"In a bid to encourage employers to hire Muslims, the Australian Queensland Government has invested a sum of 19,100 dollars to debunk the 'myths' surrounding the faith." Employers believe they would need to make special accommodations for their prayers or diet. It's not clear from the article what the myths are. (NewKarala.com)
City’s Anti-Gang March Renamed Peace March
CICERO, Ill — The gang intervention group CeaseFire aims to foster new perspectives this year by organizing a softball tournament between police and inner city youth; hosting a week of community events; and by prompting police to rename the fifth annual “Anti-gang March" with the anti-confrontational moniker, "Peace March." (ChicagoSuburbanNews)
Huge Wildlife Migration Discovered in Africa
"More than a million animals, including elephants, buffaloes, ostriches, lions, giraffes and a rare type of stork, have been unexpectedly seen living and migrating across Southern Sudan," where 25 years of war caused conservationists to believe no wildlife remained. Certain animals even appeared to be thriving more than before — "the numbers of Mongalla gazelle, for example, sky-rocketed." (LiveScience)
Islamic Development Bank Launches $10 Billion Poverty Fund
The Islamic Development Bank launched a multi-billion-dollar Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development, which aims at combatting poverty and its causes in member Islamic countries around the world and in Africa.
Top Ten Guide to the World’s Greenest Companies
Presenting a guide to the greenest companies in the UK and the world. On the top ten lists are Danish and Dutch companies (wind and banking), Swedish and Australian (paper and banking), Japanese and British (electronics, retail and telcom), but, alas, none from America. (The Independent)
How to Get Closer to Your Dad (Book Review)
Like many people’s relationship with their father, mine has never been very close. Yet, if he died today I would be very sorry I didn’t ask him more questions. That’s why I am glad to have met Stuart Gustafson, who co-wrote the new book, Questions to Bring You Closer to Dad. I met him at the National Publicity Summit in New York in March. After looking at his book, I telephoned my father last week. We talked happily for an hour, or more, about his time in the U.S. Marines and what it was like for him to visit his childhood home, and we engaged in small talk, which turns out to be the glue that holds the important stuff together…
Yoga May Help Treat Depression, Anxiety Disorders
Experiments showed improved conditions in people battling depression and anxiety disorders when yoga was introduced, leading researchers to conclude that it could prove a useful tool…
Dell Intends to be Greenest Technology Company on the Planet
"Dell has launched a long-term, global effort to become the greenest technology company on Earth by setting an ambitious Zero Carbon goal whereby it will maximise the energy efficiency of Dell products, and over time offset their carbon impact." (Tech Digest) Thanks, Andrew!
English Fans Pool Cash to Buy Their Own Soccer Team
"As more billionaires buy out clubs, raising ticket prices, fans are gathering online to take back the game. 30,000 fans have already joined in. With an average of 500 signing up daily on their website, myfootballclub.co,uk, they may have more than £1 million ($1.98 million) to shop with within a month." (CS Monitor)
New Device Helps Patients to Grow Back Own Teeth
"Scientists have created a device that can make human teeth grow back. The tiny ultrasound machine fits into a patient’s mouth and gently massages gums stimulating dental growth from the root. It should be available to the public within 2 years." (Scotsman)
Tom’s of Maine Pays Employees To Be Healthy
Tom’s of Maine, which makes natural care products, encourages its employees to choose healthier lifestyles. The company operates two Wellness Centers that offer yoga, personal training, fitness and nutrition classes for workers, and each employee is given a $300 benefit per year to use towards personal wellness. This year, an innovative rewards-based "Wellness Challenge" earned cash awards to employees for eating right and getting fit. No wonder the company was recently honored with the 2007 Healthy Workplace Award by the Governor of Maine.
90-Year-Old Rock Band Takes England By Storm (Video)
Meet The Zimmers, the oldest rock group in the world. Lead singer Alf is 90 and anchors this amazing cover of The Who’s My Generation, already viewed 2 million times on YouTube. Documentary filmmaker Tim Samuels traveled across Britain recruiting isolated and lonely old people from dingy flats and care homes bringing them together for a rock and roll recording session at Abby Road Studios. The story was featured in a BBC-TV documentary in May and on Power to the People, the TV show that started it all. You can buy the CD from Tescos, Woolworths, HAV and Virgin Megastores or buy it online at Amazon-UK. (Click READ MORE for a brilliant video interview with Alf.)
Low-Income Florida Homes Get Hurricane Help
Low-income residents in 12 Florida counties are getting a little extra help this hurricane season to protect their homes from storm damage.
Under the state-funded My Safe Florida Home program, a total of 4,000 homes will be getting hurricane-rated storm shutters, stronger exterior doors, sturdier garage doors and improvements to roofs, all free of charge.
The preparedness program is an attempt by the Florida Legislature to alleviate high home insurance costs while allowing residents to strengthen their homes to better withstand hurricane damage.
“Everybody who lives in the state of Florida should know the importance of having shutters on their windows and just how much more secure you can be,” said 22-year-old Vanessa Hernandez, who was watching as her mother’s home in Broward County was being outfitted with the window coverings. “I feel more secure for them, too.”
Residents in the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, Escambia, Osceola, Glades, Hendry, Pinellas, Polk, Santa Rosa and St. Lucie are participating in the program, which is being coordinated by non-profit agencies in each county and overseen statewide by the Volunteer Florida Foundation.
Strengthening the homes with such things as hurricane-rated window shutters and stronger exterior and garage doors will make them less vulnerable to wind damage during a hurricane.
“If we do all that we can prevent the wind from coming in,” said Yack, who also serves as director of Neighbors to the Rescue and the Florida Faith-Based and Community-Based Advisory Council. “Once the wind comes in the roof tends to come off.”
She said the program would also help maintain the limited amount of affordable housing available in many areas. The program does not include mobile or manufactured homes, apartments, condominiums or businesses.
“It’s really critical that we save as much of our affordable housing inventory as we possibly can,” said Suzanne Yack, a staff member with Volunteer Florida Foundation. “We lost so much with Hurricane Wilma all across southern Florida. Nobody is building new affordable housing, so what we have left we’ve got to protect.”
Dale Hirsch, executive director of Volunteer Broward, one of two non-profit agencies running the program in Broward County, said the program’s $20 million total price tag for the 12 counties is a small amount to pay compared to the monetary damages a hurricane might cause.
“The building process is so expensive, the cost of fixing something is so expensive, it’s cheaper to mitigate it,” Hirsch said.
Several hundred homes have been strengthened so far with another 400 or so undergoing fortifications, according to the My Safe Florida Home website. Yack admitted that many of the homes enrolled so far in the program would not be ready for much of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially began June 1. It ends Nov. 30.
The majority of homes being strengthened are in the south Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Martin, Yack said.
The program began earlier this year. The non-profit agencies responsible for the programs publicized the project, then took applications from residents. In Broward County, 150 homeowners are scheduled to have work done this year; other Broward residents were on a waiting list.
“We had lines out the door,” said Sandy Lloyd, disaster specialist with Volunteer Broward. “There’s way more than 150 we could really help. Way more.”
Once a homeowner has been selected, the Volunteer Florida Foundation sends a certified inspector to the home to conduct a free inspection. The agencies in each county then work with the homeowner to schedule the work, arrange for necessary building permits and hire contractors. Two contractors have been hired in Broward County.
The local groups are asked to find matching funds as well as consider the use of volunteers to assist the contractors in order to leverage the project, Yack said. She said volunteers from faith-based groups, such as Mennonite Disaster Service which have construction experience, were especially welcome, as were people who can help find discounts on shutters, doors and roof bracing materials. “Right now, we have about 20 volunteers waiting for us to tell them what homes to go to,” Lloyd said.
“It’s not just about getting the funds,” Hirsch added. “It’s about layering the project with volunteers. Some actually have some construction background, although probably not a lot. But the ones that don’t can still do a great deal of work that doesn’t require hammering and nails.”
Each project is limited to a maximum of $2,500, eliminating the need for competitive bidding, Yack said. Homeowners can pay extra to upgrade the industrial-style hurricane shutters or have additional work done that may not be covered under the program, she said.
Yack said that the non-profit agencies were quickly learning about construction.
“They didn’t start as experts in shutters,” she said. “They will end this project as experts in shutters (and) be incredibly valuable.”
The low-income home strengthening project is just one part of the My Safe Florida Home program. Another much larger part, with a $250 million budget, involves matching grants of up to $5,000 to homeowners for upgrades. At the start of 2007, the My Safe Florida Home program had received more than 65,000 applications for wind inspections, officials said.
Yack said she expected the low-income program to continue for another year or two, with funding expected to double and the project expanded into other vulnerable counties.
Yack said she expected the low-income program to continue for another year or two, with funding expected to double and the project expanded into other vulnerable counties.
“More money is going to be transferred into the low-income portion of the program because the need is so great,” she said, adding, “And because we’re doing a good job.”
Reproduced with permission from Disaster News Network www.disasternews.net
(c) 2007 Village Life Company
This Online Encyclopedia Catalogs All Life on Earth
Ever wanted to know how many species of birds live on the island of Crete? Or perhaps how many species of animals live in your own home state? Thanks to an ambitious global biodiversity initiative led by groups like the MacArthur Foundation, Smithsonian, and Harvard, the answers to these questions could literally be at your fingertips within the next few years with a new online encyclopedia that promises to catalog all life on Earth.
Consider this: there are 1.8 million known species of plants, animals and other forms of life and this encyclopedia will catalog them all and continue to grow as additional species are discovered placing all of the information in one place. Scientists around the globe have been cataloging life for 250 years in traditional encyclopedias and texts. Gaining access to all of them at present is essentially impossible. The Encyclopedia of Life will change this. Similar to Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Life will allow users to add information and details, such as species sightings and photos; however all content will be authenticated by scientists.
$12.5 million in grants have already been provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with a total of $50 million pledged from various sources.
Access to information will be the key however and copyrights may present a problem. At present, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, one of the partners, is planning to provide a collection of works, totaling 25 million pages, published prior to 1923 as these works are outside of copyright restrictions. Efforts are underway to gather more recent scientific publications however whether all for profit publishers will permit free access to their works in unclear implying that some information may have to be purchased by the user in order to be viewed. Ultimately, the project’s designers say that they want all of the information to be available for free.
This project isn’t exactly unique, however. Another project called the Tree of Life Web Project is already well underway as a collaborative effort from biologists around the world. Begun officially in 1994, the project has had to exist on much smaller sums of money than the encyclopedia of life has secured (thousands versus millions of dollars) funded by the U. S. National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona. The primary difference between the two endeavors, is that the Tree of Life focuses both the branches and leaves of the tree. The branches represent the connections between species, their genetic lineages and the leaves represent the species themselves. The encyclopedia of life will focus exclusively on the species (leaves) suggesting that the Tree of Life Web Project may be more useful for scientific studies involving the genetic linkages between species. The organizers of both projects have arranged for the Tree of Life to be an essential partner for the Encyclopedia of Life. Both projects will result in tremendous benefits to the population of the planet giving us the ability to understand the life around us in ways we never thought possible.
Visit the Encyclopedia of Life online at www.eol.org.
(CC Photo by Andrea Oconnell)
Michael Little works in analytical chemistry and has almost 20 years experience in the research based pharmaceutical industry. Michael resides in Laval, Quebec, with his wife and three children. Michael has written occasional science articles for GNN since 2007.
Ivory Cross-Border Trading Banned by eBay
eBay announced this week a ban on international trading of elephant ivory from all its sites worldwide after an animal welfare group found that 94 percent of the ivory up for auction there was potentially illegal.
Our Thoughts Become Our Reality
There are two camps developing throughout the world. One dwells upon how bad everything is: we are all in trouble; the economy is crashing; after Global Warming we won’t have enough food and water (or too much water); the spiraling war in Iraq; and a whole platter of other problems that continue to get worse. The second camp is growing rapidly, a movement of forward thinkers bringing awareness to the fact that our thoughts and feelings are creating our reality. Authors like Dr. Wayne Dyer, Rhonda Byrne, and Gary Renard and publications such as the Bible and A Course In Miracles all tell us that we create our world by our thoughts…
Baby-boomers like myself watch the news and are astonished at the daily accumulation of world mayhem. Christians whisper of the “End Times”. Moslems speak of a jihad. Newscasters tell us it is worse today than just yesterday.
Yet, if we dwell on world problems, instead of solutions, we will find more problems. If we dwell on bad government, we will find only more bad government. The “Forward Thinkers” know this and are in the process of informing the public of the power held dormant within, that can be released with our thoughts.
Quantum Physicists tell us that energy doesn’t become matter until it is perceived by us.
Earl Nightingale taught us that “We Become What We Think About.”
A number one best seller, The Secret, teaches, “Thoughts Become Things.” The DVD, book and CD set is spreading worldwide the message that, yes, you are creating your reality with your thoughts and perceptions.
The greatest philosophies and religions say that we were made in the image of the great Creator. Teachings by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer say the same thing. Bible Scripture agrees.
This growing second camp of “Forward Thinkers” focuses on the positive. Solutions are foremost in their thoughts. They sift the bad news and concentrate on fixing the problems.
The big question is: Will the second camp grow fast enough to offset the first camp within the next 20 years, a critical time in which to offset the growth rate of the problems.
How can you join the second camp of Forward Thinkers?
How do you become part of saving the world? It involves changing some old habits. Don’t watch the bad news on TV. Shy away from anything negative and replace it with something positive. Your thoughts have amazing power. If you wish to get involved in one of the many issues, concentrate on solutions without attacking who or what you perceive to be wrong.
Get up in the morning and think, this is going to be a great day, and it will. Focus on goodness. Einstein’s much quoted question was “Do you consider the universe friendly or hostile? Think of it as friendly and it will be.” Think of it as hostile and the bad news will continue.
Watch The Secret. Read Wayne Dyers last four books. Visit goodnewsnetwork.org daily for some positive uplifting news.
Seek out other Forward Thinkers. Two minds are better than one. Hundreds or thousands of positive thinkers, joined together, are a force to be reckoned with.
Most importantly, use the techniques taught in “The Secret” and in the books of Dr. Wayne Dyer, like Manifest Your Destiny
If we join the Forward Thinkers we take one step closer to Enlightenment, apparently just in time to save ourselves.
Discover The Secret that transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it — Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.
(Buy It On DVD)
Additional Reading: Gary Renard,
Disappearance of the Universe
(Buy It On DVD)
Disappearance of the Universe
John Hayes owns an alternative energy company in the mountains of North Central Idaho. His intentions include promoting solutions to catastrophic climate change. He lives with his wife and two dogs and was delighted to find Good News Network.
School On Wheels After-School Program for Homeless Kids
Retired teacher Agnes Stevens started on a one-woman crusade with her School On Wheels to tutor homeless children, of which there are 200,000 in California. Since its start in 1993, School On Wheels has grown to 400 volunteers tutoring 3,500 kids a year from 50 homeless shelters in Los Angeles and beyond. Help Agnes reach her goal to spread School On Wheels to every American city. Donate and volunteer at their website. (Life & Times KCET.org)
Coca-Cola Company Pledges to Replace the Water It Uses in Its Beverages and Their Production
The Coca-Cola Company pledged to replace the water it uses in its global beverage operations, and that of its franchise bottlers, as part of a $20 million commitment to the World Wildlife Fund launched to help conserve seven of the world’s most important freshwater river basins. "Our goal is to replace every drop of water we use in our beverages and their production," said the Company’s CEO, E. Neville Isdell…
Philly Cops Honored for Compassion and Fairness
“Philadelphia Police Chief of Staff Kimberly Byrd has won the coveted George Fencl Award – named for the exemplary head of Civil Affairs during the stormy ’60s, and given to an officer who exemplifies his qualities of ‘compassion, dedication, loyalty and fairness’.” Besides her 14-years on the Force, she is being honored today for “her years of service to grassroots community groups like Mothers In Charge and Town Watch, and her years of personally mentoring young African-American women.” (more)
Another police officer in the running for this year’s award was Detective Rose DiLacqua, “a one-woman force protecting the elderly in the department’s CARE Unit, or Crime Against the Retired and Elderly”. “The most important quality of a police officer is fairness,” said the sweet-voiced DiLacqua. “Treat people like how you would want to be treated.”
“‘Good cop’ was an understatement when it came to the young DiLacqua. She spent five years as an undercover narc, infiltrating drug organizations by posing as a curious hustler with a knack for speaking Spanish. In the late ’80s, her investigating skills helped federal agents shutter a large South Philadelphia drug ring that made and sold methamphetamine.”
(Read both these women’s stories at Philly.com here and here)
(Note, some source material has been removed by the source.)
Teaching AIDS Orphans to Farm and Help Themselves
(IRIN) – Twelve-year-old Nhlanhla Matsebula, one of Swaziland’s growing number of children orphaned by AIDS, has good reason to feel proud. He has mastered the skill of plowing a field with a team of oxen and in doing so, saved his late parents’ farm from being taken.
A boy like Nhlanhla would normally follow a plough driven by his father, dropping seeds into the furrows. But their parents left little behind besides land and the children faced eviction from a farm that had been their family home for generations…
