View of the bridge in better times

**Read about the bridge at Wikipedia

'High winds caused a steel crossbeam and two steel tie rods to snap off the Bay Bridge's eastern span and fall to the upper deck, Caltrans officials said today as commuters unable to drive over the closed bridge jammed alternative routes and crowded onto BART in record numbers.

The three pieces were part of an emergency repair that workers made on the bridge over the Labor Day weekend after discovering a crack in a structural beam on the cantilever section. The repair held for just seven weeks, until the parts came crashing to the upper deck at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, damaging three vehicles and injuring one motorist.

Crews worked all night on fresh repairs after authorities closed the bridge, but Caltrans was giving no estimate for when the span might reopen. Local transit officials said they were being told to plan as though the bridge will be closed through the end of the week.

The National Weather Service said gusts in the San Francisco area hit 30 mph Tuesday. Caltans said that was enough to cause a 20-foot tie rod, which goes through load-bearing steel saddles on the cantilever section, to move back and forth, and eventually snap.'

Highway to Heaven or Hell?



Westbound Highway 92 (left) slows as commuters, at mid-morning, cross over the high rise section of the San Mateo Bridge into Foster City on Wednesday. Photo: Michael Macor

--Story from San Francisco Chronicle

California does not require a background check of its Child Protective Services workers. Many of them, it seems, have criminal histories as long as your arm. Sweet. No wonder kids are dying and nothing gets done when you call them to investigate things. And get this, there is some dispute over whether this new proposed bill should even be passed.

Omg, California, there is no hope for you.


Bill would require background checks for child services workers

Seen on Alterslash

Hugh Pickens writes: “Scientific American reports that a new device called ‘BrainPort’ aims to restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue’s surface to send light signals to the brain. BrainPort collects visual data through a small digital video camera and converts the signal into electrical pulses sent to the tongue via a ‘lollipop’ that sits directly on the tongue, where densely packed nerves receive the incoming electrical signals. White pixels yield a strong electrical pulse and the electrodes spatially correlate with the pixels, so that if the camera detects light fixtures in the middle of a dark hallway, electrical stimulations will occur along the center of the tongue. Within 15 minutes of using the device, blind people can begin interpreting spatial information. ‘At first, I was amazed at what the device could do,’ says research director William Seiple. ‘One guy started to cry when he saw his first letter.’” There is some indication that the signals from the tongue are processed by the visual cortex. The company developing the BrainPort will submit it to the FDA for approval later this month, and it could be on sale (for around $10,000) by the end of the year.

Read the Scientific American article.

Yesterday the Libyan convicted in 2001 for the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was released from prison on compassionate grounds. If anyone knows of or remembers the Pan Am air disaster over Lockerbie, Scotland which killed 270 people, including many on the ground, and which was subsequently blamed on the Libyans, you may be interested in reading this book which has been banned and had much trouble seeing the light of day due to governmental intervention. I found it at the Ralph Nader online library, which is a quite interesting resource. The name of the book (which can be read and downloaded online) is:


TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS -- FROM BEIRUT TO LOCKERBIE -- INSIDE THE DIA

"The true story of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988 has been enshrouded in government-created lies. The American government claimed that two Libyan agents, acting alone, placed the bomb aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, Germany, where it was transferred to a London-bound 727, and then transferred again to the 747 Jumbo Jet at Heathrow Airport, destined for New York, the ill-fated flight 103. I knew better. I had spent the past four years gathering strategic intelligence on narco-terrorist cells in Lebanon as an agent for two Federal agencies -- the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spy unit, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Two days after the bombing, appearing on the NBC Nightly News, I told Tom Brokaw and his television audience, 'We should take a close look at Libya -- renegade CIA operative Edwin Wilson sold Leader Muhammar Gadaffi 20 tons of plastique explosives and has trained the Libyans to make bombs.' I didn’t know then, but subsequently learned, that Wilson was no renegade. He had recruited Gadaffi at the behest of his CIA bosses, who then turned on him, arresting Wilson in 1977 and prosecuting him for doing what he had been ordered to do. While Wilson fought his battle against the CIA’s campaign of character assassination from a prison cell, Wilson’s partner Frank Terpil continued training Libyans in bomb-making and terror tactics. When Pan Am 103 was destroyed in mid-air in 1988, Gadaffi had been perfectly positioned to serve as the CIA’s scapegoat. Because Wilson knew the truth, the CIA’s campaign to discredit and silence him continued until 2003, when Judge Lynn Hughes ordered him released from Federal prison, declaring that the CIA’s story was 'nothing but lies.'"

A comment on a news post >>here alerted me to this disclosure about the book and sent me on a quest to find it.

There are many other fascinating resources about a wide variety of issues at the library. It is located here: The Ralph Nader Library.

Image source

By Susan Smith
Scotsman
06 July 2009

http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en

THE oldest surviving Christian Bible can now been viewed online after a painstaking conservation project involving institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia.

About half of the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus, meaning The Sinai Book, was analysed and treated before high-resolution digital images of the pages were created.

The fourth-century book is considered to be one of the most important texts in the world and this is the first time in centuries scholars have been able to view so much of it in one place.

Dr Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library, which is home to a large part of the original book, said the wide availability of the document presented many research opportunities.

"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Dr McKendrick. "This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation."

He added: "The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago."

The Codex Sinaiticus contains the oldest complete New Testament and one of the oldest Greek translations of the parts of the Old Testament.

Named after the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, where the book was preserved for many centuries, the Codex Sinaiticus was moved on three occasions after it was discovered by the German biblical scholar Constantine Tischendorf in the mid-19th century.

The British Library has 347 leaves, after it purchased them from the Soviet government in 1933.

A further 43 leaves are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, parts of six leaves are in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg and a final 12 leaves and 40 fragments remain at the Monastery of St Catherine, where monks uncovered them in part of the northern wall in 1975. The book is considered to be too delicate to move from any of its locations, so work had to be carried out in all four places before the project could be completed.

Professor Timothy Lim, of Edinburgh University, an expert on biblical manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, said that because scholars previously had to visit four different libraries to study the text – handwritten by three different scribes – the new arrangement will significantly improve understanding of the New Testament.

"Gathering all the parts together will allow people to talk about it as a whole and learn more about it and improve speed of access," he said. "The actual pages are not that difficult to read so now if you are holding a lecture, you can display a page and examine it there and then."

To mark the online launch, the British Library is staging an exhibition which runs until 7 September.

By MAGGIE GALEHOUSE LIFESTYLE WRITER
http://www.chron.com
June 28, 2009

When someone famous dies, Michael Baden’s phone starts ringing.

The 74-year-old forensic pathologist — who smiles merrily when asked about his “detective of death” nickname — got one of those calls last month, the day after David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room.

The first autopsy said that the cause of death was asphyxiation; the Kung Fu and Kill Bill actor was found naked with a rope around his neck. But the Carradine family wanted a second autopsy when the body was flown back to Los Angeles. Baden agreed to do it.

In 1992, Dr. Michael Baden and others determined that skeletal remains found a year earlier in Siberia were those of Tsar Nicholas II, other members of the Romanov royal family and their servants.

“I was looking for any evidence of homicide or suicide,” says Baden, his large, smooth hands working a cell phone and a plate of quesadillas as he explains the focus of his autopsy. “We ruled out suicide and death by natural causes.”

But he hasn’t ruled out homicide or accidental death due to sexual experimentation.

“We’re waiting for video from the security cameras at the hotel and the electric key usage into the room,” Baden says. “We’re also waiting for the toxicology report.”

“We’re waiting for video from the security cameras at the hotel and the electric key usage into the room,” Baden says. “We’re also waiting for the toxicology report.”

This congenial man, whose cell phone rings the Pink Panther theme song, passed through Texas recently to promote Skeleton Justice, his second mystery novel co-written with his wife, attorney Linda Kenney Baden. The book tour is a relatively low-profile gig for Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and host of the Autopsy documentary specials on HBO.

As the post-mortem Michael Jackson drama demonstrates, the death of a well-known person can captivate the public — especially when questions linger. And Baden has investigated some of the highest-profile deaths of the past century. ( >>Read on )

Na'ima B.Robert
Times
June 26, 2009


Wearing my niqab is a choice freely made, for spiritual reasons

I put on my niqab, my face veil, each day before I leave the house, without a second thought. I drape it over my face, tie the ribbons at the back and adjust the opening over my eyes to make sure my peripheral vision is not affected.

Had I a full-length mirror next to the front door, I would be able to see what others see: a woman of average height and build, covered in several layers of fabric, a niqab, a jilbab, sometimes an abayah, sometimes all black, other times blue or brown. A Muslim woman in 'full veil'. A niqabi.

But is that truly how people see me? When I walk through the park with my little ones in tow, when I reverse my car into a parking space, when I browse the shelves in the frozen section, when I ask how to best cook asparagus at a market stall, what do people see? An oppressed woman? A nameless, voiceless individual? A criminal?

Well, if Mr Sarkozy and others like him have their way [see >>this Guardian article], I suppose I will be a criminal, won't I? Never mind that "it's a free country"; never mind that I made this choice from my own free will, as did the vast majority of covered women of my generation; never mind that I am, in every other respect, an upstanding citizen who works hard as a mother, author and magazine publisher, spends responsibly, recycles and tries to eat seasonally and buy local produce!

Yes, I cover my face, but I am still of this society. And, as crazy as it might sound, I am human, a human being with my own thoughts, feelings and opinions. I refuse to allow those who cannot know my reality to paint me as a cardboard cut-out, an oppressed, submissive, silenced relic of the Dark Ages. I am not a stereotype and, God willing, I never will be.

But where are those who will listen? At the end of the day, Muslim women have been saying for years that the hijab et al are not oppressive, that we cover as an act of faith, that this is a bonafide spiritual lifestyle choice. But the debate rages on, ironically, largely to the exclusion of the women who actually do cover their faces.

The focus on the niqab is, in my opinion, utterly misplaced. Don't the French have anything better to do than tell Muslim women how to dress? Don't our societies have bigger problems than a relative handful of women choosing to cover their faces out of religious conviction? The "burka issue" has become a red herring: there are issues that Muslim women face that are more pressing, more wide-reaching and, essentially, more relevant than whether or not they should be covering with a niqab, burqa or hijab.

At the end of the day, all a ban will do is force Muslim women who choose to cover to retreat even further - it is not going to result in a mass "liberation" of Muslim women from the veil. All women, covered or not, deserve the opportunity to dress as they see fit, to be educated, to work where they deem appropriate and run their lives in accordance with their principles, as long as these choices do not impinge on others' freedoms. And last time I looked, being able to see a woman's hair, legs or face were not rights granted alongside "liberté, egalité et fraternité".

As a Muslim woman living in the UK, I am so grateful for the fact that my society does not force me to choose between being a practising Muslim and an active member of society. I have been able to study, to work, to establish a writing career and run a magazine business, all while wearing a niqaab. I think that that is a credit to British society, no matter what the anti-multiculturalists may say, and I think the French could learn some very valuable lessons from the British approach.

So, three cheers for those women who make the choice to cover, in whatever way and still go out there every day. Go out to brave the scorn and ridicule of those who think they understand the burka better than those who actually wear it. Go out to face the humiliating headlines. Go out to face the taunts of schoolchildren. Go out to fight another day. Go out to do their bit for society and the common good. Because you never know, if Mr Sarkozy and his supporters have their way, there could come a day when these women think twice about going out there into a society that cannot bear the way they look. And, who knows, I could be one of them.

And, while some would disagree, I think that would be a sad day.

• Na'ima B. Robert is the founding editor of SISTERS, a magazine for Muslim women and author of 'From My Sisters' Lips ', a look at the lives of British Muslim women who cover.

Al Jazeera
28 June 2009

A public hearing organised by a UN team investigating alleged war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the Gaza war is under way.

As part of its investigations into the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza conflict, the UN fact-finding mission will listen to testimony from victims of the conflict for two days in Gaza City and hold a second round of public hearings on July 6 and July 7 in Geneva.

During the hearing, which began on Sunday and is being screened live for the public and the media, the mission will hear from victims of alleged violations and from experts on the context and impact of the Israeli siege and military operations.

Gaza's reconstruction is being hampered by Israel's blockade of Gaza [EPA]

The public hearings, which are a part of the information-gathering work of the fact-finding mission, will enable victims, witnesses and experts from all sides in the conflict to speak directly to the international community.

In Geneva, the mission will hear from victims of alleged violations in Israel and the West Bank, as well as from experts on a variety of military and legal issues.

Geneva has been chosen as the venue of the second round of hearings since the fact-finding mission has so far not received permission to enter Israel to hold the sessions in southern Israel and the West Bank. ( >>Continued )

Expulsion threat in secret documents

**Poster's Note: Please keep these words in mind when you read the following archived article from 2003: 'Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger...' In case you have forgotten, Ratzinger is now the Pope. The time span in this article covers at least 5 popes, including Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul II and the current man holding the title, Benedict XVI [a.k.a Ratzinger]

I note with interest the stories about how disturbed the Pope was at hearing the clerical abuse report from Ireland. I find this to be sheer hypocrisy, and I also do not think that asking for public apology from anyone even BEGINS to cover what must be done to bring even a tiny amount of justice for the victims. Nothing can ever make up for this obscenity and crime against humanity that has been covered up down through the years.

The reason I am posting this now has to do with the release of the Ryan report in Ireland, detailing the 'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care', which was also happening in the North of Ireland.

>>Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)

Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
The Observer
Sunday 17 August 2003

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

( >>Continued )

By Matt Dickinson
Scotsman
10 June 2009

OIL giant Shell has agreed to a £9.6 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging it was complicit in the execution of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The company, which continues to operate in Nigeria, insisted it was not involved in the 1995 hangings of six people, including Mr Saro-Wiwa, a poet. But it said it had agreed to settle in the hope of aiding the "process of reconciliation".

Ken Saro-Wiwa

"This gesture also acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered," the company said.

The lawsuit, filed in a New York court, claimed Shell colluded with Nigeria's former military government to silence environmental and human rights activists in the Ogoni region.

The oil-rich district sits in the southern part of Nigeria and covers about 400sq miles. Shell started operating there in 1958.

The main complaint against Shell focused on activities by its subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria.

The lawsuit claimed that, in the 1990s, Shell officials helped to give Nigerian police weapons, participated in security sweeps of the area, and hired government troops who shot at villagers protesting over the construction of a pipeline.

It also alleges Shell helped the government capture and hang Ken Saro-Wiwa, John Kpuinen, Saturday Doobee, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbokoo and Dr Barinem Kiobel on 10 November, 1995.

Mr Saro-Wiwa, the leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, led rallies against Shell. He blamed the company for myriad oil spills and gas fires in the region.

His son, Ken Saro-Wiwa jnr, 40, said that, although Shell had denied any wrongdoing, "the fact that they would have to settle is a victory for us". He added: "I think he (his father] would be happy with this."

Apart from compensating the families, the money from Shell will pay for years of legal fees. A large chunk of the settlement – roughly a third – will create a trust that will invest in Nigerian social programmes, covering educational endowments, agricultural development, enterprise and adult literacy.

However, the settlement will have a negligible effect on Shell's shareholders: it amounts to less than one-hundredth of 1 per cent of Shell's annual revenue and is comparable to the annual cost of renting one of the supertankers that Shell uses to deliver Nigerian oil to other countries.

Shell has consistently maintained that it never advocated violence and that it lobbied Nigerian officials to grant Mr Saro-Wiwa clemency.

Critics say Shell did so because of the bad publicity the case had generated.

Jenny Green, a lawyer for the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York, who helped to file the lawsuit in 1996, said: "Is it enough to bring back the lives of our clients? Obviously not."

But she said the case would send a message to multinationals that operate in developing countries. "You can't commit human rights violations as a part of doing business," she said.

The Shell settlement ends one of several legal cases that have been brought against energy companies by indigenous peoples where they operate.

Villagers in Indonesia are suing Exxon Mobil, claiming it employed guards who kidnapped, tortured and murdered civilians, while Chevron is awaiting a verdict from a judge in Ecuador in a dispute over the role of Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001, in causing environmental damage in the Amazon rain forest.

At least one additional lawsuit alleging human rights abuses by Shell in Nigeria is pending in the New York court.