Somewhere

"if the branch office has decided that he can be appointed or continue serving in a position of trust because the sin occurred many years ago and because he has lived an exemplary life since then, his name should not appear on the List, nor is it necessary to pass on information about the brother's past sin if he moves to another congregation".

This is the text of a letter sent to all Presiding Overseers in the UK. It was given to an elder by his PO. This elder was so shocked by what he read he had two copies made and had them notarised by a solicitor as true copies... Download The Complete Letter Here (Word Document)

After over a decade of rising drug use, Europe may now be entering a more stable phase, says the EU drugs agency, the EMCDDA. Not only are there signs that heroin use and drug injecting have become generally less common, but new data suggest that levels of cannabis use may now be stabilising after a sustained period of growth. Nevertheless, positive messages are marred by high levels of drug-related deaths and rising cocaine use. These comments come today as the agency launches its 2007 Annual report on the state of the drugs problem in Europe in Brussels.... Download (PDF)

Hallucinogenic mushrooms were among the first psychoactive substances consumed by man. But today they present us with a new dilemma’, says EMCDDA Director Wolfgang Götz in the latest edition in the agency’s policy briefing series Drugs in focus out today.
Entitled Hallucinogenic mushrooms: the challenge of responding to naturally occurring substances in an electronic age, the briefing raises questions such as: ‘How to effectively regulate such a complex group of naturally occurring products?’ ‘How to apply controls when they are promoted and sold globally via the Internet?’ and ‘What can be done when regulatory actions may simply result in suppliers switching to alternative and possibly even more damaging products?’ ....Download (PDF)

If Gordon Brown could Rap this is how bad it would be.....The Singapore government, which has attracted considerable notoriety for strict censorship of movies and other media, has surprisingly produced a hit rap video that it has posted on YouTube. According to Reuters, the video, posted by Singapore's Media Development Authority, had received 11,000 hits by Thursday. The video features a number of corporate-executive types using rap-video gestures and "singing" lyrics extolling the advantages of doing business in Singapore. It cuts away to a number of actual corporate executives who contribute their own verses to the "song."

A call has gone out to beachcombers, fish farmers, boatmen and anyone else on Scotland's coast to prepare for the invasion of the jellyfish.
Earlier this week it was revealed the invaders had choked Northern Ireland's only fish farm, killing 100,000 fish and causing £1 million of damage Today it was reported around 140,000 young salmon have been killed north of Belfast and around 15 miles from a the first incident. Now huge numbers of the stinging baby jellyfish are swarming in Scottish waters and yesterday the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) launched a recruitment drive for volunteer sentries on our beaches to maintain a lookout...... They are to report amy sighting of these unseasonal blooms as part of a national surveillance operation, the MCS Jellyfish Survey.

This month MCS has already received reports of millions of baby mauve stinger and compass jellyfish occurring off Skye, the Isle of Eigg, as well as off Ullapool and Durness in Sutherland.

"It is quite unusual for this number of juvenile jellyfish to be occurring in UK waters at this time of year," said Anne Saunders, MCS Scottish Projects Officer.

"But these blooms are phenomenal and consist of millions of individuals, being washed here by strong Atlantic currents."

While compass jellyfish are common throughout UK waters during the summer, mauve stingers are relatively uncommon and are usually only occasionally recorded in the southwest. Both can sting.

In recent years the mauve stinger has bloomed in vast numbers in the Mediterranean, presenting a significant bathing hazard to holidaymakers.

The latest reports of the jellyfish invasion came from Durness in the north west of Sutherland last week, when a Highland Council Ranger reported thousands of compass jellyfish (Chrysaora hysoscella) washing ashore on Balnakeil Beach after gale force winds.

Before that, MCS received reports of huge blooms of baby mauve stingers (Pelagia noctiluca) off Skye in early November, followed by reports of mass compass jellyfish strandings on the Isle of Eigg.

Last week a fisherman reported more huge blooms of small mauve stingers in Ullapool harbour and around the nearby Summer Isles.

Similarly large swarms of juvenile mauve stinger jellyfish have been recorded off the coasts of Ireland and Northern Ireland since the end of October, and eventually they mounted their attack on the Antrim coast fish farm.

MCS is asking Scottish fish farmers in particular to be vigilant.

Ms Saunders said: "We are urging fish farmers to report any jellyfish blooms they encounter to MCS, through our Fish Farmers Wildlife Reporting Scheme.

"Jellyfish swarms can impact on fish and shellfish farms, and while the conditions causing these current events remain unclear, such swarms may become more prevalent in Scottish waters as a result of climate change.

"Therefore, the MCS Jellyfish Survey could prove to be a useful tool in monitoring this situation."

Over 4,500 jellyfish encounters have been reported since the MCS Jellyfish Survey was launched in 2003. The survey data will be fully analysednext year in collaboration with the University of Exeter's Centre for Ecology & Conservation, but initial analysis of these public reports is already showing interesting differences in the distribution of the six larger jellyfish species around Britain.

MCS recommends that survey participants do not touch any jellyfish they encounter as some species can inflict a painful sting.