Archive for October, 2005
October 25th, 2005 | 
Author: [ Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes ]
A swirling image of a peregrine falcon sweeping into a flock of starlings has won Manuel Presti this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.
The Italian caught the action scene, titled Sky Chase, high above a city park in Rome.
“Sky chase is a powerful image and, like it or not, it’s one that you will never forget,” said Mark Carwardine, one of this year’s judges.
The competition has become one of the most prestigious in world photography.
It is organised by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London’s Natural History Museum. This year brought 17,000 entries from over 55 countries.
SKY CHASE
Manuel Presti is an engineer by trade, but he has been taking photographs in his spare time for 20 years.
Through his creative images he aims to show the simple beauty in nature and hopes to inspire people to care for its conservation.
You look for something that is surprising, and this has got it on so many levels
Roz Kidman Cox, judge
Right across Europe, starling populations have been in decline.
Nonetheless, thousands of the birds can be found roosting in city parks in Rome, where it is warmer in winter than the surrounding countryside and usually safer – except for the resident peregrines.
“I was photographing with two cameras; one was with a wide-angle zoom to capture all the shapes, and one – which is this picture – with a long lens to capture the up-close action, the chase,” Manuel told the BBC News website.
“The sky was cloudy so I overexposed the image intentionally to make it white. A slow shutter speed – 1/50th of a second – gives it this dynamic of the starlings moving under the psychological pressure of the peregrine diving.”
Roz Kidman Cox, a judge and former editor of BBC Wildlife Magazine, said: “The judges were unanimous. It’s quite startling and it imprints itself on your mind. It’s both a reality and an abstract.
“As a judge, you look for something that is surprising, and this has got it on so many levels.”
The image won the Animal Behaviour: Birds category as well as the overall title.
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Yeah…it’s sad…BUT, DEgrading is NOTHING, compared to DEcapitation.
It’s war…and war is ugly. And yes, interrogation IS a mind game. Pure And Simple.
Americans do NOT cut off fingers, toes, hands, feet, or heads…to get someone to talk.
For those that consider it a “bad thing”….abuse of someone in war time (calling names, making them wear things they wouldn’t normally wear, etc) to TRY TO GET intelligence to keep INNOCENTS from DYING….well, we’ll just let the terrorists that get away come to YOUR neighborhood first.
WHITE HOUSE WANTS CIA EXEMPT FROM A BAN ON ABUSE OF DETAINEES
By ERIC SCHMITT
NYT Express
10/24/2005
WASHINGTON — Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the treatment of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected al-Qaida militants and other terrorists.
The Senate defied a presidential veto threat nearly three weeks ago and approved, 90-9, an amendment to a $440 billion military spending bill that would ban the use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of any detainee held by the U.S. government. This could bar some techniques that the CIA has used in some interrogations overseas.
But in a 45-minute meeting last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA director, Porter J. Goss, urged Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism, according to two government officials who were briefed on the meeting. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the discussions.
McCain rejected the proposed exemption, which stated that the measure “shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the U.S. government other than the Department of Defense and are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party, if the President determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.”
Spokesmen for McCain, Cheney and Goss all declined to comment on the matter on Monday, citing the confidential nature of the discussions.
McCain’s provision faces stiff opposition in the House, which did not include similar language in its version of the spending bill.
The White House has threatened to veto any bill that includes the McCain provision, contending that it would bind the president’s hands in wartime.
The matter will probably be settled in a private meeting in the next week or two among four senior lawmakers: Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska; Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla.; Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii; and Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa. All are on the conference committee
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Will the US REALLY have enought flu vaccine? Depends on who you talk to, but things seem to be more positive this time around…
Rich
WASHINGTON PREDICTS ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF FLU VACCINE
By GARDINER HARRIS
NYT Express
10/24/2005
WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials acknowledged Monday that there were some spot shortages of flu vaccine this year but said overall supplies should be adequate.
Some doctors and public health clinics have complained that they have limited supplies of flu vaccines this year. But Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt and other top health officials said this situation should change in the coming weeks.
Eight states have reported some flu cases, a normal level at this point; flu season usually peaks in January and February, and people have many weeks to get vaccinated, officials noted.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said flu vaccine supplies were tight because the country is in a “transition” period. As more people decide to get vaccinated against the flu every year, vaccine supplies will become more abundant and reliable, he said. This change will also help the nation if a pandemic were ever to strike, he said.
In the wake of a supply crunch last year, federal health officials had instructed doctors to vaccinate through Sunday only the elderly, the very young, the sick and health care providers. On Monday, however, vaccines were made available to all.
Federal officials said that somewhere from 70 million to 88 million doses of flu vaccines should be available this year, much of it in the coming weeks.
Leavitt also took care to distinguish between fears of a bird flu that could cause millions of deaths worldwide and the annual effects of the seasonal flu.
He said the administration was revising its long-awaited plan for dealing with an outbreak of a rare pandemic flu that could kill millions. But he pointed out that the seasonal flu is also dangerous.
“It kills an average of 36,000 Americans a year, leads 200,000 Americans to be hospitalized and causes countless lost school and work days,” he said. “Much of this can be prevented by simply getting a flu shot.”
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A sad fact about war…you’re going to lose good men and women…below, the War hits a milestone…
Rich
TEXAS SOLDIER BECOMES 2000TH U.S. SOLDIER TO DIE IN IRAQ WAR
By BOB DEANS
Cox News Service
10/25/2005
WASHINGTON – President Bush marked the 2,000th death of an American soldier in Iraq with a call for national resolve on Tuesday, seeking to shore up flagging support for the conflict while warning of more deaths to come.
“Sacrifice is essential to winning war,” Bush told some 500 military wives at an Air Force base in Washington, “and this war will require more sacrifice.”
Hours later, the Pentagon announced that Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, of wounds he received last week when a car bomb exploded near his vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Samarra. Earlier in Baghdad, military officials announced the deaths of two Marines in fighting last week.
The three fatalities brought to 2,000 the number of U.S. troops that have died since Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, a tally by the Associated Press found.
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Asian Bird Flu Spreads to England
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH
LONDON (AP) – The British government said Sunday that a strain of bird flu that killed a parrot in quarantine is the deadly H5N1 strain that has plagued Asia and recently spread to Europe.
Scientists determined that the parrot, imported from South America, died of the strain of avian flu that has devastated poultry stocks and killed 61 people in Asia the past two years, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The virus is spread by migrating wild birds and has recently been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania, spurring efforts around the globe to contain its spread.
While H5N1 is easily transmitted between birds, it is hard for humans to contract. But experts fear it could mutate into a form of flu that is easily transmitted between humans and cause a pandemic that could kill millions.
Debby Reynolds, DEFRA’s chief veterinarian, said the parrot was likely infected with the virus while it was housed in the country’s quarantine system with birds from Taiwan. Tests conducted on the Taiwanese birds that had died were inconclusive, according to the department.
DEFRA said the virus was most closely matched to a strain found in ducks in China earlier this year but was not very similar to strains discovered in Romania and Turkey. The genetic makeup of the virus changes slightly as it spreads, and scientists use such tests to track its migration across the world.
It was Britain’s first confirmed case of bird flu since 1992.
Elsewhere, the Croatian government on Sunday promised to compensate villagers and farmers whose birds were slaughtered to prevent the spread of bird flu. About 10,000 domestic birds have been killed in an area near a national park where six swans were found to have been infected with the virus.
Damage from the culling was estimated at about $160,000. However, international bans on Croatian poultry exports could hurt farmers more. The European Commission on Friday said it was preparing a ban on all poultry imports from the country, while some individual European nations have already done so.
Medical experts detected the H5 virus in the swans Friday. Samples from the contaminated birds were then sent to a laboratory in Britain to establish whether they had the deadly H5N1 strain. Tests were also being done on samples from five other swans found dead Saturday morning near the park.
In related developments Sunday:
_Sweden said four ducks found dead in an area west of Stockholm Friday were infected with bird flu, but not the deadly H5N1 strain.
_Montenegro began testing its poultry for bird flu as a precaution after the disease was confirmed in neighboring Croatia. Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina also ordered cars to be disinfected at the Croatian border, and banned poultry imports from the country.
_The European Union said its bird flu experts will discuss a possible ban on imports of wild birds into the 25-nation bloc on Tuesday. The EU has so far resisted calls to ban all pet bird imports, fearing it could create a black market that could increase the threat of infected birds being smuggled in.
_Jordan and Israel agreed to limited cooperation to combat the possible spread of bird flu by monitoring people traveling across their shared border, the official Petra news agency reported. Neither country has had any cases of the virus.
_North Korea has launched a nationwide campaign to prevent a fresh outbreak of bird flu, strengthening quarantine and reporting systems and enhancing education of poultry farmers, a media report said. Earlier this year, North Korea culled about 210,000 chickens and other poultry after acknowledging its first bird flu outbreak in March. No new cases have since been reported.
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and this one AIN’T it…rent a DVD for the evenings this stinker comes on TV…
Ensemble Convenes for CBS’ “End of the World
Posted by Scott Weinberg on Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2005, 12:35 AM
Scott Weinberg writes: “ComingSoon.net shares a press release from CBS, and it seems that the “End of the World” is somewhat near. November 6th is when you can tune in and chuckle over “Category 7: The End of the World.”
From the producers of “Category 6: Day of Destruction,” the follow-up will star Randy Quaid, Tom Skerritt, Shannen Doherty, Gina Gershon, James Brolin, and Swoosie Kurtz.
“”Category 7: The End of the World” begins where “Category 6: Day of Destruction” ended, as the ultimate superstorm continues to build in size. As the disastrous storm gathers even more strength and begins to ravage the rest of the world, FEMA’s newly appointed director, Judith Carr (Gershon), has her hands full preparing for a cataclysmic storm in the U.S. Aiding weather forecasters is storm chaser Tommy Tornado (Quaid), convalesced from his near-death experience in the Category 6 storms and ready for more, and Faith Clavell (Doherty), a beautiful, discredited scientist who teams up with Tommy on the ground to figure out what is making the storms so severe. Up in the sky, pilot Col. Mike Davis (Skerritt) flies high above the storm to try to find what in the atmosphere is causing the storms. Meanwhile, a television evangelist and his wife, Donny and Penny Hall (Brolin and Kurtz) preying on the fears of a storm battered nation, begin to broadcast alarming warnings of biblical plagues. As the predictions begin to come true, the deadly storm continues to wreak havoc worldwide, culminating in a record-setting Category 7 superstorm over Washington, D.C.”
Part 1 of “Category 7″ will air on Sunday, November 6th; part 2 a week later on November 13th.”
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FDNY chief: We’re training for nukes
By RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Terrorists attacking New York City with a crude nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb are among the main threats the FDNY is preparing for, the department’s top disaster planner said yesterday.
Chief Joseph Pfeifer told a panel of security experts the FDNY is rapidly transforming itself into a terrorism-ready force that is equipped to respond to such potentially catastrophic attacks.
“It’s the training we do that’ll make the difference between who gets saved and who doesn’t get saved,” Pfeifer said at the Council on Foreign Relations on E.68thSt.
The FDNY is particularly concerned about terrorists developing a crude nuclear bomb and detonating it among the skyscrapers in lower Manhattan.
Such an attack would likely result in nearly 225,000 casualties, Pfeifer said.
Another scenario worrying fire officials is one in which a terrorist could combine a radioactive bomb with an incendiary device on the upper floor of a high-rise building.
The radiological incendiary device, or RID, would create a rapidly expanding fire that could engulf a building quickly – and result in a disaster similar to 9/11.
“The fire caused the buildings to collapse, and that’s where it became a catastrophic event,” Pfeifer said. “It’s the same thing with an RID.”
But Pfeifer noted that nearly 3,000 firefighters have been trained as hazardous material specialists, and every unit is now outfitted with devices that combat radiation.
The FDNY also is in the process of developing a $17 million command center that is designed to serve as an enhanced information hub in the event of another large-scale attack.
“If an improvised nuclear device goes off … it will be horrific, but we can survive,” said Pfeifer.
Originally published on October 21, 2005
