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Thursday, June 25, 2009

A report published in the scientific journal Nature of results from the Cassini probe indicates the discovery of the existence of liquid water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and with it the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Analysis of ice particles once thought to be emitted by geysers from the moon revealed the presence of sodium salt in the ice. As on Earth, the most plausible explanation of the presence of salt water is the prolonged contact of liquid water with mineral bearing rocks.

The currently accepted scientific theory for how life occurs requires the presence of three elements: the existence of complex organic molecules, liquid water and a source of energy. All three appear to be present on Enceladus.

The possibility of discovering a global ocean on the moon has receded, and has been replaced by the idea of large subterranean caverns with large pools or lakes of water, created by tidal forces acting upon Enceladus, and it is from these mist filled caverns that the water evaporates into the atmosphere in a steady jet. However, until further flybys and missions can be carried out other mechanisms for the presence of salt water ice cannot yet be dismissed.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Steve Kubby who was facing extradition from Canada, returned to California, was arrested, and is now in custody in Placer County, California Jail, pending a hearing today. He is a medical cannabis patient who relies on the drug to regulate the symptoms of malignant phenochromocytoma, a cancer of the adrenal gland which can cause the level of adrenaline in his system to fluctuate out of control. If left unregulated, this can result in sudden, fatal heart attack, stroke, pneumonia, and a variety of other conditions.

Kubby was arrested on arrival at San Francisco International Airport Thursday night on behalf of the Placer County Sheriff’s Department, having exhausted his extradition appeals in Canada. He was taken to San Mateo County Jail, pending transport to Placer County Jail. While at San Mateo County Jail, he was reportedly denied access to medication and sufficient bedding. On arrival at Placer County Jail, his blood pressure was dangerously high, and so was given Marinol, a THC synthetic.

Communication with Kubby is highly restricted. According to his wife, Michele, Kubby has been placed in solitary confinement, denied access several times to sufficient bedding to keep him warm, and denied access to the cannabis which, according to several experts on his universally fatal condition, has been solely responsible for keeping him alive for decades. The Marinol he is being given partially mitigates his symptoms, but does not completely control them. He now grows dangerously ill.

In particular, he relates how he was ordered by prison medical staff to take beta-blockers for his blood-pressure. Due to the episodic nature of the adrenaline spikes causing the high blood-pressure, according to all of his doctors, the beta-blockers would likely kill him once the spikes dropped. In an interview by phone with journalist Pat McCartney over the weekend, Kubby reported that, for refusing the beta-blockers, he was coerced into signing a waiver absolving the prison of liability, and has since been refused all care, including even Tylenol for pain management.

Activists concerned with medical marijuana, human rights and prison reform will hold a rally at noon today in front of the Placer County Superior Courthouse, where Steve Kubby is scheduled to be arraigned on violation of probation charges.

Kubby was a co-author of California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996, also known as Proposition 215. He fled to Canada in 2001 to escape the possibility of incarceration for an extended period without access to cannabis, a possibility which, in both his and expert medical opinion, would certainly prove fatal.

Friday, September 15, 2006

BT Global Services this week laid out its vision for the next three years: its revenues to double in the USA, Japan, India and China, and £400m of annual savings, achieved through offshoring and slashing its procurement costs. £200m of this will come from a reduction in what it spends on technology from vendors on large systems integration projects.

CEO Andy Green admitted that BT had been slower than rivals such as IBM and Accenture to ramp up its offshore headcount. But he claimed that BT Global Services is thriving as the fastest-growing division within BT. He said that the division was outperforming its closest rivals, T-Systems, Orange Enterprise and AT&T Enterprise, which had all posted revenue declines for the most recent quarter. He said BT was fast becoming a familiar brand to businessmen in New York, Tokyo, Mumbai and Shanghai.

He disclosed a few revenue figures not revealed before. For the financial year ending March 2006, UK revenues rose just 2% to £5.5bn, while overseas revenues shot up 48% to £3.3bn. And of the £8.8bn total revenue, £1.6bn was captive work for its parent, while of the remaining £7.2bn, 18% came from the UK government sector and 17% from financial services. BT said it still harbours ambitions to conquer America, despite the failure of the ‘Concert‘ partnership with V in the 1990s.

In a separate story, BT announced it has chosen Chinese vendor ZTE to develop a dual-mode handset — 3G and DAB-IP — for launch by its BT Movio subsidiary next year. DAB-IP (in other words, IP over the DAB digital radio network) will enable BT Movio to broadcast four TV channels at acceptable quality to the handset.3G will enable video-on-demand, so that the users can specify what video clips or programmes they wish to watch. UK legislation specifies that no more than 30% of the DAB spectrum can be used for non-radio purposes, so BT is lobbying for more DAB spectrum to be released, to enable higher quality video and/or more TV channels.

Saturday, April 8, 2006

The California-based non-profit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a brief on Wednesday claiming that AT&T has been illegally forwarding Internet traffic directly to the National Security Agency.

The EFF has asked that the forwarding be stopped immediately. According to EFF staff attorney Kevin Bankston, “The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment. More than just threatening individuals’ privacy, AT&T’s apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans’ Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now.”

The motion was filed under seal allowing only the judge and litigants to view the complaint. The procedure allows AT&T five days to explain to the court their reasons for keeping the information from the public.

In the class action lawsuit, EFF is representing all AT&T residential customers nationwide.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Three nations in three continents have seen attention focused on high suicide rates this week. A study found Scotland’s suicide rate to be increasing away from neighbouring England, Russian press and politicians are examining the world’s third-highest teen suicide rate, and new figures showed increasing Aboriginal children’s suicides in Australia’s Northern Territory.

“Until the highest authorities see suicide as a problem, our joint efforts will be unlikely to yield any results,” Boris Polozhy of Moscow’s Serbsky psychiatric center said yesterday. Only fellow ex-USSR nations Belarus and Kazakhstan have higher teen suicide rates than Russia, which is at around 20 per 100,000 nationally. Tuva, Siberia and nearby Buryatiya have rates of 120 and 77 per 100,000 respectively. Thursday saw national children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov say 4,000 youths kill themselves each year.

Top Health Ministry psychologist Zurab Kekelidze yesterday responded to expert calls for action, promising to “very soon… start implementing” a plan of action to tackle the issue. He said Russian schools, which are criticised for understaffing and perceived inattention to bullying, should teach psychology.

Kekelidze asked the Russian Orthodox Church to help the suicidal, and severely criticised popular online forums dedicated to suicide, where methods are compared. “I have seen websites that offer a thousand ways of killing oneself,” he claimed. Astakhov wanted schools to offer assistance via a social networking presence and tackle online bullying.

The overall national suicide rate is decreasing — down from 42 per 100,000 in 1995 to 23.5 two years ago. The high rate amongst teens is attributed to both school problems and violence at home. Recent high-profile cases include yesterday’s death of a twelve-year-old who hung himself at home in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and two fourteen-year-olds who jumped hand-in-hand to their ends from a building in Lobnya, Moscow.

Researchers from the Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Manchester in England, have been looking at data from 1960 to 2008. Although Scotland had the lower rate until 1968, England and Wales has had the lower rate since. Both areas had increasing rates until the southern side started to fall in the ’90s, and in recent years the gap has significantly increased.

Data was sorted by age, gender, and method; marked increases were seen among Scotsmen aged from 25 to 54 with hanging increasing in popularity. The female rate has remained largely static.

“This study adds to our understanding about patterns of suicide in Great Britain by producing sound evidence on divergences in long-term trends in Scotland compared to England and Wales,” said Professor Stephen Platt, a lead researcher from Edinburgh University’s Centre for Population Health Sciences. “In a future companion paper we will suggest explanations for the persisting higher rate of suicide in Scotland.”

Fellow joint lead researcher Roger Webb of the Centre for Suicide Prevention of Manchester University said the high Scottish hanging rate was “of particular concern as hanging has high case-fatality and is difficult to prevent, except within institutional settings.” He noted “a public information campaign about hanging” could be one way of reducing the rate. Paid for by the Scottish taxpayer, the results appeared in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

In an incident with parallels to the recent Moscow deaths, in 2009 Scottish and British media publicised a high-profile case in which two teenagers leap together from the Erskine Bridge, a famed suicide spot over the River Clyde where an estimated fifteen people kill themselves each year.

This week also saw Howard Bath, Children’s Commissioner for Australia’s Northern Territory, suggest the area had the highest proportion of Aborignal girl suicides in the West. There has been a significant increase since an emergency intervention five years ago in response to a report titled Little Children are Sacred which documented widespread sexual abuse of Northern Territory children and failures by authorities to adequately respond.

A national government-backed Northern Territory suicide inquiry is ongoing and due to report next month. The inquiry has heard clusters of deaths occurred around East and West Arnhem, Katherine, and the vicinity of Alice Springs. The Tiwi Islands had a very high rate from 2000 to 2005, but has now not had a suicide for a year.

Female suicide rates have greatly increased to account for 40% of Northern Territory suicides amongst those aged less than eighteen. “We now have a situation in the territory where there are almost as many female as male suicides,” said Bath. Lack of information is a problem; the all-party inquiry has heard evidence of much under-reporting and poor data collection. The Menzies School of Health’s Gary Robinson called for a Queensland-style register of suicides.

Robinson suggests cannabis-induced psychosis to be a contributing factor but laments “The big problem is nobody keeps any data. Everything is based on impressions.” He also suggested bullying, as in Russia, is a problem while Bath notes violence against women may also take a role. “Aboriginal women are being hospitalised for assault at 80 times the rate of other women… Exposure to violence greatly increases the risk of a person taking their life.” He also notes “I am concerned, as the commissioner, about children who are frequently exposed to violence in the home or in the immediate family.”

As with Scotland, hanging is a popular choice. “The method chosen is usually hanging and it is a particularly lethal method, far more than an overdose,” said Bath. New South Wales, with the nation’s largest indigenous population, has a suicide rate of one per 100,000 but the Northern Territory rate is over 30 per 100,000.

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Monday, March 16, 2015

Music documentary The Wrecking Crew received its commercial première Friday, screening in cinemas in Los Angeles and New York via Magnolia Pictures.

Two decades in the making, Denny Tedesco’s documentary observes and honours a group of session musicians collectively known as “The Wrecking Crew”. Tedesco explained he was moved to begin the documentary when he learned his father, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, had cancer in 1996. “When they said he had a year to live — and I always wanted to do this story about The Wrecking Crew — my concern was, if I don’t do it, it’s going to be the biggest regret of my life”.

Tedesco commented on his anticipation of audiences’ reaction at Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles, “People say, ‘aren’t you tired of watching it?’ I say, ‘I don’t watch it, I watch the crowd’.”

The documentary showcases interviews with the late Tommy Tedesco, guitarist Glen Campbell, drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, bassist Carol Kaye, and others, amongst the roughly 30 musicians that formed The Wrecking Crew’s loose roster. Cher, Nancy Sinatra, and Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys are also seen talking about the session artists.

The movie includes home footage of Tommy Tedesco, and photographs of The Wrecking Crew working in studios with artists Frank and Nancy Sinatra.

Originally completed in 2008, and screened at several festivals, the commercial release was delayed until recently as Tedesco needed to raise money to cover licensing costs of the one hundred and ten songs included in the film.

Tedesco explained: “We had a $750,000 bill before we could even release this film theatrically, so no-one was touching us. We still had this thing around our neck. Documentaries don’t sell, and music docs are the worst.” Tedesco described reaching out to sponsors to pay off publishers and labels to get the film into cinemas. “Every time I got money from a donation, I’d pay off a label or publisher.”

A Kickstarter campaign raised $300,000, which paid for licensing and session artists. Billboard reports the money was able to go towards the creation of outtakes for a future DVD. Tedesco said he wanted to keep outtakes of the interviews he conducted that didn’t make it into the movie. “I want to do outtakes of every musician, a lot of whom aren’t in the movie[…] Who are they? What did they do? I want to give everyone their say.”

The Wrecking Crew worked behind the scenes throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s with well-know bands and artists on memorable tracks such as Sonny and Cher, “I got you Babe”; Beach Boys, “California Girls”; Elvis Presley’s, “A Little Less Conversation”; and The Ronettes, “Be my Baby”.

Aside from the interviews, the documentary also includes footage of The Wrecking Crew, filmed by Hal Blaine. He dubbed himself a director as he joked around with the other musicians. “I had a camera, and I took it to work and I became a director of sorts. And I’d tell people like Tommy, ‘Hey, Tommy, do me a favour. I’m going to take a film of you. Just come walking into the studio, and all of a sudden pretend you’ve walked into a great big orgy going on here. There’s all these naked women and guys.’ And we’re laughing about it. I did that with Glenn Campbell, all the guys”, Blaine said.

Friday, October 8, 2010

A bomb exploded early on Tuesday morning in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, injuring two police officers. Investigations into the identity of the bombers and their motive are continuing. The Real Irish Republican Army a paramilitary group that aims to bring about a united Ireland, has claimed responsibility.

The explosion on Culmore Road caused serious damage to nearby buildings, including Da Vinci’s hotel and a branch of the Ulster Bank. A telephone warning was given an hour beforehand and the area, including the hotel, was cleared. The officers, standing near the edge of the exclusion zone, suffered injuries to their necks and ears when they were blown over by the blast.

Chief Superintendent Stephen Martin from the Police Service of Northern Ireland asked for anyone who had seen the Vauxhall Corsa car in which the bomb was hidden before the explosion to come forward. Although the bomb, thought to be over 200lb, was left near the bank, Mr Martin did not think it was the intended target and said that the bomb may have been left because of the presence of police in the area.

The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, called the bombers “Neanderthals” and “conflict junkies”, and added that they were “failing miserably” to destroy the peace process in Northern Ireland. He is attending the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham; the Daily Mail reports he refused to comment on if the attack was to coincide with his absence. The city’s mayor, Colm Eastwood, who was at the scene, said he was “disgusted”, adding “I do not know what these people are hoping to achieve. They say they love their country but they spend time trying to destroy it.”

Saturday, August 6, 2005

The Finnish police isolated the ports of Katajanokka and Länsisatama on Saturday. The ports were isolated at around 9.30 p.m. local time and the isolation was called off at around 11.30 p.m.

Finnish police received reports from Estonia that a shipping container loaded with explosives could be coming from Estonia Saturday evening. They checked every truck that passed the ports with the assistance of the Border Guard Service. There are still two ships due to arrive in Helsinki tonight, but they were already checked in Tallinn.