{...the authorities now say the diaries indicate the two teenagers planned even more destruction, both within the town and beyond.
They wanted to kill 5oo people, hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, Jefferson County Sherrif department's spokesman, Steve Davis, told reporters.}
.............................................................................
Tuesday, April 27, 1999 Published at 03:00 GMT 04:00 UK
World: Americas
Columbine killers planned to kill 500
Investigators say the two students responsible for the Columbine High School massacre planned to murder 500 people and create destruction far beyond the Colorado suburb where they ran amok last Tuesday.
The latest revelations about the teenage killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris came as more funerals of their victims took place, including that of the teacher hailed as a hero for his role in directing students to safety.
From the boy's diaries and the taunts they shouted as they attacked fellow students, the pair apparently carried out the shootings in revenge for insults from classmates who they said had made them outcasts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/324995.stm
But the authorities now say the diaries indicate the two teenagers planned even more destruction, both within the town and beyond.
They wanted to kill 500 people, hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, Jefferson County Sherrif department's spokesman, Steve Davis, told reporters.
Mr Davis said the diary had been found in Harris' bedroom alongside bomb- making materials and other weapons.
It also notes how the massacre had been a year in the planning and timed to coincide with Hitler's birthday.
Amazed at the firepower Harris and Klebold had managed to accumulate, investigators say they suspect that others may have been involved or at least known what they were planning.
Police questioned Klebold's 18-year-old girlfriend about whether she purchased two of the firearms used in the shootings.
Officials said the woman had not been named as a suspect and no arrests were imminent.
Funeral of a hero
William "Dave" Sanders, a computer teacher and popular sports coach at the school, was gunned down as two students shot their way through the school building before finally turning their guns on themselves.
Terrified pupils later said many of them owed their lives to Mr Sanders' quick thinking.
More than 2,000 people crowded into and around Littleton's Trinity Christian Center for Monday's funeral. A memorial service held in the town on Sunday was attended by more than 70,000 mourners including US Vice-President Al Gore.
"He was and always will be a hero in my heart," his niece, Kim, told mourners.
Mourners gathered at three other services on Monday. About 2,000 people attended the funeral of Cassie Bernall, 17, the girl who answered "yes" when asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in God. The gunman then shot her dead.
"Cassie's response does not surprise us," the family said in a statement released at the funeral. "Her life was rightly centered around our lord Jesus."
About 700 people heard Lauren Townsend described as "remarkable girl" by her family.
Miss Townsend, 18, was captain of the girls' volleyball team and an honor student.
Daniel Rohrbough, 15, was killed while holding a door open for fellow students fleeing the gunmen. His funeral was held later on Monday.
Wall Street tribute
Earlier, traders on Wall Street broke off from the start of their normally frenetic business for a minute's silence in memory of the victims.
It has emerged that the parents on of the gunmen, 17-year old Dylan Klebold, sensed "tension" in their son several days before the attack.
Reports in Monday's New York Times quote family pastor, the Reverend Don Marxhausen, as saying Dylan's mother, Susan, told him that she suspected something had been bothering her son as he left for school on the morning of the attack.
"The goodbye had an edge to it," she told the pastor. "She thought, maybe he's in a bad mood. Maybe he's got a test today or something."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/329303.stm
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Edge of Malibu
04/17/2009 12:32 PM, E! Online
Josh Grossberg You might say The Edge is having boundary issues.
The U2 guitarist's plans to build five mountaintop mansions in Malibu with fantastic oceanside views is facing fierce opposition from some famous NIMBYs concerned the homes will be an environmental catastrophe.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the proposed project would be built above homes belonging to the likes of Dick Van Dyke, Kelsey Grammer and James Cameron and would require some extensive and tricky engineering, including extension of a road down a rugged elevation, grading 70,000 cubic yards of hillside and installing water lines.
"The downside of this is a permanently scarred mountainside for the benefit of a very few that for many years all will view," Jefferson Wagner, a Malibu councilman, told the newspaper. "For somebody so revered even to be orchestrating this type of development in such a sensitive area is hypocritical."
The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, promises development on the properties will address those concerns with care.
"My family and I love Malibu, having maintained a residence here for more than a decade," he told the Times. "These homes will be some of the most environmentally sensitive ever designed in Malibu—or anywhere in the world. I'm disappointed that certain critics either don't have the facts or have ulterior motives."
The Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has "certificates of compliance" from Los Angeles County establishing that the land he owns meets all legal requirements.
Edge added that he and Irish real estate investor Derek Quinlan plan to take up residence in two of the homes and most likely flip the other three, which has rankled some neighbors whose peace and quiet will be rattled by all the building.
The California Coastal Commission is expected to review the environmental impact of the project in June.
This is not the first fight Evans has found himself in with neighbors.
He and the rest of U2 came under fire in their hometown of Dublin for now defunct plans to build the so-called U2 Tower, a proposed skyscraper in the heart of the city that would've been the tallest in Ireland. Preservationists claimed the $220 million project would have resulted in the tearing down of four adjacent historic buildings.}
http://ca.music.yahoo.com/read/news/61987390
Josh Grossberg You might say The Edge is having boundary issues.
The U2 guitarist's plans to build five mountaintop mansions in Malibu with fantastic oceanside views is facing fierce opposition from some famous NIMBYs concerned the homes will be an environmental catastrophe.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the proposed project would be built above homes belonging to the likes of Dick Van Dyke, Kelsey Grammer and James Cameron and would require some extensive and tricky engineering, including extension of a road down a rugged elevation, grading 70,000 cubic yards of hillside and installing water lines.
"The downside of this is a permanently scarred mountainside for the benefit of a very few that for many years all will view," Jefferson Wagner, a Malibu councilman, told the newspaper. "For somebody so revered even to be orchestrating this type of development in such a sensitive area is hypocritical."
The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, promises development on the properties will address those concerns with care.
"My family and I love Malibu, having maintained a residence here for more than a decade," he told the Times. "These homes will be some of the most environmentally sensitive ever designed in Malibu—or anywhere in the world. I'm disappointed that certain critics either don't have the facts or have ulterior motives."
The Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has "certificates of compliance" from Los Angeles County establishing that the land he owns meets all legal requirements.
Edge added that he and Irish real estate investor Derek Quinlan plan to take up residence in two of the homes and most likely flip the other three, which has rankled some neighbors whose peace and quiet will be rattled by all the building.
The California Coastal Commission is expected to review the environmental impact of the project in June.
This is not the first fight Evans has found himself in with neighbors.
He and the rest of U2 came under fire in their hometown of Dublin for now defunct plans to build the so-called U2 Tower, a proposed skyscraper in the heart of the city that would've been the tallest in Ireland. Preservationists claimed the $220 million project would have resulted in the tearing down of four adjacent historic buildings.}
http://ca.music.yahoo.com/read/news/61987390
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Autism Enigma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Man#Plot
April 16th 2009From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489714
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Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant
You may never have the memory of Rain Man, but you can still get tips for improving your cognitive performance from this extraordinary thinker
By Jonah Lehrer
{Daniel Tammet is author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, the latter of which came out in January. He is also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 digits of the mathematical constant pi. Scientific American Mind contributing editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Tammet about the way his memory works, why the IQ test is overrated, and a possible explanation for extraordinary feats of creativity.}
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=think-better-tips-from-a-savant
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Total Recall: The Woman Who Can't Forget
By Gary Marcus 03.23.09
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-04/ff_perfectmemory
-
http://www.fox.com/touch, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_(2012_TV_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821681
April 16th 2009From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489714
-
Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant
You may never have the memory of Rain Man, but you can still get tips for improving your cognitive performance from this extraordinary thinker
By Jonah Lehrer
{Daniel Tammet is author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, the latter of which came out in January. He is also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 digits of the mathematical constant pi. Scientific American Mind contributing editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Tammet about the way his memory works, why the IQ test is overrated, and a possible explanation for extraordinary feats of creativity.}
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=think-better-tips-from-a-savant
-
Total Recall: The Woman Who Can't Forget
By Gary Marcus 03.23.09
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-04/ff_perfectmemory
-
http://www.fox.com/touch, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_(2012_TV_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821681
Monday, April 13, 2009
Recession taking toll on the young/ (PWFA) Particle Accelerator
As parents lose jobs, demand soars for mental-health services for children in hard-hit Windsor
ANDRÉ PICARD
From Monday's Globe and Mail
April 13, 2009 at 4:12 AM EDT
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER
{As the economy stagnates, the number of children and adolescents suffering mental-health problems is soaring, and no place knows it better than Windsor.
New data out of Windsor, an auto town hit early and hard by the recession, show that demand for mental-health services jumped 50 per cent last year. There is also anecdotal evidence that this increase has continued unabated as the local economy sputters - a portent of things to come across the country.
The Windsor Regional Children's Centre has seen referrals jump 50 per cent in 2009, compared to a similar period in 2008, while the number of young people coming into the walk-in clinic for help has doubled. At another agency that deals with the most severe cases - children and adolescents who are suicidal - the number admitted has nearly tripled, to 27 young people a month from an average of 10 before the downturn.
"In that period, nothing has changed except the economy," Connie Martin, executive director of Maryvale Adolescent and Family Services, said in an interview.
"In almost all cases, one or both parents have lost jobs recently, and that has been a trigger for the child's mental-health problems."
Ms. Martin said the most tragic case she has seen is a preteen who attempted suicide after his parents lost their jobs in the auto industry.
"He felt like he was a burden on the family - that they couldn't afford to have him around," she said.
Mary Broga, executive director of the Windsor Regional Children's Centre, said the impact of the recession on children and adolescents is more profound than many parents realize. When there are job losses or other money woes - and unemployment in Windsor hit 13.7 per cent in March, compared to the national rate of 8 per cent - the entire family dynamic changes. Parents can be anxious, depressed or irritable, and children tend to feel they are responsible.
Ms. Broga said the centre is seeing an influx of two distinct types of clients as Windsor's economy falters: kids with no previous mental-health problems who are suddenly experiencing severe anxiety, depression or acting out; and children and adolescents with pre-existing mental-health conditions that are exacerbated by new stresses.
Sherry Campeau's 14-year-old son Shayne, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, is in the latter category. He had been making steady progress since a suicide attempt two years ago, but his father being laid off for six weeks over Christmas and New Year's had a profound effect.
"I've seen a steady increase in his anxiety since December. The gains we made in the previous two years were all taken back," Ms. Campeau said.
While she is not employed in the auto industry - Ms. Campeau works as a teacher's assistant and is studying at teachers college - her ex-husband, her brother and her father all work for Chrysler.
"There's a real feeling of hopelessness around here. We wonder if we'll ever get out of this," she said. "The kids feel it like everybody else."
In fact, Ms. Broga said, they often feel it more acutely, particularly teenagers. "Adolescents see everything collapsing around them and wonder: 'What am I going to do with my life?' "
When they are anxious, their schoolwork suffers, sleep patterns are disrupted and they get sick, physically and mentally. To make matters worse, they are reluctant to reach out to their parents, who are already stressed out.
"If you have a parent - or two - with no money and no prospects of a job, the stress level goes way up in the house," Ms. Martin said. "It doesn't take much for a child to get in a bad place."
To make matters worse, if a child gets sick, the stress level of parents shoots even higher, creating a vicious circle.
Ms. Martin noted that while demand for services is spiking, funding for mental-health agencies has remained stagnant. In fact, a recent report from the Auditor-General of Ontario lamented the lack of funding increases, saying that children's mental-health agencies have had "considerable difficulty maintaining their core services and to do so have often had to 'rob Peter to pay Paul.' "
Another report, prepared by former provincial Conservative and Liberal cabinet ministers Roy McMurtry and Alvin Curling, recommended an additional $200-million investment in children's mental health - a 40-per-cent increase over current funding - over the next three years.}
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090413.wmental13art2227/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090413.wmental13art2227
-
............................................................................
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(PWFA) Particle_accelerator
Next-Gen Atom Smashers: Smaller, Cheaper and Super Powerful
By Lizzie Buchen April 12, 2009
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/tinyaccelerator.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008arXiv0807.4599C
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1744136_Proton_Driven_Plasma_Wakefield_Acceleration
http://arts-and-life.com/2009/04/next-gen-atom-smashers-smaller-cheaper.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator#Higher_energies
ANDRÉ PICARD
From Monday's Globe and Mail
April 13, 2009 at 4:12 AM EDT
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER
{As the economy stagnates, the number of children and adolescents suffering mental-health problems is soaring, and no place knows it better than Windsor.
New data out of Windsor, an auto town hit early and hard by the recession, show that demand for mental-health services jumped 50 per cent last year. There is also anecdotal evidence that this increase has continued unabated as the local economy sputters - a portent of things to come across the country.
The Windsor Regional Children's Centre has seen referrals jump 50 per cent in 2009, compared to a similar period in 2008, while the number of young people coming into the walk-in clinic for help has doubled. At another agency that deals with the most severe cases - children and adolescents who are suicidal - the number admitted has nearly tripled, to 27 young people a month from an average of 10 before the downturn.
"In that period, nothing has changed except the economy," Connie Martin, executive director of Maryvale Adolescent and Family Services, said in an interview.
"In almost all cases, one or both parents have lost jobs recently, and that has been a trigger for the child's mental-health problems."
Ms. Martin said the most tragic case she has seen is a preteen who attempted suicide after his parents lost their jobs in the auto industry.
"He felt like he was a burden on the family - that they couldn't afford to have him around," she said.
Mary Broga, executive director of the Windsor Regional Children's Centre, said the impact of the recession on children and adolescents is more profound than many parents realize. When there are job losses or other money woes - and unemployment in Windsor hit 13.7 per cent in March, compared to the national rate of 8 per cent - the entire family dynamic changes. Parents can be anxious, depressed or irritable, and children tend to feel they are responsible.
Ms. Broga said the centre is seeing an influx of two distinct types of clients as Windsor's economy falters: kids with no previous mental-health problems who are suddenly experiencing severe anxiety, depression or acting out; and children and adolescents with pre-existing mental-health conditions that are exacerbated by new stresses.
Sherry Campeau's 14-year-old son Shayne, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, is in the latter category. He had been making steady progress since a suicide attempt two years ago, but his father being laid off for six weeks over Christmas and New Year's had a profound effect.
"I've seen a steady increase in his anxiety since December. The gains we made in the previous two years were all taken back," Ms. Campeau said.
While she is not employed in the auto industry - Ms. Campeau works as a teacher's assistant and is studying at teachers college - her ex-husband, her brother and her father all work for Chrysler.
"There's a real feeling of hopelessness around here. We wonder if we'll ever get out of this," she said. "The kids feel it like everybody else."
In fact, Ms. Broga said, they often feel it more acutely, particularly teenagers. "Adolescents see everything collapsing around them and wonder: 'What am I going to do with my life?' "
When they are anxious, their schoolwork suffers, sleep patterns are disrupted and they get sick, physically and mentally. To make matters worse, they are reluctant to reach out to their parents, who are already stressed out.
"If you have a parent - or two - with no money and no prospects of a job, the stress level goes way up in the house," Ms. Martin said. "It doesn't take much for a child to get in a bad place."
To make matters worse, if a child gets sick, the stress level of parents shoots even higher, creating a vicious circle.
Ms. Martin noted that while demand for services is spiking, funding for mental-health agencies has remained stagnant. In fact, a recent report from the Auditor-General of Ontario lamented the lack of funding increases, saying that children's mental-health agencies have had "considerable difficulty maintaining their core services and to do so have often had to 'rob Peter to pay Paul.' "
Another report, prepared by former provincial Conservative and Liberal cabinet ministers Roy McMurtry and Alvin Curling, recommended an additional $200-million investment in children's mental health - a 40-per-cent increase over current funding - over the next three years.}
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090413.wmental13art2227/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090413.wmental13art2227
-
............................................................................
-
(PWFA) Particle_accelerator
Next-Gen Atom Smashers: Smaller, Cheaper and Super Powerful
By Lizzie Buchen April 12, 2009
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/tinyaccelerator.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008arXiv0807.4599C
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1744136_Proton_Driven_Plasma_Wakefield_Acceleration
http://arts-and-life.com/2009/04/next-gen-atom-smashers-smaller-cheaper.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator#Higher_energies
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
World's oldest person celebrates 115th in LA
Mon Apr 6
By The Associated Press
{LOS ANGELES - The world's oldest known living person celebrated her 115th birthday Monday.
Gertrude Baines was honoured at Western Convalescent Hospital with music, a letter from the president, and two cakes. Baines said little during the celebration as friends sang to her and she received a proclamation from Guinness World Records acknowledging her as the world's oldest person.
"Who would take Los Angeles for the place that would have the world's oldest person?" Robert Young, a scientist and senior consultant with Guinness, said later in an interview. "Living that long is like winning the genetic lottery."
Born in 1894 in Shellman, Ga., Baines became the world's oldest living person when a 115-year-old woman, Maria de Jesus, died in Portugal in January.
Baines' physician said she only has two complaints.
"Number one, she doesn't like the bacon. It's not crisp enough," the doctor, Charles Witt Jr., told KCAL-TV. "And the other thing is she fusses about her ... arthritis of her knees. She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around."
Baines father, born two years before the Civil War in 1863, was likely a slave, Young said. Baines has outlived her entire family. Her only daughter died of typhoid fever when she was a toddler.
Featured on local television newscasts in November when she cast her ballot for Barack Obama for president, Baines said she backed him "because he's for the coloured." She said she never thought she would live to see a black man become president.
Baines received a letter from Obama, wishing her a happy birthday.
Baines worked as a maid in University of Ohio dormitories until her retirement, and has lived at the Los Angeles convalescent hospital for more than 10 years.
Since 1986, Young said, the world's oldest person title has been held by a woman for all but 44 days.} http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090406/world/world_s_oldest_person
By The Associated Press
{LOS ANGELES - The world's oldest known living person celebrated her 115th birthday Monday.
Gertrude Baines was honoured at Western Convalescent Hospital with music, a letter from the president, and two cakes. Baines said little during the celebration as friends sang to her and she received a proclamation from Guinness World Records acknowledging her as the world's oldest person.
"Who would take Los Angeles for the place that would have the world's oldest person?" Robert Young, a scientist and senior consultant with Guinness, said later in an interview. "Living that long is like winning the genetic lottery."
Born in 1894 in Shellman, Ga., Baines became the world's oldest living person when a 115-year-old woman, Maria de Jesus, died in Portugal in January.
Baines' physician said she only has two complaints.
"Number one, she doesn't like the bacon. It's not crisp enough," the doctor, Charles Witt Jr., told KCAL-TV. "And the other thing is she fusses about her ... arthritis of her knees. She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around."
Baines father, born two years before the Civil War in 1863, was likely a slave, Young said. Baines has outlived her entire family. Her only daughter died of typhoid fever when she was a toddler.
Featured on local television newscasts in November when she cast her ballot for Barack Obama for president, Baines said she backed him "because he's for the coloured." She said she never thought she would live to see a black man become president.
Baines received a letter from Obama, wishing her a happy birthday.
Baines worked as a maid in University of Ohio dormitories until her retirement, and has lived at the Los Angeles convalescent hospital for more than 10 years.
Since 1986, Young said, the world's oldest person title has been held by a woman for all but 44 days.} http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090406/world/world_s_oldest_person
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