Stories below the fold

CNN has photos of the Bronze age grave found at Pylos.

Also in the shaft tomb was a unique necklace of box-shaped golden wires, gold and silver goblets, and more than 50 intricately carved seals -- made in the style of the Minoan culture of the large island of Crete, to the southeast -- depicting goddesses, reeds, altars, lions and men jumping over bulls

Wikipedia article on the area...note that the area was essentially depopulated at the time of the Peloponesian war, but because it was in a valuable area, it has a lot of people fighting in the area.

----------------------------

Death rate among middle aged white Americans with a low education is up. Mainly due to alcohol, drugs, suicide and "liver disease" (which is often related to drug use or alcohol).

cultural reasons are killing people.
So where are the churches? Approving their vices by denying sin and being non judgemental, or trying to rescue them from the gates of hell?

------------------

In Zimbabwe, often farmers burn off the dead grass/hay left in the fields after harvesting, to prepare the fields for new grass or replanting.

One such veldt fire has spread to the visitor center at the GreatZimbabwe monument.


similar "Slash and burn" fires are causing a haze emergency here in Asia.
------------------------

BBC article admits that although people "support" China's one child policy, that there are a lot of stories that suggest it harmed many many people.

-----------------------

scientists are often geeks. Well, duh.

but now if you are a geek, they say it's autistic like personality.

Stretching the diagnosis of autism is one reason that we have many more cases... in the past the large percentage of those with full blown autism were called childhood schizophrenic or just mentally retarded with behavioral problem.

 

For later reading

Northern lights on Mars?

what is that dust doing in the atmosphere?

-------------------------

Celts were not one people.
and the anglo Saxons did not wipe out the celtic folks living in England.

---------------------------
China admits it has a hacking army.

Of course, in DieHard movie about this, it was evil hackers, not china, that shut down the country...

-----------------------

SP article on Colombia notices that Venezuela has problems and blame it all on the US and Colombia. Conspiracy? Or fracking?

Right now, there is an economic war going on via oil prices... US fracking (opposed by Obama who doesn't have the power to shut the entire industry down) has lowered gas prices, which means that countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela are losing money. The Saudis keep pumping despite this, probably to hurt Iran.
I'm waiting for a good summary article on this at SP and will link when they post another one, but it is a major story not being noticed.

--------------------------
another unreported story: The west is disarming.

-----------------------------

Factoid of the day: from a book review about the Confederacy's plans to make Cuba into three slave holding states...

Where is that dang airplane

Wired has an interesting take on the matter that makes a lot of sense: an onboard fire, and a captain who headed toward the nearest airport.

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah¹ was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles....

What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed.

even that strange increase in height to 45thousand feet might be explained as a pilot trying to put out a fire.

on the other hand, there are folks in the Maldives who reported a low flying plane...yet the Maldives includes several nice resorts, so planes do land in that area...

don't ask me: I'm a doctor not a pilot

stuff below the fold take two

Good or bad? old maps used to say "here be monsters", but now Google Earth shows you the truth...

-------------------------------------
new malware "Flame" collects information about you.
heck, Facebook already does that....
but this seems to be cyberwar against everyone in the Middle East...

more here
and HERE.
-----------------------------------
hurricane seasons starts in the US with a bang.
hope my son in Florida is okay.

--------------------------
Don't mess with Zarifa, housewife, sheriff, village leader, and mother of 15

 
"I tell the men of the village, all I want is your prayers," she says. "When you have a problem, I'll speak to the government on your behalf and whenever there is any disturbance at night-time, I'll pick up my gun and come to your house to see what's going on."

-----------------------------------------

The UKGuardian has an expose on third world kidney buying...

and note the in-betweens and doctors get rich, not the donors.
Headsup Secondhandsmokeblog.

--------------------------------------
The "scary new disease of the week" is an oldie but goodie: Chagas disease.
more here.

It's mainly spread via insects that suck blood from you that hide in you in those nice, romantic looking hovels so beloved of the green types,  or via blood (to unborn children, via transfusions).
Prevention? Insecticides, and screening of blood transfusions and pregnant women.

Headlines of the day

The news from Haiti keeps getting worse and worse.

The US Coast Guard is helping to land planes with supplies and rescue units from all over (airport tower was damaged), and the Carl Vinson is in the area and should be there by tomorrow.
But although the UN Peacekeeper's building was destroyed and some UN personnel have died: however, the 179 Filipino UN peacekeepers are now reported as safe and helping in the rescue.

Aid is pouring in from all over to help.
Yes there is good in the world.
-------------------------
we've also had another small quake, as has West Papua and the Soloman islands. Earthquake map HERE.

-------------------------
Read this and shudder.
Witness is related to both clans.
Yes, there is evil in the world.

-----------------------------------
The latest health scare, coming soon to a headline near you:
Carcinogenic dust from pavement crack sealent.

--------------------------------
Nigerian president in a Saudi hospital, and some unrest in that country. More HERE.

-------------------------
DrSanity links to an article that shows the data manipulation that sees all deaths of those without health insurance in the US as death from lack of health insurance, and points out the flaw in this assumption.

I'm glad someone noticed: Because if you go to the ER, they have to treat you, money or no money....yet few people bother to bring that up (of course, this means packed ER's but that's another story).

Part of our medical training was small meetings to discuss journal articles: and often we found what was reported was statistically flawed or contradicted by another article. So excuse my cynicism.

--------------------------

Family news and rants

Lolo is better, but was so busy watching TV that he overslept and didn't jog this morning. My post flu asthma is getting better too. Chano still has his back ache so Joy is doing the tradefairs etc. Another delivery of rice to Manila today.

Brownouts off and on, which means generator and messes the internet, so I am blogging off and on...

My latest rants are at Blogger news...might as well get paid (a pittance) for ranting:

• War, fear, and Double Jeapardy, 28 Aug 2008

• Philippine ethnic war brewing, 28 Aug 2008

• Contraception, Abortion, and Nancy Pelosi’s “opinion”, 27 Aug 2008

• Man made famine looms in Zimbabwe, 25 Aug 2008

• Knowing History Puts It All Into Perspective, 25 Aug 2008

• Joe Biden, unwilling to stand up for his pro life beliefs, 24 Aug 2008

• Measles Epidemic: Another Result of A Bad News Media, 22 Aug 2008

VietNam, A Line In the Sand, and The Power of Forgiveness,

Snow White, Cinderella Arrested

(AP) Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fictional fixtures of modern-day childhood were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans Thursday at the culmination of a labor protest that brought a touch of reality to the Happiest Place on Earth....

Headlines below the fold

The latest no no promoted by environmentalists? Chanukah candles...
my rant on BNN...

Claudia Rosett predicts:
Never mind what the oceans might do; if this Bali meeting gets any more traction, we can confidently predict that within the next decade we will see a 4.6 foot rise in the global level of red tape.

Norway has a problem: moose crashes

From Rust Belt to Borscht belt: Ohio is planning to use beet juice on their roads to prevent icing. Yum!

Good news::China Ordains New Bishop with Vatican Approval... one other little known fact: The government run church uses the Latin Mass...

And your editorial Cartoon of the day:the madness spreads....

Headlines below the fold

First Things notes the silence on the communist Holocaust museum...not just by the press, who have a the history of ignoring religious persecution by communists, but by religious leaders...

Yup, and they are still silent: China destroying religious shrines...Catholic and Buddhist.
Protests, anyone? Anyone?
------------------------------

Marines one, black bears zero...he did it with a log...and got a ticket for it.
--------------------

Lamb one, Savage Zero... Brian Lamb is one of the unsung heroes of civilized politics which, alas, is limited to one network, CSPAN, which I can only watch via the internet...
---------------------------------

Obama one, blogger zero...
no bloggers allowed in his meetings with the hoi polloi...wonder if he knows about Flickr and podcasts and videophones?
Of course, Congress also seems to be out of touch with their base...
----------------------------------

Indeed, there seems to be a major disconnect between congress and what is going on in Iraq.. Heh. Strategy Page even slightly optimistic.

And SP seems to know what is going on here...
--------------------

Then there is World refugee day with all the headlines stressing Iraq or Afghanistan...no mention of the 4 million refugees from Zimbabwe? Anyone? Anyone?
Pray for that country...the currancy is tanking and economy in freefall...and hunger stalks the land
-----------------------------

Lileks has the quote of the day about a play called Osama my hero:
The play is described as “provocative.” Naturally. There's no finer word in the modern artist’s lexicon. That’s the role of art: to resist the affirmation of societal confidence, because it leads to things like war and big cars and bigger houses in cul-del-sac burbs.....Come and give us a grant, or we shall be forced to provoke you again with a play in which the Pope wears a suit made out of wet fresh placentas and goose-steps around the stage singing Lili Marlene!

Well, not art is provocative. Sliced carrots are not quite what I want on my wall, but it doesn't upset me...and at least this guy is honest.
---------------------------------

And finally: Bare breast protest in Manila...no, not sex workers. Breast feeding advocates...I explain what it's about at BNN...

If 100 million people are killed and the press doesn't report it, is it news?

The Victims of Communism Memorial was dedicated on Tuesday morning, June 12, 2007, in Washington, D.C. Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, gave the keynote address while Rep. Dana Rohrabacher delivered remarks. President George W. Bush has also spoke. A crowd of 1,000 including Congressional leaders, members of the diplomatic corps, ethnic leaders, foreign dignitaries, and Memorial supporters, attended the historic event.
-------

The lady at the right is the goddess of democracy, who once resided in Tianamen square....
My rant about this event being ignored was moved to Bloggernews

headlines below the fold

1. Colombia steps back from aggression against murderous "insurgents" to make the French happy. "Insurgents" shrug...one "hostage" held by FARC is a bigshot politician with French passport.

did you know about the Islamicist coup in Trinidad in 1990? Those who tried that violence were pardoned, but now linked to the JFK terror plot...

Philippine terror warning...again...one bomb defused....not near here, where the danger is dengue, diarrhea, and earthquakes....

PajamasMedia has background on the many terror plots that have been defused...

CNNI had Charles Taylor's farce of a trial on last night...faster, please.

After setbacks, a turnaround: the Battle of Midway anniversary today.

Headlines below the fold

Heh....Sounds like the movie Rules of Engagement....
Ironically, the movie is based on a short story by James Webb, who supported the Marines before he didn't...

UPDATE: The non political Strategy Page, whose intelligence is accurate on Philippine matters so I trust them, notes the evidence, and says if true, it is similar to previous incidents where the press was used for other disinformation campaigns to smear Americans in the war on terror...

IraqTheModel is angry at the Democrats.

The downside of Fuorescent lightbulbs: Mercury in the environment... could be a major problem in places like here that don't have nearby places to dispose of them.

And Rostakovich has died: Here is an example of his artistry.

Headsup from Fausta's blog

Headlines under the fold

Rosie is leaving. The LATIMES uses the phrase "outsize personality" to describe her aggressive outbursts...
In the good old days, we would call her a fat loudmouth bigot.
Sigh. I used to like her when she was just trying to be funny...

Spring in Oklahoma: Tornado seasons starts. I'm so glad I live in a safer place, where all I have to worry about is earthquakes, typhoons, and Dengue fever...

Anzac Day...the ceremonies were on a "local" Aussie channel...here on cabletv we get local channels, but also channels from Singapore, China, Japan, Korea and Australia.

Bipartisan panel to discuss dividing Iraq? Hmm. Interesting if true.

Dow hits 13000...it's Bush's fault.

TheJawaReport links to a Harvard report noting how faux photographs and press manipulation misled the western press to frame the war as Israeli aggression, and that Israel lost the war in Lebanon. "Here's the rest of the report in PDF format, but be sure to read Charles' take on it as well.

And finally, scientists have devised a new mathematical formula describing the evoluation of....beer bubbles.

Headlines below the fold

Philippine commentary thinks they need a prank terrorism bill...like this blog, he speculates who was behind last week's "hostage" crisis" in Manila...

Pope laments "continual slaughter" in Iraq..."the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion," You mean AlQaeda killing Shiites and Sadr's death squad attacks killing Sunnis and Christians in Iraq?
He also condemns human rights violations referred to are in Zim and Dafur and the Congo.

"In second life, no one knows you're a lapsed catholic". Well, God knows, but this is about fantasy, not about reality.

While you are busy living second life, you can visit TV links.....Peeple has workstations online....Buzzillions helps you shop.

It's Easter, time to bash the Christians...LINK explores why.

And finally, RIP B.C's creator Johnny Hart has died.

Headlines below the fold

CNN Int is busy twisting all the news to show Bush failed, and his state of the union will be a failure.

Ironically, when they get around to headlines they say Iran is testing a new missile as a warning to Bush....

Which might explain this article in the UKGuardian...about the US placing a missle defense system near Prague...hint: it's not to defend Tulsa from being Nuked by North Dakota...
Austin Bey links to an article on old Europe's reflexive Anti Americanism HERE... but of course, like Tommy Atkins, they know they can kick around the US, but the US will be there if they get attacked...

When even Blogfather notices the biased tone of reporter's questions, it makes one wonder...

Iraq as VietNam? Maybe, if like some of us on the blogosphere you think the press spin ignores the truth. Which is why THIS ARTICLE should give you a pause.
Usually I'd ignore such claims, but the article is not from a right wing site, but from the more placid CSMonitor, and the writer points to newly available documents from Viet Nam to bolster his claims.

Spengler, not exactly a fan of America, reviews a new book that reminds us that those who claim Reagan and Thatcher and the Pope had nothing to do with the fall of communism often said the exact opposite in the 1980'...

In the meanwhile, the WOT continues here in the Philippines: the big question: Who gets the reward for killing Jajalani? The US put up the reward because he beheaded an American tourist...Next step, the Bali Bomber's associates. There are rumors that Aussie and US Special forces are involved, but no hard reports....Payback's a bitch, ain't it...

And finally, the headline of the day:

Snooker: No furthur action on Ding "abuse".

remember: You read it first here...

Headlines below the fold

Remember Lebanon? Michael Totten has a report from Beruit...summary in two words: Pyrric victory. An older Strategy Page article notes the same thing.

Jimmy Carter opines on how we can have peace...if Israel just offers to leave the occupied territories...whoops. They did just that back in 1998, but Arafat went home and started another terrorist war. Carter has been accused of Anti Semitism; actually it's probably not true. He's merely dumb. After all, what kind of person personally writes letters asking for pardons for Nazis?

Do you know that there was Bioterrorism in World War I? No, not the flu...anthrax and glanders...against horses.

Tolkien Trivia note: World War I was the watershed between the traditional and the modern...horses were used at the start, but replaced with trucks and tanks by 1918.. ..Tolkien served in a reserve colonial unit that broke and trained horses for the front until he graduated and was sent to France in 1916....

And finally, apparantly there is no Marxist murdering tyrant that some people can't defend...LINK....LINK2 to interview...LINK 3 to the group
Guess what? They are an offshoot of this Anti War group...who have an amusing article about Bush "invading" the world by multinationals...hmmm...wonder if they ever heard of China? Nahh...neither website mentions China, Singapore, or Malaysia, since globalization and capitalism seems to be helping the poor in those countries...

News beneath the fold

The BBC has an article lamenting on how Maoris and other "indigenous" people are dying off from Diabetes. This is due to something called Metabolic syndrome.

I have a long "MEGO" post about it on my medical blog HERE

There is a huge hurricane on Saturn...it's Bush's fault.

The Japanese have a new illness: Retired Husband syndrome.. Women who stayed at home keeping house while workaholic husbands were away now are stuck with a stranger 24/7, and it's making them sick..sad...

War atrocities by US Troops are nothing new, says a Philippine editorial. Same thing happened in 1902.

And LGF notes worries about terrorists and nukes. UKTIMES article HERE

Headlines below the fold

Another day, another typhoon.
We just got thunderstorms with winds and rain. But it is harvest time, and rain means not being able to cut rice, and of course the rice already cut can't be dried before selling.

Local news: Leftist leader killed...but so are two government officials, and two people at a wake of a reporter. Luckily no one can blame it on Bush, so CNN is ignoring the news.

Church of England report agrees it's okay to kill newborns, showing the increasing moral collapse of a once great church.

War on Terror, blamed on Bush...but Eleven of our Muslim allies are backing the Islamicists in Somalia...which was abandoned under Clinton's watch...

After two years of attacks by Saddam's henchman allied with Sunni Alqaeda and backed by Saudi money, the Shia are fighting back, with help of Iran...the bad news is that killers are increasingly "independent" thugs, but since they are scaring the pants off the Sunni community, it looks like revenge is the rule of the day.

Iran also is offering their long range missiles to Israels' enemies...but they figure the election means no real US threat...