‘World’ Articles
Written by Sami Khan Meo on 22 May 2010
Who is Amber Frey? She was Scott Peterson’s mistress. She was a massage therapist. Because she was Peterson’s mistress, she became a key witness in the Scott Peterson murder trial.
Their affair began on November 20, 2002. Scott Peterson actually told Amber Frey that he had lost his wife. He also told her that he didn’t want to have children. On December 24, 2002, Scott Peterson reported his wife Laci Peterson missing. She was 8 months pregnant.
After a long investigation and trial in which Amber Frey played a key role, Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his wife Lacy and their unborn child. He is currently in a California jail.
‘Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution’ is a 2005 movie starring Janel Maloney and Nathan Anders. It was on LIFE at 8 pm last night. The movie is a pedestrian account of the Scott Peterson murder case
You know, poor Amber Frey was also a victim. Obviously she wasn’t victimized like Lacy, but she still was lied to and mislead. Then, because of Scott Peterson, her entire life had to be put out there for the public to read about. She has kept a low profile in the years since the Scott Peterson murder trial.
I remember this story very well. I cried over Laci Peterson that Christmas. It was a horrifiying story that just got worse as time went by.
Amber Frey
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 21 May 2010
Dennis C. Blair will resign Friday as the nation’s intelligence director after a tenure marred by the recent failures of U.S. spy agencies to detect terrorist plots and by political missteps that undermined his standing with the White House.
Blair, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, was pushed out 16 months after he became President Obama’s surprise pick to be the nation’s third director of national intelligence. His departure is likely to renew debate over whether the DNI position, a daunting job created amid sweeping intelligence reforms after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is fundamentally flawed.
Obama praised Blair’s integrity in a prepared statement and said that under his leadership the nation’s intelligence services had “performed admirably and effectively at a time of great challenges to our security.”
Blair’s offer to step down came during a phone conversation with Obama on Thursday in which the president said he planned to put someone new in the director position, according to an official familiar with the exchange. Blair’s exit creates a critical national security vacancy at a time when U.S. spy agencies are under pressure to step up their defenses against emerging terrorist threats.
His departure had been rumored in Washington for months, but the nature of his resignation — without a replacement ready to be named — suggested a lack of coordination.
The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Obama had first raised the possibility of replacing Blair in discussions with him earlier this week. The White House had indicated a preference that Blair stay in the job until a successor could be named. But Blair refused after learning that the president had decided to look for a new director, the official said.
Blair issued a statement saying that it was “with deep regret that I informed the President today that I will step down.” He added that during the Obama administration, U.S. spy agencies had become “more integrated, agile, and representative of American values.” Blair becomes the highest-ranking member of the administration to resign.
Current and former U.S. officials said the White House had discussed the position with former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who serves as co-chair of Obama’s intelligence advisory board; James R. Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general serving as undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and John Hamre, a former deputy secretary of defense who leads the Defense Policy Board.
Clapper is a leading candidate to replace Blair, a senior White House official said Thursday night, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the search continues. Officials said Hagel told the White House he would not be interested in the position. The former senator was abroad and could not be reached for comment.
Blair had been charged with carrying out Obama’s campaign pledge to move the country away from controversial programs — including the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods — that administration officials argued had damaged the nation’s standing around the world. But much like his predecessors, Blair struggled to gain traction in a position that is widely seen as lacking adequate authority to oversee an often fractious community of 16 spy services.
Blair sometimes made public remarks that revealed his frustration with the way the intelligence community functions, and that were seen as embarrassing to the administration.
In January, Blair questioned the administration’s failure to use a new team of specially trained interrogators to question the suspect in the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. The unit was created for such scenarios, Blair said in Senate testimony, adding, “And duh . . . the decision was made on the scene.”
Dennis Blair
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 21 May 2010
WEST MEMPHIS, AR–Two West Memphis police officers have been shot and killed after a shootout during a traffic stop. The Crittenden County Sheriff and the Chief Deputy were shot and injured in a separate shootout with the same suspects.
The fallen officers have been identified as Officer Brandon Paudert, son of Police Chief Bob Paudert, and Officer Bill Evans.
Brandon Paudert died at the scene. Evans was rushed to Crittenden Regional Hospital where he later died.
Investigators say around 11:36 a.m., Officer Evans initiated a traffic stop at mile marker 275 on I-40 eastbound. The suspect’s car exited near College Ave. Shortly after the car stopped, police say Sgt. Brandon Paudert arrived on the scene to assist Officer Evans. Moments later, Officer Evans was pushed to the ground by one of the suspects, and gunfire was directed at both officers. The suspects fled the scene in a white minivan and were spotted about ten minutes later in the Wal-Mart parking lot in West Memphis.
Shortly after officers located the minivan, an officer rammed the van, preventing the suspects from fleeing. A second shootout erupted at the Walmart parking lot. Police say the suspects were armed with a long rifle and handgun. During that shootout, Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby was shot along with Chief Deputy W.A. Wren. They were both taken to The MED. The two male suspects were both shot and pronounced dead on the scene.
West Memphis Police Shooting
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 19 May 2010
If Democrats wanted to defeat Republican Senate nominee Patrick Toomey, he argued to voters, they’d need a fighter, one who happened to have spent the past 45 years as a Republican. In what was probably the final campaign of a storied career, the Republican-turned-Democrat eschewed the conventional wisdom of this election season — that incumbents were endangered, the electorate angry and restless, experience no longer in vogue. Instead, Specter bragged about his three decades of senatorial seniority and his ability to deliver federal dollars to his state.
“Remember Popeye, who used to say, ‘I am what I am’? I don’t think anyone could dress me in different attire. I am what I am,” Specter told reporters before the polls closed.
Specter is still what he is, but on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Democratic voters ended one of the most colorful national political careers of the past several decades. Specter’s gamble that Democrats would embrace him for what he was didn’t pay off, as his primary opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak, claimed momentum in the closing days of the race and never looked back.
Specter, who had turned blurring political and societal lines into an art form, was left to ponder his gamble.
Arlen Specter
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 11 May 2010
May 2010 Tornadoes – Death Toll At Least 4 in Tecumseh and Oklahoma City
This afternoon a violent system of storms tore through the plains states, wreaking serious havoc and causing injuries and deaths. At the current time, the death toll stands at 4 people. Three of those people were in Tecumseh, and one was in Oklahoma City.
The May 10th tornadoes struck Oklahoma during rush hour traffic, flipping vehicles and closing Interstates. Two major Oklahoma Interstates were closed temporarily as a result of the storms. Mobile homes, as usual, were also targets of the violent tornadoes, receiving heavy damage and being flipped over.
Meteorologist had warned of these deadly storms before they arrived, telling area residents that conditions were favorable for dangerous weather. The tornadoes have moved on, leaving Oklahoma alone for now, but threatening new areas at the storms head East.
Ooklahoma Tornado 2010
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 08 April 2010
A virtual feast could be going on in your brain at this very moment, one in which the Cryptococcus fungi are consuming sugar in the form of inositol. The B vitamin inositol is a favorite food of Cryptococcus, and the human brain and spinal cord are the body’s prime dining sites.
Cryptococcus neoformans, according to the National Institutes of Health, is a fungus that causes cryptococcosis, an infection that may settle in the lungs or spread throughout the body. The fungus is usually found in soil and enters the body when it is inhaled, often when soil is blown by the wind or disturbed in some other manner.
While people who have a healthy immune system typically do not experience any symptoms of the infection, individuals who have a compromised immune system, as do people who have HIV, those taking high doses of corticosteroids, those undergoing chemotherapy, or people who have Hodgkin’s disease, may become ill when the Cryptococcus organism spreads to the brain.
In these individuals, infection with Cryptococcus fungus can result in meningoencephalitis, swelling and irritation of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms can include double vision, bone and chest pain, confusion, fatigue, fever, headache, nausea, rash, swollen glands, unintentional weight loss, and weakness. Central nervous system involvement can lead to death or permanent damage.
A team of researchers from various institutions, including Duke University, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, University of British Columbia, and the University of South Florida, report that Cryptococcus has nearly a dozen genes that permit the fungus to borrow and thrive on inositol in a person’s brain, allowing the fungi to reproduce. Typical fungi have only two such genes.
“Inositol is abundant in the human brain and in the fluid that bathes it,” explains Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD, chairman of the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, “which may be why this fungus has a predilection to infect the brain and cause meningitis.”
Lead author Chaoyang Xue, PhD, assistant professor at the Public Health Research Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, speculates that Cryptococcus fungi learned to attack inositol in the brain because they adapted to grow on wild plants, which also have high levels of inositol.
Cryptococcus fungi’s love of sugar in the form of inositol may be its downfall some day, says Heitman. “Now scientists may be able to target the fungi by developing ways to put them on the fungal equivalent of an Atkin’s low-carbohydrate diet so they will stop multiplying.” And then life will not be so sweet for this potentially deadly fungus.
Inositol
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 05 April 2010
The 7.2-magnitude Mexicali earthquake, centered in Mexico near the border city, rattled LA for nearly a minute. One researcher says she hopes it is a wakeup call for southern Californians.
The Mexicali earthquake that struck the California-Mexico border area at 3:40 p.m. Pacific Time Sunday spawned widespread reports of shaking chandeliers and sloshing pools in the Los Angeles area, but no immediate indications of major damage.
The earthquake, which was centered about 108 miles east of Tijuana, Mexico, some 10 miles below the surface appeared to have caused some more significant damage nearer the border, including one report of a death in Mexico, but officials were still gathering information.
Mexicali Earthquake
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 05 April 2010
San Diego Earthquake Today:April 4, 2010 Mexicali Quake – Just moments ago a 6.9 earthquake was felt by millions of people in downtown Los Angeles,in the city of San Diego,in Arizona and in southern California.According to the Center U.S. Geological Survey the epicenter of the quake was located in Baja California, Mexico, 175 miles southeast of Tijuana.
According to Los Angelinos the seism lasted about 60 seconds and was strong enough to rock furniture and cause major frenzies.
Meanwhile in San Diego,those living near the harbor claimed to have witness boats violently moving back and forth as the shock occurred.
No real damages have been reported thus far other than few burst pipes and an elevator outage despite the fact that many smaller temblors followed the more impressive one.
San Diego Earthquake
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 04 April 2010
Yeah, the headline makes it sound like the eggs are on their deathbed. But no, easter eggs (in software jargon) are little presents or surprises that developers have slipped into an application or operating system. One excellent place to find easter eggs in Mac OS X is in the Terminal.
Now technically, these easter eggs aren’t part of Mac OS X. The Terminal app is a portal into the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X. You can find the Terminal app in the Applications > Utilities folder. Here are four of my favorites:
Easter Egg Archive
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Written by Sami Khan Meo on 29 March 2010
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov condemned terrorist attacks that killed at least 37 people and injured at least another 65 in the Moscow subway early on Monday morning.
Two blasts in Moscow’s subway stations Lubyanka and Park Kultury occurred during the early morning rush hour with an interval of 40 minutes, the first one at approximately 8:00 a.m.
The head of the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, said terrorists from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus may have been responsible for the blasts. Bortnikov said the bodies of “two female suicide bombers who were residing in the North Caucasus had been found at the explosion sites.”
“Terror attacks were staged in Moscow. People died and were injured. Again terrorism bids defiance to the state, [to the] society. The organizers and executors, whoever they are, are trying to spark chaos, drive Russia into the abyss of fear, distrust, undermine its economy. There should be no indifferent people in the fight against this evil. Evil does not choose its victims on the basis of national, religious, or racial traits,” the Chechen president said.
He said thousands of people died in terror attacks in Chechnya, including the first Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed by a bomb explosion in a stadium in Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, during a WWII victory parade on May 9, 2004.
“During this difficult day for Russia’s peoples, we declare with all responsibility that [we] will fight against terrorists until they are completely destroyed. It is impossible to eradicate evil just by persuasion,” he said, adding those guilty of the attacks “should be found and punished.”
Russia has been fighting militants in the North Caucasus for over a decade, including two brutal separatist wars in Chechnya. Analysts suggest Monday’s attacks are revenge for a recent operation in Chechnya that saw the deaths of over 20 radical Islamic fighters.
Aside from Chechnya, violence is also a regular occurrence in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov sent on Monday a telegram to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, in which he expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and those affected by the attacks and said he was ready to provide all necessary help and support to the Moscow authorities to minimize the damage caused by the blasts.
Chechnya
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