A prominent veterinarian and horse-farm owner from Santa Barbara County died when the experimental airplane he was piloting crashed near Borrego Springs, the San Diego County medical examiner announced Friday.
Vandell Ellis Snow, 58, was practicing for this weekend’s Borrego Hammerhead Roundup air show when his plane crashed Thursday afternoon. He radioed a friend on the ground that the stick had broken, sending the plane into a nosedive, according to the medical examiner.
Snow, who was killed instantly, was one of the owners of the Santa Ynez Farm, a horse-breeding facility. He was alone in the plane.
TORONTO — Canada’s annual seal hunt got under way Thursday despite a dwindling market for pelts and other byproducts following a European Union import ban and slumping demand.
Nelson Kalil, manager of communications at the Fisheries and Oceans Canada department, said about 30 to 40 boats are expected to head to Newfoundland and Labrador’s northern tip to participate in this season’s seal hunt, the world’s largest.
The department has increased this year’s seal hunt quota by 50,000 animals to a total of 330,000 because hunting restrictions have resulted in a rising seal herd population, estimated at 6.9 million — more than triple what it was in the 1970s.
However, Frank Pinhorn, executive director of the Canadian Sealers Assn., said sealers will take a fraction of the annual quota because only one of the four regular purchasers is buying harp pelts this year.
"We expect 20-25 percent of the quota will be harvested so they’ll probably bring in 50,000 to 60,000 out of the 330,000 quota," Pinhorn told The Associated Press.
Canadian hunters killed an average of 300,000 harp seals annually before the industry began experiencing dramatic drops in catches in recent years.
Depressed prices, a lack of fur buyers, leftover stock and animal rights groups’ anti-sealing campaigns have impacted the industry. The recent recession has further softened the market for seal products.
Fewer hunters went out last year because pelt prices bottomed out at $14 compared to more than $100 per skin only a few years ago. A pelt is now valued at around $23-$25.
The latest and probably most severe blow to the hunt has been the EU’s ban on seal products. The ban — an effort to force Canada to end its annual hunt — was finalized last July and will take effect in August.
Fishermen sell seal pelts mostly to the fashion industry in Norway and Russia, as well as blubber for oil. The hunt exported around $5.5 million worth of seal products, including pelts, meat and oils, to the EU in 2006.
Canadian Inuit filed a lawsuit in the European General Court against the EU over its import ban, saying it threatens their livelihood. Canada has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization, arguing the ban is a violation of the EU’s trade obligations.
The fisheries department said China imported $1.1 million in Canadian seal fats and oil last year, along with pelts manufactured into boots and other clothing.
The Humane Society International Canada, which is in Newfoundland to observe this year’s hunt, says that record low sea ice formation off Canada’s east coast will likely result in exceptionally high pup mortality this year.
"Harp seals are facing an ecological disaster. The ice habitat of these ice-breeding seals is literally melting out from under them," said Rebecca Aldworth, the society’s executive director.
— Associated Press
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Photo: A seal pup on the ice floes off Iles de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2006. Credit: Tom Hanson / Associated Press
Android 2.1 for the Sprint Hero is rumored to be released on April 9th. Why wait when you can have it now (or the official test ROM)? The latest RUU from Sprint has been leaked by a member from the XDA.
Damageless from the XDA has released the official Android 2.1 test ROM for the Hero on Sprint. But this isn’t a simple flash update. Noobs do not attempt this or you may brick your phone. For those of you brave and skilled enough get the ROM from here. Being a test ROM, it already has root, follow the instructions listed and soon you will be enjoying all the goodies of Android 2.1. I’m sure an update.zip will be made from this soon.
Just a quick heads up about that 64GB Zune HD that we were all excited about the other day – looks like it’s on sale, just a couple of days early. It’s supposed to come out on Monday, but we’ve seen it selling today. You can pick up a 64GB Zune HD for $349.
Wake Forest’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a group of organ-growing, tissue-engineering mad scientists, is trailblazing the cool and creepy future of medicine. Their latest effort is an inkjet-inspired bioprinter that prints fresh cells directly onto wounds. More »
There’s been a lot of hype about Tiger Woods’ new Nike ad, featuring a voiceover of his late father, Earl. While some critics find the spot and its soundbite from the elder Woods distasteful, the folks at FunnyOrDie.com have decided to poke fun at the ad’s irony in this knee-slapping parody.
Oh the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Android smartphone what a large touch display you have too bad theres no multi-touch but to be honest who really cares that much Its a good looking phone with all the right features at the right price and it runs on Android so why would multi-touch be such a deal-breaker for many Many smartphones out there without multi-touch and they work just fine the same applies here.The Xperia X10 has been announced by Canadian wireless network Rogers the de
Woah! Apparently Twitter has snatched up the company behind popular desktop and iPhone Twitter client Tweetie. Twitter intends to “offer [the iPhone app] for free and rename it Twitter for iPhone.” More »
When he was the church’s chief enforcer of doctrine 25 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI declined to immediately defrock a California priest who admitted to child sexual abuse, saying he needed more time to consider the impact of the case on “the good of the Universal Church,” according to a letter released Friday.
The 1985 letter to Bishop John Cummins of Oakland is the latest document to shed light on Benedict’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis in his earlier career, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and headed the Vatican office that ultimately assumed full responsibility for such cases.
In it, he acknowledges the “grave significance” of the charges against the priest, Stephen Kiesle, who had pleaded no contest to charges of molesting two boys in 1978. But Ratzinger said he needed more time and information, in part because of the “detriment that [defrocking] can provoke with the community of Christ’s faithful.”
It would be another two years before the Vatican relented to the request, which apparently came on Kiesle’s initiative.
In the video above, Times Relgion Writer Mitchell Landsberg look at the letter and its implications.
At the beginning of April, we noted that director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, who’s now consulting for some firms that would profit greatly from a re-architecting of the internet, is going around pushing a ridiculous moral panic about “cyberwar” and how we basically need to break the internet and get rid of all privacy and anonymity. Forget your civil liberties, there’s money to be made in scaring people. While even the US “cybersecurity” czar tried to throw some cold water on these claims, the press sure does love bogus “cyberwar” stories, despite the lack of proof that there is any such thing or that it could do any real damage.
The problem, of course, is the same as we described back in March: the people playing up the whole “cyberwar” threat are simply lumping together basic vandalism — the kind done by script kiddies, as if it’s part of a war. If that’s the definition of a “war,” you can find it going on around the country, anywhere there are kids and spray paint. Thankfully, Tom Lee has written a scathing critique of dumb journalistic coverage of this whole “cyberwar” crap:
The piece starts out by discussing Russian vandals’ successful efforts to screw with the Georgian government’s website — something that can be plausibly done by a disaffected teenager — then jumps rapidly to “monkey[ing] with GPS” which involves, you know, satellites, or at least skill at building, concealing and fortifying radio transmitters; and, if anything other than a braindead denial of service, would also require the discovery of a novel attack on the system’s design. These things are much harder than checking to see if the recently-launched website of a small ex-Soviet country is running slightly outdated software that someone else has written an exploit for….
Disrupting the operation of a website is very different from disrupting the operation of the internet, which is very different from interfering with military communication systems, which is very different from interfering with military battlefield communication systems, which is very different from being susceptible to the interception of digital communications. But all of these things are just jammed together, mindlessly.
What kinds of electronic attack are possible? To what extent are our defense systems susceptible to them — in particular, are those systems at all tangled up with the internet? If not, what economic consequences could plausibly be inflicted on our country by disruption of the internet, and how do they compare to the historical example of, say, a blockade? If an online attack originates from overseas, what countermeasures are available? And do we have a protocol in place with the major backbone operators to implement them?
None of these questions are asked or answered. Blah blah blah cyber. That’s it, over and over.
Welcome to the next moral panic that’s more about taking away your rights in an attempt to make some ex-politicians rich.
Lookie here are RIM on the verge of creating their own Tablet to compete with the iPad and offerings from Android Its looking that way if Crackberry and their sources are to be believed. According to them RIM has placed orders for 8.9 displays for use in Tablets like the iPad this could be taken out of context but what else will RIM be doing with a 8.9quot display if it is not for their own TabletPersonally I believe RIM are truly working on a Tablet the market is shifting towa
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has backed the cable company Comcast in its dispute with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which accused the company of slowing some Internet traffic on its network. The ruling is seen as a blow to the government’s efforts to push through "net neutrality" regulations.
The proposed regulations would prevent companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from restricting access to Internet content, applications and services offered by competitors. Analysts say applications such as Google, Skype and Facebook would be among the biggest beneficiaries of such regulations.
In the court’s opinion, the FCC exceeded its authority when it sanctioned Comcast in 2008 for preventing some subscribers from using peer-to-peer file-sharing services to download large files, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The ruling was welcomed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose public sector co-chair Representative Bill Hamzy (R-Conn.), said that "the FCC’s order was an unprecedented attempt by government to patrol private broadband networks."
However, the FCC has vowed to continue to push for net neutrality, with its spokeswoman Jen Howard saying that the court did not "[disagree] with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet, nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end," quoted by the Journal.
Despite the fact that Sarah Palin didn’t become vice president in 2008 and isn’t even Alaska’s governor anymore, she’s still irking conservationists. This time around, advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund is taking aim at Palin’s forthcoming documentary series from the TLC network.
The group — technically a separate entity from the related group called simply Defenders of Wildlife — staunchly opposed Palin’s policies regarding wild animals during her tenure as Alaska governor. In response to Palin’s support of a program in which wolves are hunted from airplanes, the group launched a website, EyeOnPalin.org, in 2009.
The most visible moment in its anti-Palin campaign came in early February 2009, when the group released a graphic video about the wolf hunt narrated by actress Ashley Judd. In a statement, Judd decried the hunt as a "cruel, unscientific and senseless practice which has no place in modern America."
Palin responded with outrage, posting a statement on her website that referred to the Defenders as an "extreme fringe group" and accusing the group of "twisting the truth in an effort to raise funds from innocent and hard-pressed Americans struggling with these rough economic times."
The Defenders shot back, with President Rodger Schlickeisen releasing a statement that read in part, "what you often get in response from Governor Palin when she is challenged is not a rational defense of what she’s doing, but rather name calling and a very transparent attempt at spin control. But then again, since there is no defense for her aerial wolf slaughter program, it may be that she feels there really isn’t much else she can do."
The group’s objection to Palin’s views on wildlife and environmental issues didn’t stop when she left office. "Her efforts were, and still are, a threat to the natural integrity of America’s last frontier, a state that boasts many national wildlife refuges, forests, parks and other federal lands… And if this isn’t enough, Palin’s persistent denial of global warming is sure to fast make her a political relic," Schlickeisen said in response to her resignation.
Now, as Palin prepares to begin work on the docu-series, tentatively titled "Sarah Palin’s Alaska," the Defenders have swung into action again.
Through its EyeOnPalin website, the group is urging its supporters to take action against Palin’s series, which the chief executive of TLC’s parent company, Discovery Communications, says will "reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed, and as told by one of the state’s proudest daughters."
The Defenders is urging those who oppose Palin’s stances on wildlife to sign a petition urging Discovery to drop "Sarah Palin’s Alaska."
It says it’s received more than 170,000 signatures on the petition, which reads in part: "As parent company of Animal Planet, The Discovery Channel and TLC, and known for your wildlife-focused productions, I hope that you will reconsider your decision to partner with such a terribly anti-wildlife and politically divisive persona as Sarah Palin."
Palin hasn’t publicly responded to the group’s latest tactic, but the pro-hunting organization U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance has, rather unsurprisingly, rushed to defend her from the Defenders.
"The Defender’s [sic] campaign largely rests on a gross mischaracterization of then Alaska Gov. Palin’s wolf management plan" and "recycled outrage" over Palin’s contention in 2008 that there was not enough evidence to list polar bears as a threatened species requiring federal protection, according to a press release from the hunters’ rights group.
In an effort to counter the Defenders’ petition, the Sportsmen’s Alliance is asking its supporters to write to Discovery to explain "that Gov. Palin is regarded as a conservationist by those inside and outside the wildlife management community and the rhetoric coming from Defender’s [sic] reflects an unscientific, emotional appeal. It fails to take into account the science supporting the wolf management program in Alaska as well as the lack of science used to place the polar bear on the endangered species list."
Top photo: Palin winks as she speaks during the vice presidential debate against Joe Biden on Oct. 2, 2008. Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press
Bottom photo: Palin interacts with the audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans on April 9. Photo credit: Cheryl Gerber / Getty Images
The blog reviewed here is ‘Exploring Psychology’. In the About section, the author David Webb tells us that he has a Masters degree in Occupational Psychology and that he resides in Spain where he is a ‘distance learning tutor and research dissertation supervisor’. The aim of the blog is described thus
‘The exploring psychology blog is the place where I highlight and explore the most fascinating and compelling psychology related news and research‘
Appearance and Design
This is a blogspot blog, with a simple white background throughout. Posts occupy the central pane and there are several to each page. They are demarcated, dated and comment enabled. The title pane includes a description of the aims of the blog and includes the above quote. Posts are generously illustrated with enticing pictures. There are adverts above the first post and to the right, there is a link to the Psych 101 twitter account, external links, videos of interest as well as a chronological index.
Content
There were lots of interesting posts in keeping with the aims outlined above. I rather liked this idea of a ‘gratitude journal‘ from the ever creative positive psychology movement. Webb had found TED back in 2007 rather more quickly than I have (although pleased to be now be up to speed on this valuable resource!). Linking to slideshare was also quite helpful – a place for sharing presentations online. There is a very neat illustration of inattentive blindness in the video linked to in this post and I completely missed the giant mouse walking through the group of people. There is very good coverage of the ‘Little Albert’ study here. I was suprised to learn of the memory enhancing associations of doodling in this post.
Conclusions
This is an easily accessible blog with ‘bite-sized’ posts explaining useful psychological research. There are also a number of book reviews and links to useful learning material and I enjoyed reading this blog.
Call for Authors: If you are interested in writing an article or series of articles for this blog please write to the e-mail address below. Copyright can be retained.Index: An index of the site can be found here. The page contains links to all of the articles in the blog in chronological order. Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected].Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.
If you are a current Netflix subscriber, you’ll likely recall that they decided to enter into an agreement with Warner Bros. back in January that would delay Netflix from making new films from the studio available to subscribers for 28 days from the in-store release date. Well, it looks like more studios are jumping on board, as both Fox and Universal has now come to similar terms. What’s the upside for Netflix subscribers? More streaming movies.
For example, with the Fox agreement, you’ll need to wait 28 days before you’ll be able to get a movie like Avatar in the mail, but in exchange you’ll find streaming titles like 24, Bones, Lie to Me, Arrested Development, Prison Break, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With Universal, you’ll have to wait a bit longer for movies like It’s Complicated, but don’t fret, because Billy Elliot, The Pianist, and Being John Malkovich (among others) will be at your instant streaming disposal.
Expect more of these deals to be made, as Netflix is banking on streaming movies as the future of distribution (we agree,) and they are of the mindset that having customers wait an extra 4 weeks to get new discs is worth it if it means greater access to streaming rights. Let’s see how this all plays out. Anyone upset about this?
And so Apple lost another battle with the hacking community because iPhone OS 4.0 has fell victim to power of the Jailbreak tools out there. It has been just 24hrs since iPhone OS 4.0 beta has been released yet a member of the iPhone Dev team wasted no time in getting the OS out of prison unfortunately iPhone OS 4.0 beta is not stable so everything is just pointless at this moment.The main reason for Jailbreaking an iPhone is for multi-tasking but seeing as iPhone OS 4.0 has multi-tas
I see Mr. Krauthammer has joined the right-wing chorus decrying President Obama for his failure to embrace a properly Serious “nuke ‘em all and let God sort them out” approach to foreign policy:
Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.
(…)
Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)
(…)
Apart from being morally bizarre, the Obama policy is strategically loopy. Does anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nuclear weapons because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the United States without fear of nuclear retaliation?
I love the notion that Iraq and Afghanistan got off easy, as if being invaded and ransacked and then enduring years of occupation and terror is some kind of bargain.
But what’s most remarkable is how the neocons can go from weeping crocodile tears for The Poor Oppressed Peoples Of The World and arguing that we need to use force to bring them The Sacred Gospel Of Democracy… to stamping their feet because the President doesn’t want to incinerate those very same people for the crimes of the rulers we were supposed to want to save them from.
On the other hand, if you define “liberate” as “blow the shit out of,” then I guess dropping a few nukes is just about the most liberatingest thing you can possibly do. I’m sure the five survivors would all be incredibly grateful.
A seal pup on the ice floes off Iles de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2006. Credit: Tom Hanson / Associated Press
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The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has backed the cable company Comcast in its dispute with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which accused the company of slowing some Internet traffic on its network. The ruling is seen as a blow to the government’s efforts to push through "net neutrality" regulations. 
