Monthly Archives: September 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpP8MsN-CIA&feature=player_detailpage

Posted on September 21, 2012

The Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the “Fast and Furious” scandal was released this week, and while it found 14 officials from the department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives responsible for the reckless program, it failed, unfortunately, to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. responsible for the actions of those under his supervision.

The report provides a valuable account of the operation and the department’s response, concluding that the operation “quickly grew into an investigation that lacked realistic objectives, did not have appropriate supervision within ATF or the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and failed to adequately assess the public safety consequences” of letting guns flow freely into Mexico.

Even the New York Times, one of the leading media supporters of President Obama and an avid opponent of gun owners’ rights, said in an editorial that “The recklessness of federal officials in their harebrained scheme to assist in illegal gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels was laid bare in a scathing report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. …Something as half‑baked as Operation Fast and Furious should never have been concocted in the name of law enforcement.”

But the report also begs the question of who is actually in charge at the Department of Justice if such a program can be conducted for more a year, supposedly without the knowledge or approval of senior officials and the Attorney General himself.

The report calls for action to be taken against 14 lower-level agents and officials, but allows higher-ups to stand by their claims that they did not know about the operation until February 2011. But information already received by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows affidavits for wiretaps that, according to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, should have led to further scrutiny by senior officials. “If you were focused and looking at the question of gunwalking,” Horowitz said before the Oversight Committee this week, “you would read these reports and see many red flags.”

In his statement on the report, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said: “It’s time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs. Attorney General Holder has clearly known about these unacceptable failures yet has failed to take appropriate action for over a year and a half.”

We agree with Chairman Issa. The Attorney General of the United States cannot simply claim he did not know. It was his fundamental responsibility to know what was being done under his leadership. That point was hinted at this week by former ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson, who was also faulted in the report and retired from his subsequent DOJ job after the report was issued. In a statement, Melson correctly admitted that “as the acting director of the agency I was ultimately responsible for the actions of each employee.”

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: For stonewalling the congressional investigation of “Fast and Furious” and for his failure to stop the operation, or even take responsibility for it, Eric Holder should be fired.

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2012/doj-fast-and-furious-report-hits-hard-but-pulls-punches-on-holder.aspx

OK, guys, let’s get going on passing the word and waking up other sleeping sheeple.

New research suggests that computer use can lower the risk of dementia by up to 40 percent in men.

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Having access to a personal computer lowers or decreases the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older men by up to 40 per cent, according to researchers at The University of Western Australia.

Winthrop Professor Osvaldo Almeida and his colleagues undertook an eight-year study of more than 5000 Perth men aged from 65 to 85. The results are published in the journal PLoSOne.

Professor Almeida is Research Director at the UWA-affiliate, the Centre for Health and Ageing.

“As the world’s population ages, the number of people experiencing cognitive decline and dementia will increase to 50 million by 2025,” he said. “But if our findings are correct, the increase in the number of cases of dementia over the next 40 years may not be as dramatic as is currently expected.”

Professor Almeida said previous studies showed that cognitively-stimulating activities decreased the risk of dementia but there was little evidence on the likely effect of computer use over many years.

“So it got us thinking, with personal computer ownership on the increase, could it make a difference? We found that it did, and that there was a significant benefit,” he said.

The researchers found that computer users were younger than non-users, had completed at least high school, had a more active social network and were less likely to show evidence of depression or poor physical health.

They found that the risk of dementia was about 30 to 40 per cent lower among older computer users than non-users and that their findings could not be attributed to age, education, social isolation, depression, overall health or cognitive impairment.

Older people should therefore be encouraged to embrace computer technology as long as they understand the dangers of prolonged physical inactivity and the many advantages of a balanced and healthy lifestyle, the authors write.

The research is part of Australia’s longest-running longitudinal study of men’s health and ageing. It has been following a group of more than 19,000 men since 1996.

Media references

Christianne White (WA Centre for Health and Ageing) (+61 8) 9224 2993 / (+61 4) 15 213 661
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs) (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 00 700 783

http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201209044980/arts-and-culture/ram-memory-saves-real-memory-older-men

Internet Use Cuts Depression In Elderly, Study Finds

Editor’s note:  An update from the author has been added to this article on September 20, 2012.

Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data.

National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. … There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”

NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.

Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story. A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record. Amusingly, page after page of Google News results for Antarctic sea ice record show links to news articles breathlessly spreading fear and warning of calamity because Arctic sea ice recently set a 33-year low.

Sea ice around one pole is shrinking while sea ice around another pole is growing. This sure sounds like a global warming crisis to me.

Update:  To provide more perspective on global warming and Antarctica, I would like to update this column with some additional information:

As meteorologist Anthony Watts explains, new data show ice mass is accumulating on the Antarctic continent as well as in the ocean surrounding Antarctica. The new data contradict an assertion by global warming alarmists that the expanding Antarctic sea ice is coming at the expense of a decline in Antarctic continental ice.

The new data also add context to sensationalist media stories about declining ice in small portions of Antarctica, such as portions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula (see here, for example). The mainstream media frequently publish stories focusing on ice loss in these two areas, yet the media stories rarely if ever mention that ice is accumulating over the larger area of East Antarctica and that the continent as a whole is gaining snow and ice mass.

Interestingly, a new NASA study finds Antarctica once supported vegetation similar to that of present-day Iceland.

“The southward movements of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland,” a co-author of the NASA study reports.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record/

World Peace

As we recognize our oneness, peace emerges.

I may sometimes find it easier to focus on the perceived differences between others and myself, or what I’d like others to do differently. Yet when I shift my focus, a deeper perspective emerges.

The presence of God within me is my divine nature. It is the love and life of God that sustains me. But I cannot be content to see the Divine in myself alone. I behold the divine strength and eternal goodness in all people. My awareness of God in others dissolves any sense of division or petty differences.

God’s love fills me with love for all. I feel the joy of our oneness. In God, we are connected—heart to heart, spirit to spirit. Nothing will stand in the way of peace amongst us when we recognize we are one.

Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.—Philippians 2:2

http://www.dailyword.com/dailyword/world-peace-friday-september-21-2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y1ksivtwFUk#