http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/07/falkland-islands-oil-britain-argentina

It does not look like much: a jumble of pipes, containers and drilling equipment sitting on a windswept jetty at Port Stanley.

The hardware, however, signals an imminent search for oil and gas that could turn the Falkland Islanders into south Atlantic oil barons, a prospect that has already triggered a dispute between Britain and Argentina.

A rig, the Ocean Guardian, is due to arrive by mid-February and will almost immediately begin drilling for hydrocarbon deposits 100 miles north of the archipelago.

Geological surveys suggest there could be up to 60bn barrels beneath the seabed around the British territory, a bonanza that would transform islands famed for sheep, fish and remoteness.

"The rig won't come into sight of Port Stanley unfortunately, it'll be out too far," said Phyll Rendell, the islands' director of mineral resources. "But everyone knows it's coming."

A British company, Desire Petroleum, has hired the rig to drill prospects in the North Falkland basin and will later lease it to three other British companies – Rockhopper, BHP Billiton and Falklands Oil and Gas – which also have exploration contracts. They will use the rig in rotation throughout 2010.

It will be the first drilling in Falkland waters since Shell suspended exploration in 1998 after oil prices slumped to $12 a barrel.

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►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)22:27 No.203213     Non-Argentinians hate Argentinians.

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)22:28 No.203214     >>203213 Everybody hate Argentina.

►	Anonymous 02/08/10(Mon)06:29 No.203240     >>203214 Everybody hates everybody else.

Life sure turns up in the darnedest places. The latest discovery comes from Blood Falls, a rusty red discolouration on the face of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica [that] occasionally gushes forth a transparent, briny, iron-rich liquid that quickly oxidizes and turns red, staining the ice below [Nature News].
The source of that water is an intensely salty lake trapped beneath 1,300 feet of ice, and a new study has now found that microbes have carved out a niche for themselves in that inhospitable environment, living on sulfur and iron compounds. The bacteria colony has been isolated there for about 1.5 million years, researchers say, ever since the glacier rolled over the lake and created a cold, dark, oxygen-poor ecosystem.
In the sub-glacial lake, the microbes have no chance of getting energy through photosynthesis. Instead, the microbes live off the minerals that were trapped in the lake with them, the researchers explain in the study, published in Science. It appears that energy is obtained when sulfur is cycled through different oxidation states by reacting it with iron…. The oxidized sulfur is then used to react with carbon compounds, powering the metabolism [Ars Technica].
Similar critters may have lived 600 to 800 million years ago during the harsh epoch known as “snowball Earth,” when glaciers reached into the tropics, explains study coauthor Ann Pearson. Back then, photosynthesis probably ground to a halt across the planet, and marine bacteria may have only managed to eke out a living in the same way as those living under Taylor Glacier, Pearson says. “Life in sea water, as we know it, could maintain reasonable continuity through an event like this” [New Scientist].
And if life can thrive in one of the toughest environments on earth, maybe it has found a way to take hold elsewhere as well, says lead researcher Jill Mikucki. “If it can survive below this glacier, why not below the ice cap on Mars and on Europa?”

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/04/16/antarcticas-blood-falls-shows-how-aliens-might-live-on-ice-worlds/

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►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)19:39 No.203167     >>203166 Not really I already read it.

►	Anonymous 02/08/10(Mon)03:17 No.203226     This is pretty fucking significant, i hope they will send a camera down there though there probably isn't that much to see.

►	Anonymous 02/08/10(Mon)09:46 No.203247     awesomeface.jpg

Today’s South China Morning Post reports how Hong Kong’s political opposition has faced repeated deletion of their Facebook groups.

Read the article here (behind paywall), but some key points raised:

A Facebook group with 84,298 members formed to oppose the pro-establishment DAB was deleted
Kelvin Sit Tak-O, who runs a discussion group that opposes the pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said his group’s Facebook page was shut down without notice on Thursday. The group had 84,298 members and was aiming for 100,000.

How were they deleted?
The closures could have been triggered by opponents flagging the group as “abusive” with Facebook administrators, Mr. Sit speculated. A spokesperson for Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

This is not the first time it has happened to Hong Kong opposition groups
Controversial Facebook groups were closed in 2008 in the run-up to the Olympic torch relay passing through Hong Kong, as Beijing grew especially sensitive to issues such as Tibetan self-determination. Christina Chan Hau-man, a student protester who waved a Tibetan flag during the torch relay and used Facebook to rally support, had her account closed days before the event. At the time, she said she was told her page had been closed because of “persistent misuse of the site”.

Ironically, this comes as Hong Kong government is pushing to engage citizens online, with a 3-hour online forum taking place today.

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Born and raised in La Habra, California, Dan didn't see many Asian Americans before college. Now 22, he attributes his Asiaphilia to UC Irvine, where he's a studio art major and an astounding 58 percent of students claim Asian descent. But his Asian fetish actually originated in high school, in trig class, where he met a Vietnamese American girl named Ann. Although born in the United States, Ann was raised in Indonesia until about a year before Dan met her. She spoke English well, but not perfectly. They shared the standard high school dating experience: dinner-and-movie dates, study dates, boba dates, kung fu lessons, meditation with the girlfriend's Buddhist monk uncle. The relationship ended in a pretty standard way, too: Dan suggested sex, Ann resisted, things spiraled. There was an ultimatum and then a breakup, and then—classic—threats of suicide.
Later, Dan sought answers on Ann's blog, where she labeled him a "standard American boy" and called him out for pressuring her into sex. She ended the entry with a note of disgust: "Get over yourself."

Perhaps it was the pain of that rejection and the desire to overcome it, but Dan says Ann's rejection changed him. When he began dating again, he found himself looking for Asian girls. He went through a string of them—one-night stands, flings and friends-with-benefits. He frequented places like Club Bang in Hollywood, which attracts a number of Asian patrons—and Asiaphiles like Dan.

Although there was one detour on the road to full-blown Asiaphilia—Desiree, whom he describes as a "white feminist with armpit hair"—Dan openly professed his preference for Asian women by his third year at UCI.

His friends back in La Habra eventually got the idea he had a fetish.

"Date a nice white girl," they urged him.

"White girls," he'd reply, "are sluts."

My friend Christina has been fending off Asiaphiles since her teens, when she was a waitress at her aunt's Thai restaurant. Much older men would often leave her a tip and their business cards scrawled with numbers and notes that were always a variation on the sam

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►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)19:18 No.203157     >>203154 >good point

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)19:19 No.203158     >>203156 Ewww, what the hell is your mom doing to that poor man, ISN?

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)19:23 No.203160     >>203158 Loving him long time.

White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan on Sunday ripped into lawmakers for criticizing the administration's handling of Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Republican lawmakers in recent weeks have attacked the Obama administration for prosecuting Mr. Abdulmutallab in a civilian court, rather than before a military commission, and for reading him his Miranda rights. Mr. Brennan said he had called senior Republican lawmakers on Christmas night to brief them on the investigation and suggested that they were fully informed about how the suspect would be treated.

"I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmatallab was in fact talking, that he was cooperating at that point," Mr. Brennan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "They knew that 'in FBI custody' means that there's a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate."

"None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point," Mr. Brennan said. "They didn't say, 'Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be Mirandized?' They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we'd keep them informed, and that's what we did."

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Kit Bond (R., Mo.), one of those briefed by Mr. Brennan, on Sunday disputed the idea that the lawmakers were aware that the suspect was read his Miranda rights.

"Brennan never told me any of plans to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber -- if he had I would told him the Administration was making a mistake," Sen. Bond said in a statement. "The truth is that the administration did not even consult our intelligence chiefs, as DNI Blair [Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair] testified, so it's absurd to try to blame Congressional leaders for this dangerous decision that gave terrorists a five week head start to cover their tracks."

Mr. Brennan said Mr. Abdulmutallab "was treated as a terrorist" and "put into a process that has been the same process that we have used for every other

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Finally, a candidate for governor I can support. Libertarians, fuck yeah. Maybe we won't have to nuke Albany after all.


Kristin Davis, alleged Eliot Spitzer madam, to run for New York governor with GOP Roger Stone's help

Rush & Molloy

Sunday, February 7th 2010, 8:52 AM

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/02/07/2010-02-07_kristin_davis_alleged_eliot_spitzer_madam_to_run_for_new_york_governor_with_gop_.html#ixzz0eu6
qEVvq

The race for governor just got a whole lot sexier.

"Manhattan Madam" Kristin Davis is tossing her lacy brassiere into the political ring - with the help of one of the GOP's most fearsome strategists.

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<----they fell for this shoop

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►	Thingamigoober !!SvAmuyLzWy 02/07/10(Sun)17:40 No.203113     >>203109 That doesn't exactly make the Polish look nice.

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)17:42 No.203114     >>203113 Nobody said anything about nice only smart.

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Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)18:15 No.203125     IQ is a nice indication of something. It isn't the be-all and end-all of intelligence, but it certainly demonstrates a particular kind of intelligence. In regards to comparing nations using it, the sample demographic can easily swing things to distort the reality. The reality is that the majority of most countries are all equally retarded. Except for aborigines, niggers and other races that haven't been part of civilisation for an extended period.

It's the Big Sleazy.
Devastated Hurricane Katrina survivors from New Orleans were left high and dry by a charity set up to help them by state Sen. Malcolm Smith and Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens.
Only $1,392 of at least $31,000 raised to help Katrina families was paid, tax records show, and just about everybody involved with the charity -- including the two Democratic pols -- claim ignorance as to where the rest of the money went.
Meeks said in a statement that "the funds were utilized to help sustain displaced evacuees," but refused to provide further detail. He said money was administered by an unidentified director and that "a committee of community representatives functioned as advisers to the fund."


But three of those advisers said they had no idea whether cash was given out by the group, New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families, or NOAH-F.
"I had nothing to do with any disbursement of any funds," said the Rev. Edward Davis, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of St. Albans in Queens. "I can't tell you. I don't know."
Another advisory board member, Candace Sandy, said she volunteered to help Katrina refugees living temporarily at a hotel near Kennedy Airport, but did not distribute money.
Sandy, who works for Meeks, said another advisory board member, Claude Stuart, was in charge of the money. Stuart did not return phone calls for comment.
Pamela Moore, chief-of-staff to Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, was listed as a member of the advisory board but said that it was a position in name only.
"I never attended any board meetings," she said, adding that she did not know if board meetings were even held.
Clark, a Queens Democrat, said she was upset about the charity's lack of accountability. "I'm very, very disturbed and disheartened," she said.
The lawmaker said she helped set up a gospel concert that raised $11,210 after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005.
"We turned this money over to the congressman [Meeks]," Clark said. "I don't know exactly how it was given out."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/07/british-obstetrics-founders-murders-claim

They are giants of medicine, pioneers of the care that women receive during childbirth and were the founding fathers of obstetrics. The names of William Hunter and William Smellie still inspire respect among today's doctors, more than 250 years since they made their contributions to healthcare. Such were the duo's reputations as outstanding physicians that the clienteles of their private practices included the rich and famous of mid-18th-century London.

But were they also serial killers? New research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM) claims that they were. A detailed historical study accuses the doctors of soliciting the killing of dozens of women, many in the latter stages of pregnancy, to dissect their corpses.

"Smellie and Hunter were responsible for a series of 18th-century 'burking' murders of pregnant women, with a death total greater than the combined murders committed by Burke and Hare and Jack the Ripper," writes Don Shelton, a historian. "Burking" involved murdering people to order, usually for medical research.

According to Shelton, the two men were between them responsible for the murders of 35-40 pregnant women and their unborn children. Acting separately, and using henchmen to deliver their supply, they organised a killing spree in London between 1749 and 1755 and, after a period of inactivity enforced by mounting suspicion about the source of their corpses, resumed between 1764 and 1774. Motivated by ego, personal rivalry and a shared desire to benefit from being acclaimed as the foremost childbirth doctors of their time, Hunter and Smellie sacrificed life after life in their quests to study pregnancy's physical effects and to develop new techniques, the author says. "Although it sounds absolutely incredible, the circumstantial literary evidence suggests they were most likely competing with each other in experimenting with secret caesarean sections on unconscious, or freshly murdered, victims, with a view to extracting and reviving the babies," Shelton told the Observer.

Shelton examine

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Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)15:40 No.203070     >>203025 What are you talking about? It seems obvious. E.g. Unit 731 conducted research particularly into the effects of biological warfare, as well as other injuries on the human body. The USA then let many of those involved go free in exchange for obtaining such data and knowledge for themselves. The Soviet Union also obtained research data from captured members of Unit 731. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/1796044.stm

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)15:42 No.203071     File: 126558617536.jpg-(24.19KB, 200x301, men-behind-the-sun.jpg)

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)17:20 No.203102     >>203025 the microwave ovens you use to cook your hotpockets came from immoral nazi experimentation.

TEHRAN – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ali Khamenei stated on Sunday that the will of God is set for an end to the oppression in the region and the defeat of the hegemonic powers.


The Supreme Leader made the remarks in a meeting with Ramadan Abdullah, the secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement.

Israel is going downhill toward decline and fall and God willing its obliteration is certain, the Leader noted.

“Today Palestine is the symbol of life, determination, faithfulness, diligence, and dignity,” Ayatollah Khamenei explained.

Palestinians have shown that they are spiritually more powerful than Zionists and that is why the Israeli army has not been able to defeat them despite a military superiority, he stated.

“Palestinians’ faith is the main factor in their resistance,” he emphasized.

The Leader went on to say that the Zionist regime, all through its 60-year-long life, has emerged as a symbol of atrocity, viciousness, and ugliness.

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►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)16:48 No.203092     >>203083 >implying that you HAVE spoken to a lot of Iranians Protip: you can make any country look like nightmarish using the tools at the hands of the modern western media. Iran sucks, but so do most countries, especially in the region. By comparison, Iran is quite decent.

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)16:52 No.203094     >>203092 Comparison to Russia? I agree only africa outranks those filthy slavs in third world status.

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Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)17:07 No.203101     >>203092 I agree with you there, I'd rather live in Iran then in just about any of their Arab neighbors with the possible exception of Jordan or Dubai. That doesn't change the fact that the country is a totalitarian theocracy in desperate need of a democratic revolution. And I have spoken to lots of Persians, NYC is full of them. Admittedly, there's some selection bias too, since they're the ones who left the country in disgust, but I doubt every last one of them is actually a CIA plant making up stories.

  VINTAGE PALIN MOMENT: Sarah Palin Reads Answers off of Her Hand

Palin gave her $115,000.00 speech tonight to an audience of less than enthusiastic Tea Partiers. She appeared off of her game, delivering a rather flat speech, one that at least failed to inspire shouts of “kill him!” as her campaign rallies did. So there's that.

She managed to get part way through the speech before misspeaking and saying “Alaska” instead of “America”, but what do you expect from an AIP secessionist? What are you? Some kind of elitist? Surely Putin would know what she meant, were she in the office she was mantled for.

““Nations around the world “wonder if Alaska is still that beacon of hope.” Pauses, realizes she meant America, plunges on.” Roger Ebert live tweeting the speech.

She spent a while attempting to mock the Real President for using a teleprompter, which earned her derision and scorn even from her fans on twitter. Why, you ask, would a Palin fan not enjoy a good dash of mock and awe? Perhaps because Herself was reading off of notes for the entire speech….which only served to give us a gander at the odd poof of hair attached to her real hair. Not sure what's going on there-- maybe that's "Real America" hair?

But that wasn’t the low point. The Vintage Palin moment occurred when she sat down to answer questions, which apparently had been pre-screened. So, she had a chance to study up prior to this moment.

And yet, she actually consulted notes scrawled on her hand while fishing around for the answer. As in, a handprompter. Leave it to Sarah.

God forbid she have yet another “all of ‘em and any of ‘em” moment. I mean, when she dragged that out during the Beck interview, even Beck was disgusted.

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►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)15:00 No.203055     >>203051 No, blue states, besides some exceptions, are often states that are overwhelmingly white. The states with the largest nigger and spic populations tend to be red states in the south and south west.

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)15:37 No.203067     >She appeared off of her game, delivering a rather flat speech, one that at least failed to inspire shouts of “kill him!” as her campaign rallies did. Stopped reading here, because that didn't actually, you know, happen.

►	Anonymous 02/07/10(Sun)15:39 No.203068     >>203067 YES IT DID KEITH OLBERMANN SAID SO STOP WATCHING FAUX NOOZ

KIEV, Ukraine — The opposition leader Viktor F. Yanukovich declared victory on Sunday in presidential elections in Ukraine, claiming what appeared to be an unlikely comeback from his humiliating defeat in the 2004 Orange Revolution, when he was shunned as a bumbling Kremlin sidekick.

But his opponent, Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, an Orange leader with a reputation as a fierce political combatant, refused to concede and urged her supporters to wait for the final vote count, which was not expected until Monday. Six exit polls by Ukrainian television stations and other agencies found that Mr. Yanukovich had a narrow lead of 3 to 6 percentage points.

“I will do everything to ensure that citizens of Ukraine, no matter where in the country they live, feel comfortable and calm in a stable country,” Mr. Yanukovich said late Sunday at his campaign headquarters in Kiev.

If the count confirms the exit polls, it would amount to a rebuke of the Orange Revolution, which was supposed to serve as a post-Soviet model, moving the country toward a European-style democracy, but has instead given rise to political and economic turmoil.

A victory for Mr. Yanukovich would also be a triumph for Moscow in its struggle for influence with the West in the former Soviet Union.

While Mr. Yanukovich, with the assistance of an American political consultant, has tried to remake his image so that he is not considered a favorite of Russia, he advocates policies that it welcomes. The Kremlin has been infuriated by Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, saying that the West is infringing upon Moscow’s traditional zone of influence, and Mr. Yanukovich is vowing to abandon the plan.

Under the incumbent president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, an Orange leader and resolute Kremlin foe, relations with neighboring Russia grew so tense that the Kremlin withdrew its ambassador to Ukraine. Mr. Yushchenko lost his bid for another term in the first round of voting last month, his popularity hurt by the country’s hard times.

President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko were once Orange allies, but are now so estranged that he refused to endorse her and instead urged Ukrainians to vote “ag

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