World News(Stuff to Discuss) Free For All

[strommsarnac]

Interesting abortion related info. That law the pres signed which prevents any federal money from being used for an abortion... Well, it actually doesn't. He can't pass a law which counteracts another law. Sure, he can say it's a law, and he can make a big act of signing it, but it's not legal and is not enforceable.

All he did was grandstand and waste time and money. The only way for the "intent" to pass is that a bill is created and passes through the house and senate first.

I also found out he's not the first to do one of these "staged" passing of president law. Pretty much ever other president has done them, but nothing with such a huge impact.

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[TheSNakE]

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They are just forcing us to have insurance. They are not forcing us to use it.

[towdog]

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But you will use it.

[towdog]

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That's funny though. When he signed the executive order, it was in a closed room, with only a few people, and the one official white house camera guy taking pictures. He knows it's just toilet paper and in all truth he probably hopes it will get challenged in the courts. Then he's free to shrug his shoulders and say, "well I tried".

[MrGoutHimself]

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The way you describe it I can't help but see poor Randy Marsh "apologizing" to Jesse Jackson in that room full of black men (except the photographer, unless he was one of them albino ones with red hair). That's right, apologize....
-SRD

[Striker]

Anyone wanna start taking bets on how long until this goes wrong? Either the combo gets out or some shit bag cop is going to start robbing houses. Or hell, people will probably figure out how to bust them open in 5 seconds. Might as well just hang the key from a string over the door with a sign reading "Please Rob Me". And how long until they try to make it a law, even if just for old people?

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Cops In N.J. Town Given Keys To Homes



FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) ―
It's a novel program designed to improve the safety of senior citizens in New Jersey.

The program would allow police quick access into a home to help anyone having a medical emergency ? without having the break down the door.

Marilyn Chesner is a retired music teacher and a widow. Living alone, the 79-year-old recently had a close call.

"I was standing there, and next thing I know I was on the floor," Chesner said.

That moment ? passing out in the bathroom ? made her think about things.

"I wondered what would happen if something happened, and I couldn't get out of bed or move. How could someone get into the house?" Chesner said.

That's why the grandmother was the first person to join "Operation Blue Angel" run by the Franklin Township Police Department.

Now Chesner has a lockbox with a spare key inside, similar to the one realtors use, which allows police to get into her home in the event of an emergency.

"Hopefully I will never need them, but it does give me an extra sense of security," Chesner said.

The lockbox has a combination that opens up the compartment with the spare key. Police first knock on the door, and if they don't get a response, they unlock the door and go in.

"No matter who you are, God forbid you get sick, we can respond immediately," Franklin Township Police Chief Craig Novick said.

Chief Novick came up with the idea after one of the area's huge snowstorms.

"What if we had to respond to the house where the keyholder couldn't respond because they were snowed-in? What would we do?" Chief Novick said.

Since the program started a week ago, 20 seniors and people with medical conditions have signed up. It provides peace of mind for their children.

"They can call us to send police to the house, to make sure their mother or father are alright," Deputy Chief Larry Roberts said.

"I'm just sorry they didn't start this a long time ago, and hope people take advantage of it," Chesner said.

Chesner said he understands that the little box could mean the difference between life or death.

Operation Blue Angel is funded completely by money seized during drug busts. While the program is intended for people with medical conditions or those 55 or older, anyone can sign up.

this makes me lol.....




Paper delves into British veterinarians' high suicide risk

CNN) -- A researcher published an article Thursday that attempts to explain why veterinarians in Britain appear to be four times as likely as the general public to commit suicide.

"There's no doubt that the suicide rate among veterinarians is elevated relative to the general population," said Dr. David Bartram, a Ph.D. student in mental health at the School of Medicine, University of Southampton.

"What isn't certain is why."

The numbers are startling, with the rate "far and away the highest suicide rate of any other occupational group," Bartram said. In absolute terms, that means five or six of Britain's 16,000 veterinarians kill themselves in any given year, he said.

In his paper, Bartram identifies a number of potential causes for the rate, which is also twice that of other health care professionals. Together, they paint a picture of high stress.

? The stress begins while they're still in training. Typically, entrance to veterinary schools is limited to high achievers, whose personality traits may include neurosis, conscientiousness and perfectionism, all risk factors for suicidal behaviors.

? Their working environment can be stressful, marked by long hours, high psychological demands, low levels of support from managers and high expectations from clients. Many work in solo practices, which can leave them professionally and socially isolated and therefore more vulnerable to depression and suicide.

? Ready access to lethal means and knowledge of how to apply them can also put them at risk. Veterinary clinics typically store lethal drugs, such as barbiturates, on premises. Thoughts of suicide, which are often impulsive, can be acted on immediately. At least half of the male veterinarians who committed suicide between 1982 and 1996 in England and Wales used barbiturates, the report said, with deliberate poisoning accounting for 80 to 90 percent of veterinarians' suicides.

? Veterinarians may consider euthanasia to be a way of alleviating suffering and may therefore come to look upon it as a positive solution to their own difficulties.

? "Suicide contagion" caused by direct or indirect exposure to suicides among colleagues may leave veterinarians more vulnerable to killing themselves.

Though the findings, published in the journal "Veterinary Record," have been presented in scientific literature, the author said his is the first to combine them into one paper.

Though little research into suicide risk among veterinarians has been carried out in the United States, every country that has published occupational suicide rates has found that those of veterinarians were elevated, he said.

But the bottom line is that his hypothesis to explain the elevated suicide risk is no more than an educated guess, he said.

Bartram called for more research to investigate the risk factors and to help the industry's leaders formulate appropriate interventions to cut risk.

"It does seem quite remarkable that there has been such a dearth of research in the field," he said.

He suggested that the government fund research into the matter, adding that any findings would probably be applicable to other occupational groups that have high rates of suicide.

Bartram, a veterinarian himself, said he was motivated to do the work because he suffered from severe depression unrelated to his work, from which he recovered seven years ago.

The report came as a surprise to Sang Han, a veterinarian at a clinic in San Juan Capistrano, California, who has been practicing for 15 years.

"I love my job," he said. "Most of the veterinarians I know of around this town seem to enjoy their work. It's kind of fun to work with four-legged creatures."

But Susan Sundburg acknowledged that the job has had its stresses in the 23 years she had cared for animals.

"Animal lives are a lot shorter than human lives," she said from the Empire Veterinary Clinic in Modesto, California, where she is the lone full-time veterinarian. "We go very often go from birth to death with our patients, and we do get attached to our patients, so I think there's some emotional stress there."

But the rewards of the job -- bringing puppies into the world, performing life-saving surgeries -- can balance that, Sundburg said. "I guess a lot of it depends on how you deal with stress."

And veterinarians face stresses that physicians may not, she said, routinely having to weigh not only the health of their patients but the ability or willingness of their patients' owners to pay and to care for the animal at home. Decisions can be tough to make, she said.

"Sometimes, there's things that kind of sit on the fence," she said. "You kind of don't know where to go."

Sundburg said she has adopted coping mechanisms, taking non-veterinary vacations and reading non-veterinary books like mysteries "to turn off my mind."

The report was welcomed by Ron DeHaven, CEO of the American Veterinary Medical Association, whose 80,000 members represent about 85 percent of the profession.

"It confirms some of the anecdotal information that we've heard," he said. "We will be taking a hard look at this study over the coming months to see what we can do as an association to improve our outreach efforts and other safety nets to help support our members and students when they are faced with difficult times as individuals and professionals."

Marguerite Pappaioanou, executive director of the Association of American Veterinary Colleges, cautioned against concluding that veterinarians in the United States face rates of suicide similar to those seen in Britain.

"There are huge differences between the U.K. and here," she said. She noted that, in recent years, British veterinarians have had to cope with an animal epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease as well as widespread slaughter of cattle to stem the spread of mad cow disease.

Still, the report surprised her. "We have been hearing these things, but no one's pulled the data all together in one place" before, she said. "This data's very compelling. ... It does take it beyond the anecdotal. It's a heads-up."

She said she would share the study with the association's member schools and their administrators.

"There's enough in this article to say, 'Whoa, we ought to be ... trying to do what we can to prevent suicide.' "

[Striker]

Ricky Martin gay? Say it ain't so!

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[Predator24]

Topless Church In Portland!!!!

April 3

Women march topless in Portland without incident
The marchers want to call attention to the double standard in society's attitudes toward male and female nudity.
By Edward D. Murphy emurphy@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer


PORTLAND ? About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity.



click image to enlargeA group of women and men who had shed their tops march down a Congress Street sidewalk from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park. They were promoting the freedom of women to be topless in public. The group attracted many amateur and professional photographers.
The women, preceded and followed by several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras, stayed on the sidewalk because they hadn't obtained a demonstration permit to walk in the street. About a thousand people gathered as the march passed through Monument Square, a mix of demonstrators, supporters, onlookers and those just out enjoying a warm and sunny early-spring day.

After the marchers reached Tommy's Park in the Old Port, some turned around and walked back to Longfellow Square, but most stayed and mingled in the park. Some happily posed for pictures.

Police said there were no incidents and no arrests ? nudity is illegal in Maine only if genitals are displayed.

Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on.

However, McDowell said she plans to organize similar demonstrations in the future and said she would be more "aggressive" in discouraging oglers.

Collateral Murder

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

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