Police: 300 sex offenders missing

Police insisted they are doing all they can to monitor sex offenders as it was revealed more than 300 are missing in the UK. The Sun newspaper asked every force in Britain how many registered sex offenders were missing in their area. Forty-six forces out of 52 replied at the time of going to print, and in total the whereabouts of 316 sex offenders were unknown. These included 128 in London, 30 in the West Midlands and 15 in Greater Manchester. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "The safety and protection of the public is paramount at all times when dealing with sex offenders.

"We take this matter extremely seriously and officers are proactively following lines of inquiry in order to trace these offenders to ensure that they are dealt with robustly for having breached the terms of their conditions."

Superintendent Bob Mills, from the West Midlands Police Public Protection Unit, said officers were working "continuously" to find those missing. He said that task "has to take place in a controlled and covert way to reduce the risk of the offender going further off the radar". Supt Mills added: "Our strategy for finding these offenders is regularly reviewed and also considers the potential for the victim becoming a target of retribution. Their names, pictures and any new intelligence are circulated on the Police National Computer and to all forces and law enforcement agencies." Detective Chief Inspector Dave Riddick, from Greater Manchester Police, said the number of missing offenders, 15, is less than 1% of the total number of registered sex offenders in the area.

Freedom Through Education

SPREAD THE WORD......FREEDOM IS THE KEY TO OUR SURVIVAL

Endangered sturgeon fish flourishing in Wisconsin

It's been a tough fight for the whisker-snouted sturgeon. The fish survived whatever killed the dinosaurs and have struggled against habitat destruction and overfishing. Now many of its 25 species are endangered, but a small pocket in upper Wisconsin boasts of having one of the world's largest concentrations of the fish. The success is because of the state's strict spearing limits, poaching laws, restocking efforts and the popular — and well-protected — spring spawning, which mostly finished last week. "If we can restore the sturgeon population in the Great Lakes and manage the current population effectively, then we know we are doing a pretty good job of managing the other aspects of the aquatic community," said state sturgeon expert Ron Bruch. In Lake Winnebago there are now around 40,000 lake sturgeons, likely where the population was in the 1800s, Bruch said. In the 1950s, it was 10,000. Whereas in the Great Lakes system, there are now about 156,750, less than 1 percent of what it was in early 1800s, said Rob Elliott, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. Thousands from around the state and elsewhere visit the Lake Winnebago system tributaries to watch the enormous fish writhe and splash as they lay eggs in shallow, moving water. The fish, which grow up to 300 pounds and look like a cross between a catfish and shark, are close enough to touch.

"Some people say they are awful homely, awful bad looking, but to me ... they are beautiful fish, just like a beautiful blonde," said 73-year-old Pat Wudtke, who's speared sturgeon for 50 years during the state's annual season

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For the past decade, Wudtke also has been among the hundreds who volunteer to protect the fish from poachers. "I'll do everything I can to preserve them," Wudtke said. People love the animals because of their unique look, that the species is prehistoric and their size, Bruch said. "This is the only place really in the world that you can see them to this extent," he said. The spawning spectacle pumps $350,000 into three nearby cities, some of which have signs directing people to the spawning sites

. The fish's success in Lake Winnebago has Bruch concerned. Though only a few cases of poaching are reported each year, he worries there will be more since other areas have a sturgeon shortage and demand is high. And he thinks the taste of lake sturgeon caviar compares with the high-priced kind. There also are reports of poaching of white sturgeon in California as its caviar has grown more popular, said Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science in New York. It is illegal to fish wild white sturgeon in California and sell its meat or eggs, but people can sell farm-raised white sturgeon. It's also illegal in the U.S. to sell lake sturgeon meat and its eggs from the states.

In the Black and Caspian Seas the beluga sturgeon is overfished for its caviar, which costs up to $5,000 a pound.

Wisconsin does allow sturgeon spearing, with thousands huddled in shanties on a frozen Lake Winnebago. Spearers are allowed one sturgeon per person. Most get none. The DNR ends spearing when 5 percent of the population is taken. The spearing is why the group, Sturgeon for Tomorrow, started in 1977, because they wanted to keep that tradition alive, said a founder, Bill Casper. Bruch credits the group for part of the sturgeon's success. It runs the sturgeon guard program and raises funds for research and hatcheries, among other things.

But some say even one speared sturgeon is too many. "If they were not removed from the water," Pikitch said, "They would have opportunity to spawn many, many times in a long lifetime."

WATCH THE VID HERE http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_saving_sturgeon Thankyou Max for this wonderful discovery

Caught on film: The bus driver filmed steering with his elbows while reading a BOOK

A reckless bus driver has been caught on film reading a book as he drove passengers along a dual carriageway.A passenger, who wishes to remain anonymous, filmed the National Express West Midlands driver steering the bus with his elbows as he read the paperback. But the driver seemed oblivious to the fact he was being filmed, even continuing to read as he pulled into bus stops and only momentarily taking his eyes off the book to handle fares. A bus driver has been caught on film driving his packed double decker along a dual carriageway while reading a book The footage, which has been posted on YouTube, prompted bosses to suspend the driver, who remains unnamed. He now faces the sack for his behaviour. The driver's antics were filmed on Monday evening as he drove the number 61 bus out of Birmingham town centre through Selly Oak. One passenger told The Sun: 'The guy was in a world of his own, totally absorbed in his book. There were a lot of passengers on the bus but it didn't bother him at all.

'He was literally steering with his elbows and glancing between the book and the road ahead. He could easily have caused a major accident

The driver, who remains unnamed, has been suspended for his antics as he drove out of Birmingham city centre on Monday,The driver's antics were filmed on Monday evening as he drove the number 61 bus out of Birmingham town centre through Selly Oak He added: 'It's not as if he was on a quite country road. He was driving down one of the busiest roads in Brum while immersed in a novel.' In a statement, a National Express spokesman said: 'Immediate action was taken to suspend the driver who will now face disciplinary action. 'It is not appropriate to predict the outcome but an incident of this type is likely to lead to a dismissal. 'Passenger safety is always our priority and it is completely unacceptable for any driver to behave in this manner.

Congress to archive every tweet ever posted publicly

Twitter's first tweet might not have been prosaic, but it was historic

The Library of Congress is to archive every single public tweet ever made. Twitter says since they started in 2006, billions of tweets have been created and 55m are sent every day. The digital archive will include tweets from President Barack Obama on the day he was elected as well as the first tweet from co-founder Jack Dorsey. "I think it shows the tweets are an interesting part of the historical record," said Alex MacGillivray, Twitter's general counsel. "This project however is not about us, it is about our users and the fact they use the service to chronicle these amazing events. President Obama actually tweeted after he was elected. That is a big deal and it's something he did. "It is not something we imagined when we were forming the service," Mr MacGillivray told BBC News. In a Library of Congress blogpost entitled "How Tweet It Is", Matt Raymond underlined the reason why these tweets deserved a home alongside better known historic documents like the Declaration of Independence. "I'm no PhD, but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data."

Twitter's Mr MacGillivray agreed.

"We have just had one of our Supreme Court justices announce his retirement and knowing what people are saying around that will be important. "As a historian you will be able to look back at that and understand what people felt. The same with the healthcare legislation that recently passed. You can look back and say what where people talking about and have those views changed over time? We think that will be really useful." The microblogging service came into prominence during a number of high profile events including the Iranian elections last year, the Mumbai bombing, the Haiti earthquake and the downing of a passenger aircraft in the Hudson River.

Replay

Alongside the Library of Congress announcement, Google revealed how it is going to make the Twitter archive searchable for users. The search giant unveiled a replay feature that lets users search tweets posted at any given point in time right down to the minute.

Twitter sees itself as a new form of real-time communication

Anyone wanting to know what people tweeted about on say the Haiti earthquake or the Oscars can type into the search box, select "show options" on the result page and then click "updates".

A timeline will appear above the results allowing you to zoom in on tweets by the hour or minute.

"This will be the first time the user will have the ability to go back in time and see the conversation about a particular topic," Dylan Casey, Google's product manager told BBC News. "We think this is pretty significant because up until now the discussion has been about what is happening now and with today's replay button people will be able to go back and see what people were actually talking about around big events." For the moment the replay feature will only cover the last two months of tweets. Google said later in the summer it hopes to cover the entire archive all the way back to March 2006.(my view)- Yes BUT its also an invasion into our lives aswell