Eideard

Most of the 1,800 people the feds believe obtained their citizenship fraudulently are Canadians of convenience who don’t even live here, according to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. “Most of these people, we believe, have never really lived in Canada and are still overseas,” he said Wednesday…

“We frankly have got them dead to rights with the proof that we have, and I don’t think a lot of these people want to go through a long, protracted public court battle where it’s clear they fraudulently obtained our citizenship. We expect most of them will just accept our decision and we’ll be able to do this in a fairly quick and low-cost way.”

The federal government revealed Tuesday it will revoke the citizenship of 1,800 people alleged to have obtained their Canadian citizenship fraudulently.

For the most part, it appears those people fudged or hired crooked immigration consultants to fudge for them their residency requirements…

Kenney warned the 1,800 are likely just the first tranche of people to have their citizenship revoked as the feds crack down on the crooked consultants.

He called it, “widespread residency fraud, where these consultants will sell packages for thousands of dollars, create a fake house or address or apartment, create fake utility bills and submit those to my ministry as proof of residency.”

In 2006, the federal government shelled out nearly $100 million evacuating 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon during the Lebanon-Israel conflict.

It turns out many of them had rarely, if ever, set foot in Canada, prompting some to blast them as “Canadians of convenience…”

Since Confederation, Canada has only ever revoked 67 citizenships, 63 of them since 1977.

Sounds like this is overdue. If so, I have to ask how long did it take for someone to notice a practice this phony was going on? Like – who’s watching the store?

Yes, that is a helluva question for an American to ask, eh?

Proposed for the Aalborg Waterfront in Denmark, a new housing development would feature 60 apartments, from 4 to 12 stories high, all supplied with a 100 percent renewable energy source…

C.F. Møller’s architectural design features a south-facing roof-plane, fitted with 1,200 sq.m. of photovoltaic and solar thermal panels. The solar paneling is reportedly capable of producing 104,000 KWh of electricity annually, which is estimated to be enough to cover the yearly electricity demand of every apartment. In addition, four vertical axis low-noise wind turbines take advantage of strong western winds, creating an additional power supply to recharge electric cars. A rainwater collection system is used to irrigate the surrounding gardens, whilst the lush landscaping helps maintain a clean air environment. Tall window openings allow for natural light to filter through to the apartments’ living zones, an example of the passive-housing standards that are incorporated to ensure reduced energy consumption all round.

This slide-like shape of the building creates a distinctive silhouette, which is positioned between Aalborg’s main bridges. The roof-plane appears as if it is stretching into the water’s edge, where an underpass shelters a public gazebo and café. The extension of the roof is a visual display of the building’s power plant, and whilst it may take precedence over optimum, waterfront views, it’s essential to the building’s sustainable design.

Delightful. I can picture this design in a few comparable locales where I had clients back in the day. Most certainly in the vibrant waterfront of Portland, Maine.

Just keep their backwards governor from sticking his nose in. He’d probably insist on replacing the solar panels with coal-burning potbelly stoves.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, announced Tuesday a bill to repeal the federal law that defines marriage as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and that allows states to reject legal same sex marriages from other states.

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, passed both the House and the Senate in 1996.

Feinstein said she is one of only 14 senators who voted against the legislation at the time. “I thought even then, this is unconstitutional and wrong. Well, today it’s unconstitutional, I believe, and wrong,” she said in a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

She said her bill would “strike the Defense of Marriage Act from law and would free the government to allow for the same type of benefits they allow for married couples to also be applied to same-sex couples…”

“Believe it or not, there are over 1,000 federal laws and protections that are afforded to married couples but are not afforded to legally married same-sex couples in any of the states that have approved same-sex marriage,” she said.

Kathleen Cumiskey and Robin Garber were among three same-sex couples who joined Feinstein at the news conference. They said they traveled from New York’s Staten Island with a stack of papers they take with them nearly everywhere.

The couple was married in Toronto, Canada, in 2006 and their home state of New York legally recognized their marriage in 2008. But when they travel across state lines, they said, they have to bring with them paperwork in case of an emergency.

“We traveled from New York City last night and had to bring with us our box of documents,” Garber said holding up a marbled-cover box. “Wherever we go we need to be able to prove the legal documentation of our relationship. We need to be able to prove that we are legally responsible for each other, that we have the legal right to make decisions for each other.”

She added, “We find it really incredible that we can travel halfway around the world — we can go to Spain, we can go to Ireland, we can go to South Africa — and have our marriage recognized and respected, but when we travel 15 miles from our own front door that is not the case and we need our box of documents.”

Overdue. Like so much civil rights law in the land – it’s time to dump the hatred and fear and support equal opportunities for all citizens.

Should be a cutting edge showdown between the Right side of the issue from homophobes all the way to the simply intellectually lazy opposing change – versus official Democrats including the president who has said he will endorse the “Respect for Marriage” Act, progressives and conservatives with a commitment to the Bill of Rights.

An antiviral drug synthesised by genetically modified plants is being tested on a small number of women in the UK to establish its safety, bringing closer the possibility of cheap modern medicines for the developing world.

The drug’s developers hope it can be used to prevent HIV infection, but the real breakthrough is that the research demonstrates it is possible for similar molecules – known as monoclonal antibodies – to be produced relatively cheaply in plants to the high standards needed for their use in humans…

Pharma-Planta is a project launched seven years ago with the objective of using GM plants to slash the cost of drugs that are hard to produce. The scientists’ aim is to increase the availability of these modern medicines – which are often highly effective – in the poorest countries of the world.

Access to medicines in the developing world is extremely limited. The World Health Organization estimates that 23 million infants worldwide do not get adequate basic immunisation and 1.7 million children under five die from vaccine-preventable diseases…

Many medicines are synthesised at great expense in fermentation vats containing bacteria or mammalian cells. By contrast Pharma-Planta produced the anti-HIV monoclonal antibody in GM tobacco plants grown in soil in greenhouses in Germany. After 45 days, they were harvested, their leaves were shredded and “highly purified antibodies” were extracted.

The researchers say there is little risk of such GM plants spreading or contaminating other crops because they are contained and would not be grown on anything like an agricultural scale…

If it does prove effective, the drug would probably have to be used in combination with other monoclonal antibodies to minimise the chance that the virus developed resistance, as it easily does to antivirals.

The process is between 10 and 100 times cheaper than conventional production systems, said Professor Rainer Fischer of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology in Aachen, Germany, where the plants were grown.

The most useful monoclonal antibodies, such as the anti-cancer drug Herceptin, are still covered by patents owned by major pharmaceutical companies, but once these expire the new technique could offer a way to make cheap versions available in poor countries.

Not that our bubbas in the pharma majors won’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming into allowing a modern scheme where availability and usefulness determine a lower price.

And that will be only one side of pop culture resistance. The other will be our tried and true Luddites. Though this may be too critically focused on direct healthcare. Their strategy still seems to be keeping the cost of things like cereal grains high enough to keep the Chicago Mercantile Exchange bubbling with happiness.

As depicted in the bible in 1893

Even as schools aim to better prepare students for a global work force, fewer than one in three American students are proficient in geography, with most eighth graders unable to explain what causes earthquakes or accurately describe the American Southwest…

The average test score for 12th graders declined to 282 (on a scale of 500) from 284 in 2001 when the test was last given. It remained essentially unchanged for eighth graders during that period, though there were gains among the lowest-performing students. Fourth graders had the largest gains, with the average score rising to 213, up five points from 2001.

“Geography is not just about maps,” said David P. Driscoll, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, who expressed concern that students were not doing better in geography. “It is a rich and varied discipline that, now more than ever, is vital to understanding the connections between our global economy, environment and diverse cultures…”

Roger M. Downs, a geography professor at Pennsylvania State University who has studied the results, said that while he was encouraged by the improving test scores for fourth graders, and for low-performing and minority students, he was concerned that “geography’s role in the curriculum is limited and, at best, static.”

“That is ironic given the convincing case that can be made for the importance of geographic literacy,” Mr. Downs said. “But it is doubly ironic given a world in which adults and now children have smartphones and tablets that can download maps on the fly, provide directions to places, and give your location to your friends…”

Some of our local high school graduates would have a hard time finding a rock concert one state over – except for the freeway taking them straight to the appropriate city.

I know it’s an easy hit to comment on the ignorance our school systems roll out like so many candy bars on a Cadbury production line. There still breathes a jot or two of hope that repeated smacks on the bottom will jolt some life not only into voters who easily share missing the absence of educated graduates – but, folks who care about how and what combines into local movements to turn our education systems back into something that once did our country proud.

Term “service animal” mostly can refer only to dogs, now

The landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 stated very clearly that people with disabilities had a right to take their service animals along with them wherever they went…

The law termed it “any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability”….

Plenty of people have claimed to have service cats and rats and parrots and ferrets and llamas and iguanas and at least one snake…

This March … the government issued a new definition:

“Service animal means any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition.” (The new rules make an exception for only miniature horses — and then only under certain conditions.)

Just in case you wanted to know. And to ask if the new definition will create its own new challenges.

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Related Link: Capuchin monkeys as helpers

Mayor Nash

Be careful before starting a Boy Scout troop in Gould, Ark. Or a Harry Potter fan club. Or a baseball team. The City Council adopted an ordinance last week making it illegal to form any kind of group without its permission.

That is a clear violation of the Constitution, legal scholars agree. But it is also a sign of just how nasty politics has gotten in Gould, a farming town of 1,100 some 70 miles southeast of Little Rock, where members of the Council have struggled with a local political group that seeks to influence how the town is governed. The mayor, Earnest Nash Jr., also happens to be a member of the political group, the Gould Citizens Advisory Council.

Even by the standards of small-town dramas, Gould’s situation is bleak. The town faces nearly $300,000 in unpaid taxes, and there have been frequent clashes among the mayor, the advisory group and the City Council over how to repay it. Those clashes — and a perception by the City Council that the citizens’ group is seeking too much influence — led to the ban on new organizations…

Last week, the Council overrode the mayor’s veto of two other controversial measures. One required that the citizens advisory council cease to exist. The other made it illegal for the mayor to meet with “any organization in any location” either “inside or outside Gould city limits” without the Council’s permission.

The advisory council, which calls itself a nonpartisan group that educates voters and raises money for public causes, says it will continue its work. But the City Council, in one ordinance, accused the group of “causing confusion and discourse among the citizens” by harshly criticizing local officials at public meetings.

As a result, the City Council said, “No new organizations shall be allowed to exist in the City of Gould without approval from a majority of the City Council…”

In the meantime, Mr. Nash said he would continue to do his job exactly as he always had.

“Technically, what I’m doing I guess is illegal,” he said. “But if I’m going to get arrested for meeting with citizens or letting them form their own groups, that’s a pretty good reason to go to jail.”

No doubt Congress wouldn’t mind passing similar legislation if very many voters decided to go their own way outside the limits of our 2-Party country club commedia della politica.

So, um, who’s winning this week?

A second man has been charged after an Islam convert was allegedly whipped 40 times for drinking alcohol with friends as part of a sharia law punishment.

The 43-year-old man was arrested when he attended Auburn Police Station this morning.

He has been charged with aggravated break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence, detain person in company with intent obtain advantage, and two counts of steal from dwelling.

The man has been refused bail and will appear in Burwood Local Court tomorrow.

Earlier today Tolga Cifci, 20, one of three men accused of attacking a 31-year-old victim at his Silverwater unit on Sunday, appeared in Burwood Local Court.

The victim who converted to Islam recently was allegedly whipped up to 40 times for going out for alcoholic drinks with friends.

The man awoke in the middle of the night to find that four men had broken into his bedroom. As three men held the victim down on the bed, the fourth man is alleged to have lashed him 40 times with a cable…

Police opposed bail and said Mr Cifci put his religious rules above the laws of New South Wales…

Magistrate Tim Keady granted Mr Cifci bail but imposed strict conditions, including a curfew and reporting daily to police.

Nothing new about a lynching, mob rule to satisfy bigotry. Circumstances vary according to where in the world nutballs decide to take the law into their own hands. Whether the result is death or torture, torment or dishonor – the motivation is the same.

Only the uncivilized will justify the guidance of their god in harming another ordinary citizen who somehow offended their belief system.

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution…This latest research confirms earlier findings.

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal’s Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage.

“This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions…

Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time.

“In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts,” Labuda said.

This work goes back to nearly a decade ago, when Labuda and his colleagues identified a piece of DNA, called a haplotype, in the human X chromosome that seemed different. They questioned its origins…

David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, added, “Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!”

The modern human/Neanderthal combo likely benefitted our species, enabling it to survive in harsh, cold regions that Neanderthals previously had adapted to.

“Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species,” Labuda concluded. “Every addition to the genome can be enriching.”

Someone should explain that to the populist puritans still marching to the George Wallace drum from decades past. Meanwhile -

The admixture and uniting of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon streams in comparatively modern hominids is something that many students of ethnology felt would be proved sooner or later. Some thought reluctance to accept the work offered by Professor Labuda was prompted more by hopes of “purity” than reality. Folks have to understand that human beings have sex with just about anyone, anytime, anywhere – given the opportunity.

Given the success of vaccines in preventing a long list of diseases, why is opposition to vaccination gaining hold? Decision-making expert Valerie Reyna contends that it’s because anti-vaccination messages tell a compelling story compared to official sources, and they meet people’s need to understand rare adverse outcomes.

“In the era of Web 2.0, the contagion of ideas, transmitted rapidly through social media, is as concerning as the contagion of diseases because of their power to reduce vaccination rates, leaving populations vulnerable to preventable death and disability,” said Reyna…

This spring, the Centers for Disease Control reported that the United States is experiencing the highest number of measles cases in more than a decade. According to the alert, measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 due to a high vaccination rate. This could change should vaccination rates decline…

Since most people don’t understand how vaccines work, the Internet, which facilitates users across the globe to sharing personal experiences and ideas about health care, fills the vacuum.

According to Reyna, anti-vaccination messages are expected when people don’t understand how vaccination works and when adverse events that are difficult to explain appear to be connected. Autism, for example, is diagnosed in children during the same time period that children receive a battery of vaccinations. Despite research to the contrary, anti-vaccination messages have claimed vaccines are to blame. Official sites, on the other hand, tend not to provide a convincing narrative story line that helps people connect the dots.

Under these circumstances, how do people approach the decision to vaccinate? In Reyna’s model, the decision to get a flu shot, for example, could be a seen as a decision between feeling OK (by not getting the vaccine) or taking a chance on not feeling OK (due to a vaccine side effect). Without better information, most people would choose not to get a vaccine.

In a culture as anarchistic as ours here in the United States, the misreading can be deliberate. There is a pundit I know who considers rejecting flu vaccination a point of libertarian ethics – and he stores/replenishes his supply of anti-virals at a cost of hundreds of dollars every flu season as appropriate “protection”. I guess if you can afford such lengths to satisfy rejecting one of medical history’s best solutions to recurrent illness – rock on!.

I know what it feels like to count up who was missing from a smallish community on just one side of a small city. Who died before we had access to vaccines. Those numbers were a hell of a lot more than the fears and trembling of people who don’t really look at statistics. Or have my memories.