In my mail, I received the story of a woman named Irena Sendler. It was so remarkable that, as I usually do, I checked the veracity of the article. I found that it was true.

Irena Sendlerowa made many trips into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the bleak days of the German occupation of Poland during WWII. She was responsible for smuggling out and saving the lives of 2,500 Jews, most of whom were children.

The Nazis eventually discovered her mission and tortured her. This did not deter Irena, however. And even after the war, Irena tried valiantly to reunite the children with their parents.

For further reading about this heroic woman, please visit the following links:



http://www.irenasendler.org/
http://www.auschwitz.dk/Sendler.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler
http://www.hmd.org.uk/
http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/p126.htm
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/WarsawGhetto/Introduction.html

Indymedia.ie
8 August 2008

Kobra Najjar, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery has lost her final appeal for amnesty. Iranian women’s rights activists working on her case saythat Kobra has exhausted all domestic legal remedies and that her execution by stoning could happen any time. Kobra is a victim of domestic violence who was forced into prostitution by her abusive husband in order to support his heroin addiction. He was murdered by one of Kobra’s “clients” who sympathized with her plight. Kobra has already served 8 years in prison as an accessory to her husband’s murder. The man who murdered her husband also served 8 years in prison and was free after paying blood money and undergoing 100 lashes, while Kobra faces imminent stoning to death for adultery - the prostitution her husband forced upon her. Yet another example of Iranian justice.

But things are getting worse. The regime's Islamic Assembly is set to ratify a bill that will further increase the number of crimes punishable by death to incude 'crimes' deemed to 'disrupt public security' and to 'intensify the scheme of punishment for disrupting the mental security of society.'

The bill establishes that 'weblogs and sites promoting corruption and apostasy are deserving of capital punishment.'

You can help Kobra:

Write to the Iranian officials below, calling for Kobra’s immediate release, the commutation of all sentences of death by stoning and the prohibition by law of all cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments .

President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: http://www.president.ir/en/president/email/index.php

His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Head of the Judiciary
c/o Ministry of Justice
Park-e Shahr
Teheran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: iripr@iranjudiciary.org, irjpr@iranjudiciary.com and info@dadgostary-tehran.ir
Phone: +98 21 22741002, +98 21 22741003, +98 21 22741004, +98 21 22741005

By John von Radowitz
Independent.ie
August 05 2008

VITAMIN C that is injected rather than swallowed can destroy cancer, research has shown.

The therapy halved the growth of aggressive tumours in mice, killing cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.

It could provide a new lifeline for patients with a poor prognosis and few treatment options, scientists suggest.

Tackling cancer with vitamin C would also have the added advantage of being cheap.

Usually the body keeps a tight rein on vitamin C levels in the blood. But scientists found that the mechanism can be by-passed if the vitamin is injected straight into the bloodstream instead of passing through the digestive system.

When this is done it releases the powerful anti-cancer potential of the vitamin, according to the researchers.

Experiments showed that high levels of vitamin C in the blood generate hydrogen peroxide, which is lethal to tumours.

The chemical forms in the spaces between cancer cells, damaging membranes, upsetting metabolism, and scrambling DNA. Even the growth of aggressive, hard-to-treat cancers was held back in the studies.

But healthy tissues appeared to resist the effects.

The use of high dose vitamin C as a complementary or alternative cancer treatment has a long history dating back to the 1970s. Patients have taken the vitamin both by mouth and intravenously.

But despite some positive outcomes, reliable evidence that the therapy works has been lacking.

Experts

For this reason claims that vitamin C can treat cancer have been dismissed by conventional cancer experts.

The new US investigation led by Dr Qi Chen, from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, involved testing the effects of vitamin C on laboratory cell lines and cancer-ridden mice.

In the laboratory, two hours of exposure to the vitamin significantly reduced the survival of ovarian, pancreatic and brain tumour (glioblastoma) cancer cells.

Similar results were seen when mice bearing the same kinds of tumours were injected with vitamin C.

- John von Radowitz

Two similar and detailed e-fits of suspects in the Madeleine McCann case composed three days after the disappearance have been made public for the first time – 15 months after she vanished.

By Caroline Gammell in Portimao
Telegraph
05 Aug 2008

The image of a young, white man with dark and deep set eyes was put together from sightings by British holidaymaker Derek Flack and British expat Lance Purser.


Portuguese police resisted releasing the efits because of secrecy laws and the fear of prejudicing any further investigation (Photo: PA)

Mr Flack saw a man acting suspiciously around Kate and Gerry McCann's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz just before their three-year-old daughter went missing.

Mr Purser said he had seen a similar man in the weeks running up to Madeleine's disappearance.

( >>Continued )

Sunday Life
3 August 2008

It is estimated that there are up to 20,000 victims each year. Some estimates put the number of children kidnapped or sold on the black market closer to 70,000

Behind the glitz of the Beijing Olympics which begins this week China hides a shameful secret — up to 20,000 children are being sold on the black market each year.

The secret trade is booming due to China's controversial one-baby rule introduced in 1979 to curb a population explosion.

Chen Jie's parents

Parents must have a birth permit to have a child. If they don't and they are discovered, they are fined. If couples have a second child, they have to pay a fine.

Many poor families can't afford to raise a child, pay the fees and feed themselves, so they feel selling their child is the only way to survive, but even more children are kidnapped.

While China tries to focus the world’s attention on the Olympics, thousands of families are still desperately trying to trace their children who have been sold to strangers.

The Chen family’s son, five-year-old Chen Jie, disappeared after helping his grandmother on her vegetable stall. He was being taken home by a neighbour, Zhang, who is believed to have sold him. The going price for a boy on the black market is around £650 — six months' wages for an average Chinese worker. ( >>Continued )

Tags: news

Long ago I read a book about ghost hunting, The Demonologist, written by a husband and wife team, Ed and Lorraine Warren. They would go round from house to house all over everywhere, checking out and documenting people's stories of being haunted and terrorised by spirits and ghosts and such. The book is a very compelling read. Lorraine Warren has her own website: The New England Society for Psychic Research.

This particular tale is one from the book which I found on another site. It is chilling.

Annabelle, the Haunted Doll

the fan blows cool air
my mind has hamsters running
on wheels in my head

Daily Express



A visitor accidentally stumbled into a cordoned off 9 ft tall sculpture called 'Christina' [see photo] and broke it!

Subsequent visitors thought the broken shards on the ground were part of the exhibit and snapped pictures of it all. *cough*

The loss is over $12,000. *more coughing...*

'Christina' was considered to be the star of the show, but this is understandable when you know that the woman curator named Tracey Emin [seen above amongst the art with the ill-fitting blouse and bad hair] of this year's 240th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, sparked controversy with explicit art works including a sculpture of hands and penises [I believe one of those is also visible here if I am not mistaken...] and a video of a naked woman hula-hooping with barbed wire.

ohhhhhkayyy...

Neale wants me to know that God thinks I should know...

'...that it is better to do now what you will have to do eventually.

You know, right now, what you will have to do eventually. Your stomach is telling you right now.

You just don't want to have to listen to it; don't want to believe it.

Believe it. The tummy knows. How many times in your life must you prove this to yourself?'


**Insert pregnant pause here, rife with consternation and procrastinated thought...

Uhh, Neale, NO!! Now is not the time. Tomorrow is another day. I'm gonna go with Scarlet O'Hara on this one.

*pours self glass of cheap wine and sits down*