BRITAIN has accused Iran of helping to kill British soldiers in southern Iraq.

Six soldiers and two security guards have died in the past three months, all victims of a new explosives technique supplied via Iran, a senior British official said yesterday.

It is the first time that the long-suspected link between the Iraqi insurgents and their neighbours has been declared officially by Britain. The United States has for some time been openly accusing Tehran of supporting and influencing the insurgents' attacks on coalition troops in Iraq.

Until yesterday the British Government had raised its concerns about Iranian links with the Iraqi insurgents "behind the scenes". One British diplomatic source said this was the chosen method, not least because of continuing moves by Britain and two other European Union partners to persuade Iran to stop its nuclear uranium-enrichment programme.

(...)

The accusation brought a sharp response from the Iranian Embassy in London, which denied it had anything to do with smuggling arms into Iraq. "We categorically reject such accusations," Hamid Babaei, a spokesman, said.

He then accused British Forces of being behind "terrorism" in southern Iran, supporting cross-border incursions.

(...)

Foreign Office sources denied that Washington had put London under pressure to come out into the open about Iranian links to the Iraqi insurgency.

Two Americans and a French scientist shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry yesterday for discoveries that make it possible to create synthetic substances more easily, cheaply and cleanly for a host of purposes, including drugs, plastics and chemicals used in everyday life.

Robert H. Grubbs, 63, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Richard R. Schrock, 60, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Yves Chauvin, 74, of the French Petroleum Institute in Rueil-Malmaison, France, will share the $1.3 million award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Chauvin figured out in 1971 how a key chemical process known as metathesis works and what types of metal compounds act as catalysts for the reaction, providing a crucial "recipe" for making it practical, the Nobel committee said. In 1990, Schrock produced the first efficient metal catalyst for the process. Two years later, Grubbs developed "an even better catalyst, stable in air, that has found many applications," the committee said.

Metathesis, which means to "change places," has been likened to a "change-your-places" square dance in which double bonds between carbon atoms are broken and then reformed, allowing different components to swap positions like dancers moving around a dance floor, creating new materials. During the awards announcement yesterday, two men from the Nobel committee moved to the floor of the wood-paneled academy hall to dance with two women, exchanging partners to illustrate how the process works.

"Metathesis is an example of how important basic science has been applied for the benefit of man, society and the environment," the committee said.

The process has myriad applications and has been employed in a wide array of commercial uses by the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural and plastics industries to produce drugs, advanced plastics, herbicides, fuel additives and other substances.

"The achievements of the laureates have given us fantastic opportunities for producing new molecules," said Academy Secretary General Gunnar Oequist in making the announcement in Stockholm.

Because building molecules is "the soul of chemistry," the work will probably yield a host of new substances, said Astrid Graeslund, Nobel committee secretary.

"The beauty of this is that it's a reaction that you can now guide very precisely what will happen, exactly as you would like," she said.

The process can be easily controlled and involves fewer steps, making it less cumbersome and less expensive, and producing far less waste, making it more environmentally friendly, she said.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/10/5/171338/473

Fingers crossed!  The DeLay indictments have given us hope.  Hope you're all having a good day over there.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

A NEW book claims to have discovered compelling evidence to prove Shakespeare was a well-paid frontman for the real author of his work.
Two academics claim to have unmasked little known English politician and aristocrat Sir Henry Neville as the true creator of the bard's celebrated plays and sonnets.

Former university lecturer Brenda James, and historian Professor William Rubinstein, of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, claim the evidence is difficult to ignore.

Published by Longman on October 25, The Truth Will Out, looks set to drive a deep division through the world of Shakespearean scholarship.

For centuries scholars have asked how a grammar school boy whose education was cut short at 12, and who never travelled abroad, could have gathered the breadth of learning displayed in his work.

The new book claims to have comprehensively answered that question by showing that he never did.

Previous theories claiming Francis Bacon or even Christopher Marlowe was the author of Shakespeare's work have been relatively easy to write off.

The new book reduces Shakespeare to little more than an avaricious money lender whose heroic qualities are the result of having greatness thrust upon him.

October 4, 2005 -- What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money.

Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation.

But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea.

In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness.

Bhutan, the king said, needed to ensure that prosperity was shared across society and that it was balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment and maintaining a responsive government. The king, now 49, has been instituting policies aimed at accomplishing these goals.

Now Bhutan's example, while still a work in progress, is serving as a catalyst for far broader discussions of national well-being.

Around the world, a growing number of economists, social scientists, corporate leaders and bureaucrats are trying to develop measurements that take into account not just the flow of money but also access to health care, free time with family, conservation of natural resources and other noneconomic factors.

The goal, according to many involved in this effort, is in part to return to a richer definition of the word happiness, more like what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind when they included "the pursuit of happiness" as an inalienable right equal to liberty and life itself.

Related material here.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Movie star Tom Cruise and his fiancée, actress Katie Holmes, are expecting a baby six months into a whirlwind romance that has turned the once intensely private Cruise into a giddy and very public lover.

News of the pregnancy was first reported by People magazine on Wednesday. A statement from Cruise's publicist, his sister Lee Anne DeVette, added: "Tom and Katie are very excited, and the entire family is very excited." Holmes, she said, "has never felt better."

No wedding date for the couple has been set and no details about the sex of the baby or the due date were available. The baby would be Cruise's first biological child. He adopted two children with actress Nicole Kidman before their marriage ended in divorce in 2001.

Twice-married Cruise, 43, and Holmes, 27, began dating in mid-April, but far from keeping their relationship low key, Cruise became the butt of jokes in May after his manic, couch-jumping appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" declaring his passion for his new girlfriend.

He proposed to Holmes in June at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and announced their engagement the next day at a news conference.

I love all these titles that say "Tom Cruise pregnant"...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

For the 5th time this week the fence between Melilla and Morocco has been assaulted by another massive group if immigrants. Cadena Ser has been informed that at this time it is unknown if they have succeeded in their goal. This atttempt to violate Spanish soil occurs but hours after the vicepresident of the government, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, visited Melilla's perimeter fence.

Growth in Britain's dominant services sector, which includes everything from banks to hotels, slowed to its weakest pace in nine months in September, a survey showed yesterday, raising new questions about the underlying strength of the economy.
The survey came on the first day of the Bank of England monetary policy committee's two-day interest rate meeting but analysts said the MPC was certain to leave rates steady at 4.5% when it makes its announcement at noon today.

The purchasing managers' index from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and the Royal Bank of Scotland gave an activity reading for the services sector of 55.0, down from 55.2 the month before. While still well above the 50 "no change" mark, the reading was the lowest so far this year and came as a similar survey of the eurozone recorded a strong acceleration.

But it's only because of oil prices, right? It's cyclical, also, presumably? (Of course, oil prices did not increase in the eurozone).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Russia provides almost half of the EU's natural gas and a third of its petroleum needs. It is home to 27% of the world's known gas reserves, as well as enormous oil fields. It is slated to be the key energy provider of ever-gas-and-oil-hungry Europe.

For some, this means Europe has become perilously dependent on Russia. Those who don't know much about business or economics should carefully consider Putin's reply about such fears. He said, 'the more the supplies, the lower the prices, or at least [the more] stable." These are pragmatic words. Any Russian threat to cut off energy supplies to Europe would hurt Russia more than its EU consumers. After all, the EU is Russia's largest export market.

Russia's delivery of energy to Europe is business and far more important than some of the petty differences some recently inducted post-communist countries to the EU hope to use against Russia with hope of broader support. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's representative to the EU, is correct in stating that, "There's a kind of pushy, pestering drive to impose their view on the EU as a whole." Irrespective of those differences, Russia has a fundamental financial interest in keeping the pipelines flowing.

Simple arithmetic explains what is at stake for Russia. For every $1 increase in oil price above $25 a barrel, the government garners an additional $3 billion each year, with Russian oil companies' seeing their net profits rise by $1.1 billion. This is a far cry from the situation in 1998 when state and private oil companies earned only $28 billion. This year it is expected they will earn $150 billion.

(Note: Peter Lavelle is an American analyst who has often called Western coverage of Russia biased in a systematic anti-Russian fashion. He tends to provide a view which takes the Russian into account more, as this piece demonstrates. His site Untimely Thoughts is well worth a read for English language coverage of Russia)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

European governments are hiring private sector banks to show them how to disguise the scale of their budget deficits, Joaqún Almunia, EU monetary affairs commissioner, claims on Thursday.

Mr Almunia says some banks recommend the same budgetary dodges to different governments, making it hard to police the EU's budgetary rules that underpin the single currency.

He has assigned more EU staff to try to keep pace with the complex ruses being used by member states to artificially reduce the size of their deficits.

(...)

Twelve out of 25 EU members are running official deficits at or above the club's limit of 3 per cent of gross domestic product, including the four biggest economies: Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

 (...)

"It is of the utmost importance to avoid the public accounts imitating the creative accounting of some private companies in the past," Mr Almunia said.

He said much progress had been made in cleaning up the accounts of some countries in the last year, following the revelation that Greece had provided false deficit figures every year since 1998.

But accountants and financial institutions - thought to include investment banks - continued to advise countries on how to stop higher public spending feeding through into the deficit numbers. He declined to name the institutions concerned.

"They are legal operations, but we cannot consider them to be deficit reducing," he said. In many cases the financial engineering concerned public-private partnerships.

All large investment banks have departments that help governments finance their national debts by arranging bond issues and securitisations.

Rocketing fuel prices, a squeeze on supply, a growing dependence on imported gas and rising carbon dioxide emissions have produced a consensus that UK energy policy needs to be changed - again. Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, last week pledged to review energy policy next year, just three years after his government's 2003 policy paper on the issue.

http://www.eurotrib.com/files/3/051006_UK_electricity_mix___prices.gif

The government's short-term strategy for trying to silence those alarm bells is predicated mainly on increasing supplies of gas into the country. As supplies of oil and natural gas from the North Sea decline, Britain is becoming more dependent on other countries for its energy. Last year, it moved from being a net exporter of natural gas to a net importer. But building the infrastructure needed to import gas has lagged - a fact that the CBI, Britain's employers' organisation, last week blamed on flaws in the planning system. So the squeeze is on for the next couple of years. "If we have a very cold winter, there are going to be massive cutbacks," says Niall Trimble, chief executive of the Energy Contract Company, a UK consultancy. "Can you keep the lights on? Maybe yes, maybe no. Even in a moderately cold winter, things are still a bit sticky."

Domestic users will be protected from any shortage. The government has pledged to maintain supplies to homes, regardless of the weather. But the National Grid, which operates Britain's gas and electricity transmission network, yesterday forecast that an average winter would require small cuts in supplies to large gas users such as gas-fired power stations. In a "one-in-fifty" winter, last seen in 1963, heavy energy users would face substantial cuts. The gas supply will remain tight next winter as well.

(...)

"For how much longer can countries like ours allow the security of our energy supply be dependent on some of the most unstable parts of the world?" [Mr Jenkin, the conservatives spokesman] asked, without offering any answer. Malcolm Wicks, the UK's energy minister, told the Financial Times that the "geopolitics of energy policy is something that's going to [be] much larger in our debates than even at the time of the 2003 white paper."

(...)

The high price of energy has caused an outcry from British industry, with some heavy users threatening to move to continental Europe. But are prices so much lower there? The answer is not clear.

Since deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s, overall energy prices in Britain have, on the whole, been much lower. But, over the past year or so, increases in the wholesale cost of energy have outpaced those in continental Europe, where long-term contracts, opaque markets and incumbent operators make prices far less responsive. Unfortunately, the same factors make it hard to tell how much European users are paying.

Analysts are able to hazard a guess. In Britain, the wholesale gas price for 2006 is currently quoted at 53p a therm. According to the Energy Contract Company, a UK consultancy, the German wholesale price for next year is about 42p a therm. Utilyx reckons the difference in gas prices is smaller, about 5p a therm.

Electricity prices are a different matter. Driven by the rising gas price, the wholesale price of electricity has jumped in the past six months, surpassing that in Europe by a good margin. For 2006, the UK electricity wholesale price is currently €71 (£48, $85) per megawatt, compared with €45 in Germany and €46 in France.

Oh, the ironies... I think I will do a longer post on this later...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Procter & Gamble is turning to palm oil and coconut plantations in Asia to produce alternative raw materials for its Tide laundry detergent and Head & Shoulders shampoos as it makes a strategic bet on the future cost of crude oil.

The company aims to cut by up to 20 per cent its reliance on crude oil to make so-called surfactants - a key ingredient in detergents - within three to five years.

The shift, by the world's largest consumer goods company, is one of the clearest signs yet that big business is taking action to reduce its reliance on crude oil in response to forecasts of prolonged higher prices.

btw - did you realise that there was oil in your shampoo?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Majority of Americans Becoming Overweight or Obese

TUESDAY, Oct. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Over the three decades between 1971 and 2001, nine out of 10 American men and seven out of 10 women were overweight or became overweight, and more than a third were obese or became obese, according to a new study.

The findings from the study of more than 4,000 white adults enrolled in the ongoing Framingham Heart Study suggest the vast majority of American adults are at risk of becoming overweight or obese.

"National surveys and other studies have told us that the United States has a major weight problem, but this study suggests that we could have an even more serious degree of overweight and obesity over the next few decades. In addition, these results may underestimate the risk for some ethnic groups," Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), said in a prepared statement.

80% of the population (being overweight or obese) sounds like more than a majority... I should link to the study that showed that being slightly overweight actually seemed to increase your life expectancy.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Bush Picks White House Janitor To Run Department of the Interior
Unconfirmed sources report that the President has fired head of the Department of the Interior, Secretary Gale A. Norton, and replaced her with White House Janitor Henry Rodriguez.  The President announced the cabinet change at a press conference early this morning and introduced Rodriguez to the country.

"The country needed to see change at the Department of the Interior and the President went looking for a dynamic trusted member of his inner circle to take control." said White House spokesmen Ben Lion.  "Rodriguez is a trusted member of the Bush team whom the President knows can clean up any mess he is faced with.  I myself can attested to Henry's qualifications when it comes to these matters." [Unconfirmed Sources]

High fuel prices to persist says US energy chief
Higher energy costs triggered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could persist for several years, leaving reduced consumption as the only short-term relief, Samuel Bodman, the US energy secretary, warned. [FT.com / Home Europe]

Flooding, mudslides plague Central America
Heavy rains pounded Central America for a fourth day Wednesday, pushing rivers over their banks, flooding communities and unleashing at least two deadly mudslides as the region's death toll rose to nearly 100 people. [UnCJournal News Wire]

Biking: good for the environment, sucky for your sex organs
Bummer news for cycling advocates. Word's long been around that spending too much time on a bike seat can impair your performance in the bedroom. Now, researchers in this arena are getting even more adamant in their admonitions.   A New York Times article -- the No. 1 most-emailed on their site for the second day running -- highlights mounting evidence that frequent cycling by men can lead to a damaged perineum, loss of libido, "small calcified masses inside the scrotum," and/or impotence. Women, though less studied than men in this area, are also thought to be at risk.  Dr. Steven Schrader, a reproductive health expert who studies cycling at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said he believed that it was no longer a question of "whether or not bicycle riding on a saddle causes erectile dysfunction."  Instead, he said in an interview, "The question is, What are we going to do about it?"  ... The link between bicycle saddles and impotence first received public attention in 1997 when a Boston urologist, Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who had studied the problem, asserted that "there are only two kinds of male cyclists -- those who are impotent and those who will be impotent."  The hope is that better-designed bicycle seats can save the day. Otherwise, all those new bike owners may soon lose their steel steeds, for fear of losing something they care about a whole lot more. [Gristmill]

Fears as flu virus is recreated
Scientists recreate the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk. [Guardian Unlimited World Latest]

Parsi tradition dying out for lack of vultures
Muslin-wrapped mourners carry the dead up a leafy hill to a temple, conducting an ancient ceremony in modern Mumbai. [Guardian Unlimited World Latest]

Trial of Saddam likely to be postponed
Trial of Saddam Hussein, scheduled to open on October 19, almost certain to be postponed, says senior British official. [Guardian Unlimited World Latest]

Howard rallies uncertain Tories
Tory leader Michael Howard will speak at the end of the party conference, with the identity of his successor still unclear. [BBC News]

Animals 'hit by global warming'
Migrating birds and animals are already feeling the effects of global climatic change, says a UK government report. [BBC News]

Spy Breaches White House
Federal investigators say Leandro Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers. (ABC News) Both the FBI and the CIA are calling this "the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history.""[T]he alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. (ABC News via the DrudgeReport). Former WH terrorism specialist Richard Clarke expressed... [Booman Tribune]

Hamilton's eureka moment on canal
The annual Hamilton Quaternion Walk along the Royal Canal takes place this year on Sunday October 16th. The leisurely 5km walk celebrates the work of Ireland's greatest scientist, William Rowan Hamilton. [The Irish Times' Science Today Top Stories]

The annual Hamilton Quaternion Walk along the Royal Canal takes place this year on Sunday October 16th. The leisurely 5km walk celebrates the work of Ireland's greatest scientist, William Rowan Hamilton.

Organised by the Department of Mathematics, NUI Maynooth, it follows the route taken by Hamilton on October 16th, 1843, as he walked from his home at Dunsink Observatory into the city.

This was a regular occurrence but what made the 16th special was a flash of inspiration as he approached Broombridge, Cabra, that allowed him to devise a new form of maths called quaternions.

His discovery transformed algebra and was a totally new concept in mathematics, one that has played a key role since in fields as varied as advanced physics, wireless telegraphy and computer graphics. Arguably, modern algebra was born on October 16th, 1843, on the banks of Dublin's Royal Canal.

Hamilton was a Dubliner, born in Dominick Street in 1805. He grew up in Trim, Co Meath, but became a professor at Trinity College at the age of 22. He lived at Dunsink from 1827 until his death there in 1865.

Little did the scientist know that one of the results of his mathematical discoveries would be the famous computer game heroine and Tomb Raider, Lara Croft. Quaternions are used to design computer graphics and also many of the special effects seen in modern film making. A number of the effects seen in Matrix Reloaded depended on the mathematical concepts pioneered by Hamilton.

Hamilton has been called the Liberator of Algebra because is quaternions shattered the previously accepted convention that a useful algebraic number system should satisfy the rules of ordinary numbers in arithmetic.

A gator too far

Eyes bigger than stomach

Clash of titan reptiles leaves python, alligator dead in Florida's swampland

Wed Oct 5, 2:34 PM ET

MIAMI (AFP) - The tail of an alligator protruding from the ruptured gut of a python, which had swallowed its foe alive, bore witness to a fierce and unusual battle between two of the deadliest predators in Florida's swamps.

Park rangers, who photographed the remains of the two huge reptiles in the Everglades National Park, say the clash demonstrates the threat to the fragile swamplands posed by a growing population of non-native Burmese pythons.

Pythons, thought to have abandoned by pet owners, have been multiplying in the large swath of swampland, and environmentalists fear the exotic intruders threaten to overrun the national park, preying on native species.

The latest find suggest the huge pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain.

Park biologist Skip Snow described the gruesome scene he found on September 27 in a remote corner of the Everglades park, which he said showed an almost 4-meter-long (12.5-foot) Burmese python had "apparently" entirely swallowed an alligator about half his size.

[Steve Gilliard]

UK government agrees to aid A350 launch
The UK government has told Airbus that it is ready to provide repayable launch aid to support the planned A350, the long-range aircraft that is at the forefront of the bitter trade conflict between the US and the European Union over alleged illegal state subsidies for the development of large commercial aircraft. [FT.com / Home Europe]

EU under pressure to scrap tobacco funds
The EU was put under further pressure to scrap tobacco subsidies after the EU Parliament's budget committee voted to scrap the €900 million a year fund. [RTÉ News]

Calvi murder trial due to begin
Five people are due to go on trial in Rome for the alleged 1982 murder of "God's banker" Roberto Calvi in London. [BBC News]

Beware, DoD Donald Rumsfeld will get the authority and lead in fighting terra within our own borders. The multi-billion space shield will be restyled by Media Center to combat incoming wild ducks, geese and all environmentally threatening winged cousins spreading disease and targeting U.S. cities.

Lack of Armed Forces to operate within our borders will force Gen. Casey - oh irony- to pull back our forcces from Afghanistan and eventually Iraq. Logistics operating Just In Time before Election 2006.

Elevated threat levels at Homeland Security will be adapted to cover migration trends, no not illegal border crossings, we have our minutemen doing that job, but migration of birds flying across the Aleutians, Alaska and heading South toward our great nation.

Our freedom needs to be defended at home, thank you great leader of the Xtian Right.

Perhaps this administration has a foundation being YELLOW!

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Amnesia and Gaza Genocide