Dec 25? - 29? : Persian Gulf Environmental Art Festival in Hormoz Island
Dec 25 : Christmas
Dec 21 : Shab-e Yalda
Dec 1 : LAST DAY! Green Card Lottery
Nov 27 - 28 : Thanksgiving (Video)
Nov 22 - 23 : Ski and Snowboard Show in Sacramento
Nov 14 - 16 : Ski and Snowboard Show in San Jose
Nov 13 - 16 : International Animation Festival in San Francisco
Nov 4 : General Election (Results)
Nov 2 : End of DST (set clock 1 hour backward)
Oct 31 : Halloween (Video)
Oct 13 : World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay
Oct 7? : Decompression (Burning Man) in SF (100 Photos)
Oct 9 - 14 : Fleet Week (Blue Angels Air Show) in SF
Oct 5 : Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon in San Jose
Oct 5 : Bridge to Bridge Run in SF
Oct 4 - 5 : Dragon Boat Festival in SF
Oct 4 : Love Fest in SF
Oct 4 : Sandcastle Classic in San Francisco
Oct 2 - Dec 1 : Green Card Lottery
Oct 3 - 12 : International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, NM
Audio and Text of Hafez
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Smart Voter - find your ballot and info
]]>A growing number of British couples are undergoing procedures at clinics overseas to determine the gender of their babies. However, as the BBC's Colette McBeth reports, this service is often offered illegally.
Like many a story, it started out with a simple conversation with a friend.
Is that really possible? I remember asking, before going straight home to my laptop and typing the words "gender selection" in the search engine.
My friend had told me she knew of someone who was going abroad to have a daughter through IVF.
The woman in question had two boys, both conceived naturally, but had a burning desire for a girl and didn't want to leave anything to chance.
Once on the internet, I was amazed to learn how many women not only wanted the same but felt so strongly about it.
I found whole websites devoted to discussion about where gender selection was legal (not the UK or most of Europe) and the cost of treatment (anything from £7,000 to £17,000).
Women who had four boys but couldn't rest until they had a daughter, or three girls and desperately wanted a son.
And this wasn't a cultural thing. If anything, girls won over boys.
It is possible to almost guarantee the sex of a baby using IVF and a type of embryos screening called Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).
In most countries, though, PGD is used only for medical reasons. So if there is a genetic disease which runs in boys, couples would be allowed to have PGD to implant only female embryos.
Website advert
Some countries, such as the US and Russia, do allow sex selection - but I quickly realised there was a problem with all of this.
Many patients who were planning to go abroad were completely confused as to where it was legal and where it wasn't.
And some clinics seemed to be profiting out of the confusion.
One such clinic is the Jinemed Center in Istanbul. It has a slick website and boasts the claim "life begins with us".
It was also advertising on a gender selection website. You could even plan a fortnight's break in the sun, tell your friends you're taking the family on holiday and go for IVF/PGD.
The only problem with all of that is that gender selection is illegal in Turkey.
No matter, I found many posts in which women said they'd had treatment there or had been told it was possible.
And it happened two Jinemed representatives were coming to London for the weekend to see prospective patients.
Secret filming
So one Sunday a few weeks ago I went along to a dental practice in Shepherds Bush in London where the Jinemed had hired a room.
I took a small handbag which in itself was fairly normal except this one contained a hidden camera. We (my husband accompanied me) waited an hour to be seen.
The doctor and nurse had been rushed off their feet, it seemed.
Two days of back-to-back appointments - and 50% of those couples wanted sex selection.
I began to explain our story. "I'm 33 and we have two boys conceived naturally and..."
Before I could finish the nurse interjected with a smile. "And you want a daughter."
Over the course of half an hour they explained the costs involved and said we could have the whole procedure done in Turkey.
They also said they normally put in three embryos. That rang alarm bells.
The maximum in the UK is two and most doctors would like to see that reduced to one because multiple pregnancy is the single greatest risk with IVF.
Baby impact
In an earlier conversation it was suggested any extra foetuses could be "taken out" or aborted if I did get pregnant with twins or triplets.
I showed Professor Peter Braude of King's College London our footage.
Having been involved in IVF for many years he advocates implanting only one embryo in women going for fertility treatment.
He said: "Putting three embryos back in a young woman is really bad practice because of the high risk of multiple pregnancy.
"So even if you went abroad for treatment and had your IVF treatment you're bringing those twins back for care in this country - and besides the impact on the NHS there's significant impact on those babies."
Despite being told we had filmed its representatives offering to carry out the procedure, the Jinemed Center says it does not do it, and always warns patients about the risks of multiple pregnancies.
But, after contacting the Turkish government with our findings, it has now launched an official investigation into the Jinemed Center and warned UK patients not to travel there for gender selection.
Proof if needed that the desire to complete a family with a son or a daughter by going down the "high tech" route could turn into a legal nightmare.
]]>EU lawmakers have delayed the introduction at airports of full body scanners, machines that generate images of passengers - minus their clothes.
MEPs voted for a further study on the implications for privacy and health.
Computer pictures generated by the scanners give an outline of passengers' bodies beneath their clothes.
Supporters say they detect hidden objects not picked up by traditional metal detectors. But critics say they amount to a virtual strip search.
The new scanners have already been introduced in several US airports and have been tested around the world.
Efficient measure
The European Commission - which supports their implementation - has given assurances that the scanners will not be used routinely on all passengers.
And it would be a faster and less intrusive alternative to frisking or strip-searching people.
Where scanners are in use, security staff can pick out individuals to stand in a booth while three pictures are taken of the person in slightly different positions.
Within seconds, a scanner produces an image of the body.
What shows up is the naked human form and anything that may be concealed, such as a gun or drugs.
"The Commission believes that body scanning methods can complement in a very effective and efficient way the existing security measures at airports," said spokesman Jens Mester at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
But others are unconvinced.
"It is unacceptable, if scanners are used, these are machines that see you completely naked," said Martin Schulz, leader of the socialist grouping in the EU assembly.
"This is an offence against human dignity," he added.
]]>Sep : Mehregaan
Sep 27 - 28 : International Air Show in Salinas, CA
Sep 21 : Peace Day
Sep 19 - 21 : Balloon Fair in Montague, CA
Sep 14 - Oct 7 : Mid-Autumn Lantern Celebration in Hong Kong
Sep 12 : Moonlight Run & Walk in Palo Alto
Sep 7? : Opera in the Park in SF
Sep 5 - 7 : The Great Reno Balloon Race in Reno
Sep 1 - 30 : Sand Sculpture World Championship, Canada
Aug 27 : La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain
Aug 25 - Sep 1 : Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV (100 Photos)
Aug 22 - 24 : Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in SF
Aug 18 - 19 : Notting Hill Carnival in London, UK
Aug 16 : Partial Lunar Eclipse in Eastern Hemisphere as well as eastern South America
Aug 11 - 16 : Miss Teen USA in Paradise Island, Bahamas
Aug 8 - 24 : 2008 Olympics
Aug 3 : SF Marathon in San Francisco
Aug 1 : Total Solar Eclipse in northeastern North America, most of Europe and Asia
Aug : Prix Fixe in Palo Alto
Jul 26 - 27 : Kite Festival in Berkeley
Jul : Grand Prix in San Jose (Moved to Monterey)
Jul 26 : Lantern Festival in Victoria, Canada
Jul 16 : Rooze Pedar
Jul 14 - 20 : World Body-painting Championships in Seeboden, Austria
Jul 6 - 14 : Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain
Jul 1 - 4 : Rainbow Gathering in Big Sandy, Wyoming
Jul 1 : CHIN BIKINI in Canada
Persian Calendar
]]>Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.
Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies.
The authors believe their findings may help to explain why voters' minds are so hard to change.
In the study, conducted in Nebraska, 46 volunteers were first asked about their political views on issues ranging from foreign aid and the Iraq war to capital punishment and patriotism.
Those with strong opinions were invited to take part in the second part of the experiment, which involved recording their physiological responses to a series of images and sounds.
The images included pictures of a frightened man with a large spider on his face and an open wound with maggots in it. The subjects were also startled with loud noises on occasion.
Conducting experiments
By measuring the electrical conductance of the volunteers' skin and their blink responses, the scientists were able to work out the degree of fear they were experiencing - how sensitive they were to the images and sounds.
They found that subjects who were more easily startled tended to have political views that would be classified as more right wing, being more in favour of capital punishment and higher defence spending, but opposed to abortion rights.
The scientists explained that these political positions were protective of the volunteers' social groups.
"We focussed primarily on things that we call 'protecting the social unit'," said John Hibbing from the University of Nebraska.
"So the idea is we have this unit - maybe it's the US - and we want to protect this from outsiders; so we might be opposed to immigration, we might advocate patriotism, and we like leaders who are strong and clear who are able to protect us from those outsiders.
"We might even be opposed to pornography or any kind of corrosive element that we see threatening the social unit.
"On the other hand, you have people who are more supportive of pacifism and who advocate gun control - and there are lots of areas where people who are less sensitive to threat would project those kinds of feelings into the political arena."
Different strokes
The researchers say there is no political relevance to their research - but Dr Hibbing feels it may help explain why it is so hard to change someone's mind in a political debate.
Different people, he said, started from a different psychological point.
"You have people who are experiencing the world, who are experiencing threat, differently.
"It's just that we have these very different physiological orientations. We're not sure where they came from, they may be genetic, they may be something from childhood; we do know, though, that they run deep because it's a reflex, it's not something you can change tomorrow, the depth of that may be something of an asset in figuring out why people are so stubborn in their political beliefs," he said.
"I even have the hope that this might facilitate understanding a little bit. Instead of political opponents thinking the opposite party are being wilfully bull-headed, you can say 'well ok, they see the world differently than I do'.
"People haven't just thought about things differently, they feel things differently."
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