‘The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of “Godlessness.”
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican “exorcistinchief,” to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
“Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on,” he said.’
‘A number of organ donation groups said Monday that they are unaware of new Health Canada regulations that mean sexually active gay men, injection drug users and other groups considered high risk will no longer be accepted as organ donors.
The new rules, which came into effect in December, are similar to the regulations for determining who can donate blood. Those rules exclude groups that are at high risk of transmitting infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and B.
Officials at several transplant programs in the country said because they were unaware of the new regulations, they would continue to consider all potential donor organs.
“We have not been informed, first of all, that Health Canada is considering this,” said Dr. Gary Levy, who heads Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network. “Obviously if Health Canada wishes to discuss that, we would hope they would engage all stakeholders.”‘
‘Two southern New Mexico men are recovering after accidentally shooting themselves while trying to trace a loaded .357-caliber Magnum as a pattern for a tattoo.
The Otero County Sheriff’s Department identified the men as Robert Glasser and Joey Acosta. Both are 22.
The sheriff’s department says deputies responded to the shooting in Chaparral on Thursday evening, but Glasser and Acosta were already on their way to a hospital in nearby El Paso.
Authorities say Glasser was struck in the hand when the gun accidentally went off. Acosta was hit in the left arm. The injuries were non-life threatening.’
‘The craze for bottled water and energy drinks has reached new heights. An Albuquerque, New Mexico company has created specialized drinks made from ingredients that have been flown to space. Microgravity Enterprises, Inc. (MEI) says the demand for their drinks has grown and they are expanding their distribution base.
Antimatter(TM) Energy Drink and Space2O(TM) Purified Water include ingredients that have been launched on board suborbital UP Aerospace rockets. Successful launches of the ingredients occurred in April and June of 2007 at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Antimatter(TM) includes numerous vitamin additives and energy extracts, while Space2O(TM) has special spaceflown electrolytes. Previously, the drinks were only available in the Albuquerque area, but MEI is now expanding distribution to include more cities in New Mexico, West Texas, Maryland, Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia. The products are also available online.’
Waste of rocket fuel, really. I should start selling sub-orbital dildos to yo momma.
‘One of the longest-serving stars on hit TV drama The Bill, Jeff Stewart, has tried to kill himself after being sacked from the show.
Stewart, who played the popular character PC Reg Hollis, slashed his wrists after being told his contract would not be renewed, The Sun newspaper reported.
The 52-year-old actor was the only original 1984 cast member left on the show, which is one of ABC TV’s most popular programs.
Stewart cut his wrists in his dressing room at the south London studios where the show is filmed but then telephoned for help.
Security staff found him and called an ambulance.’
‘An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain’s immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. The authors hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF in Alzheimer’s disease interfere with this regulation. To reduce elevated TNF, the authors gave patients an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. Excess TNF-alpha has been documented in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s.’
‘OK, I am not going to lecture you about the dangers of narcotic pain medicines. We both know how addictive they are: you because you know how it feels when you don’t have your vicodin, me because I’ve seen many many many people just like you. However, there are a few things I can tell you that would make us both much happier. By following a few simple rules our little clinical transaction can go more smoothly and we’ll both be happier because you get out of the ER quicker.
The first rule is be nice to the nurses. They are underpaid, overworked, and have a lot more influence over your stay in the ER than you think. When you are tempted to treat them like shit because they are not the ones who write the rx, remember: I might write for you to get a shot of 2mg of dilaudid, but your behavior toward the nurses determines what percent of that dilaudid is squirted onto the floor before you get your shot. [..]’
‘Dozens of girls fought — possibly about a boy — outside a mall on Wednesday, and the brawl ended with mall security officers using pepper spray and police using Taser guns, authorities said.
It happened outside an Applebees at Independence Center and involved about 20 to 30 teenage girls, police said.
A mall security officer was injured trying to break up the fight.’
‘The boy wanted his father to look at his Xbox 360 video game system.
The father didn’t want to. An argument ensued.
The boy handed his father a rifle. Shoot me, he said.
So the father did.
State police at Fern Ridge say that scenario played out Friday night between 60-year-old James Stanley Niedosik and his 17-year-old son.
The boy ended up in Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull behind his ear. Niedosik ended up in Monroe County Prison on $250,000 bail, charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.’
‘Mourners shivering in a chapel are to be kept warm using “body heat” generated from cremating their loved ones.
The idea will be tried at a crematorium near Manchester where grieving friends and relatives have complained of the cold during services.
Tameside council will use heat from cremating bodies to keep the mourners warm at Dukinfield Crematorium.
Town hall chiefs say the heat generated will be enough to power the boiler and light the chapel. But they admit it is a “sensitive” issue and have promised to consult clergy and the wider community.’
‘I Am Not My Brother’s Keeper’
(11.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A Colorado inmate who’s escaped twice from a county jail is suing because he says it was too easy for him to break out.
Scott Anthony Gomez, Jr. says guards at the jail abused him and that’s why he attempted to escape.
Gomez alleges he was seriously injured during an escape attempt in January of 2007. He alleges he fell 40 feet while trying to scale down the side of the jail.
His lawsuit says the doors on the jail cells weren’t locked and the ceiling tiles were easy to remove giving him an escape route through the ventilation system. [..]
The lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount of money, claims authorities “did next to nothing to ensure that the jail was secure and that the Plaintiff could not escape.”‘
‘Are we running out of helium? Lee Sobotka, professor of chemistry and physics at Washington University in St. Louis, says it is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Tex., that supplies are expected to be gone there within the next eight years.
The helium we have on earth is not readily renewable, it has been built up over billions of years from the decay of natural uranium and thorium. The decay of these elements proceeds at a super-snail’s pace.
It will impact more than balloons and kids’ voices, Sobotka says. “Helium’s use in science is extremely broad but its most important use is as a coolant. Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it.”‘
‘Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston are working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever medication to treat people hooked on the drug. “For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful,” said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. “At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won’t get high and will lose interest.” [..]
The immune system — unable to recognize cocaine and other drug molecules because they are so small — can’t make antibodies to attack them.
To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.
In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked drug when it’s ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.’
‘A 32-year-old Californian whose rental car got smashed by a Metro-North train last night was issued a minor summons for causing the fiery crash that stranded railroad commuters for hours.
Bo Bai, a computer technician from Sunnyvale who said he was merely trusting his car’s global positioning system when he steered onto the tracks, was cited for obstructing a railroad crossing, officials said this afternoon. [..]
“As the car is driving over the tracks, the GPS system tells him to turn right, and he turns right onto the railroad tracks,” said Brucker. “That’s how it happened.”
Brucker added, “He tried to stop the train by waving his arms, which apparently was not totally effective in slowing the train.”‘
‘Alone in her one-room cabin high in the mountains of southern Mexico, Ines Ramirez Perez felt the pounding pains of a child insistent on entering the world.
Three years earlier, she had given birth to a dead baby girl. As her labour intensified, so did her concern for this unborn child.
The sun had set hours ago. The nearest clinic was 80km away over rough roads, and her husband, her only assistant during a half-dozen previous births, was drinking at a cantina. She had no phone and neither did the cantina.
So at midnight, after 12 hours of constant pain, the petite, 40-year-old mother of six sat down on a low wooden bench. She took several gulps from a bottle of rubbing alcohol, grabbed a 15-cm knife and began to cut.
By the light of a single dim bulb, Ramirez sawed through skin, fat and muscle before reaching inside her uterus and pulling out her baby boy. She says she cut his umbilical cord with a pair of scissors, then passed out.’
‘You can’t deny I’m full of ideas. After doing 5 earlier attempts at getting shadowless light onto a macro scene, some good, some bad, this is yet another approach: fiber optics. I haven’t seen many people try this. [..]’
‘A Spartanburg mother is accused of stabbing her son several times Christmas morning, but her son is the person facing charges.
City police say it appears the mother, 45-year-old Tammy Jones, stabbed her son because he urinated on her while she slept in her bed.
21-year-old Michael Anthony Carson, nicknamed Pooh Bear, is charged with aggravated assault and battery. Police arrested him at his mother’s home on Wednesday.
City police say Jones stabbed her son six times with a butcher knife. He suffered wounds to his shoulder, calf, and chest. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say “why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?” A few moments later, the witness heard the son say “Mama you done stabbed me.”‘
‘I used to be in the Navy, stationed on an Aegis-class guided-missile cruiser. One day at sea, I’m taking a break on the flight deck (which was just behind the rear Aegis radar array), and I noticed all these dead birds all over the flight deck. It didn’t take me too long to realize that these birds had flown in front of the radar and been microwaved to death.
This gave me an idea. I figured if it works on birds, it should work on popcorn. A microwave’s a microwave, right? So, the next time we pull into port, I go to get some microwave popcorn.’
‘An Oklahoma man was arrested after police say he stabbed another man in the neck with a pork chop bone during a food fight.
Police in Ardmore, Oklahoma responded to call of a fight outside a local business New Year’s day. When they arrived, they found the victim covered in blood with a puncture wound to his neck.
Police arrested the suspect, 38-year-old Tony Willis a few block from the crime scene. According to authorities, Willis had blood on his clothes and they found the bone used in the attack.’
‘Scientists trekking across a little visited part of Antarctica have discovered a bizarre relic of the Soviet Union is dominating the South Pole of Inaccessibility.
In the middle of no-where — literally the point on Antarctica furthest from the sea — an imposing bust of revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin peers out onto the polar emptiness. [..]
The Inaccessibility Pole marks the point on Antarctica that is furthest from the ocean. At 3718 metres above sea-level it is in the Australian zone and seldom visited.
The Scientific Traverse this week made it to the Inaccessibility Pole for New Year’s Day and found a one time Soviet Union base buried under the ice.
The group’s website says Soviet scientists first visited the Pole in December 1958 and built a small cabin there.
After several weeks they left, putting the bust of Lenin on top of the chimney facing Moscow.’
‘We’re guessing that headline caught your attention! Cow farts are a source of greenhouse gases, while kangaroo farts are methane free thanks to a particular bacteria in their stomachs. Now, in a bizarre twist of science-reality, scientists from Australia are trying to neutralize cow-produced methane by transferring that kangaroo bacteria to cattle and sheep’s guts. According to the government of Queensland, almost 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions from Australia come from cow farts, so this seemingly silly idea could actually make a big difference.’
‘A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.
A police report said the 26-year-old man wanted his dog to join them in the bathroom, but the woman objected on Thursday night.
She told him if the dog wouldn’t stay out, she didn’t want to be his girlfriend anymore. He replied that maybe his next girlfriend would appreciate the dog more, and called her a name.
The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder when the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.’
Budapest is the capital of what European country?
(7.7meg Flash video)
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‘Scientists have discovered that taking a sugar pill is more effective than routine medications in treating aggression in people with intellectual disabilities.
Until now, patients with intellectual disabilities have been prescribed antipsychotic drugs — normally given to people with a psychiatric disease like schizophrenia — to treat aggressive behaviour such as head banging. But evidence for the drugs’ effectiveness has been thin. [..]
A careworker who did not know which medication the patients had taken assessed their behaviour against a standard measure of aggression at 4 weeks, 12 weeks, and 26 weeks. Aggression decreased substantially at 4 weeks with all three treatments, with the placebo actually coming out top with a 79% success rate, compared to 58% for respiridone and 65% for haloperidol. At later stages all three treatments had similar effects, they report in the Lancet.’
