blog-heap o' links
Army Sgt. 1st Class
David Nunez, 27, of Los Angeles, Calif., died May 29 in Shewan,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire while
conducting combat operations. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special
Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:44:53Army Pfc. Chad M.
Trimble, 29, of West Covina, Calif., died May 28, near Gardez, Afghanistan,
of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.
He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat
Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:44:32Army Spc. Justin
L. Buxbaum, 23, of South Portland, Maine, died May 26 in Kushamond,
Afghanistan, of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident. He was
assigned to the 62nd Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade, Fort Hood
Texas. The incident is under investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:44:03Army Spc.
Christopher Gathercole, 21, of Santa Rosa, Calif., died May 26 in
Ghazni, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during combat
operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort
Lewis, Wash. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:43:32Army Sgt. 1st Class
Jason F. Dene, 37, of Castleton, Vt., died May 25 in
Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident on May
24. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade
Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga. The incident is under
investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:42:03Army Spc. David
L. Leimbach, 38, of Taylors, S.C., died May 25 near Bala Baluk,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked with small arms fire
and rocket-propelled grenades. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 118th
Infantry, South Carolina Army National Guard, Fountain Inn, S.C., and attached
to the 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target
Acquisition), New York Army National Guard. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:40:58Army Staff Sgt.
Frank J. Gasper, 25, of Merced, Calif., died May 25 in Najaf, Iraq, of
wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He
was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, Fort Carson,
Colo. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:39:53Army Sgt. Blake
W. Evans, 24, of Rockford, Ill., died May 25 in Al Jazeera Desert, Iraq, of
wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He
was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat
Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:39:19Army Pfc. Kyle P.
Norris, 22, of Zanesville, Ohio, died May 23 in Balad, Iraq, from wounds
suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device during a
patrol May 22 in Jurf as Sakhr, Iraq. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th
Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort
Stewart, Ga. defenselink.mil/ ... 15:38:15The
Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that
the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War,
have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with
full military honors.Air Force Maj. Barclay B. Young, of Hartford, Conn.Air Force Senior
Master Sgt. James K. Caniford, of Brunswick, MdAir Force Lt. Col.
Henry P. Brauner of Franklin Park, N.J., whose identification tag was recovered
at the crash site. On March 29, 1972, 14 men were aboard an AC-130A Spectre
gunship that took off from Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, on an
armed reconnaissance mission over southern Laos. The aircraft was struck by an
enemy surface-to-air missile and crashed. Search and rescue efforts were
stopped after a few days due to heavy enemy activity in the area. In 1986,
joint U.S.- Lao People's Democratic Republic teams, lead by the Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command (JPAC), surveyed and excavated the crash site in Savannakhet
Province, Laos.... From 1986 to 1988, the remains were identified as those of
nine men from this crew. Between 2005 and 2006, joint teams resurveyed the
crash site and excavated it twice. The teams found more human remains, personal
effects and crew-related equipment. As a result, JPAC identified Young,
Caniford and the other crewmen.... 
Between two
fractured mountains, engineers, construction workers and soldiers raced
Wednesday to relieve pressure on a dammed river that threatened millions of
people who live downstream, most of them survivors of the May 12 earthquake
that already ranks as one of the deadliest natural disasters to strike China in
more than three decades. Government officials on Wednesday raised the confirmed
death toll to 68,109, with 19,851 people still missing... 
China has sent emergency bamboo-shoot rations to pandas at
a reserve in the Sichuan earthquake zone because no one there is collecting it
for them... reuters.com/ ... 21:18:35Microbes
have been found living at a record depth of 1.6 km (a mile) beneath the
Atlantic seabed in a hint that life might also evolve underground on other
planets... reuters.com/ ... 20:46:04
Senegalese fishermen
dragged dozens of stranded pilot whales back out to sea on Wednesday but at
least 20 more died on the beach after mysteriously coming ashore... 
A
shark has killed a 21-year-old surfer off a beach west of Mexico's Acapulco
resort, less than a month after another fatal shark attack in the area... his
left hand was bitten off and his leg broken... hosted.ap.org/ ... 20:55:29A
disoriented deer smashed his way into a suburban hair salon, and a customer
wrestled with the animal to keep it from ramming into his 11-year-old son or
other youngsters. "I'm a father. I wasn't going to let anything happen to those
kids..." [deer] had to be euthanized... A major quake
such as the one that left at least 60,000 dead in southwestern China this month
can trigger other earthquakes half way around the world, according to a study
released Sunday. This unexpected finding could one day help make better
predictions about the frequency and intensity of aftershocks... 12 out of 15
major quakes -- registering a magnitude of 7.0 or higher -- since 1990
generated surface waves that set off smaller seismic events in fault systems on
distant continents... reuters.com/ ... 21:33:03China planned
to dynamite rock, mud and rubble forming a dangerously large "quake lake" on
Monday, hoping to avert a new disaster two weeks after a catastrophic tremor
struck Sichuan province. The official estimate of dead from the May 12
earthquake is now more than 60,000, but that number is certain to grow as
searchers account for more of the 30,000 missing... reuters.com/ ... 21:31:30At least six
people were killed when a shallow, 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Colombia on
Saturday, destroying homes and shaking buildings in the capital Bogota, where
panicked residents fled into the streets. Three people, including a small baby,
were killed when an avalanche crushed their car and three more died in
landslides... news.sky.com/ ... 20:38:44Thousands of
buildings have collapsed and hundreds of people are injured after an aftershock
hit China's Sichuan province - two weeks after the massive earthquake struck...
70,000 houses collapsed, killing one person and injuring around 200... 6.4,
this morning's aftershock was the strongest of a series of tremors that have
hit China since the May 11 quake. Its epicentre was located 90 miles north-east
of the devastated city of Mianyang, and the tremor was felt across China...
Army Pfc. Howard
A. Jones, Jr., 35, of Chicago, died May 18 in Chicago from injuries
sustained when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while on leave from the
Iraq theater of operations. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry
Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:42:28Navy Lt. Jeffrey
A. Ammon, 37, of Orem, Utah, died May 20, as a result of injuries suffered
from an improvised explosive device in the Aband District, Afghanistan. The
sailor was attached to Commander Navy Region Northwest, Bangor, Wash., and
serving in Afghanistan as a member of Provincial Reconstruction Team Ghazni.
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:42:07Army 1st Lt.
Jeffrey F. Deprimo, 35, of Pittston, Pa., died May 20 in Ghazni,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised
explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 103rd Armor Regiment,
Pennsylvania Army National Guard, Williamsport, Pa. defenselink.mil/ ... 20:41:04Air Force Lt. Col.
Joseph A. Moore, 54, of Boise, Idaho, died of natural causes May 20 in
Djibouti. He was assigned to the 124th Wing, Idaho Air National Guard, Gowen
Field, Idaho. defenselink.mil/ ... 20:40:41Army Master Sgt.
Davy N. Weaver, 39, of Barnesville, Ga., died May 18 in Qalat,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised
explosive device. He was assigned to the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team,
Georgia Army National Guard, Macon, Ga. defenselink.mil/ ... 20:40:21Army Pvt. Branden
P. Haunert, 21, of Cincinnati, Ohio, died May 18 in Tikrit, Iraq, of wounds
suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was
assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat
Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 20:40:13Marine Cpl.
William J. L. Cooper, 22, of Eupora, Miss., died May 19 while supporting
combat operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 1st
Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary
Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 
A New Zealand man who
offered to pay with marijuana when he did not have enough money for a snack was
caught by a police officer who overheard his unusual proposal... [Damn these
PuriTalibaNazis for interfering with honest barter!!] 
Hillary Clinton has won Kentucky's Democratic presidential
election primary by a large margin. Voters are also going to the polls in
Oregon, where surveys suggest Mrs Clinton's rival Barack Obama will win. If Mr
Obama performs well, he could win a majority of the elected delegates who will
choose the party's nominee at the Democratic National Convention. Hailing her
Kentucky victory, Mrs Clinton vowed to fight on "until we have a nominee -
whoever she may be"... reuters.com/ ... 21:29:58Hillary Clinton mentioned the June 1968 assassination of
Robert Kennedy in explaining on Friday why she had resisted calls to end her
White House bid, drawing a rebuke from Democratic front-runner Barack Obama's
campaign... "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the
California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember
Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California..." China's
government has appealed for international aid at the beginning of a three-day
period of mourning for tens of thousands of people killed by a huge
earthquake... estimated 71,000 people dead or missing... denverpost.com/ ... 22:53:15
Mile-wide tornado hits Windsor, Weld County, Colo...
caused multiple crashes and multiple injuries on highways... confirmed at least
one death... at a campground outside Greeley... 
ANCHORAGE, Alaska... came home Sunday and discovered... A
black bear... shot and killed inside the ransacked home... reuters.com/ ... 16:44:53A German
family were stunned when a rampaging bull burst through the back door of their
house, charged around the living room... estimated 10,000 euros ($15,600) of
damage... left after the owner of the house opened the front door for it...
A controversial kangaroo cull began at an Australian
military site in the national capital Canberra Monday... at least 20 kangaroos
were killed, among about 400 due to be shot in a bid to protect the site from
overgrazing and to protect other species... 
Democrat Barack Obama became an honorary member of an
American Indian tribe on Monday... Crow Nation, a tribe of some 12,100 members
in Montana, taking on a native name and honorary parents in a traditional
ceremony... and promised a proactive policy to help tribal people if he wins
the White House in November... "I like my new name, Barack Black Eagle," he
said. "That is a good name..." reuters.com/ ... 22:09:33Hillary Clinton had a warning on Monday for rival Barack
Obama, who is on the verge of claiming the U.S. Democratic presidential
nomination: Not so fast. "This is nowhere near over..." abcnews.go.com/ ... 16:34:31Sen.
Barack Obama ripped into a Republican ad today that targets comments made by
his wife, Michelle, and called the GOP tactic "low class" and "detestable..."
[Dude, if she can't the heat, you should get her and yourself out of the
kitchen....] blog.washingtonpost.com/ ...
16:32:58PORTLAND, Ore. -- Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large
crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached
the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now. The campaign, citing
figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue,
estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak... [Mass madness!]
afp.google.com/ ... 16:27:06Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious
voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global
warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to
developing countries. "We can't
drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at
all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK..."
[WHAT THE H377 SAY DO "OTHER COUNTRIES" HAVE HERE? This socialist
should be running for President of the People's Republic of the Untied
Nations!] [also...] "Senator McCain said let's give everybody a gas tax
holiday but doesn't want to pay for it. I think I've got the best plan. Let the
oil companies pay it out of their excess profits..." 
Former Rep. Thomas G.
Loeffler, a Texan who is among the McCain campaign’s most important
advisers and fundraisers, has resigned as a national co-chair over lobbying
entanglements... at least the fifth lobbying-related departure from the
campaign in a week... "No one in real America cares," said one key Republican.
"But McCain cares..." apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:50:06John McCain: "I ask you, what should we be looking for in
our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old....
Controlling government spending isn't just about Republicans or Democrats....
It's about being able to look your children in the eye. Or in my case, my
children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and
great-great-great-grandchildren, the youngest of whom are nearing
retirement.... I have the courage, the wisdom, the experience and, most
importantly, the oldness necessary. The oldness it takes to protect America, to
honor her, love her and tell her about what cute things the cat did..." [on
Saturday Night Live] Army Sgt. 1st Class George W. Koon of Leesville,
S.C.Army
Sgt. 1st Class Jack O. Tye of Loyall, Ky.Army Sgt. John K.
Daggett, 21, of Phoenix, Ariz., died May 15 in Halifax, Canada, of wounds
suffered May 1 in Baghdad, Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his
vehicle. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd
Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
Rescue workers
have plucked more than 60 more survivors from the rubble following Monday's
massive earthquake in southwestern China, as a strong new aftershock hit...
6.1... death toll rose to almost 30,000... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:35:11There has been
panic in the quake-hit Chinese city of Beichuan after a river nearby burst its
bank sparking reports it could flood the entire city... stampede as thousands
of people fled to higher ground. The whole city has been evacuated, forcing the
suspension of all rescue efforts... Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama said on
Friday President George W. Bush's "failed policies" had strengthened U.S.
enemies like Iran and Hamas... [Said the Great Appeaser...] reuters.com/ ... 22:07:30Five
armed men burst into the small room and courtyard at dawn, just as 21-year-old,
22-week pregnant, Sunita was drying her face on a towel. They punched and
kicked her stomach as she called out for her sleeping boyfriend "Jassa",
22-year-old Jasbir Singh, witnesses said. When he woke, both were dragged into
waiting cars, driven away and strangled. Their bodies, half-stripped, were laid
out on the dirt outside Sunita's father's house for all to see, a sign that the
family's "honor" had been restored by her cold-blooded murder. A week later,
the village of Balla, just a couple of hours drive from India's capital New
Delhi, stands united behind the act, proud, defiant almost to a man...
Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned gun
owners on Friday that his Democratic opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
would threaten their right to bear arms... reuters.com/ ... 22:08:36A suicide
bomber crashed his motorbike into a police bus in the Sri Lankan capital on
Friday, killing 10 people, and authorities said Tamil Tiger rebels were to
blame... more than 85 people wounded... reuters.com/ ... 22:05:07A suicide
bomber disguised in a burqa blew himself up in a bazaar in western Afghanistan
on Thursday, killing six police and 12 civilians... Twenty-two people were
wounded... President Hamid Karzai... "The enemies of Afghanistan, by misusing
the women's veil, put on display their unmanliness..." reuters.com/ ... 22:03:43An email
to local media, from a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen, declared
open war on India and threatened more attacks on tourists. The email also
included a video of a bicycle with a bag strapped to it, with the bike's serial
number... Almost five
million people have been left homeless by Monday's devastating earthquake in
China's south-western Sichuan Province, officials say... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:16:20More than
50,000 people may have died in the earthquake that devastated parts of China on
Monday, state media say... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:13:30American
experts are monitoring nuclear facilities in China's earthquake zone... after
France's nuclear watchdog reported that some had suffered minor damage...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:12:59A powerful
aftershock knocked out roads and communications in some of the most
quake-ravaged parts of central China on Friday, as emergency crews rescued 163
people who had survived up to 100 improbable hours trapped in the ruins... 5.5
aftershock... Democrat John Edwards endorsed former rival Barack Obama
on Wednesday... a day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in the
West Virginia primary... blog.washingtonpost.com/ ...
09:29:54the Bob Barr Leadership Fund -- has contributed money to roughly
two-dozen Republican members of Congress, according to Federal Election
Commission records. Recipients of Barr's largess have included some decidedly
moderate, non-Libertarian types like GOP Reps. Christopher Shays (Conn.) and
Deborah Pryce (Ohio) and Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.). Barr also gave $1,000 last
year to the presidential effort of a former Libertarian nominee, Rep. Ron Paul
(R-Texas), just a few weeks after he gave money to another White House campaign
-- that of former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who is now running for Senate.
Further complicating Barr's post-partisan (or bipartisan? tripartisan?) stance,
his last recorded PAC contribution, made in February, went to ... a Democrat:
Rep. Tom Allen, a candidate for Senate in Maine. Of course, Barr's PAC has also
given at least $8,500 to the Libertarian National Committee. So he's got almost
all of his bases covered. As of March 31, his committee still had $166,000 on
hand. Maybe he'll throw some cash the Green Party's way, just to be fair...
boston.com/ ... 09:28:05
Zogby's own polling suggested that Barr would capture some
3 percent of the vote nationwide. "Do I think he'll get 3 percent? Probably
not, but he doesn't have to," Zogby said. "If we just look at the states in
play, he can, with just 10,000 votes here and there, make a difference. I think
we're looking at a razor-thin election..." ajc.com/ ... 09:24:54Bob Barr... is running "to let the American people know
that they are going to have a choice" of a candidate who would shrink the size
and scope of government and start bringing home U.S. troops from Iraq and other
posts around the world... [Anti-Woman's Right and an ignorant Isolationist,
and he's STILL the best choice this year. Yuck!] Barr insisted that he was
not trying to be a "spoiler" for presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain,
whom he criticized as a "status quo" candidate... Barr, a former congressman
from Cobb County, drew national attention when he pushed for impeaching
President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal in 1998. He lost
his House seat in 2002 after his district was redrawn and has since become an
outspoken —- and sometimes controversial —- advocate for privacy and
gun rights... [You can't be for "privacy" and be anti-Woman's Right!]
Super-fast pilot whales have been
observed sprinting after prey, likely to include giant squid. The rapid pursuit
has brought comparisons with the fleet-footed land predator, the cheetah. The
cetaceans even use the same, highly specialised hunting strategy that cheetahs
use... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:01:35Rather
than snoozing for more than 16 hours a day, as observed in captivity, sloths in
the wild doze for less than 10 hours... reuters.com/ ... 15:58:14Officials
at the Calgary Zoo remained baffled on Tuesday as they tried to puzzle out just
why 34 of their stingrays suddenly died... The juvenile cownose stingrays,
about the size of a dinner plate, were kept in a "petting" tank where visitors
were able to touch them... reuters.com/ ... 15:57:46A giant
shrimp living on Australia's Great Barrier Reef... have the most complex eyes
in the animal kingdom, capable of seeing colors from the ultraviolet to the
infrared, as well as detecting other subtle variations in light. They view the
world in up to 12 primary colors -- four times as many as humans -- and can
measure six different kinds of light polarization... Just why Gonodactylus
smithii needs this level of rarefied vision is unclear, although the
researchers suspect it is to do with food and sex... All
the pandas at the world's most famous panda preserve were reported safe late
Tuesday, more than a day after China's worst earthquake in three decades closed
off the remote, mountainous area... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:43:54JUYUAN,
China... The high school students were settling in to afternoon arts and
humanities classes when the massive quake struck. The school collapsed so
rapidly - one floor "pancaking" atop another - that there was practically no
time to escape... All but a handful of the more than 900 upperclassmen were
believed trapped under the slabs of cement, bricks, tile and twisted cables.
Only one survivor has been found... Juyuan was a magnet school attracting the
region's top students, ranging from seventh grade to ninth grade, many of them
from isolated communities who boarded in an adjacent dormitory... Unless more
survivors are found, the quake will have wiped out the school's entire
graduating class and about half its student population... walls and support
columns gave way almost instantly... news.sky.com/ ... 15:17:39Chinese
troops have rushed to plug "extremely dangerous" cracks in a
dam wall, upriver from the earthquake-devastated town of Dujiangyan...
[The Bias:] The study subjects, who reported smoking from
78 to 350 joints a week, [BOGGLE!] had elevated
amounts of a chemical that raises the amount of fats in their blood... webmd.com/ ... 14:56:14[The
B.S.:] Smoking marijuana results in changes in the bloodstream that may put
chronic users at risk for serious cardiovascular problems such as heart attack
and stroke... [say] Researchers with the National Institute on Drug Abuse...
team says that THC binds to cannabinoid receptors that are located in different
areas of the body, including the brain, heart, and liver. They believe the
chemical chronically overstimulates the receptors, leading to a steady increase
in ApoC-111 levels and accumulation of triglycerides in the blood... The 7.9
magnitude earthquake struck 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the central city of
Chengdu, home to 11 million people and the capital of Sichuan province. There's
no contact from the city of Wenchuan, which has a population of 118,000 and is
14 kilometers from the epicenter... 
Sir Paul McCartney is said to be "horrified" that his new
eco-friendly car was flown 7,000 miles from Japan... newsweek.washingtonpost.com/ ...
13:09:04Today members of Congress will press President Bush to halt
purchases of crude oil by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to do
something – anything – to tamp down crude oil prices, which have
doubled in the last year. The reserve, created in the aftermath of the
1973-1974 oil embargo, has been quietly stockpiling oil in the Louisiana Salt
Caverns for three decades, with only a handful of pauses. Bush says the amount
of oil being purchased by the strategic reserve – about 70,000 barrels a
day – is too tiny to make any difference in oil prices. But members of
Congress, including 16 Senate Republicans, say it’s worth a try. How did a
suspension in purchases by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve become a cause
célèbre in Congress? The idea has originated in large part with
the Aspen, Col.-based oil consultant Philip K. Verleger. An economist, Verleger
was director of the Office of Domestic Energy Policy at the U.S. Treasury under
President Carter and later a lecturer at Yale University... Army Cpl. Jessica
A. Ellis, 24, of Bend, Ore., died May 11 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds
suffered when her vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. She was
assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team,
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:29:54Army Pvt. Matthew
W. Brown, 20, of Zelienople, Pa., died May 11 in Asadabad, Afghanistan,
from injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the
3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, 18th Fires Brigade (Airborne),
Fort Bragg, N.C. The incident is under investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:29:08Army Spc. Joseph
A. Ford, 23, of Knox, Ind., died May 10 in Al Asad, Iraq, of injuries
suffered in a vehicle accident. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 152nd
Cavalry Regiment, 76th Brigade Combat Team, Indiana National Guard, New Albany,
Ind. The incident is under investigation. Those who are fed up with the liberal John
McCain and disgusted by the lack of a conservative candidate in the race have
at last found an answer. Former Republican Congressman Bob
Barr (R-GA) has decided to take up a run for President. Barr was
appointed as U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia in 1986, and
has spent a lifetime supporting conservative causes, serving on the board of
the N.R.A. and the American Conservative Union. He has worked closely throghout
his career with colleagues including famed conservative leaders Paul Weyrich
and Grover Norquist, as well as the noted conservative activist Richard
Viguerie. As a Congressman, Bob Barr held a lifetime rating of 98 from the
American Conservative Union, which is higher than the last two Republican House
leaders, Tom Delay and John Boehner, who could hardly be called "liberal"
themselves. Congressman Barr also has a higher lifetime rating from the A.C.U.
than the Republican nomineee for president, John McCain. His rating from the
National Right to Life Committee is also substantially higher. Barr is running
as a libertarian after rightly leaving the Republican party in protest over the
massive expansion of the Federal Government that has occurred since President
Bush took office... examiner.com/ ... 11:36:51"My name
is Bob Barr and I’m a candidate for the presidency of the United States of
America," he told a small room of reporters, pre-empting them by raising the
obvious question himself: "You might say Bob Barr, why are you running for
president?" Well, Barr tried to explain, articulating his desire to "cut the
size, scope and power of government." He spoke out in favor of the separation
of powers, but against "a government run amok fiscally." He said the American
people "want a choice" and a restoration of habeas corpus.... "Look, I’m
in it to win it.... I’m not getting in this race to make a point. ...
I’m not getting into this race to be a spoiler — I’ve got better
things to do..." 
ajc.com/ ... 11:40:47
Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's
peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama
in '08" scrolled underneath, are "cute." But to a coalition of critics, the
shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations
past... Why picture Obama as Curious George? "Look at him . . . the hairline,
the ears, he looks just like Curious George," Norman said. He said it's just a
coincidence that the character he chose for the T-shirt is a monkey...
The most
powerful earthquake to hit China in 30 years has killed at least 10,000
people... many more still trapped. In one county alone, 80% of buildings
collapsed, and up to 5,000 people died... voanews.com/ ... 21:08:27The hardest hit county, Wenchuan, has
more than 110,000 people and a large ethnic-Tibetan population. Wenchuan County
is also home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and
breeding base for endangered giant pandas... signonsandiego.com/ ...
21:05:37CHENGDU, China – One of the worst earthquakes to
hit China in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people Monday, trapped about 900
students under the rubble of their school and caused a toxic chemical leak,
state media reported... 7.9-mag... devastated a hilly region of small cities
and towns in central China... Photos of
the destruction timesonline.co.uk/ ...
00:53:22Relief deliveries into cyclone-hit Burma increased today but aid
groups said supplies fell far short of the enormous need and that foreign
experts were still barred from the country... breitbart.com/ ... 00:50:31SENECA, Mo... Stunned survivors picked through the little
that was left of their communities Sunday after tornadoes tore across the
Plains and South, killing at least 22 people in three states and leaving behind
a trail of destruction and stories of loss... Picher... was a surreal scene of
overturned cars, smashed homes and mattresses, and twisted metal high stuck in
the canopy of trees. "I swear I could see cars floating..." one of at least six
tornadoes in Georgia killed a person in Dublin, about 120 miles southeast of
Atlanta... The small town of Kite was destroyed by the storm... "From what
they're telling me, it's gone..." Among the dead were five family members...
who had been going to a wedding when the tornado caught their vehicle... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:41:42At least six people died in Picher [Okla], 14 in Missouri
and one in Georgia... Edinburgh Zoo is in negotiations to bring a pair of giant
pandas from China to Scotland... reuters.com/ ... 00:39:12
An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond,
discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid
after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila
neilyoungi... John McCain broke with the Bush administration and
Republican Party orthodoxy Monday as he not only declared global warming real,
but reached out to Democrats and independents with a free-market solution [??] that includes capping
carbon-fuel emissions... reuters.com/ ... 21:02:53Republican John McCain... said on Monday he would pursue
mandatory U.S. curbs on greenhouse gas emissions if he wins the White House in
November... vowed to take the lead in combating global climate change, seek
international accords to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offer an incentive
system to make businesses in the United States cleaner... sfgate.com/ ... 01:07:35Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has become an increasingly firm
advocate of ending federal intervention and letting states make their own rules
when it comes to medical marijuana....Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton of New York, is less explicit, recently softening a pledge she made
early in the campaign to halt federal raids in states with medical marijuana
laws. But she has expressed none of the hostility that
marked the response of her husband's administration to California's
initiative, Proposition 215.Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican
nominee-in-waiting, has gone back and forth on the issue - promising a medical
marijuana patient at one campaign stop that seriously ill patients would never
face arrest under a McCain administration, but ultimately endorsing the Bush
administration's policy of federal raids and prosecutions... realclearpolitics.com/ ...
00:54:14Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential
campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice
presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason:
Michelle Obama... public utterances do not reveal the extent of her
hostility... CANNABIS has allegedly been discovered in the backpack of a
10-year-old girl headed to a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern
Territory... iht.com/ ... 01:09:02A new law in
the U.S. state of Georgia makes it illegal to sell candy and other products
made to taste like marijuana to minors, in what may be the first such ban in the
country... [OMG! TASTE POLICE! WILL THE PURITALIBANAZI TYRANNY STOP AT
NOTHING?] telegraph.co.uk/ ... 01:04:58
An award-winning children's
author has welcomed the Government's decision to reclassify
cannabis after
revealing it exacerbated the mental illness that led her son to commit
suicide... [Carrie Nation lives!] canadianpress.google.com/ ...
01:04:14The Southern Alberta Marijuana Investigation Team has uncovered
what it calls a very large and sophisticated
marijuana grow
operation in Calgary... more than 2,400 marijuana plants were found in a
southwest residence... smh.com.au/ ... 01:03:49A tip-off
by a member of the public has led to a cannabis haul in south-western Sydney
estimated to be worth more than $1 million... at least 12 storm-related deaths in Missouri, 10 of those
in Newton County on the border with Oklahoma... Six people were also killed in
the small northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher... "Basically a 24-block area is
virtually destroyed..." mcalesternews.com/ ...
00:51:44[Great
shot of funnel over McAlester, Oklahoma] mcalesternews.com/ ...
00:50:33"It looks
like a bomb went off," News-Capital photojournalist Kevin Harvison said as he
surveyed damage in Haywood, a small community west of McAlester. "Trucks are
crumpled..." In McAlester debris rained fell from the sky as the funnel passed
overhead... msnbc.msn.com/ ... 00:49:17Thunderstorms and tornadoes tore across the nation's
heartland Saturday evening, killing at least 11 people, mangling buildings and
trapping people in rubble... A twister killed at least six people in the
northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, then skipped over the Missouri state line
to wreak further death and destruction... The Picher tornado caused major
damage in a 20-block area... At least five people died in southwestern
Missouri... The storms remained active into the evening, with watches and
warnings abundant across a wide swath of the Plains and South... 
a pelican apparently diving for fish slammed into [a
swimmer's] face off Florida... near St. Petersburg... opened a gash in her
face. She needed 20 stitches. The bird died... Army Spc. Mary J.
Jaenichen, 20, of Temecula, Calif., died May 9 in Iskandariyah, Iraq, of a
non-combat related injury. She was assigned to the Brigade Troops Battalion,
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga. The incident
is under investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 00:35:11Army Sgt. Isaac
Palomarez, 26, of Loveland, Colo., died May 9 in Kapisa Province,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his patrol encountered an improvised
explosive device and came under small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade
Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky. 
PUERTO MONTT, Chile... "The volcano is now at its limit
and one possibility is that the column could collapse quickly, generating flows
of ... material down its ravines...." in the worst-case scenario, the ash and
fiery material would engulf the town of Chaiten, just 6 miles from the volcano,
and the areas around it... 
Power has been restored to 20,000 people in north Broward
County, after an iguana caused a short circuit... marijuana are a
dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal
thoughts, according to a White House report being released
Friday... "Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our
culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of
the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as
we used to think in the past..." [Reefer Madness-- the neverending
insanity] news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:59:58A
senior Mexican police official has been gunned down in the capital, Mexico
City... Edgar Millan Gomez was in charge of co-ordinating national police
operations against drugs traffickers... Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's
once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won
fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around
the Illinois senator for the fall campaign... new technology could
soon help safeguard the whales by using sound, not sight, to track the
creatures' movements... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:10:28
Part of Beauty's beak was shot off several years ago,
leaving her with a stump that is useless for hunting food. A team of volunteers
is working to attach an artificial beak to the disfigured bird, in an effort to
keep her alive... news.bbc.co.uk/ ...
22:09:21Scientists have deciphered the genetic blueprint of the
duck-billed platypus, one of the oddest creatures on Earth... only member of
the monotremes (egg laying mammals) for which we have a genetic blueprint...
"It's wonderful to see all of the different mishmash of features that the
platypus exhibits; to see those features reflected in the DNA, in the genes of
this creature, which has held mysteries for the scientists and the general
population ever since it was discovered 200 years ago..." news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:07:07
Fourteen tiger cubs have been spotted in a reserve in
north-western India... a rare piece of good news in the fight to halt the steep
decline in tiger numbers in India... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:05:56"At first glimpse, we
thought the seal was killing the penguin..." An Antarctic fur seal has been
observed trying to have sex with a king penguin... most unusual case of mammal
mating behaviour yet known... lasted for 45 minutes and was caught on camera...
volcano blasted ash some 20 miles (30 kilometers) into the
Andean sky on Tuesday, forcing the last of thousands to evacuate and fouling a
huge stretch of the South American continent... Chilean and Argentine citizens
were advised to wear masks to avoid breathing the dangerous fallout... Also
emptied was the soot-coated border town of Futaleufu, about 75 miles (120
kilometers) from the volcano. The five-day-old eruption is the first in 9,370
years... reuters.com/ ... 22:02:51Looking down over the ash cloud soaring from Chaiten
volcano in southern Chile, the whole area is carpeted in white and experts say
the eruption that began last week could last for months. Ash that has reached
as far as Argentina continued to spew for a sixth day on Wednesday, disrupting
flights to the southern Patagonia region with no sign of a let-up... A coating
of ash over 6 inches thick has built up in places and has contaminated ground
water supplies... reuters.com/ ... 22:01:12Chilean authorities were evacuating the last of thousands
of residents from the vicinity of a volcano in southern Chile on Saturday, as
it continued to spew fine ash for a second day after a surprise eruption...
Some residents had never ventured from tiny Chaiten itself until the volcano
forced them... 
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told supporters in
early March, through a Web video, that he knew he was no longer in the running
for the presidency, and aides said his campaign would be "winding down." But it
turns out Paul never stopped running for president... with more than $4 million
in cash on hand, his campaign says there is no good reason to stop. He is still
racking up votes, for one thing, having garnered 16 percent of the vote in
Pennsylvania's Republican primary on April 22. And his supporters are still
active at the grass-roots level: GOP officials abruptly
canceled the Nevada state convention when it became clear that Paul's backers
outnumbered those for McCain and stood ready to take control of the delegate
process... cbsnews.com/ ... 21:56:53Clinton pulled off an Indiana win in what was a virtual
must-win Midwestern state. With 85 percent of the votes being reported in the
state, she was leading Obama 52 percent to 48 percent. At a rally in
Indianapolis, Clinton said that her Indiana victory had "broken the tie..."
abcnews.go.com/ ... 21:56:07Obama... has solidly won the North Carolina primary...
Nearly unanimous support among African-Americans, who accounted for a third of
voters in North Carolina, lifted Obama to easy victory... he and Sen. Hillary
Clinton, D-NY, remain locked in a tight race in Indiana... Asked if she would
drop out of the race if she loses tonight, Clinton refused to say. "Politics is
unpredictable. So I'm just going to wait and see what the voters have to
say..." Army Pvt. Corey
L. Hicks, 22, of Glendale, Ariz., died May 2 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds
suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was
assigned to the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team,
4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. defenselink.mil/ ... 21:50:44Army Spc. Jeffrey
F. Nichols, 21, of Granite Shoals, Texas, died May 1 in Baghdad from wounds
suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was
assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team,
10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Polk, La. Army Sgt. 1st Class
Lawrence D. Ezell, 30, of Portland, Texas, died April 30 in Baghdad of
wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit
during combat operations. He was assigned to the 71st Explosive Ordnance
Disposal Group, Fort Carson, Colo. defenselink.mil/ ... 01:08:20Army Sgt. Jerry
L. DeLoach, 45, of Jackson, Ga., died July 7, 2007, while assigned to Fort
Knox, Ky. He had been medically evacuated from theater, and died of a
non-combat related injury. He was assigned to the Warrior Transition Unit at
Fort Knox. defenselink.mil/ ... 01:07:36Army Staff Sgt.
Chad A. Caldwell, 24, of Spokane, Wash., died April 30 in Mosul, Iraq,
of injuries sustained while conducting dismounted combat operations. He was
assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
MIDWEST CITY, Okla. -- Up to baseball-sized hail... damage
done to 25 squad cars parked at its Midwest City substation. At least five of
those vehicles have smashed windshields... At nearby Rose State College,
parking lots were filled with dented and damaged cars caused by pounding
hail... Authorities said nobody was severely injured in the storm although some
reported bumps and bruises from falling hail... large, cone-shaped tornado
touch down near Pawnee... upi.com/ ... 22:32:47The mayor of
Rapid City, S.D., Friday pleaded with residents to stay home as a May blizzard
closed down streets and highways in parts of the state... "Please, stay off the
roads until the weather clears. The wind is still gusting to 50 mph with heavy
snow..." apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:32:15Three people in Canton were taken to hospitals; two had
been at the market and had reported chest pains.... At least three tornadoes
raked central and northern Oklahoma, including one in Osage County near Tulsa
that was an estimated 100 yards wide, but no serious injuries were reported
there. A home was destroyed and about a dozen others were damaged in
northeastern Oklahoma, and a hotel under construction near Tulsa was destroyed.
In Midwest City, hail the size of golf balls broke the windshields of
vehicles... About 10,000 electricity customers in Oklahoma lost power at one
point, but most were back on by Friday afternoon... apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:30:33Violent storms rolling across the nation's midsection
unleashed tornadoes, high winds and hail in four states and killed seven people
in Arkansas on Friday, including a teenager who died when a tree fell into her
bedroom as she slept... ripped off roofs and toppled train cars near Kansas
City, Mo.; pelted parts of Oklahoma with hail... Severe thunderstorms were
moving into Kentucky and could make for a wet Kentucky Derby on Saturday...
reuters.com/ ... 22:09:58Severe storms tore through northern Arkansas on Friday,
killing at least seven people and injuring 13 in the southern U.S. state...
reuters.com/ ... 21:42:20A volcano in southern Chile spewed a vast cloud of ash
before dawn on Friday, triggering earth tremors and prompting the evacuation of
about 250 people... ash fell over the picturesque Patagonian town of Chaiten,
which is 760 miles south of the capital Santiago and just 6 miles from the
volcano... redcross.org/ ... 20:42:05Tuesday, April 29... As Red Cross worker Amanda
Christopher drove into the Burnett's Mill neighborhood just outside Suffolk,
Virginia, early today, the full extent of the damage caused by Monday's
powerful storms became apparent. The morning sun revealed that hundreds of
homes and business had sustained heavy damage, and the need for American Red
Cross relief services was evident... Army Cpt. Andrew.
R. Pearson, 32, of Billings, Mont.Army Spc. Ronald J. Tucker, 21, of
Fountain, Colo.Army Staff Sgt.
Bryan E. Bolander, 26, of Bakersfield, Calif., died April 29 in Baghdad
from wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He
was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat
Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
Consider the corrosive effect Wright and others like him
have on their communities as they rob thousands of listeners of the American
dream: hope that through their hard work they can have better lives. Imagine
getting up each morning to go to work in a society that doesn't want you,
doesn't respect you and seeks to hold you back. Your spiritual leader has told
you this, after all. With powerful rhetoric, Wright has asserted, for instance,
that white America sees black women as useful only for their bodies. If this is
the message you got from your mentor, would you expect that you could succeed?
Would you try very hard, if at all? Through my work with the Illinois
governor's task force on human services reform and its efforts to reduce
welfare dependency, I have encountered misguided community "leaders" like
Wright who tell their followers, for example, that the job market is stacked
against them and that the jobs that are available aren't good enough -- that
they are entitled to more. The underlying message: You can't win because of who
you are, regardless of what you do. I have attended positively focused black
church services, and I know that the Rev. Wright does not speak for a
monolithic black church. But I also recall a conversation I had during a visit
to the maximum-security prison in Joliet, Ill. As I sat in the library there,
talking with three men about why they were incarcerated, one man said: "Look
around this room -- almost everybody here is black. This is white man's
genocide. You put us in here to keep us down." Where would this 20-something
black man, or other relatively uneducated young people, get such an idea? From
the vitriol spewed by the Rev. Wrights of this world... reuters.com/ ... 20:44:30On the fifth anniversary of Bush's victory speech under a
banner declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, McCain said the administration
mishandled the war's early stages and raised public hopes by calling the
remaining insurgents in Iraq "dead-enders" in their "last throes." "I thought
it was wrong at the time..." Marine Sgt.
Merlin German, 22 of Manhattan, N.Y., died April 11 at Brooke Army
Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, from wounds he suffered while conducting
combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq, on Feb. 22, 2005. He was assigned
to the 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine
Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., while deployed in support of
Operation Iraqi Freedom. German's parent unit was the 2nd Battalion, 11th
Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp
Pendleton, Calif. He was medically retired Sept. 28, 2007, as a result of his
injuries. defenselink.mil/ ... 18:11:51Army Staff Sgt.
Clay A. Craig, 22, of Mesquite, Texas, died April 29 in Baghdad, Iraq,
from wounds suffered when he received small arms fire during combat operations.
He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat
Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. defenselink.mil/ ... 18:11:35Army Pfc. Adam L.
Marion, 26, of Mount Airy, N.C., assigned to the 171st Engineer Company,
North Carolina Army National Guard, Saint Pauls, N.C.Army Sgt. Marcus
C. Mathes, 26, of Zephyrhills, Fla., assigned to the 94th Brigade Support
Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry),
located at Fort Polk, La.Army Sgt. Mark A. Stone, 22, of Buchanan Dam,
Texas, assigned to the 94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team,
10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), located at Fort Polk, La.Army Pfc. William
T. Dix, 32, of Culver City, Calif., died April 27 at Camp Buehring, Kuwait,
of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the
14th Engineer Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade, I Corps, Fort Lewis, Wash. The
incident is under investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 18:10:02Army Sgt. 1st Class
David L. McDowell, 30, of Ramona, Calif., died April 29 in Bastion,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked using small arms
fire. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Lewis,
Wash. 
"Lego Universe," a
virtual world for fans of the ubiquitous toy... To launch next year as a
massively multiplayer online game... will let players create online versions of
themselves and interact with each other... will blend real-world style
environments with characters and buildings made of digital plastic pieces...
Each player's avatar, or online persona, will be a customizable digital version
of Lego minifigures... reuters.com/ ... 16:57:34LONDON...
Lollipops are the "Stop" signs carried by the yellow-jacketed men and women who
help children to cross the road at the ubiquitous zebra-striped pedestrian
crossings near schools. Trouble is, many drivers fail to heed them and some
become downright aggressive. Now the signs are to be fitted with miniature
cameras, one facing forward and the other backwards, to trap offenders...
hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:52:25The
first clue that something might have been wrong was when a car pulled into a
parking lot in with a "No Parking" sign and post stuck to the front end...
sleeping driver... arrested on marijuana charges... reuters.com/ ... 16:48:47Known as
'hypermiling,' the method can double gas mileage,
even in gas-guzzling vehicles that would normally get less than 20 mpg.
Promoted on a growing number of Web sites, hypermiling includes pumping up
tires to the maximum rating on their sidewalls, which may be higher than levels
recommended in car manuals; using engine oil of a low viscosity, and the
controversial practice of drafting behind other vehicles on the highway to
reduce aerodynamic drag -- a practice begun a few years ago by truck drivers.
The price of gasoline -- which hit a record of nearly $3.61 per gallon on
Tuesday, according to travel club AAA -- has rapidly emerged as the public's
biggest economic concern... Tehran has complained to the UN about remarks made last
week by Hillary Clinton on the circumstances under which the US might attack
Iran. The Democratic presidential hopeful said last week the US could "totally
obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel... apnews.myway.com/ ... 10:29:39A
leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance
to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to "heal the rift in our
party" and unite behind the Illinois senator. Joe Andrew, who was Democratic
National Committee chairman from 1999-2001... 
A
cat chasing a mouse in Tirana's main power station... "ran into the
high-voltage cables..." [both electrocuted] caused a 72-hour blackout across
parts of the Albanian capital... power cuts... dilapidation of the
communist-era grid... 
Giant pythons capable of
swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their
home, potentially threatening other southeastern states... mostly Burmese
pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in
the wild... Highly adaptable, pythons prey on cats, dogs, hares, foxes,
squirrels, raccoons and even alligators, allowing them to thrive in a variety
of environments. After populating the Florida Everglades -- a vast marshland --
where it is estimated they number 30,000, the giant python is now spreading
across the rest of the peninsula... 
voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas
aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area,
shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers. The hairy,
reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" - crazy, because
they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry"
after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on...
"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running
everywhere... They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy..." 
XP SP3 was
supposed to have been released in 2006. That release date was pushed back to
2007. Finally, on April 29, 2008, SP3 was unleashed, only to be immediately
pulled after a "compatibility issue" was found between it and another Microsoft
program... What I find especially bizarre is the list of things that Microsoft
says you should do before installing XP SP3... Uninstalling certain previously
released updates. Setting aside over 1,000 megabytes of hard drive space for
the installation. Temporarily disabling your antivirus software, which,
Microsoft advises, may leave your computer "more vulnerable to attack by
malicious users or by malicious software." Logging in as administrator and
backing up all of your files to an external location and creating and Automated
System Recovery (ASR) set. The list goes on to describe no less than 23 error
messages that can appear while attempting to install XP SP3, such as the always
helpful, "An Internal error occurred." Only after performing all of the chores
on the list will Microsoft even hint that an SP3 installation might be
successful... 
300 dead cats stuffed into freezers at a [47yo] man's
Sacramento home... 30 live cats... littered with cat feces... 81-year-old
mother also was living at the house...