Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • Facebook Secures News Feed Patent

    Facebook managed to secure a patent for its ‘news feed’ in the US earlier this week. The patent covers the way activities and updates are ranked and displayed in the news feed. It isn’t exactly clear what the patent focuses on or what Facebook plans to do with it. It’s clear, though, that Facebook wields a lot of power, now that it has been granted the patent a… (read more)

  • No, You Don’t Have To File Patent Lawsuits

    A bunch of folks have been sending in the news of Xerox’s patent lawsuit against Google and Yahoo over search technology, and I’d debated posting it at all. It’s the same old story. A company widely considered a has-been goes searching through its patents, on technology it did nothing at all with, and sues other companies who had the same idea and actually went forward and implemented it successfully. Yet another case of “those who can’t innovate, litigate.”

    But what caught my attention was Xerox’s given reason for pursuing the lawsuit:


    “We believe we have no option but to file suit to properly protect our intellectual property.”

    Sorry, but that’s no reason to file a lawsuit. It’s a common cliche in patent lawsuits, but it’s totally bogus. Of course you have other options. There is no rule that you have to file a lawsuit to “protect” the patent. There is no “protecting” that needs to be done. This is just a blatant attempt to squeeze money out of companies who actually implemented a product where Xerox failed. That’s not protecting, it’s shaking down.

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  • Focus Fusion Advances


    This brings us up to date on the development of the focus fusion technology and progress is been made.  They are learning to manage the spin of the plasma sheath which must be a good thing.  That is the one variable that looks able to create problems.  Here it is been controlled during its passage into the plasmoid stage.
    Recall that what is been fused here is one proton to a bismuth atom.  When that happens the bismuth isotope so formed immediately fissions into three helium atoms carrying off a huge amount of energy that is then stripped out using electromagnetic means.  Astonishingly, no radiation is produced.  The nature of the process was a much lower energy threshold for ignition also. 
    The success of this test is so beneficial to humanity, that all should cheer its quick success.
    Besides producing all the electrical power we will ever need, it will also power space craft using ion engines and magnetic exclusion craft in particular.
    Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Fusion Experiments Getting Ten Times More Neutrons
    FEBRUARY 23, 2010
    Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) has obtained the first preliminary evidence that the injection of angular momentum into the DPF considerably increases the efficiency of energy transfer into the plasmoid, the size of the plasmoid and thus the fusion energy yield. 
    On Feb. 19 and 22, the team fired Focus-Fusion-1 at 24 kV with a pressure of 8 torr of deuterium in the vacuum chamber. In some shots, they connected the angular momentum coil (AMC) to the power supply, so current could flow through it. In other shots, they left the coil circuit open, so no current could flow. The shots with the AMC connected have a neutron yield 8-10 times that of those with the AMC disconnected, so this is a large and very promising effect. 

    What they believe is happening is that the current in the coil is producing a small magnetic field along the axis of the device. The interaction of the currents with this field induces angular momentum—spin—in the plasma sheath. This in turn diverts the current in the sheath in the same direction as the current in the coils, amplifying the field. The angular momentum, conveyed ultimately to the tiny plasmoid, creates a centrifugal force that balances the compressive magnetic forces. The bigger the centrifugal force, the bigger the magnetic field that can be balanced and the bigger the plasmoid. However, if the centrifugal force is too big, it will prevent the plasmoid from forming at all. Thus only small fields are effective.

    The Angular Momentum test was one of Eight Objectives of the Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Focus Fusion Experiments



    Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) a small research and development company part way through a two-year-long experimental project to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion, controlled nuclear fusion using the dense plasma focus (DPF) device and hydrogen-boron fuel. Hydrogen-boron fuel produces almost no neutrons and allows the direct conversion of energy into electricity. Success would mean thousands of times more total energy would be available and the energy would be cleaner and cheaper. LPP believes that with success they can lower the cost of energy up to 50 times.

    * Test theory of axial magnetic field

    The third goal is to test the theory that adding a small axial magnetic field, and thus a small amount of angular momentum, to the plasma will greatly increase the size of the plasmoids and thus the efficiency of energy transfer into the plasmoid.


    Good progress is being made to another goal (1 megaAmp at 25 kilovolts), with 0.85 megaAmps at 30 kilovolts with only some of the switches firing. All 12 switches being fired should result in the excess of megaAmp at 25 kilovolts


  • Nitrogen Soil Damage

    This is important in that it clearly explains why our present fertilizer protocol is unable to sustain performance.  The nitrogen acts to speed consumption of the soils organic content.
    The solution is to increase the soil content of elemental carbon.  This makes the move to that protocol all the more pressing.
    I have already posted at length on biochar and it contribution to soil health.  The Amazonian Indians ran two millennia of field tests in soils that could hold no water soluble nutrients.  The carbon grabbed the nutrients until the living root arrived and extracted them
    We now need to do exactly this on the soils of industrial farms.  Nitrogen held by the carbon may not be as easily available to microbes destroying organic material, or if they are, their products will not escape as easily into groundwater.  This has been clearly shown by all the work done to date.
    I presently think that a carbon content as low as one percent over normal soil thickness will facilitate a large part of soil restoration.  There is good reason to think that the process is well optimized at a content level between five and fifteen percent.  Also recall the experiments done in a one hundred percent matrix and some nutrients that were very successful.
    Yet the stover from a single corn crop is visibly beneficial.  Assume ten tons plus per acre in dry stover converting to two tons of powdered carbon per acre.  Allow a full year’s growth to fully integrate the carbon in the soil for optimum benefit.  Notice that thereafter the benefit does not decline at all.
    As I have posted before, the advent of biochar is the greatest revolution in agriculture since the development of commercial fertilizer.  It will end fertilizer wastage and also hugely improve the organic content of soils by stimulating superior root growth, or at least that is what we have been observing.
    New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health
         
    23 FEB 2010 9:47 AM

    BY TOM PHILPOTT
    http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-23-new-research-synthetic-nitrogen-destroys-soil-carbon-undermines-
     
    Just precisely what does all of that nitrogen ferilizer do to the soil?
    “Fertilizer is good for the father and bad for the sons.”

    —Dutch saying
    For all of its ecological baggage, synthetic nitrogen does one good deed for the environment: it helps build carbon in soil. At least, that’s what scientists have assumed for decades.
    If that were true, it would count as a major environmental benefit of synthetic N use. At a time of climate chaos and ever-growing global greenhouse gas emissions, anything that helps vast swaths of farmland sponge up carbon would be a stabilizing force. Moreover, carbon-rich soils store nutrients and have the potential to remain fertile over time—a boon for future generations.
    The case for synthetic N as a climate stabilizer goes like this. Dousing farm fields with synthetic nitrogen makes plants grow bigger and faster. As plants grow, they pull carbon dioxide from the air. Some of the plant is harvested as crop, but the rest—the residue—stays in the field and ultimately becomes soil. In this way, some of the carbon gobbled up by those N-enhanced plants stays in the ground and out of the atmosphere.
    Well, that logic has come under fierce challenge from a team of University of Illinois researchers led by professors Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth. In two recent papers (see here and here) the trio argues that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content. Why? Because, they posit, nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which feast on organic matter. Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of more crop residues.
    And their analysis gets more alarming. Synthetic nitrogen use, they argue, creates a kind of treadmill effect. As organic matter dissipates, soil’s ability to store organic nitrogen declines. A large amount of nitrogen then leeches away, fouling ground water in the form of nitrates, and entering the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas with some 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide. In turn, with its ability to store organic nitrogen compromised, only one thing can help heavily fertilized farmland keep cranking out monster yields: more additions of synthetic N.
    The loss of organic matter has other ill effects, the researchers say. Injured soil becomes prone to compaction, which makes it vulnerable to runoff and erosion and limits the growth of stabilizing plant roots. Worse yet, soil has a harder time holding water, making it ever more reliant on irrigation. As water becomes scarcer, this consequence of widespread synthetic N use will become more and more challenging.
    In short, “the soil is bleeding,” Mulvaney told me in an interview.
    If the Illinois team is correct, synthetic nitrogen’s effect on carbon sequestration swings from being an important ecological advantage to perhaps its gravest liability. Not only would nitrogen fertilizer be contributing to climate change in a way not previously taken into account, but it would also be undermining the long-term productivity of the soil.
    An Old Idea Germinates Anew

    While their research bucks decades of received wisdom, the Illinois researchers know they aren’t breaking new ground here. “The fact is, the message we’re delivering in our papers really is a rediscovery of a message that appeared in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” Mulvaney says. In their latest paper, “Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production,” which appeared last year in the Journal of Environmental Quality, the researchers point to two pre-war academic papers that, according to Mulvaney, “state clearly and simply that synthetic nitrogen fertilizers were promoting the loss of soil carbon and organic nitrogen.”
    That idea also appears prominently in The Soil and Health (1947), a founding text of modern organic agriculture. In that book, the British agronomist Sir Albert Howard stated the case clearly:
    The use of artificial manure, particularly [synthetic nitrogen] … does untold harm. The presence of additional combined nitrogen in an easily assimilable form stimulates the growth of fungi and other organisms which, in the search for organic matter needed for energy and for building up microbial tissue, use up first the reserve of soil hummus and then the more resistant organic matter which cements soil particles.
    In other words, synthetic nitrogen degrades soil.
    That conclusion has been current in organic-farming circles since Sir Albert’s time. In an essay in the important 2002 anthology Fatal Harvest Reader, the California organic farmer Jason McKenney puts it like this:
    Fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodiversity by diminishing the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and amplifying the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then speed up the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes. With less pore space and less of their sponge-like qualities, soils are less efficient at storing water and air. More irrigation is needed. Water leeches through soils, draining away nutrients that no longer have an effective substrate on which to cling. With less available oxygen the growth of soil microbiology slows, and the intricate ecosystem of biological exchanges breaks down.
    Although those ideas flourished in organic-ag circles, they withered to dust among soil scientists at the big research universities. Mulvaney told me that in his academic training—he holds a PhD in soil fertility and chemistry from the University of Illinois, where he is now a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences—he was never exposed to the idea that synthetic nitrogen degrades soil. “It was completely overlooked,” he says. “I had never heard of it, personally, until we dug into the literature.”
    What sets the Illinois scientists apart from other critics of synthetic nitrogen is their provenance. Sir Albert’s denouncement sits in a dusty old tome that’s pretty obscure even within the organic-agriculture world; Jason McKenney is an organic farmer who operates near Berkeley—considered la-la land by mainstream soil scientists. Both can be—and, indeed have been—ignored by policymakers and large-scale farmers. By contrast, Mulvaney and his colleagues are living, credentialed scientists working at the premier research university in one of the nation’s most prodigious corn-producing—and nitrogen-consuming—states.
    The Dirt on Nitrogen, Soil, and Carbon 
    To come to their conclusions, the researchers studied data from the Morrow plots on the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus, which comprise the “the world’s oldest experimental site under continuous corn” cultivation. The Morrow plots were first planted in 1876.
    Mulvaney and his collaborators analyzed annual soil-test data in test plots that were planted with three crop rotations: continuous corn, corn-soy, and corn-oats-hay. Some of the plots received moderate amounts of fertilizer application; some received high amounts; and some received no fertilizer at all. The crops in question, particularly corn, generate tremendous amounts of residue. Picture a Midwestern field in high summer, packed with towering corn plants. Only the cobs are harvested; the rest of the plant is left in the field. If synthetic nitrogen use really does promote carbon sequestration, you’d expect these fields to show clear gains in soil organic carbon over time.
    Instead, the researchers found, all three systems showed a “net decline occurred in soil [carbon] despite increasingly massive residue [carbon] incorporation.” (They published their findings, “The Myth of Nitrogen Fertilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration,” in the Journal of Environmental Quality in 2007.) In other words, synthetic nitrogen broke down organic matter faster than plant residue could create it.
    A particularly stark set of graphs traces soil organic carbon (SOC) in the surface layer of soil in the Morrow plots from 1904 to 2005. SOC rises steadily over the first several decades, when the fields were fertilized with livestock manure. After 1967, when synthetic nitrogen became the fertilizer of choice, SOC steadily drops.
    In their other major paper, “Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production” (2009), the authors looked at nitrogen retention in the soil. Given that the test plots received annual lashings of synthetic nitrogen, conventional ag science would predict a buildup of nitrogen. Sure, some nitrogen would be removed with the harvesting of crops, and some would be lost to runoff. But healthy, fertile soil should be capable of storing nitrogen.
    In fact, the researchers found just the opposite. “Instead of accumulating,” they wrote, “soil nitrogen declined significantly in every subplot sampled.” The only explanation, they conclude, is that the loss of organic matter depleted the soil’s ability to store nitrogen. The practice of year-after-year fertilization had pushed the Morrow plots onto the chemical treadmill: unable to efficiently store nitrogen, they became reliant on the next fix.
    The researchers found similar data from other test plots. “Such evidence is common in the scientific literature but has seldom been acknowledged, perhaps because N fertilizer practices have been predicated largely on short-term economic gain rather than long-term sustainability,” they write, citing some two dozen other studies which mirrored the patterns of the Morrow plots.
    The most recent bit of evidence for the Mulvaney team’s nitrogen thesis comes from a team of researchers at Iowa State University and the USDA. In a 2009 paper (PDF), this group looked at data from two long-term experimental sites in Iowa. And they, too, found that soil carbon had declined after decades of synthetic nitrogen applications. They write: “Increases in decay rates with N fertilization apparently offset gains in carbon inputs to the soil in such a way that soil C sequestration was virtually nil in 78% of the systems studied, despite up to 48 years of N additions.”

    Mulvaney and Khan laughed when I asked them what sort of response their work was getting in the soil-science world. “You can bet the fertilizer industry is aware of our work, and they aren’t too pleased,” Mulvaney said. “It’s all about sales, and our conclusions aren’t real good for sales.”
    As for the soil-science community, Mulvaney said with a chuckle, “the response is still building.” There has been negative word-of-mouth reaction, he added, but so far, only two responses have been published: a remarkable fact, given that the first paper came out in 2007.
    Both published responses fall into the those-data-don’t-say-what-you-say-they category. The first, published as a letter to the editor (PDF) in the Journal of Environmental Quality, came from D. Keith Reid, a soil fertility specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Reid writes that the Mulvaney team’s conclusion about synthetic nitrogen and soil carbon is “sensational” and “would be incredibly important if it was true.”
    Reid acknowledges the drop in soil organic carbon, but argues that it was caused not by synthetic nitrogen itself, but rather by the difference in composition between manure and synthetic nitrogen. Manure is a mix of slow-release organic nitrogen and organic matter; synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is pure, readily available nitrogen. “It is much more likely that the decline in SOC is due to the change in the form of fertilizer than to the rate of fertilizer applied,” Reid writes.
    Then he makes a startling concession:
    From the evidence presented in this paper, it would be fair to conclude that modern annual crop management systems are associated with declines in SOC concentrations and that increased residue inputs from high nitrogen applications do not mitigate this decline as much as we might hope. In other words, modern farming—i.e., the kind practiced on nearly all farmland in the United States—destroys soil carbon. (The Mulvaney team’s response to Reid’s critique can be found in the above-linked document.)
    The second second critique (PDF) came from a team led by D.S. Powlson at the Department of Soil Science and Centre for Soils and Ecosystem Function at the Rothamsted Research Station in the United Kingdom. Powlson and colleagues attack the Mulvaney team’s contention that synthetic nitrogen depletes the soil’s ability to store nitrogen.
    “We propose that the conclusion drawn by Mulvaney et al. (2009), that inorganic N fertilizer causes a decline in soil organic N concentration, is false and not supported by the data from the Morrow Plots or from numerous studies worldwide,” they write.
    Then they, too, make a major concession: “the observation of significant soil C and N declines in subsoil layers is interesting and deserves further consideration.” That is, they don’t challenge Mulvaney team’s contention that synthetic nitrogen destroys organic carbon in the subsoil.
    In their response (PDF), Mulvaney and his colleagues mount a vigorous defense of their methodology. And then they conclude:
    In the modern era of intensified agriculture, soils are generally managed as a commodity to maximize short-term economic gain. Unfortunately, this concept entirely ignores the consequences for a vast array of biotic and abiotic soil processes that aff ect air and water quality and most important, the soil itself.
    So who’s right? For now, we know that the Illinois team has presented a robust cache of evidence that turns 50 years of conventional soil science on its head—and an analysis that conventional soil scientists acknowledge is “sensational” and “incredibly important” if true. We also know that their analysis is consistent with the founding principles of organic agriculture: that properly applied manure and nitrogen-fixing cover crops, not synthetic nitrogen, are key to long-term soil health and fertility.
    The subject demands more study and fierce debate. But if Mulvaney and his team are correct, the future health of our farmland hinges on a dramatic shift away from reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
    Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

  • Healthcare Reform: a Century of War Against the Will of the People.

    02.25.10 01:04 PM posted by RedDogReport

    Healthcare Reform: a Century of War Against the Will of the*People.

    2010 February 24
    by Brian O’Connor

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    In the fall of 1912 Teddy Roosevelt, the Progressive Party candidate for President, ran on a platform that included government run, “national health insurance”.

    “The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice,” the platform said. “We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for … the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.”

    He was defeated.

    Fast forward nearly 100 years and the “leaders” in Washington continue with their futile attempts to force socialized medicine down the throat of an unwilling American public.* You would think that a century filled with failed attempt after failed attempt would signal the Statists to rethink their position, but much like wayward fly banging his head against a clear windowpane, their fruitless efforts persist. read more &raquo;

    http://www.conservativeoutpost.com/h…st_will_people

  • New Battlefield: Bad Company 2 trailer

    A new video’s been released for EA DICE’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2, with only a week to go before its release. Interesting in this video are the quotes highlighting its own strenghts against

  • Hobbit Rewrites Human Prehistory


    It looks like the hobbit has kicked over the edifice of ancient human linage which is just as well.  I really get annoyed with the creation of theoretical castles in the air based on a couple of data points and effectively arguments that lack of other evidence is in fact evidence of lack.  A data point allows conjecture only.
    In my manuscript, I argue for global distribution of the human linage in the tropical old world as early as plausible.  The hobbit shows us that such took place millions of years before and that this happened in the tropical environments.  I argued as much in my manuscript.
    I also argued that the best place for modern humanity to have evolved in the first instance was the Indonesian archipelago.  Once modern man so evolved around 100.000 years ago or more, it was no big trick to penetrate all other ecological niches.  Critical to his evolution was the richness of the intertidal zone on the millions of miles of coastline.  This supported enlarged social structures that became villages with large brained humanity.  It also supported the breeding of aquatically adapted humanity at the same time.
    My only restraint was an outright lack of early human migration from Africa in the limited fossil record.  The advent of the hobbit ends that need.  In fact there is now no need whatsoever to restrict human evolution to Africa. (It is not the best place for it anyway)
    Also recall that the Ice Age limited activity to the tropics mostly and the sea level was a hundred meters lower.  For other reasons the crust itself was thirty degrees further south.  This all made the tropical life zone much larger in this region.
    How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race
    The discovery of the bones of tiny primitive people on an Indonesian island six years ago stunned scientists. Now, further research suggests that the little apemen, not Homo erectus, were the first to leave Africa and colonise other parts of the world, reports Robin McKie
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/21/hobbit-rewriting-history-human-race
    It remains one of the greatest human fossil discoveries of all time. The bones of a race of tiny primitive people, who used stone tools to hunt pony-sized elephants and battle huge Komodo dragons, were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004.
    The team of Australian researchers had been working in a vast limestone cavern, called Liang Bua, in one of the island’s remotest areas, when one scientist ran his trowel against a piece of bone. Carefully the group began scraping away the brown clay in which pieces of a tiny skull, and a little lower jaw, were embedded.
    This was not any old skull, they quickly realised. Although small, it had special characteristics. In particular, it had adult teeth. “This was no child, but a tiny adult; in fact, one of the smallest adult hominids ever found in the fossil record,” says Mike Morwood, of Australia’s University of Wollongong and a leader of the original Flores expedition team.
    The pieces of bone were carefully wrapped in newspaper, packed in cardboard boxes and then cradled on the laps of scientists on their journey, by ferry and plane, back to Jakarta. Then the pieces of skull, as well as bones from other skeletons found in Liang Bua, were put together.
    The end result caused consternation. These remains came from a species that turned out to be only three feet tall and had the brain the size of an orange. Yet it used quite sophisticated stone tools. And that was a real puzzle. How on earth could such individuals have made complex implements and survived for aeons on this remote part of the Malay archipelago?
    Some simply dismissed the bones as the remains of deformed modern humans with diseases that had caused them to shrink: to them, they were just pathological oddities, it was alleged. Most researchers disagreed, however. The hobbits were the descendants of a race of far larger, ancient humans who had thrived around a million years ago. These people, known as Homo erectus, had become stranded on the island and then had shrunk in an evolutionary response to the island’s limited resources.
    That is odd enough. However, new evidence suggests the little folk of Flores may be even stranger in origin. According to a growing number of scientists, Homo floresiensis is probably a direct descendant of some of the first apemen to evolve on the African savannah three million years ago. These primitive hominids somehow travelled half a world from their probable birthplace in the Rift Valley to make their homes among the orangutans, giant turtles and rare birds of Indonesia before eventually reaching Flores.
    It sounds improbable but the basic physical similarity between the two species is striking. Consider Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old member ofAustralopithecus afarensis. She had a very small brain, primitive wrists, feet and teeth and was only one metre tall, but was still declared “the grandmother of humanity” after her discovery in Ethiopia in 1974. Crucially, analysis of Lucy’s skeleton shows it has great similarities with the bones of H. floresiensis, although her species died out millions of years ago while the hobbits hung on in Flores until about 17,000 years ago. This latter figure is staggeringly close in terms of recent humanevolution and indicates that long after the Neanderthals, our closest evolutionary relatives, had disappeared from the face of the Earth around 35,000 years ago, these tiny, distant relatives of Homo sapienswere still living on remote Flores.
    The crucial point about this interpretation is that it explains why the Flores people had such minuscule proportions. They didn’t shrink but were small from the start – because they came from a very ancient lineage of little apemen. They acquired no diseased deformities, nor did they evolve a smaller stature over time. They were, in essence, an anthropological relic and Flores was an evolutionary time capsule. In research that provides further support for this idea, scientists have recently dated some stone tools on Flores as being around 1.1 million years old, far older than had been previously supposed.
    The possibility that a very primitive member of the genus Homo left Africa, roughly two million years ago, and that a descendant population persisted until only several thousand years ago, is one of the more provocative hypotheses to have emerged in anthropology during the past few years,” David Strait of the University of Albany told Scientific American recently. This view is backed by Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London. “We are still grappling with what this discovery has done for our thinking and our conventional scenarios.”
    In addition, Mike Morwood says he has now uncovered stone tools on nearby Sulawesi. These could be almost two million years old, he believes, which suggests the whole region was populated by very ancient humans for a startlingly long part of human prehistory. “This is going to put the cat among the pigeons,” Morwood says.
    However, it is the hobbits’ similarity to ancient African apemen that provides the most compelling evidence for their ancient origins. In theJournal of Human Evolution, a team led by Debbie Argue of the Australian National University, recently reported that analysis of H. floresiensis shows they most closely resemble apelike human ancestors that first appeared around 2.3 million years ago in Africa. In other words, their stock may be not quite as old as Lucy’s but probably comes from a hominid, known as Homo habilis, that appeared on the evolutionary scene not long after Lucy’s species disappeared. Homo habilis‘s features now seem to match, most closely, those of H. floresiensis.
    Consider those hobbit feet, for example. The skeleton unearthed on Flores had a foot that was 20cm in length. This produces a ratio of 70 per cent when compared with the length of the hobbit’s thigh bone. By contrast, men and women today have foot-to-thigh bone ratios of 55 per cent. The little folk of Flores had singularly short legs and long, flapper feet, very similar to those of African apemen, even though limbs like these would have made their long march from Africa to Flores a painful business.
    Similarly, the hands of H. floresiensis were more like apes than those of evolved humans, their wrists possessing trapezoid bones that would have made the delicate art of stone tool-making very difficult. Their teeth show primitive traits while their brains were little bigger than those of chimpanzees, though CT scans of skull interiors suggest they may have had cognitive skills not possessed by apes.
    Nevertheless, this little apeman, with poor physique, a chimp-sized brain and only a limited ability to make tools, now appears to have left Africa, travelled thousands of miles and somehow colonised part, if not all, of south-east Asia two million years ago.
    Scientists had previously assumed only a far more advanced human ancestor, such as Homo erectus, was capable of undertaking that task and only managed to do so about a million years ago when our predecessors had evolved powerful physiques, a good gait and the beginnings of intellect. Without these, we would have got nowhere, it was implied.
    Then along came little H. floresiensis which, quite simply, has “no business being there,” says Morwood. And you can see what he means. Apart from the sheer improbability of a jumped-up ape travelling from Africa to Indonesia, there is the particular puzzle of how it got to Flores.
    Primitive hominids were almost certainly incapable of sailing. So how did it arrive on the island in the first place? It is a puzzle, although Stringer believes the region’s intense tectonic activity is significant. “After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, people were found far out at sea clinging to rafts of vegetation. Things like that could have happened regularly in the past and people could have been swept out to sea and washed ashore on Flores. Alternatively, there could have been short-lived connections between now separate islands.”
    Thus, ancient African apemen travelled half the world, made homes across Indonesia and, in one case, were washed out to sea to end up colonising a remote island that was already populated with pygmy elephants, called stegadons, and giant Komodo dragons, which are still found on the island. It is a truly fantastic tale, worthy of Rider Haggard, and it has turned the study of human evolution on its head.
    And then there is the report that dates the stone tools found on Flores as being 1.1 million years old. “That is utterly remarkable on its own,” adds Morwood. “Until we found these dates, the longest period of island isolation that we knew about occurred on Tasmania where the aboriginal people were cut off from mainland Australia 11,000 years ago. We thought that was an amazing length of time. But now we have found an island where early humans were cut off from the rest of evolution for more than a million years.” In addition, there are those completed digs carried out by Morwood which suggest that some type of human being was making stone implements up to two million years ago.
    A crucial aspect to this remarkable story is the region’s geography, Morwood believes. The ocean currents and the remoteness of Flores make the island difficult to get to, so once a species does get there, it will remain well protected on it, he argues. “Flores seems to protect species that are long past their use-by dates. There were those pygmy elephants, and the Komodo dragon, for example. And now we haveHomo floresiensis. It may be that only a few animals get there but when they do arrive they tend to survive for a long time, which has been science’s good fortune.”
    That is putting it mildly. Had not the original Australian team, led by Morwood, uncovered those hobbit remains in 2004, the story of humanity’s African exodus would have been considered a fairly simple affair.
    According to this version of events, Homo erectus evolved from apemen predecessors, such as Australopithecus africanus, in Africa and then headed off around the Old World more than a million years ago, armed with a great physique and a modest intellect. These allowed it to settle across Africa, Asia and Europe. This diaspora was then followed by a second wave of humans – our own species, Homo sapiens – which emerged from Africa 100,000 years ago and took over the planet, replacing all pockets of its predecessors it encountered.
    Now a far more complex picture is emerging. Ancient apemen, who might have been thought to lack the nous for global conquest, appear to have done the trick almost a million years earlier. One of the major tenets of human evolution, the story of our world conquest, is now urgently in need of revision.
    As to the fate of H. floresiensis, that is unclear. The species disappears abruptly from the archaeological record 17,000 years ago. But why? They had apparently survived quite happily on the island for more than a million years. So what did for them in the end?
    There are two competing answers. The first suggests that the species, after all the good fortune that had helped it endure the vicissitudes of life in the Malay Archipelago, ran out of luck. “There is a thick layer of ash in the Liang Bua cave above the most recent hobbit remains,” says Stringer. “We now know this was caused by a major volcanic eruption which occurred about 17,000 years ago. So it may be that they were just unlucky with the local geology.” According to this vision, the little folk of Flores were wiped out by choking plumes of volcanic ash or died of starvation on an island denuded of vegetation.
    It would have been a pretty terrible way to go. Yet neither Stringer nor Morwood is convinced that was what happened, despite the tight link between dates of eruptions on the island and the disappearance of the species from the fossil record. Instead, they suspect a very different agent: the bloody hand of modern humans. “Look at our track record,” says Morwood. When Homo sapiens entered Europe 40,000 years ago, on its route out of Africa, they would have encountered the continent’s original inhabitants, the Neanderthals. Within a few millenniums, the Neanderthals had been rendered extinct.
    Stringer agrees. Homo sapiens left Africa about 100,000 years ago and by the time hobbits became extinct on Flores, modern humans were all over south-east Asia. “I cannot see Homo floresiensis keeping modern humans off the island. There must have been encounters between them and us. It is wonderful to speculate what might have happened when they met up, but I suspect that those moderns used up the resources that the hobbit needed to survive.”
    Robin McKie is the science editor of the Observer

  • Luciano: Mother and son forever changed by accident

    With a playful noogie, Tracie Lenning saved her son’s life.

    Every night, she and 6-year-old Keane would take their beloved pooch, Gremlin, for a walk. Of the trio, Keane was closest to the road on the evening of July 24. Better safe than sorry, Lenning switched places with the boy, maneuvering him farthest from the road.

    “I put my arm around him and gave him a noogie,” says a smiling Lenning, 25.

    What: Benefit to help cover medical bills for a Chillicothe mother of three who was run over last summer by an allegedly drunken driver.

    When: 4 p.m. March 20

    Where: Carrigan’s Pub, 5506 N Main St., East Peoria.

    Cost: $6 donation at door. Event also includes raffles and a silent auction, plus prizes and karaoke.

    A heartbeat later: BANG! A car driven by an allegedly drunken driver bashed Lenning from behind, hurtling her forward – onto the unforgiving earth and into an uncertain future.

    Seven months later, Lenning remains unsure of her next step – literally. She continues to rehab her crumpled body, all the while trying to maintain a household of her partner and three young kids.

    She isn’t sure if she’ll ever regain full use of her limbs, or how she’ll pay $600,000 in medical bills. But she knows one thing: She is glad her motherly instinct kicked him that fateful night. She shudders at the notion as to what might’ve happened if he’d stayed alongside the road.

    “He would have died,” Lenning says.

     

    * * *

     

    Lenning grew up in Henry County, but her family moved to Limestone Township when she was in high school. To have a baby (Keane, now 6), she dropped out, but later got her G.E.D.

    Lenning took a job with Stanley Steemer carpet cleaner. There, she had a boss named Richard Hammer II. They began to date and eventually they bought a house (in his name) in Chillicothe. Unmarried, they have two children together: Kylie, 9 months; and Kadence, 23 months.

    By last summer, Lenning had quit her job to attend Illinois Central College. She aimed to get a degree in child development, so she could work with autistic children.

    Meanwhile, every summer night, Lenning and Keane would take a walk.

    “That was like the mommy-son time. It was our time.”

    Usually, they’d be joined by their pit bull, Gremlin. At bedtime, the pet often would curl up with Keane.

    “She was a pit bull, but she was not mean,” Lenning says. “They were best friends.”

    On July 24, the threesome went for a walk. About 8:30 p.m., they ambled along the grass adjacent to the 1300 block of North Santa Fe Avenue. Keane, wearing a bright-yellow Sponge Bob shirt, was closest to the pavement, a pace or two away. The white dog was next to him; on the other side of the pet was Lenning, clad in a white top.

    The area is rife with children playing all the time, even at that hour, and mishaps are rare. Still, Lenning decided to take the precaution of trading spots with Keane, leaving her closest to the roadway.

    Just after the repositioning, she felt a sudden, horrible blast. A ’90s Pontiac Grand Am – allegedly moving 51 to 55 mph in the 30-mph zone – clipped her legs from behind. The impact shot Lenning out of her shoes.

    The car’s hood briefly scooped up her body, with her head smashing the windshield. She then flew forward onto to the hard turf.

    “The next thing I recall, I was in the ambulance,” Lenning says. ” … The damage to the car looked like it had hit a deer.”

    Later, Keane would say that his mother, realizing the approach of the car, pushed him to safety.

    “I don’t know if that was me, or the impact of the car pushing me,” Lenning says.

    The car hit Lenning with such force, a rear-view mirror broke loose. It flew sideways, clanging the boy in the head as he crashed to the ground. Still, he maintained consciousness, allowing him to see his mother’s injuries.

    Bones in all four of her limbs had broken, with those in both legs piercing through skin. Blood oozed from the wounds. Road rash ravaged her arms, from her skidding across the ground and broken glass.

    As mother and son lay there, the car sped off. Several witnesses dashed to the scene.

    “They said I was awake the whole time, but I don’t remember that,” Lenning says. “They said I complained I couldn’t breathe.”

    An ambulance soon arrived and put Lenning inside. Keane was moved inside, too. Paramedics, afraid he might’ve also been hit by the car, strapped him onto a body board.

    To comfort him, paramedics taped his hand to his unconscious mother’s hand. The tactic didn’t work, as Lenning learned as soon as she regained consciousness inside the ambulance.

    “He was just screaming,” she recalls.

    Meanwhile, she started to beg paramedics: “Don’t let me die. I have three kids.”

    The paramedics told her not to worry: No one would die that night.

    They were right. Except for Gremlin. The dog, too, had been bashed by the car. Unlike Lenning, Gremlin had no chance. As the ambulance sped off, the boy’s dog lay behind, lifeless.

     

    * * *

     

    In the hospital, Lenning soon underwent the first of six surgeries over the next several months. All four limbs sport a slathering of crimson scars – dots and slashes from skidding and scalpels. Rods and bolts support her legs and arms.

    “I have metal in every part of my body,” she says with a grim smile.

    After the first surgery, her mangled limbs were put in long casts.

    “I couldn’t move,” she says.

    After two weeks in intensive care, Lenning was moved to a nursing home to begin a long recovery. After three months, she went home in a wheelchair, just before Halloween.

    “I went trick-or-treating with my kids, in my wheelchair,” she says with a smile. “That was important.”

    She has been trying to adapt to post-wreck life. A ramp outside the home helps access. The interior, though, is not wheelchair-accessible, so the unsteady Lenning often bangs along the walls.

    Lenning can walk a bit, but not far. She is unsure how much mobility will return in time. If one of the kids knocks her over while playing, she struggles to get back up.

    She keeps a stash of prescription bottles – pain-killers and antidepressants – in a Spider-Man lunch box. The pills can stupefy her.

    “I try not to take them,” she says. “I go through the hurt, because I have three kids.”

    She especially worries about Keane. From the wreck, he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t want anyone to touch him, and he has become prone to lashing out.

    “He has nightmares all the time,” Lenning says.

    For months, her partner, Hammer, stayed home to care for the kids. However, he recently returned to work, as money has become very tight.

    Indeed, the couple has fallen behind in most every payment: house, car, you name it. Meanwhile, two big boxes have filled with piles of medial bills. One 28-page hospital bill alone is $228,910. All told, Lenning says, she owes more than $600,000.

    Unmarried, she had no health coverage through Hammer. She now has a state medical card, but she has problems about who will pick up what costs.

    In that she was hurt in a car wreck, her auto insurance provides $100,000 in medical coverage. But that money is tied up, as her medical providers and the state have put in claims.

    The driver of the car has nowhere near the coverage needed to pay for all of her medical claims. The couple isn’t sure what to do.

    That’s why friends and family are hosting a spaghetti dinner benefit, starting at 4 p.m. March 20 at Carrigan’s Pub, 5506 N Main St. East Peoria. The event, which asks for a $6 donation at the door, also includes raffles and a silent auction.

    By then, they might know the fate of one other person involved on the devastating night: the driver who sped away.

    A half-hour after the wreck, police arrested Michael Rennie, 55, of 2262 Knollaire Drive, Washington, at Rome Road and Old Galena Road. He has since been indicted on two counts of leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, two counts of aggravated DUI and one count of driving on a revoked license.

    Rennie faces up to seven years in prison. He did not return a call for comment.

    Lenning says quietly, “I just want him to pay for what he did to us.”

    What would be the appropriate punishment? Lenning pauses to think, then adds in an even softer voice, “I don’t want to say anything mean.”

     

    PHIL LUCIANO is a columnist with the Journal Star. He can be reached at [email protected], 686-3155 or (800) 225-5757, Ext. 3155. Luciano co-hosts “The Markley & Luciano Show,” 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays on 102.3 Max-FM.

     

    Read the original article from Journal Star.

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  • Itagaki vs. Tecmo case now settled

    After a long-drawn out battle, Tomonobu Itagaki has finally settled his case with his former employment Tecmo. While he did make this formal announcement, though, he did not reveal the nitty-gritties of the settlement.
     

  • The IPCC’s carcass by Will Alexander, S. African UN Scientist

    Article Tags: Headline Story, Will Alexander

    THE IPCC’S CARCASS

    Let me start by quoting from my last two emails

    4 February 2010 Email 04/10

    DISINTEGRATION OF THE IPCC

    ‘We are now witnessing the disintegration of the IPCC’. That is what I wrote in sixteen days ago.

    The bombardment continues with increased ferocity. The IPCC cannot possibly survive.

    Read the attached memo.

    Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) was the blood that circulated through the veins of climate change science and kept it alive. In the short space of four months it has been shown that the globe ceased warming in 1995. Climate change science is dead.

    The recent news was a great relief to those of us who have spent many hours of our lives searching in vain for the proclaimed consequences of climate change. We can now relax while watching the predators devouring the climate change carcass. See the attached and previous memos for details.

    Those with a more philosophical view should consider the possible consequences of this failure on international, political, economic and scientific relations in the years ahead.

    There are valid fears that the world is about to enter a cooling phase. The consequences will be far more severe on the welfare of the peoples of the world than the postulated rising temperatures.

    Going still deeper into the science, the possible occurrence of climatic disturbances of biblical proportions resulting from unexpected variations in solar activity within the next decade cannot be ignored. Evidence that variations in received solar energy are the principal drivers of multiyear hydro-climatic variations is overwhelming.

    Regards,

    Will

    Download PDF file to read latest report from Will Alexander

    Read in full with comments »

    File attachment: IPCC Carcass.pdf
      


  • HTC patents Palm Pre-like automatically adjusting appointment reminders

    adjustedappointmentsAs if Palm does not have enough trouble, HTC is now trying to poach their technology.  In this patent application they constantly calculate the travel time between your current position and where you need to be for the next appointment, and adjust your appointment reminders appropriately, so as to always remind you in enough time to allow travel to your next location.

    The abstract reads as below:

    A method and an apparatus for reminding a calendar schedule and a recording medium are provided. First, a schedule and a location of an event are set in a calendar, and first positioning information of the location is obtained. Then, second positioning information of a current location of a mobile device is obtained. Next, the current location is determining whether to be within a signal range of a signal source. Once the current location is within the signal range, the time for moving from the location with the second positioning information to the location with the first positioning information is calculated. Finally, a reminding time is set according to the transferring time, and a reminding action is taken at the reminding time. Thereby, the reminding time of the event can be dynamically adjusted to avoid delay caused when the mobile device is too far from the event location.

    This kind of smarts was to form part of Palm’s approach to smart mobile computing, but with their market failure will hopefully find a more wider home in more pockets.

    Read the full patent here.

  • Why Blaming China For Unfair Trade Falls On Deaf Ears

    This chart from China Daily, shows just how tiny China's trade surplus has become. It amounted to just $173 billion in the last twelve months, which sounds like a lot but is actually just 4% of the country's 4.33 trillion GDP. This could even get smaller if current trends continue.

    Chart

    This shows how from a Chinese perspective arguments about unfair trade seem ridiculous these days. Germany, for example had a trade surplus of about $184 billion (136.1 billion euros) in 2009, amounting to 5% of its $3.65 trillion GDP.

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

  • WEATHER: HOTTEST JANUARY EVER SAY CLIMATE EXPERTS by Donna Bowater, Daily Express

    Article Tags: 2010 Forecast, Front Page News, World Temperatures

    Image AttachmentCLIMATE scientists yesterday stunned Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the ­hottest January the world has ever seen.

    The remarkable claim, based on global satellite data, follows Arctic temperatures that brought snow, ice and travel chaos to millions in the UK.

    At the height of the big freeze, the entire country was blanketed in snow. But Australian weather expert Professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said yesterday: “January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we’ve ever seen.

    “Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen. November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen.” Veteran ­climatologist Professor Nicholls was speaking at an online climate change briefing, added: “It’s not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven’t warmed in the past 50 years.”

    His extraordinary claims came after the World Meteorological Organisation revealed 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850.

    But UK forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Positive Weather Solutions, said: “If it is the case and it is borne out that January was the hottest on record, it is still no marker towards climate change.

    “It’s all part of a cyclical issue and nothing should be read too deeply into that.

    “It’s been the coldest for 30 years in Britain but we predicted that and climate change always tends t o throw up anomalies. It’s all in line with predictions and I won’t be sold on climate change at all. The data is either faulty or manufactured to make it look like it shouldn’t.”

    See also A New Leaderboard at the U.S. Open by Steve McIntyre and 2010 to be a very warm year overall by Andrew Neil, BBC

    Click source for more

    Source: express.co.uk

    Read in full with comments »   


  • Halo Legends is Master Chief’s stepping stone on the PS3

    Who says Master Chief will never set foot on the PS3? That’s exactly what he did recently with the official release of the Halo Legends DVD collection on the PS3.

  • Schaumburg Seminoles 14U win Presidents Day tourney in Florida

    Congratulations to the Schaumburg Seminoles National 14U Team on winning the 2010 Presidents Day Tournament in Cocoa, Fla.

    The Seminoles went a perfect 6-0 over the Presidents Day weekend. Seminole star players Justin Durante and Ryan Suwanski were named Tournament Co-MVP’s.

    Durante lead the team with a .647 batting average (11 for 17) with 5 doubles and 12 RBI’s, while Suwanski had a .588 batting average (10 for 17) with three game winning hits. Alec Kozak, Tyler Nemec, River Pitlock, and Matt Prestemon were named to the All Tournament Team.

    The Seminoles pitching was outstanding lead by Frankie Farry who was the winning pitcher in the tournament opening game. Farry threw five shut out innings in the 2-0 victory against the Coastal Bad Boyz a top team out of Florida. Tyler Nemec, Ryan Suwanski, Brendan Ryan, River Pitlock and Jason Shaltiel also pitched great in their appearances on the mound.

    The Seminoles six wins were victories 2-0 over the Coastal Bad Boyz (Fla.) 6-3 over ECTB (Pa.) 5-4 over the Top Prospects (Fla.) 11-1 over Cardinal Roy from Canada. In the playoff round victories 10-9 over the Brevard Stars (Fla.) and a very impressive 18-4 championship game victory over the ECTB Stars (Pa.)

    In the championship the 18 run offensive output was lead by Durante (3 for 3) Suwanski (3 for 3) Kozak (3 for 4) and Eric Tucker’s 3 run double that proved to be the knock out punch.

    It was a fantastic weekend for the Seminoles National Program as both 14U and 17U teams captured the championships in both tournaments. Seminoles Head Coach Russ Gangler said, “This is another terrific accomplishment for our program. To win a big tournament in Florida, in February, is a credit to all our great players and coaches for all the hard work and dedication put in throughout the year to achieve our goals.”

    Congratulations to the entire team and coaching staff on bringing the championship home from Florida. Roster: Ben Browdy, Reece Conroyd, Justin Durante, Drew Dunker, Frankie Farry, Andrew Fisher, Sam Franco, Tony Giannini, Alec Kozak, Tyler Nemec, River Pitlock, Matt Prestemon, Brendan Ryan, Jason Shaltiel, Ryan Suwanski, Eric Tucker. Coaching Staff: Head coach Russ Gangler and assistant coaches Todd Zasadil and Skip Pitlock.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Palatine Park district honors volunteers during Feb. 6 luncheon

    On Saturday, Feb. 6, the Palatine Park District honored its volunteers at the 11th annual Volunteer of the Year Luncheon at Cotillion Banquets in Palatine. There were over 200 guests present.

    The following volunteers were recognized for years of service to their respective organizations:

    Four years of service : Sue Lech, Palatine Children’s Chorus; Kim Radochonski, Palatine Gymnastics Club; Tom Hauert, Palatine Opportunity Center; Travis LaSchiava, Palatine Panthers Wrestling Club; and Randy (Randa) Thrasher, Palatine Township Senior Citizens Council.

    Five years of service: Alan Bosslet, Palatine Baseball Association; Maria Cudney, PAFA Cheer & Flags; Gayle Huberty, Tiger Shark Swim Team; and Deb McClure, Palatine Amateur Football Association.

    Six years of service: Michelle Mabry, Palatine Baseball Association; and Pat Prichard, Prairie Woods Audubon Society.

    Seven years of service: Tom Budinger, Palatine Stables.

    Eight years of service: Dale Metzger, Palatine Youth Baseball/Softball; and Terry Ruff, Celtic Soccer Club.

    Nine years of service: Jim “Shooting Star” Koblas, Algonquin Longhouse, Inc. NFP.

    Ten years of service: Greg Brunks, Celtic Cup.

    20 years of service: Susannah Kist, Wood Street Theater Company.

    23 years of service: Lola Mugalian, Palatine Historical Society.

    27 years of service: Bob Mathieson, Palatine Hills Golf Association.

    In addition, two past Volunteers of the Year were recognized. They were: Bert Robins, for over 10 years of service, Palatine Baseball; and Mike Tolzien, for 10 years of service, Palatine Amateur Football Association.

    In addition to recognizing the annual volunteers, the park district also recognized distinguished volunteers through the Palatine Park District Honor Roll. This year, two volunteers were added to the Honor Roll, which is awarded, through resolution by the Board of Commissioners, to those who have had significant years of service to an organization. They must have demonstrated an outstanding contribution and had a major effect in their organization. The following volunteers were added to the Honor Roll:

    Al Sittaro, Palatine Township Senior Citizens Council. Sittaro is a dedicated Palatine Township Senior Citizens Council volunteer and a member of the board of directors since 1993.

    Robert Alexander, Palatine Hills Golf Association. Alexander has been a member of the Palatine Hills Golf Association since 1970, served for many years on the PHGA board, and was elected president of the organization for the 2000 season.

    • Send Your news to [email protected]

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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  • Prince of Peace revisits the 1960s at youth group fundraiser

    The Prince of Peace United Methodist Church Youth Group held a Valentine’s Dinner Saturday, Feb. 13, to raise funds for the church’s annual mission trip. This year’s theme was “Prince of Peace Celebrates the Sensational 60s”, which is part of a yearlong celebration of the church’s 50th anniversary.

    The church’s youth served the dinner and also served up some great music from the 1960s. Sonny and Cher, The Beatles, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash were portrayed by some very talented church members. The POP Alive band and the church’s choir also performed.

    This year’s mission trip will take the Prince of Peace youth and adult sponsors to Steubenville, Ohio, where they will assist residents with home improvements and teach children at the local Kids Club.

    Prince of Peace Church is located at Arlington Heights Road and Devon Avenue in Elk Grove Village.

    • Send Your news to [email protected].

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Take the Polar Plunge in Fox Lake

    The Fox Lake Law Enforcement Torch Run Polar Plunge is back again this weekend, raising money for the Special Olympics. Participants dressed in various costumes will make a big splash in the icy waters of Lake Michigan, all in the name of charity. Fox Lake’s Special Events Coordinator Nancy Rogers tells us what you need to know.

    Q. How long has this event been in existence? How has it changed, and what is new this year?

    A. This is the fourth year. There are always new plungers from throughout Lake County and different costumes.

    Q. What’s the highlight of the event? What makes it different from other similar events?

    A. I would say the creativity of the participants’ costumes. And of course, jumping in the ice cold water.

    Q. What kinds of food and beverages will be for sale?

    A. Local restaurants supply hot soup and chili for the participants and hot chocolate and coffee will be provided. Lunch is free for all plungers and $5 for non-plungers.

    Q. Tell us about the volunteers and organizers who pull this together. Are there any sponsors? If so, please tell us about them.

    A. This is organized by the Special Olympics of Illinois The volunteers are village employees and residents. The Fox Lake Police Association is one of the sponsors. Lt. Jeff Norris helped bring this event to our area. He had previously donated his time to the plunge in Lake Bluff. He is very active with the Special Olympics. The Daily Herald and Comcast SportsNet also are sponsors. GEICO is the major sponsor for all the polar plunges in Illinois.

    Q. How much does it cost to get in? If the admission costs benefit a charity, please tell us about that group.

    A. Participants raise at least $75 in donations in exchange for jumping into icy water in the middle of winter. All proceeds collected by plungers benefit Special Olympics Illinois athletes.

    Q. Is there anything else we should know?

    A. All plungers are encouraged to register online. Simply visit plungeillinois.com to register and begin fundraising online.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Growing Concern From European Officials Over ACTA

    It looks like a growing number of European politicians are fed up with the secrecy of ACTA, and don’t like what they’re hearing from the leaked documents, and they’re starting to speak up, asking questions and airing their concerns. They’re demanding the publication of the details of the negotiations, while worrying about anything that might push ISPs to kick people off the internet at a time when it’s a key European goal to increase broadband access. There’s also tremendous concern that ACTA is really a way for US companies to sneak desired legislation into Europe outside of the parliamentary process:


    “ACTA is legislation laundering on an international scale, trying to covertly push through what could never be passed in most national parliaments”

    The same statement pointed out that all of the lobbyists who had signed NDAs to see ACTA came from US companies and organizations — and none from the EU. It makes you wonder why any other country would agree to ACTA at all…

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  • County may lend $1 million to education office

    Peoria County could temporarily pick up slack for the state of Illinois after preliminary approval to issue a $1 million line of credit to the Peoria Regional Office of Education to meet payroll.

    In an unprecedented move, the County Board’s finance committee approved issuing the credit Thursday, though it still must be approved by the full board on March 11.

    Still to be decided is the interest on the balance of the line of credit, though 3 percent was suggested.

    The committee acted after hearing from Regional Superintendent Gerald Brookhart.

    “My biggest concern is that this will never end,” said committee Chairman Jimmy Dillon. “Your problem has now become our problem.”

    Although Peoria’s Regional Office of Education has received vouchers for disbursements, those remain unpaid. Supposedly, the money is there, but the appropriation has not yet been approved.

    Delayed payments from the state of Illinois have created a cash flow emergency in the regional office’s Two Rivers Professional Development Center, an intermediate educational service provider.

    Staffers for the regional office and Two Rivers are implementing a $12 million virtual school contract with state money.

    The virtual school offers 130 courses, from core subjects such as math, English and science to foreign languages, health and business online. It serves about 120 schools across the state, with about 3,000 students in public, private and home-school settings from fifth grade through high school enrolled annually.

    “If we don’t get the credit, the program shuts down. We can’t meet payroll,” Brookhart said.

    Committee members questioned when the money would be repaid by the state, given the state’s habit of ignoring prompt payments, and they expressed concerns about setting a precedent.

    The yet-to-be-approved agreement is due June 30, though if the regional office has not received the money by then, it will be allowed to make reasonable payments to the county until the balance of the loan, plus interest, is paid.

    The regional office got approval from a commercial bank for a loan of up to 70 percent of the money vouchered with an interest rate of about 5 percent, Brookhart said. His office has $450,740 available with monthly payroll, bills and expenses and has been holding off on all nonessential payments.

    The General Assembly last year approved legislation that increased the amount of money school districts, including the Regional Office of Education, could borrow from their anticipated revenue.

     

    Karen McDonald can be reached at 686-3285 or [email protected].

    Read the original article from Journal Star.

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