Sunday, August 31, 2008

Kayak Man hopes he cant reach North Pole



Long-distance swimmer Lewis Pugh plans to kayak 1200km (745 miles) to the North Pole to raise awareness of how global warming has melted the ice sheet. The BBC's Jonah Fisher met him at his training camp in Cape Town, South Africa.

Lewis Pugh has spent his life swimming long distances. But after 20 minutes in the freezing water of the Arctic he decided that his future lay above the waves.

"Nobody has ever attempted to kayak to the pole before. In fact, it would have been impossible last year because it was frozen over," he said.

This year, for the first time, scientists predict that the North Pole could briefly be ice free and that has inspired Mr Pugh to try to find a way through.

On Saturday he is due to set off on the 1200km (745 mile) expedition from Norway to the North Pole - a journey expected to take between two and three weeks. A support ship will follow the kayak to provide Mr Pugh with food and respite from the brutal conditions.

"There's one side of me that desperately wants to get to the North Pole to be able to shake the lapels of world leaders to get them to understand what has happened there," he said.

"But then there's the other side of me that says I really hope I don't get there. I hope I fail because if I am able to get there we really are in deep trouble."

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Let's Hope Albert Einstein Got It Wrong....



Parasites Kill Off A Third of Britain's bees

Honeybees are being killed off in huge numbers by parasites, threatening the crucial pollination of crops.
A record one in three of the 240,000 hives in Britain did not survive the spring and the main cuplrit is the varroa mite.
The mites feed on the blood of honey bees weakening adults and deforming their young.
Other causes of the decline include bad weather and pesticides.
Honey bees pollinate about a third of our home grown food crops aand that , along with the honey they make, mesans they contribute £165m to the UK economy.

Albert Einstein once gave warning that if bees disappeared, man would have only four years left. - A book out this year - "A World without Bees" found that they are dying off across the globe. One cause, a virus called Colony Collapse Disorder, has hit 36% of US hives and spread to Italy, France and Germany.

The Govt. closed its consultation into honeybee health yesterday (28th August 2008) but most people invoved in the industry want more money spent on research, presumably before it's too late.

Computer Virus Infiltrates Laptops at International Space Station




A virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has inexplicably popped up in some laptop computers aboard the International Space Station.

The low-risk virus was detected on July 25, but did not infect the space station's command and control computers and poses no threat to the orbiting laboratory, NASA officials said.

"This is basically a nuisance," NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com from the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

According to a NASA planning document obtained by SPACE.com, the worm was identified as W32.Gammima.AG. The California-based retail anti-virus software manufacturer Symantec describes it as a Windows-based worm which spreads by copying itself onto removable media. It is capable of stealing passwords for online games and is classified as a very low risk, according to Symantec's Web site.

Humphries said that while NASA security protocols prohibit discussing details of the virus and efforts to combat it, a search is under way to find out how it got on board the space station more than 200 miles above Earth.

"We'll do our best to track down how it got there and close that gateway," Humphries said. "This is not a frequent occurrence but we have had viruses that have made their way on board before."

New flash memory cards due to launch to the station aboard a Russian cargo ship next month have been screened for the virus, the NASA document stated. Not all of the 71 laptop computers currently aboard the station run Windows, and those that do and are vulnerable to viruses could be updated, it went on.

The space station is currently home to three astronauts: Russian cosmonaut commander Sergei Volkov, cosmonaut flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and NASA flight engineer Greg Chamitoff. Volkov and Kononenko are due to return to Earth in October, while Chamitoff is slated to stay until his replacement arrives during NASA's planned November space shuttle mission.

Copyright © 2008 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Good Old George Bush and his democratic USA

We should now all be aware of the fact why George Bush kept quiet about China's human right's record at The Olympics - because he's borrowing millions of dollars from The Chinese to subsidise the Iraq War as basically The USA hasnt got the money to keep it going - So yes thats right hes borrowing money from a Communuist dictatorship to help Iraq become "a Democracy"

We also know that Mr Bush is best friends with his oil suppliers who in general operate Sharia Law in their countries as a form of controlling the population (also surely a form of dictatorship?)

And finally South Ossetia has already been recognised by Russia as an independent state from Georgia for several years already so why all of a sudden is now trying to make it look as though this had never happened before and that its already Russia's fault?


Hey but what can i say about democracy? - I live in a country where our current Prime Minister took over from Tony Blair without any vote and where Gordon Brown seems to bringing home the troops, from Iraq, just in time for his First General Election?

Monday, August 25, 2008

WHY I CHANGED MY POWER SUPPLIER FIRST FROM BRITISH GAS , THEN EON AND NOW ATLANTIC

IT ALL STARTED THREE MONTHS AGO...
... when I received a letter from British Gas demanding that i phone them up to arrange for a "Safety Inspector " to come and inspect my meter as it hadnt been done for three years and as a result it would by law obtain a court warrant if I didnt phone their customer service team and arrange it.

I therefore did this and was told that an inspector would come to my flat on a particular date in the morning - I asked my father to come to the flat as obviously I would be at work at the time and there was no way I could take time off work myself.

So my dad very generously waited in my flat the whole morning and guess what - NO ONE TURNED UP!!!

I phoned British Gas and asked them why no one had come to the appointment as had been arranged - A Customer Service Representative told me that they had no record of me even phoning to arrange the appointment and then he told me that i should'nt be phoning them as it was a different department who would be dealing with it - I asked why the phone number on the letter was the same as the one I was speaking to him on and he was unable to answer me further...

Seeing that I wasn't getting anywhere very fast I immediately phoned up Eon, who recently took over PowerGen , who my father had turned to after he had also fallen out with British Gas - First of all they put me on The Age Concern Tariff (very interesting as I'm only 36!!!!) BUT WHATS EVEN WORSE IS THAT TWO MONTHS AFTER THEY PROMISED ME THAT I WOULD NO LONGER BE A CUSTOMER OF BRITISH GAS I STILL AM!!!

How Did I find this out???
By receiving a final refund cheque from British Gas for my electricity - OK So this means that British Gas are no longer my supplier of electricity? But according to them they are still my supplier of Gas - NOT ACCORDING TO EON - ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM AT EON EON NOW SUPPLY MY GAS BUT NOT AS OF YET MY ELECTRICITY

CONFUSED ?!!!
I WAS AND EVEN THOUGH I SPENT OVER TEN MINUTES TRYING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO THE AIR HEAD CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE AT EON SHE KEPT ON SAYING THE OPPOSITE TO WHAT I WAS TELLING HER BRITISH GAS HAD TOLD ME!!!!


Seeing I had already sent Eon an email immediately i received the final electricity refund from British Gas I got on the phone again and found out that apparently even though all of the Power Companies in The United Kingdom seem to be running an Oligopoly Atlantic Energy (well actually thats only a trading name of Scottish & Southern Electricity) had a rating of 5 out of 5 for Customer Service

Please if someone knows a company who is actually not part of the con or crap at customer service - not going to invest in Nuclear Power Stations but they'll give you Nectar Points as a bribe if you sign up with them (Sainsburys Energy or EDF as they actually are) let me know !!!!
HEY BUT AT LEAST THEYRE ALLOWED TO BUILD NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS IN THE UK - IN IRAN THEY GET THREATENED WITH SANCTIONS AND INVASION IF THEY DO THIS!!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Financial Times Article proves Georgia Started War With Russia

Jan Cienski
Financial Times
August 21, 2008

Georgia did not believe Russia would respond to its offensive in South Ossetia and was completely unprepared for the counter-attack, the deputy defence minister has admitted.

Batu Kutelia told the Financial Times that Georgia had made the decision to seize the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali despite the fact that its forces did not have enough anti-tank and air defences to protect themselves against the possibility of serious resistance.

“Unfortunately, we attached a low priority to this,” he said, sitting at a desk with the flags of Georgia and Nato (to which Georgia does not belong) crossed behind him. “We did not prepare for this kind of eventuality.”

The Georgian military felt there was only a low probability of a massive Russian counter-attack, despite the bloody way in which Russia destroyed Chechnya, on the other side of the Caucasus mountains, in two wars during the 1990s and the fact that separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia had Russian backing.

Georgian forces were unprepared when the Russian counter-strike came, Mr Kutelia said. “I didn’t think it likely that a member of the UN Security Council and the OSCE would react like this,” Mr Kutelia said.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Two arrested in China over pro-Tibet protest

Beijing:Two foreign activists were arrested this morning (Fri Aug 15th 2008) this morning after climbing China's state-owned television headquarters near the main Olympic venue and erecting a big "Free Tibet" banner. The protesters , one Briton and one Australian, were led away by police and were expected to be deported from China. Witnesses said that about six people were involved in the demonstration.
Taken from The Times Fri Aug 15th 2008

On Channel Four News yesterday they reported about the "Protest Parks" that had been set up especially for the Olympics - Apparently they do exist but noone is there as all people who have applied have been refused admittance and then harrassed by police ....

SAYING OF THE DAY

Our Revenge will be the laughter of our children - Bobby Sands

Friday, August 08, 2008

Flu pandemic tops risk register



Flooding is among the hazards highlighted in the register


A flu pandemic is the gravest threat to UK security as it could claim up to 750,000 lives, according to a new National Risk Register.

The document, commissioned by the prime minister, aims to publicly set out the potential impact of a range of different risks for the first time.

Other issues examined include terrorism and flooding.

The information had been kept secret up until now. The register will be updated annually by the Cabinet Office.

The report offers an insight into the various dangers faced by the UK and how they are viewed by government advisors.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said that while officials insist the register was not intended to rank dangers in any kind of priority, it is clear that pandemic flu emerges as the gravest threat to national security.

'Mature conversation'

According to the report, while terrorist attacks are the most likely threat, a flu pandemic is overdue and could claim 50,000 - 750,000 lives.

Ian Kearns, who is deputy chair of think tank IPPR's security commission, praised the government for trying to stimulate a "mature conversation" with the public and businesses on the risks facing the UK.

He said the register was particularly aimed at encouraging public and private organisations to think about their response to major emergencies.

"You might want to ask the question, for example, what happens if many of our heavy goods vehicle drivers fell victim to that influenza and weren't able to perform their jobs?

"Do we have enough back-up to be able, for example, to deliver food to the supermarkets?" he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"These kinds of questions about resilience of supply chains and so on; how essential workers might be affected. These are the kind of things that public and private sector organisations need to think about."

Cyber attacks

The launch of the register, which was commissioned in March, follows the launch of the National Security Strategy, in the same month.

On that occasion, the prime minister said the number of security service staff would rise to 4,000 and that there would be new moves to secure the UK against cyber-attacks.

He also said there would be a 1,000-strong civilian task-force to be sent to troubled areas around the world.

As part of the National Security Strategy, four regional counter-terrorism units and four regional intelligence units would be set up to help the police.

Friday, August 01, 2008

28 Days Later - The Aftermath (Book Synposis)



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28 Days Later: The Aftermath

Cover of 28 Days Later: The Aftermath
Publisher Fox Atomic Comics
Date April 3, 2007
Creative team
Writer(s) Steve Niles
Artist(s) Cover:
Tim Bradstreet
Stories 1 & 4:
Dennis Calero
Story 2:
Diego Olmos (Pencils)
Ken Branch (Inks)
Story 3:
Nat Jones
Colorist(s) Dennis Calero

28 Days Later: The Aftermath is a graphic novel continuation of the hit film 28 Days Later written by Steve Niles and distributed by Fox Atomic Comics. It was released on April 3, 2007.

The book bridges the gap between the original film and its sequel 28 Weeks Later. It explores four interconnecting stories and delves deeper into the development of the Rage virus, the battle for survival that ensued once it was unleashed in London, and what it finally took to restore order in the ravaged city.

28 Days Later: The Aftermath was the first graphic novel released by Fox Atomic Comics.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Plot
o 1.1 Stage 1: Development
o 1.2 Stage 2: Outbreak
o 1.3 Stage 3: Decimation
o 1.4 Stage 4: Quarantine
* 2 See also
* 3 External links

[edit] Plot

Aftermath is divided into four stories ranging in setting from shortly before the outbreak to several months afterward. The first three stories each follow separate groups or individuals; the fourth story brings the survivors of these stories together for their ultimate fate.

[edit] Stage 1: Development

The first stage begins an unknown amount of time before the initial outbreak. It opens in parallel fashion to 28 Days Later with a montage of violent acts, which are soon revealed to be video footage on a bank of television screens—in this case, CCTV footage of crimes which had taken place in London the previous night. Two scientists named Clive and Warren are attempting to develop an inhibitor which can be used to control aggressive impulses in humans.

Warren is able to secure a violent criminal as a human test subject by bribing a police captain. When the subject proves uncontrollable, Warren and Clive are forced to kill him and hide his body. Despite his misgivings, Clive is now irrevocably tied to the project.

Warren decides that the only feasible means of widely disseminating their inhibitor is through the use of a contagion. He genetically modifies the Ebola virus to carry the inhibitor, against Clive's strong objections. Weeks later, however, the virus has mutated, reversing the inhibitor's effect—the Rage virus has been born. Frustrated, Warren lashes out at Clive for making a snide comment, and Clive quits on the spot. Later, he makes a call from a public telephone to an eco-terrorist group called the Animal Freedom Front, and then shoots himself in the head. This gives the reader an insight of how infection started and brought the devastation to Britain.

The story then shifts to Warren who is sitting at his desk talking to an unknown person on the telephone. Warren informs him that the inhibitor has had a reverse effect. The man enlightens Warren that this could have "other applications" when the telephone suddenly cuts out. Warren at this moment hears a strange noise coming from down the hall and seems distressed by it. He approaches a door noticing it was left open. Upon entering the door, Warren is abruptly ambushed by an ape who vomits in his face infecting him with "Rage".

[edit] Stage 2: Outbreak

The second story begins the day after the break-in at the laboratory. A family of five is picnicking at a park in Cambridge, bickering over trivial things. Youngest son Liam sees a chimpanzee in a tree; the ape assaults him and vomits blood in his face. The boy's father, Roger, subdues and kills the animal. A team of paramedics happens to be nearby, attending to a bicyclist with a minor injury. They rush to the aid of the boy and load him into their ambulance, instructing the family to follow in their own vehicle as they rush the child to a hospital in London. The family trailing the ambulance witness scenes of carnage along the way; the infection precedes them.

Inevitably, Liam becomes infected and infects the two paramedics riding with him. When the driver opens the ambulance's back doors, Liam and the paramedics assault him, and Liam's family realizes that something is terribly wrong.

Days later, the four surviving family members are hiding out in a barricaded dwelling in London. The news on the radio is dire, but the signal cuts to static. Elder son Sid suggests they try to escape to safety up the Thames. They reach Westminster Bridge with Infected hot on their trail. Parents Roger and Barb urge their children to jump down to the abandoned, but functional, motorboats floating below, promising to follow after. Instead, they remain on the bridge for a last stand, allowing Sid and Sophie to escape upriver undetected. John then gets infected...

[edit] Stage 3: Decimation

The third story takes place 29 to 32 days after the initial outbreak—roughly the same time as the bulk of 28 Days Later. A lone survivor named Hugh, decked out in a mishmash of protective clothing, has inherited London, and he spends his days hunting the Infected with a machete and an SA80 rifle he looted from a military blockade.

The comic begins with an infected attacking a person in silhouette only to find out it is a mannequin doused with perfume. This confirms that the Infected use their sense of smell to track humans and distinguish them from the horde. Among other things, trace amounts of chemical products such as shampoo and perfumes seem to attract the Infected.

Before Hugh can gloat, however, he is attacked by another survivor wearing SWAT gear and a hockey mask. Evading the assailant's hail of fire, Hugh makes for safety and plans to eliminate this apparent threat. Stocking up on ammunition (and perfume), Hugh sets out for the hunt.

After being ambushed by Hugh, the other survivor retreats to his vehicle—a commandeered military transport. Hugh douses the vehicle with about a gallon of perfume from his rooftop perch, and before the other survivor can question the meaning of the act, he is set upon by the horde, who infect him before tearing him apart. Hugh shoots the vehicle until he ignites its petrol tank, killing a large number of Infected. Behind him, though, he hears an unfamiliar sound and turns to see several US Navy F-14 Tomcats making a low pass over central London.

[edit] Stage 4: Quarantine

The final story takes place 38 to 42 days after the initial infection. Sid and his sister Sophie have reached a refugee center and been taken in. Sophie now volunteers at the makeshift hospital, where she meets a new arrival brought in from one of the city hospitals. It is Clive, who has survived his suicide attempt. He initially attempts to explain his involvement directly, but quickly decides to hide his responsibility. Instead, he explains what he can do about the virus, revealing only that he is a scientist himself.

Sid, meanwhile, becomes friends with another new arrival—Hugh. Hugh initially refused to be brought to the camp and he explains his misgivings to Sid. Eventually, Hugh is able to convince Sid, Sophie, and Clive that the military has ulterior motives and that they must escape. They steal some uniforms and weapons and they head for the hills, but they are detected. Sid and Hugh volunteer to remain behind to hold off the soldiers following them; they are both killed in a fusillade of gunfire.

Higher up the hill, Clive stops Sophie and reveals that he was on the team which developed the virus that killed her family and warns that it could possibly mutate again. He tries to ask her to help him find a way to make things right. Instead, Sophie kisses him, then shoots him in the head. Smiling, she drops her pistol, and allows a sniper aboard the pursuit helicopter to kill her with a rifle shot through the head.

Man stabbed and decapitated on bus in Canada



A man who witnesses said repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded a male in what was possibly a random attack on a Greyhound bus last night is in custody.

RCMP said the man was arrested without incident by an emergency response team early this morning.

Police have not identified the attacker or victim.

All lanes of traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway remain closed west of Portage la Prairie as the RCMP investigated what they would only refer to as "a major incident" on the bus that was headed from Edmonton to Winnipeg.

The incident happened around 8:45 p.m. while the bus was in motion, about 20 km west of Portage. The driver then stopped the bus and horrified passengers ran out the front exit.


Garnet Caton, one of 37 passengers on the bus, said he witnessed the attack.

"We all heard this scream, this like blood-curdling scream," Caton told CBC Newsworld.

He said the suspect had a "large hunting knife" and repeatedly stabbed the victim "50 or 60 times."

"The attacker was calmy over top of the victim continually cutting him. I think the victim was gone at that point," Caton told the CBC.

He said the victim appeared to be sleeping before the attack and the suspect was not acting out of the ordinary.

The bus was evacuated, but Caton said he was one of a handful of witnesses who saw the suspect trying to behead the body.

The suspect later appeared at the front of the bus, he said.

"He calmly walked up to the front (of the bus) with (the victim's) head in his hand and the knife and then dropped the head in front of us," Caton said, adding he believes the suspect later returned to the back of the bus and was seen later "taunting police with the head in his hand out the window."

Caton said the suspect appeared calm.

"What struck me, it was like he was at the beach or something," he said.

A Sun Media reporter on the scene reported about three dozen people from the bus were standing outside the vehicle on the highway following the incident.

A female passenger said she heard screams and heard "there was a stabbing." "They told us to get off the bus," said the woman who did not provide her name.

Another woman at the scene said the passengers were being evacuated from one bus and loaded onto another waiting Greyhound bus.

At one point, Mounties surrounded the bus with one officer standing just a few feet away from an unidentified man sitting in the driver’s seat.

Abby Wambaugh, a spokeswoman for Greyhound Canada, said late Wednesday a management team would be waiting in Brandon to meet the passengers when they arrived "to take care of any needs they may have," including accommodation, transfers to other buses or even trauma counselling, if necessary.

With files from Canadian Press