BALTIMORE — A jury on Wednesday ordered a Kansas church to pay $2.9 million in compensatory damages to relatives of a gay U.S. Marine after church members cheered his death at his funeral. The jury in federal court determined that the Westboro Baptist Church based in Topeka, and three of its principals had invaded the privacy of the dead man’s family and inflicted emotional distress when they protested at his funeral last year. The soldier’s death was God’s punishment on America for tolerating homosexuality, the church’s members said. Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder died in combat in Iraq in March 2006. The Westboro Church was sued by his father, Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania. The case was the first civil suit against the church, which has demonstrated at some 300 military funerals in the last two years. The church, which is unaffiliated to any major denomination, is headed by Rev. Fred Phelps who has been waging a one-man war against homosexuality for years. Most members of the church belong to his extended family.
From catastrophic sea level rise to jarring changes in local weather, humanity faces a potentially dangerous threat from the changes our own pollution has wrought on Earth’s climate. But since nothing in science can ever be proven with 100 percent certainty, how is it that scientists can be so sure that we are the cause of global warming? For years, there has been clear scientific consensus that Earth’s climate is heating up and that humans are the culprits behind the trend, says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at the University of California, San Diego. A few years ago, she evaluated 928 scientific papers that dealt with global climate change and found that none disagreed about human-generated global warming. The results of her analysis were published in a 2004 essay in the journal Science. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences and numerous other noted scientific organizations have issued statements that unequivocally endorse the idea of global warming and attribute it to human activities. ‘We’re confident about what’s going on,’ said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York. But even if there […]
Sorry, Da Vinci Code buffs. There are still no telltale whiskers to be found on the Apostle John/Mary Magdalene (sixth from left)-despite the hair-raising precision of the new 16-billion-pixel image of ‘The Last Supper’ posted online Saturday. Stitched together from 1,677 digital pictures by Italian art-restoration and imaging company Hal9000, the interactive image (visible here) allows users the illusion of standing just inches from the 15-by-29-foot (4.6-by-8.8-meter) painting in Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie. Such nose-length viewing reveals Leonardo da Vinci’s brushstrokes, a sprawling topography of paint cracks, and even a tiny peacock ’embroidered’ into the tablecloth. The circa 1495 mural depicts Jesus Christ announcing that one of the Twelve Apostles at the table would betray him. ‘You can see how Leonardo made the cups transparent, something you can’t ordinarily see,’ curator Alberto Artioli told the Associated Press. ‘You can also note the degradation the painting is in.’ The new, high-definition image halts that slow disintegration, at least virtually-and perhaps just in time. Despite strict visiting and lighting rules, recent accounts have suggested that Milanese pollution continues to cloud Leonardo’s masterpiece.
The Power and Interest Report (PINR), an independent organization that provides conflict analysis services, has published a new paper analyzing the rising cost of oil and efforts to free the United States from relying on foreign oil sources. The paper, authored by Michael Piskur, is titled ‘Record Oil Prices and Washington’s Desire for Energy Independence’ and is available on the PINR web site. The recent rises in oil prices clearly demonstrate the frequency of fluctuations in the costs of energy resources, PINR says, giving nations sufficient cause to explore non-traditional means for energy supplies. In the United States, the paper reports, the popular trend is toward unconventional fossil fuels and ethanol, with PINR noting that the ethanol industry in the United States will increase production by 40 percent this year over last year’s figures. The use of ethanol to free the United States from dependence on foreign oil is increasingly gaining popularity, and PINR says the U.S. government has been working with Brazil to further ethanol research and development efforts and to codify rules and regulations for ethanol production. The paper says Brazil’s goal is to be the supplier of 75 percent of global ethanol by 2012. Brazil […]
SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to past use of marijuana but said the substance is ‘not a drug. It’s a leaf.’ Schwarzenegger told a GQ magazine interviewer that he ‘didn’t take any drugs’ and explained when asked about his past admissions of marijuana use that ‘that is not a drug. It’s a leaf,’ The Daily Mail reported Monday. ‘My drug was pumping iron, trust me,’ he said. ‘I did smoke a joint and I did inhale. The bottom line is that’s what it was in the 70s, that’s what I did. I have never touched it since,’ Schwarzenegger said. The governor also told the interviewer that he doesn’t think it is necessarily the public’s concern when a politician uses Class A drugs. ‘What would you rather have? A politician taking stuff and not saying but making the best decisions and improving things? ‘Or a politician who names all the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?’ he asked during the GQ interview. ‘A politician’s job is to do what’s best for the people and to improve the country, the economy, the environment. Why should I care […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
