Blog-heap o' links from 2006-Apr

SUN 2006-APR-30

Theftboston.com/ ... 14:49:50NEWPORT NEWS, Va. --A woman and her adult son have been convicted of trying to extort money from the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain by claiming they found a dead mouse in a bowl of soup while celebrating Mother's Day in 2004...

Under Sexist Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:41:19Saudi Arabia is mainly viewed by others as a traditionally conservative society, particularly in its attitudes towards women. But, below the surface change is happening, even if reformers are wary of moving too quickly in case they face a traditionalist backlash... Time and again, the women I met in Jeddah and Riyadh insisted how women dressed was not the priority, that reform in Saudi Arabia was about other things... tiscali.co.uk/ ... 10:55:54A Pakistani couple were released on Saturday after serving five years in jail for adultery, their only crime having been to fall in love and get married... news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:55:39Inside a luxurious compound, a Qatari woman has been made a prisoner in her bedroom and sometimes starved and beaten for shaming her family by fleeing Doha in 2002 to marry an Egyptian man...

Threatssuntimes.com/ ... 14:49:20Chicago... The gun buyback wasn't supposed to start until 10 a.m. Saturday, but by 9 a.m., the line of people with guns in hand at the Rev. Michael Pfleger's St. Sabina Church in Auburn-Gresham was already stretching down the block. So the Chicago Police officers who were there started taking the guns -- 40 by 9:10 a.m. And so it went citywide... Even police -- who had set a goal of 500 guns -- were surprised by how many were turned in. They collected TEC-9s, AK-47s, AK-15s, sawed-off shotguns, antique rifles, ammunition and more... wnbc.com/ ... 10:52:59NEWARK, N.J... A pistol found in the car of a drug suspect arrested recently in Newark was made of plastic, so it might pass through a security scan unnoticed. The unusual find concerned Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura so much that he took the Professional Ordnance Carbon-15 Type-97 pistol to Newark Liberty Airport and saw that in a security scanner, it did not look like a weapon. Only the stainless steel barrel was visible... fires .233-caliber ammunition so fast it can penetrate a bulletproof vest... worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:46:08Mossad chief Meir Dagan, in Washington last week in preparation for a visit to the U.S. by Olmert on May 23, held secret meetings with U.S. officials to discuss Iran's nuclear program... an Israeli intelligence source.. believes Dagan's message to Washington policy makers was simple and blunt: "This is what we know and this is what we'll do if you continue to do nothing..."

Scary Timesapnews.myway.com/ ... 10:33:21the Los Angeles Times rack was fitted with a digital musical device designed to play the "Mission: Impossible" theme song when the door was opened. But in some cases, the red plastic boxes with protruding wires were jarred loose and dropped onto the stack of newspapers inside, alarming customers. Sheriff's officials said they rendered the news rack in this suburb 35 miles north of downtown Los Angeles "safe" after being called to the scene Friday by a concerned individual who thought he'd seen a bomb...

9/11 - still with usbergen.com/ ... 10:31:17...a towering skyscraper on Ground Zero. What a horrible idea -- for reasons both emotional and practical... In an ideal world, this 16-acre site would be a park, with an appropriate memorial to the 2,749 people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Towers... What corporations would rent space in this building, on the site of the two biggest terrorist attacks on American soil? Nobody is rushing to sign up, and there have been few takers to lease space... he New York governor declared yesterday: "We are not going to just build low in the face of a war against terror. We are going to soar to new heights and reclaim New York's skyline." Why doesn't he just call it the Target Center?.. Stop the bulldozers!..

Animals can be Dangerousseattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 10:28:50A coyote that had apparently lost its fear of people was shot and killed Friday in this east Seattle suburb by an agent of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The young male is believed to be the same coyote that nipped two children in the area Tuesday... Both children, and a woman bitten in March, are undergoing rabies shots... the animal's head was too damaged to allow rabies testing...

Industrial Tragedyzaman.com/ ... 10:25:39An explosion in a Chinese coal mine claimed the lives of 27 people in the Shanxi province in Northeastern China... Before the explosion, 39 workers were reportedly down the mine; only seven were rescued...
more than 6,000 people died in mine disasters in China last year from more than 3,300 explosions. It is claimed that more than 20,000 workers die in China every year due to insufficient security and inferior equipment... smh.com.au/ ... 10:24:40TWO goldminers trapped underground and feared dead for five days were found alive last night as a Tasmanian town's grim vigil ended in an astounding story of survival and celebration. "They're alive, they're alive, they're alive," cried Todd Russell's mother... They had been trapped since last Tuesday night, when a seismic event triggered rock falls, killing their workmate Larry Knight, 44, whose body was retrieved on Thursday...

Violencesuntimes.com/ ... 14:48:03Chicago... A 23-year-old Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq died Saturday, five days after he was shot in the head during an altercation on a Northwest Side street... no additional information... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:41:53There has been a car bomb attack near an oil refinery in Nigeria's Delta region... no casualties... The Mend militant group said it carried out the blast, as a warning against Chinese expansion in the region... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:38:50Iraq has accused Iranian forces of entering Iraqi territory and shelling Kurdish rebel positions in the north. Iranian troops bombed border areas near the town of Hajj Umran before crossing into Iraq, the defence ministry in Baghdad said on Sunday. It said the Iranians targeted the PKK, a Kurdish group that has waged a 15-year insurgency against Turkey... abcnews.go.com/ ... 10:27:55American and Iraqi forces have killed more than 20 insurgents during raids in areas used by militants to stage attacks in Baghdad...
Sunday, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in central Tikrit... set a Humvee on fire and caused U.S. casualties, but the U.S. command could not immediately confirm that... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:05:29Legacy of insanity in Nepal... If reason had prevailed "Prince" Gyanendra would still be living in the shadow of his widely respected brother King Birendra... But on 1 June 2001 reason stepped aside for madness. King Birendra's son Prince Dipendra staggered down the stairs of the royal palace in a drunken stupor, walked into the drawing room where most of his family were spending the evening and opened fire with an M-16 assault rifle...

Under Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:04:47A once high-flying official has been sacked from the Cuban government, accused of arrogance, dishonesty and the abuse of power. Juan Carlos Robinson was one of 24 members of the Politburo of the country's ruling Communist Party. His dismissal coincides with a structural re-organisation of the party, including the revival of an organisation from the Soviet era...

Mass Murdering Monstersabcnews.go.com/ ... 10:29:08Three security contractors were killed and two others were injured Sunday in a roadside bomb attack 30 miles south of Baghdad... forbes.com/ ... 10:21:50Police in Afghanistan today found the headless body of an Indian engineer kidnapped two days before by Taliban militants, a killing that earned swift condemnation from New Delhi... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:05:42Anti-terrorist experts are floundering about trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers in the UK and the rest of Europe... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:04:25Suspected Maoist rebels have killed 13 villagers kidnapped earlier this week in central India... They were among more than 50 villagers taken hostage on Tuesday. Some of the other hostages were reportedly freed... About 6,000 people have been killed in violence linked to the Maoist rebels in several southern and eastern states over the past 20 years...

Nature is Dangeroussciencedaily.com/ ... 00:02:32To truly understand some of the movement we see at the Earth's surface, scientists have to probe deep into the interior. A region near the planet's core, about 1,800 miles down called the core-mantle boundary, is particularly intriguing. Through novel experiments mimicking high-pressures and temperatures there, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory may have solved a longstanding mystery about why certain seismic waves called shear waves move so sluggishly through clumpy patches (ultralow velocity zones) at these incredible depths... sciencedaily.com/ ... 00:02:07The three major tectonic plates off the Pacific Northwest coast are undergoing a gradual shift, and the area in which they converge -- popularly known as the "Triple Junction" -- appears to be migrating in a southeasterly direction. The change isn't a cause for alarm, researchers say; in fact, it has been slowly taking place over millions of years. But advances in technology, and data provided in part by formerly classified U.S. Navy hydrophones, are giving scientists a new perspective on the underlying geology of the region -- an understanding that may change previous accepted models of seafloor spreading, undersea volcanism and, ultimately, seismic hazards... sciencedaily.com/ ... 00:01:11Study Of 2004 Tsunami Forces Rethinking Of Giant Earthquake Theory
...scientists have discovered that regions of the earth previously thought to be immune to such events may actually be at high risk of experiencing them... the researchers found that the surface rupture spanned a distance of up to 93 miles, and that along this huge contact area, the surfaces of the two plates slid against each other by up to 60 feet. Extrapolating to the deeper fault, they also found that the 2004 earthquake was caused by rupture of a 1,000-mile stretch of the megathrust--by far the longest of any recorded earthquake. Indeed, the researchers say, the 2004 disaster was so much larger than any previously known rupture of this type that scientists may need to reassess many subduction zones that were previously thought to be at low risk...

Science Marches Onnnnnnnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:39:20Physicists have made water run uphill quite literally under its own steam. The droplets propel themselves over metal sheets scored with a carefully designed array of grooves...

History - less with ustimesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:56:57Beneath the main square of Ecija, a small town in southern Spain, they had unearthed an astounding treasure trove of Roman history. They discovered a well-preserved Roman forum, bath house, gymnasium and temple as well as dozens of private homes and hundreds of mosaics and statues — one of them considered to be among the finest found. But now the bulldozers have moved in... one of the great cities of the Roman world [has] been destroyed to build an underground municipal car park...

Military Culturethedenverchannel.com/ ... 10:50:39FORT LUPTON, Colo. -- The mother of a U.S. Marine was grieving for her dead son when she found that his savings account had been claimed by the director of the funeral home... despite a court ruling, the funeral director refused to pay. What's even more puzzling is that he's not just any debtor, he's the mayor of the small town and a member of a City Council that has financial responsibility for the city's budget... telegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:48:36British troops in Iraq "lack the confidence to open fire" because of a "fear of prosecution", says a confidential Ministry of Defence (MoD) report... soldiers believe that if they shoot dead insurgents they will become embroiled in a "protracted investigation" and if prosecuted will receive "no support from the chain of command"...

Healing Ourselvesnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:43:17A scientist whose wife has multiple sclerosis has developed a walking aid that has been shortlisted for an award... The device consists of a shoulder harness and an elasticated cord connected the wearer's shoe. They are hoping it will help people with MS, cerebral palsy, those recovering from strokes and adrenoleukodystrophy, a condition similar to MS... apnews.myway.com/ ... 10:34:34The French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant has complete feeling in the new tissue five months after the operation...

Only Naturalsciencedaily.com/ ... 00:03:15at just four months old, babies are able to organise visual information in at least three different ways, according to brightness, shape, and how close the visual elements are together (proximity). These new findings mean that very young infants are much more capable of organising their visual world than psychologists had previously thought. The study also has implications for understanding certain developmental disorders such as Williams syndrome... -- a condition where attention and visual perception are particularly affected...

It's Only Moneyseattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 11:01:38Microsoft's stock took its biggest one-day fall in more than five years Friday, shaving about $32 billion off the company's market value. That's enough to buy Starbucks, with plenty left over to treat everyone in China to a tall cafe Americano. Or maybe buy Costco and Getty Images and get back about $2 billion in pocket change. It's almost as much as the United States spends every three months in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Modern Culturenews.independent.co.uk/ ... 11:02:09Marilyn Monroe lived in controversy, died in controversy, and now, more than 40 years after her death, the curse lingers on. This weekend, her most profitable legacy isthe subject of no fewer than eight multimillion-dollar lawsuits. Their outcome will decide nothing less than who owns the image of the most potent sex symbol on the planet... Monroe would have been 80 in June... money.cnn.com/ ... 11:01:14no one on the planet knows more about the peculiar ways of Marvel's gallant mutants and evil freaks than Avi Arad. More to the point, Arad knows what makes hit movies - and what makes money. His special gift is combining a lifelong fan's obsession with Marvel's 5,000 comic-book characters - the man often wears a Spider-Man pinkie ring - with a shrewd sense of filmmaking and keen business and brand-building savvy. That has made Arad a key force behind Marvel's remarkable corporate resurrection... Under Arad, the first seven Marvel-based films - from the low-budget vampire-hunting epic Blade to the first Spider-Man and X-Men movies - each hit No. 1 at the box office. All told, the 12 Marvel-character films made during Arad's tenure have grossed $3.6 billion worldwide. Profit has quadrupled in the past three years to $103 million in 2005, revenue has surged, and Marvel's stock, as low as $3 per share at the time of the 1998 acquisition, trades today at about $20... But now the plot thickens: Marvel has launched one of the most radical business-model overhauls in Hollywood history... Marvel is weary of seeing other companies walk away with most of the loot from megahits built on its characters. So Marvel is in the process of transforming itself into an independent film studio...

Big Whoops Cascadewnbc.com/ ... 10:58:14YONKERS, N.Y. -- A 62-year-old retired schoolteacher is fighting with a cable company over a hefty bill for porn and gangsta rap programming she says she never ordered... charges of more than $1,000... YONKERS, N.Y. -- A 62-year-old retired schoolteacher is fighting with a cable company over a hefty bill for porn and gangsta rap programming she says she never ordered. The charges of more than $1,000... Lee said the only regular visitor to her house is her 81-year-old mother, "and I don't think she wants to watch porn." She claimed someone has pirated her service. However, Powers said his company did not find theft of service...

Modern Family Lifedetnews.com/ ... 10:55:18MOUNT CLEMENS -- A 17-year-old is suing his mother in Macomb County Circuit Court to force her to reveal the identity of his biological father... The case centers on the teenager's desire to know his family genetic history for health purposes... In 2004, the husband began to have doubts that the teen was his biological child, Baskin said. After the divorce, Minor J. split his time between his mother's home and her former husband's home in Oakland County. And he still does. "The father, who loves this person by the way and is very much in his life, just for some reason thought, 'Geez, there's something genetically incorrect.' " In April 2004, the family was tested. Two separate DNA tests dispelled any possibility that the man was his father... his mother gave another name... Three months later, another DNA test revealed Mr. X wasn't the father, either. It was then that the mother refused to reveal the identity of the biological father...

Alcohol Was Involvededition.cnn.com/ ... 10:52:08A Fort Benning soldier missing 12 days before his body was discovered in a downtown hotel died after he got caught in an industrial-sized air conditioner... last seen outside the hotel April 16 after a late night of bar-hopping with an Army buddy... Police had not determined how Hornbeck got into the hotel maintenance area or what he was doing there. He was not a guest at the hotel. Blood toxicology tests were also being performed. Hornbeck's father had previously said he suspects his son was intoxicated...

Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!suntimes.com/ ... 14:47:31is it STUPIDITY or plain old HYPOCRISY?
Vicente Fox's... office said decriminalizing drugs will free up police to focus on major dealers... [If it's not criminal for people to possess, why is it criminal to produce or sell?]
One U.S. diplomat, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said "we're still studying the legislation, but any effort to decriminalize illegal drugs would not be helpful..." [Bbbut.. If it's decrim'd, then it's not illegal...] msnbc.msn.com/ ... 10:49:21The United States reacted cautiously on Saturday to a Mexican measure that would make it legal to carry small amounts of cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use... News of the decriminalization did not make the front pages of any major Mexico City newspaper, nor was it discussed in editorials. It was slightly better publicized in the north of the country...

US Executive Brancheditorandpublisher.com/ ... 10:48:08Those seated near Bush told E&P's Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush quickly turned from an amused guest to an obviously offended target as Colbert’s comments brought up his low approval ratings and problems in Iraq... telegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:22:35Mr Bush took the podium alongside look-a-like and sound-a-like Steve Bridges, who proceeded to make jokes about vice president Dick Cheney's hunting accident and the president's low approval ratings. "How come I can't have dinner with the 36 per cent of the people who like me?" Bridges said as Mr Bush looked out at the audience... The president talked to the gathered A-list journalists, movie stars and politicians in polite, friendly terms and Bridges told them what the president was really thinking...

World Without Bordersnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:03:41Hossein Derakhshan is a 31-year-old Iranian internet activist, based in Canada, who writes the bilingual weblog Editor: Myself. Here he writes about his first visit to Israel, which he undertook to challenge the stereotypes of both Iran and Israel...

SAT 2006-APR-29

Nature is Dangeroussciencedaily.com/ ... 19:46:25The New Madrid seismic zone, which is roughly at the juncture of Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee near the Mississippi River, is unusual because most earthquakes occur at the edges of rigid tectonic plates that essentially float on the fluid-like interior of the Earth... tens of thousands of years ago, the Laurentide ice sheet covered most of Canada and ran as far south as the middle of Illinois. According to Zoback, this massive glacier did not cover the New Madrid zone but was large enough to affect the Earth hundreds of miles to the south-in effect, the ice sheet was so heavy it pressed into the Earth's surface... As the climate warmed, melting the ice, the ground was freed of the heavy pressure of the ice sheet. It is the constant release of this pressure that causes earthquakes in New Madrid... thescotsman.scotsman.com/ ... 10:13:24THE imminent eruption of three powerful volcanoes is endangering the lives of more than 70,000 people and threatening to affect the global climate by ejecting millions of tonnes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. The most serious threat is posed by the Merapi volcano in central Java, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", which was yesterday throwing out ash and small rocks. Geologists believe that the 1.7-mile high volcano could violently erupt at any time. Two other volcanoes also giving cause for concern are the Galeras volcano in Colombia - expected to erupt within a matter of days or weeks - and the Urbinas volcano in southern Peru, which also appears to be gearing up for an eruption...

Sick, Sick, Sicktoday.reuters.com/ ... 12:20:48TORONTO - A distraught Canadian family is offering a reward for the return of their mother's head, hacked from her body in a funeral home a year ago by thieves who left cash, and her earrings behind... suntimes.com/ ... 12:11:29The drug dealers were trying to lure new clients -- middle school students, to be exact, police in the west suburbs say. Now two men are jailed in Northlake, 44 pounds of marijuana worth $110,000 on the street has been seized, and officials are crediting neighbors and police informants with keeping an eye on the schoolchildren who were being tempted by the promise of free marijuana... indystar.com/ ... 10:08:20A tip from an animal-rights group led to charges against two 14-year-old Marion County girls who posted a video of themselves kicking a cat wrapped in plastic on the popular Web site MySpace.com...

Threatstheherald.co.uk/ ... 10:07:15HUMAN error was to blame for a tagging blunder that left a teenager free to leave his home and murder a man, it emerged yesterday. The mistake by an official employed by Reliance, the security firm responsible for the system at the time, came to light as Scottish Executive figures revealed electronic tagging orders in Scotland reached a record level of 1335 in the past year... worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:01:35The only way to stop this problem is to inspect each and every container in one of three special security ports to be built 25 miles out to sea where a nuclear explosion or chemical or biological weapon will have negligible effects on our cities. Cargo inspections for weapons of mass destruction have absolutely no place at mainland ports and should not be performed there under any circumstances... tampabays10.com/ ... 09:54:41Lakeland, Florida — A senior at the Sonrise Christian School was arrested Friday after authorities began an investigation into his posting a countdown of the hours until he blew up the school on the popular "My Space" website...

Mass Murdering Monstersazstarnet.com/ ... 09:44:09Terrorists killed more than 14,500 civilians in 11,000 attacks across the globe last year, with Iraq the biggest scene of violence and suicide bombings a more frequent tactic, the U.S. government said in a report. Fifty-six of those killed were Americans, the State Department report said. Three thousand of the deaths were attributable to 360 suicide bombings...

Transport Futuresciencedaily.com/ ... 19:43:16A new Internet-based mapping program is helping truckers find truck stops with idle reduction facilities—on-site systems that can substantially cut fuel use while reducing air emissions. Idle reduction systems hold great promise for the approximately 500,000 long-haul trucks with sleeper cabs currently operating in the United States. Estimates show idle reduction technologies could reduce diesel fuel use by about 800 million gallons annually, with a potential savings to the trucking industry of $2 billion each year...

Animal Companionstoday.reuters.com/ ... 12:21:53An Italian restaurant was fined 688 euros ($855) for displaying live lobsters on ice to attract patrons, in an innovative application of an anti-cruelty law usually affecting to household pets... The case was brought by Gianpaolo Cecchetto, a former environmental activist, who took his two young children to the Vicenza restaurant in May 2002. "They were shocked by the display..." Italy has some of the world's toughest animal rights laws. The city of Rome in October banned goldfish bowls, seen as cruel, while Turin passed a law last year that would fine dog owners 500 euros unless they walked their canine friends at least three times a day...

Digital Future is Nowsciencedaily.com/ ... 19:45:01Engineers at Purdue University have developed a tiny "micro-pump" cooling device small enough to fit on a computer chip that circulates coolant through channels etched into the chip... sciencedaily.com/ ... 19:44:44Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed software that enables the sharing of high-speed wireless connections without compromising security or privacy. The software can improve Internet connectivity in residential areas at no additional cost... sciencedaily.com/ ... 19:44:16A team of experimentalists and theorists at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Harvard University has proposed a new and surprisingly effective means of stabilizing and controlling ferroelectricity in nanostructures: terminating their surfaces with fragments of water... successfully demonstrated the benefits of using water to stabilize memory bits in segments of oxide nanowires that are only about 3 billionths of a meter wide... "We are particularly excited that water is the key ingredient in making these wires 'remember' their state..." sciencedaily.com/ ... 19:42:40GeoVille, an Austrian company specialising in geo-information, and Tele Atlas, the largest manufacturer of road networks worldwide, are providing detailed models of areas based on road network information, statistical population data – supplied by the German-based market research institute GfK – and Earth observation (EO) images from ESA’s Envisat, NASA’s LANDSAT and the French Space Agency’s SPOT satellites. Results are then integrated into Tele Atlas’ digital geographic database, MultiNet, and can – among other applications – be used to spot the target groups for geomarketing campaigns... today.reuters.com/ ... 12:18:21Ageia Technologies Inc... A Silicon Valley start-up hopes to introduce a lot of bounce, rattle and roll into the video game industry with a new microchip that makes virtual worlds behave as realistically as they look... crates that don't budge, planks that don't splinter and windows that don't break are a constant complaint of gamers who crave more than just skin-deep realism... new PhysX processor, which simulates the physical properties of everything from smoke to rocks. "What we are offering to the game industry is the ability to make physics and interactivity reach the same level of importance that graphics has..."

US Militarynavytimes.com/ ... 10:05:14The Coast Guard has abandoned a rule requiring anyone seeking a merchant marine license to submit photographs showing no religious head coverings... [ummm....]

Whoops!news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:37:27Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has been taken to hospital in New Zealand after injuring himself while on holiday in Fiji... a "mild concussion..." Media reports in Australia and New Zealand said Richards had hurt his head when he fell out of a palm tree...

Rebuildingtoday.reuters.com/ ... 12:19:14This is Iraq. But it's a world away from the claustrophobic concrete blast walls and bloodshed of Baghdad far to the south. Kurds boast that rents in Sulaimaniya now outstrip London. Whether it's true is hardly relevant -- the boast itself symbolizes the vibrancy and optimism that separate most of Kurdistan from the rest of strife-torn Iraq... today.reuters.com/ ... 12:18:50Defying bombs, Baghdad school teaches music, ballet... [Hard to pirouette in a burqa...]

Free Expressionsuntimes.com/ ... 12:11:10A few Chicago area disc jockeys aired the Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on Friday, but at least one operations manager for several Latino-friendly radio stations refrained from playing it because he felt the national anthem should be sung in English only. It was unclear which local stations the New York-based Urban Box Office record label sent "Nuestro Himno" ("Our Anthem") to... [Another bogus jingo issue like flag-desecration.... Who cares if somebody else sings the US anthem in Texan, Brooklyn, Australian, Mandarin or Farsi? Let anybody sing or play anything they want... or not... or are we no longer the Land of the Free? And it's still a worse anthem than others which have been suggested!]

People Do Drugsnews.independent.co.uk/ ... 10:12:45One of the bottles in front of us on the table is a 99-year-old bottle of CF Verger "Suisse" absinthe, discovered a couple of years ago in a Corsican cellar. Another is a bottle of "Verte Suisse", a painstaking modern re-creation of the CF Verger original, distilled in France by an American chemist and marketed worldwide by an American former jeweller. I try both. Both are extraordinary. They are rich, electric and fresh, like drinking a malt whisky made from wild flowers...

Sex can be Dangeroussiliconvalley.com/ ... 10:11:45Undercover civilians luring potential child predators online... Perverted Justice, an organization that's dedicated to outing online predators, expects to double its volunteer corps, to 100, by year's end... Critics say it borders on vigilantism. Criminal defense attorneys argue that it amounts to entrapment and that the nature of the charges -- rather than the weight of evidence -- forces people to plead guilty to avoid publicity...

People Dietelegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:06:32A paediatric nurse died from heart failure brought on by the shock of hearing her alarm clock ringing... a rare hereditary disorder called Long QT syndrome (LQT2). The condition affects the electrical system of the heart, which can cause sudden unexplained death in young people...

World Without Borderstelegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:04:52Drive-by shootings have begun on the American side, weaponry is being seized and safe houses uncovered. Sheriff's deputies who once wore only side arms, now shoulder machineguns and body armour. According to Sheriff Flores the drug-runners are even better equipped. Is it a war? "Oh yeah, it's a war. These people are sophisticated and they are organised. They wear body armour and helmets, just like our soldiers in Iraq. They have no respect for life and are not afraid of law enforcement on this side...

Digital Threatnews.yahoo.com/ ... 10:10:23A new kind of malware circulating on the Internet freezes a computer and then asks for a ransom paid through the Western Union Holdings money transfer service... "ransomware.." schemes had been seen in Russia, but the first one appeared in English just last month... unclear how the Trojan is being spread... Once run, the Trojan freezes the computer, displaying a message saying files are being deleted every 30 minutes. It then gives instructions on how to send $10.99 via Western Union to free the computer. Hitting the control, alt, and delete keys will not affect the bug... Last month, a Trojan emerged that encrypts a user's documents and then leaves a file demanding $300 in exchange for the password to access the information... worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:03:19Matsushita announced late last year they it has developed a computer chip that will allow a broadband connection to any home appliance simply by plugging it into an electrical socket. The technology the Japan-based firm has created is capable of transmitting data via the electric wiring in homes at speeds faster than Ethernet... arming of home appliances with small cameras or listening devices would allow real-time video and audio to be gathered by those looking to invade Americans' dwellings... hat kind of privacy can a person have if all those "conversations" between home appliances are transmitted outside of the home?..

Big Nannytimesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:16:17...Up in Dundee, however, the local NHS trust has issued an instruction book on how to do the other thing that all species do.... a four-page leaflet entitled Good Defecation Dynamics, complete with a diagram.... it is apparently a good idea to keep your mouth open. No reason is given for this... But what matters most is posture: not quite balancing a book on your head, as though you were at modelling school, but at least sitting upright... breitbart.com/ ... 09:53:59Revellers in a British town are to have their fingerprints scanned when they enter pubs and clubs in a scheme aimed at weeding out drunken troublemakers. The "In Touch" project is the first of its kind in Britain...

Disinformation Propaganda & Spinstartribune.com/ ... 10:06:50Six people, including a man who allegedly splashed paint on a recruiting station, were arrested Friday following a rally of area high school and college students at the University of Minnesota to protest the war in Iraq... telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:44:33Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qa'eda deputy, has appeared in a new video saying that hundreds of suicide bombers had "broken America's back" during three years of war in Iraq... [riiiiiight....]

FRI 2006-APR-28

Hot Pursuitint.iol.co.za/ ... 19:52:14London- A man on a horse and cart escaped four cops motorbikes, a patrol car, a video van, two cycling constables and a helicopter. The combined efforts of modern policing were beaten in a low speed chase through Leeds...

Disturbing Family Patternssun-sentinel.com/ ... 19:50:37DELRAY BEACH -- A 9-month-old boy was killed Thursday morning after his father bashed him into the hood of a car and then threw him into a canal during a domestic dispute... "Our detectives were just dumbfounded..." newscientist.com/ ... 19:47:05Swedish researchers... A woman has a 43% greater chance of such heart disease if her mother suffered from the condition... if her father had the disease she faces only a 17% greater chance... mother or father, a man’s chance of developing it increase by 55% or 41%, respectively... The effect seen is probably mainly an environmental one, the researchers say. “Children spend more time with their mothers, during which they may pick up risky behaviours such as poor dietary habits, physical inactivity and smoking,”...

Threatsapnews.myway.com/ ... 19:42:58Leaders of al-Qaida lost some control of the terror network last year due to the arrests and deaths of top operational planners, but the group remains the most prominent terror threat facing the United States and its allies, the State Department said Friday...

Animals can be Dangerouscbsnews.com/ ... 14:00:02Managers at Florida's Kennedy Space Center – where the shuttle fleet launches – say they have started encouraging workers to notify road-and-grounds crews when they see dead animals on the site. The theory is that removing dead animals could cut down on the number of vultures... "Birds can be a huge problem for a space shuttle launch, especially at higher altitudes, when the shuttle is traveling faster, and thus, the impact velocity is higher and can cause real damage..." [You know you're taking the wrong approach when....]

Violencetime.com/ ... 19:54:25As criminal gangs run amuck in Iraq, hundreds of girls have gone missing. Are they being sold for sex?.. news.yahoo.com/ ... 19:53:37The woman who says she was raped by three members of Duke's lacrosse team also told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men, filing a 1996 complaint claiming she had been assaulted three years earlier when she was 14... none of the men named in the decade-old report was ever charged but they didn't have details why... apnews.myway.com/ ... 19:42:29Iraqi forces killed a local al-Qaida in Iraq leader and two other insurgents in a raid north of Baghdad on Friday... Iraqi commando forces, acting on a tip, raided a house where Hamid al-Takhi, the local al-Qaida in Iraq leader, and the two other insurgents were hiding just outside Samarra... Al-Takhi, known as the "emir" of Samarra, was gunned down while fleeing the house, and the other two militants while trying to defend it with grenades... troops found a car parked nearby containing a grenade launcher, rockets, AK-47s, grenades, and a shotgun... al-Takhi had been responsible for many insurgent attacks against coalition forces and civilians in the area... hindu.com/ ... 13:55:51Baghdad, April 28 Roadside bombs killed an American soldier and an Iraqi policemen...
handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-ridden bodies of two Iraqi men were found on the streets of the capital on Friday....
Two mortars or rockets also were fired Friday at the heavily fortified Green Zone... One landed inside but failed to detonate, and the other exploded nearby on the other side of the Tigris.... No casualties were immediately reported...

Yuck!thesmokinggun.com/ ... 10:36:36...a Domino's delivery man used a car to transport corpses to funeral parlors... officer pulled over a 1993 Buick after noticing the vehicle did not have an inspection sticker... suspended license... vehicle.. impounded... officers.. noticed a stretcher in the rear of the vehicle (along with rubbish and wet clothing) where "pizzas were sitting to be delivered...." [Driver] explained that when he finished delivering Domino's pizzas, "he transports deceased bodies in the same vehicle for a funeral home." A police check with local health officials determined that the use of the car for stiffs and slices did not violate county ordinances....

Sick, Sick, Sickworldnetdaily.com/ ... 19:43:20JERUSALEM – Daniel Wultz, a Florida teenager lying in a coma after being critically injured last week in a suicide bombing at an Israeli restaurant, is the "best target combination we can dream of – American and Zionist," Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups responsible for the deadly blast, told WorldNetDaily... dailymail.co.uk/ ... 18:26:36A 19-year-old man who tried to blow up a dead dog with a firework while a friend took pictures on a mobile phone was today ordered to do 100 hours community service... left the owners of the little Yorkshire Terrier Emmie "devastated" even though a post mortem examination found she had been killed in a road accident before he found her... today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 13:39:28LONDON - The six men behind the kidnap, torture and murder of 16-year-old Mary-Ann Leneghan and the attempted murder of her friend were jailed for life on Friday and will serve a total of 148 years behind bars. Leneghan and her 18-year-old friend were abducted, tortured for hours and forced to smoke heroin and crack cocaine in May last year... breitbart.com/ ... 10:30:47SPRING, Texas.. Two white teenagers severely beat and sodomized a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl at a party... suffered severe internal injuries and remained in critical condition Thursday... "It's more than likely the boy won't live," Harris County prosecutor Mike Trent said... If the boy dies and it is ruled a hate crime, [18yo] could face the death penalty, authorities said. [17yo] would be too young to face execution...

WW2 - still with usboston.com/ ... 10:25:53ORLANDO, Fla. --A woman doing yard work outside her home Wednesday discovered a WWII grenade inside a pile of leaves... "The lady was, of course, upset. She just moved into the house..."

Criminally Stupidchron.com/ ... 19:56:41The host of a cable television show -- who passed through security at the Empire State Building wearing a rubber mask and a foam fat suit -- was arrested Thursday when he tried to parachute from the skyscraper... Building staff had been tipped to the caper... a guard grabbed his leg before he could jump... security guard hit his head on the concrete floor of the observation deck while restraining Corliss and was being examined... boston.com/ ... 10:27:24

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. --A judge changed a sentence from six months in prison to eight years after a teenager convicted in a drive-by shooting wrote a letter asking a friend to take over his marijuana dealings... boston.com/ ... 10:26:42BALDWIN PARK, Calif. --A gunman who tried to rob a San Gabriel Valley bank Wednesday morning found himself locked alone inside the building by a quick-thinking employee... boston.com/ ... 10:24:08Police stopped Richard and Stephanie North early Wednesday when they noticed their Mercury Sable going down a road with one of the doors open. Police found a 55-inch flat-screen TV on the back seat, hanging out the door. Earlier, police had responded to an alarm at a TV and appliance store where the window on the front door was smashed out and a Hitachi flat-panel television was missing...

In the Line of Dutyseattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 19:53:08A highly improbable shot left an officer's bullet in the cylinder of a gunman's revolver, and police say it's a pretty clear sign that the officers who shot the man faced a deadly threat... "Physically, it is impossible to conclude anything other than the fact the suspect was pointing directly at the officers..."

US Militarybreitbart.com/ ... 18:17:57The Army on Friday charged the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and other criminal offenses for his alleged involvement in the abuse of detainees at the notorious prison in 2003. Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, was charged with seven offenses. He is the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib to face criminal charges... defenselink.mil/ ... 18:17:37DoD Announces Detection of Intrusion into TMA Files
The Department of Defense announced today that routine monitoring detected unusual activity on one of the TRICARE Management Activity's (TMA) public servers. Investigation of the activity led to the discovery that an intrusion had occurred and information was compromised. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the department s response was swift but focused. "As a result of this incident, we immediately implemented enhanced security controls throughout the network and installed additional monitoring tools to improve security of existing networks and data files," he said. "Such incidents are reprehensible, and we deeply regret the inconvenience this may cause the people we serve." Information contained in the accessed files varied, and investigators do not know the intent of the crime or if any of the information will be misused. TMA has sent letters to affected individuals advising them of the incident and that the compromise of their personal information may potentially place them at risk for identity theft. Additional information has been provided to assist them in understanding the potential risks and precautions they can take to protect their identities. The Defense Criminal Investigative Service is participating in the investigation.

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 14:28:47

Marine Lance Cpl. Michael L. Ford, 19, of New Bedford, Mass., died April 26 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Digital Future is Nowsci-tech-today.com/ ... 13:53:51Google announced on Thursday that it is making Google Sketchup, a 3D modeling program, available to everyone at no cost. The tool, acquired by Google when it recently bought @Last Software, allows you to build three-dimensional versions of a sports stadium, a skyscraper, or even a spaceport, and place those models on Google Earth... today.reuters.com/ ... 10:31:06The California Public Utilities Commission approved a plan on Thursday allowing providers of high-speed Internet services to test using electricity lines to deliver online access throughout the state...

Healing Ourselvesmedicalnewstoday.com/ ... 10:29:20Promoting male circumcision and fidelity to one partner seems to be more effective at curbing the spread of HIV than promoting abstinence and condom use...

Animal Companionsboston.com/ ... 10:25:19WHEELING, W.Va. --Call it a case of pignapping. Police found a missing potbellied pig early Wednesday in the back seat of a car that had been reported stolen in eastern Ohio... [Pig was found unharmed...]

Animal Cultureboston.com/ ... 10:23:32

A 14 1/2-foot crocodile mauled a chainsaw a worker was using Friday to clear up debris left by a tropical storm that lashed northern Australia. While the croc and worker were both uninjured, the saw's woodcutting days are over...

Big Whoops Cascadefox40.trb.com/ ... 19:54:47Two skydivers were rescued from the frigid waters of Lake Tahoe after they missed the beach they were aiming for and landed out in the lake...

Oh! The Irony!chron.com/ ... 19:49:27PORTLAND, Ore. — The director of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission abruptly resigned Thursday after she was charged with drunken driving...

Iraqworldtribune.com/ ... 18:25:51The Baghdad newspaper Al-Bayyinah recently published Iraqi intelligence service documents that revealed the names and locations of Saddam’s agents abroad. The 101 agents include spies in several U.S. ally countries, including Poland, France, Turkey, Sweden, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Australia and Greece...

Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!today.reuters.com/ ... 18:24:56

Owning marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by the Congress... [It's not repeal, but at least it's a baby step in the direction of reversal of drug tyranny -- so it probably won't pass....]

Supernatural Threatsbreitbart.com/ ... 18:19:47The national anthem should be sung in English -- not Spanish -- President Bush declared Friday... "One of the things that's very important is, when we debate this issue, that we not lose our national soul," the president exclaimed. "One of the great things about America is that we've been able to take people from all walks of life bound as one nation under God. And that's the challenge ahead of us..." [Someone clue the President... Liberty doesn't care what language you sing in, the National Anthem is still beyond the range of most folks, who almost all sing it 'way off-key anyway....]

Digital Culturesiliconvalley.com/ ... 19:43:43Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be altered by anyone with a computer, has proved remarkably useful for pulling political dirty tricks. Political operatives are covertly rewriting -- or defacing -- candidates' biographical entries to make the boss look good or the opponent look ridiculous. As a result, political campaigns are monitoring the Web site more closely than ever this election year... en.wikipedia.org/ ... 14:01:58Perpendicular recording achieves higher storage densities by aligning the poles of the magnetic elements, which represent bits, perpendicularly to the surface of the disk platter... takes less platter than what would have been required had they been placed longitudinally... There was some interest in using the system in floppy disks in the 1980s, but the system was never reliable... blogs.pcworld.com/ ... 14:00:23Seagate has just started shipping its massive 750GB drive. The huge drive uses perpendicular recording, a way to get tons more data on the platters, roughly ten times as much as with traditional longitudinal recording... pcworld.com/ ... 13:56:24Internet companies and consumer groups calling for a new U.S. law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading some connections lost a major battle this week when a U.S. House of Representatives committee voted down such a provision...

Theory of Justicesfgate.com/ ... 13:36:39Sacramento -- One of 12 jurors who convicted a 23-year-old Lodi man Tuesday on charges that he trained for holy war disavowed the verdict late Thursday, alleging that she was bullied into a guilty finding amid a pattern of misconduct by fellow panelists... Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, said Lopez's claims should prompt U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. to grant the young man a new trial. Hayat now faces 30 to 39 years in prison at a July 14 sentencing...

Human Rightcwfa.org/ ... 19:45:48an Arlington, Virginia, video duplicator has been ordered by the Arlington County Human Rights Commission to do a job for a lesbian activist... Tim Bono of Bono Film and Video cited constitutional freedom of religion protection in refusing to duplicate two pro-homosexual films for lesbian activist... Bono, a Christian, said he did not want to violate his Biblical values... eyewitnessnewstv.com/ ... 12:13:51WASHINGTON... five congressman arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy... protesting the Sudanese government's role in atrocities in the Darfur region... The protesters called on the Sudanese government to accept a U-N peacekeeping force in Darfur and allow humanitarian relief organizations full access to victims....

Supernaturalboston.com/ ... 10:28:35Officers arrived at the Low Valley Arms pub near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, 250 miles north of London, after being told the alarm had been set off, but instead of finding any signs of a robbery, they were faced with a shaken landlord convinced he had encountered a ghost with half a face missing in the ladies washroom. Though they saw no ghoul-- described as a woman in flowing white gown-- officers were shocked to find toilets flushing themselves... "I heard the alarm go off for a second time, went into the pub and all the television screens had turned on," the pub owner said. "I went to check the rest of the pub and standing in the women's lavatories was a woman with half her face missing. I was petrified..."

Language Cultureboston.com/ ... 10:27:47A massive language research database responsible for bringing words such as "podcast" and "celebutante" to the pages of the Oxford dictionaries has officially hit a total of 1 billion words...

THU 2006-APR-27

Nuclear is Nastynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:20:08An unprepossessing tunnel entrance set in low forest on the western coast of Finland marks the probable final resting place of the country's most dangerous nuclear waste... the first canisters of spent fuel [might] begin rolling down the tunnel about 15 years from now...

Transport Tragedysuntimes.com/ ... 18:18:47A 2-year-old girl was struck and killed by an automobile Wednesday night while crossing the street with her grandmother in Melrose Park... 21st Avenue and Lake... grandmother and other child were both taken to area hospitals but were expected to be OK... driver of the vehicle waited at the scene until police arrived... suntimes.com/ ... 18:17:07UPLAND, Ind.-- What was to be days of celebration for Taylor University have turned to mourning after five people riding in a school van died when a semitrailer smashed into it on Interstate 69... all worked for the university's dining services, and were traveling back to the school's Upland campus after working to set up for a Thursday banquet at its Fort Wayne campus... five others, including the semi driver, were taken to hospitals with injuries... the semi crashed through the I-69 median... Investigators were not sure why...

Industrial Tragedysuntimes.com/ ... 18:13:17BUCKHANNON, W.Va.-- Trapped deep below ground by poisonous gases, the Sago miners realized at least four of their air packs did not work and were forced to share the devices as they desperately pounded away with a sledgehammer in hopes of letting rescuers know where to find them, the sole survivor says...

Threatstoday.reuters.com/ ... 16:38:04An al Qaeda suspect told a U.S. military tribunal that he had fought against the United States and said on Thursday he was willing to spend the rest of his life in prison as a "matter of honor." "I came here to tell you I did what I did and I'm willing to pay the price, no matter how many years you sentence me," said Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, a U.S.-educated Saudi who allegedly met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at a training camp in Afghanistan months before the September 11 attacks. "Even if I spend hundreds of years in jail, that would be a matter of honor to me..." [One is tempted to say, okay, we'll just do it that way....]

Under Sexist Tyrannychron.com/ ... 11:39:18FRESNO, Calif. — Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked a jury Wednesday for at least $1.2 million for the humiliation she claimed to have suffered... chron.com/ ... 11:37:47LINCOLN PARK, MICH. - About 200 Muslim women who have memberships to the Fitness USA chain of athletic clubs in Michigan have signed a petition asking the gyms to honor what they say was a promise to provide separate exercise times for women and men. Arrwa Mogalli, 28, of Dearborn, said she bought a $1,465 lifetime membership after being promised that a Lincoln Park facility would be open only to women on certain days... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:37:21Iran's religious right is voicing growing opposition to a decision to let women watch football matches for the first time since the 1979 revolution. Four grand ayatollahs and several MPs have protested against the move, saying it violates Islamic law for a woman to look at the body of a male stranger...

9/11 - still with ustoday.reuters.com/ ... 16:38:15bulldozers rumbled into a giant pit on Thursday to begin construction of the glittering Freedom Tower skyscraper meant to symbolize New York's resilience to the September 11 attacks... timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:33:55The sobbing at the back of the auditorium was not the sentimental sniffling you normally hear at the cinema. It was the full-throated grief customarily heard in a hospital or funeral home. But last night anguished families wailed as they watched the last moments of their loved ones unfold on screen at the world premiere of Hollywood’s first film about the September 11 hijackings, United 93... "It’s horrific to see my brother Edward on the screen, knowing what is going to happen," said Gordon Felt. "It’s shattering, but it needs to be. This is a violent story..."

Nature can be Deadlypalmbeachpost.com/ ... 11:15:26WEST PALM BEACH — One minute, Harold Bennett, 65, was smiling in the street as a light rain fell. The next, a bolt of lightning dropped from the sky, killing him instantly. Next-door neighbor Judy Thompson saw the electricity pass through her longtime friend's body...

Sex can be... disturbingwafb.com/ ... 11:13:25Police in St. Gabriel have released surveillance tape that appears to show a man engaged in bestiality with a horse. Police have asked 9NEWS to air portions of the tape in hopes they can identify the man...

Under Tyrannytoday.reuters.com/ ... 10:57:49An official in Turkey's ruling party has been arrested for chewing gum while laying a wreath at a monument to the country's revered founder Kemal Ataturk...

Mass Murdering Monstersapnews.myway.com/ ... 11:31:56A sister of Iraq's new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force... worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:57:20A suicide attack today in Egypt's Sinai desert near the Israeli border and a second, nearly simultaneous foiled large-scale bombing against the main Israel-Gaza crossing were coordinated by al-Qaida and mark the global jihad group's first strike inside the Jewish state, senior Palestinian security officials told WND...

Military Culturesuntimes.com/ ... 18:14:42SYDNEY, Australia-- The grieving relatives of an Australian soldier killed in Iraq were distressed to learn that the wrong body was sent home in his place, the defense minister said Thursday... was accidentally shot in his room inside the heavily fortified Green Zone... second soldier with Australian citizenship to die in Iraq... a private mortuary in Kuwait appeared to be responsible for the mistake...

Feeding Ourselveschinadaily.com.cn/ ... 11:14:55A 19-year-old girl in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has eaten approximately 1,500 kilograms of mud over the years.... She is healthy and doctors cannot explain her mud fetish...

US Militarysptimes.com/ ... 11:12:29Before signing off his webpage on MySpace.com Monday, Army Pvt. Dylan Meyer typed a farewell note to the world. "Jesus, I don't know if any of you have heard what has happened to me yet, but I just want to remind you not to be sad. Laugh, that's what lifes about," Meyer wrote. "When it is all said and done, and all the b------t is cleared away, it is the ones you love who you will remember." The next morning, Meyer was found dead in the Army barracks at Fort Gordon in Georgia. He was 20. Because the Army is still investigating, officials would not release the cause of Meyer's death or say if he committed suicide...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 16:39:15

Army Pfc. Raymond L. Henry, 21, of Anaheim, Calif, died on April 25 in Mosul, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations. Henry was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska. defenselink.mil/ ... 16:38:55

Army Staff Sgt. Metodio A. Bandonill, 29, of Honolulu, Hawaii, died in Baghdad, Iraq on April 24, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations. Bandonill was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 16:38:39

Army Sgt. 1st Class Richard J. Herrema, 27, of Jackson, Tenn., died in Baghdad, Iraq on April 25, when he came under enemy fire during combat operations. Herrema was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 10:59:32

Army Sgt. Robert W. Ehney, 26, of Lexington, Ky.

Army Cpl. Jason B. Daniel, 21, of Fort Worth, Texas

Army Cpl. Shawn T. Lasswell Jr., 21, of Reno, Nev.
died of injuries sustained in Taji, Iraq, on April 23, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV during combat operations. All three soldiers were assigned to the 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Theory of Educationsuntimes.com/ ... 18:12:23Six students and a security officer were reportedly hospitalized after a seventh- grade student sprayed pepper spray during class Thursday morning at a West Side School, the second such incident in as many days... The Thursday incident happened Douglass Academy, on the 500 block of N. Waller Ave., at 11 a.m., when the female student pulled out the pepper spray and sprayed it into the air... She did not spray it directly at anyone... On Wednesday, 21 students and two teachers were transported to hospitals after a female student discharged pepper spray at Kellman Elementary on the 7600 block of S. Sacramento Blvd. on the West Side...

Criminally Stupidsuntimes.com/ ... 18:11:07More than 1,100 people wanted for violent sex crimes were among 9,037 fugitives arrested in a weeklong roundup, the Justice Department said Thursday. The arrests were made as part of "Operation Falcon II," a 27-state dragnet timed to coincide with National Victims Rights Week... [Does this seem more than a shade political to you... e.g. they couldn't've picked up these people, like, earlier, then??] This year's focus was on sex offenders... [yuh... political...] today.reuters.com/ ... 16:37:04San Francisco police arrested a man and woman... both recent parolees in their 40s... suspected of robbing a bank and fleeing in style by using a limousine as their getaway car...

World Without Bordersmsnbc.msn.com/ ... 11:38:23U.S. lobbyists lashed out Wednesday at the Mexican "Nothing Gringo" campaign timed for May 1 to coincide with the "Day Without Immigrants" boycott in the United States. The American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico said organizers are risking a backlash and foolishly targeting some of their best allies, since U.S. corporations have actively lobbied the U.S. Congress for immigration reform including legalization for many of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants...

Modern Medicine can be Dangerousmsnbc.msn.com/ ... 11:35:21Surgeons retrieved a pair of eight-inch-long forceps left inside a 17-year old Pakistani girl when she had an appendectomy nearly three years ago...

Digital Culturebreitbart.com/ ... 16:35:41Radiation from mobile phone phones affects the way the brain works, Australian researchers have found... people's response times slowed during a 30-minute mobile phone call but their memory appeared to improve... a small but discernable change in brain function among those who were exposed to the electromagnetic fields that mobile phones generate... news.ft.com/ ... 16:34:59Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate on Wednesday accused the British Broadcasting Corporation, the state broadcaster, of using taxpayers’ money to build a “digital empire” that would compete with commercial rivals. The BBC, which receives about £3bn ($5.3bn, €4.2bn) a year in public funding, has announced plans to relaunch its website... news.yahoo.com/ ... 11:13:53The U.S. online population has hit an all-time high: 73 percent of adults, or 147 million, now use the Internet... an increase from 66 percent, or 133 million adults, in January 2005... But only 42 percent of all adults, or 84 million, have the home high-speed connections important for viewing video and treating the Internet as an always-on reference. Looking only at home Internet users, 62 percent have broadband... local6.com/ ... 11:11:46Police in Fresno, Calif., are investigating video of a brutal fight between girls posted on MySpace.com showing a parent apparently watching the beating... Videotape of the fight, which lasts about 7 minutes, was recently posted on MySpace. A woman can be seen standing over the girls and watching the scuffle. Fresno police said they know who the girls are but they don't know who filmed the fight and who posted it online...

World - Energynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:20:33The United States has outlined an ambitious energy project to develop the energy sources of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia. The plan would develop a regional power grid from Kazakhstan to India... woai.com/ ... 11:08:42Bee County judge Jimmy Martinez is asking for a boycott and has pushed a major county resolution encouraging citizens of Beeville, about 90 miles Southeast of San Antonio, to not get their fuel at Exxon-Mobil stations... news.yahoo.com/ ... 11:08:06ConocoPhillips, the No. 3 U.S. oil company, on Wednesday reported quarterly profit surged 13 percent...

Citizenshipbreitbart.com/ ... 11:06:59An 18-year-old woman who gave birth in the desert used nail clippers to cut her baby girl's umbilical cord before being rescued by U.S. Border Patrol agents... mother and daughter were in good condition...

Free Expressiontimesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:36:09families want to ensure that their loved ones take into the next life all the pleasures that they can expect in this one. Over the past two years, officials have discovered people burning paper offerings of the potency drug Viagra, their mistresses and even “Supergirls” — dolls modelled on winning contestants of the hugely popular Pop Idol spin-off on Chinese television, Supergirl. But it has all become a bit too vulgar for the country’s communist rulers, and the Government moved this week to end the revival of customs deemed to be feudal superstition... timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:33:09The judge who cleared Dan Brown of plagiarising the plot of his bestseller The Da Vinci Code has left his own secret message in the ruling... published his 71-page judgment with a seemingly random series of italicisations throughout.... "It looks like Justice Smith has deliberately left a series of italicised letters in the judgment, which when put together spell something out..." the first nine letters of which spell out "Smith Code..." worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:55:45A Catholic activist organization has written to Oregon's governor and state lawmakers to protest a University of Oregon student newspaper for having published cartoons showing Jesus Christ naked and with an erection. In its March edition, the Insurgent, an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide. The Insurgent claimed it published the drawings to "provoke dialogue..."

US Executive Branchreviewjournal.com/ ... 10:54:39Clinton was preparing to hit his second shot on the fifth hole at Las Vegas Country Club on Saturday when Secret Service agents halted a birthday party fireworks event. Advertisement It's a birthday that Savanna Muirhead, the 5-year-old daughter of 28-year-old porn star Sophia Rossi, won't forget. Savanna was preparing to launch a remote control 18-inch rocket when Clinton's bodyguards "came out of nowhere" and had the launch scrubbed...

WED 2006-APR-26

9/11 - still with usfoxnews.com/ ... 14:56:04...how the audience sitting in the balcony of the Ziegfeld theater -- the family members of those who died on the doomed flight -- felt last night at the film’s premiere. When the 93-minute movie ended — in silence, not an explosion — the people in the balcony sobbed in a way I have never heard before in a movie house. It was gut wrenching, and it was terrifying. I don’t know if "United 93" has given them closure or permission to keep reliving this horror...

Threatswashingtonpost.com/ ... 11:54:14A Pakistani American in Lodi, Calif., was found guilty Tuesday of attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, hours after another jury deadlocked on charges that his father lied to the FBI to protect him...

Industrial Tragedydailytelegraph.news.com.au/ ... 11:42:17...three miners after a small earthquake triggered a rock fall at a Tasmanian gold mine, trapping them almost 1km underground. Rescue workers at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine, about 40km northwest of Launceston, have failed to make contact with the men since the rock fall about 9.30pm (AEST) last night...

Mass Murdering Monstersvoanews.com/ ... 14:52:17Two suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula and there are reports of a third attack in the country's Nile Delta... Wednesday's attacks in Sinai targeted members of the Multinational Force and Observers as well as an Egyptian police patrol... Spokesmen for the Observers, who monitor the border between Israel and Egypt, said there were no casualties among the multinational troops. Details of the third attack, in the Nile Delta, are sketchy, and there are no reports of casualties... timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ ... 11:41:10Despite the attacks, which also wounded around 60 people, most tourists said they planned to stay on in Dahab, a popular resort for diving, especially among backpackers. About 100 Egyptians and foreigners, including prime minister Ahmed Nazif, marched through Dahab on Tuesday chanting: "We love everyone", an effort to rally support for Egypt's vital tourism industry... breitbart.com/ ... 11:40:04Egyptian authorities... moved quickly Tuesday -- arresting 30 men in the triple bombings...

Healing Ourselveslivescience.com/ ... 14:59:17Tiny semiconductor crystals called quantum dots may soon light their own paths through the human body. Scientists are splicing modified proteins from a glow-in-the-dark ocean creature onto the microscopic semiconductors to make self-illuminated dots. Quantum dots, which are 10 to 50 or so atoms wide...

Feeding Ourselvesnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:00:13Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup sizes in China because improved nutrition means women are busting previous chest measurements... nutraingredients.com/ ... 14:53:02...Since the flatulence-producing elements (alpha-galactosides, raffinose, stachyose and verbascose and soluble fibre in the case of beans) can be reduced through natural lactic acid fermentation, they set out to identify the microbial flora involved to enable this to be done on a large scale. First, they analysed fermented black bean seeds, and identified the beneficial bacteria as being Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum. They then performed back-slopping (inoculation of a new batch with a portion of an earlier successful batch) or induced fermentation and were able to reduce the levels of soluble fibre by 63.35 per cent, and raffinose by 88.6 per cent. When the samples were cooked under atmospheric pressure trypsin inhibitors and tannins – antinutritional compounds – were reduced. What is more, the digestibility of the beans was seen both in vivo and in vitro to be improved, meaning that bean-eaters receive more beneficial nutrients...

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 11:45:05This week, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps announced a decrease in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is 3,599 fewer reservists mobilized than last week. This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel, who have been mobilized, to 106,358, including both units and individual augmentees.

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 14:38:55

Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron W. Simons, 20, of Modesto, Calif., died April 24 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif. defenselink.mil/ ... 11:44:14

Army Sgt. Kyle A. Colnot, 23, of Arcadia, Calif.

Army Spc. Eric D. King, 29, of Vancouver, Wash.

Army Pfc. Jacob H. Allcott, 21, of Caldwell, Idaho

Army Pvt. Michael E. Bouthot, 19, of Fall River, Mass.
died of injuries sustained in Baghad, Iraq on April 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV causing a fire during combat operations. All four soldiers were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 67th Armored Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Digital Future is Nowpcmag.com/ ... 11:41:31Nokia plans to open a "flagship store" in Chicago on June 21, with a New York store in the "Fifth Avenue region" opening before the end of 2006... will sell phones not available directly through US carriers... news.ft.com/ ... 11:40:36The BBC, already the UK’s biggest online brand, on Tuesday signalled its determination to join the fast-growing web world of blogs, open access and online communities. The public broadcaster said it would relaunch its website to feature greater personalisation and more user-generated content as it laid out its strategy to adapt to the so-called "web 2.0 world," where users increasingly create their own online communities...

Transport Futuresmh.com.au/ ... 11:38:09the Clever car... a micro-car that could beat the traffic blues and help save the planet... three-wheeled... a metre wide... runs on compressed natural gas... designers have been at pains to make it look sleek and nippy and ensure it appeals to the fashion conscious... within five years at a purchase price of as little as £5000 ($12,000)...

Human Righthosted.ap.org/ ... 14:59:52A gay-rights group sued Gov. Ernie Fletcher on Tuesday for not vetoing $11 million in state funds earmarked for a Baptist college that expelled an openly gay student this month...

Industrial Incidentpeople.aol.com/ ... 14:58:51Teri Hatcher's right eye was injured when a light bulb exploded on the Desperate Housewives set on Tuesday... "I was taken to a wonderful eye doctor, and now am wearing a most glamorous eye patch over the right half of my face. I like to look at the positive and the good news is, the cornea is the fastest healing tissue in the body..."

Digital Threatlivescience.com/ ... 14:56:52You're not even safe from being 'chipped when you're dead. But you'll be safe in Wisconsin, if State Representative Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, gets his bill passed. A proposal moving through the Wisconsin Legislature would prohibit anyone from requiring people to have the tiny RFID chips embedded in them or doing so without their knowledge. Violators would face fines of up to $10,000. Verichip Corporation, based in Florida, has federal approval to implant these rice grain-sized RFID chips in people. The procedure is very similar to getting a shot; typical sites for implantation are the back of the hand and the upper arm...

World Without Borderstucsoncitizen.com/ ... 14:57:50An unmanned aerial drone used to help Border Patrol agents find smugglers and illegal immigrants crossing the border crashed Tuesday in southern Arizona.... officials didn't know the extent of the damage done to the.... $6.5 million Predator B drone.... breitbart.com/ ... 14:55:17The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation's borders and provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters. An amendment cutting Bush's Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new Border Patrol agents, aircraft and some fencing at border crossings widely used by illegal immigrants was adopted on 59-39 vote...

Digital Cultureiol.co.za/ ... 14:51:28Back in the mid-1990s, when the notion of watching an internet animation of a singing dog was still the stuff of a madman's dreams, the Netscape browser was by far the most popular on both PC and Macintosh. Web pages were simple affairs with basic graphic and text layouts. Delighted by the fact that it worked at all, our expectations of a rich multimedia experience weren't high... until a preview release of Explorer 7.0 was made available for download a few weeks ago, there hadn't been a substantial upgrade since version 5.5, way back in July 2000... Jettisoning bells and whistles in favour of sleek design and fast operation became the new goal - not just for Firefox, but also for the new Norwegian offering Opera, and Apple's Safari. All these pretenders now offered tabbed browsing - where multiple web pages can quickly be switched between in the same window - and the ability to read RSS feeds, so users are notified when certain sites are updated, while that updated content is pulled in automatically. People started to switch from Explorer in huge numbers...

Iraqguardian.co.uk/ ... 14:27:03Iraqis condemned terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a foreigner determined to destroy their country, saying Wednesday his new video threatening more attacks may have surfaced in response to the formation of a unity government...

Big Whoops Cascadephillyburbs.com/ ... 11:39:15NEWARK, N.J... In the past year, two New Jersey laboratories have been unable to account for plague-infested mice and vials of deadly anthrax spores... In both cases, authorities say they think the items in question weren't actually lost, but were simply unaccounted for due to clerical errors... They can't say for sure...

Ummm....today.reuters.com/ ... 11:27:18The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said mujahideen were fighting on despite a three-year "crusader" war, according to a rare video of him posted on the Internet on Tuesday... Zarqawi, who has earlier issued his messages via audio recordings, was also shown training with a group of masked men outdoors... [yawn....]

TUE 2006-APR-25

Animals can be Deadlymsnbc.msn.com/ ... 12:31:24A Boca Raton man is asking for the help with his medical bills after a dog bit off his nose while he was volunteering at a local humane society. Steve Ragno said the Tri-County Humane Society doesn't want to help pay for surgery to replace his nose. But the director of the organization said that charge is ridiculous. He said they are in the process of filing an insurance claim. Besides, he said, the injury is all Ragno's fault... breitbart.com/ ... 12:30:56Scores of chimpanzees at a popular Sierra Leone Tacugama Chimp Sanctuary mauled to death a local driver and seriously wounded two Americans after they broke out of their enclosure...

Digital Theftpalmbeachpost.com/ ... 12:30:35An 18-year-old student known as a "technological genius" has been charged with felony computer fraud after police say he used employee passwords to change his friends' grades, erase suspensions from their records and give himself credit for classes he didn't take...

Sex can be... disturbingwgal.com/ ... 12:30:13A Dauphin County [PA] sheriff's deputy has been suspended after being charged with... stalking, harassment and lewdness... used a cell phone to send sexual messages to a female who lives across the street from him... sent her a picture of himself exposed, and on two occasions sat naked on a picnic table behind her home...

Violencefoxnews.com/ ... 12:29:19A furious upstate New York prosecutor wants to question ABC News officials about why they did not report a father beating his 15-year-old daughter that aired last week on "Primetime Live." "Clearly a crime was committed right there on TV," said Derek Champagne, DA of Franklin County, near Lake Placid. "I'm obviously outraged that the first time I see what would appear to clearly be child abuse ... in our own backyard is on a national news program," he told The Post Monday...

Family Tragedybreitbart.com/ ... 12:23:44STEELTON, Pa... A 6-year-old girl who had escaped a house fire early Tuesday ran back inside to find her mother, not realizing the woman had jumped to safety from a second-floor window... The child never made it back out alive...

Tasers Killbreitbart.com/ ... 12:21:51GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla.... A [56yo] woman in a wheelchair who swung knives and a hammer at relatives and police died after being shocked by a stun gun... Tasers deliver a 50,000-volt jolt through two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing. About 7,000 of the nation's 18,000 police agencies had them last year, and they were used by police more than 70,000 times. Amnesty International counted 61 U.S. deaths following Taser use last year. Taser International officials disputed that count, saying it linked some deaths to Taser use when there had been no such official conclusion...

Mass Murdering Monstersapnews.myway.com/ ... 12:28:53A female suicide bomber disguised to look pregnant blew herself up in front of a car carrying Sri Lanka's highest-ranking general, killing eight people and badly injuring the top officer... apnews.myway.com/ ... 12:20:38DAHAB, Egypt - Police arrested 10 people Tuesday and divers retrieved body parts from the sea after three bombs ripped apart a Sinai beach resort at the height of Egypt's tourist season, killing 24 people and injuring more than 80... detained for questioning 10 people - three of whom had arrived in Dahab on Sunday and tried to leave the resort 15 minutes after the blasts...

Disturbing Family Patternstampabays10.com/ ... 12:19:51Dunedin, Florida - A Dunedin dad probably made his point about his son spending too much time on the computer. Pinellas Sheriff's deputies say he shot at the monitor as his son sat near-by. Forty-four-year-old JL was arrested Monday afternoon at his home.... 22-year-old son ...called 911, saying he and his dad were arguing and his dad had just shot at him...

Nuclear is Nastytoday.reuters.com/ ... 12:11:48The world has failed to learn the lessons of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, according to the man who was in charge of the reactor that blew up 20 years ago this week. Former Chernobyl director Viktor Bryukhanov told Russia's Profil magazine in a rare interview that scientists had covered up the full truth about the design faults that helped cause the world's worst nuclear accident...

Healing Ourselvesmedpagetoday.com/ ... 12:10:02Women who spurn milk during pregnancy to avoid gaining weight tend to have lighter babies... both milk consumption and vitamin D intake were significant predictors of birth weight...

Ummm....today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 12:31:42A 53-year-old German woman who was driving her dead mother across country to save on mortuary transportation costs was fined by police for disturbing a dead person's peace...

Sounds Like a Planivmdl.org/ ... 12:17:31Thomas Carlyle said, “Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.” With even greater wisdom Proverbs notes, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21)....
Planning is something everyone does, says they do or would like to do. It is remarkable how much personal planning happens in the course of one day... The question that remains after observing this strong theology of divine planning is whether or not any room exists for appropriate human planning...

People Diecnn.com/ ... 12:14:23Workers recovered the body of a man killed after plunging 10 feet when a large hole opened beneath his house... 32-year-old Jason Chellew was a schoolteacher whose wife was pregnant. He was in his living room around 9:30 p.m. Friday when he heard creaking noises, sprang up and began to move across the room just as the floor opened beneath him.... His wife was in bed and was not hurt... The area, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, was heavily mined for gold in the late 1800s. A mine collapse is one likely cause of the strange episode... Recent rains possibly softened the ground under the home...

Disinformation Propaganda & Spinfreemarketnews.com/ ... 12:14:57THE MAN MAKES NO SENSE... it might be a good idea to have a look at the latest Osama bin Laden offering. These seem to get more and more rum as time goes on... iranmania.com/ ... 12:13:16Rumsfeld linked the costly and unpopular [note the spin!] US efforts to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan to US concerns about Iran's nuclear program and its regional might, in an interview with the Pentagon's in-house television channel. He said those who believe that US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are too costly or are taking too long need to understand that "success in Afghanistan and success in Iraq is critical to containing the extreme impulses that we see emanating from Iran..."

Business Culturedailytech.com/ ... 12:10:45Judge John Spooner ruled that a New York City employee can not be fired for surfing the Web at work... compared Web browsing to other personal activities allowed by different agencies like reading a newspaper or taking personal calls, as long as these activities do not interfere with the worker’s overall performance...

MON 2006-APR-24

Mass Murdering Monstersapnews.myway.com/ ... 22:41:11Three nearly simultaneous bombings hit the Egyptian beach resort popular with foreigners Monday at the height of the tourist season, killing at least 21 people and wounding more than 60 a day after Osama bin Laden issued a taped warning against Westerners. The bombers struck the Sinai seaside town of Dahab in the early evening along a crowded promenade of shops, restaurants and bars. Authorities said 18 of the dead were Egyptian and that a Russian and a Swiss were also killed...

Under Sexist Tyrannyhappynews.com/ ... 22:35:28Iranian women will be allowed to attend soccer matches for first time since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran's president said in a decree posted on his Web site Monday. Women would sit in separate section of the stands, away from the usually raucous male fans. "The presence of families and women will improve soccer-watching manners, and promote a healthy atmosphere," Irania