SENIOR Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realise their dream of abolishing ­Britain, we can reveal. A covert group of EU foreign ministers has drawn up plans for merging the jobs currently done by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. The new bureaucrat, who would not be directly elected by voters, is set to get sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic union.

Young Italians flock to become shepherds - Telegraph

DutchNews.nl - Health insurance own risk element may rise to €400

"I think global society has to realise that we are affecting the climate of this planet and this is the only planet that we have," he said in Bangkok Friday at the Southeast Asia launch of the IPCC special report on managing the risks of extreme events and disasters

What is clear is that average temperatures are going to rise in many parts of the world. Many scientists believe that at current rates of emissions the planet is heading toward at least a 3.5 degree Celsius rise in average temperature this century.

"It is virtually certain that increases in the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes... will occur in the 21st century on the global scale," the IPCC report said.

"It is very likely that the length, frequency and/or intensity of... heat waves will increase," it added.

Changing weather patterns also are expected to bring more extreme weather, including worsening droughts and floods.

The predictions may help countries and communities facing such climate-related problems, including sea level rise, to prepare and adapt to coming changes.

Not yet published - available from June 2012

Using Google Earth as a platform, the American Bird Conservancy creates an interactive Web-based map that highlights more than 2,000 places in the United States where birds are likely to be particularly vulnerable to impacts from wind energy development. [American Bird Conservancy]

"This map offers a way to prevent millions of bird deaths from wind power, while at the same time providing ample opportunity for the prudent development of this potentially bird-smart energy source. Careful siting of wind energy remains the single most important factor in reducing bird deaths from wind power, and this map provides a means to do just that," said Mike Parr, Vice President of ABC. "ABC strongly supports bird-smart wind energy development" he added. A recent study published in 2011 in the online, peer-reviewed journal of the Public Library of Science indicates that there is approximately 3,500 GW of wind potential on already disturbed lands in the United States, more than ten times the Department of Energy's national goal for wind power generation by 2030. By focusing on these disturbed lands and avoiding the high-priority bird sites depicted on the map, the wind industry can help to minimize its impact on birds.

"Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939," the Berkshire vice chairman said, "but I think civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses."

The Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, chaired by Rep. Ron Paul, will hold a hearing on Tuesday to examine six legislative proposals that either reform or abolish the Federal Reserve System. "More and more people are beginning to understand just how destructive the Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been. I hope that this hearing will kick start a serious discussion on the need to rein in the Fed," said Chairman Paul. "100 years is far too long for Congress to have taken a hands-off approach. The Fed continues to reward Wall Street banks while destroying the dollar's purchasing power and driving up the cost of living for average Americans. This reckless behavior must come to an end." Calls for reforming various aspects of the Federal Reserve System have existed since its creation in 1913. However, with the onset of the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and during the prolonged recession, calls for reform have escalated. The Federal Reserve responded to the financial crisis with unconventional monetary easing, leading some to claim the Federal Reserve attempted to do too much to stimulate economic growth and set the stage for sustained inflation when the economy recovers. Slow economic growth, however, has led others to argue the Federal Reserve has not done enough and must be more accommodative in its conduct of monetary policy.

Between the late 80's and early 90's, I was what you may call a "decision maker" with one of the more established company in the music industry. I came from Europe in the early 80's and quickly established myself in the business. The industry was different back then. Since technology and media weren't accessible to people like they are today, the industry had more control over the public and had the means to influence them anyway it wanted. This may explain why in early 1991, I was invited to attend a closed door meeting with a small group of music business insiders to discuss rap music's new direction. Little did I know that we would be asked to participate in one of the most unethical and destructive business practice I've ever seen.

As a spain adopted DNIe or digital I'd all new national I'd cards that are FYI mandatory to have on you all the time have chip that you can sign your tax forms or access your social security.

Now those ids are out they implementing the secure access where you have to use it to get on line

This are voluntary at this stage but I'm sure it will be mandatory as they already sending the readers

Russia, Japan in Building Gas Pipeline Talks | World | RIA Novosti

Sakhalin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hundreds arrested as violence spreads in Egypt | End the Lie -- Independent News

BBC News - Armenia votes in parliamentary elections

Miss Suarez said: "They were a bunch of fools. They are responsible for Obama's security and they still let this happen. "I could have done a thousand other things. If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase." Miss Suarez told Caracol News in Cartegena that she called the police after the Secret Service agent with whom she spent the night refused to pay her the $800 (£500) he had promised.

"Let's go, bitch Ð I'm not going to pay you," she said that he told her before throwing her out of the room in the early morning.

A Secret Service investigation into "misconduct" has resulted in nine of the 12 agents that made up the president's advance security team to Cartegena losing their jobs. But Miss Suarez said that although she was at the heart of the scandal, she had not been interviewed by US investigators.

An American drone fired a volley of missiles into a house close to the Afghan border on Saturday, killing eight suspected militants and indicating U.S. resolve to continue with the attacks despite renewed Pakistani opposition, officials said. The strike in North Waziristan was the second American drone operation in Pakistan this week.

North Waziristan is a haven for Islamist militants from many parts of the world. Washington regards the region as a key command and control center for insurgents fighting U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. The identities and affiliations of those killed Saturday were not immediately known.

May 4, 2012: Secretary Clinton's video remarks on taking a stand against bullying.

Rich Barton, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Zillow.com Lycia Carmody, Community Volunteer Marcy Carsey, Founding Partner, Carsey - Werner Productions Chelsea Clinton, New York University Geoffrey Cowan, University Professor, The Annenberg School for Communication at USC John H.N. Fisher, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Thomas J. Holland, Partner, Bain & Company, Inc Mitchell Kapor, Partner, Kapor Capital Martha L. Karsh, Trustee, Karsh Family Foundation; Founder Clark & Karsh, Inc. Lucinda Lee Katz, Ph. D., Head of School, Marin Country day School Gary E. Knell, President and CEO, NPR April McClain-Delaney, President, Delaney Family Fund William E. McGlashan Jr., Managing Partner of TPG Growth Robert L. Miller, President and CEO, Miller Publishing Group William S. Price III (Chair), Co-Founder and Partner Emeritus, TPG Capital, L.P. Susan Sachs, Former COO, Common Sense Media James P. Steyer, Founder and CEO, Common Sense Media Gene T. Sykes, Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs Todor Tashev, Investment Partner, Omidyar Network Deborah Taylor Tate, (Ret.) U.S. Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission Mike Tollin, Founding Partner, Tollin Productions Lawrence Wilkinson (Vice Chair), Co-Founder, Oxygen Media and Global Business Network Anne Zehren, Former CEO, Kaboodle.com

The FBI general counsel's office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

"If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding," an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI's draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it.

Update (6 May) OK - after a little more reading (and thinking) it appears that all the news reports came from recent Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) monthly reports (I've included the April report below). According to the April report (also highlight main points): In March, ICS-CERT identified an active series of cyber intrusions targeting natural gas pipeline sector companies. Various sources provided information to ICS-CERT describing targeted attempts and intrusions into multiple natural gas pipeline sector organizations. Analysis of the malware and artifacts associated with these cyber attacks has positively identified this activity as related to a single campaign. The campaign appears to have started in late December 2011 and is active today. So what we have here are multiple cyber incidents that used targeted emails to gain access into systems: The spear-phishing attempts have targeted a variety of personnel within these organizations; however, the number of persons targeted appears to be tightly focused. In addition, the e-mails have been convincingly crafted to appear as though they were sent from a trusted member internal to the organization.

I've just been reading through Clare Perry's 'Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection' which, of course, recommends the introduction of opt-in porn filters on internet connections in the UK. Its fair to say that I've spotted one or two problems with the report that need to be flagged up. Problem number 1 can be found in the title of the report and the use of the words 'Independent' and 'Parliamentary Inquiry'. 'Independent', in this case, translates into the following branding on the back page of the report.

Fracking techniques have been around since the end of World War II. Why then suddenly is the world going gaga over shale gas hydraulic fracking? One answer is that the record high oil and gas prices of the recent few years have made inefficient processes such as extracting oil from Canada's tar sands or the costly fracking profitable. The second reason is the advance of various horizontal underground drilling techniques that allow companies like Schlumberger to enter a large shale rock formation and inject substances to "free" the trapped gas. But the real reason for the recent explosion of fracking in the country where it has most been applied, the United States, is the passage of legislation in 2005 by the US Congress that exempts the oil industry's hydraulic fracking activity from regulatory supervision by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials -- unchecked -- directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies. The law is known as the "Halliburton Loophole." That's because it was introduced with lobbying pressure from the company that produces the lion's share of chemical hydraulic fracking fluids--Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton. When he became Vice President under George W. Bush in early 2001, Bush immediately gave Cheney responsibility for a major Energy Task Force to make a comprehensive national energy strategy. Aside from looking at Iraq oil potentials as documents later revealed, Cheney's task force used Cheney's considerable political muscle and industry lobbying money to win exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Depressing news-we will NOT be at market this weekend or next weekend. Everything had been going exceptionally well until we put out a flock to field 3 weeks ago and the birds just stopped growing.

They were active and eating but not gaining any weight.

After doing a ton of research we've discovered that our industry industry has identified something called RSS (runting stunting syndrome) but none of the experts has a clue as to what it is or what to do about it. It appears in the winter/spring and disappears as quickly as it arrives.

I do know that there is a bad outbreak on the East Coast (it helps that Terry's niece is the director of poultry pathology at the University of Delaware) and that another local producer is battling the issue as well.

As our promise to you is to only sell the very best chicken, we won't be back at market until we work through this. We are trying several things to help the birds ( short of a good bowl of chicken soup) and the new chicks appear to be doing much better.

Thanks for all your support and patience,

Jane

Researchers have not reproduced all the field symptoms of RSS experimentally and believe that several viruses, bacteria and other pathogens may be involved. Reovirus was originally thought to be the cause of RSS, but adenovirus, enterovirus, rotavirus, parvovirus and others may also be involved. Bacteria often isolated from RSS birds (E. coli, Proteus micabilis, Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus cohnii, Clostridium perfringes, Bacteroides fragilis and Bacillus licheniformis) are commonly found in the intestinal tract and may cause secondary infections, aggravating the initial lesions (Rebel et al., 2006). Brooding at cool temperatures tends to worsen RSS symptoms, as does short down-time between flocks. Certain strains of birds appear to be more susceptible to the effects of RSS than others and male birds are more severely affected than females (Zavala and Barbosa, 2006). However, it is interesting to note that researchers have found that resistant broiler strains have stronger immunological responses than susceptible strains. This difference is particularly pronounced when gut immunity is compared (Rebel et al., 2006). Some researchers have suggested that the poor growth and retarded feathering (which are consistently observed in RSS cases) are due to a common underlying infection, while virtually all other symptoms result from other infections or management factors.

RSS often appears suddenly and disappears equally suddenly, making it difficult to determine effective control measures. However, it is important to remember that RSS is a disease of young birds with symptoms and mortality peaking at about 11 days so control efforts should be focused early in the life of the flock. Control efforts should focus in three primary areas: Biosecurity, good poultry house management and vaccination.

De Nederlandse fabrikant van kippenslachtlijnen Meyn Holding komt in handen van de Amerikaanse superbelegger en multimiljardair Warren Buffett.

In the morning Adam,

I thought you might enjoy our latest distraction up here in Quebec... our government and student unions have been butting heads for months now with what started as protests against tuition hikes, but both sides have been awfully stubborn. I don't believe either has any real intention of negotiating.

The students have been holding nightly marches in Montreal... the first few nights saw pretty heavy coverage on the french 24 hour news networks here, but after night-after-night of the same mostly peaceful demonstration, the media has of course gotten bored and is starting to no longer cover the story. So the students decide to undress for their latest march (at least, as much as the cops will let them...)

It's mostly just a bunch of pasty white kids, but cue the slideshow!

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/03/01-4521744-des-manifestants-tout-nus-bravent-la-pluie.php#Slide-0-box-0

Sad thing is, I really believe the Charest government is milking this conflict to distract the public from ongoing corruption investigations, and their plans to sell (read: give away) our mineral resources in the north...

Keep up the good work, and although I must sadly remain in the boner column for a while yet, I'm working on adding to the PayPal so I can empty it in your direction...

Many thanks,

A Detroit woman reportedly received a photo text message of her half naked boss, who happens to be a judge in the Motor City. A Fox 2 News reporter went and asked Detroit 3rd Circuit Judge Wade McCree about the photo. His on-camera response?

Set against the background of epic dislocation in the financial markets and a supine media, "Admit The Horse" is a gripping political thriller about a dark-horse political candidate whose meteoric rise to the pinnacle of power is engineered amidst illegal campaign contributions, voter fraud and murder. The story's unlikely players--an honorable Chicago detective, a retired DEA investigator, an idealistic venture capitalist, an African-American congresswoman and a suburban mom volunteering for his opponent--all begin to wonder: was his opportunistic rise to the Presidency all just coincidence...or conspiracy?

The Honorable Timothy F. Geithner ... 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3330. Washington

On Tuesday, Jimmy Fallon delivered his biggest 18-49 audience for a regular episode so far this season with a special telecast from Chapel Hill, N.C. featuring President Obama, which delivered 853,000 adults 18-49 for a 0.7 rating in that key category. In total viewers, Tuesday's telecast averaged 2.0 million persons, a 19 percent jump versus the 1.7 million the show has averaged this season in comparable "live plus same day" ratings.

The U.S. Libertarian Party on Saturday chose former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who was once a Republican White House hopeful, as its presidential candidate in the November 6 election. Johnson, who announced in December he would run for president as a Libertarian after mounting a long-shot candidacy for the Republican nomination, won 70 percent of the votes cast by 632 delegates at the party's convention in Las Vegas, Libertarian Party spokesman Stephen Gordon said.

AL-QAEDA has named Australia as a prime target for terrorism by firebombing in an online terrorism and bomb-making magazine. A picture of the Sydney Opera House with smoke clouds behind it - captioned ''Sydney city on fire'' - has been used to illustrate a story that promotes using bushfires as a weapon of terrorism. The article in Inspire magazine, titled ''It is of your freedom to ignite a firebomb'', gives a step-by-step guide to building an ''ember bomb'', which it advocates as the best way to start destructive fires, and details the best times of the year to start fires in different parts of Australia. Advertisement: Story continues below The article was condemned yesterday by Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who reassured the public that there was no imminent terrorist threat against Australia. However, Ms Roxon said it was a timely reminder, one year since the death of Osama bin Laden, that the threat of violent extremism in Australia remained. ''I have instructed my department to draw this material to the attention of relevant authorities, including the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Communications and Media Authority,'' she told The Sunday Age. The article provides examples and statistics of devastating bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland but makes no specific mention of Black Saturday.

Some 1,400 miles from the arraignment proceedings of the military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay and just a few miles from ground zero, relatives of Sept. 11 victims as well as police officers and firefighters who survived the attack on the World Trade Center gathered in Brooklyn to watch the hearing.

Two Americans detained and accused of spying after hiking near the Iraq-Iran border three years ago will marry Saturday in the San Francisco Bay area. A private wedding ceremony for Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd was set for 4 p.m. at an undisclosed location, said San Francisco attorney and family friend Ben Rosenfeld. Bauer, Shourd and Josh Fattal, all University of California, Berkeley graduates, were arrested on July 31, 2009, and held in Iran. Bauer and Fattal were sentenced to eight years after being convicted on spy-related charges, but were released after more than two years. Shourd was released after 14 months on bail. Bauer proposed to Shourd while both were in prison, fashioning an impromptu ring out of threads from his shirt. All three say they were innocent of spying and had simply strayed across the countries' border while in the mountainous region. Fattal will be Bauer's best man, Rosenfeld said. No additional details about the wedding were released, but an automated response to an email inquiry from The Associated Press to Shourd said the couple would be away on a honeymoon until May 18. They live, and will remain living in the San Francisco Bay area, Rosenfeld said, but he did not disclose where. Shourd grew up in Southern California, Bauer is a native on Minnesota and Fattal grew up in Pennsylvania.

Predictably, Mr. Nugent has stirred up a new fuss or two as the 2012 election draws near, but this time federal authorities are taking it more seriously: He was interviewed by the Secret Service after he said last month that he would either be "dead or in jail" if Mr. Obama is re-elected.

"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security," Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."

A collaboration between various US and European institutes has proven the presence of vital nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite, an extraterrestrial rock fragment which impacted Earth in 1969. Nucleobases are the very binary bits of DNA, the base pairs that make up the vital genetic information. Uracil and Xanthine were the two of the most exciting components detected. Uracil is Thymines stand-in when RNA is created, and Xanthene is a mutated form of Guanine.

These bases are unquestionably alien - for one, the rock-chemicals are equally left and right "handed" (a property of the physical structure of the chemicals), while the Earth-borne biological equivalents are either one or the other(sugars are right-handed, amino acids are left-handed). Even more fundamentally, the carbon atoms that make these chemicals organic at all are a space born isotope, the not-so-unlucky Carbon-13, while life on Earth is based on Carbon-12.

On March 13, 2012 PLoS Medicine published an analysis by Lisa Cosgrove and Sheldon Krimsky [1] that examined the financial conflicts of interest of members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) responsible for updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the so-called bible of psychiatry. Despite a new APA policy designed to address conflicts of interest (COIs), nearly 70% of current DSM-5 task force members have financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, up from 57% for the manual's previous version. 83% of current contributors to the psychotic disorders section, and everyone responsible for the sleep disorder section, have links to the pharmaceutical industry.

Doctors say many patients don't like taking medication long term, but a study published in the Lancet suggests that taking antipsychotic medication more than halves the risk of relapse in schizophrenic patients. "I used to see nasty, dirty rat-like things running around when I went outside, I could see people in the streets screaming abuse at me and making obscene and threatening gestures. "I was hearing a voice that was saying all kinds of nasty things about me. I was terrified, I tried to kill myself."

Interpretation Maintenance treatment with antipsychotic drugs benefits patients with schizophrenia. The advantages of these drugs must be weighed against their side-effects. Future studies should focus on outcomes of social participation and clarify the long-term morbidity and mortality of these drugs.

riedman and his colleagues coated iron oxide nanoparticles with antibodies that bind to a modified version of the temperature-sensitive ion channel TRPV1, which sits on the surface of cells. They injected these particles into tumours grown under the skins of mice, then used the magnetic field generated by a device similar to a miniature magnetic-resonance-imaging machine to heat the nanoparticles with low-frequency radio waves. In turn, the nanoparticles heated the ion channel to its activation temperature of 42 ¼C. Opening the channel allowed calcium to flow into cells, triggering secondary signals that switched on an engineered calcium-sensitive gene that produces insulin.

After 30 minutes of radio-wave exposure, the mice's insulin levels had increased and their blood sugar levels had dropped.

Radio stars

Related stories

More related stories

"The great thing about this system is that radio-wave heating can penetrate deep tissue, and TRPV1 can focus that stimulus very locally to just where you have the nanoparticles," says David Julius, a physiologist who studies TRPV1 at the University of California, San Francisco.

Friedman says that his team did not develop the method as a way of managing diabetes; insulin and blood sugar levels simply provide convenient physiological readouts for checking that the remote control is working. "There are many good treatments for diabetes that are much simpler," he says. However, the system could potentially be engineered to produce proteins to treat other conditions.

The Boston-based start-up company Selecta Biosciences has tested the SEL-068 vaccine in the lab and is beginning safety tests in humans, making SEL-068 the first synthetic nanoparticle vaccine to be tested in human clinical trials. If successful, the vaccine would be the first synthetically engineered nanoparticle vaccine, distinct from conventionally manufactured biological vaccines. Although nicotine is not a virus, the nanoparticles target the chemical as if it were by initiating an immune response. Selecta is using the same strategy to design other synthetic vaccines for non-virus ailments including malaria, cancer, diabetes, and transplant rejection. Once a person receives the nicotine vaccine, the effects should last for several years.

"Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939," the Berkshire vice chairman said, "but I think civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses."

A Detroit woman reportedly received a photo text message of her half naked boss, who happens to be a judge in the Motor City. A Fox 2 News reporter went and asked Detroit 3rd Circuit Judge Wade McCree about the photo. His on-camera response?

May 4, 2012: Secretary Clinton's video remarks on taking a stand against bullying.