A few highlights: National Guard at border retreats in the face of Mexican gang gunshots (probably were afraid of being called “racist”)... Apparent breakthrough in small stream hydroelectric… UAE dumps dollars… $33,470 fertility bounty for Germans… South Florida gated community guards get armed, dress like SWAT teams and make citizen’s arrests (don’t try this if you’re a goy community or the SPLC will confiscate your real estate) ... amazon.com founder had successful rocket test… Bussard wins IAS award for “fusion breakthrough”... Schwarzenegger provides another fertility bounty for illegals… MIT offers all courses free…

“JUPITER ISLAND, Florida (CNN)—At least 14 men who apparently traveled by open boat across the Caribbean ended their voyage this week at the wealthy enclave of Jupiter Island, just north of posh West Palm Beach, where some broke into a home to cook themselves a meal and get cleaned up, police said.”

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  “A huge Canadian ice shelf 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the North Pole has disintegrated, leaving a large floating island of ice stranded 30 miles (48 kilometers) offshore, scientists reported yesterday.”

  “The entire 25.5-square-mile (66-square-kilometer) Ayles Ice Shelf broke free from the northern coast of Ellesmere Island on August 13, 2005”

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  “Standardized Hand Signals For Close Range Engagement (C.R.E.) Operations”

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  “INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP)—Drivers swerved cars and trucks into other lanes to avoid a 3-year-old boy, wearing only a diaper and T-shirt, who was playing along a busy highway after wandering away from home while his mother slept, police said.”

  “Some motorists stopped along Interstate 465 on the city’s west side Saturday to take care of the boy until officers arrived, the Indiana State Police said.”

  ““I looked up and I seen this little ... [sic JAB] boy running down the middle of the slow lane in the interstate. I just could not believe what I was seeing,” said Troy Crady, one of those who stopped to help.”

The description of the little boy was apparently limited to “...” by the editors, most likely replacing an ethnic description of course.

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  “KATY, Texas (AP)—A man unhappy with an Islamic association’s plans to build a mosque next to his property has staged pig races as a protest during afternoon prayers.”

  “Craig Baker, 46, sold merchandise and grilled sausages Friday for about 100 people who showed up in heavy rain. He insisted he wasn’t trying to offend anyone with the pigs, which are forbidden from the Muslim diet.”

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  A low-impact woodland home

  I wonder how long before people who build Hobbit homes such as this start being attacked as “racist” the way “Lord of the Rings” was.

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  “Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O’Hare Airport last fall.”

  “The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn’t have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune.”

The strange thing about this isn’t the sighting of a UFO—there are UFO sightings every month by “credible witnesses”—but rather the reporting of such a UFO sighting by virtually the entire mainstream media. 

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  “IT IS a mechanical problem that has troubled scientists since Archimedes and the ancient Greeks, but now a Scottish electrician has come up with the answer - and it could help consumers save thousands of pounds in energy bills.”

  “Ian Gilmartin, 60, has invented a mini water wheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house”

  [...]

  “A conventional water wheel allows the water to escape prematurely as the wheel rotates, but the Beck Mickle hydro generator contains the water for the full drop of the device, converting about 70 per cent of the energy into electricity.”

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  “Teddy Kollek, who as mayor of Jerusalem for nearly three decades did more to build and develop the city as Israel’s capital than any other figure while still seeking to meet the needs of its Arab residents, died today in Jerusalem. He was 95.”

  “Former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, who died on Tuesday at 95, was one of the founders of the Israeli intelligence community, and the man responsible for the alliance and cooperation between the CIA and Israel, one of the pillars of Israel’s alliance with the United States.”

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  “Countries with large holdings of dollars in their foreign-exchange reserves are showing a new willingness to dump the dollar in favor of the rising euro.”

  “The latest to make a major move is the United Arab Emirates, which joined Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and others late last month when it shifted a chunk of its reserves into euros.”

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  “German hospitals have seen a surge in the number of planned births this week after a generous government aid program for parents of newborns took effect.”

  “The government, worried about a shrinking population, introduced benefits worth up to $33,470 to encourage working couples to have children. But only babies born from Jan. 1 on qualify.”

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  “Lennar, one of the nation’s largest home builders, warned that it will miss fourth quarter earnings forecasts and post a net loss as it writes down the value of some of its land and other assets.”

  “Lennar [...] also said it has “not yet seen tangible evidence of a market recovery.” And it announced it would sell much of its interest in a joint venture known as LandSource, which owns a major amount of undeveloped property near Los Angeles.”

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  “The New River is a river that flows north from Mexicali, Baja California, in Mexico into the United States through Calexico, California. It is considered to be the most polluted waterway in North America.”

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  “The New River has been recognized as a significant pollution problem since the late 1940s, primarily because of its extremely high concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria and the stench at its entry to the U.S. With population growth and an inadequate sewer infrastructure, Mexicali has contributed an increasing amount of raw sewage into the New River”

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  “The stench of the New River near the boundary, particularly at night and during the summer, is oftentimes overpowering. Discarded tires, trash, dead animals and other wastes line the channel, foam blows into the streets of one of Calexico’s residential areas and toward its downtown area, mosquitoes and other pests thrive during the summer season, all of these factors only serve to elevate contagion risk. Scores of illegal immigrants are also exposed as they use the river to enter the U.S.; immigrants often evade the Border Patrol because agents will not enter the water to detain them. Those who succeed in crossing will rarely receive adequate medical attention or screening; and they will often find jobs in the agricultural or food service industries, carrying New River diseases to their various destinations in California and across the U.S.”

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“Pfc. Ross McGinnis was perched in the gunner’s hatch of a Humvee when a grenade sailed past him and into the truck, where four other soldiers sat during a Dec. 4 mission in Baghdad.”

“McGinnis shouted a warning to the other soldiers before hurling himself onto the grenade, lodged near the vehicle’s radio, shortly before it blew up, killing him.”

“For saving the lives of the other soldiers and sacrificing his own, McGinnis, 19, of Knox, has been posthumously awarded the Silver Star, according to a U.S. military statement released in Iraq.”

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“Private firms with outright police powers have been proliferating in some places—and trying to expand their terrain. The “company police agencies,” as businesses such as Capitol Special Police are called here, are lobbying the state legislature to broaden their jurisdiction, currently limited to the private property of those who hire them, to adjacent streets. Elsewhere—including wealthy gated communities in South Florida and the Tri-Rail commuter trains between Miami and West Palm Beach—private security patrols without police authority carry weapons, sometimes dress like SWAT teams and make citizen’s arrests.”

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“Jurors weep over smuggling victims’ stories”

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“Space start-up Blue Origin (financed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) had a secret test flight on November 13, 2006. They’ve now released video and pictures of the very successful flight. Looks like they’re making good progress.”

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“A record number of Jewish members will enter Congress Thursday, but more remarkable are the unparalleled positions of power they will hold on committees related to Israel, many local Jewish activists say.”

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“New research supports growing concerns that herpes plays a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.”

“The latest work, announced today, shows a link between a gene and herpes simplex 1, or HSV. The form of the ApoE gene called ApoE-4 is the leading known risk factor for Alzheimer’s. And HSV is the form of herpes that causes cold sores around the mouth. More than 80 percent of Americans are infected with HSV.”

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Dr. Robert Bussard is the winner of the International Academy of Science’s “Outstanding Technology of the Year Award” for 2006.

See the Wikipedia article on The International Academy of Science

Also, for some of my history with Dr. Bussard, see my draft legislation funding fusion technology prizes and my recent promotion of his lecture at Google Corp. HQ (which brought the number of viewers of that lecture from hundreds to tens of thousands).

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“[Dolores] Cross, who was president of the 125-year-old college from November 1998 until February 2002, pleaded guilty in May to embezzling $3.4 million in student loans and Pell grants. Cross and Parvesh Singh, the school’s former financial aid and enrollment director, used the funds in part to cover $3.3 million in school debt and to pay for operating costs, Cross said.”

biography of Ms. Cross (w/ picture)

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Interesting news source

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“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose that all Californian children, including those in the state illegally, be guaranteed medical insurance as part of the health-care overhaul he intends to unveil next week, according to officials familiar with the plan.”

“If enacted by the Legislature, his proposal would affect about 763,000 children who now lack insurance. Although the administration has not revealed details of how it would pay for such a program, officials estimate that extending insurance to all children could cost the state as much as $400 million a year.”

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“By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world’s most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won’t have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted.”

“The cost? It’s all free of charge.”

“The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn.”

Back when I was working on the PLATO computer based education project, one of the goals of many of the folks was to separate training from credentials awards so that the ethical conflict of interest is removed.  I think its fascinating that this is now occurring. 

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“Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups over the past decade, according to a study to be published Thursday.”

The study was led by the completely unbiased Vivek Wadhwa. No mention was made of the *quality* of the startups created by the immigrants.  Perhaps there will be some mention in some fluff piece just as there are various fluff pieces that proclaim the “benefits” of immigration throughout history.  But from where I sit, I see a computer industry that basically ceased serious, basic innovation in direct proportion to the promotion of immigration, with companies that led the charge, like Sun Corporation, going from leaders to all but bankruptcy. 

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  “A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona’s border with Mexico.”

  “According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state’s West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.”

John Robb’s Global Guerrillas comments.

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  “Several disgusted janitors are dishing dirt on the Equinox fitness center chain, claiming in a lawsuit filed yesterday that the upscale gyms are used as sleazy gay sex clubs.”

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  “The janitors cited five Manhattan clubs, including the chain’s flagship gym in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, as places where “lewd behavior” is rampant in the men’s locker rooms, showers, saunas and steam rooms.”

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  “Equinox officials called the charges “frivolous”“

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  ““It’s just not an issue here at Equinox,” said the chain’s Chief Operating Officer Scott Rosen.”

  It’s hard to believe the upstanding TV execs at Time Warner would put up with such behavior in their backyard.

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“A well-known local civil rights activist drew applause and praise when he announced that he planned to lead a walk against hate two days before Christmas in support of victims of racially motivated violence in Long Beach, California.”

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  “The walk was not in protest of black hate violence. The victims are not blacks. They are three white women. They were brutally beaten on Halloween night in Long Beach. Ten black teens are charged with the attack. During the attacks the blacks allegedly hurled racial insults, and taunts that included shouts of “I Hate Whites.” That prompted prosecutors to slap eight of the teens with a hate crimes charge. The hate charge raised two thorny questions: Can, and do, blacks commit hate crimes? And if they commit them, what should civil right groups say and do?”

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  “Does America need a Foreign Legion?”

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“It used to be that when the economy thrived and productivity grew, pay for working people rose accordingly. Yet as the Times reported this past summer, the first six years of the 21st century look to be “the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.””

“People have put up with all this because it happened so quickly and for the same reason that the great mass of losers in casinos put up with odds that favor the house: The spectacle of a few ecstatic big winners encourages the losers to believe that, hey, they might get lucky and win, too. We have, in effect, turned the U.S. into a winner-take-all casino economy”