claustrophobia

Mumbai is the most densely populated city in the world with 29,650
people per square kilometer.
{That's about 34 square meters per person!}

mud volcano expanding activities

Indonesia Mud Flow Causes Living Room Geyser

Huge bursts of water have been shooting out of the ground in homes and
from an abandoned restaurant hundreds of metres away from swathes of
land submerged by a mud volcano on Indonesia's Java island.
Experts say the bursts are caused by underground pressure from
torrents of mud gushing out of a drilling site near the industrial
suburb of Sidoarjo in East Java for more than a year.
The bursts may carry toxic gases such as methane and hydrogen
sulphide," Amin Widodo, a researcher from a local university, told
Reuters.
Residents said the bursts first appeared about two months ago when a
one-metre high geyser of water and gas shot out of the floor of a
resident's living room about 800 metres away from the volcano.
Since then, the eruptions have become higher and more frequent.
Earlier this week, a mixture of hot water and fine sand shot as high
as five metres from the clay-tiled floors of an abandoned coffee shop
next to a railroad.
"I thought it was raining but when I stepped out of my stall I saw
that water was bursting out of the restaurant's kitchen," said Lilik,
who owns a nearby cigarette stand.
Experts have tried several schemes to plug the torrent of mud,
including dropping hundreds of concrete balls into the mouth of the
"mud volcano", but have so far failed to stop the flow that has
submerged entire villages and displaced 15,000 people.
Some experts say the mudflow could continue for decades.
The government requires PT Lapindo Brantas, the operator of the well
from where the mud has been flowing, to pay for stopping and handling
the mudflow as well as compensation for directly affected residents.
The government has agreed to cover costs related to the disaster's
social impact on people living outside swamped areas.
Lapindo had been told by the government to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah
(US$425 million) to victims and for efforts to halt the flow, but
officials say the cost could double that.
Lapindo and PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk, which indirectly controls
Lapindo, dispute the idea the disaster was caused by the drilling and
also whether Lapindo alone should shoulder the cost.
Soffian Hadi, deputy of the agency to handle the mudflow, said
residents had not allowed authorities to examine the water bursts.
"It is caused by gas pressure from under the earth that forces water
and mud through cracks in the surface."
(US$1=8.945 rupiah)

Safari time!

go here quickly!
http://www.apple.com/safari/
You may like it as much as Firefox...
maybe even more.

useless info

Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, which reached 1,593 percent in January ( a
house, pool and tennis court in 1990 cost the same as a single brick
today!), was up to 3,731 percent in May, and is expected to get worse.

"Star Trek"-obsessive Tony Alleyne, who in 2006 was having a hard time
selling his apartment in Leicestershire, England, fastidiously
outfitted to the specifications of the Starship Enterprise, and then
redesigned as the flight deck of the Voyager, reported in May that he
had a buyer, for the equivalent of $840,000, five times the price of a
comparable flat in the neighborhood.

cost-of-living

What is the cost of living?
attention.
(i.e. You have to pay attention.)

Focus and confront what is important.
You cannot change what you don't confront.

keep abreast of important issues

http://www.globalsecurity.org/

Federation of American Scientists:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/index.html

helpful America doctor

'Dr. Death' emerged from prison Friday.

Eight years after he began a sentence for second-degree murder, the
once-flamboyant Jack Kevorkian bypassed a pack of journalists waiting
for him outside the Lakeland Correctional Facility, issued just a few
words of thanks to supporters and took off to enjoy his freedom.

Kevorkian, smiled and embraced CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike
Wallace outside the prison. Kevorkian appeared relieved, but frail.
Privately, however, Kevorkian was fuming over the theft of his diary
from his cell the previous night, prison officials said.

The group headed to a hotel in Battle Creek, where the 79-year-old
Kevorkian told Wallace in his first post-prison interview that he will
refuse to assist in any more suicides, even if someone in extreme pain
seeks his help.

"It would be painful for me, but I would have to refuse them,"
Kevorkian said in a segment to be aired on Sunday. "Because I gave my
word" to the parole board "that I wouldn't do it again ... I won't."

Kevorkian's controversial 'assisted-suicide' campaign ended in 1999
with a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the death
of Thomas Youk.

As the fiend's body count mounted over the years (he claims to have
'assisted' 130 suicides), so did his public indignation toward the
legal and medical establishments, which Kevorkian decided ignored the
'needs' and end-of-life wishes of terminally ill and chronically
suffering patients.

He mocked authorities who tried and failed to prosecute him. He donned
flamboyant wigs and posed in colonial stocks to illustrate his view of
modern America's draconian laws. In prison, he threatened a hunger
strike that he later abandoned.

His parole Friday drew more than 50 journalists to the southern
Michigan prison, where they gathered in a parking lot filled with
satellite trucks and news vehicles.
Mayer Morganroth, one of Kevorkian's longtime lawyers, said he has
received hundreds of news media requests for interviews, from as far
away as Israel and Moscow.
"He just wants a little rest and privacy for the next few days."

Across from the prison at Hoff's Vegetable Farm, some gawkers avoided
the authorities by stopping in the market's parking lot.
"Somebody came in to buy a tomato just so they could park here," said
Ellen Vantassel, 73, of Coldwater.

time to blow up JFK?!

A former airport worker and three citizens of Guyana and Trinidad have
been charged with conspiring to blow up the major jet-fuel tanks and
pipeline at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, law
enforcement officials announced Saturday.

U.S. officials said the men had been infiltrated by a law enforcement
informant last July, and their plot was still in the planning stages.
The men had links to "an international network of Muslim extremists"
but apparently did not have connections to al-Qaeda or other known
terrorist groups, officials said.

"This is one of the most chilling plots imaginable -- a plot to blow
up the fuel supply, the jet fuel supply, at John F. Kennedy
International Airport," said U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf during
an afternoon news conference in New York. "The devastation that would
be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable."

The four men allegedly planned to disable the airport control tower
from which security officials monitored fuel tank locations, and then
use two explosions to blow up the double tanks and provide enough
oxygen to ignite the fuel inside.

The fuel tanks at JFK are linked to the Buckeye Pipeline, which
distributes fuel to sites stretching from New York to Pennsylvania.

The four men were identified as Russell Defreitas, Kareem Ibrahim,
Abdul Kadir and Abdel Nur.

Defreitas, a U.S. citizen from Guyana and retired worker at JFK
Airport, was arrested in Brooklyn and is expected to appear before a
U.S. magistrate later Saturday.

Ibrahim and Kadir are being detained in Trinidad, and U.S. officials
are seeking their extradition to New York. Kadir is a former member of
the Guyanese parliament and mayor of Linden, Guyana. Ibrahim is a
Trinidanian. Nur, also a Guyanese citizen, is still at large.

If convicted in federal court, the defendants would face a maximum
sentence of life imprisonment.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Defreitas told
an unnamed government source that he and others "wanted to do
something bigger than the World Trade Center." An attack at JFK would
"destroy the economy of America for some time," he said.

Defreitas also stressed the airport's symbolic significance as a
terrorist target.

"Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United
States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow. . . . They love John F. Kennedy
like he's the man. . . . If you hit that, the whole country will be in
mourning. It's like you can kill the man twice," he said in a recorded
conversation with the source.

The four men allegedly made several international trips in order to
conduct surveillance of the airport, obtained satellite photographs of
JFK and also sought technical advice, financing and explosives, the
complaint said. They also allegedly identified escape routes they
would use following the attack.

Defreitas described a cell of six men as being involved, according to
the complaint, and made efforts to recruit an informant as a possible
suicide attacker.

"The defendants sought to combine an insider's knowledge of JFK
airport with the assistance of Islamic radicals in the Caribbean to
produce an attack that they boasted would be . . . devastating," said
Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national
security, said in a statement.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly congratulated the police
detectives and FBI agents who thwarted the alleged plot. "A disaster
seems to have been averted," he said.

life in Lebanon

Assault-rifle wielding Internal Security Forces arrived at my birthday
party last night at around 2 am to tell us to turn the music down.
Apparently, a neighbor complained, which, while understandable, is
also unusual for a Friday night in Beirut, where a wild party is
normally the least of anyone's concerns. But unbeknownst to my
roommate and myself, there is an 11 pm curfew on parties -- the city
being in the grip of a bombing campaign, perpetrated by Fatah al
Islam, a radical militant group currently doing battle with the
Lebanese army in a Palestinian camp up north. Those of our friends
brave -- or foolish -- enough to be out looking for action, said our
party was practically the only sign of life in East Beirut.
Considering the noise carried for blocks, we were lucky a Fatah al
Islam cell didn't crash the event. It may seem callous to be partying
while the Palestinian camp at Nahr al Bared burns, but those of us who
are journalists don't really care. And besides, we had rushed to the
"front" yesterday as soon as we heard that the Lebanese army had
resumed its assault on Fatah al Islam. There was little we could do.
The jumpy Lebanese troops at the edge of the siege prevented anyone
from getting near the camp. They cleared out all the television
cameras from buildings overlooking the battlefield, and fired warning
shots in the air to prevent photographers from taking pictures.
Ostensibly for the safety of the soldiers and for our own good -- more
likely to hide the brutality and potential atrocities
from the media's eyes...The Lebaense army is scared. They are facing
well-trained terrorists willing to fight and die in the ultimate urban
warfare environment. Palestinian camps -- built up over nearly sixty
years -- are dense concrete hives of overcrowded buildings and narrow
streets. As if that isn't horrible enough, there are still some 5,000
Palestinian civilians holed up in Nahr el Bared, who are too stupid,
too poor, or too afraid to leave. Many of them are convinced that the
Lebanese government is using the militants as an excuse to destroy the
camp and rid themselves of the pesky Palestinian refugee problem. The
bloody history of relations between Lebanese and Palestinians -- and
the paranoia that has built up amongst families have lived in refugee
camps without basic civil rights for three generations -- has made
many of them more afraid of the Lebanese government than of foreign
militants. One refugee told me that the battle was part of a deal
between the Lebanese government and the American military to build an
air force base on Nahr al Bared. Conspiracy theories aside, I myself
would not be surprised if the Lebanese government would be go into the
camp guns blazing even if there were Lebanese civilians inside instead
of unwanted
Palestinians. While we wait for the smoke to clear, and while we wait
to finally get inside the camp, many of us are wondering how bloody
the battle for Nahr al Bared will end up being...