Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'
By Geoffrey LeanSunday, 30 March 2008
Related Articles
Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.
The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.
It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.
Earlier this year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany also advises its people to minimise handset use, and the European Environment Agency has called for exposures to be reduced.
Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years, has published more than three dozen scientific papers – reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He has put the results on a brain surgery website, and a paper based on the research is currently being peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal.
He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that "there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours". He believes this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade.
Noting that malignant brain tumours represent "a life-ending diagnosis", he adds: "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation." He fears that "unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps", the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.
"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking," says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke. Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents.
Late last week, the Mobile Operators Association dismissed Khurana's study as "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual". It believes he "does not present a balanced analysis" of the published science, and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews".
Related Articles
Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.
The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.
It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.
Earlier this year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany also advises its people to minimise handset use, and the European Environment Agency has called for exposures to be reduced.
Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years, has published more than three dozen scientific papers – reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He has put the results on a brain surgery website, and a paper based on the research is currently being peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal.
He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that "there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours". He believes this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade.
Noting that malignant brain tumours represent "a life-ending diagnosis", he adds: "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation." He fears that "unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps", the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.
"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking," says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke. Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents.
Late last week, the Mobile Operators Association dismissed Khurana's study as "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual". It believes he "does not present a balanced analysis" of the published science, and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews".
Detroit Is Not As Bad As The Media Makes It Out To Be.
Sure it's kind of slow here and behind and doesn't have a mass transit system and is the worst in the economy, because the city was build on the Automotive Industry (The big three) which i ins dire financial crisis. But Detroit is like every urban city in America and it's reputation is far worse than the city actually is. Thanks to the faux media who tries to deter folks from coming to Detroit. But at the same time they want Michigan water.
Key lawmakers reached a deal Monday to strengthen the state's regulation of large-scale water withdrawals, paving the way for Michigan to approve a regional agreement preventing Great Lakes water from being sent elsewhere.
The legislation may reach Gov. Jennifer Granholm's desk by the end of the week, with votes coming as early as today.
Five states have ratified the Great Lakes Basin Compact, and Ohio's governor will sign it soon. Then Michigan and Pennsylvania would be the only states that have not approved it. Congress also must sign off.
The compact itself has wide support in Michigan because many fear that states in dry regions could look to the Great Lakes for their water needs. But the House and Senate have delayed sending the compact to Granholm because they are wrangling over accompanying water-use bills.
Negotiators on Monday settled monthslong differences over when to require state permits for the biggest water withdrawals and those affecting trout streams and whether to let regulators prevent withdrawals that would not be in the public interest. Legislators have spent more than two years working on water rules.
The legislation may reach Gov. Jennifer Granholm's desk by the end of the week, with votes coming as early as today.
Five states have ratified the Great Lakes Basin Compact, and Ohio's governor will sign it soon. Then Michigan and Pennsylvania would be the only states that have not approved it. Congress also must sign off.
The compact itself has wide support in Michigan because many fear that states in dry regions could look to the Great Lakes for their water needs. But the House and Senate have delayed sending the compact to Granholm because they are wrangling over accompanying water-use bills.
Negotiators on Monday settled monthslong differences over when to require state permits for the biggest water withdrawals and those affecting trout streams and whether to let regulators prevent withdrawals that would not be in the public interest. Legislators have spent more than two years working on water rules.
In Motown, Stop in the Name of Hope
It's been called the Most Miserable City in America. We beg to differ.
It's been called the Most Miserable City in America. We beg to differ.
I saw it first by night. A metropolis unveiled in viewfinder snapshots through the smudged windows of an elevated train. Gothic towers crowded close, proud detail etched on gray stone. A beaming stadium full of red-capped baseball fans, its front side left open as if to console the devoted others it couldn't quite hold. A neon neighborhood of revelers, trying their luck with the cards and with each other. A river that bounced fractured glints of the city back toward the heavens.
It was beguilingly authentic -- gritty and romantic -- and it was decided: I would side with Mary.
Mary, the smiling lady of the hotel lobby, not Alexandro, the cab driver who brought me to her.
"Is this your first time in Detroit?" Mary inquired. "You're going to love it! It's just like Paris."
Minutes earlier Alexandro laughed incredulously when I told him what I'd come here to find.
"Happiness?" he scoffed. "I can't really see it. Everybody's just so miserable."
Which is what Forbes magazine said, too; the Most Miserable City in America, it claimed in a report earlier this year. "Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate," the article proposes, by way of introduction.
But after riding the looping downtown train -- slickly named the People Mover -- and stepping into the Greektown section of the city, where I was met by saxophones singing from opposite corners and a scene that looked like the quaint, Hollywood version of a 1940s gambling town, it was over.
Alexandro said he bought his house for $200. Really $1,700, after taxes. He didn't mention the figure as a bragging point, but it started to seem like an enticing investment plan. That was just my price point, and who wouldn't want their own pied-á-terre in this Paris of Lake Erie?
I could be happy here. I already was
Mary, the smiling lady of the hotel lobby, not Alexandro, the cab driver who brought me to her.
"Is this your first time in Detroit?" Mary inquired. "You're going to love it! It's just like Paris."
Minutes earlier Alexandro laughed incredulously when I told him what I'd come here to find.
"Happiness?" he scoffed. "I can't really see it. Everybody's just so miserable."
Which is what Forbes magazine said, too; the Most Miserable City in America, it claimed in a report earlier this year. "Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate," the article proposes, by way of introduction.
But after riding the looping downtown train -- slickly named the People Mover -- and stepping into the Greektown section of the city, where I was met by saxophones singing from opposite corners and a scene that looked like the quaint, Hollywood version of a 1940s gambling town, it was over.
Alexandro said he bought his house for $200. Really $1,700, after taxes. He didn't mention the figure as a bragging point, but it started to seem like an enticing investment plan. That was just my price point, and who wouldn't want their own pied-á-terre in this Paris of Lake Erie?
I could be happy here. I already was
http://blog.mlive.com/kzgazette/2008/06/lansing_reaches_deal_on_great.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062001005.html?referrer=emailarticle
Monday, June 23, 2008
2 Billion may Suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020
Australian Health Research Institute Reports New Delhi, Delhi, India, Friday, June 20, 2008 -- (Business Wire India)The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost 1/3 rd of world population (about 2 billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy etc. According to the reports the tissues of children are tender and are likely to be more effected by use of any wireless gadget and devices and they should not be encouraged to use mobile phone. The fatal and volumetric effects of Electromagnetic Radiation emitted mainly by mobile phones, Mobile phone antenna, tower, Mast, Transmission Tower, Microwave oven, wireless devices, system and equipment. These dangerous effects have been certified and confirmed repeatedly by many leading medical and scientific research institutions of the world including Ministries of health of various governments, W.H.O. and now have been admitted and confirmed by Govt. of India in their recent press releases.The attached image shows and proves about the serious ill effects of E.M. radiation released by Radiation Nuclear and Safety Authority of FINLAND as to how E.M. radiation emitted by mobile phones damages the various body cells and causes incurable and fatal diseases.To view the photograph, please click on the link given below:Potential new risk from mobile phones
It is interesting to note that there is a question on the HAM Radio operator's license exam that aks about causes of cataracts. EMF is the answer. And this question has been on the test for decades.
Also note -
"2. Microwave phones can make kids vision-impaired. Microwaves cause eye lens opacity similar to cataracts. In the 1970s, researcher Milton Zaret demonstrated that weak microwave fields cause debilitating subcapsular eye lesions, sometimes years after exposure.(12) Israeli researchers have confirmed that microwaves at cell phone intensities cause macro and micro damage to the entire visual system, including tiny bubbles that can form on the eye lens.(13) Dr. Om Gandhi at the University of Utah reported that the eye lens of a 10 year old child will absorb five times more cell phone radiation than an adult eye.(14) Metal-rimmed eyeglasses can absorb microwaves, then re-emit that radiation onto the eye surface.(15)"
leaflady@leaflady.org
http://groups.google.com/group/mobilfunk_newsletter/browse_thread/thread/209e00af0cfe991f
Comedian George Carlin dies at age 71
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) - George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.
When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"
"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in—the 1950s—with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.
When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"
"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in—the 1950s—with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
This man always brought the truth and I love his stand up routine. He definitely will be missed RIP.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Is China Trying To Colonise Africa?
Submitted by Concerned Reader:Take note of the date this article was written. Jby David Blair, Telegraph, Aug 31, 2007 No one alive at the close of the 19th century could have missed the "scramble for Africa". A motley collection of robber barons, imperialist ideologues, explorers, rogues and adventurers - the likes of Cecil Rhodes and the appalling Leopold II, King of the Belgians - carved up the continent in the name of five European powers.Today, few appear to have noticed that a second "scramble for Africa" is under way. This time, only one giant country is involved, but its ambitions are every bit as momentous as those of Rhodes and company. With every day that passes, China's economic tentacles extend deeper into Africa. While Europe sought direct political control, China is acquiring a vast and informal economic empire.Reliable information on Beijing's African adventure is hard to come by. But we do know that trade between China and the world's poorest continent totalled about £30 billion last year - a sixfold increase since 2000.China now buys about one third of its oil from Africa, mainly from Angola, where an £800 million deal to develop a new field was signed last May, and from Sudan, where Beijing built a 900-mile pipeline and invested at least £8 billion. China is spending another £1.2 billion on a new offshore oilfield in Nigeria.Meanwhile, Beijing has acquired mines in Zambia, textile factories in Lesotho, railways in Uganda, timber in the Central African Republic and retail developments in almost every capital.The reasoning behind China's new focus on Africa is simple. If its economic boom is to be sustained, Beijing must find more raw materials and new markets for manufactured goods. Chinese oil consumption is forecast to grow by at least 10 per cent every year for the foreseeable future. At this level of demand, its domestic reserves will vanish within 20 years. Hence the quest for overseas oil. Yet Beijing's options are limited. America and the Western powers have already snapped up the world's largest oil reserves. Saudi Arabia and Iraq - with 45 per cent of the world's oil between them - are in effect closed to China. So the less developed tracts of Africa are an obvious target. Sudan's six billion barrels of proven reserves - with more still to be discovered - have become of vital strategic significance to China.These facts are of deep concern to many Africans. Their governments may welcome Chinese investment, but Africa's independent voices do not share this enthusiasm. The consequences of China's new role there have already been catastrophic.Thanks to Beijing's interest in Sudan's oil, President Omar al-Bashir's regime in Khartoum has received a windfall. Ten years ago, Sudan's oil revenues were negligible; last year, Chinese investment ensured that they totalled at least £3 billion. Without this ready cash, Mr Bashir could never have sustained the war in Darfur, where four years of fighting have claimed about 300,000 lives, either from violence, starvation or disease. The military machine that has laid waste to vast tracts of land, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, was, in effect, bankrolled by Beijing. Moreover, China has sold weapons directly to Sudan, notably Fantan ground attack aircraft.Elsewhere, China provides a convenient alternative for African leaders spurned by the West for their human rights abuses. Devoid of aid and foreign investment, President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe would be entirely isolated but for China's backing. Beijing has given Mugabe civilian and military aircraft, and its experts helped design a new mansion for the old dictator, in the style of a Chinese pagoda. Yesterday, the Chinese government assured Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Africa and Asia, that any future aid for Zimbabwe would be purely humanitarian. Whether China will keep this promise is another matter: Mugabe's Zanu-PF has received Chinese money for at least 30 years; Zanu-PF's national headquarters in Harare - found, aptly enough, on Rotten Row - was built by China.The harsh truth is that Beijing has become the ally of choice for Africa's worst rulers. While China likes to portray itself as a benign force in Africa, free of the historical baggage carried by the former colonial powers, Beijing's conduct is already resented.During last year's presidential election in Zambia, the leading opposition candidate, Michael Sata, campaigned on an explicitly anti-Chinese ticket. Beijing's investment was, Mr Sata argued, almost entirely worthless for Zambia. Yes, China had reopened some copper mines, but the workers were being exploited and all health and safety regulations ignored. An industrial accident at one Chinese-run mine claimed 46 lives in 2005. Later, workers rioted over low wages and poor conditions. Meanwhile, local companies were being driven out of business by cheap imports. While Mr Sata lost the election overall, he won huge majorities in all the areas of Zambia affected by Chinese investment. His defeat prompted a day of anti-Chinese riots in the capital, Lusaka. Every Chinese-owned shop in the city was barricaded to avoid being looted. Meanwhile, shops owned by whites or Asians carried on trading without incident.Even inside Mugabe's crumbling domain, it has not gone unnoticed that all three MA-60 aircraft supplied by China to Air Zimbabwe have a terrifying history of engine fires and emergency landings. While Americans and Europeans have only just encountered shoddy Chinese consumer goods, ordinary Zimbabweans talk of "zing zong" products - by which they mean exports from China which have a tendency to break in your hands.Like all empires, China's economic domain in Africa is stirring deep resentment. The wonder is that it has happened so quickly, and where the scramble will end.
I think that everyone know, but us Africans in America that the Motherland is where all the earth's natural resources are.
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