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Bush's Bong

Too unfit to run: Two-year-old who smokes 40 cigarettes a day puffs away on a toy truck

Taking a deep drag on his cigarette while resting on the steering wheel of his truck, he looks like a parody of a middle-aged lorry driver. But the image covers up a much more disturbing truth: At just the tender age of two, Ardi Rizal's health has been so ruined by his 40-a-day habit that he now struggles to move by himself. The four-stone Indonesia toddler is certainly far too unfit to run around with other children - and his condition is set to rapidly deteriorate. But, despite local officials' offer to buy the Rizal family a new car if the boy quits, his parents feel unable to stop him because he throws massive tantrums if they don't indulge him. His mother, Diana, 26, wept: 'He's totally addicted. If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick.' Ardi will smoke only one brand and his habit costs his parents £3.78 a day in Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia's South Sumatra province. But in spite of this, his fishmonger father Mohammed, 30, said: 'He looks pretty healthy to me. I don't see the problem.' Ardi's youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 per cent of those active smokers. The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up increased from 0.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2004, the agency reported. A video of a four-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube in March, prompting outrage before it was removed from the site. Child advocates are speaking out about the health damage to children from second-hand smoke, and the growing pressure on them to smoke in a country where one-third of the population uses tobacco and single cigarettes can be bought for a few cents. Seto Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia's child protection commission, blames the increase on aggressive advertising and parents who are smokers. 'A law to protect children and passive smokers should be introduced immediately in this country,' he said. A health law passed in 2009 formally recognizes that smoking is addictive, and an anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages. But a bill on tobacco control has been stalled because of opposition from the tobacco industry. The bill would ban cigarette advertising and sponsorship, prohibit smoking in public, and add graphic images to packaging. Benny Wahyudi, a senior official at the Industry Ministry, said the government had initiated a plan to try to limit the number of smokers, including dropping production to 240 billion cigarettes this year, from 245 billion in 2009. 'The government is aware of the impact of smoking on health and has taken efforts, including lowering cigarette production, increasing its tax and limiting smoking areas,' he said. Mr Mulyadi said a ban on advertising is key to putting the brakes on child and teen smoking.

'If cigarette advertising is not banned, there will be more kids whose lives are threatened because of smoking,' he said. Ubiquitous advertising hit a bump last month when a cigarette company was forced to withdraw its sponsorship of pop star Kelly Clarkson's concert following protests from fans and anti-tobacco groups.

However, imposing a non-smoking message will be difficult in Indonesia, the world's third-largest tobacco consumer. Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto, a member of the National Commission of Tobacco Control, said Indonesia must also address the social conditions that lead to smoking, such as family influence and peer pressure. 'The promotion of health has to be integrated down to the smallest units in our society, from public health centres and local health care centres to the family,' he was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe on Friday. Health Minister Endang Sedyaningsih conceded turning young people off smoking will be difficult in a country where it is perceived as positive because cigarette companies sponsor everything from scholarships to sporting events. 'This is the challenge we face in protecting youth from the dangers of smoking,' she said in a statement on the ministry's website.

Ardi, who is rarely seen without a cigarette, insists on the same brand, costing £78 a day

(my view)-This is sick and has made me sick to my stomach,the parents should be sent to prison for child abuse and attempted murder.

HIM-Teaser-10 days And Counting

Grandmother fined £50 for picking up wrong dog mess (even though she cleaned up after her own pet too)

As a responsible dog owner, Pam Robson always cleans up after her labrador Derik when they go for a walk. So when council wardens accused her of picking up the wrong dog mess, she cheerfully cleaned up a second deposit they said was Derik's and thought no more of it. But the great-grandmother was stunned to receive a £50 fixed penalty for committing a 'dog fouling offence'. She has spent four months facing the threat of court action before the local authority decided to drop the allegation. Victory: Pamela Robson, pictured with Derik, has won her battle against a council after she was handed a £50 fine for picking up the wrong dog poo. Yesterday she told of her anger at Sunderland council's behaviour. Mrs Robson, 60, was walking Derik in a field near her home in Houghton, County Durham, in January when he relieved himself as she chatted on her mobile. After her call, the women's refuge volunteer went straight over to what she thought was Derik's mess and cleared it up. But as she did so, two council enforcement officers walked towards her. Mrs Robson said: 'They claimed I had not picked up the right mess. They took me over to another pile and said, "That's your dog's mess".

'I apologised and said I had honestly picked up what I thought was my dog's business.' She thought that would be the end of the matter, but later received the penalty notice threatening court action, a £1,000 fine and a criminal record if she did not pay

Warning: Pamela holding the fixed penalty notice sent by the council. Mrs Robson wrote to her Labour MP, Fraser Kemp. The authority finally backed down earlier this month after Mr Kemp, who did not stand for re- election on May 6, wrote to officials. Mrs Robson said she was pleased the ticket had been quashed, but added that it never should have been issued in the first place. Sunderland council made no comment. On Tuesday, the Daily Mail's columnist Richard Littlejohn told how blind Albert McFall was handed a £40 fixed penalty notice even though he did not realise his guide dog had fouled waste ground near his home in Renfrew, Scotland. The fine was later withdrawn.

(my view)See this is why i HATE cops and the Council...fucking money grabbing failed abortions.

Nasa’s Voyager 2 space probe ‘hijacked by aliens’

Nasa space probe Voyager 2, which left earth 33 years ago, may have been hijacked by aliens who are now trying to make contact with earth according to a German academic. The craft, which is 8.6 billion miles from earth on the very edge of the solar system, has been sending back data ever since it was launched - until last month when it briefly stopped transmitting before starting to send strange messages that scientists cannot decipher. German academic Hartwig Hausdorf believes the change could be down to extraterrestrials. He says that because the rest of the spacecraft is still working normally there may be more to the cryptic messages than meets the eye. "It seems almost as if someone has reprogrammed or hijacked the probe," he told German newspaper Bild. "Thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth." Nasa's explanation is rather more prosaic. It blames a software problem with the craft's flight data system. Voyager 2 has been given instructions to transmit only information about its own status while scientists try to get to the bottom of the mystery. The Voyager 1 and 2 craft were launched together in 1977 and are both still working as they approach the edge of the heliosphere, the 'bubble' the sun creates around the solar system. Before being sent into space they were loaded with a so-called Golden Record - a disk containing greetings in 55 earth languages along with sounds and images from our planet in case it did encounter extraterrestrial life. But if Hausdorf is correct in assuming that aliens are trying to send messages there could be trouble ahead, even if they understand the information on the Golden Disk. Last month, Professor Stephen Hawking, the renowned British astrophysicist and believer in aliens, warned that advanced extraterrestrial life forms would aggressively seek to colonise Earth should humans ever make contact with them.

Girl, eight, says 10-year-old boys 'did not rape her'

An eight-year-old girl alleged to have been sexually assaulted by two 10-year-olds has told the Old Bailey that the boys did not rape her. She said she had lied to her mother about what had happened because she had been "naughty" and was worried she would not get any sweets. The girl was allegedly attacked in a field in west London in October 2009. The boys, now aged 10 and 11, each deny two charges of rape and two charges of attempted rape of a child under 13. In cross-examination by defence counsel, the girl admitted that she had voluntarily been playing with the boys and had pulled her own underwear down while the boys exposed themselves to her. Linda Strudwick, defending, asked the girl whether she had told her mother it was one of the boys that did it. She said: "You didn't want your mum to think you had been naughty?"

AT THE SCENE

Andy McFarlane, BBC News, The Old Bailey As the young complainant finished giving evidence, Mr Justice Saunders acknowledged she had been through "an ordeal". During the course of the day, she had spent a total of about two hours and 20 minutes giving evidence - via videolink to spare her the courtroom's intimidating atmosphere. The court had been shown videos of police interviews during which she described - in simple terms - being raped. But, under cross-examination, she denied that first one boy - then the second - had forced her into anything. The barristers tried to ask simple questions, usually getting short replies of "yes", "no", or "I don't remember". Indeed, at one point, Mr Justice Saunders told her: "[Defence barrister] Miss Strudwick is a very nice lady but you don't have to say 'yes' to everything she asks." At the end, he told the girl plainly: "No-one's suggesting you've done anything wrong at all. I'm the judge and I know."

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The girl, giving evidence from behind a screen, replied: "Yeah." The judge, Mr Justice Saunders, asked what the girl had been worried about and she replied: "No sweets if it [sic] found out I had been naughty." The judge asked her if she had been naughty when she was with the boys and the girl replied: "Just a tiny bit." The court has been told that the boys tried taking the girl to the third floor of a block of flats, then a nearby bin shed and into some bushes in order to find a "sufficiently secluded spot". They ended up at the field, where both boys carried out the assault, prosecutors say. None of the children involved in the trial can be identified because of their age. When asked by the other boy's barrister, Chetna Patel, if she had played with him before, the girl replied that she had "sometimes". "My sister used to play with him and she kept wanting to kiss him, so my mum wanted me to watch over her," she told the court. Later, when she was asked whether the boy had pulled down her underwear, or carried out the sexual assault, she replied: "No."

'Scooter thrown'

However, when Miss Patel asked whether the boy had picked her up at any time, the girl replied: "I can't remember." As she finished her evidence, the judge asked: "Can you now remember what went on in the field?" The girl replied: "I can't remember." The court had earlier seen two videos of police interviews with the girl. During the second, she told an officer that the boys had thrown her scooter in some bushes and told her she would not get it back unless she did what they said. When asked if she had told police during that second interview things that "didn't happen", the girl replied: "No." Earlier, the girl had directed a video operator around a virtual reality reconstruction of her estate to show where the prosecution says she was taken in the run-up to the assault. After identifying the flats, bin shed and bushes in question, she directed the operator to a gap in a fence leading to a field where the assault is alleged to have happened.

The trial continues.

(My view)She lied for sweets.....WTF! see.....i know shes 8 but even an 8 year old knows a lie from the truth.....see how easy it is for bitches to lie? makes me SICK!!!they didn't believe the boys......o'no....why?......their male...sexist fuckers

How much power do credit ratings agencies have?

They've downgraded Greece to junk status and have the UK in their sights. We reveal all about the mysterious world of the credit rating agencies Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's has taken some flack for turning the eurozone crisis into a drama by 'downgrading' the credit ratings of three countries at a time when the markets were already hugely jittery. Bang! Down goes Greece. Bang, bang! Take that, Portugal and Spain. Any time I mention the ratings agencies, the first question I'm usually asked is: are these the same credit ratings agencies who said that US sub-prime debt was a solid gold investment? The answer is, yes they are. That naturally leads on to a second question: why on earth do we still listen to them? It's a good point. And in many ways - as we'll see shortly - the market doesn't listen to them. But for good or for bad, they still wield a lot of power. That means that what they say matters. And that's something for Britain's politicians to bear in mind, as they jostle for first shot at governing us.

Why the Greek crisis matters

Who are these agencies?

There are many credit rating agencies, but the three best-known are Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody's, and Fitch. Here's what they do. Companies and governments, like the rest of us, sometimes need to borrow money. One way they do this is by issuing bonds, which are simply IOUs. A typical bond will pay a regular interest payment (the coupon) and then return the original sum borrowed at the end of the term (when the bond 'matures'). In the same way as individuals borrowing on a credit card or from a bank, the more creditworthy you are, the lower the rate of interest you'll have to pay. Here's where the ratings agencies come in. Before you take out a personal loan, a bank will do a credit check on you. The likes of Moody's basically do the same thing, only on a much bigger scale. They look into how creditworthy the borrower is and give their debt a rating. The format of the ratings varies from agency to agency, but broadly speaking, at the top of the scale you have AAA-rated debt (which should mean the issuer is very unlikely to default - ie not repay you), all the way down to 'junk' bonds, where there's a high risk of losing some or all of your money. Clearly, if you get a AAA stamp, then you can borrow money cheaply. But if you're told you're 'junk', then you'll have to pay a pretty big interest rate (ie offer a higher coupon) to get credit.

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How do the agencies decide their ratings? Obviously you would think that a credit ratings agency would know more about credit-worthiness than anyone else. But their reputations are hardly pristine. First there was energy trader Enron - rated AAA until something like four days before it actually went bust. And, far more recently, the ratings agencies simply rubber-stamped parcels of dud sub-prime mortgages with an AAA rating. The various investigations that followed the last financial crisis found that agencies' models made unrealistic assumptions (such as discounting the possibility of house prices ever falling by much). Things were made worse by the fact that the agencies were paid for their ratings by the same investment banks who were putting together these packages of mortgages in the first place. Now the mortgage parcels in question were fiendishly complicated. It's perhaps understandable that investors happily turned over responsibility for grading them to the ratings agencies (although it also highlights the importance of never buying anything you don't understand). To be fair to the agencies, it's easier to understand how they gauge the ratings of different countries. They look at things like tax income, debt levels, economic growth, and whether the government can make all the sums add up. So rating sovereign debt is a pretty transparent business compared to the likes of a collateralised debt obligation (as these parcels of mortgage debt are known). What's more problematic is the timing of ratings changes, as we'll discuss in a moment.

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What happens when you're downgraded? What you have to understand about the bond market, and where it differs (conceptually at least) from the personal loans market, is that the debt is sold on as a matter of course. The people who initially buy these bonds don't have to hold them until they're redeemed. They can sell them in the open market. Obviously, as people get more concerned about how risky a bond is (ie as they start to worry about whether they'll get paid back in the end or not), they start to demand a higher return in exchange for buying the bond. So prices fall, and it'll cost the company or country more to borrow if it wants to renew ('roll over') existing loans, or borrow extra money. So clearly, if a ratings agency changes its mind about a credit rating, or decides that a country's circumstances have changed, this can have a big impact on how much it has to pay to borrow. Who listens to the agencies? But so what? After all, Greek debt was hardly sitting pretty before S&P said it was junk. Greek bond yields had already spiked to beyond the point of no return. S&P was late to the scene. It was like the patsy at the start of a crime caper, who wanders in to find a corpse with a gun lying next to it, and picks up the gun just as the police kick down the door. As Pimco's Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund and thus extremely important in this area, put it in a recent research note, investors should simply "dismiss" the ratings agencies and their ratings. He said that the agencies' models might look impressive, but they entirely lacked common sense. Rating agencies and the government That's all very well and for many investors it's correct. But it's not the whole story. You see, the agencies have some level of official government endorsement. Institutional investors, including central banks and pension funds, use the ratings as guides as to what they can and cannot invest in. Certain types of funds, for example, are only allowed to invest in debt of a certain quality. So even though a downgrade might be stating the brutally obvious, it can be the trigger point at which institutions are forced to sell an asset if they haven't already done so. And, of course, the agencies' actions can make a panic worse. Sure, Greece was no surprise. But to follow that hot on the heels with a downgrade (albeit a less dramatic one) for Portugal and then Spain merely added to the whole fear of contagion. At a time when confidence and speed of reaction is a genuinely serious issue, communicating in this way isn't helpful.

Problems would still exist

But let's not kid ourselves here - if ratings agencies didn't exist, Greece and the euro would still have been in dire straits and the markets would still have been panicking. In this case they've added to the noise, but they're hardly the root cause of the problem. Arguably, as Gross says, they are little more than a distraction that smart investors would do well to ignore. Perhaps stripping the agencies of their semi-official status would help to increase competition in the sector and allow investors to make judgements based on the track record of an agency, rather than on how dominant it is. Better yet, it might force investors to do their own due diligence and use their common sense before they pile into Greek debt, imagining that it's German.

The UK general election and your money

So how likely is Britain to be downgraded - and does it matter? But we're stuck with the agencies for now and the next big target everyone's wondering about is our own country. The main agencies rushed out after the hung parliament to state that there was no immediate effect on Britain's AAA-rating. But what with the kicking they've taken over the eurozone recently, they may well be playing it safe to avoid being accused of making a bad situation worse. I suspect that Britain has a short grace period. If we can't then get a government together, which agrees on the specifics of how to cut the deficit and can push it through parliament, then investors in gilts, rather than the ratings agencies, will start to drive up the cost of British borrowing. If the only likely resolution is a second election, then at some point we may well have to start brewing the kettle for the International Monetary Fund team to pop by. The reality is that the ratings agencies, as usual, will be late to the party. By the time they actually downgrade us, you'll already know that all hell is breaking loose.

www.HIMArchives.com

Greetings Earthlings As most of you know i have my own site called "www.HIMArchives.com" or"http://" which either way you like to type it....my archives(HIM)is not finished yet but still in the process of going public......87% done....please bare with me ps. feel free to print or email my business card out and share with friends ect thankyou sweethearts HIM xxx

Labour man disowned after PM attack

A Labour parliamentary candidate has been disowned by his local party after branding Gordon Brown the "worst prime minister" Britain has had. North West Norfolk candidate Manish Sood hit out at Mr Brown less than 48 hours before the polls open. But David Collis, chairman of North West Norfolk Constituency Labour Party, dismissed him as a "dreadful candidate" and distanced the party from his "bizarre" comments. A party source said the CLP had considered deselecting Mr Sood on several occasions in the past but had decided it "wasn't worth the effort", given the large Tory majority. The row erupted when, in an interview with the Lynn News, Mr Sood said: "Immigration has gone up which is creating friction within communities. The country is getting bigger and messier. "The role of ministers has gone bureaucratic and the action of ministers has gone downhill - it is corrupt. The loss of social values is the basic problem and this is not what the Labour Party is about.

"I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst prime minister we have had in this country. It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen."

Asked on Sky News if he stood by the comments, Mr Sood replied: "Absolutely, yes. Obviously this is a very serious matter because we have a Prime Minister standing so close to the General Election and things are going totally wrong, and it's a real disaster for the cities, the country and the nation.

"And if you look at it, the average person has really got no respect for the Government and really we are moving towards not a government system but more towards anarchy, and that is very, very dangerous."

Mr Sood's mother Manjula Sood, a Labour councillor in Leicester and former lord mayor of the city, said: "I disapprove of what he said... Look at the improvement in the NHS and the minimum wage. My son holds his own views but I'm very angry about this and very angry with him. I'm campaigning every night and I'm very proud of that."(my view)-Gordon IS A DICKHEAD and should be emprisoned for his crimes.......without jam Roll

Beautiful women can be bad for your health, according to scientists

Meeting a beautiful woman can be bad for your health, scientists have found. Just five minutes alone with an attractive female raise the levels of cortisol, the body's stress hormone, according to a study from the University of Valencia.

The effects are heightened in men who believe that the woman in question is "out of their league".

Cortisol is produced by the body under physical or psychological stress and has been linked to heart disease. Researchers tested 84 male students by asking each one to sit in a room and solve a Sudoku puzzle. Two strangers, one male and one female, were also in the room. When the female stranger left the room and the two men remained sitting together, the volunteer's stress levels did not rise. However, when the volunteer was left alone with the female stranger, his cortisol levels rose. The researchers concluded: "In this study we considered that for most men the presence of an attractive woman may induce the perception that there is an opportunity for courtship. "While some men might avoid attractive women since they think they are 'out of their league', the majority would respond with apprehension and a concurrent hormonal response.

"This study showed that male cortisol levels increased after exposure to a five-minute short social contact with a young, attractive woman."

Cortisol can have a positive effect in small doses, improving alertness and well-being. However, chronically elevated cortisol levels can worsen medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and impotency

Six amazing hybrid animals

Ligers, tigons and grolar bears, oh my! Take a look at some of these otherworldly hybrid animals and you'll realize the possibilities are endless. Though they rarely occur in nature, individuals from different but closely related species do occasionally mate, and the result is a biological hybrid — an offspring that shares traits from both parent species. You may have heard of the mysterious sheep-pig creature, but it turns out that one isn't a true hybrid.

Here are six bizarre, but truly unique half-breeds.

Zebroid

A zebroid is the offspring of a cross between a zebra and any other equine, usually a horse or a donkey. There are zorses, zonkeys, zonies, and a host of other combinations. Zebroids are an interesting example of hybrids bred from species that have a radically different number of chromosomes. For instance, horses have 64 chromosomes and zebra have between 32 and 44 (depending on species). Even so, nature finds a way.

Savannah cats

Savannah cats are the name given to the offspring of a domestic cat and a serval — a medium-sized, large-eared wild African cat. The unusual cross became popular among breeders at the end of the 20th century, and in 2001 the International Cat Association accepted it as a new registered breed. Interestingly, savannahs are much more social than typical domestic cats, and they are often compared to dogs in their loyalty. They can be trained to walk on a leash and even taught to play fetch.

Ligers

Ligers are the cross of a male lion and a female tiger, and they are the largest of all living cats and felines. Their massive size may be a result of imprinted genes which are not fully expressed in their parents, but are left unchecked when the two different species mate. Some female ligers can grow to 10 feet in length and weigh more than 700 pounds. Ligers are distinct from tigons, which come from a female lion and male tiger. Various other big cat hybrids have been created too, including leopons (a leopard and a lion mix), jaguleps (a jaguar and leopard mix), and even lijaguleps (a lion and jagulep mix).

Wholphins

A cross between a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, wholphins are hybrids that have been reported to exist in the wild. There are currently two in captivity, both at Sea Life Park in Hawaii. The wholphin's size, color, and shape are intermediate between the parent species. Even their number of teeth is mixed; a bottlenose has 88 teeth, a false killer whale has 44 teeth, and a wholphin has 66.

Grolar bears

The offspring of a grizzly bear and a polar bear, a grolar bear is one beast you don't want to meet in the woods. Interestingly, unlike many hybrid animals on this list, grolar bears are known to occur naturally in the wild. Some experts predict that polar bears may be driven to breed with grizzly bears at an increased frequency due to global warming, and the fact that polar bears are being forced from their natural habitats on the polar ice.

Beefalo

Beefalo are the fertile offspring of domestic cattle and American bison. Crosses also exist between domestic cattle and European bison (zubrons) and yaks (yakows). The name given to beefalo might be the most suggestive, since the breed was purposely created to combine the best characteristics of both animals with an eye towards beef production. A USDA study showed that beefalo meat, like bison meat, tends to be lower in fat and cholesterol. They are also thought to produce less damage to range-land than cattle.

Thankyou Max For This Wonder Addition To Mother Earths Collection And For This Article

New British moth found in Hembury Woods is world first

A moth new to science and found nowhere else in the world has been formally recognised as living in the UK. The 3mm-long micro moth, which lives in Hembury Woods in Devon, was recognised as a new species this year. This week, the biologist who discovered it is presenting the Natural History Museum of London with one of the first known specimens. The receipt of this "type" specimen will mark the official acceptance of the moth's existence in the country. The tiny micro moth, which has a wingspan of just 6mm, was first spotted in 2004. At that time, amateur naturalist Bob Heckford sighted the unusual bright green caterpillars of this tiny leaf-mining moth on oak saplings within Hembury Woods, a site managed by the National Trust.

In January this year, the moth was officially recognised in the journal Zookeys as a new species, named Ectoedemia heckfordi after its discoverer. It is not known to live outside of the UK. Official presentation Now Mr Heckford is presenting the Natural History Museum with the original specimen.

That is important, because it marks the official acknowledgement by the scientific world of the specimen as the "type" for that species, against which any future finds will be compared and determined.

"We hear so much about the losses to the natural world, and less about the gains; which makes this find, however small, so important," says Matthew Oates, an adviser on nature conservation at the National Trust. "Amateur naturalists have a wonderful window on the wildlife world and nature continues to amaze us and throw up surprises even in the UK." There are well over 2,000 species of micro moth in the UK. They come in various shapes and sizes, but many are extremely pretty, though only appreciated under magnification. A few are actually larger than some larger, so-called macro moths.

Their biology varies. Most are plant feeders, with larvae often mining galleries in leaves, between the leaf surfaces. A few mine stems. Some, though, breed in fungi and a few have aquatic larvae. Most are nocturnal but quite a few also fly by day. Caterpillars of the new species are found mostly on oak saplings and low growth of oak in the shade. The mines they make are quite dark and the caterpillars are bright green which is quite unusual for micro moths. The adults lay their eggs on the underside of the leaf.

Give heroin on the NHS, says nursing leader

Drug addicts should be prescribed heroin on the NHS, a nursing leader says. Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said the move would drive down crime rates while helping people off the drug. But the views of other nurses at the RCN's annual conference in Bournemouth were mixed. Mr Carter's backing came after positive results from NHS pilots in London, Brighton and Darlington. The trials, involving 127 users, showed crime was cut by two-thirds, while three-quarters also "substantially reduced" their use of street drugs after being offered a range of support, including psychological therapy. Mr Carter said: "I do believe in heroin prescribing. The fact is heroin is very addictive. "It might take a few years but I think people will understand. "If you are going to get people off heroin then in the initial stages we have to have proper heroin prescribing services. "Critics say you are encouraging drug addiction but the reality is that these people are addicts and they are going to do it anyway." Mr Carter also said drug consumption rooms where users could get needles and inject in privacy should be looked into. He said Australia and the Netherlands had found they stopped users injecting in school playgrounds and stairwells. Debating the issue at the RCN's conference, several nurses agreed with the more radical approach. Claire Topham Brown, from Cambridgeshire, said providing heroin on the NHS could stop or reduce illegal drug use and crime, cut the transmission of viruses like HIV and hepatitis and provide a "stepping stone" to get people off heroin and on to the heroin substitute methadone.

But Gail Brooks, from the RCN's UK safety representatives committee, opposed the idea, saying: "Where would this stop? "Cannabis, cocaine, crack cocaine...other substances?" Harry Shapiro, of Drugscope, said heroin prescriptions could provide an important service. "This is not some heroin free-for-all, there is proper medical supervision."

(my view)-Doesn't it just piss you off that people are SO stupid and UNEDUCATED....most days i wake up..read the news and think to myself"why don't the government.....well the public...all the public put my as global president or even a pm here"........because EVERYONE knows i will be the PERFECT man for the job,if i was pm/GL-President i would make HISTORY from day one!and give this world back.....TO THE PEOPLE AND ANIMALS.....like it should be

The Biggest And Most Expensive mistake WE have made

The Biggest And Most Expensive mistake WE have made The one eyed Scottish freak loser MUST go!-he has wasted TAX-PAYERS to the WHOPPING 4 Trillion and rising and RISING peoples health in the process and HAS KILLED MILLIONS ALREADY,ALSO Brown'buried'a report showing £2.5bn wasted on defence-and once again....its rising

THIS FUCKER HAS GOT TO GO AND NEVER FUCKING RETURN

Newborn stallion weighs in at just six pounds

If baby animals are "cute," then how does one describe Einstein the newborn pinto stallion? Super-incredi-adora-cute? Weighing in at just six pounds, the New Hampshire-born foal may be the world's smallest horse. Dr. Rachel Wagner, Einstein's co-owner, says the Guinness record for the smallest newborn horse is 9 pounds. Wagner notes Einstein shows no signs of dwarfism, unlike the current record holder. Photos of Einstein standing next to a young child and a bemused Saint Bernard really put the horse's 14-inch frame in perspective. All together now: "Awwww!"

Thankyou Max For This Lovely Article

To All The Staff At Facebook.......your morons

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO VIEW DETAILS

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

.

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

Icelandic volcanic ash alert grounds UK flights

All flights in and out of the UK have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south. Safety body Eurocontrol said up to 4,000 flights across northern Europe had so far been affected by the cloud. The Air Traffic Control Service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in or out of UK airspace until 1800BST amid fears of engine damage. The airspace restriction was the most significant in living memory, a spokesman said. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark were among the European countries hit. The restrictions were imposed after the Met Office warned the ash was sufficient to clog engines. Passengers were advised to contact their carriers prior to travel. Experts have warned that the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand contained in the ash cloud would be sufficient to jam aircraft engines. But the Health Protection Agency said the ash did not pose a significant risk to public health because of its high altitude.

These are some of the main knock-on effects:

Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports shut Disruptions to and from Liverpool's John Lennon, Manchester and Newcastle airports Severe delays at Birmingham airport with problems reported at East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Cardiff International and Bristol airports London's Gatwick, Heathrow and City airports hit British Airways cancels all domestic flights on Thursday and offers refunds or an option to rebook Flights suspended at Belfast International Airport and George Best Belfast City Airport RAF Sea King helicopter flies a critically ill patient from Scotland to London Ash threat forces Great North Air Ambulance to be grounded

One passenger at Glasgow told the BBC: "I'm meant to be going to Lanzarote. We've travelled from Oban, leaving at 3am. Now we've decided we might as well just go home and do a bit of gardening."

Others switched form plane to train, with the East Coast line extending its 1830BST London to Newcastle service through to Edinburgh. Budget airline Ryanair said no flights were operating to or from the UK on Thursday and it expected cancellations and delays on Friday. A Nats spokesman said: "The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has issued a forecast that the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland will track over Europe tonight. "Nats is working with Eurocontrol and our colleagues in Europe's other air navigation service providers to take the appropriate action to ensure safety in accordance with international aviation policy." The European air safety body, Eurocontrol, said the cloud of ash had reached 55,000ft and was expected to move through northern UK and Scotland. Brian Flynn, assistant head of operations of its central flow management unit, told the BBC: "As it moves toward the Netherlands and Belgium it will dissipate and lose intensity, like any weather phenomenon. But we don't know what the extent of it will be." Met Office forecaster Philip Avery said the ash could take several days to clear. He said: "It is showing up on imagery at the moment, extending down as far as the Faroes but it looks as though the wind will drag it a good deal further south. "Nats has good cause to be very cautious about this because in about 1982 a British Airways jumbo had the unnerving experience of having all four engines shut down as it flew through a plume of volcanic ash." There was a nearly identical incident on 15 December 1989 when KLM Flight 867, a B747-400 from Amsterdam to Anchorage, Alaska, flew into the plume of the erupting Mount Redoubt, causing all four engines to fail. Once the flight cleared the ash cloud, the crew was able to restart each engine and then make a safe landing at Anchorage, but the aircraft was substantially damaged. A BAA spokesman said: "Passengers intending to fly today are asked to contact their airline for further information." The eruption under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland is the second in the country in less than a month.

Primark drops padded child's bikini

Primark has stopped selling padded bikini tops for children after criticism that they sexualised young girls, a spokesman for the chain said. The company apologised for any offence caused by the product and said profits from any bikinis already sold would be given to a children's charity. A spokesman said: "Primark has taken note of the concern this morning regarding the sale of certain bikini tops for girls, a product line that sells in relatively small quantities. "The company has stopped the sale of this product line with immediate effect. "Primark will donate all the profits made from this product line to a children's charity, and apologises to customers for any offence caused." Child protection consultant Shy Keenan, of The Phoenix Chief Advocates which helps victims of paedophiles, earlier called for a boycott of Primark until the bikini top was withdrawn.

"As victims' advocates, we know why you should never sexualise children or help to normalise the sexualisation of children," she said. "They may be learning how to look sexy in an adult way, but no- one is teaching them what to do if they receive robust unwelcome adult attention.

"We say boycott Primark until they agree to withdraw this line."

Father held after baby left in car

Police arrested a man for leaving his 1-year-old baby in a car unattended during the early hours while he watched strippers at a nightclub in New Zealand's capital, and have placed the boy in welfare agency care. A passer-by called police after seeing the sleeping baby in a car parked near the Mermaid Strip Club in Wellington about 3 am on Tuesday. Police took the baby to hospital and arrested the father, 42, after he was located in the club, Inspector Simon Perry said.

Two convicts dress up as sheep to evade capture

Two convicts who escaped from a high security prison in Argentina have managed to evade arrest by disguising themselves up as sheep by wearing full sheepskins including the sheep's head. Maximiliano Pereyra and Ariel Diaz stole the sheep hides from a ranch after fleeing from an Argentinian maximum security prison a week ago, The Sun has reported. The duo managed to evade 300 policemen on their trail by disguising themselves as sheep. Locals have seen them running through farmland at night. "They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheep's heads, over their heads and back," a farmworker was quoted as saying. Spotting the two men among thousands of sheep is "almost impossible", the police said.

Pope 'has no UK arrest immunity'

Plans to have the Pope arrested when he visits the UK will succeed because he is not a head of state, a solicitor has said. Atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens proposed the action against the Pontiff for his handling of child abuse scandals in the Catholic church. The writers' solicitor Mark Stephens said applications will be made to courts in the UK and the International Criminal Court for a warrant for Pope Benedict XVI's arrest. His likely defence would be be that he is immune from prosecution during his visit to Britain in September, according to the lawyer. Mr Stephens said: "The courts will examine the claim of immunity. I believe that an English court would reject it. If the Pope was here on a state visit, ordinarily a head of state would have sovereign immunity. What I believe is that because he's not a sovereign, not a head of state, he's not entitled to the defence." He said that the Vatican was declared to be a state by Benito Mussolini, but this had no standing in international law. The Pope faced criticism after it emerged that he signed a letter which delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest in the US for the "good of the universal church". Writing in 1985, the future Pontiff said that he needed more time to consider the case. Mr Stephens, who has represented abuse victims in the past said: "This will require the Pope to deal with the way in which he appears to have prioritised the reputation of the Catholic church over the welfare of children." Potential charges against the Pope would be crimes against humanity.

Pupils taught using violent game-The Government Still Have NOT Learned

Stills from violent video game Grand Theft Auto are being used to teach primary school children about violence. The 18-rated game is being used as part of a police-backed pilot scheme in primary schools in Merseyside to deter youngsters from aggressive behaviour. Under the scheme, 10 and 11-year-olds are shown stills from the games, which allow players to beat up prostitutes. These are used alongside real-life images to prompt a discussion on what is good, bad, real and unreal. Under the Get Real scheme run by the charity Support After Murder and Manslaughter (Samm) and Merseyside Police, children are given trading cards from the video game alongside real-life images of parents arguing or of drunkenness. Clips from the Tom and Jerry-satirising cartoon Itchy and Scratchy, from the Simpsons, are also used alongside role-playing in the Home Office-funded project. Pupils are then asked to differentiate between good, bad, real and unreal life events. One of its founders, Gaynor Bell, who lost two children in violent deaths, said the project was created to try to turn children away from violence at a young age. Despite the game's 18-rated status, she said many children would have played it, and similar games, at home with elder siblings, and that they risked being de-sensitised to the violence involved. She added: "They are shown a picture of a man rolling over a car and you can clearly see it has a machine gun.

"It's basically telling them that it's not real life, but in these games they do look real."

She added: "Children have very short attention spans so they need something that keeps them interested, preferably busy with their hands and it has to be something that allows them to be proactive." The workshops are run in schools with a police officer, the class teacher and two members of Samm and are subsequently followed up with further work. Samm works with young offenders, and those at risk of offending, to try to turn them away from crime. A spokesman for Liverpool City Council said: "Almost any media can be edited to be educational and if the material already attracts children's interest, it can have a greater impact on them. "This may well be depicting knife-using car thieves as the selfish morons that they are - which of course we would welcome." (my view)-What do you think is going to happen next?........that's right,just like sex education being thought at a young age in school...ordered by the gov of course.......the kids will see these pictures and just like the sex ed being taught and shown.......they will be curious and commit crime....like sex being taught...what happened?...........2 10 yr old boys raped an 8yr old girl..there have been a few other cases to.........its all getting worse and its the governments that turning OUR kids into criminals,rapists,ect

Boy buys big in Farmville

A 12 year-old British boy has used his mother’s credit card to make purchases exceeding £900 in Facebook’s popular agriculture game, Farmville. In fairness, the lad plugged £288 of his own savings into this ill-advised investment. The rest of it was all on his mum’s plastic, though, and was spent completely without her knowledge:

“The first use of my card was on 14 March,” she tells The Guardian.

“I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.” And the rest, as they say, is history – just like the boy’s chances of ever being allowed back on the home computer again. To add insult to injury Facebook, which hosts the game, has cancelled the boy’s account too. Perhaps that’s because, at 12 years old, he’s actually too young to be playing it. Meanwhile it appears that the possibility of a refund from either the credit card company or the game’s makers is slim, since the credit card was supposed to be the mother’s responsibility. However HSBC, the card issuers, has said it may consider reimbursing the woman if she decides to file criminal charges against her son. “Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” is all she had to say about that proposition.

So how did the lad himself account for his wayward spending spree? “...they had brought out good stuff that I wanted.”

Blimey, kids eh? However the biggest irony in all of this is that Farmville is mostly free to play, with users purchasing extra items only if they want them. But therein lie many lessons about the dangers of supposedly free applications – as well as the pitfalls of leaving minors alone with their mum’s purse!(my view)-I think people are REALLY stupid about "buying"these NON-REAL items but virtual ITEMS....to build up a GAME...that's it........its a fucking game losers....facebook should be sued over this,playing on peoples addictive stupidity at gaming........gaming is a free to play zone on sites.....you should not pay to play..that's idiotic and selfish

GOTH Vs EMO

THIS POLL WAS TAKEN A WEEK AGO,200 MILLION PEOPLE TOOK THE TEST AND THE RESULTS ARE IN....I PASTED THE ANSWERS TO WHY ON A PLAIN WHITE BACKGROUND SO ITS EASIER TO SEE........ENJOY

Barbara's Heartagram T-Shirt

Q&A: The Digital Economy bill

ISPs could soon be asked to monitor the online activities of their users The Digital Economy Bill is due for its second reading in the House of Commons and could become law during the wash-up period, which sees outstanding legislation rushed through before a general election. But the most controversial aspects of the bill - which could see persistent illegal file-sharers disconnected from the web and copyright holders given the power to block access to websites hosting illegal content - deserve greater debate say critics.

What does it mean for me?

Nothing yet. If the Digital Economy bill becomes law the wheels will be set in motion but initially this will mean those identified as downloading illegal content will be sent letters asking them to stop and pointing out legal alternatives. If this is considered to be ineffective, regulator Ofcom will be able to introduce technical measures down the line, which could include limiting the speed or capacity of an individual's service or suspending their service completely.

How big is the problem?

It is notoriously difficult to measure how much illegal file-sharing is going on. It is reported that more than half of all the traffic on the net in the UK is content being shared illegally but service providers say they cannot measure it exactly. The creative industries estimate that six million people in the UK regularly file-share copyright content without permission, costing the industries revenue that they cannot recoup. A recent study, by economics firm TERA Consultants, estimated that the UK's creative industries experienced losses of £1.2bn in 2008 due to piracy. Pressure from the rights owners has been met with resistance from the ISPs and digital rights campaign groups who argue that there is no sign of reduction in the amount of file-sharing.

What do those opposed to the measures say?

ISPs have long said they do not want to become the internet police, and have also pointed out that under the law as it stands they are mere conduits of the traffic on the net. Many ISPs signed up to a voluntary agreement that saw them send letters to users they suspect of sharing content illegally but this scheme ended in January 2009. The full-time role of monitoring traffic on their networks will fall to rights-holders although ISPs will have to bear some of the costs. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has proposed that the costs of tracking down file-sharers be split between the ISPs and the rights owners. The Open Rights Group has been very vocal in its opposition to aspects of the Digital Economy Bill, most notably the plans to disconnect users from the web. Together with digital rights campaigners 38 Degrees it has raised over £20,000 to roll out advertisements in national newspapers condemning the bill. As a result of its campaign, over 20,000 people has written to their MPs asking them to vote against the bill. Is cutting people off from the net the only controversial aspect of the bill? No. Opponents are also concerned about plans to force internet service providers to block websites that host copyright free material. The part of the bill that refers to this, Clause 18, has been rewritten by the government over the last week. Originally the clause was intended to future-proof the legislation against other methods of copyright theft not yet thought about. While it still allows copyright owners to force service providers to block access to certain sites, the process will now to subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Copyright owners would also need evidence that the downloading of material from the site was having a "serious effect" on businesses or consumers. There are also concerns about how the file-sharing measures will affect public wi-fi services. As the law stands, the owner of a connection could be held liable even if they are not personally responsible for downloading pirated material so, for instance, if someone used wireless connectivity in a cafe to download free content, the cafe owner would be held responsible.

What are the UK creative industries asking for?

Nine bodies representing the creative industries - among them the BPI, the body representing British record labels, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and trade five unions, including the Musicians' Union - have in the past expressed a desire for the government to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to warn, throttle the speed of connection and ultimately disconnect persistent illegal file-sharers. They want a commitment to stopping file-sharing and the responsibility for doing so to be placed on the ISPs and for that to be enshrined in legislation. The games industry has already begun a clampdown of those illegally sharing videogames and the methods it uses would broadly be similar to those the music and film industry want. A handful of law firms have begun sending letters to those identified as downloading illegal content, demanding they pay a one-off fine or face court action. The BPI has condemned this approach.

How will illegal file-sharers be detected?

ISPs routinely monitor traffic sent over their network, for maintenance and security purposes. While it is relatively simple to monitor traffic sent using file-sharing programs, it is technically more challenging to know what exactly is being shared. If the bill becomes law, the responsibility of tracking down pirates will lie with content rights owners. They plan to monitor websites which offer links to copyright content and then obtain the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the online computer being used to share that data. ISPs tend to own blocks of IP addresses, so it is relatively simple to identify the broadband account holder that is tied to a particular IP address at a particular time. But this is a slow, and time-consuming procedure. One solution is to employ deep packet inspection (DPI) to look at the content of the "packets" of data being sent over the net. DPI can examine the contents of shared data and then using digital fingerprinting technology to see if the file is being exchanged with consent or not.

Will banning persistent file-sharers work?

The creative industries believe illegal file-sharing is almost endemic while the government has set a target of reducing the problem by at least 70% in the next two or three years. The difficulty is that the problem is a moving target. More persistent file-sharers are already beginning to use software which masks their IP address while online, and the files being exchanged are encrypted, so it is harder for ISPs to use DPI technology. However, the music and film industries are more likely attempting to target the "soft, underbelly" of file-sharing: the teenagers who are doing it because they are either apathetic or believe they can get away with it. That raises another difficult issue in the debate about disconnecting file-sharers: they may be sharing their internet connection. Teenagers are likely to be using a connection at their parents' homes, and shared housing may see a number of independent users with just one file-sharer in their midst.

How have other countries dealt with the problem?

Countries around the world are grappling with how to control internet piracy. In the US, student Joel Tenebaum, who has admitted downloading 800 songs, was last year ordered to pay $675,000 (£412,000) to various record labels after being found guilty on 31 charges of sharing music online. In May 2009, the French parliament passed legislation which would see a new state-agency sending warning letters to file sharers. If they are caught three times, they will be cut off. There have been protests against similar proposed legislation in Australia and New Zealand. In response to the French legislation, European politicians ruled that cutting off someone's internet connection could be a breach of their human rights.(my view)-This topic and"law" sickens me to my core,its wrong to spy on people and use"Copyright"to get what you want,WE BUY YOUR SHIT....SO LEAVE US ALL THE FUCK ALONE

'Alien invasion' April Fools' story angers Jordan mayor

A Jordanian mayor is considering suing a newspaper over an April Fools' Day report saying aliens had landed nearby. Al-Ghad's front-page story on 1 April said flying saucers flown by 3m (10ft) creatures had landed in the desert town of Jafr, in eastern Jordan. It said communication networks went down and frightened townspeople fled into the streets. The mayor, Mohammed Mleihan, said parents were so frightened they did not send their children to school that day. "Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents," Mr Mleihan told the Associated Press.

"People were scared that aliens would attack them."

He immediately notified the security authorities, who he said combed the area looking for the aliens. They did not find any. Big jokers Al-Ghad's front page piece said the giant aliens had arrived on flying saucers lighting up the Jordanian desert town of Jafr, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) east of Amman. Moussa Barhoumeh, Al Ghad's managing editor, said the newspaper was simply having some good natured fun on April Fools' Day, and had apologised for any inconvenience caused.

"We meant to entertain, not scare people," he said.

Mr Barhoumeh did not say why Jafr was chosen as the butt of the joke, but the area is notorious for a nearby military base that sometimes hosts US troops for joint training exercises. Human rights groups claim the base once housed alleged al-Qaida militants, some of whom were transferred from Guantanamo Bay, but Jordan has denied the charge. While April Fools' Day jokes appearing in the press may be a great British tradition, this is not the case in Jordan, says the BBC's Dale Gavlak in the capital, Amman. While Egyptians are renowned as the big jokers in the Arab world, able to easily laugh at just about anything, the Jordanians are considered more serious. Although some are trying to change that perception by hosting a yearly international comedy festival in Amman, for Jafr's mayor, this was clearly one joke that just went too far, our correspondent adds.(my view)-Wow the mayor's a dick lol

Brown: Economy is like Rooney's ankle

Gordon Brown has warned that Tory plans to cut the budget deficit this year risk pushing the economy into a "double-dip" recession. In a podcast on the No 10 website, he said that the recovery remained fragile and the economy needed time to regain strength - drawing a comparison with footballer Wayne Rooney's injured foot. "I know everyone will be hoping he's fit for the World Cup but after an injury you need support to recover, you need support to get back to match fitness, you need support to get back your full strength and then go on to lift the World Cup. So with the economy - we're not back to full fitness, we need to maintain support," he said. "If we try and jump off the treatment table as if nothing had happened we'll do more damage to the economy - and frankly that means we risk a double-dip recession. I think that's a risk we can't afford to take." Shadow chancellor George Osborne announced last week that the Tories would make £6 billion in public sector efficiency savings this year in order to reverse part of the Government's planned increase in national insurance contributions, due to come in next April. Mr Brown said: "If you withdraw support too early, we'll risk doing more damage," he said."(my view)-Unlike Rooney's ankle........it was only a sprained ankle but yet he was like a sobbing baby over it all,and had his leg in a case.......pathetic,you have DISTOYED OUR COUNTRY from day one......your a disease gordon!

Five charged with rape of girl, 7-From my earlier post

Two men and three teenage boys have been charged with gang-raping a seven-year-old girl sold for sex by her 15-year-old stepsister during a party at a crime-ridden apartment building in New Jersey. Details of the arrests were announced outside police headquarters in Trenton. Police director Irving Bradley said detectives had been working around the clock since the crime was reported on March 28. "We did get a lot of co-operation from the community, which helped break this case," Mr Bradley said. Those arrested included Gregory Leary, 20, in custody since Friday, when he was charged with having sex with the 15-year-old. The other four were Timear Lewis, 19, and boys aged 13, 14 and 17. Each was charged with aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors will probably seek to try all of them as adults, Mercer County prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said. The case shocked residents of the Rowan Towers apartment building, where three of those arrested lived, police captain Joseph Juniak said. The building's management has stepped up its security presence there and promised additional safety measures, but residents expressed scepticism that the flats would become safer. Before the arrest announcement, the 15-year-old girl had been charged with promoting prostitution, aggravated sexual assault and other crimes. She remains in youth custody.