World News(Stuff to Discuss) Free For All

[Fever]

AP Source: Jayson Williams Taking Deal In Shooting
TRENTON, N.J. ? Retired NBA star Jayson Williams has agreed to a plea deal that would send him to prison for up to three years for accidentally shooting a driver at his New Jersey estate in 2002, a person with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Williams, who retired in 2000 after playing nine seasons in the NBA for the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, was to face a retrial in January on a reckless manslaughter count.

The person, who was not authorized to speak about the case, told the AP on condition of anonymity that Williams is to plead guilty Friday to aggravated assault. Because a gun was used in the crime, Williams must serve at least 18 months in prison, the person said.

7 fucking years later he gets 18 months!!
I mean, I actually kinda liked this guy from MTV Cribs, etc. but damn if my middle class ass wouldn't have been sitting in jail for a couple months until a sentence of 10-15 was handed down for negligent homicide and obstruction of justice.

On another note - this' some real life OZ shit - I picture Rick Fox strolling into Em City - too bad that's not closer to reality for the family of dude he killed.

[Striker]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...ling-human-fat

In other news, Peru has taken the lead as the country with the smallest percentage of obese people.

*****

A Peruvian gang that allegedly killed people and drained fat from their corpses for use in cosmetics may have been inspired by a grisly Andean legend.
Hilari? Cude?a Simon, the alleged ringleader, linked the crimes to tales of demonic assassins, known as Pishtacos, who purportedly waylaid victims in pre-Columbian times, police said.
Peru reacted with revulsion and horror to reports that scores of peasants may have been butchered by the gang, which was said to have operated in Hu?nuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples between the jungle and Andean peaks.
Colonel Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police, said Cude?a and three other suspects were in custody and that another seven gang members were being hunted.
The jailed men have confessed to killing five people, but police suspect the number of victims is far higher, with 60 people reported missing in Hu?nuco this year alone. Two of the suspects were arrested at a bus station in the capital, Lima, carrying bottles of liquid fat which they claimed were worth up to ?36,000 a gallon.
At a news conference police displayed two bottles of fat, which laboratory tests confirmed were human. "The fat was extracted from the thorax and thighs," said Eusebio Felix Murga, chief of police of Dirincri district. Police also showed a photo of the rotting head of a 27-year-old male victim discovered last month in a coca-growing valley.
Police said they received a tip four months ago about a trade in human fat, which exported the amber liquid to Europe as anti-wrinkle cream. In addition to the alleged ringleader the suspects were named as Segundo Castillejos Ag?ero, Marcos Veramendi Princ?pe and Enadina Estela Claudio. They have been charged with homicide, criminal conspiracy, illegal firearms possession and drug trafficking.
The alleged plot has evoked comparisons to Patrick S?skind's novel Perfume in which a killer distills the essence of his victims into a jar. Others compare it to the film Fight Club in which a character played by Brad Pitt steals bags of human fat from a liposuction clinic to make soap.

[Striker]

Torrent:

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

MU:

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.

The skeptics have seized upon e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain as evidence that scientific data have been rigged to make it appear as if humans are causing global warming. The researchers, however, say the e-mails have been taken out of context and merely reflect an honest exchange of ideas.

University officials confirmed the data breach, which involves more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents, but said they could not say how many of the stolen items were authentic.

"We are aware that information from a server in one area of the university has been made available on public websites," the statement says. "We are extremely concerned that personal information about individuals may have been compromised. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm what proportion of this material is genuine."

Michael E. Mann, who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said in a telephone interview from Paris that skeptics are "taking these words totally out of context to make something trivial appear nefarious."

In one e-mail from 1999, the center's director, Phil Jones, alludes to one of Mann's articles in the journal Nature and writes, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Mann said the "trick" Jones referred to was placing a chart of proxy temperature records, which ended in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record collected by instruments from that time onward. "It's hardly anything you would call a trick," Mann said, adding that both charts were differentiated and clearly marked.

But Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said this and other exchanges show researchers have colluded to establish the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change.

"It is clear that some of the 'world's leading climate scientists,' as they are always described, are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research," said Ebell, whose group is funded in part by energy companies. "Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position."

In one e-mail, Ben Santer, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, offered to beat up skeptic Pat Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, out of sympathy for Jones.

Neither Jones nor Santer could be reached for comment.

[strommsarnac]

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

If these quacks didn't do this, they'd be out of a job. They are doing whatever it takes to keep themselves employed.

[maxbailey]

Paralysed Belgian misdiagnosed as in coma for 23 years

A Belgian man who doctors thought was in a coma for 23 years was conscious all along, it has been revealed.

Medical staff believed Rom Houben had sunk irretrievably into a coma after he was injured in a car crash in 1983.

The University of Liege doctor who discovered in 2006 that, although Mr Houben was paralysed, his brain was working, said the case was not unique.

"I was shouting, but no-one could hear me," Mr Houben, now 46, was quoted as saying by a German magazine.

According to Der Spiegel, Mr Houben, who can now communicate by using a special keyboard, has described how his body did not respond when he woke up after the accident.

'Second birth'

He has also said that he felt powerless as doctors and nurses tried to speak to him before giving up hope, and that he "dreamt the time away" as the years passed.

It was only in 2006 that a scan revealed that Mr Houben's brain was in fact almost entirely functioning.

"I will never forget the day they discovered me," Mr Houben was quoted as saying. "It was like a second birth."

Mr Houben's story was revealed in a paper written by Steven Laureys, a doctor at Liege University who wrote a recent paper that detailed the case.

In it, Mr Laureys said that in about 40% of cases in which people are classified as being in a vegetative state, closer inspection reveals signs of consciousness.

[Pobs]

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

That is fucking shocking!

[underweardog]

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

I have always been told big money corrupts, that big business is corrupt. Seems like the big money now is in all of this global warming nonsense, and all of the industries that have sprung up around it.

Al Gore seems to be doing more than fine, driving SUV's and relaxing on his fifty foot boat. Oh wait, he buys carbon offsets...from his own company while telling me I run my clothes dryer too much and the Honda Civic Del Sol I have driven for years is destroying the planet. :

[maxbailey]

Switzerland votes on Muslim minaret ban

Swiss voters are going to the polls to decide on a proposal to ban the building of minarets in their country.

The proposal is backed by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which claims minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

Opponents say a ban would discriminate, and that the campaign has stirred hatred. The government opposes a ban.

Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims. There are just four minarets across the country.

Islam is the most widespread religion after Christianity, but it remains relatively hidden.

There are unofficial Muslim prayer rooms, and planning applications for new minarets are almost always refused.

Supporters of a ban claim that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system - Sharia law - which are incompatible with Swiss democracy.

But others say the referendum campaign has incited hatred. On Thursday the Geneva mosque was vandalised for the third time during the campaign, according to local media.

Opinion polls ahead of the vote are close, with signs that a small majority will reject the ban.

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Bern that that would be a relief to the Swiss government, which fears banning minarets would cause unrest among the Muslim community and damage Switzerland's relations with Islamic countries.

Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz said: "Muslims should be able to practice their religion and have access to minarets in Switzerland too. But the call of the muezzin [call to prayer] will not sound here."

Amnesty International has warned that the ban would violate Switzerland's obligations to freedom of religious expression.

'Discrimination'

Elham Manea, founder of the Forum for a Progressive Islam, pointed to the recent construction of Sikh temples and Serbian Orthodox churches, saying a ban on minarets alone would be discriminatory.

"If you are telling me that we are going to ban all religious symbols from all religious buildings, I would not have a problem with that," she said.

"But if you are just telling me that we are going to target only the Muslims, not the Christians, not the Jews, not the Sikhs, only the Muslims, then I have a problem with it because it is discrimination."

Most of Switzerland's Muslims come from former Yugoslavia. There is no history of Islamic extremism, but supporters of a ban say minarets are far more than religious architecture.

They claim allowing them would be a sign that Islamic law is accepted in Switzerland.

Sunday's referendum is being held after the SVP collected 100,000 signatures from eligible voters within 18 months calling for a vote.

SVP member of parliament Ulrich Schluer said the referendum campaign had helped integration by encouraging debate. He rejected the charge of discrimination.

"Every Muslim is allowed to come together with other Muslims to have the religion together," he told the BBC.

"But a minaret is a political symbol. It is a symbol for introducing, step-by-step, Sharia rights also in Switzerland, parallel to the Swiss law which is a result of Swiss democracy. And this is the problem. It is nothing against Muslims."

In recent years many countries in Europe have been debating their relationship with Islam, and how best to integrate their Muslim populations.

France focused on the headscarf, while in Germany there was controversy over plans to build one of Europe's largest mosques in Cologne.

[Pobs]

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

So Christianity is the biggest religion? So it is a Christian country then? So tell them that if they want Islamic buildings to fuck off back to an Islamic country.

[Pobs]

Swiss minaret vote: Projections suggest ban backed

Projections from exit polls suggest that voters in Switzerland have backed a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, Swiss TV says.

The result is not yet official, but the BBC's correspondent in Berne says if it is confirmed, it would be a surprise.

The proposal was backed by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which claims minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

Opponents say a ban would discriminate and that the ballot has stirred hatred.

The government opposes a ban.

Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims and has just four minarets. Official referendum results are due at 1700GMT.

Under the Swiss system, a referendum result is not binding unless a majority of canton voting districts approve it, as well as a majority of voters.

Content, Pictures  and Download links visible to registered users only. 

REGISTER NOW to access all areas that are invisible to non-members.

Might move to Switzerland......