/
/
blog-heap o' links
from
2005-jul
Just random links galore. Latest on top.
Links load in a separate page.
Suggestions welcome.
SUN 2005-JUL-31
Extraterrestrial
apnews.myway.com/ ... 22:41:18
A couple short strips of fabric dangling from Discovery's belly may require an unprecedented repair by spacewalking astronauts, if engineers determine there's even a possibility that the problem could endanger the shuttle during descent...
Whiners
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:03:34
Author Terry Pratchett has complained that the status of Harry Potter author JK Rowling is being elevated "at the expense of other writers"...
Digital Culture
foxnews.com/ ... 22:38:05
Getting chipped means
having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip implanted in your body.
The chip about the size of a large grain of rice lies dormant until a special scanner is passed within six inches of the implant. Then it emits a radio signal that beams a 16-digit number to the scanner. For security uses, that 16-digit number acts like an electronic key. For medical uses, the number is linked to medical records. Doctors to whom you've granted access emergency room doctors, for example can use the key to quickly get hold of your medical records. Who would want such a thing? That depends on how you ask...
military.com/ ... 08:43:12
Ollie North: These e-mailing, web-surfing, call-'em as you see-'em bloggers are the electronic equivalent of the pamphleteers who brought about our revolution. Today they "pass the word" faster than an official spokesman can draft a denial. They are the small "d" democrats of the new "news business" - and more believable to many than what is presented on the tube or in the paper.
World Without Borders
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:03:04
A convoy of Russian military vehicles has left the Black Sea port of Batumi, marking the start of the closure of Moscow's military bases in Georgia... There have been Russian garrisons in Georgia for more than two centuries...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:02:28
Just five weeks ago, Ronnie Moore could not do what most people take for granted - cough and clear his lungs. Now Moore, a quadriplegic, coughs by simply pressing a button on a control box on the tray of his wheelchair... Moore's
cough was the first performed electronically by a quadriplegic...
Violence
reuters.myway.com/ ... 22:42:06
A policeman fatally shot a U.S. tourist in increasingly violent northern Mexico in an apparent accident...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
drudgereport.com/ ... 22:40:48
Helen Thomas is plenty peeved at her longtime friend Albert Eisele, editor of THE HILL newspaper... Thomas said yesterday at the White House that her comments to Eisele were for his ears only.
"I'll never talk to a reporter again!" Thomas was overheard saying. "We were just talking -- I was ranting -- and he wrote about it. That isn't right. We all say stuff we don't want printed,"
Thomas said. But Eisele said that when he called Thomas, "I assume she knew that we were on the record..."
Digital Threat
post-gazette.com/ ... 14:58:03
Time to change the way we measure time, according to a U.S. government proposal
that businesses favor, astronomers abominate and Britain sees as a threat to its venerable standard, Greenwich Mean Time... Eliminating leap seconds will make sextants and sundials slowly become inaccurate, but supporters say that's OK now that the satellite-supported GPS can give exact longitude and latitude bearings to anyone with a receiver... Ending leap seconds would make the sun start rising later and later by the clock -- a few seconds later each decade. To compensate, the U.S. has proposed adding in a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years...
wired.com/ ... 14:54:24
A vulnerability in many hotel television infrared systems
can allow a hacker to obtain guests' names and their room numbers from the billing system. It can also let someone read the e-mail of guests who use web mail through the TV, putting business travelers at risk of corporate espionage. And it can allow an intruder to add or delete charges on a hotel guest's bill or watch pornographic films and other premium content on their hotel TV without paying for it...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 14:53:48
Over the past fortnight Israeli intelligence agents have noticed something distinctly odd happening on the internet.
One by one, Al-Qaedas affiliated websites have vanished until only a handful remain...
The Israelis detect the hand of British intelligence...
Natural Threat
kare11.com/ ... 14:51:30
A woman was severely injured after she was attacked by a black bear Friday evening in Carlton County [Minnesota]... Mary Lou Munn, 50, was found lying in her front yard in Holyoke Township at about 5:30 p.m. with several severe cuts to her leg, back, stomach and shoulder area... told sheriff's deputies she was walking in the woods by a nearby beaver pond when the attack occurred. She fought the bear with a small stick and her fists and her dog tried to help her, but the bear chased the dog off and continued attacking her... walked a quarter mile back to her home after the bear stopped attacking her and called police...
Missing
turnto10.com/ ... 22:48:29
Police said Sunday that a Connecticut boy who vanished during a Yankees game Saturday ran away...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 22:47:51
A volunteer group searching for a missing Alabama teenager dug through a landfill for a third day Sunday but found no clues, a spokesman for the group said.
newsday.com/ ... 09:01:18
A
13-year-old boy
from Stamford, Conn.,
who disappeared from a men's room
in Yankee Stadium,
has been found
in Queens... no information on how the boy had left Yankee stadium in the Bronx undetected and traveled to Queens... has no behavioral or mental problems and no history of running away...
London 2005-July
foxnews.com/ ... 22:33:19
British police arrested eight people Sunday in connection with the botched July 21 London transit bombings and also were reportedly investigating the attackers' ties to Saudi Arabia and Italy...
cbc.ca/ ... 14:50:15
The four suspected bombers arrested by British and Italian police are "dopey" and "not very bright" and will prove to be an intelligence gold mine, a former senior Scotland Yard officer said Saturday... The four, who he said drank, smoked dope and womanized, in contrast with the austere life of religiously motivated attackers, were susceptible to suggestion by their recruiters...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:01:48
A Pakistani who
led a mass prayer ceremony for one of the London suicide bombers
at his ancestral village in the Punjab
has been arrested
as part of President Pervez Musharraf's anti-terrorism clampdown...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:44:52
With all those suspected of carrying out the two sets of attacks believed dead or in custody, investigators were working to unravel the strands of the two plots. Police were searching for those who may have recruited and directed the bombers, while also seeking links between the terror cells, one believed to be made up mostly of Pakistani Britons, the other mainly of East African immigrants to London. The Sunday Times reported that
investigators believed a third terror cell was still at large...
foxnews.com/ ... 08:43:49
ROME A suspect in the failed London transit bombings admitted Saturday to a role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one...
[ehhhnnn... hang 'im anyway :)]
Iraq
military.com/ ... 08:39:43
The Administration and the Pentagon wanted "free elections" in Iraq. They also wanted a secular form of government, which means a democracy with a parliamentarian form of National Assembly. Well, they got their elections, but will they get their secular form of government? I do not think so...
military.com/ ... 08:38:48
All that blood, sacrifice and billions of American taxpayer dollars went for naught because politicians hadn't worked out the endgame before Round One. And then their solution-without-honor was to lie their way out of a no-win war. Thirty-five years later, President Bush told the nation that Iraq had nine fully trained combat infantry battalions. Just as he was proclaiming the prowess of the Iraqi army, a major in the Iraqi Training Command told me that the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, when committed to their first battle, threw down their weapons and ran. "Not sure where the president is getting his info, but we have only one battalion that's good-to-go," he said...
SAT 2005-JUL-30
Unclear on the Concept
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 23:34:21
Jimmy Carter, in Britain: "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A...I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts...What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people.. I'm embarrassed about it, I think it's wrong. I think it does
give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people..."
Beatles - still with us
bloomberg.com/ ... 09:02:32
A
handwritten lyric of the Beatles song, "All You Need is Love," sold for a hammer price of 600,000 pounds ($1 million)
last night at a sale of John Lennon memorabilia in London's Hippodrome rock-music venue...
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:01:49
George Harrison's widow has overseen the remastering of the film and music of his
1971 Concert For Bangladesh into a high-definition DVD
, a vast project the former Beatle had to abandon when he became ill. Olivia Harrison said: "It's really stunning. It's been blown up from the original 16 mm to 70 mm. George wanted to get a full soundtrack. Now, you'll be watching a really beautiful film..."
Digital Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:24:19
A scientist in the UK has
proposed that the unique pattern inside each individual's ear could be used as a biometric identifier.
..
[what I can't believe is that this hasn't been thought of years ago!]
"If you compare it with faces, the advantage of these is that they're both non-invasive biometrics - you don't have to make contact. But the disadvantage with faces is that they smile, they get old, you get wrinkles.. Your ear just carries on growing and it preserves its structure as you get older. "That makes it quite advantageous in terms of biometrics..."
Only Natural
gjsentinel.com/ ... 23:17:23
FORT COLLINS, Colo. Never mind officials voiding a
$50 ticket for indecent exposure
, or an explanation from county officials that a ranger who
issued the citation to the breast-feeding mother
was inexperienced. Dorian Ryan said she wants an apology for what she called a "humiliating and degrading" experience. "This isn't right. Women shouldn't be harassed for breast-feeding their children," Dorian Ryan said...
US Military
voanews.com/ ... 23:16:42
Uzbek officials have formally terminated an agreement allowing the United States to use an air base in southeastern Uzbekistan, ending a nearly four-year-old deal under which the United States was able to provide support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan. The termination follows criticism from the United States and other countries of Uzbek President Islam Karimov over the reported killing of hundreds of civilians by Uzbek security forces in May...
komotv.com/ ... 09:05:14
a Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber. On Feb. 15,1945 it carried Ensign Matthew McFarland and Lt. Jesse Battenfeld to their deaths as they vanished on a routine flight from Sand Point Naval Air Station. The wreckage was found 7-months later but 60 years later the wreckage and the remains of the two men are still there. So for the first time in Washington state,
the same military teams that bring MIA remains home from Cambodia and Vietnam are in Cle Elum to bring these men home too...
Natural vs Transport
telegraphindia.com/ ... 09:04:16
Using a single inflatable tube as a lifeboat and sarees coiled into ropes, they saved over 150 people cowering on three public buses as floodwaters rose to 10 feet around them...
Justice?
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:49:12
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was attacked by an unidentified man after questioning by the Iraqi special tribunal on Thursday, his lawyers say. The former president was attacked as he was leaving the courtroom, and there was an exchange of blows, his legal team said in a statement. However, a US military spokeswoman denied that any such incident happened...
World Without Borders
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:48:26
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - When immigration authorities raided a poultry plant and took away more than 100 employees to face deportation, some workers were able to call home and arrange care for their children. But about
30 children
, some as young as 3 months old, were
left behind with no parents after the arrests...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:13:38
Army Pvt.
Ernesto R. Guerra
, 20, of Long Beach, Calif., died July 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained on July 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his HMMWV was involved in an accident.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:13:16
Marine Lance Cpl.
Christopher P. Lyons
, 24, of Shelby, Ohio, died July 28 when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:12:58
Army Spc.
Edward L. Myers
, 21, of St. Joseph, Mo., died July 27 in Samarra, Iraq, where his unit was conducting patrol operations and an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:12:41
Army Spc.
Jacques E. Brunson
, 30, of Americus, Ga.
Army Staff Sgt.
Carl R. Fuller
, 44, of Covington, Ga.
Army Sgt.
James O. Kinlow
, 35, of Thomson, Ga.
Army Sgt.
John F. Thomas
, 33, of Valdosta, Ga.
died on July 24, in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV while they were on patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:11:43
Marine Cpl.
Andre L. Williams
, 23, of Galloway, Ohio, died July 28, when his unit came under attack by enemy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while conducting combat operations in Cykla Village, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 00:11:24
Army Capt.
Benjamin D. Jansky
, 28, of Oshkosh, Wis., died July 27 in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, where his HMMWV was accidentally struck by another military vehicle.
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 23:35:20
Israel has drawn up a
battle plan to eradicate Osama bin Laden's terrorist network within a few years
a plan that is being studied by military and intelligence leaders by other nations involved in the war against Islamic terrorism, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin... [link is an ad]
Missing
tuscaloosanews.com/ ... 23:36:16
Police and volunteers used heavy equipment, shovels and trained dogs to
pick through a landfill Saturday where a witness claims he saw men dumping the body of a blonde-haired woman
two days after U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway vanished...
newsday.com/ ... 23:18:48
A
13-year-old boy
from Stamford, Conn., was
missing Saturday afternoon
after he disappeared
from a men's room Friday night on his first trip to Yankee Stadium...
Police Riot
suntimes.com/ ... 23:16:20
The manufacturer of Taser stun guns vowed Friday to seek a court review of a ruling by the Cook County medical examiner's office that one of the company's devices caused the death of man in Chicago. The
medical examiner's office found the electrical shock from a Chicago Police sergeant's Taser was the primary cause of Ronald Hasse's Feb. 10 death
, the first ruling of its kind in the nation. Methamphetamine intoxication was listed as a contributing cause...
Industrial Threat
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 09:06:29
Cement supplies are tight across much of the country...
The shortage has driven the price of cement, one of the primary ingredients in concrete, up about 12 percent nationwide in the last year... In Spokane, shortages forced hardware stores to ration bagged cement this spring, and some builders had to lay off workers for lack of raw material... The shortage, along with the tight supply of structural steel, has contributed to sharply rising construction costs...
Sex can be Dangerous
kutv.com/ ... 23:20:46
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah A mother is upset after a 14-year-old babysitter engaged in sexual conduct with her eight-year-old boy, and the
eight-year-old was charged with lewd conduct...
Salt Lake County District Attorney told her both the child and teenager were equal participants. But Mrs. Grosbeck didnt believe that. My son is eight, hes a little boy. He does not have the ability to participate on the same level as a fourteen-year-old,... Although the charges against her son were dropped, she is concerned that the same thing could happen to other victims of sexual abuse. I dont want parents to be afraid to go to the state agencies that are supposed to be protecting our children when things like this happen, out of fear that their children are going to be charged...
nydailynews.com/ ... 09:01:12
The Gramercy Park man, who blacked out during what appears on credit card bills to be a
$40,000 evening of Hefnerian debauchery,
says he was really the victim of eight gold-digging escorts. "The poor guy is embarrassed to death," said Kevin Claffey, attorney for Monfredo, 33. "The problem is, he doesn't remember a lot..."
London 2005-July
foxnews.com/ ... 08:45:09
A suspect in the attempted bombings of July 21 in London was reportedly cooperating with investigators on Saturday... providing information that led police to search the country for his contacts... Osman Hussain... a Briton with Ethiopian citizenship...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 23:21:46
DODDRIDGE, Ark. -
A tour bus and a pickup truck collided Saturday
on a highway in southwest Arkansas,
injuring 31 people.
.. The bus was carrying members of a church youth group that was returning to Baton Rouge, La., from a trip to Tulsa, Okla...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:03:18
One train rear-ended another on the "California Screamin'" roller coaster at Disney's California Adventure theme park Friday night, slightly injuring 15 people...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:02:58
Two cars on a roller coaster at Disney's California Adventure theme park collided Friday evening, injuring 60 people...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:02:42
More than
20 vehicles collided Friday on an interstate in northeastern Nevada
after drivers were blinded by swirling dust and ash, killing at least four people and injuring a dozen others...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:48:37
A car bomb exploded Saturday near the National Theater in Baghdad, killing five people, including three policemen
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:45:48
Two security contractors guarding a British consulate convoy in southern Iraq were killed Saturday by a roadside bomb...
two Iraqi children were seriously injured when a second device exploded five minutes after the convoy was targeted...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:01:56
Two bombs exploded Friday on highways in central Spain
after a warning was phoned in to a newspaper from the armed Basque separatist group ETA... a day after Spanish politicians expressed hope that the Irish Republican Army's announcement that it was laying down arms might encourage ETA to do likewise...
FRI 2005-JUL-29
Sex -- always attractive
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 23:59:10
A German company is looking to cash in on an expected boom in the sex trade during next year's soccer World Cup with
a 60-room brothel a walk away from Berlin's Olympic Stadium..
. Named after the virgin huntress of Greek mythology, the "Artemis" complex is due to open for business in September with whirlpool, sauna, cinema, buffet restaurant and a staff of 100 prostitutes...
Sportsmanship
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:04:31
An umpire ordered players on a local Little League team to stop speaking Spanish
during a state tournament game this week, a decision the coach said demoralized the team and cost it the game...
Whoops!
foxnews.com/ ... 13:07:19
tried to rob a coffee shop in the same building as the FBI... Carl Spicocchi, head of the Toledo FBI office, was standing in line...
Digital Culture
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:05:21
Imagine being able to pay for a song on the jukebox, buy a bag of groceries or gain admission to a sports arena by simply waving your phone by a machine. With consumers in Asia and Europe already using their mobile phones to pay for soda and parking fees, the long discussed concept of the wireless wallet could be slowly creeping closer to reality in the United States...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:43:51
The US authorities have charged eight people in connection with the illegal trading of copyrighted films, music, games and software over the net... said they were key members of online piracy networks...
History - still with us
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:04:58
The nephew of Barry Goldwater
, the right-wing U.S. senator who was the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, said Friday that he
is running for governor of Arizona...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:38:34
A 1,700-year-old carved marble head of Emperor Constantine has been found in a sewer in central Rome... Archaeologists found the 60cm (2ft) head while clearing an ancient drainage system in the ruins of the Roman Forum...
But is it Art?
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:57:10
Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit _ or nothing at all...
Culture
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:36:32
a new collection of stylish yet discreet glasses this fall for women attending funerals. "They do not want too flashy or gaudy glasses. The point is that they should be a bit subdued, but still elegant..."
thesun.co.uk/ ... 08:56:31
MICHAEL Jacksons new album sold just 8,000 copies in its first week in the US... even beaten by 1970s star Carly Simons new CD Moonlight which sold 58,000 copies...
Beatles - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:48:24
The John Lennon tunic which inspired the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover has sold at auction for £100,000...
A handwritten manuscript of All You Need Is Love sold for £600,000... was retrieved from the stage floor directly after the Beatles' final live TV performance in 1967...
piano from Lennon's New York apartment fetched £140,000...
watercolours painted by the musician aged 11 were bought for £70,000 - twice their estimated price...
Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:42:07
Astronomers have found a
large object in the Solar System's outer reaches
... never comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and spends most of its time much further out than Pluto... one of the largest objects ever found in the outer Solar System and is almost certainly made of ice and rock...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:46:53
Nasa officials have said they now believe
at least one shard of protective foam might have hit a wing of the Discovery space shuttle.
.. But they said they were confident the craft would make a safe return... new photographic evidence appeared to suggest an impact with one of the wings...
Discovery's docking with the ISS was completed at 0718 EDT
(1218 BST; 1118 GMT) above the South Pacific just west of Chile. The ISS crew, American John Phillips and Russian Sergei Krikalev, warmly greeted Discovery's seven-member team, led by Commander Eileen Collins. Work was immediately started to allow the 15 tonnes of supplies ferried up by the shuttle to be moved across to the station...
Current
washtimes.com/ ... 00:38:56
A teenage pianist claims a competition director who rushed onstage and shut the keyboard cover on his fingers ruined his Carnegie Hall debut... saying he was "humiliated" by her alleged behavior during his June 12 recital at New York's revered concert hall... told him at the last minute he would have to play a Beethoven piece instead of the Chopin he had prepared for the concert. As he started to play the Beethoven piece anyway...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 00:36:32
SAN FRANCISCO -- Patients at a state mental hospital overdosed on illegal drugs, were improperly restrained for hours on end and were forced to spend 12 hours in soiled diapers, according to a scathing report issued by the U.S. Justice Department. The report said the problems were among "widespread and systematic deficiencies" at Napa State Hospital, including suicide and inadequate medical care. Some patients were bathed only every two to four weeks...
washtimes.com/ ... 00:35:46
A Kansas woman has filed a lawsuit seeking damages for severe burns on her rear end caused by chemicals used to clean a toilet at a Denny's Restaurant... St. Louis-area Denny's... "...nerves were injured that create a sensation of pain 24 hours a day..."
Transport Future
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 13:16:47
When you wonder about the future of electronics in the car, look no further than the automobile industrys own plans. Over the rest of this decade, manufacturers will begin to outfit their new models with 42 volt batteries, rather than 12. What are those 42 volts going to power? Well, just about anything you can imagineand much of it is already on sale... radar-powered collision avoidance... satellite radio... factory-installed units like the 14 speaker, 11 channel, 330-watt Mark Levinson surround sound system for Lexus... motorized LCD cleverly slides out of the dashboard and pivots up for video viewing... rear-view camera... wireless infrared headphone transmitters... navigation system... NavTraffic system, which monitors real-time traffic conditions and then chooses routes to avoid traffic congestion...
Cryptozoology
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 01:28:02
David Coltman, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Alberta, says the sample found earlier this month made a 100 percent match with a large mammal, but something more commonplace than the legendary sasquatch. "We are quite sure we are absolutely certain, in fact that this hair sample comes from a bison and not from a new species of primate..."
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:44:52
Authorities in India are racing against time to prevent epidemics as the death toll from a monsoon reaches 700 in the region around Mumbai (Bombay). Rescue efforts are continuing amid concerns that large amounts of debris and animal carcasses might lead to outbreaks of disease. Officials says it is unlikely that many more people will be found alive... heaviest recorded in a single day in India: more than 65cm (26 inches)...
Digital Threat
worldtribune.com/ ... 23:59:48
A U.S. company has begun marketing a
stealth micro-unmanned aerial vehicle
that can blend in with its surroundings. The micro-UAV, dubbed CyberBug, weighs less than a kilogram and was designed for both military and security surveillance. The battery-powered UAV can fly undetected into a hostile environment, land on rocks or trees and relay video images and voice...
People Die
sfgate.com/ ... 16:02:48
One man was killed and seven people were injured when lightning struck a group of Boy Scouts
who had taken shelter from a summer storm in Sequoia National Park... The group of five adults and seven scouts had sought refuge Thursday afternoon by setting up two tarps... a bolt of lightning hit one of the tarps directly, killing an adult instantly, and injuring seven others. Two were seriously hurt, and survived only because the rest of the troop was able to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation continuously for an hour...
London 2005-July
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:57:50
the siege of North Kensington... dramatic events unfolding in front of the live cameras of rolling news television...
foxnews.com/ ... 13:03:18
All four men suspected of trying to plant bombs in London's transit system on July 21 are now in police custody
in London and Rome, several media outlets reported Friday... Two... were picked up in west London following raids by heavily armed police... Italian police in Rome arrested Osman Hussain, a naturalized British citizen from Somalia...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:37:59
One of the London bombing suspects is believed to have been arrested in a raid in West London, as police carry out a number of armed operations... At least two properties are believed to have been raided... Police have also arrested two women at Liverpool Street station...
foxnews.com/ ... 01:30:54
Authorities in Zambia detained Haroon Rashid Aswat in connection with the July 7 London bombings... British citizen of Indian descent... may have been in South Africa in the weeks leading up to the deadly attacks... U.S. officials said about 20 calls were placed from Aswat's cellphone to some of the men in the attacks... was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of a 1999 plot to start up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:35:01
Pakistani troops acting on a tip raided an Islamic school in a remote northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan, sparking a
shootout that left one militant dead and netted three others...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:34:39
Insurgents killed two Marines
with guns and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq, prompting U.S. jets to pound insurgent positions with high-tech bombs...
the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad has relocated its employees to Amman, Jordan...
newsnet5.com/ ... 09:05:15
AMHERST, Ohio -- Three Amherst teenagers are accused of holding a 10-year-old Elyria boy against his will... hog-tied the child with a telephone cord and threatened him with a shotgun and a bow and arrow...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:56:46
A suicide bomber has blown himself up among a group of Iraqi army recruits, killing at least 25 people and wounding 35...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:42:53
NUEVO LAREDO
, Mexico - A group of armed men arriving in several vehicles used machine guns, grenades and even a rocket launcher to attack a home in this violent Mexican border city Thursday night, authorities said. People inside the house are believed to have returned fire with powerful weapons of their own, triggering a
massive shootout... police said no one was injured and that no arrests had been made...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:41:52
CRATER LAKE, Ore. -
A camper brandished a club and threatened to kill two park rangers, then was shot dead by one of them
... answered a call about a domestic disturbance... tried to talk to the man, he became increasingly hostile and wandered around the campsite despite orders to stay still... "Still brandishing the club, still ignoring warnings to stop, he directly approached the rangers and threatened to kill them..." came within 10 feet of one of the rangers, the ranger used pepper spray, but the man didn't stop, and the second ranger shot him twice...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:43:55
TEXAS CITY, Texas - An explosion shook nearby homes Thursday at a BP oil refinery where 15 people were killed during a deadly blast in March... All BP employees had been accounted for...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:40:13
FORT WORTH, Texas - A series of
explosions rocked a chemical plant Thursday
and set off a raging fire, injuring four people and sending up a pillar of black smoke that could be seen 30 miles away... Valley Solvents & Chemicals plant...
Peace 3000
voanews.com/ ... 00:34:14
A council of Muslim scholars in the United States has issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, against terrorism and extremism
. The Muslim scholars released the ruling during a press conference in Washington, saying that Islam condemns terrorism, religious radicalism and the use of violence...
Natural Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:24:36
BOMBAY, India -
A stampede set off by rumors of a dam burst killed at least 15 people
, including seven children, in a Bombay shantytown after record-breaking monsoon rains... More than 25 people were injured... late Thursday in the Nehru Nagar slum in northern Bombay...
Threats
abc.net.au/ ... 23:54:49
America's ABC network has broadcast an
interview with Russia's most wanted Chechen militant, Shamil Basayev.
.. first face-to-face meeting with a journalist in years... The Russian Government is outraged. The Foreign Ministry has summoned the United States's senior diplomat to tell him of its strong indignation...
cbsnews.com/ ... 13:08:07
A study of rats links
low doses of aspartame
-- the sweetener in NutraSweet, Equal, and thousands of consumer products --
to leukemia and lymphoma...
drudgereport.com/ ... 00:37:22
Veteran wire reporter
Helen Thomas... "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself,"
she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar..."
adnki.com/ ... 00:25:19
The 14-year-old
son of controversial film director
Theo van Gogh, slain by an Islamic extremist last November, is said to have been
threatened and assaulted by Moroccan teenagers in Amsterdam
and insulted by his classmates. The allegations were made during an interview the boy's grandparents gave to the Dutch television channel Nova...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:23:29
A Yemeni cleric who claimed to have ties with Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to 75 years in prison in New York... At a meeting with two FBI informants in Germany, he was recorded promising to funnel more than $2m (£1.1m) to Hamas. He was arrested by German police in January 2003 and extradited to the US. For each of five counts, Moayad received 15-year sentences, each to be served consecutively. He was also fined $1.25m in a federal court... convicted of conspiring to support al-Qaeda and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaeda... will be sentenced in September...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:37:20
AVON, Conn. (AP) -
A fiery accident involving about a dozen vehicles
, including a commercial bus, shut down a highway here Friday... WVIT-TV reported multiple deaths, but Lt. Christina Barrow with the Avon Police Department could not confirm that...
recordonline.com/ ... 08:56:01
Seconds before the gray Toyota Corolla would smash into a dump truck and kill all six of its young passengers, at least two drivers called 911 to report a car speeding east on Route 17B in a westbound lane... By the time police could respond to the 911 calls, the six young people from the Camp Atlanta Dance Camp in South Fallsburg were dead inside the pile of twisted, sheared metal and crushed glass that was their car. The 1994 Corolla had fishtailed into oncoming traffic and slid into the bottom of the truck. The car's engine ended up in the truck's chassis... The bodies were mangled so badly, [Sheriff] couldn't tell if the six passengers in the five-passenger car were wearing seat belts... The accident, which sheriff's Sgt. Don Prince described as "the worst I've seen in 35 years," was even more horrific because family and friends of the victims saw the aftermath...
nytimes.com/ ... 08:53:46
On Wednesday afternoon, five campers and a counselor were killed instantly when their car veered into traffic on a rural highway and was flattened by a county dump truck. The crash, on State Route 17B, a two-lane highway in the foothills, left behind the wreckage of a Toyota Corolla. It also left investigators in the local sheriff's office wondering why the driver, Irina Mironova, a counselor, was even behind the wheel. Her license had been suspended by the authorities in Florida...
in.today.reuters.com/ ... 00:21:49
"The toll has risen to 10 and 49 people have been injured," Rajendra Singh, additional divisional railway manager, told Reuters in Lucknow... "We still can't say if it was a bomb that exploded in the toilet of an unreserved coach," Uttar Pradesh police chief Yashpal Singh said. "It could be that somebody was carrying an explosive..." In a separate incident, Yadav said 20 home-made bombs were found on another train in a lawless part of eastern India, and four people had been arrested...
THU 2005-JUL-28
Yuck!
cnn.com/ ... 14:31:32
OLATHE, Kansas -- A high school student convicted of battery for vomiting on his Spanish teacher has been ordered to spend the next four months cleaning up after people who throw up in police cars...
Digital Supernatural
stuff.co.nz/ ... 14:31:13
Parishioners at St. Peter's church in Acerra said they had witnessed the plaster statue's legs turn flesh coloured and move "as though she were walking toward us". One man told reporters last week that he had filmed the "miracle" on his mobile phone.
Hundreds of pilgrims have since converged every day on the southern Italian town of 40,000 bearing video cameras and cellular telephones in a bid to capture the miracle themselves...
Sex -- always attractive
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:15:21
In order to promote its chicken fries, the fast-food chain created "CoqRoq.com," which features a fictitious rock band wearing chicken heads. In the photo gallery section of its site, Polaroid-style pictures of young women appeared with captions that read, "Groupies Love the Coq" and
"groupies love Coq..
." Burger King has yanked some...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:03:48
An escaped convict was caught by police in Brussels when he
tried to steal the handbag of an off-duty policewoman
...
Culture
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:01:37
A man who compared a woman's anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language...
comparing a woman's breasts to "small knurled caps of the oil dampeners..."
Prehistory - still with us
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:00:00
Unhatched dinosaur eggs dating back 190 million years carried fully developed embryos that would have been born clumsy and helpless... suggests even the earliest dinosaurs tended carefully to their young. It also raises questions about how the giant four-legged dinosaurs called sauropods evolved. "These animals do not have any teeth, and since they are ready to hatch, that is strange," said Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in Canada, who led the study. "The only explanation for that is they must have been fed by the mother. That would be oldest evidence of parental care in the fossil record," Reisz added in a telephone interview...
Beatles - still with us
today.reuters.com/ ... 13:59:00
A handwritten
song lyric used by John Lennon
and found on the floor of a television studio in 1967 is
set to fetch 500,000-600,000 pounds ($870,000-$1.04 million) at an auction
Thursday...
Music industry is dead
contactmusic.com/ ... 13:57:54
Legendary BEATLES producer GEORGE MARTIN disapproves of modern technology because now anyone can make a record in the comfort of their own home... fears the advent of mp3 players will dumb down the music industry...
Movies are dead
wired.com/ ... 13:55:42
Representatives of Hollywood's top movie studios say they have agreed on technical specifications that will make it easier to distribute and display movies digitally. Digital Cinema Initiatives, the industry consortium created in 2002 to unite studios, theater owners and tech manufacturers in planning the shift to digital, released version 1.0 of its requirements and specifications for digital cinema Wednesday...
forbes.com/ ... 13:55:21
Tech executieves from every studio were congratulating each other Wednesday on the news that, after three years of work, digital cinema isn't their problem anymore... Digital Cinema Initiativethe intra-studio consortium founded in March 2002 to create a single standard for quality and security of digitally projected pictureshas completed its work... the onus for making digital cinema a reality now falls squarely on the shoulders of those putting together a $3 billion plan to fund its rollout...
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:24:36
George Wallace
, an actor whose career spanned 50 years and was best known as
Commando Cody
in the film serial "Radar Men from the Moon," has died. He was 88... starring role in the 1952 motion picture serial "Radar Men from the Moon." He played Commander Cody, a scientist who wore a leather jacket, a bullet-shaped, silver helmet and an atomic-powered rocket pack... also made more than 125 TV guest appearances, ranging from "Hopalong Cassidy" to "Joan of Arcadia..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:22:55
Danny Simon
, a comedy writer who together with his brother, Neil, wrote for such classic 1950s television series as "Your Show of Shows," died of complications from a stroke. He was 86... also [wrote] for "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Red Buttons Show" and "The Phil Silvers Show..." collaborated with such writers as Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Sheldon Keller, Mel Tolkin and later
Woody Allen, who once said, "Everything I learned about comedy, I learned from Danny Simon..."
Alcohol Was Involved
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:58:24
Students from the Information Technology University in Copenhagen are trying to help by releasing what they are calling the world's first open source beer recipe. It is called Vores Oel, or Our Beer, and the recipe is proving to be a worldwide hit...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:17:23
Two women who took turns steering a disabled vehicle that crashed into a parked car now face drunken-driving charges... [one] was pushing the disabled car, while [the other] steered from the passenger seat... moving the car into a parking lot at a motel... the women had a blood-alcohol levels of 0.17 percent, more than twice the state's legal limit to drive... Authorities said they were operating the vehicle while intoxicated even though the car's engine wasn't running. A prosecutor acknowledged the charges could be difficult to prosecute in court...
Digital Culture
suntimes.com/ ... 13:54:06
They are likely to share links, photos, music and video files by instant message. Between IMs, they play games online. Nearly half have cell phones to keep in touch with home and friends. They text message their friends. They think e-mail is something used to talk to "old people." Welcome to the technology-enhanced world of the typical American teen. A survey released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that
nearly nine in 10 teens (87 percent) are Internet users
. That's 21 million teens ages 12 to 17, up from 73 percent five years ago...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:07:02
Brice Mellen is a whiz at video games such as "Mortal Kombat." In that regard, the 17-year-old isn't much different from so many others his age. Except for one thing: He's blind... honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroid," onto the modern combat games...
Extraterrestrial
seacoastonline.com/ ... 14:23:46
EXETER... What the retired Navy chief petty officer said he saw last Wednesday could only be classified as a UFO, an unidentified flying object... bright and sunny afternoon, about 3:15 p.m., and David was outside... saw a large cigar-shaped object hovering in the sky... windows were equally spaced around the object, however he didnt see anyone or anything inside. The size of the object was enormous. By comparison, he said, consider what an ultralight plane would look like next to a Boeing 747. He said it was about the size of two USS Nimitz aircraft carriers... initial instinct was that the object was moving at about 100 knots, but something that big shouldnt be able to stay in the air if its going that slow... began changing colors from a bright silver to an orange-ish red. A strange cloud of red and orange flames began surrounding the object, and before he knew it the object stretched out like a rubber band. It grew to about twice its original size, and then it was gone. The entire incident lasted about 10 minutes... The Exeter area is no stranger to UFO sightings. In 1965, two Exeter police officers and hitchhiker Norman Muscarello, who was with them, gained national attention after seeing a UFO hovering over Route 101 in Kensington. The sighting was documented in a book called "The Incident at Exeter." And then there was the incident involving Barney and Betty Hill, a husband and wife from Portsmouth who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. The couple was driving from a vacation in Canada in 1961 when they saw a UFO...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:01:08
NASA said Wednesday that the mysterious object that came flying off the shuttle Discovery's fuel tank during liftoff was a sizable chunk of foam insulation the very thing that doomed Columbia... this time, fortunately, it didn't hit the spacecraft... also said that a chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a danger...
voanews.com/ ... 08:54:43
The U.S. space shuttle
Discovery has docked with the International Space Station
, but it will be the last time a shuttle visits the outpost for a while. The space agency
NASA is grounding the shuttle fleet
because a large piece of insulating foam broke off Discovery's external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch...
Only Natural
apnews.myway.com/ ... 14:17:08
BOMBAY, India - Rescuers searched for survivors buried under debris Thursday and rushed aid to villages cut off by
record-breaking rains that have paralyzed Bombay
and its surrounding state and killed more than 500 people this week. Officials said 273 people have died in Bombay since Tuesday...
Justice?
apnews.myway.com/ ... 13:57:00
The sentence itself was fairly straightforward: An Algerian man received 22 years for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium. It was what the judge said in imposing the term that raised eyebrows. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics. "
We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel... The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart...
"
World Without Borders
bloomberg.com/ ... 13:53:00
The
U.S. House of Representatives approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement
early today, overcoming objections by unions, sugar producers and textile makers in what was the most contentious trade fight in Congress in more than a decade...
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:57:05
This week, the Army, Air Force and Navy announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard numbers decreased. The net collective result is
442 more reservists mobilized
than last week...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:56:35
Army Staff Sgt.
Michael W. Schafer
, 25, of Spring Hill, Fla., died July 25 in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, when he was shot by enemy forces while on a quick reaction force mission.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:56:10
Army Spc.
Adam J. Harting
, 21, of Portage, Ind., died July 25 in Samarra, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle...
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:54:57
Army Sgt.
Christopher J. Taylor
, 22, of Opelika, Ala., died July 24 in Balad, Iraq, when he was hit by mortar rounds while he was exiting a bunker.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:54:36
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Air Force Col.
James W. Lewis
of Marshall, Texas
Air Force Maj.
Arthur D. Baker
of San Antonio, Texas
On April 7, 1965, Lewis and Baker led a flight of four B-57B Canberra aircraft on an interdiction mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. After their B-57 initiated an attack run into heavy clouds, Lewis radioed his plane was outbound away from the target. There was no further radio or visual contact with the crew, and search and rescue missions failed to yield any evidence of the two men or their aircraft. Although the cause of the crash is unknown, enemy fire and bad weather are believed to be contributing factors.
But is it Art?
www2.ljworld.com/ ... 14:29:44
Lawrence KS... Fortunately for Ezekiel Rubottom, theres no law against keeping your severed foot in a bucket on the front porch... police gave him back his left foot, which he began storing in a five-gallon bucket of formaldehyde on the porch at 627 Conn. after it was amputated three weeks ago. Police seized the foot Saturday, thinking it could have been evidence of a crime, but returned it after verifying Rubottom was the rightful owner. Its cool. Its all good, Rubottom said. Now Ive got my foot back. Thats all I wanted....
post-gazette.com/ ... 14:27:20
in an unusual effort to improve observational and analytical skills, the New York Police Department is bringing newly promoted officers, including sergeants, captains and uniformed executives, to the Frick to examine paintings...
Disturbing Family Patterns
wireservice.wired.com/ ... 14:24:10
FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- A mother was under arrest Wednesday on child endangerment and other charges after authorities said she abandoned her 4-year-old son on the Capital Beltway, then struck him with her car when he tried to get back in...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:19:41
The ordeal is finally over, but for the past year, a North Carolina family has been torn apart after state
officials claimed family photos of a father kissing his baby's belly button were some kind of child abuse...
Police Riot
wral.com/ ... 14:17:58
Marie Venezia, 73, lives by herself in her Raleigh home. Last Tuesday night, a Raleigh police officer knocked on her door and asked her about damage to a neighbor's fence. "I said 'I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know who it was.' He said, 'You know who it was.' I said, "I don't know who it was." He said you do," she said. "And at that point, I began to wonder if this guy really was a policeman because I didn't think officers acted like that." Venezia told the officer she was going to call 911 to confirm who he was. "He said, 'Don't close that door.' I said I am going to close it and then I went and called 911," she said. When Venezia came back, the officer charged her with misdemeanor obstructing and delaying, issuing her a ticket...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:19:38
An explosion Thursday on a passenger train in northern India killed two people Thursday and injured at least 20 others...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:19:19
GARY, Ind. - Rescuers searched the Grand Calumet River Thursday for a 2-year-old girl who flew out a car window and plunged 40 feet into the water when her mother lost control of her truck... [a woman] driving behind the truck... said she immediately dialed 911 on her cellular phone, but the dispatcher accused her of placing a phony emergency call. "She kept saying 'Quit playing around,'" Bethley said. "I said, 'I'm not playing, the baby is in the water.'..." toddler was moving after she struck the water...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:12:22
Ten people were confirmed dead with several still missing Thursday from a massive fire on an oil platform in India's biggest oil field. Ships and helicopters rescued more than 350 survivors...
People Die
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:03:05
A dead woman lying in her casket was hit by a stray bullet during a wake in Rio de Janeiro and mourners fled in panic... bullet, fired in a shootout between a drug gang and police in a slum adjacent to the cemetery... The bullet was not removed before burial...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:07:46
A 63-year-old man died a day after emergency workers found him at his home in such squalid conditions that maggots were eating his flesh... was lying in his own feces on a pile of debris and "had open wounds with maggots eating on the flesh..."
Natural Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:14:22
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - A 13-year-old girl was bitten on the hand by a shark as she waded in shallow water in the Atlantic Ocean... a cut on the back of her left hand and had bite marks near her wrist...
On Saturday, a 61-year-old surfer suffered minor injuries when he was bitten on his right foot while paddling about 20 yards from shore...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:13:11
BOWLING GREEN, Va... The Boy Scouts marched onto the field singing, plopping down in the grass to wait for President Bush. But hours later, the news that Bush couldn't make it was drowned out by sirens and shouts as hundreds fell ill because of the blistering heat...
sportfishingmag.com/ ... 09:04:05
While on a fishing trip over the Fourth of July weekend in Panama, 18-year old Stephen Schultz was injured when a 600-pound Marlin he was reeling in leapt into the boat, striking him in the head and chest... [VIDEO]
Digital Threat
wired.com/ ... 14:20:38
A bug discovered in an operating system that runs the majority of the world's computer networks would, if exploited, allow an attacker to bring down the nation's critical infrastructure, a computer security researcher said Wednesday against threat of a lawsuit... The security hole in Cisco IOS, the company's "infrastructure operating system" that controls its routers, was patched by Cisco in April, Lynn said, and the flawed version is no longer available for download. But Cisco didn't want the information disclosed until next year when a new version of the operating system would be out of beta testing and ready for distribution...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 09:00:12
A Briton facing extradition to America for perpetrating "the biggest computer hack of all time" left a message criticising American foreign policy on an army computer... accused of accessing 97 US government computers, causing damage estimated at $700,000 (£370,000)... deleted files that shut down more than 2,000 computers in the US army's military district of Washington for 24 hours "significantly disrupting governmental function"... One allegation is that he deleted files and logs from computers at the US Naval Weapons Station Earle at a critical time after the Twin Towers attacks, rendering the base's network of 300 computers inoperable...
Violence
newsday.com/ ... 14:19:03
An Islamic militant who set up the initial meeting between Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and his kidnappers has been arrested in eastern Pakistan...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:13:33
Roadside bombs killed two American soldiers in northern Baghdad and ignited a train carrying fuel in the south of Iraq's capital, killing two Iraqis and wounding six others...
local10.com/ ... 08:57:32
Suspended Miami Commissioner Art Teele fatally shot himself in the head in the lobby of the Miami Herald building late Wednesday afternoon. Teele survived... Teele told the security guard to give a message to Herald columnist Jim DeFede... About two hours later, at 7:50 p.m., Teele was declared dead... Defede was fired just hours after Teele's death because he allegedly recorded a phone conversation with Teele without the politician's permission... The former commissioner faced a series of troubles over the past few years, including federal charges for money laundering and mail and wire fraud... could have faced up to 20 years in prison...
London 2005-July
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:02:07
London's police chief said Thursday said he was
concerned that images of unexploded bombs
seized in connection with the attacks on London had been leaked to the media. The images, obtained by ABC News, were splashed across newspaper front pages in Britain Thursday, despite a Metropolitan Police appeal urging the media "in the strongest possible terms" not to run them...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:08:13
London Transport and mobile firms are warning people about an e-mail spreading rapidly containing inaccurate safety information... claims that passengers on the London Tube system can contact emergency services via a satellite signal from their mobiles underground. Mobiles do not work in the London Underground, and satellite signals cannot reach there either...
news.ft.com/ ... 09:05:49
Ian Blair, Londons police chief, warned that more bomber cells could strike after police arrested nine men under anti-terrorism laws early on Thursday morning in south London...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 09:04:30
Photos of captured bombs
abcnews.go.com/ ... 08:59:07
The plot for the July 7 transit bombings in London, which killed 56 people, may have been much larger than previously known... an additional 12 bombs and four improvised detonators were found in the trunk of a car believed to be rented by suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer... "I believe that the explosives left in that car were left there for a second strike," said Bob Ayers, a London-based terrorism consultant with expertise in demolition. "But the Metropolitan Police responded so quickly, they were able to get to the car and take control of the car before the second team could get the explosives and leave..." "When you put the X-ray machine on it [the bomb], you see what is bulging on the sides of the bottle are nails many, many nails... And the nails are put there so that when the bomb goes off, the nails will tear tissue and kill people in the area. Bombs don't kill by concussion. Small bombs, they kill by the blast effects of fragments of glass or metal, and this is designed to kill people..."
nytimes.com/ ... 08:54:07
British police arrested nine men in raids in south London today in connection with the aborted bomb attacks on the capital on July 21. The arrests, in Tooting in south London, came a day after the seizure in Birmingham of Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali man suspected of being one of the four men who took part in the attacks... Three other men were arrested Wednesday in a second house in Birmingham...
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 14:18:47
A new guide on the Internet offers help for terrorist-wannabes looking to join the struggle in Iraq...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:52:30
Leading figures have been giving their reaction to the IRA's statement that it has formally ordered an end to its armed campaign and will pursue exclusively peaceful political means... Mr Blair said it was a "step of unparalleled magnitude"...
bloomberg.com/ ... 08:43:45
The Irish Republican Army today said it will end its 36-year armed campaign
and use political means to achieve the goal of a united Ireland. The leadership told members to ``dump arms'' as part of the move...
WED 2005-JUL-27
Broadcast is Dead
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 12:16:34
The creator of Emmy-winning legal drama "Boston Legal" said Tuesday he's concerned about the amount of commercial time on primetime TV shows and raised the possibility of working in cable in the future...
Supernatural Equality
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:15:36
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has elected a woman president - the first female chief executive ever for the 770,000-member Protestant denomination... The Rev. Sharon E. Watkins, senior pastor at Disciples Christian Church in Bartlesville, Okla., won overwhelmingly support Tuesday from the 3,000 delegates attending the denomination's General Assembly...
Yuck!
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:04:35
A British plumber was fined and given a community service order Tuesday after being captured on hidden cameras urinating into a vase in a customer's attic and pouring the contents into the central heating system...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:45:21
A German man's severed finger traveled 60 kilometers by rail after its owner trapped his hand in the door trying to board a train at the last minute... Passengers traveling from Freiburg to Cologne Sunday noticed the finger lying on the carriage floor and alerted police... Doctors said they were confident they could reattach the finger to its 34-year-old owner...
Sex can be Dangerous
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:44:37
A British couple who headed out to sea in a dinghy for an amorous liaison sparked a major rescue operation when their cries of passion were mistaken for someone in trouble...
Digital Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:43:38
Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1. She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe...
Extraterrestrial
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:13:15
NASA said Wednesday that a
chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a serious problem...
nytimes.com/ ... 08:32:19
Now that the Discovery is in orbit, the examination begins. Its 12½-day mission will be the most photographed in the history of the shuttle program, with all eyes on the craft to see if it suffered the kind of damage from blastoff debris that brought down the Columbia in February 2003...
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:16:15
Monsoon rains
are continuing to cause havoc
in India's Maharashtra state
where the official death toll has now risen to nearly 100...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:12:41
Mexico's Volcano of Fire staged a spectacular, predawn explosion Wednesday, shooting incandescent rock, ash and steam up to 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) into the air over western Mexico... eruption sent ash raining down on nearby communities, but officials had no reports of major damage...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:44:51
Wining and dining is the best way for men to woo women, scientists said Tuesday...
sg.news.yahoo.com/ ... 08:31:23
Floods and landslides killed at least 99 people in western India on Wednesday, with many more more feared dead after a wall of mud flattened a village. Thousands of people were evacuated and tens of thousands more were stranded as floodwaters raged throughout the financial capital, Bombay, bringing road, air and rail links to a halt...
Modern Family Life
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 09:06:07
A 22-year-old Nebraska man who married the 13-year-old girl he got pregnant is now facing criminal charges for illegally having sex with her... could get 50 years in prison... even though he married the girl, who is now 14, with her parents' blessing... "The idea ... is repugnant to me," Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning told the Associated Press. "These people made the decision to send their ... 14-year-old daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile." He said the marriage is valid, thanks to the "ridiculous" Kansas law, "but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to stand by while a grown man ... has a relationship with a 13-year-old now 14-year-old girl..."
[Let's see... the "pedophile" is obeying the law and the Attorney General is going to ignore it...?]
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
iht.com/ ... 08:36:32
The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, according to senior administration and military officials. In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the country's top military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice...
Threats
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 08:33:25
THE battle to block the $6 billion (£3.5 billion) merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago has taken a chilling twist with a leading opponent of the deal receiving a death threat. The FBI is investigating the threat left for William Higgins, chairman of the NYSE Equity Members Association, in a voicemail message last week. In a brief but angry tirade, the man, whom the FBI believe is an NSYE member, implied that Mr Higginss car could be booby-trapped if he did not end his campaign against the merger...
Current
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:32:45
Aruban firefighters were draining a lake Tuesday in the search for an Alabama teenager who vanished nearly two months ago while vacationing in the island...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:12:12
A sex offender who had been sought for a week in the near-fatal stabbing of his 12-year-old daughter was
arrested early Wednesday
...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:11:28
JENIN... Israeli troops on Wednesday
killed a Palestinian stone-thrower
during an arrest raid that
caught a wanted Islamic Jihad militant
in this West Bank town... The troops, backed by tanks and bulldozers, entered Jenin around midday and surrounded the home of a wanted Islamic Jihad militant... a group of youths began throwing stones at the soldiers from a nearby building, troops opened fire, hitting an 18-year-old stone-thrower in the head... The Israeli army said it fired at Palestinian gunmen after troops were attacked by gunfire and explosives that left two soldiers wounded...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:09:54
A man convicted in a 1988 triple-murder was
executed early Wednesday by lethal injection
... His final statement was, "Everybody has to die sometime." It also included an expletive and ended with, "let's get on with the killing..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:08:39
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting Wednesday that it has
killed two Algerian diplomats
kidnapped in Iraq
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:39:34
A woman who was upset over being searched bodily at an airport was convicted Tuesday of assaulting a security screener by grabbing the federal officer's breasts... faces up to a year in federal prison and $100,000 in fines... claimed she acted in self-defense. "I said, 'What are you doing? No one's done that to me before,'" she said. "And she kept going ... for what felt like an interminably long time..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:30:57
Egyptian security sources say they have identified a man suspected of being one of the bombers who carried out last week's attacks in Sharm al-Sheikh...
London 2005-July
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:42:28
A prime suspect wanted for last week's attempted London bombings had served a jail sentence for knifepoint robberies and grew to hate the British system after his conviction... Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, whom police say planted a bomb on a bus in last week's attempted attacks, was jailed for 5 years in 1996 for mugging people when he was part of a teenage gang... "He was very bitter about getting five years (in jail)," the Sun quoted an unnamed associate as saying. "He was never the same person after..."
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 08:41:39
THE fugitive bombers who bungled their attacks on Londons transport system last week returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault, Scotland Yard believes... bungled their attacks... returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault... returned to their secret cache of explosives to rearm themselves for another assault... were seen by a neighbour at the ninth-floor flat in New Southgate, North London, that they were using as a bomb factory... some of the suspects made a second trip the next day to the flat where police yesterday found chemicals and bombmaking materials...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:30:19
Police arrested four men in central England on Wednesday while hunting for men wanted in last week's failed London bomb attacks, and local media said one of the men was a suspected bomber...
TUE 2005-JUL-26
Theory of Education
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:31:28
Australian educational authorities are investigating claims that noisy school children had had their mouths taped shut to keep them quiet... a Catholic primary school at Wollongong, about 50 miles south of Sydney...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:30:01
A Texas man was arrested on Monday after
calling police to complain about the theft of his marijuana
... along with a plasma screen television... [after police found] several marijuana plants growing under heat lamps in the apartment, four grams of harvested marijuana and a tablet of ecstasy...
Transport
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:43:33
German lorry drivers were shocked to find themselves sharing the autobahn with an 80-year-old in a wheelchair... an electric chair capable of speeds of 6-10 km/h (4-6mph)... he had wanted to do a little shopping... at a service area up the road from his home...
cbs2chicago.com/ ... 14:26:54
An Illinois Department of Transportation helicopter crashed Tuesday morning along the side of Interstate 294 in suburban Chicago, but no one was killed...
History Digitally
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:22:33
The Forma Urbis, or Severan Marble Plan, is a giant map of the city of Rome constructed around AD200 by the Emperor Septimius... The rediscovery of some of the pieces during the Renaissance ignited an interest in reconstructing the map... scientists at America's Stanford University have joined Italian archaeologists in the capital's Museum of Roman Civilisation with a multi-disciplinary and hi-tech approach... Stanford team has digitally scanned all 1,182 surviving pieces of the Plan and constructed a range of computer programmes which use algorithms to try to fit the pieces together...
Supernatural Consequences
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 09:47:38
Thousands of Roman Catholic faithful queued outside a church near Naples yesterday after the congregation reported watching a statue of the Madonna "miraculously" moving in front of them. Dozens of parishioners at the modern church of San Pietro in the town of Acerra, on the northern outskirts of Naples, recounted seeing the simple plaster and marble statue of the Virgin Mary "become flesh" and move her legs "as if she wanted to approach us"...
sptimes.com/ ... 09:47:10
St. Petersburg resident is the victim of a bad decision by a very big and important movie maker. Universal Studios used Jenkins' number in the 2003 Jim Carrey hit, Bruce Almighty. In fiction, it was supposed to be God's phone number. In reality, Universal thought it was nobody's phone number. Universal was wrong... Five or six times a week, week in and week out, stretching now into year in and year out, somebody calls Dawn Jenkins' cell phone and asks to speak to God... after the movie came out... she was getting 15 to 20 calls an hour... calls have decreased, but not disappeared... Telephone companies and state and federal agencies that issue personal numbers... set aside numerical combinations that are not to be issued to anyone. It is specifically done so that movie makers, television producers and novelists can use official-sounding numbers without legal ramification... "The dummy phone numbers are the most noticeable to movie and TV viewers paying attention, and they do pay attention... They all have 555 prefixes. Producers hate them because they think it limits their creativity. And maybe it does, but it also limits their liability..."
Jenkins... plans to keep her number... a custom number that spells out the name of her jewelry business. "I'm not giving it up for anybody.. Not even for God..."
Broadcast is Dead
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:25:24
TV Guide is slashing the circulation it guarantees advertisers by about two-thirds and relaunching itself as a large format magazine with far fewer TV listings and more emphasis on lifestyle and entertainment... as it struggles to remain relevant in an age where many TV viewers get their listings from on-screen guides...
Extraterrestrial
news.yahoo.com/ ... 13:52:00
Discovery and seven astronauts blasted into orbit Tuesday... Video showed what appeared to be
a large piece of debris flying off the external fuel tank two minutes into the flight.
The object did not seem to hit the orbiter. Footage also showed what might have been at least two light-colored objects flying off Discovery as the shuttle cleared the launch pad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:15:11
The crew of the space shuttle Discovery have entered the orbiter and the hatch closed behind them ready for lift-off... external tank has been filled with cryogenic propellants, with no hint of the fuel sensor glitch that scrubbed an earlier launch attempt... Lift-off is scheduled for 1039 local time.. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida...
Digital Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:45:29
The House of Representatives voting 355 to 21 for a federal investigation to determine if the companies behind San Andreas intentionally deceived the industry's ratings board...
[THEY CAN'T AGREE TO KEEP AN EYE ON TRADE WITH CHINA, BUT THEY CAN VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO GET INVOLVED WITH VIDEOGAMES...??]
theregister.co.uk/ ... 09:09:42
Microsoft is no longer providing updates to non-genuine versions of its Windows XP operating system. From today, the company has switched over to a full launch of its Windows Genuine Advantage Programme as part of its ongoing anti-piracy campaign... Users will now have to join the WGA authentication program if they want to receive software updates from the Microsoft Download Centre or from Windows Update. However, MS says it will still provide security patches for pirated systems, which will be available via Automatic Updates in Windows...
Cryptozoology
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 14:19:21
Canadian scientists are performing DNA tests on a tuft of hair said to come from a sasquatch...
World Without Borders
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:24:37
Legislation to strengthen monitoring of Chinese trade practices was defeated in the House Tuesday, a victim of a larger political battle over passage of a free trade agreement with Central America. House Democrats, while agreeing on the need for safeguards against China's unfair trading, accused the Republican majority of trying to rush through the bill in order to secure wavering votes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is expected to reach the House floor this week...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 14:12:58
A new study by a liberal Washington think tank puts the cost of forcibly removing most of the nation's estimated 10 million illegal immigrants at $41 billion a year, a sum that exceeds the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:29:11
Army Sgt.
Jason T. Palmerton
, 25, of Auburn, Neb., died on July 23 in Qal'eh-Yegaz, Afghanistan, where he came under enemy small arms fire while conducting a dismounted patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 09:28:48
Marine Sgt.
Bryan J. Opskar
, 32, of Princeton, Minn., died July 23 when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Ar Rutbah, Iraq...
Age is No Barrier
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:22:07
William Painter's record as the oldest man to reach the top of Mount Rainier has been broken - by William Painter. By making it to the 14,411-foot summit at age 82, the retired plutonium worker from the Hanford nuclear reservation beat the mark he set more than a year earlier...
Only Natural
montanasnews.com/ ... 19:47:13
Yesterday's earthquake rattled Montanans' nerves and came as a jarring reminder that earthquake damage is not covered by homeowners policies. State Auditor John Morrison is reminding Montanans that the time for homeowners to be sure they're covered is before a damaging quake hits, not after. "Montana is earthquake country," said Morrison. "We sit in one of the most seismically active regions in the lower 48 states. Folks should be prepared for earthquakes from a safety standpoint, and also from an insurance standpoint..."
greatfallstribune.com/ ... 19:46:29
Aftershocks rattled southwestern Montana early Tuesday following a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, but the rumbling did little damage and isnt likely an indication of a bigger event on the horizon... said
Waverly Person
, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey earthquake information center in Golden, Colo...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:23:38
Indonesian surgeons on Tuesday successfully separated 11-month-old girls who were conjoined at the chest and stomach...
nbc6.net/ ... 09:48:06
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In one Florida household, a whole family is afraid of the toilet after a poisonous snake used it as a hiding place... [Woman] bitten by what appeared to have been a large water moccasin that had been hiding in the bowl in the middle of the night...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:17:04
Parts of the brain are temporarily "switched off" when we blink... even if light was still entering the eyes... could explain why people do not notice their own blinking, as it gave us an "uninterrupted view of the world"... A blink lasts for between 100 and 150 milliseconds. We automatically blink 10 to 15 times a minute... "Transiently suppressing the brain areas involved in visual awareness during blinks may be a neural mechanism for preventing the brain from becoming aware of the eyelid sweeping down over the pupil during a blink and the world going dark..."
London 2005-July
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 14:18:58
there have been no sightings of the four suicide bombers since they fled five days ago... Police believe that they are at a prearranged safe house in London and fear that they could be preparing more attacks...
People Die
today.reuters.com/ ... 14:30:44
A Croatian farmer was killed when a cow he was about to milk fell and crushed him...
yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ ... 14:15:30
Patrick Sherry, 29, of Bad Beat Revue, was performing at the Warehouse Club in Leeds on Wednesday evening as part of the Club NME tour when he fell and sustained fatal head injuries... tried to grab the lighting rig hanging from one of the venue's wooden beams before losing his grip and plunging to the solid wooden floor head first...
Disturbing Family Patterns
ananova.com/ ... 09:49:49
An Austrian couple with 12 children have split up - after the husband admitted he was gay... told [wife] he only made her pregnant so she had "something to do".... "I can't believe we had so many children together, my whole life has been a lie." She has now written a book "...no time to pray" about her ordeal...
Under Tyranny
suntimes.com/ ... 09:33:34
A chapter of Iraq's draft constitution obtained by The Associated Press gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance...
Natural Threat
washtimes.com/ ... 14:12:35
U.S. doctors said they have identified the patient who is the source of a mystery strain of human immunodeficiency virus that sent waves of alarm through the AIDS community last February... a virulent form of HIV -- the organism that causes AIDS -- that was resistant to virtually all drugs and caused a rapid destruction of the man's immune system... a patient in Connecticut who infected the New York man during anonymous rectal intercourse at a sex club in the city on Oct. 22, 2004... the alarm may have been overblown, because his patient now has a stable infection that is being controlled by two drugs...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:20:58
twin sons... 2 weeks old now... heart muscles too weak to pump the blood they need to survive... dilated cardiomyopathy... doctors say their chances of survival are good, but only if they receive heart transplants within the next three to six months... Their parents have only been able to hold each of the boys once since their births...
Violence
newscenter.ninn.org/ ... 14:28:21
MIAMI -- A 14-year-old boy has been charged in the killing of his 11-year-old sister Monday morning... had called police and said he saw two men running out of the house before finding his sister... dead in her bedroom... later confessed that he had killed his sister following an argument...
news.search.yahoo.com/ ... 13:52:30
Angry Afghan protestors throw stones at a U.S. military vehicle outside the main U.S. base in Bagram, north of Kabul, July 26, 2005. About 2,000 Afghans protested outside the main American base in Afghanistan on July 26 after the arrest of several villagers in what the U.S. military said was an anti-insurgent operation...
indystar.com/ ... 09:41:54
A 15-year-old boy was found dead earlier today, apparently killed by a person in a pick-up truck that had been egged by some teens... Another boy, 17, was shot in the leg but survived... Marion County sheriff's deputies say it was an apparent retaliation for a juvenile prank that got out of hand... eggs hit a motorist's truck... driver used his truck to chase the teens into a parking lot... someone started to shoot. About six or seven teens had been doing the egg-throwing...
alertnet.org/ ... 09:11:01
U.S. and Afghan forces killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in central Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday... A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed and 25 guerrillas captured in the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:09:04
A Dutch court sentenced the killer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh to life in prison Tuesday...
Big City Stories
suntimes.com/ ... 09:33:02
Chicago's lakefront would get a contender for the title of tallest building in the United States under a developer's plan devised in partnership with Santiago Calatrava, one of the world's foremost architects... the Fordham Spire, a hotel/condo tower at 346 E. North Water, where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan and across Lake Shore Drive from Navy Pier... At 115 stories, the tower would be 1,458 feet to its roof, taller by eight feet than the roof of Sears Tower. But the Calatrava building would include a spire that, depending on structural details, would bring the building to around 2,000 feet...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 01:05:51
CHICAGO - Jurors were hurried out of a federal courtroom by U.S. marshals Monday as a former death row inmate, on trial for drug and weapons charges, suddenly turned on his own lawyers, pushing them and yelling that he was being framed. Other marshals wrestled the bellowing defendant out of court, and a nurse was called to put an ice pack on the ankle of defense attorney...
Threats
ap.tbo.com/ ... 14:25:12
A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston early Tuesday because three Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, but nothing amiss was found and the three were released after questioning... "Some of the individuals were in first class and another was in coach," and they were walking between the two sections...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:39:55
Michael Graham, D.C. WMAL-AM late-morning call-in program... "The problem is not extremism... The problem is Islam... We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam..." Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), asked the station to take disciplinary action... station executive.. said yesterday that Graham's comments were "amped up" but justified within the context of the program...
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:17:35
A United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston after flight crews reported suspicious behavior and three passengers were questioned and released...
reuters.myway.com/ ... 09:13:49
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that
much of the world had dropped its guard after the initial shock of the September 11 attacks
and urged that "not one inch" be given to terrorists...
drudgereport.com/ ... 09:13:19
Osama bin Laden tried to buy a massive amount of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans one year after the 9/11 attacks... failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden approached decided it would be bad for their business - and, possibly, for their own health...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 01:04:04
The Department of Energy plans to move a 12 million ton heap of radioactive waste away from the banks of the Colorado River, a major source of drinking water for about 25 million people... The mound is just 750 feet from the river in southeastern Utah... The radioactive waste is to be moved mostly by rail starting in 2007 to a proposed holding site near Crescent Junction, Utah, about 30 miles from the Colorado River. The cleanup and move have been estimated to cost more than $300 million...
bloomberg.com/ ... 01:02:08
The training of Iraqi police forces, a key element of U.S. strategy, is hampered by faulty screening of recruits that may be letting insurgents infiltrate new units, a joint review by the U.S. State and Defense departments found...
MON 2005-JUL-25
Broadcast is Dead
foxnews.com/ ... 21:38:07
Republicans in Congress are debating whether to make small cuts in the funding for public broadcasting. Theyre not thinking big enough. Here are the top ten reasons to cut off the taxpayer dollars flowing to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System...
Theory of Medicine
newsday.com/ ... 10:50:22
Barbara Enser wasn't very comfortable at first with the idea of using maggots to clean the wound on her right foot. But if it meant saving it from amputation, she was willing to give it a try... The maggots do more than just clean a wound. They also dissolve the infected tissue, kill bacteria and leave an enzyme behind that stimulates healing. They will only eat the infected tissue, leaving healthy tissue alone....
news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:46:42
A woman and her husband said they delivered their baby boy in the toilet at their home after hospital staff told the mother she was not ready to give birth... she was past her due date, bleeding and having contractions less than two minutes apart... Fifty minutes after arriving home, Leah had the baby in the toilet after feeling the urge to use the restroom... The baby, Richard Robles III, is healthy...
Digital Culture
washingtonpost.com/ ... 10:47:28
J.D. Lasica used to visit 20 to 30 Web sites for his daily fix of news. Now, he's down to three _ yet he consumes more news online than ever. Lasica is among a growing breed of information consumers who use the latest Internet technologies to completely bypass the home pages of news sites and jump directly to articles that interest them. He can scan some 200 Web journals and traditional news sites _ all without actually going out and visiting them... Some Web sites are already responding. "When we all started this 10 years ago, we wanted to be the one and only place people come to," said Jim Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post's Web site. These days, he said, the Post is happy simply to be one of many sources checked daily...
sptimes.com/ ... 10:45:02
A new device reminds drivers when a car payment is due. And if they don't pay up, they're not going anywhere... It's a device he installs on every car he sells that alerts drivers when they have a payment due. Day by delinquent day, the alert gets increasingly insistent. On the fifth day, the car won't start...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 10:44:11
By naming the next version of Windows "Vista," Microsoft may have stepped on the toes of another software company just down the road in Redmond. That would be Vista, a business software and services company founded in 1999 by John Wall. He was not amused when Microsoft announced its choice yesterday... "If they called it Windows Garbage, would people still buy it? Yeah, they'd buy it," said David Burd, owner of The Naming Co. in East Stroudsburg, Pa. "They've got something like 90 percent penetration in the world of operating systems..."
Oh! The Irony!
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:12:05
Dozens of stray dogs roaming around the new Walt Disney theme park in Hong Kong have been rounded up and put down as the company prepares to open the park in September... Disney, which produced hit cartoons films such as "101 Dalmatians" and "Lady and the Tramp," said it did not know how many had been put down...
History - still with us
Link Lost ... 10:08:38
[See SUN 2005-JAN-30 blogheap for more Chappaquiddick Ted links]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:07:25
1969-Jul-25: Kennedy pleads guilty over car crash...
Prehistory - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:01:51
A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered... 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura. The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone... Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers... "In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints..." Hohle Fels stands more than 500m above sea level in the Ach River Valley and has produced thousands of Upper Palaeolithic artefacts...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:00:18
Archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed the treasure-filled tomb of what is thought to be a Thracian king... artefacts dating back 2,400 years were found with the skeleton in a tomb near the south-eastern town of Zlatinitsa... the Thracian king was a young ruler who was buried with two horses and a favourite dog...
What are the Odds?
nhregister.com/ ... 10:54:57
What are the chances of recovering a lost wedding ring in a clam bed in Long Island Sound after two years?.. He described the potential area as half the size of a football field with 4-foot-deep water and a bottom with a "mixture of heavy muck and sand." The gold ring symbolizes almost 40 years of marriage...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:53:20
When Jeffrey Hintz won the state lottery's second-chance drawing five weeks in a row, some people in state government got a little suspicious. Turns out, Hintz just got lucky, an investigation has concluded... Given how many tickets they were sending in for the drawing, the odds of their winning five times in a row were 1 in 14,397...
Transport
apnews.myway.com/ ... 17:47:40
Jane Fonda says she intends to take a cross-country bus tour to call for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq... her anti-war tour in March will use a bus that runs on "vegetable oil..."
newsday.com/ ... 09:47:57
Fourteen people were injured and sections of Interstate 95 near the Baltimore City line were closed today when a Greyhound bus ran off the road and flipped onto its side...
Supernatural
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:58:03
Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. on Monday said it has acquired the rights to develop games based on the popular "Lord of the Rings" book series, in addition to rights it holds for titles derived from the recent hit movies...
nydailynews.com/ ... 09:44:14
Though tragic turns in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" have left many muggles teary-eyed,
experts agree the sad storyline can be a good thing for young fans...
"When characters look in the newspaper for the names of people who died and people take in the deaths of friends and relatives very casually, it's kind of talking about terrorism in this time," says Hannah Rosenbaum, 14, of Westchester, who zipped through the 652-page book in three days. "These things could all be happening anyway without a wizarding war...."
US Military
pittsburghlive.com/ ... 10:36:58
Written apologies will be sent to a fallen Marine's relatives angered by Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll's uninvited appearance at the soldier's funeral and her criticism of the war in Iraq, Gov. Ed Rendell said Sunday...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 10:36:41
When the family of Staff Sgt. Joseph Goodrich gathered in Pittsburgh for the fallen Marine's funeral, they expected a large crowd after all, they've lived in the area for generations and Joseph had been a police officer before becoming a leatherneck but they didn't expect to see Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor show up, hand out her business card and tell them "our government" opposes the war...
Future is Now
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:03:19
The UK's largest charity for deaf people and a design magazine are launching an exhibition of futuristic hearing aids to make them more popular...
Only Natural
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:43:06
THE price of olive oil is expected to soar amid fears that a drought in Spain will cut the harvest at the worlds top producer by as much as 30 per cent...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:51:50
"Supersize" mice are eating seabird chicks alive on Gough Island, one of the most important seabird colonies in the world... The rodents are taking out one million petrels, shearwaters and albatrosses each year...
People Die
washingtonpost.com/ ... 21:26:26
BOWLING GREEN, Va. -- Four adult Boy Scout leaders from Alaska were killed Monday afternoon in an electrical accident during the opening day of the organization's 2005 Jamboree... while the leaders were setting up camp... All the youths with the Alaska group were fine... Those killed were longtime leaders with Anchorage's Troop 711, which along with another troop had brought 80 Scouts between the ages 13-15 to the event... Three other Scout leaders had come with the group... "The Jamboree will go on," said Jamboree spokeswoman Renee Fairrer...
Yeah, Sure!
today.reuters.com/ ... 17:53:28
Flawed backup software has emerged as the latest target for hackers looking for corporate secrets... nonprofit SANS Institute found new holes in widely used software products... Attackers are now focusing on desktop software, like Web browsers and media players, that might not get fixed as frequently... More than 422 significant new Internet security vulnerabilities emerged in the second quarter of 2005... Particularly troubling are holes in backup software made by Computer Associates International Inc. and Veritas Software Corp., which together account for nearly one-third of the backup-software market...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:51:02
Pakistan has destroyed al-Qaeda's ability to operate on its soil, President Pervez Musharraf has said. He said the network could not have orchestrated deadly bombings in London, Egypt or elsewhere from his country... "Al-Qaeda does not exist in Pakistan any more..."
Digital Consequences
mosnews.com/ ... 17:48:55
Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head...
Natural Threat
sptimes.com/ ... 10:53:57
"All those people out in the water, somebody's going to get struck by lightning," Pitcher said. The words had barely left his mouth when there was an incredible crack. A lightning bolt had struck the beach, knocking three people unconscious. A fourth person, a pregnant woman, also was hit by lightning but remained conscious... The bolt flickered for about three seconds. Then, the man's arms went up in the air and the electricity appeared to lift him out of the water... When the bolt disappeared, he dropped back in the water and sank...
Police Riot
wired.com/ ... 10:50:08
Dogged by scandal, the Los Angeles Police Department... This month..This month, the agency began using a $35 million computer system that tracks complaints and other telling data about officers -- then alerts top supervisors to possible signs of misconduct... began using a $35 million computer system that tracks complaints and other telling data about officers -- then alerts top supervisors to possible signs of misconduct...
nynewsday.com/ ... 10:48:20
An off-duty police officer ended up on the wrong side of the law Friday night, shooting a man who had purposely knocked over the cop's beer in a lower Manhattan bar...
Digital Threat
newsday.com/ ... 10:37:51
The Web site for a lawyer seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Hillary Clinton for a U.S. Senate seat has quit functioning. William Brenner's campaign staff calls it cyber-sabotage...
Under Tyranny
foxnews.com/ ... 21:43:06
The city of Toronto barred the reigning Miss Universe from opening a local festival out of concern that the position is demeaning to women and promotes sexual stereotypes...
An opposition politician in Australia is complaining that a state-created cartoon character intended to promote environmental responsibility is demeaning to women because she is described as "a bit tart" with a firm backside...
The Urban Outfitters chain of clothing stores is under fire from Latino activists for a T-shirt reading "New Mexico, Cleaner Than Regular Mexico..."
timesdispatch.com/ ... 10:41:49
Corporate officials in Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters abruptly ordered the Roanoke store yesterday to cancel its month-old Singles Shopping program, the only one of its kind in the nation. Singles were encouraged to sport a red bow on their shopping carts to let other lonely-hearts bargain hunters know they were available...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:14:36
A California prison inmate has sued a Florida food packager after biting into a human fingertip in one of its packaged vegetarian meals... fingertip lost by one of the company's workers in an industrial accident...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:13:16
Suicide is the number one cause of death among people aged 20 to 35 in China, where
an estimated quarter of a million people a year -- or 685 a day -- take their lives...
Each year an additional 2.5 million to 3.5 million Chinese unsuccessfully attempt suicide, which stood as the fifth major cause of death among the country's 1.3 billion people... More than 60 percent of people who took part in a survey of 15,431 Chinese suffering depression over the past two years were in their 20s or 30s...
Supernatural Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:26:56
Israel has summoned the Vatican's ambassador to explain why the Pope left the country off a list of those recently hit by terrorism. Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday deplored attacks in "countries including Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain". Israel said he had failed to mention a 12 July suicide bombing in Netanya that killed five Israelis. The foreign ministry said it would be interpreted as "granting legitimacy to... terrorist attacks against Jews"...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:38:49
THREE Indonesian housewives face up to five years in prison for allegedly trying to lure Muslim children into Christianity at a Sunday School Happy Week. Senior Christian figures claim that the prosecution is politically motivated and part of a campaign of persecution by Islamic fundamentalists against Indonesias Christian minority about 8 per cent of the Muslim-majority population...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:11:11
An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman in the Sicilian city of Palermo after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them... took the money from their victim over four years by selling her pills at 3,000 euros each that they said would abort the Anti-Christ's son...
Violence
nst.com.my/ ... 21:22:45
Egypt is hunting for six Pakistani nationals suspected of involvement in the devastating triple bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh... At least 95 people have already been arrested...
[sounds like "round up the usual suspects"]
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:57:44
heavy fighting in central Afghanistan killed 13 people, including a second U.S. soldier in two days... a U.S. patrol was attacked by small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars in a village in Uruzgan province. A U.S. statement said an Afghan soldier was also killed, along with 11 guerrillas, while three U.S. troops and an Afghan soldier were wounded in the heavy fighting west of Deh Rawud...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:55:17
The father of the only American known to have been killed in the Egypt bombings said Monday he last spoke with his daughter by phone hours before the attacks. "I told her be careful, have a great birthday and I love her... I don't understand these people and what they are doing to these innocent people around the world," Tony Miller told ABC. "Now they have taken my daughter. They've murdered my daughter, and I cannot understand that and I never will..."
London 2005-July
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 21:24:50
It is the most mundane of scenes, one experienced by millions of passengers on the London Underground every day. A man with a rucksack stands near the double doors, apparently looking up at a Tube map. His fellow passengers pay him little attention. Moments later, this man, still unidentified by police, tried to turn the scene into one of terror by triggering a bomb which was intended to kill him and the other travellers in the picture. Mercifully, the detonation failed...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:56:47
Police on Monday released the names of two of the four men suspected of taking part in the failed July 21 bombings and said a fifth device similar to others used in the botched attacks was found in a west London park...
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that the visa of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, had expired, suggesting this may have been why he ran from police Friday before being shot. However, Menezes' cousin said the visa was still valid...
news.ft.com/ ... 09:49:37
The controversy surrounding the shooting on Friday of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician living in London, is a serious setback for the capital's police, who are trying to build trust with British Muslims to gain vital intelligence on extremist elements... Since the shooting, police have confirmed that two years ago they secretly changed operational guidelines allowing officers chasing suspect suicide bombers to shoot them in the head...
Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:02:56
The ingredients are simple: widespread anger at US-led policies in the Middle East, the proliferation of information about bomb-making on the internet and the ability of Islamist extremists to blend into Western society. This potent cocktail has created the new al-Qaeda, the subject of Peter Taylor's new BBC Two television series...
cbsnews.com/ ... 09:43:19
New York - Police
arrested a man following a bomb scare that emptied Pennsylvania Station
and disrupted service on Amtrak, commuter trains and city subways for about an hour... The threat was a false alarm, and service on all lines was soon restored... Police arrested the man.., 43, on Sunday... on felony charges of making terrorists threats and falsely reporting an incident... Each count carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison...
an apparent
bomb hoax forced a Southwest Airlines flight to return
to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Calif., on Sunday... a caller from the Phoenix area said a bomb was aboard the plane. It returned to Burbank and the crew and 120 passengers aboard were evacuated... police searched the plane but found nothing. Southwest brought in another plane to take passengers to Phoenix...
SUN 2005-JUL-24
Culture
biz.yahoo.com/ ... 10:11:25
Former Georgia Congressman Ben Jones, who played "Cooter" on the hit TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard," has blasted the new film version to be released in August as a "profanity-laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series..."
[Funny... I always thought the original series was obscene with blatant sexual situations.... whenever I accidentally saw any of it. Or did that girl not have reeealllly short blue jean shorts? And then there was the anti-Authoritarian streak...]
Supernatural Threats
deccanherald.com/ ... 10:08:28
Potter mania could negatively affect kids: psychiatrists... psychiatrists say, author J K Rowling, who introduces Harry to some "seriously dark magic," has not kept in mind the negative imprint the violence would leave on the minds of kids...
[Oh... that's crazy!]
US Executive Branch
suntimes.com/ ... 10:06:27
White House aides' testimony differs from reporters'...
Digital Culture
wired.com/ ... 10:07:06
When the smoke clears around the Grand Theft Auto sex scandal, the innocent bystanders of the collision between politics, puritans and corporate dissembling may prove to be the community of "modders" who tinker with game content for their own amusement... Game hackers have probed, tweaked and enhanced everything from Halo to The Sims 2 over the years without incurring the wrath of game makers -- despite widespread click-wrap contracts prohibiting unauthorized modifications, and ambiguities in copyright law that make distributing the hacks legally uncertain...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:01:44
Tanzania... mobile phones are taking the country by storm, although only one in 10 houses has electricity... 97% of Tanzanians say they can access a mobile phone... Many fishermen now carry mobile phones while they are at sea, and they use them to check market prices... If there are too many fish in Zanzibar, they sail to Dar es Salaam to get better prices to make more money. Phones also serve another even more vital use, allowing fishermen in trouble to call for assistance... You can get a signal in places so remote you would not even think to turn your mobile on if you were in the US or Europe... the country will probably never develop or need a fixed-line infrastructure... increased mobile accessibility in Africa is boosting countries' economies in the same way that fixed-line installation in the west did in back in the 1970s...
History - still with us
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:48:32
Five hundred years of Korean royal blood flowed in Yi Ku, but he lived in such obscurity in Japan that when he died of a heart attack in a hotel room last week his body was not discovered for two days. Nonetheless, thousands of mourners in black suits and traditional white robes followed the coffin of the
last direct heir to Korea's throne
through the streets of Seoul on Sunday, paying their final respects to the dynasty that ruled the peninsula from 1392 until 1907...
Lasting Contributions
welkshow.com/ ... 01:36:23
Myron Floren... biography at WelkShow
ap.tbo.com/ ... 01:07:00
Myron Floren
, an accordion player who entertained generations of television viewers on "The Lawrence Welk Show," died Saturday. He was 85...
Prehistory - still with us
nature.com/ ... 00:55:50
In a recent paper in Geology, Marc-Andre Gutscher of the European Institute for Marine Studies in Plouzané gives details of one candidate for the lost city [of Atlantis], the submerged island of Spartel, west of the Straits of Gibraltar... some 60 metres beneath the surface in the Gulf of Cadiz... Geological evidence has shown that a large earthquake and a tsunami hit this island some 12,000 years ago, at roughly the location and time indicated in Plato's writings... sound reflection data revealed no unusual geometric structures that could suggest an extinct civilization...
Unclear on the Concept
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 00:52:44
A WIDOW aged 80 found herself being fingerprinted and locked in a police cell after complaining about the noise of drumming coming from a community centre... after snatching a stick from one of the samba drummers hands and allegedly hitting him with it when he ignored her pleas to keep the volume down... was unaware that the drummer was an off-duty police officer... They stuck me in this smelly cell for two hours. I am 80 years old and I have a heart condition and no effort was made to contact a doctor. They treated me as though I was an 18-year-old thug....
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 00:41:47
The draft of Iraq's new constitution specifically excludes Israelis from obtaining citizenship...
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:58:13
researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species... closely related species living in the same geographical space displayed unusually distinct wing markings. These wing colours apparently evolved as a sort of "team strip", allowing butterflies to easily identify the species of a potential mate... This process, called "reinforcement", prevents closely related species from interbreeding thus driving them further apart genetically and promoting speciation. Although scientists have speculated about this mechanism for years, it has rarely been witnessed in nature...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:12:56
Marine Cpl.
Steven P. Gill
, 24, of Round Rock, Texas, died July 21 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Zaidon, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:12:33
Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class
Travis L. Youngblood
, 26, of Surrency, Ga., died July 21 of wounds received July 15 from an improvised explosive device during combat operations in Hit, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:12:15
Army Cpl.
Leslie R. Heath
, of Bridgeport, Ill, died in June 1951 while imprisoned in North Korea. His remains have been identified and returned for burial with full military honors.
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:10:08
Army Sgt.
Arthur R. McGill
, 25, of Gravette, Ark., died July 19 in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated while he was on mounted patrol in a HMMWV.
defenselink.mil/ ... 01:09:45
Army Staff Sgt.
Jefferey J. Farrow
, 28, of Birmingham, Ala., died July 19 in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, of non-combat related injuries.
Justice?
azcentral.com/ ... 00:47:32
An army reservist arrested in April for holding seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint is demanding $1 million from Maricopa County for wrongful arrest and incarceration...
Under Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:14:08
Opposition figures in Cuba say at least 20 Cuban dissidents have been detained as part of a crackdown against the country's political opposition. They are said to include the three main organisers of a public meeting of dissidents which took place in May...
Natural Threat
bloomberg.com/ ... 10:09:23
An unidentified illness in China's southwestern province of Sichuan has killed nine people of the 20 infected in the last month... The ill were farm workers who probably contracted the disease from sick pigs or sheep they had butchered... citing provincial health officials. The disease caused fever, nausea, fatigue and bruises, with those who died first becoming comatose...
Peace 3000
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:56:44
Elderly members of a US anti-war group called the "raging grannies of Tucson" are due in court following a protest at an Arizona military recruitment centre. They have been accused of trespassing after entering the centre earlier this month, saying they wanted to enlist...
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 01:03:09
[Update on waitress shot by prominent citizen in Hominy] Because of a false positive reading on a previous pregnancy test, it was believed [waitress] was pregnant at the time of the shooting... autopsy revealed no fetus
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 00:58:54
When officers approached the vehicle they reported that [the driver] opened his eyes and began muttering something that they could not understand. At that time, police say they became aware that there was an infant in a car seat in the back of the vehicle. Officers reported that an open bottle of Kentucky Deluxe bourbon was found in a paper bag next to the baby. When asked about the baby, [the driver] reportedly said that he did not know and further that he did not have any connection to the baby. Police later answered a call on [the driver's] cellular phone from the baby's mother. She said that [he] was the baby's father and that he was supposed to have been caring for the child that day... she had been looking for Alspach for more than two hours...
Tough Love in Action
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 00:49:40
A mother frogmarched her two adult sons to a police station after recognising them on a television news video of an attempted robbery... was so determined to end their crime spree that she took them to four police stations before finding one that was open...
London 2005-July
dailytelegraph.news.com.au/ ... 10:02:48
One of Mr Menezes' friends, Gesio de Avila, said he spoke good English and was friendly. "He was a nice person and a friend, a helpful person," he said. "The police stopped him sometimes because he used the Underground every day. They would ask him some things and then say sorry for stopping him..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:56:12
Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair has apologised to the family of the Brazilian man shot dead by police in south London on Friday. He said the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was a "tragedy", but admitted more people could be shot as police hunt suspected suicide bombers...
But he said the "shoot to kill" policy for dealing with suspected suicide bombers would remain in force. "There is no point in shooting at someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be," he said. "There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it..."
The BBC's correspondent in Brazil, Tom Gibb, said Mr Menezes had lived for a time in a slum district of Sao Paulo and that could explain why he had run from the police. He said: "The murder rates in some of these slums are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away..."
guardian.co.uk/ ... 00:45:56
Police last night told Tony Blair that they need sweeping new powers to counter the terrorist threat, including the right to detain a suspect for up to three months without charge instead of the current 14 days. Senior officers also want powers to attack and close down websites, and a new criminal offence of using the internet to prepare acts of terrorism, to "suppress inappropriate internet usage". They also want to make it a criminal offence for suspects to refuse to cooperate in giving the police full access to computer files by refusing to disclose their encryption keys...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:45:11
A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday's London attacks
was a Brazilian electrician unconnected to the incidents...
had lived in London legally for at least three years... The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: "The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public. "This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility..."
A package was found by a member of the public in bushes in Little Wormwood Scrubs on Saturday morning. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Explosives officers attended the scene. An initial examination suggests that the object may be linked to devices found at four locations in London on July 21..."
Violence
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:14:36
A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack by suspected Taliban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan on Sunday... At least one militant was killed and two wounded in the clash in Helmand province... an Afghan interpreter for U.S. forces was also wounded...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:53:23
A suicide attacker slammed a truck loaded with explosives into concrete barriers outside a Baghdad police station Sunday, killing at least 20 people and wounding 30...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:52:04
Palestinian militants killed two Israeli motorists in the Gaza Strip early Sunday and sent a suicide bomber into Israel...
The bomber.. was caught near an Israeli communal farm with a belt packed with 11 pounds of explosives. The bomb was detonated safely...
Early Sunday, gunmen opened fire on Israeli motorists driving on the road that runs from the Gush Katif bloc of settlements to the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Israel. The shots killed a Jerusalem couple in their 50s. Five civilians were hurt...
After the shooting on the vehicle, troops in the area clashed with the gunmen, killing one. They killed another in a pursuit... Grenades and assault rifles were found on their bodies...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:47:35
More than 70 people have been detained in Sharm el-Sheik and elsewhere on the Sinai Peninsula for questioning over the bombings early Saturday. But none have been accused of involvement...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 01:05:39
Mexican authorities raided a kidnapping ring that filmed its victims being held inside a cage and beaten... to pressure relatives for money... An abducted businessman was freed and five people were arrested... The man freed had been held for ransom since May 19...
Kidnappings for ransom are fairly common in Mexico, but people are often reluctant to report them to police, out of fear that corrupt officers may be involved in the abductions or that authorities might kill the victim along with the kidnappers in any rescue effort...
news.monstersandcritics.com/ ... 00:48:52
Ten people are facing charges in an alleged slavery ring that forced would-be waitresses to have sex with customers at bars in Union City and Guttenberg, N.J... a slavery and prostitution network that ensnared girls as young as 14. The women told investigators they had been raped and later forced to take abortion-inducing pills...
[and worse...]
The investigation began after a man spotted his cousin working in a bar. She told him she had been smuggled into the United States and was prohibited from leaving the bar...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 00:42:47
A bomb blast at an Istanbul cafe late Saturday night injured three people... at a cafe at the bottom of the Galata bridge, a popular area for tourists and Turks to go for fish dinners...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
jpost.com/ ... 00:42:08
Several Egyptian "security experts" and "political analysts" interviewed by Arab TV stations in the aftermath of the Sharm e-Sheikh bombings on Saturday claimed that Israel and Jews were behind the carnage...
Rebuilding
latimes.com/ ... 00:41:06
Iraqi Transitional President Jalal Talabani said Saturday that his government had agreed to security requests by Sunni Arab delegates who serve on the nation's constitution-drafting committee, an olive branch that could end a Sunni boycott of the charter-writing process...
SAT 2005-JUL-23
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:35:26
Long John Baldry, the British blues legend who helped launch the careers of such rock greats as Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, died Thursday of a chest infection, according to his agent. He was 64...
Culture
theglobeandmail.com/ ... 09:22:10
By now, a week after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released, most avid Potter fans will have read the book, and most of you will have heard its major plot points already. For those who haven't read the book or who don't want to know what happens, be aware that this review contains major spoilers. (I'd add, though, that any book that is spoiled by the revelation of plot details is probably not worth reading, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince actually is.)... a writer with a command of narrative... one feels invested in what is going to happen next, if one feels any investment at all... her work could be used in a clinic on story... Rowling is someone who will sacrifice credibility for structure... It is a book that, as with all the books in the series, adults will find flawed. Children are unlikely to notice, or care about, Rowling's shortcomings. And that's the truest testament to her talent...
Only Natural
news.yahoo.com/ ... 09:29:53
200 cities and towns in the West set daily record highs this week...
Threats
today.reuters.com/ ... 09:51:12
A 10-year-old boy caused havoc at a bank in southern Poland when he dropped a fake bomb threat in a deposit box, apparently as a protest after his mother received slow service...
London 2005-July
washingtonpost.com/ ... 09:40:00
Muslim community leaders expressed fears that police were instituting a "shoot to kill" policy that could target innocent people because of ethnicity or appearance...
[Yeah, "ethnicity or appearance," like being SE Asian, coming out of a house watched by officials after a bombing the day before, wearing unseasonably heavy clothing and running when police ask you to stop? Those bigoted police!!??]
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:33:36
Police investigating this week's attempted subway and bus bombings said Saturday they arrested a second man in the same south London neighborhood where officers already had detained one suspect and shot another dead in front of horrified commuters...
Mechanical Disaster
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:32:36
At least 15 people have been killed after a dam collapsed in south-west China... one person was missing and another 23 were injured... Dozens of houses were destroyed... Flooding has claimed more than 700 lives in China so far this year... The latest burst comes amid warnings from environmentalists that thousands of villagers living beneath China's enormous Three Gorges Dam are at risk...
Violence
cnn.com/ ... 22:07:40
Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility early Sunday for a Gaza shooting that killed an Israeli couple traveling into a southern Gaza settlement... Israeli military officials said a Palestinian gunman was killed, along with three Israeli soldiers in a confrontation after the attack... Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded, and five Israeli civilians were hurt, one moderately and four slightly...
ctv.ca/ ... 22:06:46
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak vowed to hunt down the terrorists behind a series of coordinated bombings in the popular Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, as the death toll rose to 88...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:37:50
An Internet statement Saturday attributed to the group al-Qaida in Iraq said it was responsible... for kidnapping two Algerian diplomats this week... Al-Qaida in Iraq later claimed al-Sherif had been killed but provided no evidence. It warned Muslim nations against deepening their ties with Baghdad...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:34:14
Suspected Taliban militants fatally shot a district judge in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, a day after alleged rebels killed a local administrator in the area...
ndtv.com/ ... 09:20:53
Egypt update: At least 83 people have been killed and many more wounded....
bloomberg.com/ ... 09:20:20
Update: At least 75 people were killed and 120 wounded in Egypt...
FRI 2005-JUL-22
History - still with us
phillyburbs.com/ ... 12:38:18
A Jewish catacomb in Rome predates its Christian counterparts by at least 100 years, indicating burial in the city's sprawling underground cemeteries may not have begun as a Christian practice...
Lasting Contributions
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:34:26
The ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan, who died on Wednesday, are to be sent into space at his request...
Whoops!
boston.com/ ... 07:33:42
CHICAGO... A man who called a radio station to brag about his role in a bank robbery... pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that will likely put him behind bars for more than four years... There were no leads in the case until earlier this year, when someone called the popular confessions show on WKSC-FM to talk about the heist... Authorities quickly traced the call back to Washington's cell phone and arrested him...
What Th'...?
newsday.com/ ... 19:23:04
Howard Dean: Democrats need to reach out to voters who oppose abortion rights and promote candidates who share that view....
boston.com/ ... 07:34:03
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --A 76-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly selling crack cocaine by putting the drugs in her purse and lowering them by rope from her second-floor window...
boston.com/ ... 07:31:29
An animal welfare group confiscated 550 gerbils that had been kept in stacked containers in a small house in southern England... a variety of cages and makeshift containers, including badly ventilated wine boxes, stacked to heights of more than 6 feet throughout the one-bedroom home... about 35 containers in the bathroom alone... male and female gerbils had not been separated, so they were continuing to just breed and breed...
boston.com/ ... 07:22:41
A woman who was branded with letters from the Consolidated Edison logo when she fell off a skateboard onto a searing hot manhole cover in Manhattan last year filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking unspecified damages from the utility...
Culture
ap.tbo.com/ ... 06:51:00
"I think more good will come out of this than bad. I just believe that it happened for a reason and that we can turn it around to a positive." - Emily Benton...
[One of the Tennessee sisters injured in the London attack]
ap.tbo.com/ ... 06:49:49
new toilet paper, called SepticSure, is designed to dissolve quickly, preventing clogs... breaks down within just 30 seconds of being flushed...
[I've used some septic-ready tp in the past... and I'd be a little afraid it would begin breaking down while still being used!...]
Digital Culture
rednova.com/ ... 12:33:57
Thirty-six years to the day since Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, Google Inc. extended its mapping service to cover the lunar surface...
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:33:43
Brazilian police arrested 10 people on Thursday accused of selling drugs using Google's international social networking site Orkut, which is hugely popular in the Latin American country...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 06:46:34
Israeli technology firm Blue Security has set up a scheme to batter spam websites with thousands of complaints. The plan is to fill order forms on spam websites offering pills, porn and penile health tonics with complaints about the products advertised for sale in junk messages. The plan has been criticised by other anti-spam workers who say it amounts to vigilantism...
Theory of Education
thesmokinggun.com/ ... 06:45:01
A New York woman claims that she was forced from her teaching post by an elementary school principal who objected to her Republican activism and last year ordered the removal of a portrait of President George W. Bush from the educator's Long Island classroom...
World Without Borders
rdu.news14.com/ ... 20:35:49
illegal worker... saved nearly $32,000.. over seven years of bone-crunching labor... buried the cash, in $100 bills, in a glass jar in the yard of the rundown trailer he rented.. Immigration officials allowed him to retrieve the money and his 16-year-old son from the trailer before he was deported Wednesday...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 20:32:46
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to volatile Lebanon under heavy guard Friday to encourage a new democratic government outside Syrian control...
Digital Future is Now
cbsnews.com/ ... 15:17:55
battery-driven robotic dog sold by Sony... Carnegie Mellon has been working with these puppies under a grant from the Defense Advanced Projects Agency... to find a way to use similar robots on the battlefield...
Justice?
billingsgazette.com/ ... 12:33:14
Montanans' right to privacy does not extend to their garbage that fills trash cans along alleys and curbs, the state Supreme Court has ruled... The court concluded that "when a person intentionally abandons his property, that person's expectation of privacy with regard to that property is abandoned as well..."
Only Natural
v6.dailybulletin.com/ ... 11:50:16
A drought that is stunting corn, rice and soybean crops across the nation's Farm Belt is also leading many communities in more urban parts of the Midwest to ban lawn-watering and urge homeowners to conserve... In Indianapolis, officials have pleaded with customers to cut their water use. St. Peters, Mo., made a similar request. So did Chicago, where WGN-TV meteorologist Dennis Haller said this is the driest summer so far in 135 years... Molly Lane, a teacher in Chicago, lives in an apartment and doesn't have a lawn, but she is saving water where she can, too. "I let my flowers die," she said.
"I figured I'm not going to waste water on plants. I mean, they're flowers..."
[Still, that's sad!]
boston.com/ ... 07:23:24
A bear wandered into a Raton motel on Monday and a second bear broke into a Taos Ski Valley motel a day later...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
news.yahoo.com/ ... 06:44:22
Scientists are questioning the safety of a Star Wars-style riot control ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq next year... fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds... New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes. In another test they were also told to remove metal objects like coins from their clothing to avoid local hot spots developing on their skin...
Digital Threat
news.zdnet.com/ ... 19:14:13
Longhorn--now Windows Vista--may be arriving more slowly than expected and it might not have everything that was once planned, but Windows chief Jim Allchin maintains "It's a big deal." Among the features in the OS are security improvements, some snazzy new graphics, and a new means of searching and organizing information. Rather than having to remember the single folder where something is stored, users will be able to put documents in any number of virtual folders. They can also establish folders that will automatically update, such as "files edited in the last week" or "documents from Jane..."
[Oh, the horror... more Gates "Improvements"!]
Natural Threat
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 15:28:58
Indonesias first human bird flu case, coupled with more birds dying elsewhere including Russia, are signs a long-dreaded global influenza pandemic may be approaching, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Health officials fear the virus will mutate and mix with human influenza, creating a deadly pandemic strain that becomes easily transmissible and could kill millions of people... This is perhaps the only time since 1968, which was the last pandemic, that we are getting signs, symptoms and warnings from nature ... More and more birds are dying in different parts of the world this is the kind of signals, and early warnings that we are referring to....
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:36:29
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate Jewish communities from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is a "disastrous" military move and a major victory for terrorism, Israel's former intelligence research chief told WND...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:34:20
a Democratic Party national security advisory panel... headed by former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William Perry... In a report issued yesterday... said Bush is taking "insufficient actions" to counter the threat... [of] terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city...
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:32:30
DETROIT... A teenager convicted of plotting to kill fellow students was sentenced to prison on Thursday in what the prosecution called the first case to apply U.S. anti-terrorism laws to threats of school violence... will serve at least 4 1/2 years in prison... convicted... of "making a terrorist threat" after he wrote messages on the Internet about the possibility of killing students at his Chippewa Valley High School... Police... also found what Kaplan described as an "arsenal" at the teen's home consisting of three weapons, one of them an AK-47 assault rifle, 3,000 rounds of ammunition and pipe-bomb material...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 12:29:33
China will have more than 23 million men unable to find wives by 2020 because so many more boys are being born than girls... widespread practice of aborting female foetuses is being blamed... These men are known as "bare branches" because they will never bear fruit. History suggests that they will give rise to higher crime rates and political instability. Their number might encourage China to become more authoritarian or seek an outlet for their energies through war... The new research refers to a bloody 17-year uprising in Shandong province in the 19th century. It was ascribed to the fact that there were 100,000 more men than women, caused by a previous generation practising female infanticide in a famine. "If 100,000 excess males were a thorn in the side in the 19th century, imagine the level of rebellion that could be instigated by 23.5 million Chinese bachelors..."
Violence
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:32:29
Egyptian blasts... At least 43 people... killed and more than 130 wounded... initial reports suggested there had been at least four and possibly seven car bombs...
usatoday.com/ ... 19:18:05
As many as seven explosions struck the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula early Saturday, targeting several hotels and killing at least 25 people... the Ghazala Garden a 176-room four-star resort on the main tourist strip in Naama... was "completely burned down, destroyed..."
abcnews.go.com/ ... 15:21:44
A manhunt is under way in the mountains of the Idaho panhandle for the sex offender father of a 12-year-old girl who was found bound, stabbed and cowering in the bushes along a rural road near Wallace, Idaho, on Wednesday... She was stabbed at about 1 p.m. and wasn't found until about five hours later. A family looking for a campsite reportedly heard her calling for help. "If these people had not come by, I am positive she would probably have died..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:48:36
Insurgents killed four Iraqi police in Baghdad on Friday and wounded another officer in an attack that killed his wife just a day after their wedding...
Sick, Sick, Sick
local6.com/ ... 19:24:40
The state has suspended the licenses of two church-affiliated day care centers. Former director Joshua Palin is charged with molesting ten children, some of them during what investigators say were twisted games of Truth or Dare. At the centers, children were allegedly sexually assaulted and forced to eat worms, pick each other's noses and smell each other's feet during employee-led games of "Truth or Dare..."
washingtonpost.com/ ... 19:24:17
LONDON... Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed... one of the country's most outspoken Islamic clerics said on Friday... "I would like to see the Islamic flag fly, not only over number 10 Downing Street, but over the whole world..."
boston.com/ ... 07:23:01
Police say one man could be responsible for a string of bizarre break-ins over four years involving a naked perpetrator who sometimes tickles the feet of sleeping elderly women...
London 7/7/05
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:19:28
People in the United States appear to be adopting a defiant attitude to the London attacks. London is one of the most popular destinations for US tourists Travel companies say few have cancelled trips to the UK, while opinion polls suggest no increase in public concern about terrorism...
heraldsun.news.com.au/ ... 19:16:16
BRITISH police have said it is still unclear whether a man shot dead on the London Underground was one of four people wanted over attempted bomb attacks on the transport system...
foxnews.com/ ... 15:26:24
sources at Scotland Yard told Sky News reporter Martin Brunt that the man shot was not tied to the actual bombings. He is, however, being described as a man who emerged as being "of interest" in the investigation and is also described as a "terrorist suspect..."
"There's a lot of police activity going on today in relation to the Underground and bus incidents yesterday. It's a very, very fast moving investigation.. This is the greatest operational challenge ever faced by the Metropolitan Police Services ... [police are facing] previously unknown threats and great danger..." Sky News reported that there were no explosives found on the man after he was shot...
foxnews.com/ ... 15:24:12
It's believed the two suitcases could contain explosives...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 15:12:44
A man was arrested in the south London neighborhood of Stockwell the same area where the shooting occurred and detectives were searching a premises there... In Birmingham, police arrested a man at rail station and seized at least two suitcases under Britain's anti-terrorism laws... Two men detained Thursday... were later released without charge...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:10:19
Scotland Yard has confirmed a man has been arrested in the Stockwell area in connection with ongoing inquiries...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:04:49
the police have taken advice from officers in countries such as Israel and Sri Lanka which have long experience of suicide attacks. Their advice is that if a suspect clearly has no intention of surrendering, the armed officer should attempt to aim for the head or lower limbs to prevent a suicide belt being detonated...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:03:04
Police hunting four bombing suspects have searched an address in the Harrow Road area of north-west London. Residents reported hearing bangs, believed to be the firing of CS gas cannisters into a house, but police said no arrests were made... A second focus of the police operation appeared to be a nearby internet cafe...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:19:44
Responding to this morning's incident, the Muslim Council of Britain said Muslims were concerned about a possible "shoot to kill" policy. "There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead, but they need to make those reasons clear," said spokesman Inayat Bunglawala. "It's vital the police give a statement about what occurred and explain why the man was shot dead..."
[Answer: see items below!]
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:53:57
Arsonists are believed to have attacked the family home of the 7 July London suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay in the early hours of Friday morning...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:51:47
He told the Daily Mail he was on the train when he heard a bang like a "pistol going off", and saw a fellow passenger lying on the floor. He approached him and asked, "are you all right, mate?" but then saw the man was lying on top of a smoking rucksack. The suspect then calmly left the rucksack behind, jumped on the tracks and walked away down the line...
theaustralian.news.com.au/ ... 11:34:08
police sources believed the man [shot] was one of the failed bombers from Thursday...
cafepress.com/ ... 06:52:56
"I do not consent to be searched" tee-shirts at cafepress
ap.tbo.com/ ... 06:52:22
Police... cordoned off a mosque on Friday... a Muslim leader said it was evacuated following a bomb threat...
villagevoice.com/ ... 06:43:31
Reacting to the NYPD's announcement Thursday afternoon that police would randomlybut routinelysearch the bags of commuters, one concerned New Yorker quickly created a way for civil libertarians to make their views black-and-white... t-shirts bearing the text, "i do not consent to being searched..."
eitb24.com/ ... 06:41:28
Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade claims responsibility for London blasts The statement posted on an Islamic Web site says "We will strike in the hearts of European capitals, in Rome, in Amsterdam and in Denmark where their soldiers are in still in Iraq"...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 06:40:08
Scotland Yard said: "We can confirm that just after 10am armed officers entered Stockwell Tube station. A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene..." shot five times at close range after he had jumped on a train... Witness: He saw about 20 police officers, some of them armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers with police giving chase. He said: "There were at least 20 of them (officers) and they were carrying big black guns. "The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting 'get out, get out"'... Witness: "An Asian guy ran on to the train. As he ran, he was hotly pursued by what I knew to be three plainclothes police officers." He tripped and was also pushed to the floor and one of the officers shot him five times... "One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead, five shots, he's dead... He looked like a Pakistani but he had a baseball cap on, and quite a thickish coat. It was a coat like you would wear in winter, a sort of padded jacket. Maybe he might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked out of place in the weather we've been having. He was quite large, big built, quite a sort of chubby guy..."
THU 2005-JUL-21
Uniting Nations
ap.tbo.com/ ... 21:56:08
Donald Trump is the only person standing between an honest deal to rebuild the aging U.N. headquarters and a massive waste of public money. He told senators so on Thursday... The United Nations says it will cost $1.2 billion to overhaul the 39-story building along New York's East River. No, says the city's highest-profile developer. More like $3 billion... Trump's estimate for the work: $600 million to $700 million...
Whoops!
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 20:42:38
Far from making him better, the medication used to treat the madness of King George III may actually have made him worse, according to research published on Friday. One of the longest serving British monarchs who ruled for nearly 60 years, George had five very public bouts of madness culminating in his death -- blind, deaf and insane in January 1820... a team of scientists from Britain and Australia have found high concentrations of arsenic in samples of the king's hair and suggested it came from the antimony-based medicine administered -- sometimes by force -- to cure him...
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 21:52:46
OKLAHOMA CITY - Charles Chibitty, the last survivor of the Comanche code talkers who used their native language to transmit messages for the Allies in Europe during World War II, died Wednesday. He was 83... A group of Comanche Indians from the Lawton area was selected for special duty in the U.S. Army to provide the Allies with a language that the Germans could not decipher. Like the larger group of Navajo Indians who performed a similar service in the Pacific theater, the Comanches were dubbed "code talkers..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:08:26
Gerry Thomas... inventor of the TV Dinner, has died at age 83...
Sick, Sick, Sick
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:07:51
Spain's nurses have told a cosmetic surgery firm to apologize after it paraded 50 mini-skirted models, sporting uniforms and stethoscopes, onto the stock market for its share launch...
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:07:29
An Indian court jailed five employees of an insurance firm for sedition after they glorified Osama bin Laden in a sales campaign... internal campaign, named "Mission Jehad," addressed sales agents as "Dear terrorists" and compared selling life insurance policies to killing people...
Oh! The Irony!
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:06:51
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Two mourners who rode an all-terrain vehicle to the service for a man killed in an ATV accident were injured in a similar accident as they were leaving...
Culture
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:03:47
Wal-Mart hopes 'green' store brings greenbacks...
US Election 2004
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:03:26
Election officials have thrown out a complaint against John Kerry's presidential campaign and CBS over a now-discredited story that questioned President Bush's National Guard service...
US Executive Branch
drudgereport.com/ ... 15:52:52
"In a set of talking points issued Wednesday morning, the Senate Democratic leadership urged rank-and-file Senators to continue spotlighting Rove's involvement in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. 'A Supreme Court nominee will not distract the country from the growing credibility problem at the White House,' Democrats were told to echo..."
Digital Culture
channels.netscape.com/ ... 15:52:05
Less than 24 hours after the English edition of the latest Harry Potter book went on sale in China's capital on the weekend, the full text of the 672-page tome was available for free on the Internet as an unauthorized e-book...
Why People Go Vegan
ap.tbo.com/ ... 04:37:07
Arkansas Poultry Farmers Say Lawsuit Over Chicken Waste Could Doom Industry...
But is it Art?
ap.tbo.com/ ... 04:36:49
Londoner Purposely Wastes Water in the Name of Art...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:03:05
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Police dismantled an upper-middle class gang accused of selling marijuana and ecstasy on the Internet...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 15:50:43
Three Surrey, B.C., men have been charged in Washington state with conspiracy to distribute and import marijuana after law enforcement officials discovered a tunnel crossing the U.S.-Canada border...
Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:50:24
A chemical study of Martian meteorites implies that the planet has always been cold and was rarely above freezing...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:21:23
Army Pvt.
Lavena L. Johnson
, 19, of Florissant, Mo., died July 19 in Balad, Iraq, of non-combat related injuries...
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:20:56
Army Spc.
Ronnie D. Williams
, 26, of Erlanger, Ky., died on July 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained on July 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his M1A2 Abrams tank left the road and entered a canal during patrol operations.
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:20:23
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Ronald T. Wood
, 28, of Cedar City, Utah, died July 16 in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV...
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:19:35
Army Staff Sgt.
Jorge L. Pena-Romero
, 29, of Fallbrook, Calif., died July 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV while his unit was conducting a mounted patrol.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 10:21:38
This week, the Marine Corps and Navy announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard numbers decreased. The net collective result is 1,556 fewer reservists mobilized than last week...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 04:40:04
As they have throughout their history, the Marines here [in Iraq] often turn to jokes or pranks to relieve the tension of living in constant danger, these days while patrolling dusty streets of this western Iraqi town. The humor is often dark and almost always salty, focusing on aching backs, alcohol, their own mortality - and, of course, old girlfriends...
World Without Borders
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:58:24
[A really beautiful photo on this page]
Afghan women in Kabul wait to be given voter cards during the last day of registration for upcoming legislative elections...
edition.cnn.com/ ... 04:16:26
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a congratulatory round of meetings with officials of the new unified Sudanese government Thursday, but expressed outrage after security forces manhandled aides and reporters accompanying her...
Only Natural
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:02:06
Tiny, snail-eating caterpillars found in Hawaiian rain forests tie up their prey with sticky silk and snack on them at leisure...
casperstartribune.net/ ... 15:50:07
Casper tied its highest temperature ever with a reading of 104 degrees on Saturday, a day that saw records broken across much of central Wyoming...
azcentral.com/ ... 04:15:13
By Wednesday, 17 people in Phoenix and one in Tempe had died of the blistering heat. Most were transients...
People Die
ap.tbo.com/ ... 21:51:45
A woman holding an infant jumped from a window of her high-rise apartment in downtown Boston on Thursday, killing both of them as they crashed onto a small roof 17 floors below... The woman was believed to be in her 30s, and the child was about 14 months old...
Under Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:56:48
China has abandoned its currency's peg to the dollar and revalued the yuan by 2.2%. It now buys more US dollars than before... the move's economic impact will be felt worldwide... China's exports will become more expensive as a result...
Don't Let Them Breed
news.yahoo.com/ ... 15:53:55
More than 200 couples were married in Gaza City Thursday, in a group wedding organized by the Islamic Jihad...
Violence
arabnews.com/ ... 18:28:03
At least ten protesters and two army soldiers died and dozens of people were injured yesterday as violent protests broke out in six Yemeni provinces for the second day over fuel price rises...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:05:28
TORRANCE, Calif. - A serial robbery suspect who sported a tattoo saying "Blue eyed Devil" was shot to death by police after he allegedly assaulted a deputy, carjacked an SUV and held up a pet store...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:55:40
Two Algerian diplomats in Iraq have been kidnapped in Baghdad...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 15:54:14
LOS ANGELES -- A 63-year-old woman was fatally shot while waiting for a bus, probably killed by a stray bullet from a nearby gang-related shooting...
rferl.org/ ... 15:48:37
Georgian police have announced the arrest of a man suspected of throwing a live hand grenade in the direction of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush during their joint public appearance in Tbilisi on 10 May. The suspect -- identified as Vladimir Arutyunian, a 27-year-old ethnic Armenian -- was captured overnight following a shoot-out that claimed the life of a senior police officer. Today, Arutyunian confessed to throwing the grenade with a view to harming the U.S. president...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 04:33:29
At least three soldiers and a civilian have been killed and 19 others injured by a car bomb in Indian-administered Kashmir...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
news.yahoo.com/ ... 04:23:44
The video game industry on Wednesday changed to adults-only the rating of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas..." decision followed intense pressure from politicians and media watch groups... The game's producer, Rockstar Games, said it stopped making the current version... also will offer a downloadable patch to fix the sex issue...
London 7/7/05
ap.tbo.com/ ... 21:54:21
London's police chief said investigators were gathering forensic evidence Thursday that could offer a "significant break" in determining who carried out the latest attack on the transit system. Hours later, police announced two arrests in the case... One man was arrested near Downing Street... the other, later released without charge, near Tottenham Court Road, which is close to the Warren Street Underground station...
news.scotsman.com/ ... 20:39:13
Detectives believe at least four bombers were involved in the attempted attacks and they are understood to be still at large. But police are certain their escape was caught on CCTV and several witnesses have already come forward with descriptions. One bomber struggled with three male passengers before fleeing up an escalator... Early indications suggest the gang is part of the same terrorist network that launched the devastating strikes on the capital exactly two weeks ago...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:52:37
Tube alerts: Eyewitness reports...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:02:44
The "worrying trend" is that the terrorists "have realized that that they don't have to have (very large) explosions" to disrupt people's lives...
[Oh, DUH!]
today.reuters.com/ ... 16:01:53
security analysts... put forward two main scenarios behind the latest blasts...The first, more benign explanation, was that the attacks were carried out by "imitative amateurs" intent on mounting a copycat strike... The second, more worrying, was that the same group behind the suspected al Qaeda-linked attacks on July 7 had struck again, albeit with far less devastating effect...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:55:29
Evidence showing that all three of the London bombers of Pakistani descent visited Pakistan last year has been thrown into doubt. A photograph of a passport purporting to show bomber Hasib Hussain was in fact that of a 16-year-old British boy with the same name...
sky.com/ ... 15:49:51
the smell indicated that the explosives had been made up incorrectly, with too much ------- and not enough --------...
[why give them help?]
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 15:46:43
Staff at a central London hospital were told Thursday to look out for an Asian or black man with wires protruding from his shirt after witnesses reported seeing someone of that description fleeing an Underground station hit by a small blast... at Warren Street station in central London. Another witness told Sky News that passengers tried to prevent the man from running away, but failed...
wpherald.com/ ... 15:44:55
The Metropolitan police commissioner characterized the series of small blasts as "attempts" to set off explosive devices. Some of the devices remained unexploded... At around 1 p.m., Warren Street and Oval underground stations were evacuated after passengers heard bangs and saw abandoned rucksacks. In both cases, witnesses reported a man running away from the station. At Warren Street, where one person was reported injured, a passenger told the BBC she had seen a man throwing a bag onto the train and then running away. At Oval there were no casualties. Shepherd's Bush station was also evacuated after an attempted explosion on the Hammersmith and City line. Police told reporters a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran away. Another explosion occurred on the No. 26 bus in the east London borough of Hackney. The blast shattered the windows on the upper deck but caused no injuries or structural damage... attempts were almost simultaneous...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 15:35:18
Four small coordinated explosions hit London's bus and underground train network on Thursday, injuring one person... "An Italian young man ... said a man was carrying a rucksack (that) suddenly exploded, a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack, and the man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong and ... everyone rushed off the carriage..." took place just after a memorial for some of the victims... Police chief Ian Blair said unexploded charges might still be left at some of the cordoned off sites: "This may represent a significant breakthrough ... there is obviously forensic material at these scenes which may be very helpful to us..." Passengers on at least two trains told of would-be bombers fleeing after small explosions -- which police said might have been detonators going off but failing to trigger a bomb...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 04:21:23
Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people... spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people... visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London...
drudgereport.com/ ... 04:18:34
Terror investigators hunting the London bombing mastermind are to question a suspected Al Qaeda planner held in Pakistan. British-born Haroon Rashid Aswad was seized at a religious school with a suicide bomb belt, explosives and GBP 13,000 in cash...
Threats
today.reuters.com/ ... 15:48:50
U.S. officials said they did not believe the United States was in imminent danger of an attack similar to Thursday's second wave of bombings on London's transport system but were closely monitoring the London events...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 04:33:14
A row has been taking place in Australia over a controversial farming practice, where flesh is sheared from sheep to protect them from maggot infestation... Mulesing is named after John Mules, who developed the practice in the 1930s as a way to prevent what is known as "flystrike". This occurs when blowflies lay eggs in the folds of skin around the sheep's back side. When this happens, the hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. Cutting off the loose flesh leaves an area of smooth, wool-free skin, which prevents maggot infestations...
[Naturally, PETA doesn't want this...?]
WED 2005-JUL-20
Theory of Education
today.reuters.com/ ... 15:03:31
LONDON... The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed...
Lasting Contributions
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 14:59:47
James Doohan, the actor best known for his role as the intergalactic engineer Scotty in Star Trek, has died at his home in the US. He was 85... lost his struggle against pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease this morning in Washington State... A Canadian actor with a knack for accents... "I can't change the laws of physics!", "I've giv'n her all she's got Captain, an' I canna give her no more..." "He was fond of telling fans at conventions about his original Star Trek audition, when Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had him trying on many different accents, before finally asking Doohan what he himself thought would be the best option. Doohan thought for a moment, and then replied, 'All the world's best engineers have been Scottish'..."
oklahoma.net/ ... 09:41:45
Jim Aparo - some art samples
twomorrows.com/ ... 09:39:21
Jim Aparo on his comics debut at Charlton Press... His Batman is the definitive model for a generation. Cartoony and realistic at the same time, Jim's work influenced that generation of artists, myself included...
Jim: Yes, I used to do the lettering first. I kept it far away from the art area. Very seldom would I have to re-letter something. I did it pretty well.
CBA: Will Eisner worked that way and so did Jack Kirby when he lettered his own stuff.
Jim: Then they did the artwork..
I was never fast. I'd do a page a day, pencils, inks and lettersI was never a Jack Kirbyand I stayed at a pace and never increased it. I remember when I went to DC and Carmine Infantino was in charge of the whole operation then. He called me on the phone and said, "Gee, I wish you could do more work." I said, "How do you want it? Good or fast?" He said, "I want it good." I said, "Okay..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:24:18
James N. Aparo, an illustrator for DC Comics for more than 30 years who drew Batman, the Green Arrow and other action heroes.. died.. Tuesday at home after a short illness... He was 72...
History - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:20:15
Australopithecus afarensis, the early human who lived about 3.2 million years ago, walked upright, according to an "evolutionary robotics" model... which uses an individual's footprints to predict its gait...
Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:19:45
The first woman to head a major US orchestra has been appointed, despite opposition from musicians... the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra... she has broken through what has traditionally been a male preserve... When it became clear she was going to be appointed, a statement from the musicians said a "vast majority" wanted the search to continue...
local6.com/ ... 09:17:35
About 40 models are living on the side of a building as part of New York City's first-ever live billboard... three-story display is a new fragrance advertisement...
[this makes no sense...]
Unclear on the Concept
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:13:17
radical clerics blamed the Government - and even the public for re-electing Mr Blair - for making the country a target...
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 09:15:55
Western foreign policy has fuelled the Islamist radicalism behind the bomb attacks which killed more than 50 people in London, the British capital's mayor Ken Livingstone said on Wednesday...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 09:15:39
The father of one of the September 11 hijackers said today he had no sorrow for what had happened in London and claimed more terrorist attacks would follow... said the attacks in the US and the July 7 attacks in Britain were the beginning of what would be a 50-year religious war, in which there would be many more fighters like his son...
[Ah, a strong clue where monsters like Atta come from...!]
edition.cnn.com/ ... 09:13:43
The leader of a defunct Islamic militant group has blamed Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and its "crusader views" of Muslims for the July 7 suicide bomb attacks...
Only Natural
thebostonchannel.com/ ... 15:00:08
Fishermen who hauled in a massive
1,100 pound tiger shark
off Massachusetts this past weekend failed to capture first place in the monster shark derby on Martha's Vineyard. The reason: The boat was six minutes too late in returning to Oak Bluffs harbor with its catch...
Future is Now
nature.com/ ... 09:16:40
Researchers in Japan have managed to carve tiny numbers and pictures into a fingernail, in the form of microscopic dots burnt into the nail by laser... could one day be used to securely carry information on live fingertips. It might even replace credit cards... you'd have to get your information carved in every six months or so as the nail grows out...
Violence
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 22:12:45
A suicide attacker wearing an explosives belt detonated himself Wednesday outside an army recruiting center in Baghdad, killing at least 10 people...
editorandpublisher.com/ ... 22:06:16
A resident of Hominy, Okla., walked into a local diner Tuesday afternoon and allegedly shot a pregnant waitress, 26-year-old Becky Clements, in the head, then shot her again in the stomach and chest. Sheriff Ty Koch said the motive is apparently a recent letter to the editor of the Hominy newspaper, the News Progress, written by the woman... The letter from the dead woman had said local vandalism is done by prominent citizens and referred to spray-painted graffiti on a rental home owned by Westbrook, although it did not name him. The letter did say the spray-painting was done by the owner. Westbrook was trying to evict the victim's sister from the building...
Sex can be Dangerous
usatoday.com/ ... 22:14:17
The almost 1 million unmarried heterosexual Americans who live together in Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia are violating state laws against "lewd and lascivious" cohabitation...
news24.com/ ... 22:14:01
Los Angeles - A former FBI agent who had an affair with an accused Chinese double agent he was handling was on Monday sentenced to three months in home confinement in the climax of a bizarre spy saga...
aftenposten.no/ ... 22:13:41
An Iraqi refugee with residence permission in Norway married his own mother, in a desperate attempt to bring the rest of his family to the country. It worked, inititally, but now both he and his mother face two years in prison...
today.reuters.com/ ... 22:04:11
German police let a nearly naked shopper go home after she told them she was getting groceries in the nude because she lost a spin the bottle contest...
wnbc.com/ ... 09:18:27
A Russian tennis player and French Open winner cannot stop a New York photographer from distributing topless pictures taken of her during a magazine photo session in the summer of 2002...
Threats
today.reuters.com/ ... 15:02:17
Cell phone service was restored in two major New York commuter tunnels late on Tuesday after being shut down due to security concerns following the deadly bomb blasts earlier this month in London...
usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/ ... 09:14:28
WASHINGTON Subway riders may face random police checks of their bags under a security measure being considered in the nation's capital...
forbes.com/ ... 09:14:08
The US embassy in Riyadh has warned in a statement that it has indications of possible new terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia...
TUE 2005-JUL-19
US Judicial Branch
foxnews.com/ ... 21:02:44
President Bush on Tuesday picked Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor... Roberts, 50, is a conservative who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...
Modern Family Life
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:16:00
Both the U.S. marriage and divorce rates are dropping while the number of unwed couples living together is rising...
Transport
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:14:08
Grand juries across California have indicted 40 pilots for fraud after they falsified medical records to hide disabilities like schizophrenia and severe heart problems that would have grounded them...
History - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 07:35:52
A set of ancient silverware has been dug up from Pompeii... hand-crafted goblets, plates and trays had been bundled into a wicker basket by an inhabitant fleeing the erupting Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD... well preserved in ash and mud, was discovered five years ago and archaeologists have used the latest techniques to separate 20 pieces...
Justice?
washingtonpost.com/ ... 19:05:43
Roberts... a brief he wrote for President George H.W. Bush's administration in a 1991 abortion case, in which he observed that "we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled..."
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:24:44
Marine Lance Cpl.
Efrain Sanchez, Jr.
, 26, of Port Chester, N.Y., died July 17 as result of a non-hostile incident at Camp Blue Diamond, in Ramadi, Iraq.
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:24:24
Army Staff Sgt.
Frank Tiai
, 45, of Pago Pago, American Samoa, died July 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position.
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:24:02
Marine Cpl.
Clifton B. Mounce
, 22, of Pontotoc, Miss.
Marine Cpl.
Christopher D. Winchester
, 23, of Flomaton, Ala.
died July 14 when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Trebil, Iraq...
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:23:21
Army Sgt.
Travis S. Cooper
, 24, of Macon, Miss., died on July 16, in Balad, Iraq, from wounds sustained the previous day in Baghdad, Iraq, when an inprovised explosive device exploded near the vehicle he was searching...
defenselink.mil/ ... 08:22:54
Army Spc.
Jared D. Hartley
, 22, of Newkirk, Okla., died July 15 in Taji, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV...
Only Natural
observer.guardian.co.uk/ ... 20:47:56
France is now fighting a plague of hundreds of thousands of locusts which are devouring everything from crops to flowers in village window boxes...
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 20:47:27
the driest winter and spring in south-east England in nearly 30 years...
pitt.edu/ ... 20:47:07
Temperature Conversion Tables...
nunatsiaq.com/ ... 20:46:06
Kuujjuaraapik... Temperatures in this Eastern Hudson Bay community hit 36.6 C on Monday, making Kuujjuaraapik the hottest place in Quebec and breaking the previous record of 29.4 C, set in 1969. But Tuesday was even hotter. The days high climbed to 37 C, breaking the previous record high of 28.3 C set in 1998...
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:14:47
Dark chocolate... can lower blood pressure...
newyorkbusiness.com/ ... 19:07:51
Consolidated Edison said it provided a record 12,250 megawatts of electricity on Tuesday amid intense heat and humidity. There were no significant power outages as temperatures in New York City topped 90, with a heat index in the 100s. Demand pushed the wholesale price of power deliverable on Wednesday to $182.25 a megawatt hour by 3 p.m. Tuesday...
wgntv.trb.com/ ... 19:07:27
Already the driest summer on record to date, a scant 0.2" of rain has fallen at OHare in the 7+ weeks since June 10. Meanwhile, heat statistics are adding up. OHares 91° and Midways 92° are the 13th and 19th days respectively of 90° days in Chicago this summer, more than the last two summers combined...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 19:06:59
An unrelenting heat wave is being blamed for 11 deaths in Phoenix since Saturday, nearly one-third of the total counted statewide all last year... high has been at least 110 degrees for nine straight days. On Sunday, Phoenix set a record at 116 degrees...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 07:42:33
More than 800,000 people fled homes along China's southeastern coast as a typhoon slammed into the mainland Tuesday after killing four people in Taiwan...
livescience.com/ ... 07:33:32
The collapse of a giant ice shelf in Antarctica has revealed a thriving ecosystem half a mile below the sea... Despite near freezing and sunless conditions, a community of clams and a thin layer of bacterial mats are flourishing in undersea sediments...
Digital Future is Now
nytimes.com/ ... 07:32:47
A new technology being used by produce distributors employs lasers to tattoo fruits and vegetables with their names, identifying numbers, countries of origin and other information that helps speed distribution. The marks are burned onto the outer layer of the skin and are visible to discerning consumers and befuddled cashiers alike... could mean the end of those tiny stubborn stickers that have to be picked, scraped or yanked off produce...
US Military
bloomberg.com/ ... 07:31:52
General William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam who said the war was lost because of Washington policy makers who caused U.S. soldiers to fight "with but one hand," has died. He was 91...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
foxnews.com/ ... 21:05:04
Screenwriter David Koepp... said, " the Martians [in the movie] ... represent American military forces invading the Iraqis, and the futility of the occupation of a faraway land is again the subtext... You can read our movie several ways. It could be 9/11 paranoia. Or it could be about how U.S. military interventionism abroad is doomed by insurgency, just the way an alien invasion might be..."
[I'm sure that's just what H.G. Wells had in mind!]
9/11 - still with us
post-gazette.com/ ... 20:45:04
The first dramatized re-creation of the terrorist hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, will air on Discovery Channel on the four-year anniversary of that infamous day...
London 7/7/05
thisishull.co.uk/ ... 20:48:17
A manager at a Hull IT company told staff they could not observe the two-minute silence for victims of the London bombings, unless they deducted time from their lunch break. The firm later said it was an unauthorised e-mail that had been sent out by mistake...
reuters.myway.com/ ... 20:40:43
Pakistani security forces detained 25 suspected Islamist militants in a series of raids overnight linked to investigations into the July 7 bomb attacks in London...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 07:38:45
Pakistani police on Tuesday said they were holding Islamic militants who may have had links with the suspects in the London bombings...
Threats
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 20:40:27
A SUSPECTED al-Qaeda operative was released from jail in Germany yesterday after the countrys highest court blocked his extradition to Spain on a new EU arrest warrant...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 07:38:25
Most New Yorkers.. 51 percent.. have an emergency plan in case of a terrorist attack or disaster... 88 percent have stocked emergency supplies at home... 55 percent of New Yorkers say they have a bag of supplies prepared that they can take with them if they have to evacuate their homes... 51 percent of those polled said that they felt inadequately prepared for a disaster...
Under Tyranny
today.reuters.com/ ... 07:37:00
Indian police forced around 200 people caught watching pornography to do sit-ups in public to shame them and keep them away from theaters that illegally screen smutty movies...
Sex can be Dangerous
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 20:51:45
Higher incomes are linked in a new survey with raised libido for men and women...
ananova.com/ ... 20:51:03
Dutch police and park rangers have admitted they are powerless to stop a growing trend of outdoor sex orgies... The head of one of Holland's biggest national parks says the problem is getting worse and has called for the government to make clear guidelines on outdoor sex orgies... "A national debate on wild sex parties in the countryside is essential... "
nynewsday.com/ ... 20:50:00
A couple in Port Jefferson Station.. were on the roof of a middle school having sex... a 19-year-old and her homeless boyfriend... "They were engaged in sexual intercourse in full view of the motorists and pedestrian public..."
apnews.myway.com/ ... 07:33:49
Actor Colin Farrell is suing a woman for allegedly trying to distribute and profit from a sex tape he says the two recorded with the agreement they would never make it public...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 19:13:48
TAMPA, Fla. - Prosecutors charged an 8-year-old boy with aggravated manslaughter Tuesday for kicking and punching his infant half sister and then hitting her in the face with a two-by-four, killing her...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 19:13:31
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - A tearful mother reunited with her two previously kidnapped children said Tuesday she had been convinced she would never see the youngsters again... 18-month old... and his 3-year-old sister... the children's father... killed her parents and brother in Arizona, before abducting the youngsters. He was captured Monday near a truck stop here...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 19:11:54
RACINE, Wis. - Police on Tuesday blamed a weekend triple homicide on infighting by gang members, possibly stemming from a game of dice a week earlier...
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:10:44
Gunmen shot dead two Sunni Arab members of a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution and an aide on Tuesday...
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 19:02:29
Around 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured on Tuesday when an armoured police carrier was blown up by rebels in Russia's Chechnya...
today.reuters.com/ ... 07:43:49
KUALA LUMPUR - A mob fire-bombed the headquarters of a bizarre Malaysian cult built around a giant teapot Monday, police and a fireman said, two weeks after the sect was raided by religious officials... The sect, which believes the teapot has healing properties, is in Malaysia's northeast, a strongly Muslim area that has suddenly lost patience with the sect, headed by an elderly man who says he is God and owner of everything, his "Sky Kingdom..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 07:43:03
A weekend showdown between police and dozens of gunmen who authorities said were celebrating a drug lord's birthday in Rio de Janeiro's biggest slum sowed panic among motorists trapped in a tunnel near the shooting...
today.reuters.com/ ... 07:36:37
Gunmen in two cars attacked a minibus bringing workers to a U.S. base in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 13 people... The minibus driver and nine workers from the base were killed in the attack... Three other civilians died when the bus careered into their car...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 07:35:10
Nearly 25,000 civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003... Many of these occurred during the invasion phase, which it counts as ending on 1 May 2003... Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%... Almost a fifth of the 24,865 deaths were women or children and nearly half of all the civilian deaths were reported in the capital Baghdad...
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 07:31:18
An Afghan warlord has been convicted by a British court of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture and abduction in his homeland which involved the use of a "human dog" to terrify victims... the first foreign national to be convicted in Britain of torture offences committed abroad...
MON 2005-JUL-18
Culture
newsday.com/ ... 12:23:59
Actress, author, nightclub performer and fitness guru Suzanne Somers now bares her soul on Broadway in her one-woman show, 'The Blonde Girl in the Thunderbird'...
boston.com/ ... 12:14:56
Bad album covers Oh, the trainwreck that is 1970s and 80s fashion! If you're looking for some prime examples, check out our recent collection of truly awful album covers...
Modern Family Life
news.com.au/ ... 11:45:37
[10-yr-old] rugby union fan... hadn't spoken a word.. in two-months... since waking from a coma after a horse-riding accident. But [after] a decision.. against the Wallabies in a Test match against France in Brisbane this month.. "He was putting down his thumb like he didn't like something and looked at me and said 'ref' and that was his first words," his mother Anastasia [said]...
cbsnews.com/ ... 11:33:14
Blogheap Reprise from 2005-Jan-18 (article still available)
They're housewives, workaholics, PTA members and ... rock stars?
Women fighting to shatter the stay-at-home-mom stereotype and rediscover their youthful voice are forming bands
, such as Housewives on Prozac in suburban New York, Frump in Dallas and Placenta in Oakland, Calif.
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 11:30:00
Suburban mothers who do daily battle on the school run are not your average rockers and their songs about breastfeeding, washing dirty socks and burning the dinner do not exactly mine traditional rock 'n' roll themes. But women seeking to redefine motherhood are picking up guitars and drum sticks for "mom rock", a musical movement gathering momentum in America and soon, they hope, the world...
US Executive Branch
nationalreview.com/ ... 15:55:02
Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade..? The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:54:16
Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much..."
Justice?
newsday.com/ ... 12:20:54
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison Monday for his role in a deadly women's clinic bombing... two life terms without parole...
Only Natural
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:50:41
Rescuers of a wild giant panda which wandered into a Chinese city were led on a day-long chase before capturing the animal...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 11:40:52
[said the lead:]
Soldiers are facing the undignified prospect of being forced to shout "bang, bang" on military training exercises after an admission by the Army that it is running out of blank ammunition...
[said the headline:]
Soldiers forced to shout 'bang' as the Army runs out of ammunition...
Violence
petakillsanimals.com/ ... 16:41:00
PETAKillsAnimals.com....the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 16:08:52
Early that morning, at least five individuals had illegally entered the research facility at the University of Iowa where my colleagues and I, all professors of psychology and neuroscience, work. The intruders broke into offices and laboratories, dumped acid and other chemicals and destroyed equipment. They also "liberated" the animals... Next came the video... It was particularly difficult for me to watch as my infant rats, along with their mothers, were thrown together with several other adults, knowing (as these animal "liberators" apparently did not) that cannibalism of the young was the likely outcome...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:57:29
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents killed six policemen and a government worker in six separate shootings across central Iraq...
U.S. forces killed four insurgents preparing to launch mortars in the troubled northern city of Tal Afar...
fifth suspected insurgent was killed in the Mosul area by U.S. troops after they were fired on during a raid...
People Die
newsday.com/ ... 12:22:02
A five-year-old boy died on Sunday evening in Roosevelt when he ran into the street to see his mother and collided with a moving car...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:54:00
Four children from a Kenyan family have died after drinking contaminated milk during a traditional celebration. Thirty-nine other relatives went to hospital with vomiting and diarrhoea but are now said to be stable...
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:51:08
A UN group charged with deciding how the net should be run has failed to reach a decision...
[whew!]
Threats
boston.com/ ... 12:06:55
NANTUCKET, Mass. -- Ferry service between Cape Cod and Nantucket returned to normal this morning after a security alert left dozens of passengers stranded on the island overnight. Authorities said a bomb threat was called in last night sometime before 11 p.m... resulted in one ferry that had just left the dock at Nantucket being called back and evacuated... Nothing suspicious was found on that ferry or two others that were docked in Nantucket, but ferry service was suspended for the night...
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 11:34:45
The Guardian newspaper is refusing to sack one of its staff reporters despite confirming that he is a member of one of Britain's most extreme Islamist groups... Late on Friday The Guardian released a statement to The Independent on Sunday saying: "Dilpazier Aslam is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation which is legal in this country. We are keeping the matter under review." The paper refused to comment further...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 11:09:46
Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents... At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already... The cities chosen as optimal targets are New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington, D.C. New York and Washington top the preferred target list for al-Qaida leadership... Bin Laden's goal, according to G2 Bulletin sources, is to launch one initial attack, followed by a second on another city to simulate the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The optimal dates for the attacks are Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948. No specific year has been suggested, however, this Aug. 6 represents the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack... smaller attacks may take place on American soil before the nuclear incidents... may include some involving automatic weapons at schools and shopping malls, but will not include any airplane hijackings...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:56:27
In the name of homeland security, motorists are going to see costs skyrocket for driver's licenses and motor vehicle offices forced to operate like local branches of the FBI, the nation's governors warn... The law that passed in June goes beyond an earlier law that sought to standardize state driver's licenses, requiring that states verify license applicants are American citizens or legal residents. "This is going to drive the cost of driver's licenses for ordinary folks through the roof," said Democrat Tom Vilsack of Iowa. "I think it's going to drive people crazy..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:55:23
TBILISI, Georgia... Authorities in Georgia on Monday released a photograph of a man suspected of throwing a grenade, which failed to explode, at a podium where President Bush was speaking in May...
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 08:48:57
Iraqis have begun barricading themselves in their homes and forming neighborhood militias in an effort to fend off relentless suicide attacks...
London 7/7/05
indianexpress.com/ ... 11:11:22
Dramatic new evidence linking Al Qaeda to the London attacks has emerged as a terrorist in US custody identified one of the bombers... The Al Qaeda aide, Mohammed Junaid Babar who attended a terror summit in Waziristan, in tribal areas of Pakistan, last year told investigators in USA that he recognised Mohammed Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old who triggered a bomb at Edgware Road station...
cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ ... 11:00:34
One of the suspected bombers in the London attacks visited Israel in 2003, an Israeli government official said on Monday, bolstering a news report the British-born Muslim helped plan a Tel Aviv suicide bombing...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:50:23
Three of the four London suicide bombers visited Pakistan last year...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:45:56
Police probing the London underground train and bus attacks say they have found no indication the bombs carried timers. That would mean they were manually detonated by the four bombers...
report from the respected Royal Institute of International Affairs said Britain had suffered by playing "pillion passenger" to Washington...
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "
The time for excuses for terrorism is over.
The terrorists have struck across the world, in countries allied with the United States, backing the war in Iraq, and in countries which had nothing whatever to do with the war in Iraq. They struck in Kenya, in Tanzania, in Indonesia, in the Yemen, they struck this weekend in Turkey which was not supporting our action in Iraq..."
Natural Threat
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:54:55
Spain and Portugal are suffering their worst droughts since records began in the 1940s, and in western France, water levels are at their lowest since the major drought of 1976. Parched conditions now stretch from north Africa to the French capital, causing billions of euros worth of damage as crops shrivel, rivers dry up and pastures turn to dust...
edition.cnn.com/ ... 08:43:55
A forest fire in Spain apparently sparked by a weekend barbecue has killed at least 11 firefighters...
Digital Threat
timesunion.com/ ... 11:37:44
"This is a lot of personal information in a single basket," said Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Google is becoming one of the largest privacy risks on the Internet..."
computerweekly.com/ ... 08:43:30
A marketing website used to promote the open source Firefox web browser has been hacked, and personal details of tens of thousands of Firefox supporters may have been compromised...
SUN 2005-JUL-17
Whoops!
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:59:55
the marquee sign in front of a Taco Bell on U.S. Highway 1 in Jensen Beach, Fla., proclaimed a slight twist to its "Think outside the bun" slogan. The message read, "Think outside the UN..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:59:03
Congressman Frank LoBiondo apologized for suggesting that Guantanamo Bay were worse than Adolf Hitler because the Nazi dictator "sort of had a political rationale about what he was doing..." this past week, describing his recent visit to the Naval Base in Cuba.. he said.. Muslim terrorists.. were more evil than Hitler... A caller objected to the statement only a few minutes later... "You're right. You're right. I was wrong. I should not have used that and I apologize..."
US Executive Branch
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:59:36
White House political aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was a CIA agent, the reporter said in an article on Sunday...
sfgate.com/ ... 10:53:11
This article, based on interviews with lawyers and officials involved in the case, is an effort to step back from the rapidly unfolding events of recent weeks and clarify what is known about the Plame affair and what key factors are still obscure...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 16:07:24
Army Pfc.
Timothy J. Hines, Jr.
, 21, of Fairfield, Ohio, died on July 14 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., from wounds sustained on June 19 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV...
defenselink.mil/ ... 16:07:04
Army Staff Sgt.
Tricia L. Jameson
, 34, of Omaha, Neb., died on July 14 in Trebil, Iraq. Jameson, a health care specialist was responding to a casualty incident when a secondary improvised explosive device detonated near her location...
Why People Go Vegan
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:03:07
China is planning to study the effects of outer space on sperm by sending the semen from pedigree pigs into orbit...
[I would think some Muslims and perhaps Jews would have something to say about pig sperm over everybody's heads... I'm not real excited about it m'self!...]
Only Natural
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:56:11
CANCUN, Mexico - A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world's biggest resorts was underway Sunday, as hundreds of buses were dispatched to move tens of thousands out of the path of Hurricane Emily...
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 16:05:06
[Alcohol was involved and Sex can be Dangerous, too]
Bartlesville... 14-year old female... told police that she was staying at a house... when a [30-year old male] came to the house... she got into a vehicle... and they went to get some beer and go four-wheeling... reported.. the driver.. was drunk.. kept running into trees.. finally.. stuck... it was extremely dark outside.. she could not see where they were.. she went to sleep... was awakened by [him] kissing her and rubbing her privates... he asked if she wanted to have sex but she declined and got out of the vehicle... [he] is being held on $30,000 bond... single charge of lewd molestation....
Theft
today.reuters.com/ ... 13:14:38
A Nigerian court has sentenced a woman to two and half years in jail after she pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the country's biggest e-mail scam case... Amaka Anajemba, one of three suspects in a $242 million fraud involving a Brazilian bank, would return $48.5 million to the bank, hand over $5 million to the government and pay a fine of 2 million naira ($15,000)... anti-sleaze campaigners say swindling is one of the country's main foreign exchange earners after oil, natural gas and cocoa... Ranked the world's second most corrupt country after Bangladesh by sleaze watchdog Transparency International...
WW2 - still with us
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 13:08:53
A graphic designer who claims that he was commissioned by the Nazis to design the VW logo for Volkswagen, the German car giant, is suing the company for allegedly failing to recognise his work... has been fighting VW since the 1950s without success...
Threats
sundayherald.com/ ... 13:07:32
TRIDENT warheads carried regularly by road to the Clyde naval base could explode if they are involved in a major crash, an internal Ministry of Defence report reveals... which seems to contradict previous MoD assurances on safety... a risk of an inadvertent yield from a nuclear explosion. This could result in huge radiation doses to members of the public of between one and 10 sieverts, it says. According to the governments Health Protection Agency, doses of more than four sieverts can cause acute radiation poisoning and death within days...
tallahassee.com/ ... 13:01:10
Dirt roads trace pale lines across a desolate landscape of bald peaks and plunging canyons near Texas' Big Bend and bridge the international boundary at dozens of improvised crossings. For decades, these routes have been used to smuggle drugs and humans. Now there is growing concern they could become deadly conduits for terrorism... confidential but unclassified FBI intelligence bulletin... contains the vague outlines of a possible terrorist plot... involves a man, described as an Arab who goes by the nickname "El Espanol," and Ernesto Zatarin Beliz, also known as El Traca, a reputed Mexican drug trafficker and member of the Zetas, the feared enforcers of the notorious Gulf cartel. "El Espanol is gathering truck drivers with knowledge of truck routes in the United States and explosive experts" in the state of Coahuila...
People Die
chron.com/ ... 11:09:12
Space station needs boost from shuttle... the clock continues to tick... station is only half finished, and the shuttle is needed to haul and install its largest remaining components... The station, which NASA envisions operating only until 2017, needs to be completed by 2010, when the space agency's remaining three shuttles are to be retired...
[hunkajunk wastamoney... and I'm a big space-exploration fan myself... just not the gummint's way...]
wftv.com/ ... 11:07:56
SPANAWAY, Wash... A 12-year-old boy who was firing bottle rockets at cars was chased into traffic Friday by an angry driver and killed by another car...
Disturbing Family Patterns
wftv.com/ ... 11:04:21
BEAR, Del. -- A former pediatric nurse has been charged with trying to poison her toddler son by injecting human feces into his bloodstream... an examination of her home computer indicated she had been researching child poisoning... could have Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which caregivers cause illnesses in children or exaggerate their symptoms in an effort to draw attention to themselves...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:01:34
Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola has threatened an Indian photographer with legal action for using its logo in a poster depicting water shortages... Activists have accused Coca-Cola and Pepsi of depleting ground water - claims the firms both strenuously deny...
Violence
gulfnews.com/ ... 13:06:03
The grand imam of Egypt's Al Azhar Mosque, the Sunni world's most prestigious seat of learning, called on the people of Iraq to unite to rid the country of terrorists and urged other countries to help. "The Iraqis, men, women, children and elderly people should unite and work solidly together to chase those evil terrorists everywhere until Iraq's land is purged of their filth and viciousness," Mohammad Saeed Tantawi said in a statement on Thursday. "All other countries and individuals should extend help to Iraq to enable its people to exterminate those wantons and despots..."
sundayherald.com/ ... 13:05:00
Communist Romanias former spy chief has been arrested and charged with acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of France and Germany by commissioning Carlos The Jackal to liquidate opponents of the Ceausescu dictatorship living in the West... Carlos was one of the Soviet blocks and the Third Worlds most high-profile terrorists. He reportedly killed for Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Fidel Castro of Cuba, George Habash and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Italian Red Brigades, Columbia's M-19 Movement, Germanys Baader-Meinhof gang, and several communist secret police paymasters. His terrorist career, stretching across continents and blighting many countries, included the spectacular kidnapping of 11 oil ministers attending an Opec summit in Vienna, and the Entebbe hijacking in 1976. He is now serving a life sentence in Frances La Sante jail...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:01:02
IRAQ..
Stricken townspeople swept away the wreckage of a fuel truck bomb that killed 98 people south of Baghdad...
three more suicide car bombers hit the Iraqi capital on Sunday...
The tribunal empowered to try war crimes issued its first charges against Saddam Hussein...
Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the main road south in what al Qaeda's Iraq wing has declared is a campaign to seize Baghdad...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:59:20
Pakistani soldiers fought militants in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said Sunday. Eighteen people, including one soldier, died in the clash...
iht.com/ ... 10:55:46
The police in Turkey increased security at tourist resorts Sunday as investigators combed the wreckage of a minibus that was ripped apart by a bomb in Kusadasi, killing five people... a Kurdish militant group had claimed responsibility... also said it carried out a bomb attack July 10... Twenty people were wounded in that attack, including two foreign tourists... Three people from Turkey, one from Britain and one from Ireland were killed Saturday in the explosion... Thirteen people were wounded, five of them Britons...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:52:47
Israel, threatening a possible major offensive into Gaza, gave a free hand to security forces to stop Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes on Sunday and killed a Hamas militant commander...
SAT 2005-JUL-16
1960s - still with us
foxnews.com/ ... 22:59:31
Several artifacts from John F. Kennedy's presidency have arrived at the Kennedy Library and Museum, including a piece of wood from the platform believed to be where Kennedy stood while he took the oath of office in 1961... JFK's first-edition copy of his book, "Why England Slept," (search) kept in a drawer in the Oval Office, and a light brown suede glove believed to be the mate to one already at the library, worn by Kennedy at his inauguration... a map of Cuba with Kennedy's notes from briefings on the Cuban Missile Crisis... from the estate of Robert L. White, a collector who obtained them from the president's late secretary, Evelyn Lincoln... Other new material includes thousands of pages of national security documents, letters, notes and memoranda...
History - still with us
livescience.com/ ... 21:05:37
A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll -- the first such finding in decades... has given rise to hope that the Judean Desert may yield more treasures...
Digital Culture
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:01:56
Concerns about "phishing" e-mail scams will likely delay the expansion of domain names beyond non-English characters, the chairman of the Internet's key oversight agency said Friday...
business.scotsman.com/ ... 20:35:00
The future of one of the world's biggest computer games companies has been thrown into doubt over "hidden" pornographic content in one of its blockbuster games... "If they are forced to recall GTA: San Andreas over this, the company is doomed. They cannot afford this..."
US Executive Branch
nytimes.com/ ... 20:31:49
So far, there is no proof that Mr. Rove committed any wrongdoing, let alone anything illegal: while he spoke to two journalists about Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. operative whose husband went to Niger on a fact-finding mission about weapons of mass destruction, the accounts so far suggest Mr. Rove merely confirmed what the journalists already knew. The original source of Ms. Wilson's identity has not been made public, and Mr. Rove's lawyer says he is not a target of the special prosecutor's inquiry...
Something about Today...
boston.com/ ... 17:37:54
July 16... it's a 1 in approximately 365.25 chance...
1790,
District of Columbia
established...
1918, Russia's
Czar
Nicholas II, empress & 5 children
executed
by Bolsheviks...
1935,
first parking meters installed
, in Oklahoma City...
1945,
first experimental atomic bomb detonated
, Alamogordo, N.M...
1951, J.D. Salinger's
"Catcher in the Rye" first published
...
1969,
Apollo 11 blasted off
for moon landing mission...
1973, Alexander P.
Butterfield publicly revealed the existence of Nixon's secret taping system
...
1979,
Saddam Hussein
became president of Iraq...
1980,
Reagan won Republican presidential nomination
in Detroit...
1999,
John F. Kennedy Jr.,
wife, Carolyn, her sister, Lauren Bessette,
died
in plane crash...
2004,
Martha Stewart sentenced...
2005, some new Harry Potter book published....
What Th'...?
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 21:03:07
CBS/Infinity Radio has refused to air paid commercial announcements for an upcoming non-partisan symposium on terrorism, claiming "people might be too emotionally affected" by it...
boston.com/ ... 17:43:28
Skinny-dipping rescuers also need rescue...
[...eh.. you just have to read it for yourself....]
boston.com/ ... 17:41:51
A man arrested on bank robbery charges said he targeted satellite branches in supermarkets because he was too bashful to try and rob a real bank...
boston.com/ ... 17:20:39
PLANO, Texas --The Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum -- an aging collection of the despised insects dressed in tiny outfits -- isn't much to see. But the creepy exhibit draws curiosity-seekers from across the country...
cnsnews.com/ ... 15:56:52
Young liberals this week flocked to the nation's capital to hear, among other things, liberal television pundit and Democrat political strategist Paul Begala accuse Republicans of wanting to kill him and his children to preserve tax cuts for the rich...
Digital Future is Now
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 21:06:17
YOUNG drivers are to be offered cheaper insurance if they agree to have a speed-monitoring device that records every occasion they break the limit installed in their cars... uses a satellite tracking system combined with a digital map of speed limits...
World Without Borders
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:35:42
A feminist Egyptian presidential aspirant said she was pulling out of September elections because a recent constitutional amendment sets restrictions that make the emergence of viable candidates impossible...
Only Natural
foxnews.com/ ... 23:00:20
Money can't buy you happiness, and a new study suggests intelligence won't do the trick either...
foxnews.com/ ... 23:00:02
The reasons why girls and boys gravitate toward dolls or trucks may have more to do with genetics for girls and environment for boys, according to a new study...
boston.com/ ... 21:05:06
PINOPOLIS, S.C. --Dogs don't usually survive alligator attacks -- especially when the reptile is three times the canine's size. But Cooper, a 5-year-old golden retriever, is an exception. The spirited dog fought off a 14-foot, 700-pound alligator in a Lake Moultrie canal last month and lived to howl about it. "I thought he was dead," said 14-year-old Chase Kierspe of the family pet. "The alligator was huge. I didn't think he could fight it. He fights me, but that's all..."
heraldtribune.com/ ... 21:04:02
PORT CHARLOTTE -- A lawn worker who jumped into a canal near the Myakka River to cool off was attacked and killed by a 12-foot, 1,200-pound alligator Friday night...
boston.com/ ... 17:22:48
Witnesses told state police three frightened deer began circling Deleon and two co-workers, when they charged. One deer went to Deleon's left. A second to his right. The third deer struck Deleon at full speed. The blow knocked the man backward and into the air. He landed face down in the field of 5-foot-tall corn... State Police. "I don't think the deer even saw him until he hit him. I think they were just panicked..." No one else was injured.
The deer were unharmed...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 16:26:44
Army Lt. Col.
Marvin L. Foster
, Hubbard, Tex.
Army Capt.
David R. Smith
, Dayton, Ohio
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Michael L. Batt
, Defiance, Ohio
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Raymond E. Bobe
, Tarrant, Ala.
The remains of these four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial.
On March 16, 1969, Capt. Smith was piloting an Army U-21A Ute aircraft with Foster, Batt, Bobe and one other passenger aboard whose remains have not been identified. The aircraft left Qui Nhon airfield in South Vietnam, headed for Phu Bai airport near Hue. The Da Nang control tower briefly established radar and radio contact, but was unable to maintain it. The aircraft never landed at the Phu Bai airport...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
thestate.com/ ... 21:03:43
BOGOTA, Colombia - Police captured a suspected leader of a drug cartel believed to have trafficked half the cocaine sold in the United States in the 1990s...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:57:43
The opium poppy that has long bloomed across the mountains of northern Laos has almost been wiped out by the government's drastic eradication campaign. But what is being hailed as a victory by the international anti-narcotics agencies has also spawned a humanitarian crisis, due to the massive displacement of hill tribes and their loss of economic livelihood...
Under Tyranny
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:03:33
Bosnia Bridge, Biblical Remains in Israel Among 17 Items Added to U.N. List of Protected Sites... UNESCO's World Heritage Committee is responsible for implementing the 1972 U.N. Convention on the protection of cultural and natural sites around the world... Seven natural wonders were added Thursday. Friday's additions bring the total number of protected sites to 812. They include 628 cultural, 160 natural and 24 mixed sites in 137 countries...
Big Nanny
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:02:16
Twenty-one years after federal legislation made 21 the national minimum drinking age, Americans by a wide margin continue to support the restriction and three-quarters see underage drinking as a serious problem in their communities...
cbsnews.com/ ... 23:01:02
The way sweetened cereals are advertised has become one of the most contentious topics in nutrition...
Sex can be Dangerous
tiscali.co.uk/ ... 21:06:58
A New Zealand man charged with putting a prostitutes life at risk by removing a condom during sex has been fined in a groundbreaking case, welcomed on Friday by civil rights groups and sex workers...
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:51:01
the bigger threat to the lives and infrastructure in the West comes from freight train traffic...
Theft
boston.com/ ... 17:41:29
Police detained the meat manager of a Hungarian supermarket after he allegedly told staff to drastically lower the price of beef tenderloin... $4.40 per kilogram, instead of the usual price of $13.95... and then told his wife to come in and buy 47 pounds...
Disturbing Family Patterns
boston.com/ ... 17:21:29
A baby girl weighing a whopping 14 pounds, 3 ounces was born in Kentucky... born Tuesday by Caesarean section and appeared healthy... less than 1 percent of babies weigh more than 11 pounds at birth...
Sick, Sick, Sick
abcnews.go.com/ ... 23:04:04
ST. LOUIS A man is being sued by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon for allegedly sending garbage and even feces to eBay customers who thought they were bidding for new or slightly used clothing...
nbcsandiego.com/ ... 21:09:44
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The owner of a modeling agency was charged Friday with sexually assaulting three teenagers, including a 14-year-old who police said was raped while he claimed to be giving her an abortion... was a janitor at the facility... "Everything is untrue. That's my father. He would never do anything like that to hurt anybody. He's a churchgoing man..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:06:36
A US man shot his postman so that he would get sent to prison for life and escape his crippling medical debts...
suntimes.com/ ... 17:19:29
While on his route, a CTA train driver stepped off the train, phoned in a bomb threat from a platform pay phone, then returned to his Brown Line train, the feds charged Friday. "Kimball terminal 12 minutes will explode," an anonymous caller told a 911 operator. But the caller's voice, it turns out, wasn't so anonymous after two managers separately recognized it later... the threat, which shut down the CTA's Brown Line for more than an hour Sunday between the Western and Kimball stops... FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant said... "This was a mass transit attack right after the London bombings.. His actions [were] . . . either colossally stupid or deliberately cruel..." CTA boss Frank Kruesi called Steward an "embarrassing anomaly" and a "substantially subpar employee" who had been disciplined for excessive absenteeism and for using a cell phone while driving the train... Steward's mother.. "It's untrue. He is a good son. He's never been in trouble in his life.. He's been falsely accused. We're going to win this..."
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:01:13
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Costa Rican authorities on Saturday reported at least five people dead in a small-plane wreck off the Pacific coast, about 260 kilometers (161 miles) northeast of San Jose...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 15:59:06
MALABO, Equatorial Guinea - A Russian-made passenger plane carrying 35 people disappeared from radar screens shortly after takeoff Saturday, and military helicopters were searching for the aircraft...
London 7/7/05
in.today.reuters.com/ ... 21:02:47
a Scotland Yard spokesman said on Saturday... the bombers... may have thought they had time to get away after planting the devices... several factors cast doubt on the suicide theory -- two of the men had pregnant wives, they did not carry the explosives strapped to their bodies, and they bought return rail tickets from Luton to London... unnamed security sources.. suggesting the bombers may have been duped into believing they could escape unscathed...
sundaytimes.news.com.au/ ... 21:01:09
British police chief Sir Ian Blair admitted the man, whose identity had been known to investigators for days, was on a "watch list" as a low-grade suspect and arrived in Britain two weeks before the bombings. But he was not placed under surveillance. He arrived at the Suffolk port of Felixstowe and left from Heathrow airport in full view of Special Branch agents hours before the blasts...
was revealed yesterday that captured al-Qaida operatives issued at least two warnings that attacks were planned on London's commuter system....
Police in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad said they were interrogating four men linked to the attacks...
Magdi el-Nashar, 33... Leeds-based Egyptian biochemist in Cairo... strongly denied any involvement with or prior knowledge of the bombings...
The first funerals of bombing victims took place in London yesterday...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:49:09
it appears some profited by short selling the British pound in the 10 days leading up to the attacks. The pound fell about 6 percent (approximately 1.82 to 1.72) against the dollar for no apparent reason until, of course, the terror attacks sent the British markets reeling still further... investigators.. are wondering whether the terrorist masterminds behind the attacks decided to make some money on their action or whether other investors with inside information about possible attacks took advantage of that knowledge... Could it be the terrorists have learned to make their attacks self-funding operations? Could it be the terrorists are actually motivated by factors other than Islamic fanaticism? These are some of the questions law enforcement agencies are asking but they're not really expecting to get answers. The problem is that short selling of this kind can be done with near total anonymity...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:36:20
LONDON - Organizers of the Cambridge Film Festival said Saturday they decided not to screen "Paradise Now," a prize-winning film about two suicide bombers, out of deference to victims of the London bombings...
today.reuters.com/ ... 15:58:25
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Saturday the "evil ideology" of al Qaeda must be pulled up by the roots...
Violence
guardian.co.uk/ ... 20:54:27
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... The leader of Iraq's most feared terror group fled Baghdad about two weeks ago because a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the capital was threatening his al-Qaida movement, Iraq's interior minister said in a television interview aired Friday...
abclocal.go.com/ ... 20:54:01
11 U.S. soldiers have been charged with assaulting detainees in Iraq, the military said Saturday, while three British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in a rare attack in the relatively stable southern part of the country... Also Saturday, suicide attackers killed at least nine Iraqi forces in separate attacks in Baghdad and just south of Mosul... Iraqi police also
arrested a would-be suicide bomber
in the capital before he could detonate an explosive belt
among a crowd mourning the victims of an attack earlier this week that killed 27 people, mostly children...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:37:04
Although child witnesses are sometimes considered unreliable, Shasta's detailed accounts as the sole survivor of the carnage could give prosecutors a powerful tool in their case against Duncan...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:35:59
Leftist rebels detonated a car bomb near a Colombian military convoy in southwest Colombia on Saturday, killing four soldiers, the army said. A police officer also died in a separate attack...
sfgate.com/ ... 17:39:42
suicide car bombing Friday night near the official residence of President Jalal Talabani capped a day of bombings and explosions across the capital in which at least 30 people were killed, including police officers, security guards and civilians, and 111 others were wounded. At least seven of the attacks were suicide bombings. One struck an Iraqi army base in the Shaab district, killing eight Iraqis and wounding 20... Another in the Sadiya district killed 11 people and wounded 24. After nightfall, a car bomb in western Baghdad killed six police officers and wounded 45 people, most of them civilians... Three American soldiers were wounded, but none died in the urban attacks... But two U.S. Marines were killed in a roadside bombing during combat operations in a desert area of western Iraq near the Jordanian border...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:00:56
On Thursday, at least 60 insurgents plunged Yala city into darkness by destroying electrical transformers, then roamed the streets with fire-bombs, explosives and guns, targeting an area near a hotel, two convenience stores, a restaurant and the railway station... Fear has engulfed the southern provinces, with Buddhist monks slashed to death and temples bombed. Vendors have received flyers threatening them for selling pork in Muslim areas... A few days earlier a school headmistress and two other Buddhist women had been murdered - the latter two beheaded... Buddhists are the overwhelming majority in Thailand but in the southernmost provinces they are outnumbered nearly 3-1 by 1.3 million Muslims. The region, once a separate Islamic kingdom, became part of Thailand in the early 20th century. But a deep desire for independence persists, as do Muslim feelings of discrimination...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:58:00
A tribal chief has been kidnapped and hanged in southern Afghanistan. The Taleban say they carried out the act...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 15:56:17
At least 58 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack in the town of Musayyib, some 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad. Police told the BBC the bomber blew himself up near a mosque. The blast caused a nearby fuel tanker to explode. At least another 80 people are said to have been injured...
bloomberg.com/ ... 15:55:26
Five people were killed and 13 injured, including overseas tourists, when a minibus exploded today in the Turkish coastal resort of Kusadasi... thought to be the work of a female suicide bomber...
heraldsun.news.com.au/ ... 15:54:34
ISRAEL launched fresh missile strikes in Gaza a day after it killed six militants of the Islamic group Hamas and vowed to continue the hunt for gunmen who fire rockets. The latest air raids destroyed three workshops, including a metal foundry in Gaza City, and struck the Khan Younis refugee camp...
FRI 2005-JUL-15
Clinton Era -- still with us
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:16:53
During the time Starr was investigating the Clintons, Starr was working for a company wholly owned by China's Peoples Liberation Army and notorious arms dealer Wang Jun... In ordinary times, the mere fact that Ken Starr was on Wang Jun's payroll would have disqualified him from acting as independent counsel. But these were not ordinary times...
Now
That's
Funny!
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:56:09
a mock jailbreak in which... A Thai comedian... and another actor dashed onto a Bangkok bus handcuffed and wearing prison uniforms... Police... after intercepting the bus... fined him... for "causing panic in public places..."
Transport
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:52:48
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The Canadian Coast Guard rescued a woman who
floated 15 kilometers (9 miles) across the Georgia Strait
on Wednesday after falling off a sailboat near Vancouver... 40-year-old woman was believed to have spent about nine hours in the water without a life jacket...
Whoops!
boston.com/ ... 09:37:41
he robbed the same bank four times between March 9 and May 23, but on his fifth attempt this month, a teller recognized him and alerted another co-worker who had been robbed previously by [him]. The two confronted the man, who panicked and fled... arrested a short time later on a street not far from the Summit Bank, the evidence -- a demand note -- still in his pocket...
Supernatural
ap.tbo.com/ ... 19:50:37
Bookstores across Britain flung open their doors at a minute past midnight Saturday, London time, to admit hordes of would-be witches, warlocks and ordinary muggles - Potter-speak for non-magical humans...
sfgate.com/ ... 09:35:11
Praying for sick strangers doesn't improve their prospects of recovering, according to a large, carefully designed study that casts doubt on the widely held belief that praying for someone can help them heal...
What's Wrong with That?
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:05:10
Last month, Disney decided to scrap shark fin soup, a symbol of prestige in Chinese banquets, after environmentalists protested and threatened to stage boycotts of the park when it opens Sept. 12. The activists say that the shark fin industry is decimating the shark population...
Preternatural Patterns
usatoday.com/ ... 20:22:52
an American honeymooner has disappeared under mysterious circumstances while on a Mediterranean cruise... last seen in the early hours of July 5 aboard the Brilliance of the Seas as it sailed from Mykonos, Greece, to Kusadasi, Turkey... discovered missing after early-riser guests on ship balconies "saw what they thought might be blood" on a lifeboat overhang... Cabins above the stains were searched, she says, and no one was found in the quarters shared by Smith and his bride, Jennifer Hagel. Their stateroom also had a veranda... Hagel, who responded to pages for the couple on the ship's public address system, said her husband was not in the cabin when she awoke. She was questioned by Turkish authorities and released, Martenstein says. Then she flew home...
boston.com/ ... 09:32:00
GARFIELD, N.J. --The leader of a gang of teens charged with robbing taxi drivers recorded a song boasting about the attacks...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:04:50
Krystal Long and Casey Isringhouse, both 18, won the 2005 Stuck at Prom scholarship contest. The award goes to a couple who attends the prom dressed entirely in duct tape...
History - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:58:42
The atomic bomb detonated in the New Mexico desert at 05:29:45 local time on 16 July, 1945, "lit up the entire world". That is how Private Daniel Yearout, one of the few remaining eyewitnesses some 60 years on, recalls the morning the powers of the atom were first unleashed... "We were called out the night before. One of the officers told us we were going to take part in some testing," says Mr Yearout. "He said that if everything went well, the war would be over in a few days. But, then he said that if it all went wrong, 'it was each damn man for himself'..."
Sick, Sick, Sick
newsday.com/ ... 08:54:45
HOUSTON -- When Bassam Khalaf raps, he's the Arabic Assassin. His unreleased CD, "Terror Alert," includes rhymes about flying a plane into a building and descriptions of himself as a "crazy, suicidal Arabic ... equipped with bombs." Until last week, Khalaf also worked as a baggage screener at George Bush Intercontinental Airport... said Thursday that he is not really a terrorist and that his rhymes are exaggerations meant to gain publicity... said working as a baggage screener was the best paying job he's ever had. He said he hoped to use any extra money he earned to produce his CD...
World Without Borders
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:51:53
A group of stranded illegal immigrants facing death in the parched Arizona desert saved themselves by using a cell phone they found to call rescue services...
Extraterrestrial
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 20:23:30
A newly discovered planet has bountiful sunshine, with not one, not two, but three suns glowing in its sky... first extrasolar planet found in a system with three stars... How a planet was born amidst these competing gravitational forces will be a challenge for planet formation theories...
sfgate.com/ ... 19:47:11
NASA has indefinitely put off its long-awaited return to space, saying Friday that engineers were no closer to knowing why a fuel gauge acted up right before a scheduled liftoff two days earlier...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:48:57
Cocaine traces have been found at the European Parliament in an inquiry by one of Germany's main broadcasters... 46 swabs from toilets and other public areas of the Brussels buildings. Nearly all tested positive for cocaine... "It seems the findings are in line with findings in other public buildings..."
US Military
armytimes.com/ ... 17:40:50
During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away... was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemys position... After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company... Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist whod tried to kill him just minutes before...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
suntimes.com/ ... 08:49:32
Brain cells poisoned by Alzheimer's disease don't always die right away... it may one day be possible to save those sick cells and recover some memory... demented mice rapidly regained mental function after they were protected from a mutant protein named tau -- even if a significant number of their brain cells already had died...
Only Natural
weatherunderground.com/ ... 20:29:42
BP THunderhorse oil platform, listing in the Gulf of Mexico after hurricane
today.reuters.com/ ... 19:54:07
Walt Disney Co. is busy replacing furniture at its hotel at the brand new Hong Kong Disneyland after many rooms became infested with beetles... the pests had gobbled their way into brand new beds and coffee tables in about 100 rooms at the hotel at Disney's first theme park in China...
Environmentalists say Disney's plan to stage fireworks every evening would add to air pollution...
miami.com/ ... 08:48:28
the Caribbean island of Grenada was slammed again Thursday, this time by a storm named Emily that packed 90 mph winds on its way to Jamaica... One man was killed when a mudslide destroyed his home... expected to pass off Jamaica's southern coast on Saturday... Homes in St. Patrick to the north and St. Andrew to the east saw their roofs -- many of them improvised plywood and tarp -- fly away along with their patience...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
washtimes.com/ ... 23:49:41
A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee. "She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times...
Disturbing Family Patterns
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 20:24:45
An African tribal elder who married an English woman killed her with an iron bar because he feared she was planning to trade him in for a car...
thestar.com.my/ ... 20:24:30
Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides... based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA...
OKC Bombing -- still with us
ktok.com/ ... 20:18:04
The McCurtain Daily Gazette today reports several former powerful and high ranking Justice department officials confirm there was a coverup of the investigation to the Oklahoma City bombing...
Threats
ap.tbo.com/ ... 22:28:57
Law enforcement authorities warned the
Israeli Consulate and California National Guard that their facilities were on a list of possible terror targets
that police found recently while investigating a string of robberies...
news.moneycentral.msn.com/ ... 20:02:22
"What he talked about were just his personal views," said Shen Guofang, an assistant minister of foreign affairs...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 20:02:07
The State Department on Friday rejected as "highly irresponsible" a Chinese general's warning that China might use nuclear weapons against the United States in the event of a U.S. attack on China over Taiwan...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:01:53
Clarifying remarks from a radio interview that drew praise from some supporters, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he was not suggesting that the U.S. should nuke the Islamic holy site Mecca as a response to a nuclear homeland attack by al-Qaida. The congressman's press secretary told WorldNetDaily the comments were an off-the-cuff response to a hypothetical situation. "He doesn't believe that we should go out and threaten to bomb anybody's holy city," said spokesman Will Adams...
Sportsmanship
thepittsburghchannel.com/ ... 17:50:18
NORTH UNION TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- A tee-ball coach seeking to keep a player with a mental disability off the field allegedly asked another player to hurt the boy...
Under Digital Tyranny
apnews.myway.com/ ... 17:43:46
A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that
no single country should dominate...
Sex can be Dangerous
tallahassee.com/ ... 17:46:04
blind Tallahassee man who has been accused of having sex with his guide dog.. Florida, like many other states, has no bestiality statute... charged with a "breach of the peace, by engaging in sexual activity with a guide dog..." last month asked a female acquaintance to join him in a sex act with the dog... She demurred, but later told a friend about it. That person called a social worker, who called police...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 17:41:50
King County sheriff's detectives are investigating the owners of an Enumclaw-area farm after a Seattle man died from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse...
Theft
boston.com/ ... 09:31:33
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii --A tourist from Connecticut reported he was mugged twice within five minutes while walking Alii Drive, Big Island...
Digital Threat
local6.com/ ... 09:09:50
The addition of finger scanning technology at the entrances of Walt Disney World theme parks for all visitors has caused concern among privacy advocates... Civil Liberties Union spokesman George Crossley said.. "I think it is a step toward collection personal information on people regardless of what Disney says..."
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 22:27:47
FRESNO, Calif. - An 11-year-old girl who threw a rock to defend herself as neighborhood boys pelted her with water balloons is being prosecuted on a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon... says she didn't mean to hurt the 9-year-old boy - who acknowledged to officers that he started the fight in late April...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 22:22:44
Suicide car bombers sent by al-Qaeda today claimed at least 20 lives - 15 civilians and five Iraqi soldiers - in a series of co-ordinated attacks spread across Baghdad today...
nydailynews.com/ ... 20:19:34
Two Queens gang members were busted yesterday, accused of blowing away a female pal at a drug-laced party for the hell of it... members of the vicious Salvadoran gang MS-13...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 19:50:04
EL PASO, Texas - A sport utility vehicle... on the Mexican side of the border... speeding toward a border crossing plowed into a family Friday, killing two little girls and seriously injuring their mother and two sisters. The vehicle had blood on a bumper and was dragging a baby stroller underneath when it stopped at a border checkpoint near El Paso... [male], 19, of El Paso, was being jailed on suspicion of driving while intoxicated...
cbc.ca/ ... 19:47:48
Pakistani security forces have found the bodies of 24 suspected militants who died after U.S.-led troops fired at them across the border from southeastern Afghanistan...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:08:35
CHICAGO - A young Marine who feared returning to Iraq persuaded his cousin to shoot him in the leg, then told police he was hit by random gang gunfire... Moises Hernandez is back with his unit at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the Marines are investigating the incident...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:07:30
Two members of the Hamas militant group were killed in a Friday explosion in the West Bank, and Palestinian security officials said the two men were hit during an Israeli missile strike...
bloomberg.com/ ... 08:50:42
At least 20 people were killed, including five Iraqi soldiers, when suicide car bombers detonated explosives in Baghdad today... 17 civilians and six Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the three blasts...
Two U.S. Marines were killed yesterday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Trebil...
London 7/7/05
ctv.ca/ ... 23:38:29
A U.S.-trained Egyptian chemist, interrogated by police in Cairo connection with last week's bombings in London, denies any involvement in the attacks... El-Nashar, whom British authorities have yet to formally call a suspect, left the United Kingdom two weeks before the transit attacks. Police searched el-Nashar's Leeds town house and found evidence of the explosive TATP inside a bathtub, according to British news media...
voanews.com/ ... 20:03:26
British police say they suspect the bombs that blew up on London's transport system last week were homemade from common household chemicals... from acetone peroxide, and not military-style explosives as first thought... same type of compound used by the confessed British shoe bomber, Richard Reid...
sfgate.com/ ... 08:47:26
Police in Egypt on Friday arrested an Egyptian biochemist sought in the investigation of the London bombings... Magdy el-Nashar, 33, was taken into custody upon his arrival in Cairo from abroad...
THU 2005-JUL-14
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 22:26:16
CHICAGO - Mary Washington Wylie, the nation's first black female certified public accountant, died July 2. She was 99... Washington Wylie recruited other black businesses as clients when she opened her own accounting firm. Her first partner, Hiram Pittman, once described it as an "Underground Railroad" for aspiring black CPAs who came from all over the country to work there...
Prehistory - still with us
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:54:13
According to new research, climate change alone cannot explain why the Puebloan people--also known as Anasazi--abruptly abandoned the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest in the 1300s after residing there for hundreds of years. Human impact on the environment, high population levels and social and political factors, including violent conflict, likely played important roles...
Theory of Education
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:51:26
New Study Supports Use Of Humor In Online Courses... took an existing online general psychology course and systematically enhanced it with the addition of humor in the form of self-deprecating jokes, cartoons and top ten lists all related to the subject matter. Forty-four students were then randomly assigned to either the traditional section or the humor-enhanced section, and the researchers assessed their academic performance and level of participation...
Whole Lotta Garbage
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:07:37
Prof. Edward Bayer of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry Department has developed a process that one day may yield a solution to the global wastepaper glut. Back in 1983, he and Prof. Raphael Lamed of Tel Aviv University discovered the cellulosome, a molecular complex that degrades cellulose, a major component of wood, cotton and other types of plant matter. In subsequent years, Bayer and Lamed elucidated the cellulosome's architecture and identified its major components. The cellulosome is normally not good at breaking down man-made cellulose products such as paper, but Bayer and his colleagues are now developing "designer" cellulosomes that can improve on nature...
Oh! The Irony!
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 16:59:09
Headline of the day:
Sen. Clinton seeks 'Grand Theft' sex scene probe...
Digital Threat
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:52:36
Friends can help friends block spam -- or at least their computers can... "Your software would classify the message when it could, but when it couldn't, it would query your 'network of trust,' in effect asking 'do you know if this message is spam or not?'..."
xbox.ign.com/ ... 16:58:05
Microsoft announced today that it had signed an exclusive deal with Marvel Entertainment to develop and publish massively multiplayer online games featuring Marvel's characters. The upcoming games will be developed and published for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 gaming console...
History - still with us
dailystar.com.lb/ ... 10:47:07
The Great Pyramid may still contain Khufu's intact pharaonic tomb... discovery of a set of previously unknown doors, hidden in the shafts of the so-called "queen's chamber" of the Great Pyramid...
Transport
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 10:43:42
The Condor Airlines flyer was suspended along with his co-pilot yesterday after his determination to take a cockpit shot of a colleague forced a British jet carrying almost 200 passengers to take emergency evasive action. The unnamed German pilot was allegedly so keen to take a photo of a fellow-pilot manning his final Condor flight that he rose from below to within 600ft of a nearby plane, breaking strict aviation rules and setting off warning alarms in both aircraft... After endangering the lives of the 234 people on board and severely damaging the pilot's professional record, the mile-high antics did not even provide the Condor captain with the close-up he wanted. He had edged up to the wrong aircraft...
Alcohol Was Involved
iol.co.za/ ... 10:42:25
As a result of this incident, the Coca-Cola Company has embarked on a campaign to defend its popular product, which it says is free of alcohol. It has placed a full-page ad in Wednesday's Cape Argus explaining the situation. The ad extends invitations to Muslim religious leaders and several organisations to visit bottling plants to witness the manufacturing of the drink. But in the ad, the company says its laboratory tests have confirmed alcohol was found in Dindar's cooldrink. A Coca-Cola spokesperson said a chip in the glass bottle had allowed air into the bottle leading to fermentation of the product. The company described this as "a rare occurrence" and said no other incidents had been reported...
Supernatural
new.mweb.co.za/ ... 10:33:12
Thin Sandar, a chicken seller in Myanmar, had always dreamed of being a man. When she inexplicably grew a penis last month, the 21-year-old treated it as an awe-inspiring omen - as have the thousands of stunned villagers who have traveled to a pagoda to see him... People privately concede Than Sein is a hermaphrodite... But few have come forward with a medical explanation of the transformation... Up to 400 gather at the pagoda each day, often in a courtyard under colorful umbrellas to ward off the sun's rays, waiting for the chance to talk with and touch Than Sein...
Unclear on the Concept
latimes.com/ ... 10:30:27
Gallagher says her Secret Lover Collection of 24 cards is the first line exclusively for people having affairs, and she expects hot sales. She says half of married people have had affairs (though some studies show the figure to be far less more like 15% of married women and 22% of married men, according to the University of Chicago)...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:00:17
author Barry Schwartz told the conference that it was better when we had only a few choices of salad dressing instead of the 175 at his local supermarket...
Supernatural Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:52:44
A primary school cancelled a Harry Potter day over complaints it could lead children into "areas of evil". Pupils from The Holt Primary School in Skellingthorpe, Lincs, were planning to dress up as witches and wizards. But the event - to mark the launch of the new JK Rowling book - was scrapped after parents and a local rector expressed concerns about witchcraft...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:21:16
Army Spc.
Benyahmin B. Yahudah
, 24, of Bogart, Ga., died on July 13 in Baghdad, Iraq, where a vehicle borne improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:20:18
Army Sgt.
Timothy J. Sutton
, 22, of Springfield, Mo., died on July 11 in Baghdad, Iraq, where his HMMWV struck a land mine.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 22:19:54
This week, the Army and Air Force announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard numbers decreased. The net collective result is 195 more reservists mobilized than last week...
Digital Future is Now
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:53:36
Two and a half years in the making, the Florida LambdaRail Network is expected to be operating among all its member universities this week. The network, which can move information at speeds of 10 gigabits per second, has space for a total of 32 10-gigabit networks, or channels. The result: The next generation Internet has 100 times more capacity than what was available to UF previously capacity that members will be able to purchase at a fraction of its current cost...
Great Quake of 2004
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:33:20
The great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was an event of stunning proportions... nearly 300,000 lives lost... new analysis gives the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake a seismic magnitude of at least 9.1, and possibly as high as 9.3... Record-setting features of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, include the longest fault rupture ever observed (720 to 780 miles or 1,200 to 1,300 kilometers) and the longest duration of faulting (at least 10 minutes). The aftershocks included the most energetic earthquake swarm ever observed... "We've never had such comprehensive data for a great earthquake, because we didn't have the instrumentation to gather it 40 years ago..." During the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, the ground shook more than 100 times harder than it did during the 1989 California Loma Prieta earthquake--a magnitude 6.9 event that caused major destruction from Santa Cruz to the San Francisco Bay. "Even among seismologists, we call this a monster earthquake..." "This earthquake lasted just under 10 minutes, while most large earthquakes take only a few seconds..." From the epicenter, the rupture expanded along the fault at a speed of about 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) per second toward the north-northwest...
Only Natural
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:12:27
Organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as does conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:11:15
The conspicuous size differences between beefy sprinters and lithesome distance runners are dictated by simple rules of form and function... Specifically, the greater bulk of speed demons is explained by their need to hit the running surface harder to attain their faster speeds...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:09:31
Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health, have discovered a genetically controlled brain mechanism responsible for social behavior in humans... People with Williams Syndrome, who are missing about 21 genes on chromosome seven, are highly social and empathetic, even in situations that would elicit fear and anxiety in healthy people. They will eagerly, and often impulsively, engage in social interactions, even with strangers. However, they experience increased anxiety that is non-social, such as fear of spiders or heights (phobias) and worry excessively. For several years, scientists have suspected that abnormal processing in the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain, may be involved in this striking pattern of behavior...
panews.com/ ... 17:10:38
Bolivar Peninsula Wednesday... around 1 p.m., a 14-year-old North Carolina girl was bitten by a shark while swimming in waist-deep water with family and friends in the Gulf of Mexico off Magnolia Lane at Port Bolivar... Galveston County officials are calling it an isolated incident and say the girl was not "attacked" by the shark... Meteorologists have said that the water in the Gulf of Mexico is warmer than normal and could be causing the sharks to come closer to shore...
newscientist.com/ ... 10:40:55
Facial attractiveness and smell give us contradictory messages about how to select mates...
livescience.com/ ... 10:40:28
The researchers found that the time between burial and resurfacing -- called the orogenic cycle -- took 13 million years, instead of some 40 million years as previously thought. The implication is that the mountains themselves grow up faster than expected. Besides shorter time scales, the rock recycling process inside mountains may happen at unexpectedly cool temperatures...
Future is Now
motherjones.com/ ... 21:55:21
For more than a century, California's rich farmland has been plundered and poisoned by the heirs of the Gold Rush. Now they're mining subdivisions... California produces more than a quarter of the nation's table crops. Yet even without a seismic disaster, California's bounty may soon disappear...
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 10:39:09
A new generation of mind-enhancing drugs that act as "cosmetics" for the brain could become as common as a cup of coffee, according to an official investigation by leading scientists. Powerful stimulants that improve memory, intellectual agility or other aspects of mental performance will almost certainly be developed over the next 20 years. They will have few side-effects, little or no addictive properties and could be used for non-medical purposes such as boosting exam performance, making better business decisions or even eliminating bad memories, the scientists said...
Transport Future
motoring.co.za/ ... 10:38:25
BMW claims that its new 7 Series is the first production car to feature a far infra-red night vision system, used in conjunction with the new high-beam "assist" function to make night driving safer. A thermal imaging camera covers a distance of up to 300m in front of the vehicle to create an image of objects out of range of the headlights...
Justice?
sun-sentinel.com/ ... 10:15:52
He's on videotape calmly recounting to a Broward Sheriff's detective why he shot his best friend. A jury needed less than two hours to convict him of the May 2000 slaying. A judge sentenced him to life. And three months ago, John Q. Ripley walked out of prison. One simple word helped him regain his freedom. That word, missing from a Miranda rights form used by the Broward Sheriff's Office, has or could undercut at least 24 other cases against suspected killers, robbers and drug dealers...
Cryptozoology
north.cbc.ca/ ... 10:10:08
A Sasquatch sighting has tongues wagging in the Yukon village of Teslin. Two people say they saw the fabled bushman, also known as Bigfoot, cross the highway at the construction zone near the Teslin airport... Some believe there are at least 2,000 ape people walking upright in North America's woods today...
Disturbing Family Patterns
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 22:17:18
Dewey woman... gave birth to a baby girl on June 30 who was born with a blood alcohol content close to three times the legal limit set by the Department of Pubic Safety... After an emergency procedure by hospital staff, the child started breathing... arrived via ambulance after a reported fall from a porch... had been drinking and that she and another individual consumed a case of beer... said she was intoxicated twice a week... child is suffering from withdrawals indicating that it is addicted to alcohol... The CDC lists Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as the leading preventable cause of mental retardation and physical deformity... infant reportedly weighed 6 pounds and 2 ounces... did not know that she was pregnant...
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 22:12:22
officer reportedly went to the dog's home to speak with the owner, at which time the dog, described in police reports as a brown and white pit bull dog, jumped the fence and began running toward the officer. Police say the dog was "barking and growling" while charging, and that the officer shot the dog from approximately 7-10 feet...
Natural Threat
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:23:36
Potential earthquakes on the Puente Hills fault beneath the Los Angeles area could result in 3,000 to 18,000 fatalities, 142,000 to 735,000 displaced households, and more than $250 billion in total damages...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:12:07
Scientists have identified the first reported case in Asia of primate-to-human transmission of simian foamy virus (SFV), a retrovirus found in macaques and other primates that so far has not been shown to cause disease in humans. The transmission of the virus from a monkey to a human took place at a monkey temple in Bali, Indonesia...
Under Digital Tyranny
sciencedaily.com/ ... 21:01:35
UNITED NATIONS, July 14 -- An independent group established by the
United Nations concludes there is a need for Internet oversight and recommends the creation of a ruling body...
Sex can be Dangerous
foxnews.com/ ... 20:50:00
Chlamydia, America's most common sexually transmitted disease, is most often seen in teens and young adults, report CDC researchers. Teen girls had the highest number of cases. Numbers were also high in among blacks, as well as among teens and young adults from economically deprived backgrounds... about three-quarters of infected women and about half of infected men have no symptoms... It can be cured by antibiotics if the drugs are taken exactly as advised... In women, untreated infection can spread into the uterus or fallopian tubes and cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or permanent damage and infertility. Complications in men are rare, but the infection can spread in men and lead to infertility...
Mechanical Disaster
sfgate.com/ ... 16:57:21
New York... A supermarket under demolition partially collapsed Thursday, sending rubble onto a busy sidewalk and into the street. Five people, including a 7-month-old baby, were hurt. One person broke both arms and both legs, but no one's injuries were life-threatening...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
foxnews.com/ ... 20:52:14
soda scaremongering... junk science-fueled nanny-ism... Warnings suggested by CSPI include:
The U.S. Government recommends that you drink less (non-diet) soda to help prevent weight gain, tooth decay and other health problems
;
To help protect your waistline and your teeth, consider drinking diet sodas or water
;
Drinking soft drinks instead of milk or calcium-fortified beverages may increase your risk of brittle bones (osteoporosis)
; and
This drink contains caffeine, which is a mildly addictive stimulant drug. Not appropriate for children.
... Ironically, the day after the CSPI news conference calling for the warning labels, a study published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet undercut CSPIs claims concerning weight gain...
alertnet.org/ ... 17:09:02
DUBAI, July 14 - Iraq's al Qaeda said on Thursday it did not carry out suicide bombing in Baghdad which killed 27 people, mostly children, according to an Internet statement...
[As if it mattered...!]
abcnews.go.com/ ... 10:24:53
Islamic leaders and peace groups are criticizing the California National Guard for a flier posted in its headquarters suggesting the United States execute Islamic terrorists with bullets dipped in pig's blood to deny them entry to heaven. The flier attributed the practice to World War I General John J. Pershing. "Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq?" the flier stated. It was posted outside a cubicle in the Guard's Civil Support Division...
Cold War - still with us
kirotv.com/ ... 10:23:03
BELLINGHAM, Wash... The trawler Windjammer had just pulled its net when skipper Erik Eide spotted the object on Sunday afternoon. He decided to move in for a closer look... When they scraped off some barnacles and seaweed, they saw Cyrillic letters and that's when Eide decided they better report their find to the U.S. Coast Guard... Jay Overton, spokesman for Navy Region Northwest, confirmed Eide's assessment that the object was not dangerous. He said Tuesday that the Navy had decided the device was some kind of Cold War era communications device...
Threats
suntimes.com/ ... 20:33:56
Chicago's police headquarters was locked down for about 90 minutes Thursday after a police officer opened a letter containing a white powdery substance. Tests revealed the powder was not toxic and the people in the building were allowed to return to their offices...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:16:25
SAO PAULO, Brazil - One of Brazil's most notorious organized crime groups planned to use a missile to blow open a maximum-security penitentiary and free a Brazilian drug lord and a Chilean kidnapper, police said Thursday...
news.ft.com/ ... 17:09:18
China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, according to a senior Chinese military official...
bloomberg.com/ ... 17:08:05
U.S. forces in Iraq said they have captured two high-ranking al-Qaeda agents, including one suspected in the murder this month of Egypt's envoy to the country...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 16:51:52
Support for Osama bin Laden and suicide bombings have fallen sharply in much of the Muslim world, according to a multicountry poll released on Thursday...
mosnews.com/ ... 10:21:11
Soviet agents could have concealed nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction inside the United States and other Western countries... Al Qaida is determined to find those WMD and use them with the help of bribed Russian spies or special forces soldiers who have maintained their secret locations for all these years...
allheadlinenews.com/ ... 10:19:16
Polish and Czech officials have reportedly told U.S. authorities of the possible existence of Russian suitcase nukes in New York City soon after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks... hard evidence of biological weapons still on the loose, saying "Britains MI5 has identified 32 spies of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service" who reportedly have "links to deep-cover KGB agents" who, "during the Cold War, hid scores of genetically engineered biological warfare weapons in Britains countryside." MI5 believes the Russian spies and the germ vials are still at large...
London 7/7/05
memri.org/ ... 23:38:46
Arab Media Reactions to the London Bombing...
memri.org/ ... 23:36:27
Director of London's Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies Hani Sibai: There are No "Civilians" in Islamic Law;The Bombing is a Great Victory for Al-Qa'ida, Which "Rubbed the Noses of the World's 8 Most Powerful Countries in the Mud..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 23:33:11
FBI agents in Raleigh, N.C., joined the search for the chemist, Magdy Asi el-Nashar, a 33-year-old former North Carolina State University graduate student. The doors were locked Thursday at the building at Leeds University where he recently taught chemistry. And in a further international development in the inquiry, Jamaica's government said it was investigating a Jamaican-born Briton as one of the bombers...
mg.co.za/ ... 20:44:38
"It isnt good enough for Muslims to merely condemn terrorism," wrote Ehsan Masood. "We need to clamp down hard on the shoddy theology that people like al-Qaeda use to justify what they do..."
guardian.co.uk/ ... 20:33:36
Plans by an alliance of rightwing extremists and football hooligans to exact "revenge" on Muslims after last week's bomb attacks are being monitored by police. The Guardian has learned that extremists are keen to cause widespread fear and injury with attacks on mosques and high-profile "anti-Muslim" events in the capital...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 20:33:03
At least two men who have connections to last week's London bombings are alive and still at large. The first is a man, who was seen on surveillance tapes at Luton station, located outside of London, as he bid farewell to the four bombers the morning of the attacks. The other is Magdy El Nashar, an Egyptian chemist, who attended and received training at North Carolina State University... Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore. The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington...
reuters.myway.com/ ... 17:13:14
Police in New York will board city buses and subway trains and teach passengers how to recognize suicide bombers, officials said on Thursday...
sky.com/ ... 17:12:55
Anti-terror police are now hunting two others suspects known as the "mastermind" and the "chemist"... DAC Peter Clarke of London's anti-terror branch said they were looking at "who committed the bombings, who supported them, sho financed them, who trained them and who encouraged them"...
theglobeandmail.com/ ... 17:06:57
The official death toll in a series of terrorist attacks on London's transit system rose to 53... Police also told reporters that they now believe they have now identified all four of the bombers... Shehzad Tanweer, 22, who is believed to have been responsible for setting off a bomb on a subway train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations...
jpost.com/ ... 09:53:29
In his work as an emergency surgeon and consultant at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, he has worked saving lives from terror attacks across Israel and he wanted some peaceful, reflective time with his wife Libby, away from the trauma of treating victims of violence. But on the first morning of his trip he found himself dragging victims free from the wreckage of the 8:51 a.m. Piccadilly Line eastbound train and working frantically to save their lives...
thescotsman.scotsman.com/ ... 09:50:41
ONE of the suicide bombers who struck in London was probably recruited when he attended a religious school in Pakistan with strong links to al-Qaeda and its south-east Asian offshoot, Jemaah Islamiyyah... Shehzad Tanweer attended a religious school run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) during a recent visit to the country. The group's founder has publicly stated that he believes suicide bombing to be the "best form of jihad [holy war]"...
edinburghnews.scotsman.com/ ... 09:48:34
A mosque and a community centre in Edinburgh have been daubed with racist graffiti in the wake of the London terror attacks. Messages such as "Islam Scum" and "This centre sympathises with the Terrorists", were scrawled over the buildings' doors and walls following last Thursday's bombings... a worrying increase in cases of racial abuse shouted at Muslims in Edinburgh...
Under Tyranny
money.cnn.com/ ... 10:31:03
Center for Science in the Public Interest... Wednesday called for cigarette-style warnings on soft drinks...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 09:47:15
St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, Mo., where city officials are looking at the possibility of improving an area mostly filled with private businesses... But the idea is drawing plenty of heat from local residents and business owners...
Transport Tragedy
suntimes.com/ ... 20:36:58
Wednesday evening.. a tour bus traveling from Chicago to Denver crashed on Interstate 70... swerved to avoid a slower-moving tractor-trailer... ran off the road, then back onto the roadway and hit a tractor-trailer. The bus then hit another semi and overturned... collision sent the first truck across the median and into the eastbound lane... Debris from the crash struck other vehicles, including two motorcycles... The Highway Patrol did not believe any of the passengers suffered serious injuries, but several were taken to hospitals by helicopter...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:59:59
Update on the three trains that collided.. near the town of Ghotki, some 550km (340 miles) north of the country's bustling financial capital Karachi... Over 130 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the crash... [stories from the crash]
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:17:21
A Roman Catholic bishop was shot to death in northern Kenya on Thursday, the Vatican Embassy in Nairobi said. Bishop Luigi Locati, 76... as he was walking to a pastoral center in Isiolo, in the northern part of the country...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:16:05
BOISE, Idaho - A woman pleaded guilty to scalping a mohawk-wearing teenage girl, blaming the attack on mental illness and her drug addiction...
ynetnews.com/ ... 16:55:48
Palestinian security forces trying to stop Qassam rocket attacks get into gunfight with terrorists; four security personnel, one Hamas member wounded...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:03:52
Violent deaths among Iraqi civilians far exceeded those of soldiers or police during the first six months of this year...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 09:03:38
An autopsy found that a toddler whose father held her as a shield during a gun battle with authorities died of a single gunshot to the head, fired from a police officer's rifle... "Believe me, as chief of police, and for the officers involved, it is very tough to deal with that.. Some officers are going through therapy right now and I don't know if some will even come back (to work)..."
washingtonpost.com/ ... 08:54:40
Two suicide bombers struck near the Green Zone in central Baghdad on Thursday, but a third was wounded and captured by U.S. and Iraqi security forces... At least nine people were wounded... "A suicide bomber detonated himself and the other suicide bomber tried to run away from the scene. Iraqi police shot the man and were evacuating him when they discovered the vest" packed with explosives...
WED 2005-JUL-13
US Judicial Branch
foxnews.com/ ... 20:20:28
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has been hospitalized with a fever...
Theory of Medicine
washingtonpost.com/ ... 17:35:51
More than 11,600 patients contracted infections during hospital stays in Pennsylvania last year _ and nearly 1,800 of them died...
Unclear on the Concept
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 09:55:35
"Let them know you keep it real when it comes to your sexual health and decision making. Come laugh, learn, socialize and buck the system at NARAL Pro-Choice Washingtons Screw Abstinence Party..."
Whoops!
washingtonpost.com/ ... 17:43:56
The body of a Louisiana man strapped to a gurney fell from the back of a pickup truck Tuesday onto a south Dallas highway and into the path of oncoming traffic...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:53:12
Mexican police admitted their third major mistaken arrest in a month on Tuesday after a man they hoped was drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix turned out to be a car showroom employee with a similar name...
Digital Whoops
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:52:02
Taiwan police captured a heavily armed fugitive whom they had been tracking for more than a year Wednesday after he exposed his whereabouts by playing online computer games...
What Th'...?
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 10:11:11
A 15-year-old girl was arrested Monday after she allegedly tried to set fire to a Lee County deputy's patrol car...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:51:12
CHICAGO... A bank robber behind the wheel of his car on Tuesday sent a note through a vacuum tube to the teller at the drive-through window at a branch of Chicago's LaSalle Bank and the teller obliged, returning an undisclosed amount of cash...
Oh! The Irony!
ap.tbo.com/ ... 08:50:09
A psychologist who has spoken out on eating disorders and other issues was arrested after she collapsed in a supermarket, allegedly after inhaling propellant from whipped cream cans...
Supernatural
editorandpublisher.com/ ... 08:45:39
one in three Americans believe in ghosts....
Digital Consequences
worldtribune.com/ ... 08:45:19
new software based on visual pattern recognition and search technologies to match archived still or video images with those gathered from security cameras or other source... "It does a reasonable job of matching people that sort of look alike..." could also detect and alert investigators to anomalies in video footage provided by closed-circuit television systems. Such anomalies could include an individual carrying a large box, or a truck that returns to the same spot...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
news.com.au/ ... 10:11:50
scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects... Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare...
Sexual Equality??
canada.com/ ... 10:08:25
Jane Emlyn says female minor hockey players' rights are violated when they're forced to use separate changing rooms.... "It's fun in the changing room. You get to talk and socialize with all the kids and talk about the game, and talk about the practices and just discuss hockey. And if you're in a changing room with three people, and there's another team there, it's a little awkward and not fun..."
Only Natural
washingtonpost.com/ ... 17:42:49
A faulty fuel-gauge reading forced NASA to call off Wednesday's launch of Discovery...
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:53:46
the force of Hurricane Dennis flipped a sunken U.S. Navy ship into the perfect position to help form an artificial reef... That was the position Key Largo scuba divers and tourism promoters had aimed for when they scuttled the 6,880-tonhulk in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in 2002...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:51:33
An ice-cold tumbler of vodka garnished with two speared pearl onions made history on Tuesday as the first alcoholic drink sold since 1933 in the coastal town of Rockport, Massachusetts...
Disturbing Family Patterns
nydailynews.com/ ... 10:10:26
A Brooklyn newlywed who claimed beatings caused her to snap and stab her husband to death after he complained about the size of her butt was acquitted yesterday of manslaughter...
Theft
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:50:37
Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants...
London 7/7/05
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 20:17:08
Shahara Islam, the British-born woman of Bengali origin described by friends as the embodiment of multicultural Britain, was yesterday added to the list of the 11 confirmed dead in the London bombings... Born to a devout Muslim family, she attended mosque every Friday, but was also a Westernised young woman who shopped for designer clothes, shoes and handbags. "She would have been filled with anger towards the bombers. She loves London and Britain," said her father, Shamsul...
news.independent.co.uk/ ... 20:15:39
A series of setbacks in Hussain's life may be behind a sudden change from a British Asian who dressed in Western clothes to a religious teenager who wore Islamic garb and only stopped to say salaam to fellow Muslims...
sky.com/ ... 20:12:01
Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, of Dewsbury, was a supply teaching assistant who taught disabled children in Beeston, it has been revealed... The Times reported that the mastermind of the attacks was a Pakistani in his 30s who arrived through a British port last month but left a day before the bombings...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 17:42:28
Just before he got off the crowded No. 30 bus, Richard Jones noticed a fellow passenger fiddling anxiously with a bag. There was a bloodcurdling scream, and within seconds the bus exploded... "This young guy kept diving into this bag or whatever he had in front of his feet. It was like he was taking a couple of grapes off a bunch of grapes, both hands were in the bag. He must have done that at least every minute if not every 30 seconds. He was getting annoyed. The only reason I noticed it was that he was annoying me..." The crowded No. 30 bus was stuck in morning rush-hour traffic... Jones decided to join another passenger who said he was going to walk instead... between 12 and 20 other people joined them. "Immediately, bang! There was an explosion behind me, and I turned round and said, 'I can't believe it, I just got off that bus.'..." A woman on the street asked Jones if he had just gotten off the destroyed bus. When Jones said yes, "she actually knelt down in front of me and prayed..."
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 17:40:23
Mr Ahmed said it was hard for the family to accept their son had caused such loss of life, adding: "It wasn't him. It must have been forces behind him..." said his nephew went to Pakistan for two months earlier this year to study religion...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 17:39:22
According to one neighbour, Hussain "went off the rails" as a young teenager but became a reformed character when he "suddenly became devoutly religious" two years ago. A friend of the family said: "His older brother was worried because Hasib seemed to be getting into some kind of gang and started wearing white robes but he decided there was no harm in him becoming religious. He didn't realise that there might have been something more sinister to it..."
guardian.co.uk/ ... 17:38:33
A Muslim man has been beaten to death outside a corner shop by a gang of youths who shouted anti-Islamic abuse at him... Kamal Raza Butt, 48, from Pakistan, was visiting Britain to see friends and family... Nottinghamshire police... say it was not connected to a backlash against Muslims following the London bombings, which has seen mosques firebombed and Muslims attacked in the street...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:00:03
Detectives involved in watching thousands of hours of film for glimpses of the terrorists had been given a "profile" based on a simple question posed for their guidance by senior officers. The question was: what would the terrorists look like? The answer was that they would be young men, probably in their 20s and 30s, and they would be carrying rucksacks... officers found images of four young men carrying bulky rucksacks, similar to those in which soldiers carry radios. One source observed: "It was like the infantry going to war, or like they were going on a hiking holiday..."
Yesterday, explosives were discovered in a vehicle left in the car park at Luton station, after a series of controlled explosions to make it safe. Another car, discovered at an undisclosed location, was being examined at Leighton Buzzard... Last night, it emerged that "viable explosives" were found in one of the West Yorkshire addresses - Alexandra Grove, Burley, assumed to be the "bomb factory". This may mean that the threat from the group linked to the explosives and the suicides has been ended by the investigation...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:48:06
Three young men from West Yorkshire... lived typically low-key, suburban, "ordinary" lives...
Threats
today.reuters.com/ ... 20:09:34
Princeton, Illinois... Police on Wednesday arrested a man driving a van who was threatening to blow up something or somebody in Washington, D.C., but no explosives were found...
au.news.yahoo.com/ ... 17:43:15
Police raided scores of homes and detained 174 people across Italy on Wednesday in a sweeping anti-terrorism crackdown on suspected Islamic militants...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 09:56:09
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo... said yesterday he would request a briefing from the Justice Department on information it has on plans revealed by WND this week for a nuclear attack on the U.S. by al-Qaida terrorists...
bloomberg.com/ ... 08:43:44
Dutch police arrested a 17-year-old boy at his parents' house in Amsterdam during an investigation into a terrorist group linked to the murderer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Officers
found a homemade bomb in the boy's room...
The boy... was investigated for publishing "extreme Muslim texts" on the Internet...
Digital Threat
today.reuters.com/ ... 08:42:22
Microsoft Corp. warned users on Tuesday of three new security flaws in its Windows and Word software and issued patches to fix the flaws, which could allow attackers to take over a computer system. All three of the "critical"-rated security patches could potentially allow an attacker to take control of a personal computer and use it to steal data or launch other attacks...
Violence
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 08:48:49
Hundreds of armed men surrounded a primary school and nearby houses in northern Kenya before opening fire killing at least 56... in the village of Turbi... blamed on the rival Borana from across the Ethiopia border. The two groups have feuded over water and pasture in the semi-arid region...
cnn.com/ ... 08:38:24
A suicide car bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle in eastern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Jaddeda Wednesday morning, killing 24 people and wounding 25 others... The blast
killed at least seven children and a U.S. soldier
... The soldiers apparently were handing out treats to the children when the bomb went off... "The car bomber made a deliberate decision to attack one of our vehicles as the soldiers were engaged in a peaceful operation with Iraqi citizens," Maj. Russ Goemaere said in the statement. "The terrorist undoubtedly saw the children around the Humvee as he attacked. The complete disregard for civilian life in this attack is absolutely abhorrent..."
TUE 2005-JUL-12
Supernatural
sptimes.com/ ... 20:04:55
The potato chip in which Rosalie Lawson sees the face of Jesus was for sale on eBay last week. The highest bid was only $2.25 - 74 cents less than Publix is charging for a full bag of crisps...
Culture
mg.co.za/ ... 18:22:42
Prince Albert II on Tuesday formally assumed the throne of Monaco, the Mediterranean statelet that has become indelibly linked with Hollywood glamour and jet-set wealth, as well as the ruling Grimaldi dynasty's own turbulent history.
Unclear on the Concept
variety.com/ ... 11:37:04
World Wrestling Entertainment and UPN have heard from several concerned viewers following last Thursday's "WWE Smackdown," which depicted a terrorist-like attack involving a group of Arab-Americans and a wrestling opponent. The episode aired the same day as the subway and bus bombings in London; UPN ran a crawl on its screen four times through the broadcast, noting that, "In light of today's tragic events in London, parental discretion is advised in viewing this episode..."
Whoops!
abcnews.go.com/ ... 21:32:41
MASCOUTAH, Ill... city's utility department claimed [homeowner] used 10 million gallons of water last month, charging her $29,787 for water, $43,581 for sewer, plus $893 for municipal tax... corrected bill for $32.66... "My daughter asked me if I was hoarding water during the drought.. I told her I would, but I don't know where I would find 10 million gallon jugs..."
www3.contactmusic.com/ ... 11:37:45
Pop beauty MARIAH CAREY accidentally flashed her breasts at stunned fans during a TV show in Germany when her dress fell apart...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 11:23:14
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. Jul 11, 2005 Being handcuffed behind his back wasn't enough to stop a vandalism suspect from driving away in a Wayne County Sheriff's Department cruiser... the car was found abandoned several blocks away nearly six hours later... It was not clear where the deputies were at the time the cruiser was driven away...
Preternatural Patterns
forbes.com/ ... 11:22:15
Eleven people with Parkinson's disease temporarily became compulsive gamblers after taking a class of drugs designed to control movement problems caused by the illness...
Future is Now
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 21:36:44
boosted the light output per watt of a white LED to almost six times that of an incandescent light bulb, beating even a compact fluorescent bulb in efficiency...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:18:52
Army Pfc.
Eric P. Woods
, 26, of Omaha, Neb., died on July 9 in Tal Afar, Iraq. His HMMWV struck an improvised explosive device that caused the vehicle to overturn.
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:18:36
Army Spc.
Hoby F. Bradfield Jr.
, 22, of The Woodlands, Texas, died July 9 in Tal Afar, Iraq while he was conducting a dismounted cordon search...
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:18:15
Marine Lance Cpl.
Kevin B. Joyce
, 19, of Ganado, Ariz., died June 25 after falling into the Pech River while conducting combat operations in Afghanistan.
defenselink.mil/ ... 20:17:57
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
Matthew G. Axelson
, 29, of Cupertino, Calif, died while conducting counter-terrorism operations in Kunar province, Afghanistan...
Only Natural
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:24:57
Gold-colored bacteria that cause more disease than colorless strains do so because they carry antioxidants to protect themselves against immune system attack...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:24:41
Tales about "Thunderbird" and "Whale" by native tribes along the U.S. West Coast, along with geological clues, point to at least two massive quakes and tsunamis that have hit the area in the last 1,100 years...
US Military
ap.tbo.com/ ... 13:03:20
Wounded Soldiers Cross Country on Bikes to Raise Money for Group Helping Veterans...
theglobeandmail.com/ ... 11:32:43
The U.S. Air Force lifted Tuesday an order barring personnel from visiting London...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:23:38
All 12,000 members of the U.S. Air Force stationed in Britain have been banned from visiting London because of last week's bombings, newspapers reported on Tuesday, and one daily slammed the decision as "timid..."
Transport Tragedy
msnbc.msn.com/ ... 21:32:55
Three passenger trains collided in southern Pakistan early Wednesday, and 13 cars derailed, killing or injuring dozens of people...
Disturbing Family Patterns
abcnews.go.com/ ... 21:31:27
A mother has been charged with felony child abuse and child cruelty after she allegedly forced two of her children to take turns riding in the trunk of a car on an eight-hour drive from Alabama to Virginia... two girls, ages 8 and 10... because there wasn't enough room in the car... was driving five children, including an infant, to her ex-husband's home outside Washington, D.C...
London 7/7/05
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:08:28
Security sources said it was likely at least three of the men, said to be of Pakistani descent, are dead, after belongings were found at the scenes. The details emerged as explosives were found in Leeds and Luton after a series of raids. One man has been arrested...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 20:07:28
FOUR friends from northern England have changed the face of terrorism by carrying out the suicide bombings that brought carnage to London last week... Security forces are coming to terms with the realisation that young Britons are prepared to die for their militant cause... the immediate fear is that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes. The mastermind behind the attacks and the bombmaker are both still thought to be at large...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 13:01:35
An arrest has been made in Yorkshire after the identity of the suspected London bus bomber led police to make a series of raids. Security sources said the bus bomb suspect died in the blast but it is unclear if it was a suicide bombing. They believe the four bombers were British born and all died in Thursday's bombings...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:35:47
A SINGLE bombmaker using high-grade military explosives is believed to be responsible for building the four devices that killed more than 50 people last week... detectives.. believe that each of the 10lb rucksack bombs was the work of one man... the materials used were not home made but sophisticated military explosives, possibly smuggled into Britain from the Balkans...
sky.com/ ... 11:33:55
Personal documents of four suspected bombers were found near the bomb scenes of the London terror attacks... All four suspected bombers died during the attacks, police suspect... The men travelled down from west Yorkshire and arrived at Kings Cross station shortly before the attacks were launched on Thursday morning and their images were captured by CCTV cameras. One man has just been arrested in west Yorkshire in connection with the attacks...
bloomberg.com/ ... 11:31:33
U.K. police searched six addresses and soldiers carried out a controlled explosion today in northern England in connection with last week's terrorist attacks in London... In Luton, north of London, police closed the rail station and parking lot after finding a vehicle that may be linked to the blasts... Several arrests were made after the raids in the county of West Yorkshire, and searches were also carried out at sites in London...
Sex can be Dangerous
kansas.com/ ... 20:04:29
Wichita... Arlando Trotter says the women who work for him at Body Worx hire themselves out to clean out your cobwebs. Officials in Park City say they're prostitutes and are suing Trotter and his wife to declare the business.. a public nuisance and close it doors...
People Die
abcnews.go.com/ ... 21:30:32
LOUISVILLE, Ky. Jul 12, 2005 A Western Kentucky University student died from injuries he suffered while "car surfing" on a moving vehicle... fell off a car and hit his head Saturday night... second reported death in a week related to car surfing... Sheboygan, Wis., 19-year-old... was killed July 5 when he fell from the top of a Land Rover...
local6.com/ ... 20:02:40
A 16-year-old British girl is in critical condition after riding the "Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror" ride at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World... exited the ride Tuesday at about 9:50 a.m. and complained that she was not feeling well... sat down with her mother in the theme park but her condition continued to worsen... condition deteriorated so rapidly that her heart stopped beating and she had to be resuscitated by emergency workers... Two people have died at Disney World this year...
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 20:01:06
top U.S. government officials are contemplating what they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America one likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin... According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the
"American Hiroshima"
and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups... The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade...
The Injured
edition.cnn.com/ ... 18:22:17
Two Tennessee sisters injured in Thursday's terrorist attacks in London underwent reconstructive surgery Monday at Duke University Hospital to close blast wounds to their feet... Meanwhile, the State Department confirmed Monday that a U.S. citizen is missing and presumed dead in the London terrorist attacks... the sisters, both college students from Knoxville, Tennessee, on vacation in London, were just 10 feet from the bomb that exploded in a subway car near Edgware Road... The benches in the train and the people surrounding them, some of whom were killed, likely shielded them from more life-threatening injuries... Emily Benton, 20, suffered bone and soft-tissue damage to her right foot and one hand; one eardrum was blown out and her corneas were superficially damaged by debris... Katie Benton, 21, suffered an injury to the tissue in her right foot and ankle and one hand; she also had eardrum and corneal damage...
Extraterrestrial Threat
spaceflightnow.com/ ... 18:18:39
damage to protective heat shield tiles on Discovery's left-side orbital maneuvering system rocket pod. A
protective plastic cockpit window cover somehow fell off and struck a tile-covered panel
. The so-called carrier panel protects attachment fittings that hold the rocket pod to the shuttle's fuselage...
[Um... this is starting more and more to sound like a flying bucket o' bolts!...]
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
ap.tbo.com/ ... 13:03:39
Terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi criticized his spiritual mentor for urging militants in Iraq to rein in attacks on civilians and warned that the sheik's comments could split Islamic fighters...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 11:34:46
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers"...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 13:02:57
The death toll in a coal mine explosion in China's far west has reached 76...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:34:17
At least 16 patients and a nurse have died in a blaze in a hospital in Costa Rica's capital...
Under Tyranny
today.reuters.com/ ... 13:04:24
A Saudi woman defied a ban on women driving to get her husband urgent medical help after he collapsed at the wheel...
business.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:35:02
EUROPE wants to begin to regulate the internet for the first time by introducing controversial rules to cover television online...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:33:11
A controversial new EU regulation that has threatened to outlaw thousands of mineral supplements and bankrupt health food stores across Britain was upheld this morning... The European Court of Justice approved the Food Supplements Directive even though the court's own Advocate-General advised that the Directive was invalid under EU law...
Violence
today.reuters.com/ ... 13:01:59
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya on Tuesday, killing at least three people... at least 30 people were wounded...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:32:00
A car bomb wounded Lebanon's defense minister and killed two people north of Beirut on Tuesday...
Digital Threat
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:23:54
Cell phone service resumed in two of four busy New York commuter tunnels on Monday...
MON 2005-JUL-11
Supernatural Threats
abcnews.go.com/ ... 19:57:44
EAST CHICAGO, Ind. Jul 11, 2005 City officials have turned off a streetlight that drew more than 250 people to see a shadow that some say resembles the image of Jesus Christ... in the interest of public safety after nearby residents complained about blocked cars and visitors congregating until 5 a.m. Several arrests were made Friday night after a large fight broke out in the area...
Preternatural Patterns
abcnews.go.com/ ... 19:59:09
June 18 assault in which one man reportedly bit off the ear of another man during an argument over a dog...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 19:56:52
Va... Animal control officers have removed 187 cats from a house in Mount Vernon [woman, 82]... dead bodies of 86 more were left in trash bins outside... Most of the surviving cats were sent to an animal shelter, but animal control officers said they have to go back and get some cats that are still living in the walls and chimney...
In another case, officers found 59 cats and a dog at a house on Hillsborough Drive in Falls Church on June 27. The bodies of 29 dead cats were also found on the property where authorities said [woman], 58, lived....
Supernatural Whoops
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 18:33:07
Rowling's sixth book about the young wizard is scheduled to be released on July 16, but a store near Vancouver briefly put the put the book on sale last week. Raincoast Books Ltd., which distributes the books in Canada, said a "small number" of the books were sold, and it has won a court injunction barring the buyers of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" from disclosing the plot. The court also ordered all the copies be returned to Raincoast, which has promised the early buyers book plates autographed by Rowling once the embargo is lifted...
Clinton Era -- still with us
gjsentinel.com/ ... 15:32:28
I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catchphrase: "What, me worry?.."
Sex -- always attractive
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:34:49
A Berlin grandmother who has worked the city's diplomatic quarter as a prostitute for the last 49 years plans to retire when she turns 64 next year... She said she charges 30 euros ($36) and on good nights she has four to five clients...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:33:52
Most Italians think nude sunbathing is perfectly natural and don't mind crossing paths with bottomless beach-goers -- even when those bottoms are unsightly, survey results released Sunday said... More than 80 percent said nudism was not erotic... Just over 40 percent of women said they did not like seeing other naked females on the beach, while just 5 percent of men shared their opinion about nude women... Only about 16 percent said they were vexed by unattractive women nudists and 9.7 percent objected to unsightly men...
WW2 - still with us
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:30:20
A ton of World War II explosives has been found at the site of the landmark Moskva Hotel in central Moscow. The find has been linked to Soviet plans to blow up key buildings if Nazi German troops reached the city... there were no detonators and the explosives had decomposed so there was no danger of an explosion...
Digital Theory of Education
apnews.myway.com/ ... 10:28:22
A high school in Vail will become the state's first all-wireless, all-laptop public school this fall. The 350 students at the school will not have traditional textbooks. Instead, they will use electronic and online articles as part of more traditional teacher lesson plans...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:16:47
Marine Staff Sgt.
Joseph P. Goodrich
, 32, of Allegheny, Pa.
Marine Lance Cpl.
Ryan J. Kovacicek
, 22, of Washington, Pa.
died July 10 from enemy indirect fire while conducting combat operations in Hit, Iraq...
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:14:22
Army Sgt.
Deyson K. Cariaga
, 20, of Honolulu, Hawaii, died on July 8, in Al Hammadi, Iraq, when the HMMWV in which he was riding struck a land mine.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:15:35
The Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met or exceeded their recruiting goals in June...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 15:37:37
The discovery of the body of the U.S. Navy SEAL in Kunar province on Sunday ended a desperate search for the last member of a four-man special forces unit that disappeared after being ambushed June 28 in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan... U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts said the U.S. commando whose body was found Sunday had died in fighting soon after the ambush, and he denied claims by a purported Taliban spokesman that the SEAL was captured alive and beheaded... "There have been claims of being dropped on a mountain wearing red clothes, there have been claims of being beheaded... there was no indication supporting the claims. ... This individual was never in custody, he was never defamed or disgraced..."
Only Natural
abcnews.go.com/ ... 19:59:27
When people over 60 walked on smooth, rounded cobblestones for just a half-hour a day over four months, they significantly lowered their blood pressure and improved their balance...
alertnet.org/ ... 18:33:24
The compound that makes curry yellow could help fight skin cancer...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:42:29
A small quantity of chloride in the red paint in the painting 'Portrait of a Young Lady' by Peter Paul Rubens in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague is causing the red parts of the painting to slowly turn black and white under the influence of light...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:42:11
the recurrence time of earthquakes, which is the time interval between successive earthquakes, is similar to the spatial structure of physics systems when they change phase in the "critical points..."
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:41:33
the universe might once have been packed full of tiny black holes...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:41:19
the retina actively seeks novel features in the visual environment, dynamically adjusting its processing in order to seek the unusual while ignoring the commonplace...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:41:01
noise can at times help, rather than hinder, people's ability to sense things...
sciencedaily.com/ ... 11:40:37
Cigarette smoking may improve attention and short--term memory in persons with schizophrenia by stimulating nicotine receptors in the brain...
Sex can be Dangerous
abcnews.go.com/ ... 20:00:00
JACKSONVILLE, Ark. Jul 11, 2005 Three strippers and two nightclub managers have been arrested for allegedly spanking a trucker at his 31st birthday bash and severely bruising his backside...
Transport Tragedy
clarionledger.com/ ... 18:36:17
YAZOO COUNTY The bodies of two men were pulled today from the wreckage of two freight-train locomotives that collided head-on early Sunday in the Anding community. That brings the confirmed death toll to three...
ctv.ca/ ... 18:28:49
Sunday's air show disaster in Moose Jaw, Sask. that killed two U.S. stunt pilots... Two of the planes crossed past each other when the third came up from underneath and smashed into one of the planes. There was a huge explosion of fire when the two planes collided, leaving a stunned silence in the crowd. The air show was immediately cancelled...
Disturbing Family Patterns
ap.tbo.com/ ... 18:22:34
Arizona authorities were searching for two young children Monday missing from a home where their grandparents and an uncle were found slain the night before... believed to be with their father, Rodrigo Cervantes Zavala, who may have been headed for Mexico...
Digital Threat
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 15:31:38
Cellular phone service has been shut off in four busy New York commuter tunnels
since last week's deadly blasts in London... A spokesman for the New York Police Department said officials would weigh the benefits of disabled service against allowing cell phone service in the tunnels so the public could report suspicious packages or individuals... "There's lots of different ways to use the cell phone as a trigger device," said Ken Dulaney, a wireless analyst for technology market research firm Gartner Inc. But he added: "If you stop a cell phone, there are myriad other ways to trigger bombs..."
Threats
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:29:11
Four "dangerous enemy combatants" have escaped from the main US base in Afghanistan... The US military said the men who escaped were militants from Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya...
Mechanical Disaster
news.xinhuanet.com/ ... 10:27:58
Fifty-nine miners were confirmed dead in the coal mine explosion which took place in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early Monday morning... 24 miners were still missing among the 87 people working underground when the accident happened...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
gamesindustry.biz/ ... 10:27:25
Rockstar has denied that the "Hot Coffee" pornographic mini-game, which is enabled by a mod for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, is actually a part of the game...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 18:23:22
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - A bomb exploded in a trash bin in downtown Port-of-Spain on Monday, wounding 14 people...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:32:45
A toddler... about 17 months old... was shot and killed when her father used her as a shield in a gunbattle with police following an hours-long standoff... The man also died and an officer was wounded... "The officers are taking it very hard... Anytime you have a baby killed, it takes its toll..." The man had a 9 mm handgun and a shotgun and was intoxicated on drugs and alcohol, police said...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:30:59
U.S. troops killed 10 insurgents Monday in an ethnically mixed northern city, while nine Iraqi troops died in two attacks northeast of the capital...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:29:49
Nine building workers have died in Iraq after being arrested on suspicion of insurgent activity and then left in a closed metal container. Three men survived the ordeal... They had apparently been caught up in a firefight between US troops and Iraqi gunmen, and were detained after taking an injured colleague to hospital...
cnn.com/ ... 10:25:38
Investigators said Sunday that DNA testing "positively identified" human remains found in Montana last week as those of missing 9-year-old Dylan Groene...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:24:47
Arsonists torched a Russian shop on Monday, killing 20 people... Ukhta, around 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Moscow... bars over the shop's ground floor windows had stopped people from escaping the blaze... "Two teenagers ran into the trading hall on the ground floor and threw a container with a burning substance into the crowd, and the fire spread very quickly.. It was probably not a terrorist attack, these were teenagers ... the building is two stories with plastic on the walls, that is why the fire spread so quickly..."
SUN 2005-JUL-10
Transport
latimes.com/ ... 12:33:42
HUMBOLDT BAY, Calif... An undamaged fishing trawler... [which] vanished one evening in late September... is found on the sea floor, its nets full. The captain and crew are lost. And no one can figure out why... Commercial fishing ranks among the deadliest professions in America, with a fatality rate typically five times higher than that of police officers and firefighters. Between 1992 and 2002, more than 630 commercial fishermen died on the job, according to Coast Guard statistics...
Whoops!
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:06:40
The first humans to arrive in Australia destroyed the pristine landscape, probably by lighting huge fires, the latest research suggests...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
foxnews.com/ ... 21:42:00
Era of Jackbooted Nags...
Last Tuesday, the D.C. City Council heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to smoke in a bar, even if the owner, the employees and the customers all agree that smoking should be permitted... It's an effective strategy, one that draws on the insights of smoking-ban pioneer Stanton Glantz. At a 1986 conference of anti-smoking activists, Glantz advised that "the issue should be framed in the rhetoric of the environment, toxic chemicals, and public health rather than the rhetoric of saving smokers from themselves."
Yet "saving smokers from themselves" is a key goal of the banners...
If the banners get their way, what will be their next step in the quest to socially engineer smoking out of existence?..
Liberty Works
myweb.cableone.net/ ... 19:20:08
THE RADICAL REPLIES:
Pivotal in the reviewer's analysis of the United States, from this Oklahoman's view, is this: "the ideas of the American Revolution were and remain as revolutionary as they are universal."
The reviewer understands that in one sense America is just another government among humans, with human evils, yet that Federalism is confronted constantly by the "Spirit of '76."
The reviewer mentions a Scottish historian's view that "the Americans have built an empire while avoiding the 'e' word pretty consistently, and that's always disastrous. There have been successes, but if you look at all the countries in which the US has intervened, the majority have not been success stories." Or, another possible way of looking at the sometimes "failure" of American foreign policy has been that America has actually been emphatically un-imperial. Rather than making nations our serfs, we would have them as our friends. If the idea is that free countries are defending ourselves by "exporting liberty and democracy," then to be a bit simplistic about it, only when the overwhelming majority of disparate peoples place the modern and necessary principles of universal equality above primitive tribal and sectarian divisiveness will they (not we) "succeed." People don't change like that overnight, although they may in as little as a generation.
news.scotsman.com/ ... 14:12:47
Nonetheless, the ideas of the American Revolution were and remain as revolutionary as they are universal. That being the case, is it so surprising that so many Americans, seeing the sufferings of peoples less fortunate than themselves, should have wanted to export those values across the globe?
Supernatural
livescience.com/ ... 12:30:06
A parrot has grasped the concept of zero, something humans can't do until at least the toddler phase...
Why People Go Vegan
tiscali.co.uk/ ... 12:21:17
Laboratories using new tissue engineering technology might be able to produce meat that is healthier for consumers and cut down on pollution produced by factory farming... While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels. But a new study... describes two possible ways to do it...
Extraterrestrial
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:05:21
scientists working on the Lofar project have resorted to pyramid power, creating 20 to 25,000 simple pyramidal radio antennae, which are being put in place 350 kilometres across the north of the Netherlands. In the end they will go to make up the world's largest radio telescope...
Natural Threat
apnews.myway.com/ ... 21:21:05
Hurricane Dennis roared quickly through the Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast Sunday with a 120-mph bluster of blinding squalls and crashing waves, but shellshocked residents emerged to find far less damage than when Ivan took nearly the same path 10 months ago... Even Mark Sigler of Pensacola Beach, who owns a dome-shaped, steel-reinforced house built to withstand 200-mph winds, decided to evacuate. "The house is hurricane resistant," he said, "not hurricane proof..."
Digital Threat
wired.com/ ... 12:35:07
An internet arbitrator has awarded Google the rights to several website addresses that relied on typographical errors to exploit the online search engine's popularity so computer viruses and other malicious software could be unleashed on unsuspecting visitors... "typosquatting" by operating websites named googkle.com, ghoogle.com and gooigle.com...
Threats
guardian.co.uk/ ... 21:23:38
The chief constable of West Midlands police yesterday defended his decision to close the centre of Birmingham on Saturday night and evacuate more than 20,000 people from bars, clubs, hotels and restaurants. The 10-hour shutdown on the busiest night of the week is thought to have cost local businesses £1m in lost takings...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:02:48
Italian police have arrested 142 people in the course of a two-day security operation in and around Milan which was prompted by the London bombings...
["Round up the usual suspects"?]
Violence
suntimes.com/ ... 22:12:36
A University of Illinois at Chicago student who had just left a party in the pristine University Village community was pummeled to death with his own bicycle lock early Saturday, moments after an encounter with two suburban men...
suntimes.com/ ... 22:12:14
Police said three people were arrested Sunday at Heathrow Airport under Britain's anti-terrorism act, but they declined to link the suspects to last week's bombings in London...
mercurynews.com/ ... 21:27:35
Suicide bombers struck throughout Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 38 people and wounding dozens in a series of attacks aimed mainly at the country's overwhelmed and vulnerable security forces. The deadliest attack came when a man wearing an explosives vest blew himself up in a large crowd of recruits outside an Iraqi army center in the capital, killing at least 23 people and wounding another 47...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:17:36
It is now more than 15 years since the world found out about the thousands of children locked away in Romania's state institutions. In the first of a series of articles, Kate McGeown - who volunteered in one such institution nine years ago - finds out what happened to them...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 12:19:20
AL-QAEDA is secretly recruiting affluent, middle-class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out terrorist attacks in this country, leaked Whitehall documents reveal. A network of extremist recruiters is circulating on campuses targeting people with technical and professional qualifications, particularly engineering and IT degrees...
duluthsuperior.com/ ... 12:18:56
One prominent terrorism researcher sees the prospect of "endless" war. Adds the man who tracked Osama bin Laden for the CIA, "I don't think it's even started yet." An Associated Press survey of longtime students of international terrorism finds them ever more convinced, in the aftermath of London's bloody Thursday, that the world has entered a long siege in a new kind of war. They believe that al-Qaida is mutating into a global insurgency, a possible prototype for other 21st-century movements, technologically astute, almost leaderless. And the way out is far from clear...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 11:08:08
THE terrorist believed to have organised last years Madrid train attacks is emerging as a figure in the hunt for the London bombers...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:07:50
A suicide bomber has killed more than 20 people who were queuing outside an army recruiting centre in the Iraqi capital Baghdad... left more than 40 people injured... At least six people were killed in further suicide bomb attacks in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul... gunmen killed at least eight members of a family as they slept in their home in Baghdad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:07:06
Six Afghan policemen have been beheaded after an ambush by suspected Taleban guerrillas... Four other police died and more were wounded when a 30-man convoy was caught in a two-hour gun battle in the southern province of Helmand...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:04:17
Western Europe is seeing a dramatic increase in the
trafficking of young women
from Eastern Europe since the expansion of the EU in 2004. The UK is cited by many as the main destination and more than half of the women come from Lithuania...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:03:15
At least 20 people have been injured in a bomb blast in a popular seaside resort in west Turkey. At least two foreign tourists were among those injured... Nobody has claimed the attack so far, but Islamist militants, far-left militants and Kurdish activists have been behind bombings in the past...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:55:57
According to former special forces officers and other military sources,
the four-man Seal strike team may have come too close to one of the US-led coalitions highest-priority targets
perhaps Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, or even Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. Other military sources suggested the target was a regional Taliban commander suspected of links with Al-Qaeda...
today.reuters.com/ ... 10:26:02
A huge overnight security alert in the city of Birmingham... Police evacuated 20,000 people from the center of the country's second city during the night and carried out a controlled explosion on a bus. They found no bombs but said the drastic measures were fully justified...
SAT 2005-JUL-09
What Th'...?
mtv.com/ ... 16:29:36
"Statements and sentiments appearing in a Reuters-syndicated article and attributed to the American R&B singer Omarion were never made by the performer. Contrary to statements made in the article, Omarion is in no way affiliated with the firm AR PR Marketing nor is 'publicist Shana Gilmore' a legitimate publicist acting on behalf of the artist. Omarion regrets any confusion and sends his thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims of this horrific tragedy..."
Transport
nbcsandiego.com/ ... 16:27:20
Police are trying to determine why a freight train was abandoned on the tracks Thursday night with its engine still running. The 44-car train was left idling along Interstate 5 on the 1400 block of West Morena Boulevard in Bay Park at about 10 p.m. Because of the recent terrorist bombings in London, officers notified the Homeland Security Department and the FBI about the incident... Investigators discovered a note inside the train that stated that the train's crew had worked their maximum hours allowed so they left the train and got a taxi to take them home...
Digital Sex can be Dangerous
boston.com/ ... 01:53:49
Raunchy, full-contact sex -- the sort of thing you'd see in a porn movie, only with cartoonlike, computer-generated images. According to some software-savvy game geeks, you can find this kind of seamy excitement hidden inside one of the world's most popular computer games, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas... said the porn movie was built into the game at the factory and his mod simply revealed it...
Human Right
jpost.com/ ... 16:31:19
polygamy is still very much alive. It exists in a vast majority of Islamic countries, where it is permitted by law. And in the 20th century, it reached European and American shores with the massive wave of immigration from Islamic countries. Interestingly, Europe, while welcoming the reform of the Family Law in Morocco that made polygamy almost impossible, and pressuring Turkey to put an end to the practice (the country's ban on polygamy is commonly overridden), is at the same time turning a blind eye to the existence of the practice within its own borders...
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 16:28:25
A man arrested at a New Year's Eve party claims the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to be drunk in a private home, and is now suing the police who arrested him...
latimes.com/ ... 15:05:00
California health officials Friday
suspended a pilot program that issues photo identification to medical marijuana users
out of concern that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling could make the state and ID holders targets for federal prosecution...
US Military
foxnews.com/ ... 01:54:15
A purported Taliban spokesman said Saturday that the group has killed a missing American commando, but he offered no proof...
Natural Threat
centredaily.com/ ... 20:46:09
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - After thrashing South Florida and the Keys on Saturday, a deflated but still dangerous Hurricane Dennis took aim at Pensacola, prompting the mandatory evacuation of 700,000 residents. The system, which already has killed at least 20 in the Caribbean, could re-intensify and make landfall with 125-mph winds by Sunday night near the Florida-Alabama border, forecasters said. That is virtually the same area that Hurricane Ivan slammed last September, destroying much of Pensacola...
Threats
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 16:26:10
Terrorists will try to carry out an attack on the United States within the next 90 days, a former Israeli counterterrorism intelligence officer predicts. Juval Aviv, head of the New York-based intelligence company Interfor and a special consultant to the U.S. Congress, told Fox News his information is based primarily on intelligence "floating in Europe and the Middle East..."
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 02:04:49
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescue aircraft and ships were searching Saturday for dozens of people missing after a ferry boat capsized in rough seas off eastern Indonesia... Only 15 people - two crewmen and 13 passengers - have been found... officially reported to be carrying 50 crew and passengers, but survivors said the vessel was carrying about 200...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 02:03:30
At least 20 people have died in a bus accident in the northern Indian state of Uttaranchal... Twenty-five others were injured... Saturday morning... coming from Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, plunged into a gorge near the holy city of Rishikesh...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:42:56
Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers have launched new raids against insurgent strongholds in a volatile Sunni province... Operation Scimitar started Thursday with raids in the village of Zaidan, 20 miles southeast of Fallujah... So far, 22 suspected insurgents had been detained...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:36:06
Masked gunmen opened fire at an official with the country's largest Shiite Muslim group Saturday in Mosul, wounding him and three of his bodyguards...
washtimes.com/ ... 16:28:08
London's notoriously outspoken Islamists, a media-savvy faction who have publicly praised the September 11 hijackers and called for Islamic law in Britain, have fallen unusually silent since Thursday's rush-hour attack on commuters. Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical cleric known for giving his cell phone number to reporters, did not answer yesterday or the previous day. The Web site of the sheik's followers was offline, and Anjem Choudhary, his top assistant, refused to comment on the blasts that left scores dead. In contrast, Muslim clerics and residents of London condemned the bombings without reservation, including one of Mr. Bakri's supporters...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 02:05:22
The head of Iraq's karate union has been kidnapped south of Baghdad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 02:02:44
Bookshop Waterstone's has pulled adverts for a novel called Incendiary about a "massive terrorist attack" in London, which came out on Thursday. The bookseller told the BBC News website of its "great concern" at the timing of the adverts for the novel... The novel focuses on a woman whose son and husband die when 11 suicide bombers target Arsenal's new £357m Emirates Stadium...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:58:54
Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said the attacks took place within 50 seconds of each other. Technical data from London Underground disproved the earlier wider range of timings between explosions... still no certainty about the number of people whose bodies remain trapped in wrecked train carriages below King's Cross... 49 confirmed fatalities... a further 25 missing people... Some 700 people were hurt, about 69 are being treated in hospital and 15 remain in a critical condition...
Disturbing Family Patterns
news.ninemsn.com.au/ ... 01:39:50
A couple killed their disabled 29-year-old son while he was visiting their Sydney home four years ago... died in a bed during a routine weekend visit to his parents' home at St Marys, in Sydney's west, on April 23, 2001...
FRI 2005-JUL-08
What Th'...?
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:30:57
American R&B crooner... "Omarion was in London during the tragic bombings that struck this morning," a statement by the singer's publicist.. released hours after the bombings, said. Making no mention of the fatalities or casualties of the blasts, the singer's statement concluded, "He would like his fans to pray that he has a safe trip and a safe return home. He appreciates your support..." Asked why anyone should pray for him, [publicist Shana] Gilmore said, "He wasn't hurt or anything, but just the fact that he was there and all that..."
Alcohol Was Involved
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:26:17
Production and exports of Mexico's most famous liquor reached record levels in the first half of the year, according to the tequila industry's regulatory council...
Preternatural Patterns
urantia.org/ ... 12:14:37
As the swine herders rushed into the village to spread the news of the taming of the lunatic, the dogs charged upon a small and untended herd of about thirty swine and drove most of them over a precipice into the sea. And it was this incidental occurrence, in connection with the presence of Jesus and the supposed miraculous curing of the lunatic, that gave origin to the legend that Jesus had cured Amos by casting a legion of devils out of him, and that these devils had entered into the herd of swine, causing them forthwith to rush headlong to their destruction in the sea below...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 12:09:57
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff... 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned...
[No reports of chasing dogs
or
evicted demons in the vicinity....]
Only Natural
ap.tbo.com/ ... 18:38:56
Hurricane Dennis lashed Cuba on its way to the Gulf of Mexico and the United States Friday, killing at least 10 people as it sliced across the Caribbean's largest island with torrential rains and 135 mph (215 kph) winds and forced thousands to flee the Florida Keys... Another five people were earlier reported killed in Haiti...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:39:12
A bridge collapsed into a river swollen by Hurricane Dennis' fierce winds and rain, killing at least four people in southwestern Haiti on Thursday as the storm lashed Caribbean coastlines...
Disturbing Family Patterns
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:26:41
A California woman is suing a hospital for wrongful death because her husband fainted and suffered a fatal injury after helping delivery room staff give her a pain-killing injection...
Transport Tragedy
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:25:20
A melon... rolled under the truck's brake pedal and the vehicle overturned as the driver tried to unjam it... killing one person and injuring 30... The overloaded truck, which crashed Wednesday, was carrying workers, fruits and vegetables from a local market in the remote and hilly northeastern province of Mondulkiri...
Violence
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:34:58
The picture of 7/7: Steve Thornhill caught the moment of the bus blast in Tavistock Square...
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:24:01
Rescue workers inched through dangerous rail tunnels deep under London on Friday to hunt for clues and retrieve bodies... 700 wounded, with 22 still critical... Fears of more attacks and false alarms kept commuters and financial markets jittery, while authorities worldwide went on alert following threats to countries which, like Britain, have troops in Iraq... the wounded were from countries including Australia, China, Poland, Portugal and Sierra Leone...
"No one's going to stop me going where I want to go in my own city," said shop worker Stuart Mills, 27. "You know what British people are like. They'll just carry on..."
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:17:30
Forty-nine people are so far confirmed dead, but head of the Metropolitan Police Sir Ian Blair said an unknown number of bodies remain in the blast-hit Tube train at Russell Square. The police had an "implacable resolve" to track down those responsible for the bombings, the Met Commissioner said... "absolutely nothing" to suggest that this was the work of a suicide bomber or "to rule it out..." transport returning to a near-normal service on the Tube...
Queen: "They will not change our way of life..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:40:10
BALTIMORE - Hours after he was fired, a disgruntled employee returned to his suburban office building Thursday afternoon and fired shots through the window of his supervisor's office before apparently taking his own life... No one else was injured in the shooting...
THU 2005-JUL-07
Transport
washingtonpost.com/ ... 18:45:36
Some 35 people trapped when the Washington Monument's elevator stalled about 120 feet into the ride on Thursday were freed by rescuers and walked down to the ground...
Sex can be Dangerous
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:42:15
Chinese are more ignorant about sex than any other subject... "In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters but many grown-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful..."
Culture
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:42:56
A Canadian woman was trampled and a bull lost its horn as hundreds of daredevils hurtled through Pamplona with six half-ton bulls in pursuit at the first full day of Spain's San Fermin fiesta Thursday...
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:42:36
virtuoso didgeridoo playing involves tricky breathing and a certain way of opening the vocal tract...
159.54.227.3/ ... 12:41:12
And a little cartoon already has stolen some thunder from Mr. Fantastic and company. "The Incredibles," which won an Oscar last month for best animated film and raked in $259 million, was a thinly veiled parody of the comic book. "Fantastic Four" filmmakers concede they had to alter their movie, even cutting one scene that was too similar to one in "The Incredibles..."
rogerebert.suntimes.com/ ... 12:30:55
Ebert: By this point in the review, are you growing a little restless? What am I gonna do, list names and actors and superpowers and nicknames forever? That's how the movie feels... how could I be amazed by a movie that makes its own characters so indifferent about themselves?.. Are these people complete idiots? The entire nature of their existence has radically changed, and they're about as excited as if they got a makeover on "Oprah..." the really good superhero movies, like "Superman," "SpiderMan 2" and "Batman Begins," leave "Fantastic Four" so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters...
nydailynews.com/ ... 12:25:05
cast has no chemistry or charisma... Gruffudd has no screen presence, no comic timing and absolutely no heroic qualities...
newsday.com/ ... 12:23:12
Sad, then, to see that the Marvel rag that elevated the human element in the pow-biff-bam of the superhero world has been transposed into the most plastic of comic-to-movie adaptations yet...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 18:54:46
Army Pvt.
Anthony M. Mazzarella
, 22, of Blue Springs, Mo., died July 5, in Taji, Iraq, when the HMMWV in which he was riding accidentally rolled over.
defenselink.mil/ ... 18:54:06
Army Spc.
Christopher W. Dickison
, 26, of Seattle, Wa., died July 5, in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol.
defenselink.mil/ ... 18:53:33
Army Staff Sgt.
Scottie L. Bright
, 36, of Montgomery, Ala.
Army Cpl.
Lyle J. Cambridge
, 23, of Shiprock, N.M.
died on July 5, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV during patrol operations.
Only Natural
livescience.com/ ... 18:45:03
A newfound deep-sea relative of the jellyfish flashes glowing red lights on twitching, stinging tentacles to lure fish to their deaths more than a mile below the surface...
US Military
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:13:03
A routine mission for a small unit of US troops based here turned into a fight for their lives when they came up against a group of suspected Taleban militants along the border with Pakistan...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:13:36
Challenge to 'don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy to Be Heard in Boston...
Threats
nydailynews.com/ ... 18:45:22
The Federal Department of Homeland Security released gas in Grand Central Terminal last month in a secret study of how dangerous chemicals might flow through the landmark in a terrorist attack...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
worldtribune.com/ ... 15:30:27
Lee received a hero's welcome and, sure enough, Pyongyang made a film on Lee's "heroic struggle for the motherland" in South Korean prisons and made sure all North Koreans saw it. However, the movie caused many North Koreans to become curious about South Korean society. Many North Korean defectors said their first reaction upon seeing the film was to ask how people could stay in prison for more than 10 years and remain alive? They say few people survive even three years in North Korean political prisons. Being fed three regular meals a day is utterly unimaginable...
Violence
legendgames.net/ ... 23:41:34
Terrorists realize they cannot and will not physically kill all of us infidels. That is strategically and realistically impossible. They can, however, change the hearts and minds of the timid and weak, and this is where and how the terrorists wage their war...
news.scotsman.com/ ... 23:32:14
"[These attacks are] not an attack on one nation, but on all nations" - Statment of the G8 leaders...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:31:59
BRITAIN stood united last night in defiance of the bomb attacks which killed at least 52 people and left 700 injured... the worst terrorist attack in mainland Britain... The United Nations Security Council condemned the attack without reservation...
news.scotsman.com/ ... 23:30:45
One passenger on the bus said he saw an "agitated" man rummaging in a bag seconds before the blast tore off the bus roof and peeled back the sides like a sardine can...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:29:49
Bush: The contrast couldnt be clearer between the hearts of those of us who care about human rights and human liberty and those who kill. The war on terror goes on.
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 23:27:48
There was no panic, especially when people realised they were OK. Everyone then bonded together and helped each other. Then we got out and saw the second carriage. There was blood and stuff everywhere; it wasnt pretty....
apnews.myway.com/ ... 18:44:37
The United States put its subways, buses and commuter trains on high alert after the rush-hour London bombings, moving to code orange for mass transit amid concern about a possible "copycat attack" by terrorists... authorities had no evidence of a "specific, credible threat" against the United States...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 18:44:08
killed more than 30 people and injured about 700 others... Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the bombings had "the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda-related attack"... Blair: "They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do..."
washingtonpost.com/ ... 18:42:04
British investigators face the daunting task of scrutinizing hours of closed circuit television footage, sifting through tons of wreckage and analyzing tiny traces of explosives to find those responsible for Thursday's deadly explosions in London. Time may not be on their side. Three weeks after bombs struck four Madrid commuter trains last year, police found some of the plotters in a safe house with more explosives, apparently planning fresh attacks. "There is real passion now in the police to make arrests quickly before further attacks can be carried out..."
legendgames.net/ ... 15:55:29
Blogger Sammy Larbi: The third blast occurred at 9:17 on another Underground train near the Edgware Road Tube Station, killing at least five and affecting three trains. No one is reporting it, but this explosion happened in the part of town with a concentrated Arab population. At least one Londoner suspects the bomb went off at the wrong time in the wrong place. I suspect Islamist terrorists are indiscriminate in who they kill...
legendgames.net/ ... 15:54:49
Blogger Andrew Ian Dodge: Both our mobiles and the phone network is down so you cannot get in touch with anyone here. Alas, I am not surprised the terrorist scumbags have hit London; I do rather hope that their apologists keep their council and keep quiet now... Sky & the BBC are overloaded... BBC is reporting an Islamist website(s) are claiming responsability for this and gloating. Police have confirmed bus was blown up by a suicide bomber. There are also reports that Muslims should stay inside in order to cut down on the risk of retaliatory attacks. Police are reporting at least 7 bombs: 6 on the tube and one on a bus...
flickr.com/ ... 15:52:17
London bomb blast pictures at flickr.com
instapunk.com/ ... 15:49:29
London bombing in pictures at instapunk.com
command-post.org/ ... 15:48:17
London: Blogs with live coverage and ongoing updates
command-post.org/ ... 15:47:44
Command Post on London bombing
en.wikipedia.org/ ... 15:45:35
Wikipedia: 7 July 2005 London bombings
abcnews.go.com/ ... 15:45:16
U.S. authorities tell ABC News that British police have recovered two unexploded bombs from the scene of the terror attacks in London... parts of timing devices have been recovered from the blast scene...
dailymail.co.uk/ ... 15:28:55
Mr Giuliani, who led the Big Apple through the devastating attacks, said he was only yards away from the first explosion this morning, while on a visit to London...
foxnews.com/ ... 12:33:58
CHARLES CITY, Iowa... A young girl found dead in a river is believed to be a 5-year-old whose disappearance last week prompted a frantic search... contrary to earlier reports, no arrests had been made and the investigation was continuing... The grandfather... "She was murdered and her body was put in the river.. She was not drowned..."
newsday.com/ ... 12:16:46
The kidnapping of Egypt's top diplomat in Iraq highlights a shift in tactics for insurgents: They're not just trying to sow chaos, they're also seeking to undermine Iraqi government efforts to build ties with other Arab countries...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:16:08
"We shall prevail and they shall not,"
declared the Group of Eight leaders and the heads of five developing nations meeting with them here...
"
We will not yield to these people,
" President Bush said minutes later...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 12:15:20
Buses were turned into ambulances. An emergency medical station was set up at a hotel. Rescue workers, police and ordinary people streamed into the streets to help... "Yesterday we were quite glad that we got the Olympic bid.. Today we are wondering if it was worth it..."
"I think we just have to go on about our business,"
said Richard Bomar, a tourist from Louisville, Kentucky. "I'm just not afraid. I'm not going to let it affect me." Taxi driver Steve Green said that despite the carnage,
"people are getting on with it. It's marvelous that they're showing their backbone."
"The thing is, with us Londoners, we're used to the IRA. We don't know anything else. You don't like it, but you learn to deal with it..."
today.reuters.com/ ... 12:12:49
The world recoiled in shock on Thursday after bombs tore through London's transport system killing at least 33 people in a coordinated rush-hour attack...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:12:33
European governments have united in condemning the string of London attacks, as some stepped up security levels in their own countries...
news.yahoo.com/ ... 12:12:22
British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city... Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead...
cbsnews.com/ ... 12:11:14
When explosions rocked London's transit system, the reaction in Washington, D.C., showed how the world has changed since 9-11...
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 12:10:40
It is impossible to know whether the claim of responsibility made on the internet is genuine, unless the group offers some proof that it was responsible. Far more telling are the facts emerging from the bombings, which have all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack and are similar to the deadly rush-hour bombings by al-Qaeda terrorists against commuters in Madrid last year...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:09:40
A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network has killed more than 30 people and injured about 350 others. Three explosions on the Underground left 33 dead and an unknown number died in a blast on a double-decker bus... An Islamist website has posted a statement - purportedly from al-Qaeda - claiming it was behind the attacks... All London Underground services have been suspended until at least Friday...
sify.com/ ... 12:08:45
In the
bloodiest terror attack in London in three decades
, suspected Islamic militants on Thursday carried out coordinated blasts in underground stations and a bus killing more than 33 people and injuring nearly 300 of which 45 were serious. Sky television, however, said at least 45 people were killed in the explosions...
rferl.org/ ... 01:17:20
Reports from Iraq say at least 11 people have been killed and 19 others injured in the explosion of two car bombs in Jbala, near Hilla south of Baghdad...
Under Digital Tyranny
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:12:45
European politicians have thrown out a controversial bill that could have led to software being patented...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 01:12:27
A 22-year-old man has become the first person in the UK to be convicted for modifying a video games console... The man had been selling modified Xbox consoles which he fitted with a big hard drive containing 80 games. "This case sets a major precedent which marks a milestone in the fight against piracy," said games industry spokesman Michael Rawlinson...
Under Tyranny
ap.tbo.com/ ... 00:12:58
Scientists Wednesday began studying the 9,300-year-old remains of Kennewick Man, one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America...
Legislation also remains under consideration in the Senate that would allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe...
WED 2005-JUL-06
Lasting Contributions
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:47:59
Ernest Lehman, a six-time Oscar nominee whose screenwriting and production credits include such classics as "North by Northwest," "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music," died Saturday. He was 89...
Business Wisdom
cfo.com/ ... 11:49:04
The story of Krispy Kreme's troubles is, at bottom, a case study of how not to grow a franchise. According to one count, there are at least 2,300 franchised businesses in the United States, and many are extremely successful. But there are pitfalls in the franchise model, and Krispy Kreme through a combination of ambition, greed, and inexperience managed to stumble into most of them...
Why People Go Vegan
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:11:18
Hundreds of protesters, some wearing just thongs and plastic bull horns, marched through Pamplona Tuesday to protest against the centuries-old running of the bulls...
Theory of Education
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:11:00
South Korean high school students may be allowed to let their hair down after a government body said regulations which led some teachers to forcibly cut their hair were an infringement...
Yuck!
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:10:18
Singing with a mouthful of chicken salad is OK, but spitting out soda is not -- at least according to British ad watchdogs...
Alcohol Was Involved
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:10:01
Alcohol has been banned in two small Australian Aboriginal communities to stop young people from a nearby alcohol-free township from risking their lives by swimming a crocodile-infested river to get a drink...
Transport
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:10:36
Chinese scientists have developed remote-controlled model planes that can screech bird calls and emit bright, flashing lights to scare wild birds away from airports...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:08:28
A German pilot and driver escaped unhurt when a one-seater plane landed on top of a speeding car at a little-used airport... The driver was racing at 160 kph (100 mph) with 11 other members of a local Porsche club at the airport... when the single-engine plane accidentally landed on his roof. The shocked driver slammed on the brakes, sending the plane crashing to the ground... "The airplane managed to stay steady on the roof at first.. They probably couldn't have done it that well if they had tried..."
Nixon Era - less with us
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:58:24
L. Patrick Gray, whose brief stint as acting FBI director was marked by the Watergate break-in and the ensuing scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, has died. He was 88...
US Judicial Branch
drudgereport.com/ ... 10:52:24
Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer... was overheard on a long cellphone conversation with an unknown political ally... plotting Democrat strategy for the upcoming Supreme Court battle... "We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this..."
Human Right
mtv.com/ ... 18:18:14
The United Church of Christ, which includes 1.3 million members, on Monday became the largest Christian denomination in the U.S. to endorse same-sex marriage...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:46:31
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
Danny P. Dietz
, 25, of Littleton, Colo.
Navy Lt.
Michael P. Murphy
, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y.
died while conducting counter-terrorism operations in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Coalition forces located the service members while conducting a combat search and rescue operation July 4 in Kunar Province. Both sailors whereabouts had been unknown since June 28.
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 12:37:11
This week, the Army and Marine Corps announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in support of the partial mobilization, while the Air Force and Navy numbers decreased. The Coast Guard remained the same. The net collective result is 9,154 fewer reservists mobilized than last week...
Science Marches Onnnnnn
sciencemag.org/ ... 11:44:40
25 big questions facing science over the next quarter-century...
sfgate.com/ ... 11:39:12
now a 5-month-old daughter who is something of a first in the brave new world of baby-making. As a two-celled embryo, Laina spent the last 13 years in a state of suspended animation, frozen in liquid nitrogen. That is longer than any other documented case where a frozen embryo has resulted in a healthy baby...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:56:39
After a legal battle that lasted nearly eight years, scientists will finally get to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man...
Extra Super Terristri Natural
legendgames.net/ ... 00:04:07
Only three months earlier, Mr. Kryposki had paid International Star Registry $54 for naming rights to that same comet. At Mr' Kryposki's request, the registry, a division of the Intergalactic Planetary Inventory Agency of Leonardville, KY, assigned the name Christine Belbarger to the ill-fated fiery orb... "How can something like this happen? Doesn't NASA check with the IPIA before they pull a stunt like this? I'll tell you, heads are going to roll for this one. NASA plays shooting gallery and I'm stuck with a seriously damaged comet....
World Without Borders
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ ... 10:50:27
Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama turned 70 Wednesday, with Tibetans braving heavy rains to turn out in large numbers to wish him here...
legendgames.net/ ... 00:02:17
Chinese And Russian Presidents Warn Against World Domination... In a related story, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) warned Americans not to Drink and Drive over the Fourth of July Holiday Weekend...
Prison Sucks
editorandpublisher.com/ ... 20:42:51
New York Times' reporter Judith Miller... was seen entering the Alexandria (Va.) Detention Center. The Virginia facility's best-known resident is convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui... According to the Web site of the city's sheriff's department, the Center's management is based upon "New Generation" jail philosophy, which it describes as "a more modern and humane approach over traditional linear-style institution. New Generation philosophy is a combination of management style and architectural design which facilitates increased staff and inmates contact and works to reduce tension and improve security within the correctional setting..."
Don't Give Them Ideas
earthtimes.org/ ... 18:21:56
A Congressional Research Service report, which studied data from the Environmental Protection Agency, has said that there are about 100 factories in 23 states storing poisonous chemicals, including those that can cause serious lung damage, near localities that house a minimum of a million people. The fact makes these factories a vulnerable target for terrorists. The report, however, has not mentioned the name of these facilities, which include chemical manufacturing plants and oil refineries...
Under Tyranny
legendgames.net/ ... 21:16:54
As if things weren't bad enough for Suzette Kelo after the Supreme Court ruled that her city government could take her house and give it to a corporation, we now learn that she's going to be abused on compensation as well. Since the city of New London has technically owned the property since they invoked eminent domain in 2000, they will only pay Ms. Kelo based on the 2000 value of the property... and, the city's lawyers.. also claim that Ms. Kelo and her neighbors have been living in a house owned by the city for several years and that the city might hold them liable for rent money!..
cbc.ca/ ... 18:20:11
Myanmar's military junta has reportedly released 249 of its more than 1,300 political prisoners...
Threats
foxnews.com/ ... 20:59:57
The biggest problems facing the fledgling democracy in Iraq is attention deficit disorder from the American public and the international community, and the relentless hatchet jobs emanating from some Western media and policy pundits...
alertnet.org/ ... 16:58:43
The American military is holding five U.S. citizens, apparently including a Los Angeles filmmaker, among more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq on suspicion of possible terrorist or other criminal activity...
Sex can be Dangerous
foxnews.com/ ... 20:51:12
Jerome Mason, 23, six feet tall and 200 pounds, was charged with indecent exposure after going topless on a city street early in the morning of April 22... argued defense attorney Michael Welsh "It's not illegal for a man to expose his breasts.. It's also not even technically illegal for a woman to expose her breasts [in public]."
nynewsday.com/ ... 20:44:08
A Staten Island coach and community figure has been arrested on charges of spanking teenage boys if they missed their basketball shots...
ananova.com/ ... 11:41:02
A German woman, aged 83, has divorced her 81-year-old husband after 60 years of marriage because he was caught having sex with his mistress at work...
Theft
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:09:34
An illiterate Chinese man who spent just 20 days in school passed himself off as top government leaders on the phone and swindled his partner out of nearly 14 million yuan ($1.7 million)...
Digital Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:46:23
A
security flaw
in the popular document-sharing software,
Adobe Reader
, could be exploited to seize control of a computer system... only the Adobe Reader versions 5.0.9, 5.0.10, which were written for the Unix computer operating system...
[Still required opening an email attachment...!]
news.yahoo.com/ ... 20:43:51
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice... people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or are unsure how to do so...
volunteertv.com/ ... 11:40:09
The sister of a Memphis murder victim says the killer or killers got away because a vehicle tracking service wouldn't cooperate with police...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:07:00
A "talking" wine label could soon tell consumers in Italy everything they want to know about a particular bottle -- from its production history to the kind of food it should accompany... The new "label" would consist of a chip implanted in the bottle that could be listened to with a small device about the size of a cigarette package in the wine shop or the restaurant...
web.mid-day.com/ ... 00:16:04
A German youth has admitted to creating the Sasser computer virus during the first day of his trial...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 20:46:36
A bomb exploded in a shopping mall in northeastern China, injuring 47 people but causing no deaths...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:57:55
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A homeless ex-convict accused of killing a 56-year-old woman in a parking garage near a suburban mall told police that he was fighting a race war and killed her because she was white...
foxnews.com/ ... 00:19:14
The National Counter-Terrorism Center counted 3,192 terrorism incidents in 2004... That's about five times as many incidents as the 651 counted using a different measure for the year... The information, updated to include data tracked until Tuesday, reveal that nearly 29,000 people were affected by terror they were either killed, injured or kidnapped. Nineteen percent of the attacks were committed by Islamic extremists... incidents in Iraq accounted for 27 percent... including five of the 10 largest... more analysts are counting the attacks and the criteria for what constitutes an attack has broadened. The different methodology for counting events makes comparison of prior records-keeping impossible...
paktribune.com/ ... 00:16:55
The US military admitted killing civilians in an air strike in eastern Afghanistan last week and a provincial governor said 17 villagers including women and children had died... "Coalition forces deeply regret the loss of innocent lives and are investigating the incident to prevent future occurrences..."
washingtonpost.com/ ... 00:13:13
Six men thought to be Islamic radicals stormed a disputed temple complex that is the main flash point for Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, and five of them died in a gun battle with police... The sixth man apparently blew himself up...
Natural Threat
local6.com/ ... 17:02:01
A lifeguard in Santa Barbara, Calif., is recovering Wednesday after being
attacked by a sea lion
in the waters off El Capitan State Beach... bitten three times Monday while he swam about 50 yards offshore... needed about 30 stitches after the attack...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:59:08
Researchers in South Africa and Australia have started work on an electric shield to protect swimmers from shark attacks. The shields emit an electric signal, which sharks do not like, so keeping them away from beaches...
azcentral.com/ ... 11:38:23
French and South African researchers have apparently found that male circumcision reduces by about 70 percent the risk that men will contract HIV through intercourse with infected women... The circumcision findings were so dramatic that the data and safety monitoring board overseeing the research halted the study in February, about nine months before it would have been completed, on the grounds that it would be immoral to proceed without offering the uncircumcised control group the opportunity to undergo the procedure...
today.reuters.com/ ... 11:06:22
LONDON - A teenage sleepwalker was rescued after being found fast asleep 130 feet up on the arm of a crane...
thejakartapost.com/ ... 00:19:33
JAKARTA: Another 11 cases of polio were confirmed on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 111...
suntimes.com/ ... 00:00:06
A zoo keeper was bitten on the back by a gorilla Tuesday at the Lincoln Park Zoo and was being treated for her injuries at a nearby hospital...
TUE 2005-JUL-05
Yuck!
realcities.com/ ... 19:28:11
Applebee's International Inc. says an internal investigation has discovered that a former employee at a Jefferson, La., restaurant cut the tip off his thumb a year ago and that likely is the fingertip found by a customer now suing the restaurant chain...
Independence Day 2005
local6.com/ ... 19:25:03
Several spectators in Florida were burned when a wayward rocket from an annual July Fourth fireworks display veered off course from a city pier and exploded in a crowd of people on a nearby beach, according to a Local 6 News report... six or seven spectators were treated for minor burns at the scene...
Extra Super Terristri Natural
apnews.myway.com/ ... 17:35:02
Marina Bai has sued the U.S. space agency, claiming the Deep Impact probe that punched a crater into the comet Tempel 1 late Sunday "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe..."
Preternatural Patterns
info.mgnetwork.com/ ... 17:32:28
ST. CLOUD, Minn. - A teen charged with killing two high school students was angry about being teased about his acne...
Whoops!
today.reuters.com/ ... 17:30:48
German thief.. photographing himself at the scene of a crime.. accidentally leaving the pictures for police to discover...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:32:13
Army Staff Sgt.
Jeremy A. Brown
, 26, of Mabscott, W.Va., died July 3 in Mosul Iraq, from injuries sustained earlier that day in Tal Afar, Iraq, where the HMMWV in which he was riding accidentally rolled over.
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:31:47
Army Sgt.
Chad M. Mercer
, 25, of Waycross, Ga., died June 30 in Baghdad, Iraq, where his M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over while conducting combat operations.
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:31:28
Army Spc.
Rafael A. Carrillo, Jr.
, 21, of Boys Ranch, Texas, died June 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, where an enemy mortar detonated near his HMMWV...
Only Natural
apnews.myway.com/ ... 17:37:17
Australian researchers said Tuesday they have identified a new species of dolphin living in the coastal waters of northern Australia. The Australian Snubfin Dolphin, which is related to Irrawaddy dolphins found along the coasts and major rivers of Asia and northern Australia, was formally identified as a new species thanks to genetic research carried out in California..
US Military
defenselink.mil/ ... 19:33:24
Retired Navy Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, Medal of Honor recipient, former Viet Nam prisoner of war (POW), naval aviator and test pilot, academic, and American hero died today, July 5, 2005, at his home in Coronado, Calif. He was 81 years old and had been battling Alzheimers disease... best remembered for his extraordinary leadership as the senior naval officer held in captivity during the Vietnam War. As commanding officer of Carrier Air Group Sixteen flying from the aircraft carrier the USS Oriskany, he was shot down while leading a mission Sept. 9, 1965. During his 7½-year imprisonment, he was tortured numerous times, forced to wear vise-like heavy leg irons for two years and spent four years in solitary confinement. While imprisoned, he organized the prisoner culture in defiance of regulations forbidding prisoner communication and improvised a cohesive set of rules governing prisoner behavior...
palmbeachpost.com/ ... 17:36:24
Map of US locating service men & women who have died in Iraq & Afghanistan
Future is Now
newscientist.com/ ... 17:33:49
Life-saving breast examinations could soon be performed by a robotic hand that combines ultrasound with an artificial sense of touch...
Sex can be Dangerous
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 19:34:48
AN IMPOTENT husband who encouraged his wife to sleep with other men stabbed her to death when she told him that she was leaving for a lover 30 years her junior... sentenced yesterday to six years imprisonment after a judge at Plymouth Crown Court accepted his plea of guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility...
Rebuilding
guardian.co.uk/ ... 19:26:00
Coca-Cola has returned to Iraq after an absence of nearly four decades, triggering a cola war in a lucrative but potentially hostile market...
Violence
cbc.ca/ ... 17:37:42
The top envoys of Bahrain and Pakistan were attacked in Baghdad on Tuesday, taking the number of assaults on diplomats in Iraq to three in one week...
Police Riot
chron.com/ ... 17:35:34
A San Marcos man was arrested after rescuing a swimmer from the swirling waters near a restaurant on the San Marcos River over the weekend...
MON 2005-JUL-04
Digital Consequences
google.com/ ... 15:08:56
When you Google on
"Google"
, you get about 255,000,000 results....
news.scotsman.com/ ... 10:43:53
IN THE latest embarrassing e-mail chain to leak out of the corporate world, it seems a team of London accountants spent more than four hours debating what to do about a fly buzzing around their office...
Preternatural Patterns
telegraph.co.uk/ ... 18:07:05
A vampire has been arrested in Ukraine after luring street children into her home for their blood... "I let them sniff glue, but I paid for it and took a small amount of blood in return," she said. "But there was no violence involved, I also fed them and gave them shelter." Police fear that she could escape prosecution for corrupting minors and plying them with alcohol because the seven children found at her home have since escaped from care and gone back on the streets...
sfgate.com/ ... 10:36:50
A dozen anti-war activists from Mendocino County took their tops off at high noon in San Francisco's Union Square shopping district Thursday, using what they said was their best weapon to get the public's attention. Within seconds, a motorized cable car packed with tourists stopped in front of Macy's so the out-of-towners could get a better look. "Whoa, get out your cameras and cover your children's eyes," said the driver. "Remember, folks, this is San Francisco," he said. "We let it all hang out here..."
Theory of Education
washingtonpost.com/ ... 10:18:55
"There's an impression that teachers are dressing more and more _ well, the good term for it would be 'relaxed,'" said Bill Scharffe, director of bylaws and policy services for the Michigan Association of School Boards. "Another term for it would be 'sloppy.'..."
Modern Family Life
suntimes.com/ ... 00:21:23
Boomers shun tags of 'Grandma,' 'Grandpa'... what experts are calling a growing trend of grandparents ditching "Grandma" and "Grandpa" for younger-sounding, less-conventional titles...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 23:16:42
Army Spc.
Ryan J. Montgomery
, 22, of Greensburg, Ky., died July 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV while his unit was conducting convoy operations...
World Without Borders
forbes.com/ ... 22:55:25
US President George W Bush has described the Kyoto Protocol as a 'lousy deal' for the US economy...
legendgames.net/ ... 18:01:59
It is past time that we all, all the developed nations look at the way we attempt to deliver aid to the common people who in effect pay the highest price when the aid is diverted. Either we do it right, or just back away totally. I am, as I believe many are, sick of seeing how many are killed in these Humanitarian missions and seeing how little is actually accomplished. If the raiding troops loose 200 to 500 troops per ton of goods, then maybe the thought of raiding the humanitarian workers would not seem so profitable?..
news.yahoo.com/ ... 17:16:18
Muammar Gaddafi underlined his maverick reputation Monday by telling African leaders their people's woes would be solved by creating a borderless continent with a single passport... Asking for foreign aid would lead to humiliating failure, he said...
Transport Future
cnn.com/ ... 17:15:58
An eco-car that can travel the world using a fraction of the electricity it takes to power a light bulb, has been unveiled by its British creators...
Only Natural
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 10:31:22
A famous European surfing beach has mysteriously lost its waves, to the consternation of locals and dismay of surfers, who fear that a "wonder of the world" has vanished forever... The Basque government has dispatched scientists and academics to find a solution. The wave's disappearance is a huge blow to surfing's World Championship Tour, which must now find a way of bringing the wave back before Mundaka hosts a competition that attracts 10,000 surfers...
Extraterrestrial
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 23:01:16
The collision of a probe from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft with comet Tempel 1
blew a plume of debris thousands of miles into space,
providing a spectacular first glimpse of the insides of a comet...
radio.com.pl/ ... 10:42:23
A UFO festival has kicked off in Wylatowo, a picturesque village in mid-northern Poland, where mysterious crop circles have been appearing in grain fields since the year 2000...
femalefirst.co.uk/ ... 10:41:59
Oscar-winning director STEVEN SPIELBERG is baffled that fewer UFO sightings are made now than were made twenty years ago - because the technology to record would-be aliens is so commonplace today...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:19:39
The washing machine-sized "impactor" collided with Comet Tempel 1 at a relative speed of 37,000km/h, throwing up a huge plume of icy debris... "We hit it just exactly where we wanted to...The impact was bigger than I expected, and bigger than most of us expected. We've got all the data we could possibly ask for..."
Digital Family Patterns
suntimes.com/ ... 00:13:32
A U.S. Marine in Iraq was able to view doctors displaying his newborn daughter via the Internet soon after her birth Friday at a suburban Detroit hospital...
US Military
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:17:08
Two of the three US special forces soldiers missing in eastern Afghanistan for almost a week have been found dead, US government sources tell the BBC... The whereabouts of the other team member remains unclear, while a fourth soldier was found alive on Saturday...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:25:23
A member of a missing elite U.S. military team has been wounded and taken shelter in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan... "He is in a civilian's house. He is injured..."
suntimes.com/ ... 00:11:27
The war death rate of Hispanics now is second only to that of whites. That casualty rate is surprising since the official record for Hispanic deaths in all modern wars after World War II has been 1 percent or less. In Vietnam, the Defense Department recorded zero Hispanic deaths...
Digital Threat
suntimes.com/ ... 23:15:00
Bending the elbow for extended periods puts pressure on the ulnar nerve. Commonly called the funny bone, this nerve passes close to the surface at the elbow. Symptoms of
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-elbow04.html...
include numbness and tingling in the ring and small finger, elbow pain, burning or pain along the forearm and hand weakness that can make it difficult to type, write or button a shirt...
Digital Family Patterns
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:58:12
An 11-year-old boy stabbed his baby nephew in the stomach after the infant's crying disrupted his PlayStation game...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
news.yahoo.com/ ... 10:36:18
Michael Moore urged a federal judge Friday to dismiss a libel lawsuit against the documentary filmmaker filed by the brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols... Among the items in question in Nichols' lawsuit are Moore's use of the term "practice bombs" in the movie to refer to explosives the Nichols brothers and McVeigh made on a farm prior to the Oklahoma City bombing... James Nichols also claims that Moore incorrectly stated he had been arrested in connection with the bombing. McIntyre said Moore knew James Nichols was only held as a material witness... McIntyre also took issue with a phrase in the film that alleges federal agents couldn't get "the goods" on James Nichols, so they dropped the charges against him...
OKC Bombing -- still with us
udel.edu/ ... 10:45:13
Asperger Syndrome or (Asperger's Disorder) is a neurobiological disorder named for a Viennese physician, Hans Asperger, who in 1944 published a paper which described a pattern of behaviors in several young boys who had normal intelligence and language development, but who also exhibited autistic-like behaviors and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills... Individuals with AS can exhibit a variety of characteristics and the disorder can range from mild to severe. Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills, have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest. They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language) and very often the individual with AS has difficulty determining proper body space. Often overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells, and sights, the person with AS may prefer soft clothing, certain foods, and be bothered by sounds or lights no one else seems to hear or see. It's important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently. Therefore, many behaviors that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behavior, and most certainly not the result of "improper parenting"...
chron.com/ ... 10:33:51
Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols has been meeting with the FBI and has revealed additional details about his involvement in the 1995 attack that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building, his mother said today... she believes others were involved in the bombing and that the FBI is hiding it... Wilt contends her son suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that allowed him to be easily manipulated by others... She said her son didn't know what McVeigh planned to do with the bomb. "He didn't ask. People with that type of syndrome don't do that," Wilt said. "When you ask him to do something, he just does it..."
Supernatural Threats
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 10:29:57
HUNDREDS of Church of England clergy doubt the existence of God and fewer than two thirds believe in miracles...
People Die
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:19:55
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A 20-year-old woman died in a bungee jumping accident when the belt securing her to the cord broke and she fell 50 meters...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:23:06
KISSIMMEE, Fla. - A 7-year-old boy vacationing with his family drowned in a hotel pool and remained unnoticed for a couple of hours as deputies and others searched for him... A tourist wearing goggles found the boy at the bottom of the 8-foot-deep pool at the Howard Johnson's Enchanted Land Resort... "The 7-year-old was very anxious to go swimming, so he took off ahead of his family and he went to the pool first... By the time the family got down to the pool, they did not see him... If you were standing at the side of the pool, you would not have seen him, either..."
Violence
suntimes.com/ ... 23:16:09
A man whose vehicle struck a toddler wound up being treated by the ambulance crew sent for her because bystanders beat him after the accident... the 2- or 3-year-old child apparently ran out into the street... "There were no citations issued," said Officer Laura Kubiak of News Affairs. "He did strike the baby, but the baby ran out into the street.''...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 22:57:45
Two Surinamese brothers who have been held for nearly a month in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba were ordered freed today by a local judge...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ ... 22:54:54
Authorities said Monday they found human remains during their search for a missing 9-year-old boy whose sister was found days earlier at a Denny's restaurant with a registered sex offender... found in western Montana.. did not say whether the remains were believed to be those of Dylan Groene... With Duncan refusing to talk, authorities have been relying on statements from Shasta, physical evidence in Duncan's Jeep and tips from the public...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:19:32
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Stray bullets fired in shootouts between police and suspected drug gangs killed a child and an elderly man who were bystanders in the city's biggest shantytowns...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 17:19:11
APOPKA, Fla. - As police waited outside, a gunman who held a woman hostage and told police to call backup apparently shot the woman and himself... a hardworking single mother. Her sons were with a relative during the weekend... "She moved from a bad neighborhood to give her kids a better life... It was all about her family, all about her boys. It really, really hits. It's so close to home..."
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:24:02
The militant Hezbollah group acknowledged on Monday that one its guerrillas was killed in last week's clashes with Israeli troops in a disputed part of the south Lebanon border...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:20:52
The air strike by US forces in eastern Afghanistan last week killed 17 civilians including women and children, a provincial governor has said... Assadullah Wafa, governor of Konar province, said the bombing was a "mistake" and called for a US inquiry...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:20:19
A Syrian security officer has died in a shootout with an armed group that includes former bodyguards of Iraq's ex-leader Saddam Hussein... early in the morning on Mount Qassioun, which overlooks Damascus... Two members of the group are said to have been arrested in the fighting, in which four policemen were also hurt...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 10:14:16
U.S. and Iraqi forces raided suspected insurgent safe houses near Baghdad International Airport on Monday, arresting at least 100 suspected militants, including foreign fighters...
suntimes.com/ ... 00:16:03
What emerges from 278 pages of the newly released documents is the
degree of defiance by the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo...
SUN 2005-JUL-03
Digital Culture
newsday.com/ ... 23:48:50
Two teenagers were under arrest Sunday on suspicion of killing another teen for his iPod...
news.webindia123.com/ ... 23:48:05
Two-thirds of U.S. college students see nothing unethical about downloading digital copyrighted files without paying... 45 percent of students are using campus networks for downloading activities...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 23:47:29
Television seemed shockingly old-fashioned during Saturday's worldwide concert for poverty relief. AOL's coverage was so superior, it may one day serve as a historical marker in drawing people to computers instead of TV screens for big events...
time.com/ ... 10:57:55
Time Magazine's idea of the 50 Coolest Websites 2005
Culture
contactmusic.com/ ... 10:47:36
The BBC has apologised to outraged viewers after stars including MADONNA and SNOOP DOGG peppered their performances with swear words at yesterday's UK Live 8 gig...
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 02:04:23
Scott R. Taylor, a local singer/songwriter, will perform from 7 - 9:30 p.m. Sunday during Bartlesville Freedom Fest hosted by the Downtown Kiwanis Club at Washinbgton Park Mall...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 11:35:25
Army Staff Sgt.
Shamus O. Goare
, 29, of Danville, Ohio.
Army Chief Warrant Officer
Corey J. Goodnature
, 35, of Clarks Grove, Minn.
Army Sgt.
Kip A. Jacoby
, 21, of Pompano Beach, Fla.
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Marcus V. Muralles
, 33, of Shelbyville, Ind.
Army Sgt.
James W. Ponder III
, 36, of Franklin, Tenn.
Army Maj.
Stephen C. Reich
, 34, of Washington Depot, Conn.
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Michael L. Russell
, 31, of Stafford, Va.
Army Chief Warrant Officer
Chris J. Scherkenbach
, 40, of Jacksonville, Fla.
Navy Chief Petty Officer
Jacques J. Fontan
, 36, of New Orleans, La.
Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer
Daniel R. Healy
, 36, of Exeter, N.H.
Navy Lt. Cmdr.
Erik S. Kristensen
, 33, of San Diego, Calif.
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class
Jeffery A. Lucas
, 33, of Corbett, Ore.
Navy Lt.
Michael M. McGreevy, Jr.
, 30, of Portville, N.Y.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
James Suh
, 28, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class
Eric S. Patton
, 22, of Boulder City, Nev.
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class
Jeffrey S. Taylor
, 30, of Midway, W.Va.
All 16 were killed while conducting combat operations when the MH-47 helicopter that they were aboard crashed in the vicinity of Asadabad, Afghanistan in Kumar Province on June 28.
US Military
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:48:07
US troops have rescued a special forces soldier missing in eastern Afghanistan for almost a week... The rescued soldier was reported to have avoided capture in the days since his disappearance...
Justice?
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 02:08:17
A man who grabbed a 14-year-old girl's arm to chastise her after she walked in front of his car, causing him to swerve to avoid hitting her, must register as a "sex offender," the Appellate Court of Illinois has ruled...
Extraterrestrial
abc.net.au/ ... 23:49:20
Australian scientists say there is no chance the Tempel 1 comet will be knocked off course when a spacecraft crashes into it this afternoon...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:50:53
Saturn's vast and majestic ring system has its own atmosphere - separate from that of the planet itself... composed principally of molecular oxygen... Saturn's rings consist largely of water ice mixed with smaller amounts of rocky matter... "As water comes off the rings, the hydrogen is lost from it, leaving the oxygen..."
And Saturn is rotating seven minutes more slowly than when probes measured its spin in the 70s and 80s - an observation experts cannot yet explain... "You would expect the rotation of the planet to slow down if its internal dynamo had stopped, but that does not seem to be the case with Saturn..." The internal dynamo is the source of a planet's magnetic field and requires rotation and a fluid core... "If you sit down and think about it, it's very difficult to come up with a scenario where the interior of the planet is slowing down..."
timesonline.co.uk/ ... 02:07:58
RUSSIAS space agency is looking for six volunteers to spend 15 months locked in a mock space capsule as part of its plan to put a man on Mars...
space.com/ ... 02:07:48
Where to watch the Deep Impact collision on the web
palmbeachpost.com/ ... 01:56:34
By the end of 2010, the space shuttle Discovery and her sister ships, Atlantis and Endeavour, are to become museum pieces, pushed aside by a new, safer craft... There is only one problem: A mere five years out that is a pittance, by the historical standards of spacecraft design NASA still has no idea what this replacement ship will look like, how it will work or whether it can even be ready in time...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:54:29
HIGHLAND, Ind. (AP) - A 9-year-old boy died after falling more than 25 feet from the gondola of a rotating carnival ride during a Fourth of July festival at a town park... Wind Shear, a ride in which passengers are strapped into a rotating gondola with over-the-shoulder restraints... Brittney Semanick, 15, was waiting in line for the ride Friday night and described seeing the boy fall... "I saw him fall straight down, face down," Semanick told The Times of Munster... My knees are shaking..."
Natural Threat
ap.tbo.com/ ... 23:56:22
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - A dozen Indians from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas were in critical condition and a 2-year-old boy had died after eating poisonous mushrooms... The Indians, identified as Zapatista rebel sympathizers originally from the community of Chimix, were living outside the town Chenalho when they fell sick...
reuters.com/ ... 10:52:56
The Indian government says its campaigns are finally beating prejudice and ignorance and slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS in a country where the number of sufferers -- 5 million of them -- is roughly the same as the world's AIDS capital, South Africa. But there is no sign of change on the ground. Hospitals throw patients from their beds, employers sack them, their healthy children are cast out of schools, and, when they die, their families lie so they can bury or cremate them on holy ground. And they can't tell the children...
Rebuilding
reuters.com/ ... 10:51:31
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Sunday for a previously unannounced single-day visit... "He'll be meeting with his counterparts in the Iraqi government to offer his support for what they are doing in terms of reconstituting or rebuilding the judicial system in Iraq..."
Constitutional Threat
huffingtonpost.com/ ... 10:46:56
Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury...
time.com/ ... 10:45:06
"when the courts rule that a citizen's obligation to testify before a grand jury takes precedence over the press's First Amendment right, to me, going against that finding would put us above the law." Others have questioned whether TIME Inc. was putting corporate priorities over journalistic ones...
Threats
sfgate.com/ ... 02:09:27
Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client, Boughader said, worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terror watch list...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:55:42
TOPSHAM, Maine - A bus carrying about 50 children rolled over Sunday on an interstate, injuring several passengers... no reports of any fatalities...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 10:55:13
A large truck carrying vegetable vendors to a market skidded off a wet rural road and flipped over Friday, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more... The opened-back truck swerved to avoid two cars that had broken down in the middle of a hilly dirt road in southeastern Haiti... skidded and rolled over, killing a young boy, 10 women and another person whose gender and age were not immediately known...
nctimes.com/ ... 02:09:47
Five illegal immigrants died and six more were injured when the van they were in collided head-on with a pickup truck shortly after speeding around a Border Patrol checkpoint on a rural, two-lane road near the Mexican border...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 02:01:27
Two trains collided Saturday in Austria's Salzburg province, killing two people and injuring 33 others...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 23:58:41
"When I walked in the door, her face just lit up," Groene told Fox News' Geraldo Rivera, choking back tears. "She put her arms out and said 'Daddy, Daddy!' It was one of the better moments of my life..."
cnn.com/ ... 23:54:09
When they asked the gentleman if they could talk to him for a minute, they took him away. And the first officer on the scene sat down with Shasta. I proceeded to continue working. I brought another table their food. And about the time I got the last plate off of the tray, he grabbed my arm and said, "Stay with her." And I went and kneeled down by her side of the booth, and said, "Hi, sweetie. How are you?" And she didn't say anything. I said, "Honey, what's your name?" She said, "Shasta Groene," and started crying. And I couldn't help myself. I picked her straight up and just held her...
sfgate.com/ ... 16:25:01
Days before the children disappeared, an ominous message was posted on a Web site that officials said Duncan maintained. "I am scared, alone and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society," the May 11 entry said. "My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die..."
reuters.com/ ... 10:51:47
Syrian forces killed an Arab Muslim militant among a group trying to cross the border into Lebanon and arrested 34 others...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 10:48:18
Egypt's foreign ministry says it is checking reports that the country's new ambassador to Iraq has been kidnapped...
foxnews.com/ ... 10:45:50
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Security forces killed Al Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia (search), who topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants, during a fierce gunbattle... Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, a Moroccan, was killed during a dawn raid by security forces on an area in the capital where suspected militants were hiding... Three other unidentified suspects were arrested, and weapons, ammunition, computers and documents were seized...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 02:03:06
A 14-year-old American girl was stabbed and killed in a quiet seaside village on the island of Tobago... in the apartment she had been sharing with her mother in Charlotteville, a village on the northeastern tip of Tobago... Police were searching for a 22-year-old local man... Police said they believe the girl had been dating...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 02:01:50
Suicide bombers struck Saturday in Baghdad and a Shiite city south of the capital in attacks that killed 25 people and injured nearly 50... One of the attackers targeted bystanders and police who had rushed to the scene of an earlier blast...
sfgate.com/ ... 01:59:40
A force of 400 federal and local law officers raided 11 suspected brothels and arrested 27 suspects in what was described as a major Bay Area sex trafficking operation that preyed on Korean women brought into the country illegally...
usatoday.com/ ... 01:58:20
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho... "It clicked in my brain," said Dean, 24. Her restaurant and businesses across the area had been displaying photos of the girl and her brother since the youngsters disappeared six weeks earlier. As the officers arrived and talked to the little girl early Saturday, Shasta broke down and told them her name... Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. He said investigators believe the boy had been alive when he disappeared and were continuing to search for him, but initial information wasn't promising. He wouldn't elaborate...
washingtonpost.com/ ... 01:55:04
Kurdish guerrillas set off bombs in eastern Turkey on Saturday, derailing two trains and killing six railway security guards... A third bomb, not far from the site of first attack, was found and detonated by Turkish troops... In another bombing, suspected rebels injured three Turkish police officers in the southeastern town of Kulp...
SAT 2005-JUL-02
Digital Consequences
wired-vig.wired.com/ ... 16:45:53
On Wednesday, Google opened a set of programming interfaces for its popular Google Maps service, in the hope hackers will overlay the maps with data from outside sources -- such as wireless cafes...
Just one day later, Yahoo announced its own set of programming tools for its map service...
the search giants were.. reacting in no small part to web hackers who had already started to reverse-engineer the two mapping services in ways neither had expected... several "mashups" had been created, including Paul Rademacher's housing map, which layers craigslist housing ads onto Google maps, and an anti-gridlock site that marries Yahoo traffic data with Google maps. There's also Adrian Holovaty's ingenious Chicago crime map, which lets users create custom views of crimes from auto theft to bribery on maps as tiny as individual police beats. Other hacks include a small-town walking tour with annotations, a map with clickable London traffic cameras and a map for finding cheap gasoline that's no longer online...
21st C - a little different
reuters.com/ ... 16:48:06
The British government launched a series of tough anti-cigarette adverts Friday with the message that smoking is bad for your sex life because it makes men impotent and women ugly...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:13:39
It is the first time an EU presidency has had an animated logo, UK officials are proud to point out....
Preternatural Patterns
news.yahoo.com/ ... 11:12:04
ATLANTA - A man in custody in Texas called in to a radio talk show and told the show's producer that he killed a store clerk in Atlanta more than a decade ago... called.. from a pay phone in a state mental hospital in San Antonio, where he is awaiting a competency hearing in a burglary case...
World Without Borders
money.cnn.com/ ... 11:03:05
The Senate has approved a free trade pact known as CAFTA that includes five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. The vote Thursday night was 54-45 in favor of the agreement, which President Bush had championed as a way of "strengthening democracy and advancing prosperity" in the Western Hemisphere...
census.gov/ ... 01:52:23
6,451,319,910... According to the International Programs Center, U.S. Bureau of the Census, the total population of the World, projected to 07/02/05 at 06:44 GMT (EST+5)...
US Military
alertnet.org/ ... 01:08:16
U.S. helicopters and hundreds of troops were searching on Friday for soldiers who went missing in Afghanistan just before a helicopter coming to their aid was shot down, while the Taliban claimed to be holding one American...
Sick, Sick, Sick
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:51:55
The man arrested with a missing 8-year-old girl from Idaho is a dean's list student and the author of a Web site that called for lighter sentencing of sex offenders...
Transport Tragedy
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:49:57
A passenger bus in Colombia plunged off a mountain highway Saturday morning, killing at least nine people and injuring 15...
Mechanical Disaster
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:49:38
NEW DELHI (AP) - A fire broke out at a fireworks factory in southern India on Saturday, killing at least 20 workers and injuring 15 others...
Theft
reuters.com/ ... 16:49:09
A teenage delivery boy caught a fleeing bank robber in Cyprus Friday, using a broomstick to subdue him and pin him to the ground...
Natural Threat
seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 11:10:28
Five people in Washington have contracted food poisoning after eating cake batter-flavored ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery stores...
Violence
ap.tbo.com/ ... 16:52:15
At least three blasts rocked the center of Kosovo's capital on Saturday, and one targeted the U.N. mission headquarters... There were no immediate reports of any injuries...
reuters.com/ ... 16:47:46
Zagreb, Croatia.. Thursday.. A man in a motorcycle helmet entered the corner shop brandishing a knife and told the cashier to hand over the money in the till... "The collected and brave shop-clerk, 50, pointed a pair of scissors at him, then took a cup of hot coffee in her other hand and poured it on him..." The robber ran off with only her mobile phone.
theglobeandmail.com/ ... 16:43:50
Coeur DAlene, Idaho More than six weeks after she disappeared from a home where family members were bludgeoned to death, an 8-year-old girl was found safe Saturday, sharing a meal with a registered sex offender at a Denny's restaurant in her hometown... her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, remained missing and was feared dead... had an outstanding warrant for failing to register as a high-risk sex offender and was facing charges of molesting a 6-year-old boy in Minnesota. He was released on bail in April, just weeks before the children disappeared... Shasta was spotted by a waitress early Saturday...
ap.tbo.com/ ... 11:21:06
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - An 8-year-old girl who disappeared with her brother six weeks ago from a home where their family members were bludgeoned to death was
found Saturday at a Denny's
restaurant in the same town... no information on Shasta's missing 9-year-old brother, Dylan...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:12:22
US fighter planes have bombed a suspected Taleban hideout in the same area of eastern Afghanistan where US servicemen are missing...
reuters.com/ ... 11:10:12
A suicide bomber killed up to 20 people at a police recruitment center in Baghdad on Saturday... Another suicide bomber blew up a car bomb at a police checkpoint just south of the city, killing five and wounding 12... the worst in Iraq in at least six days...
abcnews.go.com/ ... 11:09:35
A suicide bomber strapped with explosives killed up to 17 people Saturday outside a Baghdad recruiting center for Iraqi police special forces...
guardian.co.uk/ ... 11:02:46
The government was asked yesterday to explain why the US failed to tell it the truth about use on Iraq of incendiary bombs, successors to the napalm used in Vietnam...
Disinformation Propaganda & Spin
chicagotribune.com/ ... 11:09:14
Last month, Italian authorities charged 13 CIA operatives with kidnapping an Islamic cleric known as Abu Omar. Now former Albanian intelligence officials reveal that the imam was once an informant valued by the CIA... Neither the Bush administration nor the CIA has acknowledged any role in the operation. But U.S. government officials privately paint Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, as a dangerous terrorist who once plotted to kill the Egyptian foreign minister and was worthy of an audacious daylight abduction involving more than 20 operatives, weeks of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars. One senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition that she not be identified, asserted: "The world's a better place with this guy off the streets..."
reuters.com/ ... 01:07:42
The White House said on Friday it has unearthed no evidence so far that Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the 1979 siege of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Several Americans who were held have said they recognized the ultraconservative Ahmadinejad as a ringleader. But two Iranians who were leading figures in the storming of the embassy said he did not take part...
FRI 2005-JUL-01
Clinton Era -- still with us
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 13:03:16
I am sure that a huge number of those 90,000 people present read that as one thing: Billy Graham's endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. That's when I got up, turned away from the stage, and walked out. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't leave in a huff. I was more in a daze. I couldn't believe that I had just witnessed the Clintons manipulate their way to a quasi endorsement by the leading evangelical of the last half-century. It was shameless exploitation of a sacred platform by the most powerful, cunning and recklessly ambitious political duo in American history...
Why People Go Vegan
stuff.co.nz/ ... 12:53:24
A South Korean pastor is aiming to cut into North Korea's severe food shortage by sending the reclusive state 1.2 million rabbits to eat...
Whoops!
sun-sentinel.com/ ... 12:51:29
JACKSONVILLE -- Leaving a half-gram of marijuana as a tip at a Starbuck's is a bad idea. Coming back the next day, fighting with the police and dropping your stash is even worse...
[This is one of those cases where I think anti-pot-user laws could be replaced with stupidity fines...]
Cascading Weirdness
montereyherald.com/ ... 12:55:40
CRESTONE, Colo... something that has lured a large contingent of New Age practitioners, alternative-medicine healers, Western Buddhists and Hindus, silent monks, and retro hippies. These locals think a vortex of powerful, metaphysical energy envelopes Crestone, population 93, and an adjoining hillside subdivision, the Baca Grande. They say the area is awash in ancient shamanic sites, including meditation seats crafted out of rock by Indians thousands of years ago. One UFO-ish group floated into town some years back and proposed building a 40-story-high pink pyramid to harness Crestone's mojo...
news.telegraph.co.uk/ ... 12:53:04
Jacques Peyrat, the outspoken mayor of Nice... during an official visit to a rubbish collection point in the city's old quarter close to the seafront... spotted [a] well-nourished rat... grabbed a shovel and used it to "smash" the rat. "I cannot stand those animals," he explained... Mr Peyrat's confession outraged the Alpes Maritimes section of the SPA, which lodged a criminal complaint with the prosecutors. If it leads to a court case, he could be fined up to £2,100. The society accepted that "a huge rat-clearing operation" was necessary, but said the killing amounted to cruelty. The mayor's subsequent "boasting" was an incitement to others to act in similar fashion...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:40:01
In his newscast tonight, "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams compared America's first presidents to the president-elect of Iran, alleged hostage-taker Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying they were "certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists by the British crown..."
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:39:40
The Kansas abortionist who had his license pulled and clinic closed after high-profile accusations by at least one employee that he microwaved a fetus and mixed it into his lunch says the charge is ''outrageous'' because he's a vegetarian who is squeamish about meat...
US Judicial Branch
townhall.com/ ... 16:00:38
For more than a week, a veritable torrent has tipped Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as President Bush's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has sent the conservative movement into spasms of fear and loathing. Gonzales long has been unacceptable to anti-abortion activists because of his record as a Texas Supreme Court justice. Beyond pro-lifers, he is opposed by organized conservative lawyers...
apnews.myway.com/ ... 12:39:05
O'Connor Leaves Legacy As Key Swing Vote... In 1992, O'Connor voted to uphold the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, calling it "a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce." She added that some state restrictions on abortion were permissible as long as they did not represent an undue burden on a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. She was in the majority when the high court outlawed capital punishment for the mentally retarded. She was in the minority with the conservative wing of the court when more liberal justices ruled that juries, not judges, must make the crucial decisions that can lead to a death sentence...
foxnews.com/ ... 12:36:10
Timeline: Justice O'Connor...
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:35:49
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement today, creating the first Supreme Court vacancy in 11 years...
Theory of Education
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:07:40
Two Texas students have been charged with arson after agreeing to torch a teacher's car so she could collect insurance money... were failing their chemistry class but got passing marks in exchange for stealing and burning the car...
Culture
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 09:07:13
A new picture by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered... experts using infra-red techniques found a drawing under the surface of the Virgin of the Rocks painting which hangs at the gallery. It believes the drawing shows a woman kneeling with one arm stretched out...
Families Today
nytimes.com/ ... 09:06:41
I WAS hoping it wouldn't come to this, but after Tom Cruise's interview with Matt Lauer on the NBC show "Today" last week, I feel compelled to speak not just for myself but also for the hundreds of thousands of women who have suffered from postpartum depression. While Mr. Cruise says that Mr. Lauer and I do not "understand the history of psychiatry," I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression... --Brooke Shields
Bartlesville - prarie frontier town
examiner-enterprise.com/ ... 20:13:01
"Then I heard a voice in my head say 'sell marijuana and give the money to the Concern Center,'" he is quoted as saying. "I questioned whether this voice was God or not. I thought it might have been Satan or a demon. So I cast lots just as they did when they chose the twelfth disciple, and I prayed, 'God if this is you, when I flip this pen let it land north and if you want me to do it let it land south.' I flipped the pen and it landed north. So I went to sell it to a few of my friends on a regular basis over a few month period, and I donated over time approximately 85 (percent) of the money I made off the marijuana..."
Only Natural
tampabays10.com/ ... 16:02:34
A shark bit an Austrian tourist on the ankle today as the man stood in chest-deep water in the Gulf of Mexico off Boca Grande in southwest Florida...
US Military Casualties
defenselink.mil/ ... 14:19:24
Army Sgt.
Manny Hornedo
, 27, of Brooklyn, N.Y., died June 28 in Tikrit, Iraq, where a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV while conducting convoy operations...
Human Right
jpost.com/ ... 12:49:52
Jerusalem... What started off as a lively parade of nearly 5,000 Gay Pride activists quickly turned violent Thursday as three young marchers were stabbed by ultra-religious protestors of the parade...
[They don't sound very "religious" to me... which is that religion that says "stab thy fellow?"]
Several protestors threw bottles of urine and bags of feces into the crowd, while others yelled "shame" at the passing marchers. A large cluster of ultra-Orthodox counter protestors gathered in front of the Great Synagogue bearing signs which read: "People with AIDS belong in hospitals" and "Homosexuality is a sickness." "I believe these are sick people," said Shifra Hoffman, who came to protest the march. "As sick people I think they should be treated, although I definitely don't agree to engaging in violence against them..." "In light of the violence we have seen here today, it goes to show how much farther we have to go to turn Israel into a liberal and tolerant state," said MK Roman Bronfman...
US Military
reuters.com/ ... 12:10:58
The U.S. military was using "all available assets" on Friday to search for a U.S. reconnaissance team that went missing just before a helicopter coming to help them was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing all aboard...
cnn.com/ ... 08:55:44
Military officials said Friday that a small number of U.S. Special Forces remain unaccounted for after a military chopper crashed three days ago along the Afghan-Pakistan border while attempting to provide reinforcements...
Digital Threat
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:14:30
Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted movies, games and music in an attempt to curb rampant piracy...
Constitutional Threat
usatoday.com/ ... 12:41:57
Lawmakers are trying to blunt a Supreme Court decision that says local governments can seize people's homes to make way for shopping malls and other private development... The House on Thursday approved by a 231-189 vote a bid by conservative Scott Garrett, R-N.J., to bar federal transportation funds from being used to make improvements on lands seized via eminent domain for private development...
Threats
lodinews.com/ ... 12:45:09
The white plane, with its baby blue striping, spends hours and days circling over Lodi. But the plane isn't from the city. It's not even from California. The plane has traveled all the way from Delaware to move in slow circles over Lodi. It hasn't exactly blended in... when white planes began circling over Lodi about four weeks ago -- around the same time scores of FBI agents converged on the city to conduct a terrorism investigation -- people took notice... In other parts of the country, small planes have flown in circles over cities also under investigation on ties to domestic and international terrorism... A Lodi businessman and public figure, who didn't want his name used because he thought people would think he was crazy, said he called the Federal Aviation Authority to ask about the planes and was told that the pilots were likely listening to cell phone conversations and using infrared to track people... FBI spokeswoman Angel Armstrong... "It sounds like that's a bunch of people throwing around some speculation, and that would be considered part of an ongoing investigation that we're not going to comment on very much at all..."
worldnetdaily.com/ ... 12:40:37
A former American hostage in Tehran who claims Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of his kidnappers, says the country's new leader threatened to kidnap his handicapped son and cut off his fingers and toes...
reuters.myway.com/ ... 08:57:03
Stun gun maker Taser International Inc. said on Friday it had filed a lawsuit against Gannett Co. Inc. , accusing the USA Today parent of libeling its weapons... company said... a USA Today article on June 3.. misrepresented the electrical output of Taser weapons and compared them in photographs with electric chairs, lightning and electric train tracks... Taser shares have lost 11.5 percent over the past month and 68 percent so far this year...
Violence
apnews.myway.com/ ... 20:09:15
A mortar attack sparked a fire Friday that forced authorities to shut down a water plant, leaving millions of weary Baghdad residents with dry taps in 100-degree heat
signonsandiego.com/ ... 12:47:30
The vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq are thought to be foreigners mostly Saudis and other Gulf Arabs and the trend has become more pronounced this year with North Africans also streaming in to carry out deadly missions, U.S. and Iraqi officials say...
myrtlebeachonline.com/ ... 12:47:02
Mexican authorities on Thursday were investigating a ranch where a kidnapping suspect said hostages were killed before their bodies were shoved into barrels, doused with diesel fuel and burned... just days after federal agents rescued 44 hostages held at two Nuevo Laredo safe houses... the cases opened a window into Mexico's flourishing kidnapping trade, which claims as many as 3,000 victims every year...
reuters.com/ ... 12:11:12
Gunmen killed a prominent Baghdad cleric linked to Iraq's top Shi'ite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, shooting him and two of his aides as he went to Friday prayers at his mosque in central Baghdad...
news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:10:48
London... Two men have been found guilty of murdering a millionaire and his family in order to take over his business...
turkishweekly.net/ ... 08:55:21
Turkish police have killed a suspected suicide bomber outside government offices in the capital Ankara... suspect failed to detonate his explosives and set off a security alarm... was seen running out of the building after resisting arrest but was gunned down by police soon after. He died at the scene...
today.reuters.co.uk/ ... 08:54:48
At least 10 Russian soldiers were killed by a bomb on Friday as they paid a weekly visit to a steam bathhouse in a town near Russia's rebel Chechnya... Fourteen other people, including some passers-by, were being treated for severe injuries... Dagestan, a territory by the Caspian Sea, has suffered from an overspill of violence from Chechnya since separatist war erupted in the North Caucasus territory more than a decade ago... In January 2002 a bomb at the same spot in Makhachkala killed seven soldiers and wounded four others...
Under Tyranny
wistv.com/ ... 08:53:22
reporter who had been facing jail time for refusing to cooperate with a probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity... Matt Cooper tells The New York Times he's disappointed at the decision, especially since he's protected his confidential sources for nearly two years under the threat of jail...
You can support blog heaping of links by making donations via
2006-jan
2005-dec
2005-nov
2005-oct
2005-sep
2005-aug
2005-jul
top
2005-jun
2005-may
2005-apr
2005-mar
2005-feb
2005-jan
blog-heap o' links