holiday dui arrests up 69%

More DUI arrests, fewer traffic deaths this holiday weekend
Bay City News
Sunday, December 25, 2005

The California Highway Patrol is reporting both good news and bad when it comes to DUI totals for the holiday season.

Statewide, the number of people arrested for driving under the influence over the Christmas weekend has increased sharply from the same time period last year, according to preliminary CHP statistics.

Between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. today, CHP officers have arrested 890 motorists on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Last year, the total number of DUI arrests for the first 36 hours of Christmas weekend was 526.

However, although the CHP's numbers seem to indicate that more motorists are drinking and driving this year, fewer people have died statewide in traffic collisions, according to the preliminary statistics.
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diesel fumes harm arteries

diesel needs to be eliminated, yesterday.

Diesel Exhaust Chokes Human Arteries
December 20, 2005 08:41:13 PM PST
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Dec. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Fumes belched from 18-wheelers and other diesel-powered vehicles and engines may be especially tough on the human cardiovascular system, new research reveals.

In a carefully controlled study, the arteries of healthy volunteers exposed to diesel exhaust lost part of their ability to expand, while their blood became more likely to clot.

The bad news about the cardiovascular harm that polluted air can inflict doesn't end there.

In a study reported in the Dec. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, New York University researchers found that mice exposed to air as polluted as what floats around New York City showed that the effects can be particularly damaging, especially when coupled with a high-fat diet.
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A number of real-world studies have linked diesel fume exposure to heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, Mills noted.

"However, observational studies cannot prove causality," he said. "In human exposure studies, we can control for all potential confounding factors and assess the direct effect of particulates on the cardiovascular system. Our findings provide further support for the observational studies and a plausible mechanism to explain association between particles and acute cardiovascular events."

It's not clear whether the findings apply to gasoline-powered engines, Mills said, because their emissions are very different from those of diesel-powered engines. In particular, diesel exhaust generates 100 times more pollutant particles, he said.
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lead found in mexican candy

shameful...

FDA could lower candy lead limit
City health officials say proposal aimed at tainted Mexican sweets lacks enforcement bite
By Kelly Brewington
Sun reporter
Originally published December 23, 2005

In an effort to combat potentially tainted sweets produced in Mexico and sold widely in American groceries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a proposal yesterday to reduce the threshold for lead in candy.

But Baltimore health officials - who had planned to push for state legislation to attack the problem after lead-tainted candy was found in the city this fall - said they were concerned the federal rules wouldn't have enough impact.

The federal guideline recommends lowering the limit for lead in candy from 0.5 parts per million to 0.1, a standard pushed by advocates in Baltimore and other places the spicy sweets are sold. The recommendation is a draft guideline and would become final in 2006, after a mandatory 75-day public comment period, said FDA officials.
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Local health officials said the move is a step in the right direction but criticized it for lacking enforcement powers.

"The FDA is not promising that it will take candy that is higher than the limit off the market," said city Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein. "The FDA has broad jurisdiction. It could take things off shelves. They could penalize distributors. They've done it before."
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The FDA's announcement comes just months after Baltimore health officials and Latino community advocates began encouraging shop owners to stop selling candies that have consistently tested high for lead. Just last week, the Baltimore Health Department said it was working with lawmakers to introduce legislation to toughen regulations to 0.1 parts per million.

Sharfstein said that, in light of the FDA guideline, the agency is still considering a bill that would enforce standards but is rethinking the scope of the legislation.

Health officials decided to take on the issue through legislation after candy sold in Baltimore revealed "levels of concern" after testing. The brands included Lucas Pelucas, a spicy tamarind fruit candy; Baby Lucas, a sweet and sour powder; Super Fresaletas; a strawberry-flavored lollipop; and Super Pinaleta, a lollipop coated with chili powder.
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bush scores a 10

... on a scale of 100, that is. imho this story reveals the same Bush mindset that led to the illegal and disastrous war on Iraq... a completely closed-minded, one-sided outlook that inflates evidence that supports their views, while pretending that evidence to the contrary simply doesn't exist.

After tough year, White House cites only successes

body parts stolen and sold

including that stuffy old dude Alistair Cooke... how bizarre... i guess it just goes to prove that these thieves are no respecters of persons.

NYC Authorities Probe Theft of Body Parts
By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 47 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Michael Bruno's life had been uncomplicated: He was an immigrant who worked hard, spoke his mind and succumbed to kidney cancer two years ago at 75.

"Typical Italian cab driver," recalled his son, Vito. "He had an opinion about everything." It's only after death that his story became ghoulish.

Authorities believe his body and those of hundreds of other people ? including famed British broadcaster Alistair Cooke ? were secretly carved up in the back rooms of several funeral parlors citywide to remove human bone, skin and tendons without required permission from their families. Authorities allege the body parts were then sold for a profit.

Worse, health officials fear some of the stolen body parts were diseased, and could infect patients who received them in skin grafts, dental implants or other orthopedic procedures --- a risk concealed by paperwork doctored with forged signatures and false information.

"It's not just disrespectful to my father," said Vito Bruno, who has sued one of the funeral homes. "It's an absolutely hideous crime against other people."

In the Cooke case, authorities confirmed this week that investigators contacted the late broadcaster's family after finding paperwork indicating his bones had been removed and sold by a Fort Lee, N.J., tissue bank, Biomedical Tissue Services, before he was cremated. Cooke, best known as the host of PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre," died from cancer last year at 95 in Manhattan.

The family insists it never signed off on the procedure, and that someone had falsified documents by changing his cause of death to heart attack, and by lowering his age to 85. Harvesting bones from cancer patients violates rules by the
Food and Drug Administration.

A daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said the family was "shocked and saddened" by the news.

"That people in need would have received his body parts, considering his age and the fact he was ill when he died, is appalling to the family, as is that his remains were violated," she said.

The probe ? first reported by the Daily News in October ? has uncovered other gruesome images. In one instance, the corpse of a Queens grandmother that investigators exhumed last month had nearly all the bones removed below the waist and replaced with PVC pipes.

A state grand jury in Brooklyn has been hearing evidence against at least a half dozen funeral homes in the borough and against Biomedical Tissue Services. Authorities allege that they illegally profited by conspiring to sell stolen body parts, and say indictments could be handed up early next year.

The brewing scandal's reach extends far beyond the New York City area.

In the fall, the FDA ordered a recall of products produced by tissue processors in New Jersey, Florida, Georgia and Texas, all customers of Biomedical Tissue Services. Since the announcement, authorities in Canada have determined that about 300 potentially tainted products were imported there, and used for dental surgery on at least two patients.
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pacifist nuns released

thank you sisters, for your beautiful action.

Nun Who Defaced Silo Released From Prison
BY MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Thu Dec 22,10:36 AM ET

DANBURY, Conn. - A pacifist nun convicted of defacing a Colorado missile silo in 2002 was released Thursday from federal prison.

Ardeth Platte, 69, was not due to be released until May 31, but a judge gave her credit for time already served, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Platte, along with sisters Jackie Hudson and Carol Gilbert, were arrested in October 2002 after they allegedly cut a chain link fence surrounding a Minuteman III missile silo in northern Colorado. The nuns then used baby bottles to dispense their own blood in the shape of a cross on the silo.
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bush authorized illegal domestic spying on thousands

any more proof needed that this administration is dangerously out of control? what will it take before this clown finally gets impeached?

and the final quoted paragraph is a shocker, too. the NYT held the story for "a year". does that mean they could have published it BEFORE the 2004 election, but held back "at the administration's request"? might this story have changed the outcome of the election? and what are they STILL withholding?

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."

Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.

The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to the United States, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States.

Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
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DWY on the rise

Driving While Yakking more pervasive than ever. be very afraid.

More Drivers Than Ever Talk on Cell Phones
By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - More people than ever are turning their cars into personal phone booths, with a million and a half drivers gabbing on cell phones at any given time. Women and young people are the most common yakkers.

About 10 percent of the people on the road during the day are using cell phones, up from 8 percent in 2004, the government reported Thursday.

Six percent of drivers were holding the phones to their ears, up from 5 percent last year.
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The NHTSA survey was conducted between June 6 and June 25 at 1,200 road sites across the nation. Trained observers watched vehicles go by and charted what the driver was doing. The ages of drivers are estimates based on their observations.
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The
National Transportation Safety Board, meanwhile, voted in September to recommend that all states make it illegal for teenagers and new drivers to talk on the phone while driving.

Brian Schaffner, 24, who works for a political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., said his cell phone is "almost a part of me" and admits using it behind the wheel. But he doesn't think it affects his driving.

"I'm probably young and arrogant, thinking that I can't hurt myself, but for the most part I feel perfectly safe using when I drive," Schaffner said.
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stem cell pioneer admitted fraud

Doc: Stem-Cell Pioneer Admitted Fake Data

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a broadcast Thursday that the South Korean scientist admitted that most of the stem cells produced for a key research paper were faked.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

Roh also told MBC television that Hwang had pressured a former scientist at his lab to fake data to make it look like there were 11 stem cell colonies.

Roh said nine of the embryonic stem cell lines Hwang claimed were cloned in the paper were faked, and the authenticity of the other two was unknown.

Roh told MBC he heard from Hwang on Thursday morning that "there were no embryonic stem cells" because all colonies have since died in the lab.

Hwang did not answer his phone and researchers from his lab at Seoul National University could not immediately be reached for comment.
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University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten has already asked that Science remove him as the senior author of the report, citing questions about the paper's accuracy.
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The work by Hwang, regarded as a world-leading researcher in stem cells, recently has come under a cloud of suspicion. Last month, he publicly apologized after admitting that, despite earlier denials, he used eggs donated by two junior female scientists in his lab ? a violation of international ethics guidelines.
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synthetic bedding linked to infant asthma

Bedding tied to asthma development in infants

By David Douglas Wed Dec 14, 3:26 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The use of bedding that contains no synthetic materials appears to reduce the risk of developing wheezing in infants, Australian researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health.

"These findings," lead author Dr. Leigh F. Trevillian told Reuters Health, "emphasize the important role of the infant sleeping environment in the development of asthma. They indicate the need for a greater public health effort to ensure optimal infant sleeping environments that will assist in asthma prevention."

Trevillian of Australian National University, Canberra and colleagues came to this conclusion after studying data on 883 children who as infants in 1988 were included in a survey and then took part in an asthma study in 1995.

Based on previous work, the researchers developed a theoretical model of house dust mite exposure according to bedding composition. The least house dust mite hospitable bedding was of natural composition. It contained no synthetic material or -- as is relatively common in Australia -- sheepskin.

The next category was bedding that contained either one type of synthetic material or sheepskin or both. The material associated with the greatest house dust mite exposure was composite bedding containing two or more types of synthetic material with or without sheepskin.
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At the age of 7, children who had been exposed to composite bedding were more than twice as likely to have recently experience wheezing and night wheezing compared with infants who had natural bedding.
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SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, December 2005.

bridge delay cost $81 million

way to go Arnie, we'll just add this to your $65 million tab for that useless special election. wow, what a cost saver this guy is.

Bay Bridge pause cost $81 million
Foundation project had shut down as design debate raged
Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 8, 2005

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's failed bid to change the design of the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge cost taxpayers and toll-payers $81 million to stop -- and restart -- work on the foundation of the suspension span's single tower, Caltrans announced Wednesday.

A committee overseeing construction of the $6.3 billion project agreed recently to pay the money to joint venture Kiewit-FCI-Manson to cover the costs of the off-and-on project. The anticipated cost of the changes had been built into the total cost of the span when the state Legislature passed a new funding deal for the bridge in July.

Construction, which was halted nearly a year ago, resumed late last month as contractors returned a huge piece of steel equipment to the bay -- the first major step in building the footings for the suspension span.
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iowa phasing out thimerosal

a move in the right direction, but why wait until 2008?

Vaccine additive banned in Iowa
By Rachelle Treiber
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Earlier this year, the state became the first in the nation to ban the use of preservatives in childhood vaccines.

In 1999, when it was discovered that immunized children had accidentally been exposed to mercury levels well over federal limits, the American Academy of Pediatrics called for thimerosal to be removed from vaccines as a precaution.

It was eliminated from nearly all vaccines except the one used for the flu.

Since the Iowa ban went in place during January, California has followed suit and more than 30 other states have similar bans under consideration. Illinois is among them.

In August, Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved the Mercury-Free Vaccine Act. As of next year, the percentage of mercury used in vaccines will be limited. As of 2008, no Illinois resident will be vaccinated with a product containing mercury.
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anti-perspirants suspected of causing breast cancer

maybe so.

The Cancer-Antiperspirant 'Myth'

Dec. 5, 2005

(CBS) If you've checked out the back of your antiperspirant lately, you might have noticed something different: new labels required by the Food and Drug Administration. They point out that antiperspirants are "drugs" containing "aluminum" ingredients ? that's what stops the sweat.

The aluminum is also what concerns some people, including Dr. Kris McGrath.

"I personally feel there is a very strong correlation between the underarm hygiene habits and breast cancer," McGrath tells CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

McGrath, an immunologist and instructor at Northwestern University, has been intrigued by a potential breast cancer link since medical school.

It got personal when his wife ? a frequent shaver and antiperspirant user ? got breast cancer.

"She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987," McGrath says. "She died in 1989."

People who don't believe in a link point to this 2002 study that finds no connection.

But it didn't take into account how often a woman shaved and used antiperspirant, which McGrath considered crucial. So he did his own study of breast cancer patients and found this: The more these women shaved and used antiperspirants, the sooner they got breast cancer.

Is he trying to say all cases of breast cancer could be linked to antiperspirants and shaving?

"Absolutely not," McGrath says. "Breast cancer has existed since Hippocrates. But when you plot the sales of antiperspirant deodorants with the incidence of breast cancer in the United States, they both have grown in almost a parallel fashion."
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national guard spy unit disbanded

what's it coming to when ordinary citizens have to worry about being spied on by the national guard? this is clearly an abuse of the national guard. shame on Arnold's "press office" or whoever was really responsible. and shame on any guard officer who complied with the request.

National Guard dismantles unit accused of spying on protesters

Friday, December 2, 2005

(12-02) 11:09 PST SACRAMENTO, (AP) --
The California National Guard has dismantled a unit under legislative investigation for allegations it illegally spied on anti-war activists during a Mother's Day rally last year.

Guard officials said the intelligence unit did nothing improper and merely monitored news media coverage of the Capitol rally [b]at the request of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office[/b].

But state Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, said the unit's activities may have violated the law. Guard officials said they were exonerated by a U.S. Army Inspector General's Office investigation, but [b]the full investigative report has never been made public[/b] and Dunn said questions remain.

Maj. Gen. William H. Wade II, who took over Sept. 1 as the state's new adjutant general, ordered the unit disbanded in a three paragraph memo Nov. 16. The unit's leader, Col. Robert J. O'Neill, will end his appointment Dec. 31. The other member have been reassigned.

The unit was created last year by Maj. Gen. Thomas Eres, who retired as adjutant general in June under pressure.

Guard spokesman Col. David Baldwin said the unit never had proper budget approval from lawmakers and violated military procedure.

"It means that at least for now, the Guard leadership won't be tempted to engage in domestic surveillance activities in California, which are barred by federal law," said Dunn, who oversees the Guard's funding as chairman of a Senate budget subcommittee.

He is seeking to create a Guard inspector general's office that would report directly to the governor.

The unit "needed to be nipped in the bud," said Ruth Robertson of Palo Alto, a member of the group Raging Grannies, whose members participated in the rally at the state Capitol. "It needed to be dismantled."

Other groups at the rally included Gold Star Families for Peace and CodePink.

vietnam casus belli was faked

another good reminder that we always need to be very skeptical when our government makes the case for war

US skewed evidence of 1964 Tonkin attack: document

Fri Dec 2, 2:10 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence officials in 1964 skewed evidence of an attack on two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin to support claims of communist aggression that led to a massive escalation of the Vietnam War, according to a newly declassified government document.
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An article by a National Security Agency historian, released by the NSA this week along with intelligence reports and other related documents, said officials at the spy agency withheld nearly 90 percent of intelligence on the August 4, 1964, incident to back allegations of a North Vietnamese attack.

"It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened. It is that no attack happened that night," NSA historian Robert Hanyok wrote.

Hanyok's article, which appeared in a classified NSA publication in 2001, was based on a review of newly discovered signals intelligence documents from 41 years ago.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident gave President Lyndon Johnson carte blanche for a huge U.S. military buildup in Southeast Asia that led to the deaths of more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers and over 2 million Vietnamese civilians.
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