olycolodi's Blog

Bobby Kennedy Jr., a lawyer beloved by the environmental movement for defending rivers and attacking coal-burning power plants, recently discovered a new cause. In a June Rolling Stone article, and in subsequent appearances on Imus in the Morning, ABC News, and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, he accuses government vaccine scientists and their academic advisers of covering up what for him is an uncontestable fact: the causal link between a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal in vaccines and a massive increase in childhood autism in America.

As the writer who first told the thimerosal story in depth in the New York Times Magazine two and a half years ago, I have been astonished to see how badly it has been handled since. David Kirby, a Times freelancer, published a supposed exposé in April that tells the story from the perspective of SafeMinds, a group that is to autism what Act Up was to AIDS—sometimes wrong but always loud and overall pretty effective. Then Kennedy entered the fray through his activism against mercury from power plants. In his appearances to champion the thimerosal theory, he trashes establishment science and establishment journalism for having missed the story. But Kennedy's Rolling Stone piece doesn't cover any new ground, and it is full of large and small errors and distortions. Aside from a June 25 New York Times article that discussed the parallel realities of parents and scientists studying thimerosal, there has been little mainstream media response.

Considering that about 9,000 lawsuits of claims have been filed against thimerosal and have the potential to wreck the pharmaceutical industry, the debate has high stakes. In 1997 Congress ordered the FDA to list all the mercury in food and drug products, and the agency had a "D'oh!" moment in 1999, when it discovered that since 1991 children receiving the normal complement of vaccines had been getting amounts of thimerosal that might push them over EPA-accepted mercury tolerances. To be sure, the EPA recommendations for mercury ingestion were based on studies of methyl mercury, which is generally considered more dangerous than ethyl mercury, the type thimerosal contains. (Read more about the distinction and how it relates to thimerosal's safety.) And the medical literature did not contain a single case of mercury poisoning leading to autism. Still, to be safe, the FDA asked manufacturers to take thimerosal out of vaccines. They did, and most of the thimerosal-containing vaccines were removed from the shelves by early 2002

  For all of you that happen to have young girls please check out this video.. It's important so you can make a educated decision..

Please watch it to the end.. and forward it ...

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/302.html

THIS VERY MOMENT

_____________________________

Wherever you are today is perfect. You have been on a journey arriving right here, right now in this moment in time and space. You are here to make a new beginning on your spiritual journey and to experience and accept JOY in your life. You are in a perfect place for spiritual growth and change... Everything you have done in your entire life has brought you to this very moment!

NEW YORK (AP) - A woman who died unnoticed on a hospital floor in a scene recorded by security cameras was killed by blood clots caused by a long period of physical inactivity, according to the city's medical examiner.

Esmin Green, 49, had been sitting in a waiting room at the city-owned Kings County Hospital Center for nearly 24 hours when she collapsed from her chair and slowly died on June 19.

She lay on the floor at the Brooklyn hospital for an hour before a nurse finally checked her pulse.

After an autopsy and weeks of tests, the medical examiner's office concluded Friday that Green was killed by pulmonary thromboemboli, blood clots that form in the legs and travel through the bloodstream to the lungs.

The medical examiner said the clots were due to "deep venous thrombosis of lower extremities due to physical inactivity," complicating an underlying psychological illness: chronic paranoid schizophrenia.

An attorney for Green's family, Sanford Rubenstein, said the finding suggested that the hours she sat in the hospital played a role in her death.

"The length of time that she spent in the emergency room ... very well may have contributed to her death," he said. "Physical inactivity was obviously a significant contributing factor."

The city Health and Hospitals Corp., which owns the hospital, had no immediate comment Friday.

HHC officials have previously expressed outrage at the way Green was treated. Six employees lost their jobs over the incident, even before it became public.

Green died while awaiting care in the hospital's psychiatric emergency room. EMS workers had brought her to the center on the morning of June 18. The hospital said she was suffering from agitation and psychosis and was involuntarily admitted after refusing medical review.

The emergency room is chronically overcrowded, and Green waited overnight for further care.

A recording of her death prompted national outrage when it became public last week.

After she collapsed, neither fellow patients nor the hospital's staff moved to help her, even as she thrashed her legs on the floor and tried to get up.

Two security guards and a member of the hospital's medical staff can be seen on the video, stopping to look at Green briefly before walking away. She stopped moving about 30 minutes after falling and was dead when a nurse finally examined her another 30 minutes after that.

HHC immediately reported the death to the state and voluntarily turned over the security records to lawyers already suing the city over alleged patient neglect at the hospital.

Rubenstein said that had Green been carefully attended to when she arrived at the emergency room, doctors might have noticed swelling in her legs and taken action.

People known to be at risk from deep vein thrombosis are often given anticoagulation drugs or compression stockings, which can keep clots from forming, and advised not to sit for hours at a time.

The condition, however, is not always easy to detect. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute said about half of the people with deep vein thrombosis have no symptoms at all.

Airlines often advise passengers on very long flights to stroll the aisle, periodically, to prevent blood clots.

 Today in a local Wal*mart there was a new lottery from the Florida Lottery.. For the price of $5.00 ticket   you earn a chance to win free gas for a year.. Free gas for life.. And other money prices .. There were lines of people waiting to be the first to purchase a winner lottery ticket.. Funny how things change??  To me when I saw all these people spending their hard earned money on a chance to win Gasoline??? One in a million odds..

It reminded me of a  The Twilight Zone. Why you ask?? Because it funny what becomes valuable.. What we took for granted yesterday is a very valuable commodity today.. Things change.. Just like Twilight Zone!  Where gold had no value…



People forget what happened in the 1970 ‘s with the gas shortage.. I was young I didn’t own a car, but I can remember the  lines at the gas stations, you could only fill up if you were on the odd area or even area on your plate.  Still the lines were long!! And the fights were fast .. People were fighting for their lives ..And this was in New York where people had a choice to take public transit.. Which is great! It takes you where ever you need to go!  Yet people would be lines up outside gas stations when it was there turn to fill up .. We didn’t learn anything from those long lines.. We said that even then that we were going to find a alternate kind of fuel to never depend on foreign  oil again!!  ( Who remembers that?)  I do! I never thought we would have another problem… Things just seem to fix itself.. At least to me  I was a teenager then,, I wasn’t looking forward to driving because in New York everyone took public transit.. We had a family car, which we use to get groceries, visit family in New Jersey, and to go to the beach during the summers.. My father used public transit to go to work every day, we used it to go to school, visit friends, and even to go shopping to the malls..  So for us it was no big deal to go without a car.. Many people in New York have never owned a car in there lives,  many haven’t even gotten a drivers license ever!



After that  you would think we would have learned not to waste  fuel! And foreign fuel  at that.. Car makers went from Pinto’s to Lincolns!!  They went from Pacers to mini vans! Mini buses!! Little by little the cars started getting bigger and bigger every year..

We had 4 cylinder, engines, to a little more muscle.. Then they discovered the V-6 .. That wasn’t strong enough! Fast enough ! Then they went into the V-8 engine.. Bigger! Stronger! Faster! So when you were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic you knew that if you could ever be on a open road you could very easily go from 0 to 60 in 3.1 sec.. And least that was the selling point they used when you bought the car J  You left the dealer feeling like you were going to burn up the road.. You would feel like you were a teenager again..  



Now where it the Hummer come from?? I know there is a Hummer that the military use to go over land minds..

But I didn’t know we need a car that could go over land minds here in the states?? It’s Large! No it’s freaking Huge!!! And it doesn’t make any sense what so ever! It a large ugly large white elephant! It’s not built like a military Hummer.. It has a horrible safety rating.. So why are people buying something that ugly?? Because they were told it was the vehicle of the future!

Now all these large gas gushers are now being returned! Traded in! and they all have for sale signs on them!! Because the gas is now topping 450 the gallon!! Now they want small cars! Now all the sudden they care about the environment.. Now the want to save our planet.. Europe has had small cars for ever.. You can carry a car in Europe and move it yourself.. But they have been dealing with high gas prices for a long time.. We are the country of people who love to waste!! We waste until someone takes the things away form us!  We don’t know what it is to be truly without! We have no idea what other countries are going through!! We have no idea that they are people who go to sleep without having had a meal.. Not 3 meals..  We have families that have both parents have been laid off and the families end up in the streets…  Yet we waste! We don’t recycle , we don’t care or think what we are going to our planet.. We are destroying  our natural lands! Killing out species of animals, hurting wild life everywhere we go.. Their is consequences for the animals we no longer have on our planet because of our  misuse of power and our destruction of natural habitats .. We will answer for this sooner or later..  What are we leaving our children? What kind of world? Will there still be animals? Or plants? Rain forest? The artic? Think of this the next time you want to do something that will hurt our mother planet!  You may not have or want children..

But they have a right to inherit a healthy planet.. With all the things you enjoyed as a child! Even if you don’t remember now.. Because your sights is else where..  



I feel like we are where we belong to be.. Our future is in our own hands.. We must take our planet as if it were a sick family member that we all cherish and love.. Something has to give. Things will only continue to get worse,, with the desperation of the people with the failing  economy the gas prices, the  lack of jobs here.. Because they are leaving our shore to go over seas.. Leaving or citizen cut and dry.. All the factories have moved to third world countries .. Where they pay the people nothing..  Where they are working in horrible conditions.. Where there is no quality control.. Call backs in children’s toys! ( lead ) toothpaste! (lead) So we are spending money buying products that are made else where.. Which are putting of life’s in danger…



I have always driven a small gas saver.. Why have a tank?? I love little hatch backs.. Small but I can fit anything..  

I have always looked for that where I had money or not.. Why should I have a turbo engine if I live in a parking lot!! Because the traffic here in Florida is horrible!! Why would I buy a sport car to drive 15 miles an hour??? Wasting more gas, killing the engine.. And hating life!  I have never understood that.

  Clever Dog





A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovers that he is lost. So, wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having him for lunch. The dachshund thinks, "OK, I'm in deep trouble now!" Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here." Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. "Whew," says the leopard. "That was close. That dachshund nearly had me." Meanwhile, a monkey, who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dachshund saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine." Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, "What am I going to do now?" But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet ... and, just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says.................. "Where's that darn monkey? Sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard."

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with

Their tedious diatribes about how hard things were

When they were growing up; what with walking

Twenty-five miles to school every morning . Uphill

BOTH ways .. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,

There was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of

Crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how

Easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I

Can't help but look around and notice the youth of

Today.. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my

Childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know

How good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet.

If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the

Damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card

Catalog!!

There was no email! ! We had to actually write

Somebody a letter ..with a pen! Then you had to walk

All the way across the street and put it in the

Mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal

Music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store

And shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around

All day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually

Talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you

Were on the phone and somebody else called they got a

Busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either!

When the phone rang, you had

No idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom,

Your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a

Collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to

Pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games

With high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari

2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and

"asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a

Little square! You actually had to use your

Imagination! And there were no multiple levels or

Screens, it was just one screen forever! And you

Could never win. The game just kept getting harder and

Harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like

LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing

As stadium seating! All the seats were the same height!

If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat

In front of you and you couldn't see, you were just Screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was

Only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu

And no remote control! You had to use a little book

Called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were

Screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to

Get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the

Channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You

Could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you

Hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for

Cartoons, you spoiled little bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat

Something up we had to use the stove or go build a

Frigging fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn,

We had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it

Over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today

Have got it too easy. You're spoiled!!!!!!!!!

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,

The over 30 Crowd

AUSTELL, Ga. (AP) - A teenager was decapitated by a roller coaster after he hopped a pair of fences and entered a restricted area Saturday at Six Flags Over Georgia, authorities said.

Six Flags officials are uncertain why the unidentified 17-year-old from Columbia, S.C. scaled two six-foot fences and passed signs that said the restricted area was both off-limits and dangerous to visitors, spokeswoman Hela Sheth said in a news release.

Authorities were investigating reports from witnesses who said the teenager jumped the fences to retrieve a hat he lost while riding the Batman roller coaster, said Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce. Police have declined to release the teenager's name until an autopsy is completed.

Six Flags said it closed the roller coaster after the Saturday afternoon accident out of respect for the teen's family. The ride was expected to reopen on Sunday, according to a Six Flags news release.

Police said the ride was going full-speed when the teen was struck. The ride's top speed is 50 mph, according to the park's Web site.

No one riding on the roller coaster was injured, Sheth said. The teen was with another boy who also entered the restricted area but was not injured, Pierce said.

The teen and his parents were at the park with a group from the Oakey Spring Baptist Church near Springfield, S.C., police said.

In May 2002, 58-year-old groundskeeper Samuel Milton Guyton of Atlanta was killed after he wandered in a restricted area under the Batman roller coaster's path and was struck in the head by the dangling leg of one of the ride's passengers. The ride was closed for a day to allow the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to inspect the ride. It was deemed safe for passengers.

In June 2007, a teenager's legs were severed when cables snapped on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Ky. Doctors were able to reattach Kaitlyn Lasitter's right foot, but she had to have some of her left leg amputated and subsequent surgeries.

State officials blame a faulty cable and slow response by an amusement park ride operator in the accident. Her family is suing Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, claiming the park failed to maintain the ride and equipment and ensure riders' safety. The amusement park has denied liability in court filings.

Bombings kill dozens, 3 US Marines in Iraq attacks Published: 6/26/08, 3:47 PM EDT By ROBERT H. REID BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide bomber attacked a meeting of pro-government Sunni sheiks west of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 23 people, including three U.S. Marines. At least 18 more people died in a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul. Both attacks happened in Sunni Arab areas where al-Qaida in Iraq has been active. They appeared to be part of a campaign by both Sunni and Shiite extremists to undermine U.S. efforts to shore up local administrations and secure the security gains achieved since early last year. The target of the Mosul blast appeared to be the provincial governor, who was near the explosion but escaped injury. The U.S. military announced that al-Qaida's top leader in Mosul, known by his nickname Abu Khalaf, was killed in a raid two days earlier. U.S. officials say Mosul is the last major Iraqi city where al-Qaida has a significant presence. Thursday's other bombing took place at a building in Karmah, 20 miles west of Baghdad, where dozens of sheiks had gathered for a meeting attended by U.S. officials, said Col. Fawzi Fraih, civil defense director of Anbar province. Local police Capt. Amir al-Jumaili said 20 Iraqis were killed and 20 others wounded. The U.S. command said two interpreters were killed along with three Marines assigned to Multinational Forces-West. It was unclear if the interpreters were among the 20 dead reported by the Iraqis. U.S. authorities suspected al-Qaida in Iraq was behind the attack. Two policemen said the bomber was able to penetrate security because he was a wearing camouflage uniform of the Iraqi police commandos. Both policemen spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The blast took place only days before U.S. troops are to hand over security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis, marking a major milestone in the campaign to lower the U.S. profile in an area that had once been center-stage of the war. Anbar sheiks spearheaded the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, one of the key reasons behind the dramatic drop in both overall violence and American casualties since 2006. The media office for Anbar province said the dead included the town's administrative director and at least two chiefs of major Sunni tribes in the area. The bomb in Mosul went off between the government headquarters and a market, where the governor of surrounding Nineveh province, Duraid Kashmola, was inspecting damage from an earlier rocket attack, police said. U.S. authorities said 18 people were killed and nearly 80 wounded - mostly civilians. Mosul is the scene of an ongoing Iraqi military operation against al-Qaida and other Sunni extremist groups. The street where the blast occurred had been blocked with concrete barriers but was reopened about three weeks ago as part of a government move to improve the quality of life and undermine support for extremists. Adil Khalid, a 35-year-old grocer, said he went to the market to buy food from wholesalers when he saw a parked car explode about 100 yards away. "It was like doomsday. People were panicked, running to escape," Khalid said. "Even policemen fled the scene but came back to evacuate the victims. I saw two or three bodies burned beyond recognition." The U.S. military says violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level in more than four years, but attacks are continuing as Sunni and Shiite extremists try to regroup and undermine security gains. The two bombings were part of an uptick in violence that has pushed the monthly death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq to at least 29. That's well below figures of last year but an increase over the 19 who died in May, the lowest monthly tally of the war. In all, at least 4,113 U.S. military service members have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Ten people, including four Americans, were killed Tuesday in a bombing in a municipal council office in the Shiite area of Sadr City in Baghdad. Two Americans were shot dead and four wounded Monday when a disgruntled official opened fire as they left a municipal building in Salman Pak about 15 miles south of the capital. In a Web statement posted Thursday, the al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed three American soldiers and their interpreter in Nineveh two days ago. The statement said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of a Muslim family in Mosul. Also Thursday, American troops killed two suspected al-Qaida militants and captured 15, including two Egyptians, in raids in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said. The two extremists were killed in Sharqat, about 135 miles north of Baghdad, after they refused to surrender to U.S. troops who had surrounded the building where the pair had taken refuge, the U.S. said in a statement. One of the dead was identified as a militant cell leader who was the target of the raid, the U.S. said. Three people were taken into custody. The two Egyptians were detained in Abu Ghraib on the western edge of Baghdad for allegedly helping mount suicide attacks in the area, the U.S. said. A third person was seized near Abu Ghraib for allegedly providing weapons and suicide vests to Sunni militants. The other arrests occurred during raids west of Sinjar in northern Iraq, Mosul and the Bijar area between Mosul and Baghdad, the military said. __ Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Bushra Juhi contributed to this report. Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LONDON (AP) - A British court on Wednesday acquitted a former pub manager of taking a bribe to drop assault charges against Amy Winehouse's husband.

A jury deliberated for three hours before finding James King not guilty of trying to pervert the course of justice (the equivalent of obstruction of justice in the U.S.).

The singer-songwriter's husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, has admitted beating up King in a barroom fight in 2006 and then offering him $400,000 to keep quiet about it.

King, who suffered a broken cheekbone, said he was intimidated into withdrawing the assault claim.

Three other men also pleaded guilty to involvement in the plot. They and Fielder-Civil all face jail terms when they are sentenced next month.

Winehouse, 24, and Fielder-Civil, 26, were married in Miami in May 2007. He was arrested in November and has been in jail ever since.

She has become an international star since releasing the Grammy-winning album "Back to Black" in 2006. But her music has been overshadowed by reports of drug use, her run-ins with the law and tempestuous relationship with Fielder-Civil.

___

On the Net:

http://www.amywinehouse.co.uk/

BALI, Indonesia (AP) - The world's poorest nations are unable to manage the mountains of toxic waste flowing in for disposal from rich countries because of a lack of resources and political will, officials said Wednesday.

Katharina Kummer Peiry, the executive secretary of a UN convention on hazardous waste disposal, said the dumping of everything from hazardous chemicals to electronic waste from televisions and computers in poor countries is a growing problem.

She blamed it mostly on the inability of poor nations to finance better enforcement and monitoring of waste coming into their ports.

"The problem lies in the lack of interest and lack of resources on the issue at all levels," Peiry said.

The warning comes as delegates from as many as 170 countries meet on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss how they can strengthen the U.N.-administered Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, adopted in 1989. The meeting ends Friday.

The extent of the problem was illustrated in 2006, when hundreds of tons of toxic waste were dumped around Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan, killing at least 10 people and sickening tens of thousands more. The waste came from a tanker chartered by the Dutch commodities trading company Trafigura Beheer BV, which turned to Africa after disposal costs in Amsterdam were deemed too expensive.

The ship found a local company in Ivory Coast that agreed to dispose of the waste. But it lacked proper facilities and allegedly dumped the waste around the city at night. Trafigura has agreed to pay $236 million to the Ivorian government but has denied responsibility.

Many African countries at the Bali meeting said they are unable to manage the influx of hazardous waste and are already overwhelmed by their own piles of used computers and cell phones.

"There is a need to reduce the export of toxic waste into Africa," said Dr. O.O. Dada, director of Nigeria's Department of Pollution Control and Environmental Health. "It's causing a lot of health problems, environment problems. The region is wondering why we have to do this when we have our own problems."

Critics say the Ivory Coast case highlights the limitations of the convention. Although it requires a country to seek the consent of another government when exporting waste and allows a country to ban the import of waste, it stops short of an outright export ban.

An amendment calling for a ban was first proposed in 1995, but not enough of the convention's 170 member countries have ratified it. A ban is likely to be debated in Bali on Thursday when environmental ministers begin discussing the convention.

Opponents including the U.S. say a ban would be unfair to developing countries that have established environmentally sound recycling industries.

But supporters including the European Union say it would ensure exporters take responsibility for their own hazardous waste.

Jim Puckett, coordinator of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, said the convention is "on the cusp of becoming a paper tiger" without an export ban.

"This meeting is very important to decide which way it will go," he said.

BEIJING (AP) - Tibet reopened to foreign tourists on Wednesday, three months after the Chinese government banned such visits in the wake of violent anti-government riots and protests that tainted the image of the country ahead of the Olympics.

The first foreign tourists, a retired Swedish couple, arrived at the airport near the capital, Lhasa, on Wednesday, said Tibetan Tourism Bureau spokesman Liao Lisheng.

"Tibet is open now to all travelers from home and abroad," he said.

Kurt Persson, 77, and Eva Sandstrom, 62, were welcomed with traditional Tibetan white silk scarves at their hotel near the sacred Jokhang Temple, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

"We've been looking forward to visiting Tibet for many years. Its monasteries and landscapes are fascinating," Xinhua quoted Sandstrom as saying.

The five-day trip is their first to Tibet, Xinhua said. "We have no worries about the safety here," Sandstrom said. "The only worry was to get the permission to come."

The Himalayan region has been all but closed to the outside world since the biggest protests against Chinese rule in two decades exploded into rioting March 14 in Lhasa, leading Beijing to swiftly shut off the area.

Troops also flooded into predominantly Tibetan communities in nearby provinces, where sympathy demonstrations were occurring. They performed drills in town squares and set up checkpoints around sensitive areas. Officials said the restrictions were established for the safety of foreign tourists and journalists.

China says 22 people died in the anti-government protests. But overseas Tibet supporters say many times that number were killed in the riots and the resulting security crackdown.

A notice on the tourism bureau's Web site announcing the lifting of the ban said life in Lhasa had returned to normal.

"Tibet's society is stable and harmonious, its markets bustling, and its environment beautiful," it said.

But there are still signs of tension.

Hundreds of alleged perpetrators have been arrested in the last three months, with many sentenced to years or life in prison for their role in the protests.

Buddhist monasteries - seen as incubators for anti-government sentiment - remain subject to searches by police and monks are forced to undergo political indoctrination against the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader. The Drepung monastery remains closed to visitors.

And despite the lifting of the ban, it's not clear how accessible Tibet really is, given that foreign visas to China are being restricted in the run-up to the Aug. 8 Beijing Olympics, said Michael C. Davis, a law professor and China expert at Hong Kong's City University.

"In name, they could lift the restrictions but still have them across the board," he said.

Foreigners need a separate permit from an official travel agency to enter Tibet and are required to hire a guide for travel outside Lhasa.

"If they don't have an agenda, like separating the country or trying to cause damage, then the foreign tourists can have an entry permit," said Liao, the tourism bureau spokesman.

Last week's Olympic torch run through Lhasa was carefully orchestrated after it was cut to one day from the original three. Crowds were monitored by security agents and only a few hand-picked foreign journalists, who even under ordinary conditions must apply for permission to visit Tibet, were invited to cover the event.

The three-hour relay was apparently completed without incident.

It had been considered a flashpoint amid criticism by overseas Tibetan activist groups who accuse Beijing of using the event to symbolize its control over the region. China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially independent for much of that time.

The March violence and tourist ban have taken a major toll on Lhasa's economy, which has become increasingly reliant on tourism since the start of rail service nearly two years ago.

Hotels in Lhasa said they'd had almost no customers recently.

"We've had zero business since the Lhasa rioting, not even a penny," said Deji, the manager of booking at Hotel Kyichu in Lhasa. She refused to give her full name, a possible sign of continuing nervousness over being identified by authorities as a troublemaker.

Deji said it will take at least three years for business to return to normal, and that half of the hotel's employees had changed jobs or stayed home since March.

Tibet had 4 million visitors in 2007, up 60 percent from the previous year, Xinhua reported earlier this year. Tourism revenues hit $687 million, accounting for more than 14 percent of the economy

Dear Martha O,

China's torch relay wrapped up its 4-day propaganda tour of Tibet this morning after stops in Lhasa, Gormo (Ch: Golmud), Kokonor (Ch: Qinghai Hu) and the border town of Xining.



On Saturday, the torch was paraded through the capital Lhasa under virtual martial law with armed troops patrolling throughout the city and an unofficial curfew prohibiting people from leaving their houses unless they were among the carefully screened spectators invited to witness selected portions of the relay.

While it lasted only two hours, the Lhasa leg of the torch relay was an Olympic-size farce and China's most disgusting exploitation of the Olympics for propaganda purposes to date. Read SFT's press release denouncing China's Tibet torch relay propaganda and see SFT Executive Director Lhadon Tethong's video-blog on the torch in Lhasa.

Dancing Tibetans were on display in front of the Potala Palace and billboards throughout the city called on Tibetans to "Bless the Motherland, Joyfully Greet the Olympics." China's Communist Party Secretary of Tibet Zhang Qingli used the event as a platform to assert China's control over Tibet and verbally attack the Dalai Lama. Chinese authorities arranged for a handful of foreign journalists to visit Lhasa to witness the spectacle. In front of the onlookers and gathered reporters, Zhang took the opportunity at the closing ceremony to say "Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it," and vowed to "totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique."

While the journalists allowed in Lhasa during the torch relay were closely monitored and kept on a schedule that one described as a "humiliating experience" designed to keep them "busy and distracted from the real news," their reports are interesting and very telling of the current situation in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas:

   - New York Times: Olympic Torch's Tibet Visit Short and Political

   - Los Angeles Times: China parades Olympic torch in heavily guarded capital of Tibet

   - ABC News (Australia): Tensions simmering with Olympic torch in Tibet (includes video)

   - Globe and Mail (Canada): "Get on the Bus" (a blog entry about being on the official media tour)

One of the most startling reports is from Canadian Geoffrey York, writing about a tour of Sera Monastery, whose monks led the peaceful protests that inspired the nationwide uprising across Tibet. In the article, York writes: "Where are Lhasa's monks? A visit yesterday to the Sera monastery, the second-biggest Buddhist monastery in Tibet, found that its 550 monks had virtually disappeared from sight." Read the full article here.

Despite repeated appeals from Tibetan, supporters and people of conscience worldwide, the International Olympic Committee did nothing to prevent increased repression by Chinese authorities in Tibet, nor have they taken China to task for its crass politicization of the torch relay. The Olympic Charter forbids "political, religious or racial propaganda" in any Olympic venue. Besides adding to the suffering of Tibetans, China's torch relay in Tibet was a flagrant violation of the spirit and letter of these regulations and yet the IOC has said nothing.

Tibetans and their supporters around the world are rightly outraged at the IOC's complete betrayal of the Olympic ideals. The IOC has gone from being simply unhelpful to becoming complicit partners in the Chinese government's repression of Tibetans. Please express your outrage by calling the IOC Executives yourself. Click here to see contact information for IOC President Jacques Rogge and other IOC Executives.

Pick up the phone and tell them:

• It is outrageous that the IOC has allowed China to use the Olympics – particularly the torch relay in Tibet – as a political tool to dominate and repress Tibetans;


• As the Beijing Games approach, the IOC must do its job and apply the Olympic regulations that forbid political exploitation of the Games by the host country;


• The IOC must hold China accountable for the commitment it made to media freedom during its bid for the Games and press China to allow international media free access to Tibet.

We are relieved that the Olympic torch is no longer in Tibet but it is hard to know what the true impact of the torch relay's accompanying repression on Tibetans has been. We are continuing to build our efforts to shine the Olympic spotlight on China's occupation of Tibet, and preparing for the Beijing Games.

Please visit SFT's new Olympics campaign website at www.FreeTibet2008.org, watch our new Olympics video, and stay involved and in touch.

We will never give up... Tibet will be free!

-The SFT Headquarters Crew

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BAGHDAD (AP) - An American soldier was killed and five others wounded Monday when they came under fire southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Witnesses and local police said the Americans were ambushed after a meeting with Iraqi municipal officials.

The troops were hit by small-arms fire near Madain, an area with a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite extremists about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. A suspected militant also was killed, said Maj. John Hall, a U.S. military spokesman.

The military provided no further details, but a witness said an attacker was waiting in his car until the soldiers came out of the municipal council building in Madain.

"The attacker got out of the car with an AK-47 assault rifle in his hand and he started to fire on the American soldiers until he was killed by return fire," said Hussein al-Dulaimi, who owns an agricultural machines spare parts store across the street.

Al-Dulaimi, residents and a police official said the attacker had been a Sunni member of the municipal council until he was ousted by Shiites during sectarian violence following the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.

The death raised to at least 4,103 members of the U.S. military who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere, U.S.-funded Sunni fighters - known as awakening councils - came under attack north of Baghdad late Sunday.

About 10 mortar shells slammed into Udaim, 70 miles north of the capital, killing at least 10 members of a U.S.-backed Sunni group and wounding 24 others, said Maj. Mohammed Thawra, a local Iraqi army battalion commander.

A roadside bomb also targeted an awakening council patrol in Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad on Monday afternoon, killing two of the fighters, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

The Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq has been a key factor in a sharp decline in violence over the past year. The groups have frequently been targeted by insurgents trying to reverse the security gains.

Both attacks occurred in the restive Diyala province, which has been among the hardest areas to control since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion despite an influx of thousands of additional U.S. troops as part of the so-called surge last year.

A female suicide bomber struck an area near government offices in the provincial capital of Baqouba on Sunday, killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki singled out Diyala as a possible next target for a military offensive following operations against Shiite militants in Baghdad, Basra and Amarah and against al-Qaida in Mosul.

Al-Maliki spoke during a meeting with tribal chiefs in Amarah, the capital of Maysan province where U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched an offensive last week.

"We are today in Maysan province," al-Maliki said in a televised address. "God willing, tomorrow we will complete our march in Diyala, then we will complete our victorious operations in Mosul so that we could end this dossier."

"We will continue chasing the remnants of the defeated al-Qaida elements, former regime followers, the militias and the outlaws," he said.

Iraqi security forces have met little resistance during the operation in Amarah, which got under way in force last week. But followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have complained of random arrests and disrespectful behavior by the troops targeting his Mahdi Army militia.

The Sadrists believe they are being unfairly singled out to undermine popular support for the movement in upcoming provincial elections.

Al-Maliki promised to keep Iraqi troops in Amarah "until we are sure that those murderers and criminals wont return."

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Amarah and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Some People Are Stupid. Stuff. People I Can Do Without. George Carlin, who died of heart failure Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language.

The counterculture hero's jokes also targeted things such as misplaced shame, religious hypocrisy and linguistic quirks - why, he once asked, do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

The actor Ben Stiller called Carlin "a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats."

Carlin constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" - all of which are taboo on broadcast TV to this day.

When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 - noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" - and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a few TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 - a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).

"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"

In one of his most famous routines, Carlin railed against euphemisms he said have become so widespread that no one can simply "die."

"'Older' sounds a little better than 'old,' doesn't it?," he said. "Sounds like it might even last a little longer. ... I'm getting old. And it's OK. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won't have to die - I'll 'pass away.' Or I'll 'expire,' like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they'll call it a 'terminal episode.' The insurance company will refer to it as 'negative patient care outcome.' And if it's the result of malpractice they'll say it was a 'therapeutic misadventure.'"

Carlin won four Grammy Awards for best spoken comedy album and was nominated for five Emmys. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.

"Nobody was funnier than George Carlin," said Judd Apatow, director of recent hit comedies such as "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." "I spent half my childhood in my room listening to his records experiencing pure joy. And he was as kind as he was funny."

Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs, including carnival organist and marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with $300 and Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. His first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."

Carlin said he hoped to emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade Carlin grew up in - the 1950s - with a clever but gentle humor reflective of the times.

It didn't work for him, and the pair broke up by 1962.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Eventually Carlin ditched the buttoned-up look for his trademark beard, ponytail and all-black attire.

But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.

A married man goes to confessional and says to the priest, "Father, I had an affair with a woman... almost." "What do you mean almost?" question the priest. "Well, we got undressed and rubbed together, but then I stopped." "Rubbing together is the same as putting it in," explains the priest. "You're not to go near that woman again. Now, say five Hail Mary's and put $50 in the poor box." The man leaves confessional, says his prayers, and then walks over to the poor box. He pauses for a moment and then decides to leave. The priest quickly runs over to the man and exclaims, "I saw that... you didn't put any money in the poor box!" "Well Father, I rubbed up against it and, like you said, it's the same as putting it in!"

There was this little boy with no arms. He wanted to ring the church bell on Sundays so he went to talk to the preacher. The preacher didn't know how he was going to do it, but he figured he would give him a shot. When they got to the top tower, the kid runs face first into the bell, no sound. After a few moments, the kid gets up and begs the preacher for another try. The preacher tells him to do it, so the kid runs his head into the bell again, then falls out like the time before. When he gets up he again asks the preacher for another try. The preacher just nodes his head so the kid again runs his head into the bell and falls out again. By this time the bell was swinging away. When the kid stood up, the bell hit him in the face and knocked him out the window. He fell to the ground and died. When the police came, they asked the preacher if he knew the kids name. The preacher said," No. But his face sure rings a bell."