The Half Blood Prince

This year I am going as one of these thingys for Halloween.

Nursing

Nursing is a discipline focused on assisting individuals, families and communities in attaining, re-attaining and maintaining optimal health and functioning. Modern definitions of nursing define it as a science and an art that focuses on quality of life as defined by persons and families. Nursing is not only concerned about health and functioning but with quality of living and dying, lived experience, and universal lived experiences of health.

Let your feet carry you

Do not retreat into darkness.
There is always light even in the gloom.
When your friends give you a hard time
Keep on the right track
And keep looking up
Because the sky will quickly clear

And you will be above the clouds

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Happiness is neither here nor there.
All we have and are is like the snow.
Pain and pleasure tend to come and go.
Paradise is with us everywhere.
Years shall burn away in that bright sun
As we become like children once again,
Needing neither clarity nor gain,
Nor caring where the stream of joy might run.
In each of us there is a wilderness
Vast and undisturbed, a silent space,
Eternal, ever green and full of grace,
Recycling the wastes of our distress.
So may you walk in beauty far more bright
And lasting than what fades before your eyes,
Rejoicing in a love that never dies
Yet finds its way along the edge of night.

'Dynasty of Death'

Historical Perspective on the Bush Family

by Schuyler Ebbets

Key to Hockey Goalie Success Discovered

By Charles Q. Choi

The researchers discovered these elite goalies focused directly on the puck nearly a full second before the shot was released nearly three-quarters of the time. They also concentrated on the ice in front of the stick when it came to a quarter of all shots. Their gaze was only on the body of the shooter 2 percent of the time.

Children aghast as pelican swallows pigeon whole

Source: Daily Mail

Families strolling through a London park were left shocked when a pelican picked up and swallowed an unsuspecting pigeon.

The Eastern White pelican struggled with the desperately frantic pigeon in its beak for more than 20 minutes before swallowing it whole.

The moment was caught on camera by photographer Cathal McNaughton, who was taking pictures of the wildlife in St James's Park.

The pigeon was still alive when it reached the pelican's stomach, he said.

NASA and NOAA Announce Ozone Hole is a Double Record Breaker

Source: NASA
10.19.06

NASA and NOAA Announce Ozone Hole is a Double Record Breaker

NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth.

The ozone layer acts to protect life on Earth by blocking harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. The "ozone hole" is a severe depletion of the ozone layer high above Antarctica. It is primarily caused by human-produced compounds that release chlorine and bromine gases in the stratosphere.

"From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America.

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite measures the total amount of ozone from the ground to the upper atmosphere over the entire Antarctic continent. This instrument observed a low value of 85 Dobson Units (DU) on Oct. 8, in a region over the East Antarctic ice sheet. Dobson Units are a measure of ozone amounts above a fixed point in the atmosphere. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument was developed by the Netherlands' Agency for Aerospace Programs, Delft, The Netherlands, and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland.

Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., use balloon-borne instruments to measure ozone directly over the South Pole. By Oct. 9, the total column ozone had plunged to 93 DU from approximately 300 DU in mid-July. More importantly, nearly all of the ozone in the layer between eight and 13 miles above the Earth's surface had been destroyed. In this critical layer, the instrument measured a record low of only 1.2 DU., having rapidly plunged from an average non-hole reading of 125 DU in July and August.

"These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere," said David Hofmann, director of the Global Monitoring Division at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. "The depleted layer has an unusual vertical extent this year, so it appears that the 2006 ozone hole will go down as a record-setter."

Observations by Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder show extremely high levels of ozone destroying chlorine chemicals in the lower stratosphere (approximately 12.4 miles high). These high chlorine values covered the entire Antarctic region in mid to late September. The high chlorine levels were accompanied by extremely low values of ozone.

The temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere causes the severity of the ozone hole to vary from year to year. Colder than average temperatures result in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer temperatures lead to smaller ones. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) provided analyses of satellite and balloon stratospheric temperature observations. The temperature readings from NOAA satellites and balloons during late-September 2006 showed the lower stratosphere at the rim of Antarctica was approximately nine degrees Fahrenheit colder than average, increasing the size of this year's ozone hole by 1.2 to 1.5 million square miles.

The Antarctic stratosphere warms by the return of sunlight at the end of the polar winter and by large-scale weather systems (planetary-scale waves) that form in the troposphere and move upward into the stratosphere. During the 2006 Antarctic winter and spring, these planetary-scale wave systems were relatively weak, causing the stratosphere to be colder than average.

As a result of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) peaked around 1995 and are decreasing in both the troposphere and stratosphere. It is estimated these gases reached peak levels in the Antarctica stratosphere in 2001. However, these ozone-depleting substances typically have very long lifetimes in the atmosphere (more than 40 years).

As a result of this slow decline, the ozone hole is estimated to annually very slowly decrease in area by about 0.1 to 0.2 percent for the next five to 10 years. This slow decrease is masked by large year-to-year variations caused by Antarctic stratosphere weather fluctuations.

The recently completed 2006 World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion concluded the ozone hole recovery would be masked by annual variability for the near future and the ozone hole would fully recover in approximately 2065.

"We now have the largest ozone hole on record for this time of year," said Craig Long of NCEP. As the sun rises higher in the sky during October and November, this unusually large and persistent area may allow much more ultraviolet light than usual to reach Earth's surface in the southern latitudes.


Rob Gutro
Goddard Space Flight Center

Bush-Cheney administration tells courts they'll no longer be needed

Source: Karen DeYoung, Washington Post

Oct. 20, 2006

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

Beyond those already imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, the law applies to all non-U.S. citizens, including permanent U.S. residents.

The new law already has been challenged as unconstitutional by lawyers representing the petitioners. The issue of detainee rights is likely to reach the Supreme Court for a third time.

Habeas corpus, a Latin term meaning "you have the body," is one of the oldest principles of English and American law. It requires the government to show a legal basis for holding a prisoner. A series of unresolved federal court cases brought against the administration over the last several years by lawyers representing the detainees had left the question in limbo.

Two years ago, in Rasul v. Bush, which gave Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their detention before a U.S. court, and in this year's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld , the Supreme Court appeared to settle the issue in favor of the detainees. But the new legislation approved by Congress last month, which gives Bush the authority to try detainees before military commissions, included a provision removing judicial review for all habeas claims.

Immediately after Bush signed the act into law Tuesday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asserting the new authorities and informing the court that it no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that had been under consideration since 2004. The U.S. District Court cases, which had been stayed pending the appeals court decision, were similarly invalid, the administration informed that court on Wednesday.

number of legal scholars and members of Congress, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), have said that the habeas provision of the new law violates a clause of the Constitution that says the right to challenge detention "shall not be suspended" except in cases of "rebellion or invasion." Historically, the Constitution has been interpreted to apply equally to citizens and noncitizens under U.S. jurisdiction.

The administration's persistence on the issue "demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce [the clause] in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it," said Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor involved in the detainee cases.

On Tuesday, the appeals court granted a petition by lawyers for the detainees to argue against the new law. Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the detainees, said yesterday that he expected the administration to file a motion for dismissal of all the cases before the defense challenge is heard.

"We and other habeas counsel are going to vigorously oppose dismissal of these cases," Warren said. "We are going to challenge that law as violating the Constitution on several grounds." Whichever side loses in the upcoming court battles, he said, will then appeal to the Supreme Court.

Pope warns scientists not to risk fate of Icarus

Source: Reuters
Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:28 AM BST

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict told scientists on Saturday that by believing only in "artificial intelligence" and technology they risked the fate of the mythical Icarus, whose home-made wings melted when he flew too close to the sun.

"Contemporary life gives pride of place to an artificial intelligence ever more enslaved to experimental tecnhiques, thereby forgetting that all science should safeguard mankind and promote his tendency to authentic goodness," the Pope said.

The German-born Pope, a theology professor and an enforcer of Vatican dogma before his election as pontiff last year, has voiced his concerns about some areas of scientific research that clash with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, Benedict is against stem cell technology, which researchers say could help cure serious illnesses but the Church opposes it because it often relies on cells from embryo tissue.

The Vatican teaches that human life begins at conception.

The Pope reminded academics and students at a Catholic university in Rome of Icarus who, in the Greek myth, made wings with feathers and wax to escape captivity in Crete. Ignoring the warnings of his father Daedalus, he flew too close to the sun, resulting in his "ruinous fall and death," the Pope said.

"Letting yourself be seduced by discovery without paying attention to the criteria of a deeper vision could lead to the drama the myth speaks of," he told the Pontifical Lateranense University at the inauguration of a new academic year.

10 subtle signs of what she's thinking and feeling

From Men's Health, 10 subtle signs of what she's thinking and feeling:

PUPILS
If she's feeling stimulated by you (not just sexually), her pupils will dilate. That's because her body is programmed to want to see more of whatever's exciting her, so her brain tells her irises to let in more light. Bonus: As the inkiness spreads, she'll start looking better to you, too. Research shows that men rate women with larger pupils as more attractive. Time to make your move.

EYELASHES
Hold her gaze for a minute. If she's blinking more than normal (which is about 15 times a minute), there's a good chance she's on the Pill; women on birth control blink 32 percent more than those who aren't. Aside from the obvious, what does that mean for you? Put on your toughest, most confident mug as you look at her. Because of the shift in hormone levels, research says, women on the Pill are more attracted to men with rugged features, such as strong, wide jaws.

BRAIN
She's matching you drink for drink, you're starting to feel like reenacting Animal House, but she seems like her same old self. What's the deal? Men and women get different kinds of buzzes: Men lose inhibitions, while women become sedated. If you're looking to get her into the party spirit, don't feed her more alcohol. Instead, feed the jukebox. Research shows that mid- to fast-tempo music will make her more social.

BELLY
Want to know if it's a good or bad time to broach
a tricky conversation? You can tell if she's suitably relaxed by her breathing pattern. If her stomach pulls in with each inhalation, she's taking shallow breaths from her chest, which indicates stress. Keep your distance. If her abdomen and chest expand with each inhalation, she's taking deeper, more rhythmic breaths--a sign of relaxation. Go for it.

NOSE
Her sense of smell is sharpest first thing in the morning, which, aside from being a good reason to brush your teeth immediately, makes it the best time to impress her with your culinary skills. That's because 90 percent of taste is really smell. Treat her to a breakfast in bed consisting of warmed banana-nut bread, which has an aroma that, according to one study, increases bloodflow to the vagina. And that may lead to a different kind of morning treat.

CHEST
Sex flush, a pinkish look to the skin of her chest, occurs during foreplay. It stems from changes in blood pressure and circulation, along with pulse and respiration rates. Think of it as her coy way of telling you that if you keep doing what you're doing, you just might get lucky. Another sign that things are working: A woman's breasts grow by as much as 25 percent as things turn hot and heavy.

SMALL OF HER BACK
As she moves toward orgasm during sex, she'll begin to arch her back. Hold her tight around the small of her back at this point and stay attuned to how much she's arching. And, for God's sake, do not let up; maintain the same rhythm and intensity of stimulation until she climaxes. She'll pay you back for this later, with interest.

FINGERNAILS
Pay attention to her fingers; among the surest signs of anxiety or depression in a woman are body-focused repetitive behaviors, such as skin picking and nail biting. If you see her doing that, don't nag her to stop; that can send her deeper into a spiral. Instead, gently pull her hand away, give it a squeeze, and hold on to it. Feel the tension ooze right out.

HANDS
If it seems as if she always has cold hands, that's because she does--almost 3 degrees colder than yours, possibly more if she's stressed. Women's bodies, even more than men's, are programmed to keep their cores warmer than their extremities. So to warm her hands up, don't massage them; wrap your arm around her waist. This will warm her core and allow blood to flow back into her hands.

BETWEEN HER LEGS
Okay, you know enough about your partner's menstrual cycle to know when to leave her alone. Now add this to your arsenal: Two weeks after her period begins, she will be at her horniest, guaranteed. Female sexual motivation is highest when she's ovulating. Warning: This is also when she's most likely to get pregnant.

Source: Keith Olbermann, MSNBC

'Beginning of the end of America'

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

If - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Sophisticated and Witty Farce

Let me see a show of hands of those people who attended that meeting.
Who here knew that the seven year itch was not only a reality but
Would play a key role in your life?
I am sorry I was not present.
If I would have seen the flyer just maybe I would have gone.
Maybe I would have given my two cents.
Maybe I would have taken notes.

It would not have made a difference if I attended.
I would have been accused of not listening regardless.