Astronauts spot Texas wildfires from space

They send down prayers and pictures of damaged lands from space station

The wildfires burning in Texas are visible all the way from space, as seen in photos by astronauts on the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Mike Fossum was particularly saddened to see the fires, because Bastrop State Park, one of the damaged areas, is a favorite spot of his.

Fossum asked Mission Control to update him about the fires, which have raged over thousands of acres in Central Texas during the past week. The fires are thought to have been spurred by winds from Tropical Storm Lee, which swirled over the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend and made landfall on the Gulf Coast.

"Did you guys confirm that the state park Bastrop is one of the directly affected areas with the fire in that region?" Fossum asked from space on Tuesday.

"Yes Mike, unfortunately that's true," capcom Jay Marschke replied from Houston. "The news agencies are reporting up to two-thirds of the park has been burned and hundreds of homes in the area have been destroyed."

Fossum, an avid outdoorsman, according to NASA spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters, was stunned.

"Oh, wow," he said. "Wow, that's rough news. Thanks. We're really thinking about all those folks through there."

Fossum has experience as a scout leader and hiker, Cloutier-Lemasters said, and counts Bastrop State Park as one of his favorite hiking spots.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected," Fossum wrote on Twitter, under the name @astro_aggie, Tuesday.

The Bastrop County Complex fire is now 30 percent contained. Texas, in the grip of one of the worst droughts in the state's history, has seen 3.5 million acres burn so far this year.

Fossum wasn't the only one in orbit affected by the news. His crew mate on the space station, Ron Garan, also tweeted about the fires.

"Prayers for those in harm's way," Garan wrote Tuesday under the name "Astro_Ron." Garan posted a series of photos of the fires from above, where wisps of gray smoke can be seen wafting away from our planet.

Garan and Fossum are currently living on the International Space Station along with one Japanese astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts. Garan was originally scheduled to return to Earth on Thursday, but a Russian rocket failure has delayed his return until Sept. 15. Fossum is expected to fly back home in mid-November.

News from - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44431666/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001

Jennifer Ehle's 'Contagion' scientist role grows

The ads for Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion" flaunt the pandemic-nightmare drama's high-powered cast: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet. Not pictured: The actress playing the CDC researcher working desperately to find a vaccine, an actress who happens to have a BAFTA, a SAG and two Tony Awards on her shelf. But Jennifer Ehle understands; she felt as if her Dr. Ally Hextall had a couple of strikes against her from the start.

"That particular story line originally ended with Ally making (a radical choice), and then you never saw her again. And I remember Steven saying, 'Oh, we must tie that up,' " says Ehle, admitting she was afraid her story line would be slashed to ribbons. "They're never going to get to the point when they edit this together and they need more story. And they have so many extraordinary people in this, I couldn't imagine this character ... and I thought, even in Steven's hands, many people won't want more science. Then suddenly, in the spring, three more scenes arrived" for additional shooting.

"And apparently when it was tested, what people - and most hearteningly, young people - wanted was more science. That's our future, and I think that's a really good sign that that had a lot to do with what made Ally amplified."

The remarkably beautiful Ehle reads as warm, vivacious and possessed of a powerful intellectual curiosity. So it's no surprise she soaked up all she could in sessions with epidemiologist Dr. Ian Lipkin, whom the New York Times once dubbed the man from whom viruses can't hide.

Respect science more

"To be able to do the kind of experiments and be talked through so many things I would have had to study for years to get a chance to do - to mash up brains and code things and discover sequencing," she says, beaming, "I came away with even more respect for science than I had before. Which I think is fairly unfashionable."

Although Lipkin's Columbia University team was eager to share the secrets of the microscopic creatures that can kill us all, the actress was equally excited by more mundane details.

"The simple way you open one thing when you're holding another thing and another thing. You know, they thought I'd find it useful to know how to code the DNA. 'Well, that's great, it's extraordinary to be here learning it, but - to be able to hold something like that ...'

"And just to watch the way he explained things. Ally had to explain so much of the science to the audience, which I loved. Ian does it in such an unintimidating way, so that helped me figure out how to do that too."

Parallel story lines

The film follows several parallel story lines - CDC researchers (led by Ehle), field operatives (such as Winslet) and bosses (Fishburne); a World Health Organization epidemiologist (Cotillard) tracking the outbreak's source; an ordinary family (Damon, Paltrow).

And then there's Jude Law's conspiracy theorist blogger Alan Krumweide, whose alarmist rhetoric starts its own kind of contagion from his base in San Francisco. Law had no scenes with Ehle but shares her birthday and worked with her in 1997's "Wilde." They met when, as teens, they attended a protest to save the foundations of the Rose Theatre near London.

Law enjoyed some unique experiences of his own while shooting in the city.

"Going to the 49ers stadium when it was empty with a huge helicopter hovering over it was quite a one-off experience," he says.

He also got to storm out of the newsroom of this paper, shouting, "Print is a dead medium!" And then there was walking through San Francisco streets deserted but for refuse bags and men in biohazard suits.

"Those images are sort of at the heart of what's effective about the film. It's a terrific city to walk around, San Francisco, it's similar to New York or London that way; the life on the streets. So stepping onto a set that was like a ghost town was really harrowing."

News from - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/01/PKOF1KTBAT.DTL#ixzz1XQebsu9b

Jonathan Taylor Thomas celebrates the big 3-0

Another sign that we're all getting old. Jonathan Taylor Thomas turned 30 on Thursday (Sept. 8).

The first crush for many 1990s teen girls rocketed to stardom for his role as Randy Taylor on the long-running ABC hit "Home Improvement." After leaving the show, Thomas continued with acting and voiceover work, but certainly not with the pace or notoriety he achieved during the "Home Improvement" years.

Thomas, whose real name Jonathan Weiss, enrolled at Harvard in 2000 and went for two years. He ultimately graduated from Columbia University in 2010.

Thomas recently got back together with his TV family for an EW photo shoot. While he's all grown up, he still looks much like the fresh-faced kid America knew from the show.

As for what he's up to these days, his TV mom Patricia Richardson knows.

She posted on Twitter, "Jonathan is acting, and he wants to direct!"

Happy Birthday JTT.

News from - http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/09/jonathan-taylor-thomas-celebrates-the-big-3-0.html

Now 'Indian Muzahiddin' email claims Delhi blast

New Delhi, Sep 8 (IANS) An email attributed to 'Indian Muzahiddin' has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's blast outside the Delhi High Court that killed 12 people.

The email, written in Hindi but in the Roman script, denied that the Pakistani-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) had planted the briefcase bomb outside the Gate No.5 of the court complex in the heart of the capital.

The email, sent to the TV Today network Thursday reads: 'Delhi blast kal Delhi me hue blast me HuJI ka haath ho hi nahin sakta hai. Kyunki use hamne anjam diya hai. Hamne pehle se yeh plan banaya tha ki Wednesday ke din hi blast karna hai kyunki us din wahan sabse jyada crowd hoti hai. Ise hamne yani INDIAN MUZAHIDDIN NE ANJAM DIYA HAI. Huji ka toh isme dur dur tak koi wasta nahin hai. Hamara agla target jald hi rang layega jo ek shoppping complex ke bahar hoga. Use koi nahin rok sakta. Aur yeh agle Tuesday ko hoga. Rok sako toh rok lo.'

The email roughly translates into: 'HuJI hand cannot be behind the Delhi blast because we have done it. We had planned it earlier for Wednesday because the crowd is usually huge there on that day. We, the Indian Muzahiddin, have done it. HuJI is not even remotely connected to it. Our next target is coming soon which will be outside a shopping complex. Nobody can stop that. And this will be done on next Tuesday. Stop us if you can.'

The email was sent from an ID chotoominani5@gmail.com and is signed off by the user calling himself 'Chotoo, member INDIAN MUZAHIDDIN'.

It wasn't immediately clear whether 'Indian Muzahiddin' was a mis-spelling of Indian Mujahideen (IM), a home grown group believed to be affiliated to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. The IM has claimed responsibilty for various blasts in the past in emails written in English and sent from different IDs. However, none of these emails have misspelt the name as 'Indian Muzahiddin'.

Secretary (Internal Security) U.K. Bansal said the email was not being taken lightly. 'We will examine it and let you know,' he told reporters.

News from - http://in.news.yahoo.com/now-indian-muzahiddin-email-claims-delhi-blast-115420697.html

Advani discloses he was aware of cash-for-votes sting operation

New Delhi, Sep 8 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran Lal Krishna Advani today hailed as 'whistle- blowers' the two former party MPs jailed in connection with the cash for vote scam, and dared the government to arrest him claiming that he was aware of a sting conducted by his party in 2008 to expose the United Progressive Alliance's willingness to buy support to survive a trust vote.

Amid repeated disruptions from the Congress lawmakers in Lok Sabha, Advani made a strong defence of the two former MPs - Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora during the July 22, 2008 confidence vote.

"Whatever was done was done as per constitutional norms. If anything was wrong, I would have stopped them. They were whistle-blowers who honestly reported the matter in the House. They presented the money. That time I was the Leader of the Opposition and I know the facts... I believe that these two members have done a great service to democracy by bringing in Parliament the Rs one crore given to them," Advani said in the din of the House during the Question Hour.

Advani, who is also the working chairman of National Democratic Alliance (NDA), lamented that "those who voted for the government 'through dishonesty' by taking money are sitting here comfortably, but my two friends, who honestly served the country are in jail."

Both the Houses of Parliament were adjourned today following uproar by BJP lawmakers, as they demanded discussion on the cash for vote scam.

As soon as the Question Hour commenced, the opposition disrupted the proceedings of the Lok Sabha, as they demanded discussion on the cash for vote scam, which led to the arrest of former Samajwadi Party (SP) General Secretary Amar Singh and two former BJP lawmakers Faggan Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora.

Similar scenes were witnessed in the Rajiya Sabha over the issue forcing chairman Hamid Ansari to suspend the proceedings.

The cash-for-votes scam had rocked proceedings in the Lok Sabha in 2008, when the ruling UPA Government, led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, allegedly bribed lawmakers of other parties to help wining the confidence vote. (ANI)

News from - http://in.news.yahoo.com/advani-discloses-aware-cash-votes-sting-operation-100826884.html