also championed many environmental projects.

These included the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation, and International Crocodile Rescue.

Before the Next Attack

2006-09-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

After every terrorist attack, governments respond with ever more repressive laws, tearing up civil liberties in the search for greater security. It is a cycle that cannot continue. Bruce Ackerman proposes an alternative

We panicked the last time terrorists struck, and we will panic the next time. The 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 attacks were pinpricks compared to the destruction that could be caused by an atomic bomb in a suitcase or by an anthrax epidemic. The next major attack may kill tens of thousands, and if it does it will cause a political tidal wave likely to leave behind repressive legislation far more drastic than anything we have yet seen.
We are in a downward cycle. After each terrorist attack, politicians come up with a raft of new repressive laws that ease our anxiety by promising greater security – only to find that a different terrorist group strikes in a new way a few years later. This new disaster creates in turn a demand for more repression, and on and on. Even if the next half-century brings only three or four attacks on the scale of 9/11, the cycle will prove devastating to civil liberties.
It is a dismal prospect, and the time to confront it is now – before the next attack. We need to think ahead in an atmosphere of relative calm and ask ourselves how we should react to future crises without becoming ever more authoritarian, without permanently compromising our civil liberties; without, in other words, destroying many of the things that make our society worth defending. What I propose is that we agree, now, on an “emergency constitution” that could come into force at times of extreme danger, and which would give politicians the means to respond to that danger but prevent them from exploiting panics in ways which cause lasting damage.
I do not reach this conclusion lightly. The British constitution, and that of the United States, have proved their capacity to cope with crisis and it is right that we should pause – and pause again – before taking so important a step. Nevertheless, the recent rounds of repressive legislation in both countries should serve as a catalyst for reflection. Above all else, they suggest that we should make a clear distinction between short-term and long-term responses to terrorist attacks.
My proposal is this: that prime ministers, and presidents, should be granted broad emergency powers in the immediate aftermath of a major attack, but that these powers should last only for a week or two unless a majority in parliament expressly authorises their - extension for a two-month period. After those two months the government would have to return to parliament for a further authorisation, and this time a majority of 60 per cent of MPs should be required; after two months more, the majority should be set at 70 per cent; and then 80 per cent for every subsequent two-month extension. Except in the most extreme circumstances, this “escalator” would terminate the use of emergency powers within a relatively short period.
I am seeking here to develop ideas and practices that are already in use. Temporary emergencies are often declared in response to natural disasters, as the Hurricane Katrina episode reminded us. What is more, South Africa already has an escalator of majorities built into its constitutional arrangements: any state of emergency in that country must be renewed at three-month intervals by a vote of at least 60 per cent of members of parliament. South Africans had a bitter experience with “emergencies” under the apartheid regime.
They have learned a constitutional lesson from this experience, and so should we.

The free market in death

South Africa operates a parliamentary system, suggesting that an emergency constitution is compatible with the basic premises of the Westminster model. To be sure, the British constitution would theoretically permit a prime minister to repeal the emergency constitution by a simple majority vote, but this prospect should not be taken too seriously as a practical matter. Operationally, the “supermajority” requirement gives opposition parties a veto over an extension of the state of emergency, and any panicky effort at repeal would be bound to generate their passionate protests, endangering national unity at a moment the prime minister could ill afford.
The political costs of repeal would rise further once the emergency constitution began to prove its value in practice, and the country came to appreciate how it served as a bulwark against episodic panics.
Defining the scope of emergency power is a sensitive business.
At its core, it involves the short-term detention of suspected terrorists to prevent a second strike. Nobody should be detained for more than 45 days, and then only on reasonable suspicion. Once that time has elapsed, the government must satisfy the standards of evidence that apply in ordinary criminal prosecutions. And even during the period of detention, judges should be authorised to protect suspects against torture and other abuses.
Why two-month extensions to the emergency powers, and not three? Why 45 days of preventive detention, and not 60? Such matters are obviously open to debate. My point is that an arrangement of this kind is necessary, and we can have it only if we start discussing it now.
Let us look at the alternative. Words are the lifeblood of constitutional life, and we are off to a bad start when we talk of a “war on terror”. This war talk is preparing the way for terrible abuses after the next attack. Terrorism is a technique – the intentional attack on innocent civilians – but war isn’t a technical matter: it is a life-and-death struggle against a particular enemy. We made war against Nazi Germany, not the V2 rocket. Once we allow ourselves to declare war on a technique, we open up a dangerous path, authorising the government to lash out at amorphous threats without the need to define them. By calling it a war, we also frame our problem as if it involved a struggle with a massively armed power. But modern terrorism has a very different genesis: it is more a product of the unregulated market place than one of state power.
We are at a distinctive moment in history: the state is losing its monopoly over the means of mass destruction. And once a harmful technology escapes into the black market it is almost impossible for governments to suppress the trade. Think of drugs and guns. Even the most puritanical regimes learn to live with vice on the fringes. But when a fringe group obtains a technology of mass destruction, it won’t stay on the fringes for long. The root of our problem is not Islam or ideology, but this free market in death. If the Middle East were transformed into an oasis of peace and democracy, fringe groups from other places would fill the gap. Osama Bin Laden wasn’t behind the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City – this was the work of Americans. Every country has such people, and they will do all they can to get hold of suitcase A-bombs.
This problem is not illuminated by war talk. Even the greatest wars have come to an end – when Winston Churchill or Franklin D Roosevelt asserted extraordinary war powers, everybody recognised that they would last only until the Axis was defeated. But the black market in weaponry at the source of the “war on terror” will never end. Whatever powers are conceded to the government in this war, it will have for ever.
With terrorism, everyone acknowledges, even the best preventive measures will sometimes fail. The question is not: Can the security services prevent another attack? It is: How often will they slip up – once in every ten threats, once in a hundred, once in a thousand?
This, too, is obscured by war talk. Real wars don’t come out of nowhere because the government has slipped up. They arise after years of highly visible tension between sovereign states, and after the failure of countless efforts at diplomacy.
Even Pearl Harbor was preceded by years of rising tension.
But when terrorists strike we do not know, at first, whether we face a tiny group of fanatics or a serious organisation with real staying power. War talk leads us down a misleading path suggesting that not only are “the terrorists” numerous and well organised, but that they have powers comparable with those of nation states. Above all, war talk invites us to suppose that we should give our government powers that might be appropriate when fighting a Third World War.

Prevention is better than war

My idea of an emergency constitution is predicated on a more accurate description of our situation. We are reeling from a surprise attack and we don’t know whether the terrorists were just lucky, whether they have the capacity to organise a second strike, or whether they are in it for the long haul.
So let’s buy time. The short-term problem is the second strike, so we should grant our government the extraordinary powers needed to pre-empt it. This is the danger of the moment and we should focus our energies on preventing it, and not on launching a never-ending war on terrorism.
This is precisely the point of the escalator of majorities. While the country might go on emergency alert for two months, or even six, the escalator ensures a return to normality if the security services manage to disrupt the conspiracy, or if the terrorists prove to be a passing threat.
Without a constitutional framework of this kind, leaders will inevitably respond by calling on us to sacrifice more and more of our freedom in the effort to win an unending “war”.
Full and free debate is a liberal society’s best hope against extremism, and it must be protected in moments of crisis. The emergency constitution should hold firm to fundamental legal doctrines forbidding prosecution for advocacy of obnoxious ideas. People should be punished for what they say only when their words have an instrumental role in concrete criminal conspiracies.
The government will face a great temptation to abuse its emergency powers by restricting standard political activities such as large demonstrations, but this would not only damage the checks and balances on which the emergency constitution relies – it would also undermine the larger project of a speedy return to normality. Rather than repressing political expression, the emergency authorities should be obliged to give demonstrations of political opinion special security priority.
Another important point concerns the treatment of the principal victims of the emergency regime – the suspects swept up into emergency detention. Most, we know from experience, will turn out to be innocent. Even if released after 45 days, they will have been done grievous harm. Six weeks may be a short time, but it is long enough to disrupt a life, to create enormous anguish, and to stigmatise detainees in the wider community. The emergency constitution should take aggressive steps to remedy these harms. Detainees should be legally guaranteed their previous employment, and each innocent suspect should be provided with a substantial payment for every day his life has been disrupted for the greater good – say, £250 a day. This is elementary justice, but it would also have a desirable impact on the bureaucratic mind: given that detentions will be very expensive, there will be a strong incentive to avoid detaining people needlessly.
These ideas seem strange, so do we really need them? Let us remind ourselves of the British experience of the past few years, which provides vivid evidence of the cycle in which terrorist attacks repeatedly generate permanent losses of liberty.

Procedural charades

Within three months of 9/11 the Blair government rushed through a statute that made the US’s Patriot Act seem mild by comparison. Under current British law, there is no need to accuse a suspected terrorist of a crime to strip him of his liberty. Recent terrorism legislation dispenses with trial by jury and the need to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt; the government need only convince a judge – not a jury – that the detainee is probably a terrorist. Worse, the suspect can’t learn of all the evidence against him. The government can persuade the judge to hide key assertions in a confidential file, which is kept from both the suspect and his lawyer. To safeguard the defendant’s interests, the law creates a very small corps of special advocates, with security clearances, who can see the file but can’t tell the suspect what they have seen. Little wonder that a couple of these advocates have resigned in disgust: it is awfully hard to defend your client when he can’t help you pick holes in the state’s evidence.
As compensation for this utter failure of due process, the accused “terrorist” gains one advantage over the typical criminal defendant: he can’t be thrown in jail. But he can be confined under house arrest, with his movements and access to the larger world kept under tight control; or, if the government is in a gentle mood, it may merely place him under curfew, or limit his access to means of communication, or deny him contact with other suspects, or subject him to electronic tagging.
This goes on for six months; but the six-month term can be extended again and again, so long as the procedural charade is repeated. These draconian measures were in place before 7 July 2005, yet their existence did not prevent the government from demanding yet another round of repressive legislation.
The Blair government’s most recent initiative transformed a broad range of political activities into crimes against the state, and while Muslims are the initial targets, the net will be cast more broadly if the next incident involves, say, a hypernationalist group blasting away at some citadel of authority. To be sure, Blair overreached when he demanded authority to detain suspects for 90 days without producing any evidence of guilt, but the back-bench rebellion only obliged him to cut the period of arbitrary detention to 28 days. Blatant violations of due process are becoming a normal part of British law.
If this is the response to a relatively small attack, how will some future government respond to an assault that kills thousands at a single blow?
Remember that existing law already authorises continuing house arrest for anybody who is “probably” a terrorist.
After the next attack, a panicky public might prove willing to support indefinite detention on the
basis of “reasonable suspicion”. And why stop at house arrest?
Why not throw suspected terrorists into prison, without giving them a chance to establish their innocence? Where will it end?
We may be lucky: perhaps there will be no next attack. Or perhaps, when it occurs, our leaders will refuse to succumb to the political dynamics of fear and repression. But perhaps not. No constitutional design can give us a guarantee against the very worst case, and no constitutional design is needed for the best of all possible worlds. But there is plenty of room in the middle, which is where human beings generally live out their lives. This is where the emergency constitution can make a big difference.

By: Ackerman, Bruce; New Statesman, 2006

San Francisco / Safer Sex Info Goes High-Tech

2006-09-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

The condom broke. You think you could be pregnant or been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease.

So you turn to your cell phone for help: "if u hve sex, u can get an STD + not know it. Chlamydia, gonorrhea=no symptoms most of the time Dropin get chcked FREE," reads the text message tip, followed by an address and hours of a health clinic.

This week, San Francisco becomes the first city in the country to direct safer sex advice to young people through text messages on their cell phones. Michelle Irving, a 22-year-old peer educator with the city's Department of Public Health, said young people are constantly sending text messages, and she thinks they'll respond to the privacy and immediacy of getting advice on their cell phones.

"A lot of teenagers don't go to clinics, and they're afraid to ask questions. Text messaging, it's no one's business but yours," Irving said. "They don't have to talk to someone if they think they're pregnant or their condom broke. It's confidential, so no one has to feel embarrassed or humiliated."

Users send the message "sexinfo" to one of two phone numbers set up by the health department and within seconds get a reply asking them to clarify their question by choosing one of several options, including what to do about a broken condom and how to respond to pressures to have sex.

The whole back-and-forth process takes one or two minutes, and most messages ends with a phone number to call for further help. The program is designed to be teen-friendly, and the messages are written in text message lingo that's familiar to young people.

"We wanted to design a program that would reach young people with the technology they use most often," said Jacqueline McCright, community-based STD services manager at the Department of Public Health. "Most youth get their information from their friends. ... They're winging it, trying to figure it out for themselves. We thought this would be a good way to get them information that's reliable, quick, nonjudgmental and private."

The text-messaging program, which is directed at young people ages 12 to 24, is modeled after a similar program in London. It will cost about $2,500 a month to run the automated program in San Francisco. The San Francisco program comes in response to climbing STD rates among young people in the city -- including a particularly alarming 100 percent increase in gonorrhea cases among black teenagers last year. The Public Health Department spent a year brainstorming ways to reach young people who weren't getting the information they needed from more traditional resources, such as parents, schools or even community health clinics for teenagers.

San Francisco 15-year-old Mattie Loyce said she used to get her sex education from a radio program geared to young people. But as she's gotten older, she's learning most of what she knows about sex from "experience and friends."

She's on her cell phone all the time, she said, and "it'd be cool" to be able to send a text message for safer sex advice. Her friend Chiarra Tillers, 16, agreed, especially if the information available is accurate and reliable.

"There are a lot of myths, things that aren't true, that you hear about," Tillers said. "If what they tell you is true, that's great."

The Public Health Department isn't alone in relying on new technology to reach a younger, at-risk audience about sex. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate recently began a new campaign under the slogan "safe is sexy," including ads on MTV and MySpace.

Planned Parenthood also is looking into a text-messaging program of its own that would allow patients to make appointments, or receive reminders, by sending text messages on their cell phones.

Planned Parenthood's ad campaign has come under attack by some conservative groups that promote abstinence education. In particular, conservative organizations have denounced the focus on teenagers, including a Planned Parenthood referral program that gives patients free movie tickets and enters them in a contest to win an iPod if they encourage a friend to make an appointment.

But Therese Wilson, senior vice president at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, said it's critical that young people have as much unfettered access to safer sex information as they can get. And luring them with new technology is a method that already seems to work.

"We're trying to keep up with the technology because it's very evident that younger audiences, that's how they communicate," Wilson said. "We strive to be very smart about our advertising dollars, and I think we do a good job of that."

7 Steps to Take Control of Your Life

2006-08-30T01:09:00.000-07:00

Taking control of your life is getting in touch with your values, setting meaningful goals and identifying your vision. To be in control of where life is taking you means being more productive, dealing more effectively with stress, having the ability to solve problems, handing change and developing healthy optimism. Start with these 7 steps and you are on your way.

Get in touch with your values:

Take Action:

Set Goals:

Decide what motivates you:

Manage Your Time:

Do What Needs to be Done:

Self-discipline:

Farmer Joe

2006-08-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company responsible for the accident to court. In court the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning farmer Joe.

"Didn't you say at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine,"' asked the
lawyer.

Farmer Joe responded, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the..."

"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer the question. Did you not say at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'."

Farmer Joe said, "Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I as
driving down the road..."

The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the highway patrolman on the scene that he was fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."

By this time the judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say."

Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well, as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side.

I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear ol' Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans.

Shortly after the accident a highway patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes.

Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and looked at me.

He said, "Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her...How are you feeling?"

Must Read

2006-08-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

This incident happened recently in North Texas.

A woman went boating one Sunday taking with her some cans of coke which she put into the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday she was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died on Wednesday.

The autopsy concluded she died of Leptospirosis. This was traced to the can of coke she drank from, not using a glass. Tests showed that the can was infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis.

Rat urine contains toxic and deathly substances. It is highly recommended to thoroughly wash the upper part of soda cans before drinking out of them The cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to the shops without being cleaned.

A study at NYCU showed that the tops of soda cans are more contaminated than public toilets (i.e).. full of germs and bacteria. So wash them with water before putting them to the mouth to avoid any kind of fatal accident.

Please forward this message to all the people you care about.
(I JUST DID)

Russian Jokes Translated to English

2006-07-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

Once lieutenant Rzhevsky came to a party with a friend. There were some people doing strange things.
- Fifteen - said one man. Everybody laughed.
- And forty seven, do you remember forty seven? - said another. Everybody laughed even more.
- What are they doing? - asked lieutenant his friend.
- They are telling jokes. But they know each other for long time and remember all jokes so they numbered them to save time.
- Wow, that must be funny.. Seventy four! Silence, then one woman stands up and slaps lieutenant.
- You know, we don't tell such jokes to ladies - says his friend confusedly.

The teacher asks the boy:
- Let's imagine that you've got $200. Then you give $50 to Svetlana, $50 to Olga and $50 to Natasha. What do you have now?
- Well.. an orgy?

Mother brings her small son to the kindergarten for first time. The child is very upset. They meet the principal and the teacher. The teacher shows them in and tells the child, "This is your locker". Then the kid with his eyes full of tears climbs in the locker, says goodbye to his mom and closes the door from inside.

Read more here http://smeshinka.blogspot.com/