Tell Me This Isn't A Typical Government Run Operation

It was humankind's crowning achievement, with millions around the world glued to their television sets as US astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon 40 years ago.

But in the scientific equivalent of recording an old episode of EastEnders over the prized video of your daughter's wedding day, Nasa probably taped over its only high-resolution images of the first moon walk with electronic data from a satellite or a later manned space mission, officials said today.

It means that the familiar grainy and ghosting images of Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" are all that remain from the mission, though the space agency has managed to digitally restore the footage into new broadcast-quality pictures that it released today.

"I don't think anyone in the Nasa organisation did anything wrong. It slipped through the cracks and nobody's happy about it," said Dick Nafzger, one of the last Apollo-era video engineers still working for the agency at Maryland's Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Bad Idea Gets Worse

A Spanish woman who became the world's oldest mother at the age of 66 has died of cancer just two-and-a-half years after giving birth to twins, raising fresh questions about the ethics of fertility treatment for women past natural childbearing age.

Maria del Carmen Bousada, a single mother and retired sales assistant from Cádiz, southern Spain, leaves behind her orphan sons, Pau and Christian. It was unclear who would look after them.

Snip

What was really unclear is why the IVF clinic ever agreed to do the procedure in the first place. The woman was old enough to be a grandmother and perhaps a great grandmother when she had the twins.

STS 127

Space shuttle finally blasts off

The US space agency Nasa has successfully launched the space shuttle Endeavour - at the sixth attempt.

Earlier launches at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida were called off because of bad weather and fuel leaks.

The crew will spend 11 days on the International Space Station, finishing work on a Japanese research laboratory.

If the shuttle had not taken off by Thursday, it would have had to have waited until the end of the month to make way for a Russian cargo ship.

"The weather is finally co-operating so it is now time to fly," said launch director Pete Nickolenko. "Persistence pays off, good luck and God speed."

"We're ready to go, and we're going to take all of you with us on a great mission," replied mission commander Mark Polansky.

The orbiter is taking a seven-strong crew into space, made up of six Americans and one Canadian - Julie Payette - who will operate the shuttle's robotic arm during the mission.

Their arrival, on Friday, will bring the total crew on the outpost to 13 - a record for the International Space Station (ISS).

Story from BBC NEWS:

The Ugly French Tourist? Who would of Guessed?

French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as penny-pinching, rude and terrible at languages, according to a new survey.

The study by travel company Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behaviour.

Japanese tourists - seen as clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining - came top for the third year running.

French travellers made amends on elegance - classed third - as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.

But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike US tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.

US tourists also got top marks for generosity, as the biggest spenders and tippers.

But they fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers and the worst dressed.

WORLD'S BEST TOURISTS
Japan
Britain
Canada
Germany
Switzerland
Holland
Australia
Sweden
USA
Denmark
Source:Expedia.co.uk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8145451.stm

Suffer The Little Children--And Then Some

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jun/30/knox-youth-minister-arrested-child-rape-charges/

KNOXVILLE - A youth volunteer at a Knox County church kept photos of children engaged in sexual activities and is accused of sexual acts with a boy younger than 13, according to paperwork supporting his arrest Tuesday.

Randall Thomas Hollifield, 45, of Powell was taken into custody after deputies executed a search warrant at his house on Little Joe Road, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Martha Dooley.

He is charged with two counts of rape of a child, in which affidavits state he both performed oral sex on a child under the age of 13 and forced the child to perform oral sex on him.

He is also charged with sexual exploitation of a minor. The search uncovered more than 3,000 images on a computer and digital camera at his home, and the sexual exploitation charge filed against Hollifield states more than 100 images involved a minor engaged in sexual activities.

Snip

No comment.

Picture equals a thousand words.

Tamara Cohen

"This is criminal justice, Yemen style. A man accused of raping and murdering an 11-year-old boy is paraded through his home town before being shot dead by an executioner. "



More at http://www.mailonsunday.ie/news/worldnews/article-1197900/Justice-Yemen-style-Paedophile-raped-boy-11-shot-head-hundreds-spectators.html

Now You Know

How to properly eat a banana

Ompa Lumpas Turn Evil

A man has died after falling into a vat of hot chocolate at a factory in the US state of New Jersey.

Vincent Smith Jr, 29, was emptying pieces of solid chocolate into the melting vat when he slipped from a platform into the 2.5m (8ft) deep unit.

A spokesman for the local prosecutor's office said the man appeared to have died instantly from a blow to his head by a paddle mixing the chocolate.

His colleagues at the factory tried to shut down the mixer, but were too late.

Mr Smith was a temporary worker at the Cocoa Services Inc plant in the city of Camden.

Source BBC News

Snip

Augustus Goop was a dry run. Mr Wonka needs to be investigated!

A different take on Iran

It all starts in the pages of the Guardian UK. It is a sad fact but if you want to become truly informed on foreign affairs you have to read a foreign news source. The Guardian is a great go-to source along with the BBC.

Here is the lead:

“The son of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source.

The source, a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus, said that the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many of the country's senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals.”

Now this is were it gets interesting. Another scribbler wrote about how the Supreme Leader in Iran the very same Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was actually acting not as a cleric but more like a Sultan. Khamenei’s rule was likened to the absolute power of a monarch. Let us investigate that idea and see where it leads us.

The Supreme Leader gets his power via the structures of the Iranian Government. Khamenei at least on the surface controls all the important levers of power and oversight. Name an organ of governance and he either helps name the individuals or has veto power over its decision.

The real base of Khamenei’s power though has been the ultra-hardliners. Through their control of the Republican Guard, and the security apparatus the Supreme leader has been able to concentrate political power.

It was with Ahmadinejad that Khamenei was able to seize the executive power of Iran. Ahmadinejad was the mullah’s eager helpmate and cloak of electoral respectability. The two men formed a symbiotic relationship with the President of Iran serving as a front-man and populist face while the Supreme Leader operated in the shadows.

But the mask was ripped off in the election. The Supreme Leader became a political partisan for Ahmadinejad. Why? Maybe Khamenei rigged the election to turn his Islamic Sultanate in to a true dynastic Sultanate. Maybe he wanted to hand over to the rule of Iran over to his progeny. His son may have been instrumental in rigging the vote in the first place. His son may also be in control of the bully boys of the basiji "Mojtaba is the commander of this coup d'etat. The basiji are operating on Mojtaba's orders, but his name is always hidden in all of this. The government never mentions him,"

This also may explain why huge chunks of the ruling elite are starting to break loose from the façade of government. It is not about Democracy or even reform per se. It is about saving the Islamic Republic as a republic. If Khamenei gets his way Iran becomes a dynastic dictatorship. It becomes a fun-house reflection of Syria or worse yet North Korea. An Iran with Mojtaba Khamenei at its head becomes a governing philosophy of shards and patches. It would be neither Islamic nor a republic.

The ideals of Islamic Republic may be facing an existential threat from the very man who was supposed to uphold them. Politics and History can be ironic that way. The Islamic faithful will see an eerie echo of Muawiyah I, the first of the Umayyad Caliph. Muawiyah was the first Caliph to pass the succession to his son ending the previous selection process via a council of elders. The Shia branch of Islam despises him and the Sunni branch is at best ambivalent to his rise to power. Both agree that Muawiyah was probably responsible for the assassination of the last “rightly guided” Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Thus the fight against Khamenei and son’s coup d'etat may be especially bitter. It will be fought in the halls of government and the institutions of Iran. Many power centers may contend with even the military fracturing; the Army going one way, the Republican Guard going another way and the police force and judiciary going yet another way. Already the clergy has revolted with the scholars of Qom declaring the election a fraud. Khamenei has lost support even among his ultra-conservative base. He still has the raw force of the basiji and the cloak of status quo respectability. Many in the elite are fearful of any kind of change and crave stability above all else.

One last point, this is not and never was about us. As much as the idiot Elephants would love to make this about domestic politics or speaking out for freedom, it is something completely different. It is about Iran. We are at best spectators, and silent ones at that. The fate of Iran rests with the Iranians.

14 Year Old Epileptic Tasered

Girl recovering after dart surgically removed from her head

July 3, 2009 - 4:01 PM

By Chelle Delaney: Freedom New Mexico

A 14-year-old Tucumcari girl is recovering at an Albuquerque hospital after being shot in the head with a Taser dart by Tucucmari Police Chief Roger Hatcher.

Now, her parents say they want the police department to review its policies for using the Taser.

The girl was hit in the head Thursday by one of two darts fired simultaneously as she was fleeing, Hatcher said.

The other dart lodged in her hip.

Hatcher said be believed he had no other option.

“There’s a lot of issues,” Hatcher said. “She committed a delinquent act. She was running from police across traffic without looking.”

Hatcher said he chased her, ordered her to stop and “then did what I had to do.”

Her mother, Stacy Akin, said her daughter underwent surgery Friday morning at University of New Mexico hospital in Albuquerque.

“One of the darts entered her skull,” said Akin, interviewed by telephone.

After a CAT scan, a hospital resident told her the dart was “in her brain a little bit, but not much,” Akin said.

She was in pediatric intensive care following the surgery, Akin said. “She seems OK, but she she’s in a lot of pain. Her head is hurting her real bad.”

Police were trying help Akin because she and her daughter had been fighting, Akin said.

Akin said while she could understand the use of a Taser on an adult, it shouldn’t be used on a child.

“She’s only 14, why?” Aikin asked.

Akin also said her daughter has epilepsy.

The girl’s father, Donny Martinez of Amarillo, said his daughter takes medication for the condition.

“I’d like to find out what happened,” Martinez said, adding, “Someone, independently should look at it” to see if excessive force was used.

Snip

http://www.pntonline.com/news/tucumcari-17846-year-chief.html

Is just me or is police officer behaving as bad or worse than the offending teen?

MJ and Rush

It is not terribly surprising that Rush is left clueless about MJ.
Other than Rush’s addiction to Oxycontin he shares little with the ex king of pop.

Measured against MJ, talent for talent, Rush is a flea standing next to a blue whale. For most of Rush’s life he was a failure, he was man who finally found a shtick and a niche in talk radio.

If Rush is tiny compared to MJ his imitators are even smaller. If Rush’s so called talent is barely visible theirs can only be seen by an electron microscope. Most of this outcry from the conservative chattering class is pure envy.

This is not to say that other, darker feelings don’t lie beneath the surface. The ugly reality of race baiting, racial politics and pure vicious racism are always part and parcel of any conservative pundits stock and trade.

Pop music and pop culture are shot through with the rhythms, emotions, movements, hopes, fears, dreams, songs, loves, passions, losses, hurts and triumphs of people of color. No wonder Rush does not get it. No wonder he tries to squeeze MJ’s story in to his warped vision of reality. Thus MJ becomes a part of the success of Ronald Regan, Rush’s cultural / political hero. MJ becomes an adjunct to the deification of Don Reynaldo, MJ becomes part of the Ayn Rand Positivist myth.

That is the only place MJ fits in the world view of the right wing. He can only be useful as proof of the glories of unfettered capitalism. Otherwise he is one more example of how “liberals” in “Hollywood” are undermining the moral fiber of the USA. This is were the accusations of child molestation fit in for Conservatives. It is a gold mine for them. It is proof that performers in general and A-A performers specifically are degenerate sex fiends. It is “proof” that pop culture is nothing more than a plot to destroy our moral fiber.

The corporate media chimes in because scandal sells, sex sells and sex scandal sells the most. Keep those eyeballs glued so the network can sell those ads. It is all about the money Lebowski.

Say It Ain't So Joe

Joe Biden, the man who defines the term “foot in mouth disease,” said on a Sunday Morning news show that there was nothing we could do if Israel wanted to bomb Iran. Actually there is quite a bit the U.S. could do to prevent the Israelis from bombing Iran. Our AWAC planes rule the skies over Iraq. We have an airbase in Turkey plus some more in Iraq. We have aircraft carriers in the Med and the Gulf.

Nothing in the region flies without our say-so. The Israeli air force would lead a very short if exciting life were it to challenge our air power.

Secondly the Israeli economy in general and the Israeli Defense establishment in particular absolutely depend on the US for financial support. The Israeli settlements are bought and paid for by U.S. aid dollars. Cut off U.S. aid and the Nation of Israel goes bankrupt.

Despite the "truth" of Biden's statement one must look at it from the prospective of others. Many in the Arab world saw this statement as a green light to Israeli action. They see it as Washington using Tel Aviv as a cat's paw against Tehran. They see it as further proof of a Neo-Colonialist, anti-Muslim, Crusader mentality in the USA.

Biden's statement was extremely careless. It was not what one would expect from a man who was advertised as foreign policy expert. In diplomacy it is critical to choose one's words with precision. Wars have been started over careless statements, especially careless statements of support. Not only was the statement factually false, the U.S. can do many things both in a military aspect and in economic aspect to stop an Israeli attack on Iran, the statement was the wrong thing to say even if were true. Boiled down Biden cried havoc and let slip the (Israeli) dogs of war. It implied that the US supported the idea of an Israeli attack on Iran. It implied that there would be no consequences for such an Israeli action.

The "truth" of the matter is that an attack by Israel on Iran in the near (and quite possibly distant) future would be an epic foreign policy disaster for both Israel and the U.S. The blowback from the Arab and the Muslim world would make the fiasco in Iraq look like a lovers tiff. The citizens of Iran would rally around the flag, the Mad Mullahs would gain the legitimacy that they so cravenly threw away in the last election, the entire Muslim world would be set alight and the OBL would become the new Saladin. The burning rage of the Muslim community would soon be displayed by the burning of American Embassies and American businesses.

The final insult to our aims is the fact that an air strike would not really stop Iran's drive to a nuclear device. The Iranian nuclear infrastructure is too dispersed, too massive with too many hardened sites to be knocked out by air power alone.

If Biden were not so glib with his Sunday morning ruminations he might have at least brought some of these points up. A simple "air strikes at this time would be unwise" would have served the truth better and kept the "option" of air strikes later on as a possibility. He could keep even the NeoCon Likudnick extremists in AIPAC happy by pointing out how air strikes now would actually harm Israel's long term security. Instead Biden talked out of turn and caused HRC's State Department infinite amounts of heartburn. President Obama may have also reached for the Tums after Biden's comments. Obama was forced to walk Biden's statement back via the comment of another Administration representative.

Biden’s comments were an unfortunate repeat of the cowboy diplomacy of the last administration. If Obama preferred method is to envelope policy in a word fog, Biden seems to prefer speaking first and thinking later. The reserve and nuance of Obama is ill matched to Biden’s stream of consciousness verbalization. Netanyahu has already taken Biden’s statement and ran with it. Ran away and hid with it if we are to be truthful. Obama will now have to wrench Biden’s green light out of Netanyahu’s iron grip. Good thing for us that the Israeli Prime minister has acted like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, he is merely stroking Biden’s gift and muttering “my precious” over and over again.

Yes the sites could be bombed, the Iranian drive for a nuclear device would be set back but not halted, but at what cost to the U.S. and Israel? The military option is no option at all. The military option is the very definition of the feckless and foolhardy foreign policy we have endured for eight long years. It is the reckless saber rattling and the full Tarzan yell that chickenhawks like Cheney and his ilk love to engage in. It is the facile thought that all we have to do to make the world right is kick some ass. Military options eventually leads to military overstretch. Military overstretch leads to political and economic decay and to eventual national collapse.