May 23, 2006

This next guy gives new meaning to "I'd give my right arm to do that..." Like Bugs Bunny said, "What a maroon..."
first double amputee to reach the top of Everest loses more appendages...23rd May 2006- ...Mr Inglis, who last week became the first double amputee to reach the top of Everest...is due to fly home to New Zealand later this week and is due to receive medical treatment for his damaged stumps and frost-bitten fingertips, which have to be removed.

...His legs were amputated below the knees after he suffered frostbite during an expedition in 1982...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=387396&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

Everest climber left to die alone
5/23/06- KATMANDU, Nepal --Mark Inglis, an amputee who conquered Mount Everest on artificial legs last week, yesterday defended his party's decision to carry on to the summit despite coming across a dying climber. As his team climbed through the "death zone," the area above 26,000 feet where the body begins to shut down, they passed David Sharp, 34, a stricken British climber who later died. His body remained on the mountain.

Mr. Inglis said: "At 28,000 feet it's hard to stay alive yourself. He was in a very poor condition, near death. We talked about [what to do for him] for quite a lot at the time and it was a very hard decision. "About 40 people passed him that day, and no one else helped him apart from our expedition. Our Sherpas (guides) gave him oxygen. He wasn't a member of our expedition, he was a member of another, far less professional one." Mr. Sharp was among eight persons who have died on Everest this year, including another member of his group, a Brazilian. Dewa Sherpa, a manager at Asian Trekking, the Katmandu company that outfitted Mr. Sharp before his climb, said he had not taken enough oxygen and had no Sherpa guide.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060522-110420-9433r.htm

The Parable of the Good Samaritan- Luke 10:29-38
...so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho , when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

3 Climbers Die While Descending Everest
BEIJING - Three climbers from Brazil , Russia and France died while descending Mount Everest on separate expeditions in the past week, a Chinese official said Tuesday.

The climbers, whose names weren't released, reached the summit of Everest and died of exhaustion on the way down, said Zhang Mingxing, secretary-general of Tibet Mountaineering Association.

...Since Everest was first conquered by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953, more than 1,400 climbers have scaled the peak, and some 180 people have died trying.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060523/ap_on_re_as/everest_deaths\

Oldest Man Ever Reportedly Scales Everest - 70 years, 7 months and 13 days
5/17/06 TOKYO - A mountaineering company claimed that a 70-year-old Japanese man on one of its expeditions Wednesday became the oldest person to scale Mount Everest , edging the record-holder by three days…

Takao Arayama, aged 70 years, 7 months and 13 days, scaled the 29,035-foot peak, according to Toshinori Koya, who heads Tokyo-based company Adventure Guides, which planned the climb.

The Guinness World Records Web site says the record has been held by Yuichiro Miura, also of Japan , who reached the summit at the age of 70 years, 7 months and 10 days, on May 22, 2003.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060517/ap_on_re_as/japan_everest

Scientists: Mt. Everest Only 29,017 Feet
10/9/05- The world's highest mountain, Mount Everest , is 12 feet shorter than previously thought, Chinese scientists who measured the peak earlier this year said Sunday.

Their survey determined that the mountain was 29,017 feet, or 12 feet smaller than it was measured to be 30 years ago, said Chen Bangzhu, a spokesman with the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20051009/ap_on_sc/china_measuring_everest_2

Worker confidence up as hiring rises

5/23/2006 -Employees are feeling more confident about the labor market and their own job security as hiring picks up in a number of industries.

...Workers reported high confidence in their job security...

• Pay. Wages are up in many industries. The hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory workers, which is most of the private sector, grew 3.8% in the past year, the fastest in nearly five years. That follows a period when wages lagged inflation for several years.

• Jobs. With the unemployment rate at a low 4.7% in April, some employers note that hiring is becoming more of a challenge.

• Perks. Signing bonuses, which waned in popularity as the economy faltered, are back in vogue in several industries. Sixty-five percent of employers in 2005-06 are offering signing bonuses for technology-related positions, according to a poll by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

In many industries, hiring is looking up. Construction hiring has been setting a fast pace, and manufacturing added 19,000 jobs in April, with factory employment rising by 50,000 jobs since October.

"What we're seeing is major. Competition is really heating up," says Marlon Doles, senior manager, staffing and diversity, with Campbell Soup in Camden , N.J. "It hasn't been like this in a number of years."

Brian Callaghan, CEO of Apex Systems, a Richmond, Va.-based provider of temporary information technology staffing, says the shift in demand means candidates can be choosier about job assignments.

"Good (candidates) will have several opportunities," Callaghan says.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2006-05-23-jobs-usat_x.htm

With few jobless, employers labor to fill positions
May 20, 2006 Marc Mirabella can't wait to fill the empty cubicles in the Jupiter office of his technology-recruiting firm, but an ever-shrinking jobless rate isn't helping his cause.

There's plenty of business out there for his company, Oxford International, he said, but not enough workers.

"We need people — bad," said Mirabella, who runs the 50-person Florida office of Massachusetts-based Oxford .

Like many employers in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast , Mirabella struggles to fill empty desks as jobless figures keep setting records.

The unemployment rates in Palm Beach and Martin counties fell to 30-year lows in April, state officials said Friday.

...Employers of every ilk — from hotels to call centers to high-paying engineering firms — who had become used to having their pick of a growing labor force are forced to look at alternatives, including expanding to where the workers are — outside a state where the jobless rate fell to 3.0 percent in April, well below the national rate of 4.7 percent.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2006/05/20/m1a_jobless_0520.html

RV Ownership at Record High
...Nearly 8 million households owned at least one RV in 2005, according to a study by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. That's a 58 percent increase from 1980. About 384,400 RV's were sold in 2005, according to the RV Association.

More often than not, today's RV'ers are not the type who prefer sipping beer in front of the campfire, roughing it in communal showers in lieu of a nine to five job. Now it's all about luxury, said Bob Livingston, editor for Trailer Life Magazine....

...The typical RV owner is 35 to 54 years-old, owns a home, has an annual income of $68,000 and travels an average 4,500 miles a year, according to the study.

...Although experts say Boomers are largely responsible for the sales spike, there is also a surprising number of young families buying RVs in hopes of squeezing in more quality time with the kids...

...Mark, a 41-year-old Web site designer, and Crickett, a 32-year-old mortgage broker, sold their Orlando home last year and incorporate trips to historic sites, museums and state capitols while they homeschool or "roadschool" their sons, Adam, 11, and Lucas, 8...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20060523/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_rv_boom

Dear Yahoo!: Can you really count the seconds between lightning and thunder to figure how far away a storm is? N. Lighten Mee

Dear N. Lighten Mee: Thunder is the sound of rapidly heated air expanding and vibrating, and shock waves. Light travels faster than sound, so we see the lightning before we hear the resulting thunder... you can approximate the storm's distance in miles by counting the seconds between the lightning and thunder and dividing by five. It takes about five seconds for the sonic boom to travel one mile, so if you see the sky illuminated by a streak of lightning and count 10 seconds until you hear the low rumble of the thunder, the storm is about two miles away... http://ask.yahoo.com/20060522.html

Egypt to excavate Roman city submerged in sea
CAIRO (Reuters) - The Egyptian authorities have given the go ahead for the underwater exploration of what appears to be a Roman city submerged in the Mediterranean, Egypt's top archaeologist said on Monday.

Zahi Hawass said in a statement that an excavation team had found the ruins of the Roman city 35 km (20 miles) east of the Suez Canal on Egypt 's north coast.

Archaeologists had found buildings, bathrooms, ruins of a Roman fortress, ancient coins, bronze vases and pieces of pottery that all date back to the Roman era, the statement said. Egypt 's Roman era lasted from 30 BC to 337 AD.

The excavation team also found four bridges that belonged to a submerged castle, part of which had been discovered on the Mediterranean coastline in 1910.

The statement said evidence indicated that part of the site was on the coast and part of it submerged in the sea. The area marked Egypt 's eastern border during the Roman era.http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-05-22T153024Z_01_L22614130_RTRUKOC_0_US-EGYPT-EXCAVATION.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Two Saudi men arrested after boarding Tampa school bus
05/22/06 TAMPA - Two Saudi men are being held without bond after they were arrested for boarding a school bus full of children in Tampa .

Mana Saleh Almanajam and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran are charged with misdemeanor trespassing and are being held at Orient Road Jail. The judge says she wants more background information on them.

The two men arrived in the country six months ago on student visas and are enrolled at the English Language Institute at the University of South Florida .
(one of the men was wearing a trench coat over his shorts)(Maybe it was a test run?)http://www.tampabaylive.com/stories/2006/05/060522bus.shtml

N.Y. HEZBOLLAH HUNTThe Hezbollah terror group - one of the most dangerous in the world - may be planning to activate sleeper cells in New York and other big cities to stage an attack as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up, sources told The Post.

The FBI and Justice Department have launched urgent new probes in New York and other cities targeting members of the Lebanese terror group.

Law-enforcement and intelligence officials told The Post that about a dozen hard-core supporters of Hezbollah have been identified in recent weeks as operating in the New York area…

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64107.htm

Personal data stolen on 26.5 million vets

Agency employee took home disks with names, social security numbers
Disks with the personal data of 26.5 million U.S. veterans were stolen from the home of a Veterans Affairs employee, the department announced today.

The data included names, dates of birth and social security numbers of all living veterans who have been discharged since 1976.

The employee, a data analyst, did not have authorization to take home the data, which was stolen this month.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency has no evidence the burglars have used the data or even know they have it…http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50328

Earth-solar cycle spurs greenhouse gases -studies

Mon May 22, 2006
Greenhouse gases are known to spur global warming, but scientists said on Monday that global warming in turn spurs greenhouse gas emissions...

Two scientific teams, one in Europe and another in California , reached the same basic conclusion: when Earth has warmed up in the past, due to the sun's natural cycles, more greenhouse gases have been spewed into the atmosphere.

As greenhouse gas levels rose, so did Earth's temperature, the scientists reported.

Earth has not endlessly warmed up, though, because these natural solar cycles ended, letting the planet cool down and prompting a corresponding drop in greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists reported.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-05-22T221742Z_01_N22203855_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-WARMING.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Google dumps news sites that criticize radical Islam

May 23, 2006 Search engine giant Google has cut off its news relationship with a number of online news publications that include frank discussions of radical Islam – the New Media Journal becoming the latest termination, as its owner just discovered.

Frank Salvato, who began the agreement with Google News last September, said he received a reply from the company's help desk Friday indicating there had been complaints of "hate speech" on his site, as first reported by media watchdog Newsbusters.org.

The e-mail, which cited three articles that dealt with radical Islam and its relationship to terrorism, read:

Hi Frank,
Thanks for writing. We received numerous reports about hate content on your site, and after reviewing these reports, decided to remove your site from Google News. We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints in Google News (although referencing hate speech for commentary and analysis is acceptable).

For example, a number of the complaints we looked at on your site were found to be hate content:

http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/peck/05102006.htm
http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/stock/05082006.htm
http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/imani/04222006.htm

We hope this helps you understand our position.

Regards,
The Google Team

Newsbusters says it has observed a pattern of intolerance toward conservative sites that deal with radical Islam and terrorism.

see rest of article at http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50323

David<><
http://freewill-predestination.com/
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove/