Blog-heap o' links from 2008-Mar

MON 2008-MAR-31

Under Tyrannyap.google.com/ ... 20:17:47Raul Castro's government opened luxury hotels and resorts to all Cubans Monday, ending a ban despised across the island as "tourist apartheid" and taking another step toward the creation of a consumer economy in the socialist state... [WOW! Cubans can stay in hotels... real freedom!! :?]

Violencenews.yahoo.com/ ... 21:55:08Rescue crews responding to a wreck on a Los Angeles freeway found a driver fatally shot in the head early Sunday, while another driver was shot and wounded in a separate attack about 30 miles away... latest in a string of attacks on Southern California freeways that have alarmed motorists and authorities... in Long Beach, ...the victim was able to drive himself off the freeway and phone for help on Saturday night... told officers another motorist shot at him as the result of road rage along the 710 Freeway... Investigators do not think the cases were related to three other shootings, two that were fatal, in the past several weeks on Southern California freeways...
In Virginia, authorities on Friday arrested two teenagers in connection with random shootings along Interstate 64 and potshots taken at a credit union and a residence a day before... ap.google.com/ ... 20:23:55A sex offender recently released from prison brazenly invaded a home, shot two women meeting for morning coffee and abducted one of them, whose body was found about 10 miles away... told police that he entered the unlocked home Sunday morning looking for money and a car, but that when two women inside saw his face, he had no choice but to shoot them... mlive.com/ ... 20:22:49BALTIMORE A man killed his three young children [6, 4, 2yo] at a downtown hotel room, then called the front desk to report their deaths Sunday afternoon... kmph.com/ ... 20:22:08Authorities say they are looking into the possibility that a driver found shot in his car on a freeway was a suicide victim. The Los Angeles Police Department says in a statement Monday that investigators were considering suicide in the death of 20-year-old Mario Gordillo Sical in a crashed sedan along the 101 Freeway. The statement says police also are trying to determine if it might have been a car-to-car shooting or indiscriminate gunfire...

Civilization vs Gangsterismcsmonitor.com/ ... 21:56:45"The Charge of the Sadrs" is spray painted in black all over the numerous Iraqi Army and police checkpoints now abandoned in eastern Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods. The graffiti mocks Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security operation – "The Charge of the Knights" – launched in Basra, the southern Iraqi oil city, last week that put Iraqi and US forces in direct confrontation with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the capital and across the south. On Monday, one day after the Shiite cleric's call for a truce following the battle that killed hundreds of people and wounded scores of others, several conclusions are clear. Mr. Sadr has demonstrated his power, despite the blows dealt to his movement over the past few years. The government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, thanked him profusely on Monday for his decision, but vowed that the fight would continue in Basra, where militiamen have now largely melted away from the streets, but remain very much in control of their strongholds... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:17:11The US army has identified the remains of an American soldier captured by militants in Iraq some four years ago. Sgt Keith Maupin went missing, aged 20, in an April 2004 ambush. A week later, TV network Al-Jazeera showed footage of him surrounded by masked, armed men. Two months later, Al-Jazeera reported he had been shot. However, his parents refused to give up hope he was alive. Confirmation of Sgt Maupin's death came only days after the remains of five kidnapped contractors were identified. The contractors, four Americans and an Austrian, were taken captive in two separate incidents in November 2006 and January 2007 in Iraq. A sixth US contractor, Jonathon Cote, is still missing...

Animal Culturereuters.com/ ... 23:43:14They flirt, hold hands and guard their lovers jealously -- yet they don't even have bones. The love lives of octopuses are far more complex than anyone thought...

Animal Companionshosted.ap.org/ ... 23:34:23

facing more than 20 charges after a variety of reptiles were found at his home... seven rattlesnakes, a gaboon viper, a king cobra, an iguana, two monitor lizards, two alligators, a boa constrictor and a python... wife told officers her husband was at a hospital having fingers amputated after suffering snakebite...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:14The Humane Society of the United States wants a federal judge to prevent the capturing or killing of sea lions feasting on salmon a Columbia River dam...

Prehistory - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 23:36:26Excavators have unearthed what are believed to be some of the oldest prehistoric bones discovered in a cave in Wisconsin... 5,600 and 5,800 years old... "We believe there are older bones yet to be discovered further into the cave..."

Antiquity - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 23:38:21The earliest known gold jewelry made in the Americas has been discovered in southern Peru... made nearly 4,000 years ago... found in a burial site near Lake Titicaca... In the past, it had been assumed that a society needed to be settled to produce agricultural surpluses that can support activities such as making ornamental objects.... But the people living in this region at the time were still primarily hunter-gatherers... hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:37:12ome of England's most sacred soil was disturbed Monday for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built?.. designed to unearth materials that can be used to establish a firm date for when the first mysterious set of bluestones was put in place...

Solar Systemreuters.com/ ... 23:38:46Cosmic rays are so dangerous and so poorly understood that people are unlikely to get to Mars or even back to the moon until better ways are found to protect astronauts...

World Energyblogs.news.com.au/ ... 22:03:16Earth Hour, hysterically promoted by The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, SBS, Sky News and the federal and state governments, resulted in no significant fall in power usage...

Staying Healthyhosted.ap.org/ ... 23:37:28You can skip the mouth-to-mouth breathing and just press on the chest to save a life. In a major change, the American Heart Association said Monday that hands-only CPR - rapid, deep presses on the victim's chest until help arrives - works just as well as standard CPR for sudden cardiac arrest in adults... reuters.com/ ... 23:35:01Softening of the skull bones in normal-appearing newborns is tied to a vitamin D deficiency in the womb... reuters.com/ ... 23:34:474 out of 10 older adults suffer from a chronic condition, like heart disease, high cholesterol, or arthritis. "A lot of these older adults avoid exercise because they think they are going to hurt themselves or make their condition worse, when, in fact, almost all conditions can be helped by exercise..."

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 08:02:18The Department of Defense today announced the change in status of a soldier supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom from missing-captured to deceased. The armed forces medical examiner confirmed on March 29, human remains recovered in Iraq were those of

Army Staff Sgt. Keith M. Maupin, 24, of Batavia, Ohio. Maupin had been listed as missing-captured since April 16, 2004. His convoy came under attack by individuals using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire on April 9, 2004. He was assigned to the 724th Transportation Company, Bartonville, Ill. The incident remains under investigation.

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 08:00:17The Defense Department announced today that charges have been sworn against Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of Zanzibar, Tanzania. He is the fifteenth detainee against whom charges have been sworn under the Military Commissions Act. The charges allege that he participated in the planning and preparation of the attack on the U. S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998. The attack killed 11 people and injured hundreds.... This charge alleges that after the bombing, Ghailani continued in his service to al Qaeda as a document forger, physical trainer at an al Qaeda training camp, and as a bodyguard for Usama bin Laden... The charges are only allegations that the accused has committed offenses under the Military Commissions Act, and the accused remains innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. foxnews.com/ ... 20:21:33To his Navy SEAL buddies, Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor will always be known as "Mikey," a fun-loving 25-year-old guy who had "a little mischievous look on his face..." On Sept. 29, 2006, while on a mission in Ramadi, Iraq, Monsoor and other members of a Navy SEAL sniper team were within a moment of death. An insurgent had tossed a grenade into their hideout, hitting Monsoor in the chest before bouncing to the floor. In an instant, Monsoor was on the grenade, using his body to shield his comrades from the blast. "He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it," said a lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. "He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs' lives, and we owe him." For that action, President Bush on Monday announced that Monsoor will be posthumously honored on April 8 with the the nation's highest military honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor...

Sportsmanshiphosted.ap.org/ ... 23:46:20The elaborate ceremony to rekindle the Olympic torch went off without a hitch Monday in closely guarded Tiananmen Square - with hundreds of cheering women in brightly colored T-shirts, flower-toting children and confetti. There were no protests in Beijing, although some are expected during the 85,000-mile world tour... breitbart.com/ ... 22:08:01Beijing is to ban smoking in most public places from May 1 as part of its efforts to improve the city ahead of the Olympics... [After all, what's one more usurpation by central socialism upon an individual's liberties?] abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:06:40House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not want the U.S. to boycott the Beijing Olympics, but she says that President George W. Bush should consider skipping the opening ceremony...

Oh! The Irony!hosted.ap.org/ ... 23:35:35An outbreak of a sometimes dangerous lung ailment that affected an unlikely group - associates of the American Lung Association - probably stemmed from a meeting they attended at the Iowa governor's mansion...

Transport Threatnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:43:36Environmental campaigners are calling for greater restrictions on shipping around Antarctica in order to prevent damage to its unique ecosystems...

Sex can be Dangerouschron.com/ ... 20:19:33eighth-grader returning to Houston from a school field trip in New York left a stillborn fetus in the trash can of a Continental Airlines jet's lavatory... didn't even know she had been pregnant... "The baby was stillborn..."

Economic Threattelegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:09:52The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis... Norway ensured that shareholders of insolvent lenders received nothing and the senior management was entirely purged. Two of the country's top four banks - Christiania Bank and Fokus - were seized by force majeure. "We were determined not to get caught in the game we've seen with Bear Stearns where shareholders make money out of the rescue," said one Norwegian adviser. "The law was amended so that we could take 100pc control of any bank where its equity had fallen below zero. Shareholders were left with nothing. It was very controversial..."

People Dietimesonline.co.uk/ ... 22:08:21One press of a button and you can end your life with a swift injection of potassium chloride. That is the boast of Roger Kusch, once one of Germany's most promising conservative politicians and now the improbable promoter of a mercy-killing machine...

Policing Ourselvesusatoday.com/ ... 22:06:13Facing tighter budgets, law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly turning to civilians to respond to some calls that sworn officers and deputies are usually responsible for...

US Election 2008politico.com/ ... 21:59:27

During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign... blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 21:52:56

The website for Sen. Barack Obama's church -- Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago -- not long ago described the "Black Value System" in the "About Us" section of its website. And it used to provide a link to the Trumpet Magazine that once gave an award to Louis Farrakhan -- a magazine published by Rev. Jeremiah Wright's daughter. No longer. You can see the old webpage, including both the Black Value System and a link to Trumpet...

Digital Culturethisislondon.co.uk/ ... 22:11:00nomophobia... Millions apparently suffer... "no mobile phobia..." They have become so dependent on their mobile that discovering it is out of charge or simply misplacing it sends stress levels soaring... could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile phone users...

Digital Businesshosted.ap.org/ ... 23:42:48An iMac owner sued Apple Inc. Monday claiming the 20-inch iMac desktop computers can't display the "millions of colors" Apple promises in promotional materials... even though it knows iMac monitors can display only 262,144 true colors, according to the lawsuit... Users are fooled into seeing many more colors because the monitors use technological tricks that involve showing many similar shades at high speeds to create the illusion of the desired shade... Those techniques can cause "crippling" problems for people editing pictures and videos because the colors don't always appear entirely smooth...

Digital Threattechnology.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 22:05:39Husbands who are not where they are supposed to be could soon be in danger of being "sniffed" out by a mobile phone service that gives suspicious partners an electronic map showing the location of their spouse. The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (Sniff) is a new application, accessed via Facebook or mobile phone, which could bring an end to frantic "Where r u?" text messages. The service, popular in Scandinavia, promises to provide users with a detailed map of their friends’ locations, any time and anywhere. However, there are fears that Sniff could be abused by employers to remove the last vestiges of privacy from staff...

Digital Warstechnology.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 22:04:58Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects... In the most innovative service, for which Google equipment provides the core search technology, agents are encouraged to post intelligence information on a secure forum, which other spies are free to read, edit, and tag - like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Depending on their clearance, agents can log on to Intellipedia and gain access to three levels of info...

SUN 2008-MAR-30

Supernatural Tyrannyreuters.com/ ... 01:11:30A bishop loyal to the U.S. Episcopal Church was elected on Saturday to replace the deposed leader of a California diocese that was the first to break away over the church's support for gay and women's rights. At a special convention at St. John the Baptist Church in Lodi, local delegates voted Bishop Jerry Lamb, 67, head of the divided 47-church San Joaquin diocese, which stretches from Stockton to Bakersfield in California's central valley...

Under Tyrannyfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 00:30:54Chinese security forces sealed off parts of Lhasa on Saturday and Tibet's government-in-exile said it was investigating reports of fresh protests, weeks after the city was shaken by an anti-government riot...

Prison Sucksnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:42:00Dozens of detainees at a police station in the Angolan capital, Luanda, have been taken to hospital after the six-storey building collapsed... no reports of deaths... cries of victims can he heard...

Industrial Tragedyhosted.ap.org/ ... 00:35:58IQUIQUE, Chile... Five youths are accused of attacking nine German soldiers and taking them hostage in this Chilean port city... none of the German soldiers was seriously wounded and that five suspects between 14 to 20 were arrested... not immediately clear why the youth had attacked the Germans, "but apparently they knew they were foreigners and assumed (they) had money..." hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:34:5975 miners are missing and believed to have died in mines following heavy rains in northeastern Tanzania...

Civilization vs Gangsterismhosted.ap.org/ ... 00:36:49A feisty Muqtada al-Sadr, making his first public appearance since May, said in a TV interview aired Saturday that he was in almost total control of the Mahdi Army and that the "liberation" of Iraq was his militia's chief goal... [Dat boy's gonna have t' go down. Jus' watch...] hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:34:15Anti-American Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his followers Saturday to defy government orders to surrender their weapons, as U.S. jets struck Shiite extremists near Basra to bolster a faltering Iraqi offensive against gunmen in the city. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged he may have miscalculated by failing to foresee the strong backlash that his offensive, which began Tuesday, provoked in areas of Baghdad and other cities where Shiite militias wield power. Government television said the round-the-clock curfew imposed two days ago on the capital and due to expire Sunday would be extended indefinitely. Gunfire and explosions were heard late Saturday in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia...

Food Recallreuters.com/ ... 00:26:39Officials in southern China sealed more than 4,000 boxes of possibly contaminated milk and the manufacturer recalled another 2,700 boxes after children became sick on drinking the product... total of 119 children, some in day care centers, fell ill... 75 of them were hospitalized for two days...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 00:26:04Good news for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains: They no longer need federal protection. The bad news for the animals? Plans are already in the works to hunt them... hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:25:51A rare antelope species already under threat from poaching in Mongolia is facing a new danger - worsening traffic. As affluent residents acquire motorbikes and cars in parts of western Mongolia, they are clogging roads that run along a key migration route for the saiga which, if not addressed, could reduce their already low numbers... hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:25:22A new breeding program at the Memphis [Tenn] Zoo could nearly double the known population of an endangered frog species... there are only about 100 adult Mississippi gopher frogs left in the wild, but zoo officials say they've successfully produced 94 tadpoles through in-vitro fertilization...

Animals can be Deadlynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:40:47

A minister in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland has expressed regret after a lion from his private zoo killed a woman in the capital... he has shot and killed the lion involved in the incident... says he is also reconsidering whether he should keep the remaining seven lions in the zoo, which also contains leopards and gazelles...

People can be Deadlyhosted.ap.org/ ... 00:33:44A disabled fishing trawler getting a tow from a Canadian coast guard vessel slammed into a piece of ice and capsized Saturday in the icy waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, killing three seal hunters and leaving one missing. The vessel was headed toward a large seal herd in the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as part of the seal hunt season that opened Friday, the largest marine mammal hunt in the world... [Oh, the irony....]

US Militarynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:41:38The Pentagon has appointed a temporary replacement for the commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan who retired early amid controversy... Admiral William Fallon quit on 11 March... Lt Gen Martin Dempsey assumed interim command of US Central Command (CentCom) in a ceremony at a Florida air base... Deputy at CentCom since August 2007, he will serve as acting commander until Mr Bush finds a permanent replacement... feeds.reuters.com/ ... 00:29:40Military prosecutors dropped all charges on Friday against a Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children at Haditha in 2005, abruptly dismissing the case on the eve of trial with little explanation...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 00:24:11

Army Spc. Joshua A. Molina, 20, of Houston, Texas, died Mar. 27 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.

Transport Troubleap.google.com/ ... 01:11:00SPRINGVILLE, Ala... driver of a bus carrying 44 children on a field trip passed out at the wheel... Math teacher Amy King grabbed the steering wheel and tried to straighten the swerving coach... kept the vehicle from careening into oncoming traffic... crash Friday sent 20 people to the hospital, including the driver and King... [Badly-written sentence of the day award:] King was thrown through the windshield and airlifted to UAB Hospital...

Transport Without Bordersnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 00:42:32The long-awaited "open skies" agreement between the US and European Union (EU) is coming into effect, aiming to open up trans-Atlantic air travel. The deal ends limits on which airlines can fly between the US and EU, and it is expected lead to a large rise in the number of carriers on the routes. However, changes at big airports such as Heathrow will be minimised by the limited availability of take-off slots. New trans-Atlantic services are likely to use smaller airports instead...

Reasons for Repealmlive.com/ ... 16:02:57Marijuana paraphernalia can be bought easily, legally... pittsburghlive.com/ ... 16:02:54

Munhall police found thousands of various improvised explosive devices, firearms and marijuana plants inside a Munhall home Friday after responding to a medical alert alarm... wlwt.com/ ... 16:01:49

CINCINNATI... [Agents of Tyranny and Persecution]arrested three individuals on charges of possession and trafficking of marijuana... a shipment of marijuana coming into Warren County by semi-truck from the Joplin, Mo., area... Teams of DEA agents from Cincinnati, Dayton and Springfield, Missouri, along with deputies from Butler and Warren counties, and local FBI agents participated in this arrest... [Agents of the Enemies of America Liberty, every one of 'em!] dailypilot.com/ ... 15:59:25

et’s revitalize the hemp industry!.. The stalk of the cannabis or marijuana plant has no THC content whatsoever, which is to say that it has no mind-altering properties. In fact, you could get as much of a "high" from smoking the stalk of the marijuana plant as you could from smoking the newspaper you now are reading... [Unless you're reading it online, Duh! Hemp for Victory! Great! Cannabis for Sick People! Wonderful! But a society dedicated to the balance of personal liberty and responsibility demands nothing less than full repeal! Repeal! REPEAL!] dailynewstranscript.com/ ... 15:57:22

BOSTON — State Sen. Patricia Jehlen thinks the state is wasting time and resources and unnecessarily harming people over small amounts of marijuana. The Somerville Democrat wants to make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a civil, rather than a criminal, offense. She is sponsoring a bill that would do just that... metrowestdailynews.com/ ... 15:57:00Now that we've settled the casino thing, anybody for a joint? Marijuana decriminalization is the next hot-button social issue moving through the state Legislature. But unlike casino gambling, marijuana reform can't be stopped by House Speaker Sal DiMasi. If the Legislature doesn't enact it, voters will see it on the November ballot. The initiative is simple. Possession of marijuana is now a criminal offense, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500. A single joint can get you a criminal record, a CORI file that can keep you from getting housing or a job and that makes you ineligible for a student loan. The initiative proposes reducing possession of less than an ounce of marijuana to a civil offense, punishable by a fine of up to $100... [DAMN incremental decriminalization! Repeal! Repeal!! REPEAL!!!] people.co.uk/ ... 15:56:02

A huge underground drugs factory was unearthed by stunned cops and firefighters called to a caravan blaze. Eight linked cargo containers were buried on the site and powered by a generator... more than 300 cannabis plants were growing inside... mlive.com/ ... 15:55:22

This year's planned Hash Bash in Ann Arbor [Mich] has hit a snag... the Diag on the campus of the University of Michigan has been reserved for April 5 by a student organization... School spokeswoman Linda Hancock Green says the student group, which she declined to identify, reserved the Diag last fall. Longtime Hash Bash organizer Rich Birkett says the pro-marijuana group still plans to gather at the Diag. Campus police say the group won't be able to use amplified sound because the other group has the permit, but Hash Bash organizers disagree...

Socialismdailymail.com/ ... 00:45:20About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps...

Sportsmanshiphosted.ap.org/ ... 00:36:21Torchbearers carried the Olympic flame through the crowded streets of Athens to the Acropolis Saturday amid heavy security and demonstrations by small groups of protesters. At the foot of the Acropolis, a pro-Tibet group unfurled a banner reading "Free Tibet 2008" and lit candles to protest China's deadly crackdown there...

Data Thefthosted.ap.org/ ... 00:29:11A computer system at Antioch University that contained personal information on about 70,000 people was breached by an unauthorized intruder three times last year... hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:28:42Unauthorized software that was secretly installed on servers in Hannaford Bros. Co.'s supermarkets across the Northeast and in Florida enabled the massive data breach that compromised up to 4.2 million credit and debit cards...

Digital Tyrannyhollywoodreporter.com/ ... 00:45:50The controversial anti-Muslim film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been removed from the Web by its British Internet provider, which said its employees have been seriously threatened...

Digital Threatindependent.co.uk/ ... 00:45:01Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'... Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation...

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 00:27:5350 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace, but if the rapper ever decides to leave the social network, he'll be leaving behind those friends, too. So like a growing number of artists, he's started his own social networking site...

SAT 2008-MAR-29

Sex can be... disturbinghosted.ap.org/ ... 21:32:03RIVERSIDE, Ohio... pastor who was reported missing... found at an Ohio strip club... disappeared Wednesday after telling his wife he was getting his computer fixed at Best Buy... was disoriented when confronted by police and said he felt "emotionally guilty..."

Alcohol Was Involvedhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:31:16MUNCIE, Ind... woke up after a night of drinking with friends and realized he was inside a commercial trash-collection truck full of waste... Driver: "This gentleman was extremely intoxicated,"

Police Riothosted.ap.org/ ... 21:30:28Police in La Crosse [Wisconsin]... apologizing after issuing an alert about a woman suspected of using a stolen credit card at a convenience store. They also helpfully issued surveillance video images of her... "We had two very similar looking people come to the register about 10 to 20 seconds apart," each buying similar things, Gavrilos said. "It was a one-in-a-million type of thing..." They picked the wrong one... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:28:02Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands. But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer... has gained fame on YouTube.com... early 90 breath tests were done, and officers even searched locked rooms for hiding teens. "It was a tremendous waste of time and manpower, but we still had a job to do, and our officers did it," Joling said. "If one kid had come there, even hadn't drank there, but had come there and had been drinking and had left and crashed and burned, then what would the sentiment be? Why didn't the police check everybody out?.."

Civilization vs Gangsterismapnews.myway.com/ ... 21:21:21President Bush declared on Friday that Iraq stands at a defining moment as it struggles to put down heavily armed Shiite militias in new flare-ups of violence that threaten to undercut security gains and sway his decision about U.S. troop drawdowns. In Baghdad, Shiite extremists lobbed rockets and mortars against the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which has come under steady barrages this week. The U.S. sent a Hellfire missile into a Shiite stronghold in the city. And in the south, fighting escalated in Basra where the mettle of Iraqi security forces is being sorely tested...

Supernatural Threatsbreitbart.com/ ... 21:20:17Seven women who had holed up in a cave for months [with] other members of a Russian... Christian cult... awaiting the end of the world emerged Friday night and were being treated by emergency workers, regional officials said. More than two dozen others remained behind but were expected to come out as early as Saturday... entered the cave... in early November... end of the world... expected in May. They threatened to detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force...

People can be Deadlyhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:28:41

shot a cat with a rifle and sent e-mails to relatives to tell them he did it "to get even" with his wife...

Animals can be Dangeroushosted.ap.org/ ... 21:24:33A 77-year-old woman used her car to drive off a large dog that was attacking a mail carrier... [Age is No Barrier... Defending Ourselves... Transport Pre-Automation]

US Election 2008apnews.myway.com/ ... 21:23:00

If Hillary Rodham Clinton is feeling heat from pundits and party elders to quit the race and back Barack Obama, you'd never know it from her crowds, energy level and upbeat demeanor on the campaign trail...

FRI 2008-MAR-28

Transport Troubletimesfreepress.com/ ... 12:51:44At least 18 passengers were injured when a charter bus loaded with Birmingham fifth graders overturned this morning on its way to the Tennessee Aquarium... palmbeachpost.com/ ... 12:51:06An American Airlines jet that had just taken off for Chicago this morning made a hasty return to Palm Beach International Airport after passengers and crew complained of a burning smell... boston.com/ ... 12:49:39A tanker truck loaded with 10,500 gallons of diesel and gasoline collided with three cars on Interstate 91 in Chicopee this morning and exploded in a fireball that sent flames shooting 60-feet into the air... driver of the tanker... serious injuries... A passenger in one of the cars was also hospitalized with minor injuries... reuters.com/ ... 11:45:13U.S. safety investigators sought on Thursday to find out why a panel from the wing of a US Airways Group Inc jetliner fell off in flight over Maryland... on March 22 from a Boeing 757-200 operating as Flight 1250 from Orlando to Philadelphia... four-foot square piece, attached to the top side of the left wing, struck several windows toward the rear of the plane and cracked one outer pane... news.bostonherald.com/ ... 11:43:08Ronald Gomes, 61, of Rehoboth told the Herald last night he merely followed procedure as a heavy runaway freight car hurtled toward him near Campton Junction Station at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday. "I was running the train and was coming into Canton on straight track when I saw this thing coming at me," Gomes said. "It looked like a freight car and I knew what was going to happen. I knew it was going to be bad." Despite the impending danger, Gomes slammed on the brakes, alerted emergency services and told his train crew to warn passengers to brace themselves for the impact. He suffered cuts to his face, had teeth knocked out and received bruises to his body during the crash, which also left 150 of his 300 passengers with minor injuries... hosted.ap.org/ ... 11:32:21WELLINGTON, New Zealand... SUV.. parked with its emergency brake only half on... rolled backward down a 32 foot bank... crashed into [a man's] house and knocked him off the toilet...

WW2 - still with usnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:32:50Japanese judges have thrown out a libel case against Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, who was accused of lying about the country's war time past. Mr Oe's book Okinawa Notes claims that the Japanese military ordered hundreds of civilians to commit suicide as US troops advanced during World War II. A retired army officer and another man said the military never gave the order, but the court dismissed their claim. Analysts say the ruling vindicates Mr Oe's views on Okinawa's history...

Cold War - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 11:39:36North Korea blamed the United States for the deadlock in their nuclear negotiations, warning Friday that the Americans' attitude could "gravely" affect ongoing disablement of its atomic facilities... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:33:43North Korea has test-fired several short-range missiles off its western coast... If confirmed, the move comes a day after North Korea expelled most of the South Korean managers from a joint industrial park on the border. That came after Seoul said it would link progress at the park with progress on the North's denuclearisation effort...

Nuclear is Nastyhosted.ap.org/ ... 11:34:10The Defense Ministry said Thursday it was investigating whether 66 pounds of uranium found buried by a roadside in southern Bogota was material being sought by leftist rebels...

Prison Suckschron.com/ ... 12:48:31An inmate is dead and 15 others hospitalized after a riot early today at a federal prison in South Texas...

Scary Timeshosted.ap.org/ ... 12:06:51NEW YORK... A college student has apologized for causing a scare on a subway train when his science project short-circuited and started smoking in his backpack... "They were panicking, and I realized their fear...." tried to disassemble the contraption on the platform even as he reassured riders, "Don't worry. This is my science project..."

Violenceblogs.usatoday.com/ ... 12:45:52A 19-year-old was charged today with carrying out shootings along a highway in Virginia... local6.com/ ... 12:39:51ORLANDO, Fla. -- A massive fight between a group of teens wielding cinder blocks, bats and using Taser guns damaged several cars at a popular mall early Friday... ap.google.com/ ... 11:44:21LOUISVILLE, Ky... [37yo] mother faces charges for killing her two children at home before brandishing a gun at the University of Louisville... no one was injured on campus... 14-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl... abcnews.go.com/ ... 11:42:10Authorities in Virginia are looking for at least two suspects in a series of shootings along Interstate 64 that left two people wounded and at least six cars with bullet holes... in three locations along I-64 in Virginia early Thursday morning... Witnesses' accounts lead authorities to believe that two people were involved... sources tell ABC News a high-powered rifle was involved in the shootings and that the shots appeared to be targeting passengers, not just the body of the vehicles...

Civilization vs Gangsterismnytimes.com/ ... 12:55:41American warplanes shelled targets in the southern port city of Basra late Thursday, joining for the first time an onslaught by Iraqi security forces intended to oust Shiite militias there, according to British and American military officials... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:34:59Evidence suggests the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by a "criminal network", an investigating UN team has said. No suspects were named, but the investigators said a "Hariri Network" had Mr Hariri under surveillance before the assassination. The ex-PM and 22 others died in a huge car bombing in Beirut in February 2005... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:31:17Two Pakistani intelligence agents involved in tracking al-Qaeda suspects have been shot dead in the southern port city of Karachi... Pakistan's main cities are routinely the scene of attacks by Islamist militants opposed to Islamabad's support for the US-led "war on terror"... Karachi also frequently witnesses clashes between the supporters of rival sectarian and political groups...

Reproductioncnn.com/ ... 12:54:27you can go to the drugstore today and buy a genetic test that can determine who is the father of the child... After you collect the DNA and send it in, it takes three to five days for the test to come back, and you can even go to a confidential Web site and get the results... If you are able to collect the child's, the potential dad's and the mom's DNA, the test is 99.9 percent accurate. With just the child's and the potential dad's DNA, it is closer to 99 percent accurate... test costs around $20, but if you read the smaller print, you will see that there is also a $119 lab processing fee...

Epidemic Without Bordersnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:30:02A British TV production company has denied allegations that its researchers spread a fatal flu to an isolated indigenous tribe in Peru. Indigenous rights activists, Peruvian government officials and a US scientist say four members of the tribe died after the TV producers visited. A spokesman for the TV company, Cicada Films, said its team did not visit the isolated area in question...

Healing Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 12:25:53Older Americans have more money and are expected to live far longer than prior generations... net worth of older Americans -- those 65 or older -- has increased almost 80 percent over the past 20 years... those who reach the age of 65 are now expected to live an average of 19 more years, or seven years longer than people who had reached age 65 in the year 1900... "But there are some notes of concern. Obesity has gone up quite significantly. And there are some large disparities. The life expectancy gap between whites and blacks has narrowed but is still large. There is a big wealth gap between whites and blacks..." forecasts that by 2030, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will nearly double to 71.5 million, or 20 percent of the U.S. population, up from 12 percent, or 37 million people, in 2006... reuters.com/ ... 12:21:20People who carry a mutant gene can develop potentially fatal meningitis if they get infected with the drug resistant Beijing strain of tuberculosis, a study in Vietnam has found... ap.google.com/ ... 11:48:42WESTON, Wis... Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor... mother... said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors...

Antiquity - still with usreuters.com/ ... 12:24:05New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found... Studies on the remains of ordinary ancient Egyptians in a cemetery... showed that many of them suffered from anemia, fractured bones, stunted growth and high juvenile mortality rates...

Pure Mathematicsreuters.com/ ... 12:22:21John Griggs Thompson of the United States and Jacques Tits of France were awarded a $1.2 million Norwegian mathematics prize on Thursday for their work in algebra and group theory. The Abel Prize, named for the Norwegian 19th-century mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, has been awarded annually since 2003 and has been likened to a Nobel prize in mathematics... Group theory is a 200-year-old branch of mathematics that deals, among other things, with the concept of symmetry which is key to understanding the solution of equations. Thompson revolutionized the theory of finite groups, and Tits created a new and influential notion of groups as geometric objects, the citation said...

It came from the skyreuters.com/ ... 12:04:48A cattle farmer in Australia's remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal... "I know a lot about sheep and cattle but I don't know much about satellites. But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket..."
In 1979, large parts of the Skylab space station fell to earth near a tiny outback town in Australia's west. A local council sent NASA a ticket for littering and then United States President Jimmy Carter rang a local motel to apologize...

Why People Go Veganreuters.com/ ... 12:07:27

As Japanese sushi conquers restaurants and homes around the world, industry experts are fighting the side-effects of the raw fish boom: fake sushi bars, over-confident amateurs, poisoned consumers...

Animal Culturenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:24:53 Dolphin

A South American river dolphin uses branches, weeds and lumps of clay to woo the opposite sex and frighten off rivals...

US Militarynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 11:32:54US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a full inventory of US nuclear arms after parts of ballistic missiles were mistakenly sent to Taiwan...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 12:57:19

Army Spc. Gregory B. Rundell, 21, of Ramsey, Minn., died March 26 in Taji Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:57:09

Army Staff Sgt. Joseph D. Gamboa, 34, of Yigo, Guam, died Mar. 25 of wounds suffered when he came under indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.

Sportsmanshipft.com/ ... 12:38:57The International Olympic Committee has asked China to promise not to delay transmissions of the Beijing games, after France raised concerns about Chinese television’s censoring of Tibet protests at the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece this week...

Democracy in Actionnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:31:30Zimbabwe's security forces have been put on full alert amid fears Saturday's election could spark violence similar to that in recent Kenyan polls...

People are Trashyreuters.com/ ... 11:47:03The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers...

Language Culturereuters.com/ ... 12:10:11His mother suffered dark depressions and tried to dominate his life. His sister and daughter had severe mental problems, his father and wife died young and a beloved uncle committed suicide in his arms. So what did Peter Mark Roget... do to handle all the pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, woe, bitterness, unhappiness and misery in a life that lasted over 90 years? He made lists... "What's another word for..." new biography...

Free Expressionreuters.com/ ... 12:13:29The film... intersperses images of the September 11, 2001 attacks and other Islamist bombings with quotations from the Koran... warns that the rising number of Muslims in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe threatens democratic societies. It urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran... After the caption "The Netherlands in the future?" the film shows images of gay men being executed, children with bloody faces, a woman being stoned and genital mutilation... reuters.com/ ... 12:12:16Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia on Friday condemned a film by a Dutch lawmaker that accuses the Koran of inciting violence, as Dutch Muslim leaders urged restraint... The film urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and finishes with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by the sound of ticking... lost link Smile

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, says he will sue the maker of an anti-Islam film... says his cartoon... was used in the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders without permission. Mr Westergaard told Danish TV that his cartoon was a protest against terrorism, not Islam as a whole...

World Without Bordersnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:29:30Egyptian border guards have shot dead two African migrants, as they tried to cross the frontier into Israel... both in their 30s... guards are said to have opened fire on them after they refused orders to stop at the border. Eight other migrants have been killed at the border by Egyptian police this year...

Big Nannyhosted.ap.org/ ... 12:10:29Health officials have pushed back a deadline for national chain restaurants to put calorie counts on their menus in New York City outlets...

US Election 2008blog.washingtonpost.com/ ... 12:47:51

Sen. Patrick Leahy... Hillary Clinton "ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama..." reuters.com/ ... 12:26:34

Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania endorsed on Friday Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in a boost for the Illinois senator... apnews.myway.com/ ... 11:40:52

SALT LAKE CITY... In a show of Republican unity, one-time bitter foes John McCain and Mitt Romney raised money and campaigned together Thursday for a single goal - getting McCain elected president...

Digital Tyrannyreuters.com/ ... 12:11:33Cuba said on Friday it will allow all Cubans to buy and use mobile telephones for the first time... Cuba has the lowest rate of cellular telephone use in Latin America and the service has been restricted until now to foreigners or government officials and employees... reuters.com/ ... 12:05:59Hackers have defaced the Web site of Indonesia's information ministry in response to a government move to restrict access to pornographic material on the Internet... "Prove that the law has not been made to cover government stupidity." The message was accompanied by a mocked-up photograph of a local information technology expert, who has been advising the government on the new law, depicted with a bare chest...

Digital Techflac.sourceforge.net/ ... 11:55:59what is FLAC? FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality... designed specifically for audio... you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file... fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec... the only one that at once is non-proprietary, is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation, has a well documented format and API, and has several other independent implementations...

THU 2008-MAR-27

Transport Incidenthosted.ap.org/ ... 19:41:30lost control of her car while reaching for a cell phone... accidently driving into the waters of the Oakland Estuary... car became lodged in stilts under a home on the water... Onlookers say she came ashore still cradling her coffee cup...

Transport Tragedynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:36:17A helicopter belonging to the Ukrainian border guard service has crashed into the Black Sea with 13 people on board. Twelve have been confirmed dead. One person has been found alive, although he is in a critical condition...

Big Brotherreuters.com/ ... 16:34:51Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime. A small pilotless drone... capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors... If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14-pound (6.3 kg) drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting...

Sex can be... disturbingdallasnews.com/ ... 19:30:24The mere fact that a 12-year-old girl danced nude at a northwest Dallas strip club isn't enough to close its doors.... the city ordinance that regulates sexually oriented businesses does not allow authorities to revoke the license of such a business for employing someone under the age of 18...

Modern Medicine can be Dangerousreuters.com/ ... 19:35:31U.S. health regulators are probing a possible connection between Merck & Co Inc's blockbuster Singulair asthma drug and suicidal behavior in adults and children...

Scary Timescbs5.com/ ... 19:31:40A woman was forced by the Transportation Security Administration to remove her nipple rings before she was allowed to board a flight... "The woman was given a pair of pliers in order to remove the rings in her nipples.... The rings had been in her nipples for many years..." The Transportation Security Administration does not have a specific policy addressing nipple rings....

Supernatural Violencenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:37:57Police in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh say they have arrested 17 villagers over the killing of a woman suspected of being a witch... was dragged from her home on Monday night, beaten and burned with a hot iron... Social activists say such cases are common in India... One of the accused said she had done nothing wrong because she was instructed by a divine power to punish the woman for being a witch...

Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:38:24A curfew has been imposed on Baghdad amid continuing clashes between Shia militias and Iraqi security forces. The curfew will last from 2300 (2000 GMT) on Thursday until 0500 on Sunday to "protect civilians", officials say...
Heavy fighting between the Shia Mehdi Army, led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, has continued in Basra for a third day, with violence in other parts of southern Iraq... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:35:58Some 40 people are reported to have been killed in sectarian violence in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that began on Wednesday... follows rising tensions between the Sunni Muslim Orakzai tribe and the minority Shia Katchai tribe...
Separately five people were killed in an attack on an ambulance in the Kurram tribal agency... hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:43:08With Iranian backing, Hezbollah guerrillas have dramatically increased their rocket range and can now threaten most of Israel, senior Israeli defense officials said... about 185 miles... can hit anywhere in Israel's heavily populated center and reach as far south as Dimona, where Israel's nuclear reactor is located... hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:42:22Insurgents attacked a NATO patrol in southern Afghanistan, killing one soldier and wounding another...
Also in Helmand, militants fired a rocket at opium poppy eradication police Wednesday, killing two policemen and wounding another...
Helmand is the biggest opium-producing region in the world... [Gut black market profit incentive: REPEAL!!!]

Reproductionreuters.com/ ... 16:52:30A "natural family planning method" in which women use a set of beads to keep track of their fertile days is effective and widely acceptable to women and their partners, according to a new study conducted at 14 sites in 6 countries... "Women have lots of options and they need to be aware of this one..." reuters.com/ ... 16:32:41while most premature babies went on to have good health and good reproduction... Preemies, as these premature babies are popularly known, had higher risk of death in childhood, were less likely to reproduce as adults, had slightly lower educational attainment and, among the women, were more likely to have their own babies born prematurely just as they had been. The overall risk for death among preemies was still low, but was significantly higher than for full-term babies. The earlier in the pregnancy that a baby was born, the higher the risk of lasting health consequences... tracked almost 1.2 million people born in Norway from 1967 to 1988...

Anthropologynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:56:53Scientists have detected the faint genetic traces left by medieval crusaders in the Middle East... in Lebanon...

Animal Culturehosted.ap.org/ ... 16:53:55The razor-sharp beaks that giant squids use to attack whales... might one day lead to improved artificial limbs for people... scientists... wonder how a creature without any bones can operate it without hurting itself... changes density gradually from the hard tip to a softer, more flexible base where it attaches to the muscle around the squid's mouth... "Lots of useful information could some out of this for implant materials, for example. Interfaces between soft and hard materials occur everywhere..."

Animal Companionshosted.ap.org/ ... 16:45:40

Glen Burnie [Md] woman was surprised by a three-foot python that slithered out from behind her media stand while she watched television in her living room... Officers believe the snake was left behind by a previous tenant...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 16:06:44

Army Pvt. George Delgado, 21, of Palmdale, Calif.

Army Staff Sgt. Christopher M. Hake, 26, of Enid, Okla.

Army Pfc. Andrew J. Habsieger, 22, of Festus, Mo.

Army Spc. Jose A. Rubio Hernandez, 24, of Mission, Texas
died March 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive on March 23. They were assigned to the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

No Good Deed...hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:44:46NEW CASTLE, Ind.... A woman who tried to help after a car crash was punched and bitten by the man she was trying to assist, police said. "It was just crazy. I was just trying to help..." [Alcohol was involved.]

People are Trashynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:39:49Plastic waste in the oceans poses a potentially devastating long-term toxic threat to the food chain... Studies suggest billions of microscopic plastic fragments drifting underwater are concentrating pollutants like DDT... plastic particles "act as magnets for poisons in the ocean"... In a typical sample of sand, one-quarter of the total weight may be composed of plastic particles...

US Election 2008reuters.com/ ... 19:35:08

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called on Thursday for a second economic stimulus package of $30 billion and for greater oversight of the U.S. financial system to prevent another housing crisis...

Reasons for Repealcapitolweekly.net/ ... 19:34:26California wants every tax dollar it can lay its hands on. This year, those hands are reaching for marijuana... stuff.co.nz/ ... 19:34:09

The parents of an Invercargill teenager decided it was time for tough parenting when they found cannabis in their son's room, so they called the police... The judge said Kennedy may have read "crap" that cannabis was fun and a harmless drug but in reality it was an addictive and invasive drug that ruined people's lives. "It takes away their willpower, their ability to resolve issues. It deprives people of the very desire to succeed, which I am sure you, at 18 years of age, have in you now. That's why people that deal in drugs go to jail. You go very close to jail today..." [Damn Prohibitionist Judges!] africa.reuters.com/ ... 19:32:48

Morocco appears to be losing its position as the world's top cannabis grower to Afghanistan after a drive to eradicate the crop in the African country's impoverished north... chron.com/ ... 19:32:26AMARILLO, Texas — A man charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession needed to use the drug to treat symptoms of his HIV infection, a jury has found... deliberated less than 15 minutes... not guilty... not guilty... not guilty... not guilty... not guilty...

CD/DVD/etc is Deadsuntimes.com/ ... 16:47:36You need a college, of course, but that’s not the only ingredient in a good college town. You need quirky bookstores. Coffee shops — preferably not all chains. A diner. An artsy cinema. A dive bar. There’s one other thing you need, and it’s getting harder to find: a local record store. The kind of place with poster-covered walls, tattoo-covered customers, and an indie-rock aficionado at the cash register, somebody in a retro T-shirt who helps you navigate the store’s eclectic inventory... In recent years, perhaps hundreds of independent and small-chain record stores in college towns have shut down or consolidated as music downloading all but eliminated the demand for them...

Digital Convergencefirstsounds.org/ ... 19:47:31...the reproduction of sound from four phonautograms. Download the mp3 below to hear the world's earliest recording... reuters.com/ ... 19:46:37U.S. audio historians have discovered and played back a French inventor's historic 1860 recording of a folk song -- the oldest-known audio recording -- made 17 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph... Lasting 10 seconds, the recording is of a person singing "Au clair de la lune, Pierrot repondit" ("By the light of the moon, Pierrot replied")... made on April 9, 1860, by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on a device called the phonautograph that scratched sound waves onto a sheet of paper blackened by the smoke of an oil lamp... reuters.com/ ... 16:54:15Paintings and sculptures long stored away are finding a new audience as museums strive for mass appeal with high-tech Web sites packed with video, podcasts and interactive elements. Moreover, these institutions are finding that rather than diminishing the number of museum visits, the Web is actually boosting in-person attendance...

Digital Businesshosted.ap.org/ ... 16:56:06YouTube has removed several video clips that had prompted Turkish authorities to block access to the video-sharing Web site, a move the company believes will lead to a restoration of access soon... [SOOoooo... let's see... some nutty foreign government somewhere has supernatural taboos which SET POLICY FOR GOOGLEYTOOB!!] reuters.com/ ... 16:54:44VeriSign Inc said registry fees for .com and .net domain names would increase as per its agreements with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), effective October 1... to $6.86 and $4.23 from $6.42 and $3.85, respectively... hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:38:22Comcast Corp., an Internet service provider under investigation for hampering online file-sharing by its subscribers, announced Thursday an about-face in its stance and said it will treat all types of Internet traffic equally... Comcast said it will collaborate with BitTorrent Inc., the company founded by the creator of the peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol, to come up with better ways to transport large files over the Internet instead of delaying file transfers... hosted.ap.org/ ... 16:37:28The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online... Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers... reuters.com/ ... 16:36:49The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ousted a record number of "cybersquatters" from Web sites with domain names referring to trademarked companies, foundations and celebrities in 2007... Most complaints came from the pharmaceutical, banking, telecommunications, retail and entertainment sectors. Drugmakers were the top filers "due to numerous permutations of protected names registered for Web sites offering or linking to online sales of medications and drugs..." reuters.com/ ... 16:36:05AMD... on Wednesday unveiled new microprocessors for the desktop personal computer market, in a move that could sharpen its competitive edge against rival Intel... one that has three cores, or electronics brains, compared with the two or four most generally available. AMD said that its Phenom X3 has as much as a 30 percent performance improvement in some instances compared to a dual-core chip operating at the same frequency... reuters.com/ ... 16:35:17Anyone can be a star on YouTube. Now, with tools released on Wednesday for charting the popularity of clips posted to the popular video-sharing site, video creators can analyze their own celebrity potential...

WED 2008-MAR-26

Mysteryblog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ... 23:09:42The FBI seemed to catch a big break recently when a Clark County farmer earlier this month dug up a parachute that could have been one used by the infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper...

Transport Businessnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:02:24Car giant Ford has sold its luxury UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover to Indian company Tata...

Transport Incidentreuters.com/ ... 22:56:44The gun carried by a US Airways pilot accidentally went off on a flight from Denver to Charlotte on Saturday, causing the plane to be pulled from service... reuters.com/ ... 22:56:31A Lufthansa passenger jet made an emergency landing in the southern Polish city of Katowice on Monday after a drunk, unruly passenger began shouting that he was a terrorist...

Industrial Tragedyhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:55:34A state news agency says a fireworks explosion killed 22 people and injured ten others in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang...

War is Hellhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:54:38The U.S. Navy expressed regret Wednesday that an Egyptian citizen was killed when a navy-contracted ship fired warning shots at approaching motor boats in the Suez Canal... "The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired.... One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow..."

Transport Tragedyhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:52:56About 70 vehicles slammed into each other Tuesday in heavy snowfall on an autobahn in northwestern Austria, killing one person and injuring at least 37 others...

Under Tyrannyreuters.com/ ... 22:56:15Chinese dissident Yang Chunlin, who called for human rights to take precedence over the Olympic Games, has been sentenced to five years in jail on charges of inciting subversion... reuters.com/ ... 22:56:04Shifting China's model of urbanization to favor huge supercities could boost per capita output, improve energy efficiency and help contain the loss of arable land, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Monday... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:52:23The Tibetan government in exile says the death toll from the demonstrations in Tibet is about 140...

Violencehosted.ap.org/ ... 22:48:24One person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man who went on a knifing spree Sunday at a shopping mall in eastern Japan...

Civilization vs Gangsterismbloomberg.com/ ... 23:07:34Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki gave militants loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al- Sadr 72 hours to surrender as fighting in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad left more than 60 people dead. Al-Maliki issued the ultimatum yesterday as the operation by Iraqi security forces, codenamed "Knights' Charge," entered its second day, state television reported... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:32Police say at least nine people have been killed and seven wounded in a shootout in eastern Guatemala that is likely tied to drug traffickers... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:52:09Rocket attacks on the U.S.-protected Green Zone may carry a message with implications across Iraq: rising anger within the Mahdi Army militia. The Shiite fighters led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are reorganizing their ranks, taking delivery of new weapons from Iran and ramping up complaints about crackdowns by U.S. and Iraqi forces that could unravel the Mahdi Army's self-declared cease-fire... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:51:38NAZRAN, Russia... car bomb exploded outside a bank in southern Russia's violence-plagued Ingushetia region Monday, wounding at least five people... Ingushetia, a small region next to war-scarred Chechnya in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, is the site of frequent attacks targeting law enforcement authorities... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:50:57Nearly 40 trucks carrying fuel to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan have been destroyed in two bomb attacks on the Pakistani border... about 100 people have been injured... two bombs planted in a parking lot on the Pakistani side of the Torkham customs post... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:50:34Anbar province, which stretches to the Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and Syrian borders west of Baghdad, had been the heart of the Sunni insurgency and a bastion of al-Qaida in Iraq. But Sunni tribal leaders who were fighting the Americans began in late 2006 to turn on al-Qaida, fed up with its brutality and austere brand of Islam. Now the province is one of the safest in Iraq. The troops' mission is to keep it that way. "We must be doing something right," said Cpl. Colbert Rianda, of Chico, Calif. "You can see the change..." hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:49:15KABUL, Afghanistan... A car bomb exploded Wednesday in a farmers' market in southern Afghanistan, killing eight civilians, as the Taliban warned it will use new techniques and draw on years of fighting experience to increase attacks this spring... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:48:50BAGHDAD... U.S.-protected Green Zone early Sunday... targeted by a series of rockets or mortars... no immediate reports of casualties... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:34:14Taliban attacks on telecom towers have prompted cell phone companies to shut down service across southern Afghanistan at night, angering a quarter million customers who have no other telephones... Even some Taliban fighters now regret the disruptions and are demanding that service be restored by the companies... [BWAHHH AHAHHAHHAHHAAA]

Viet Nam War - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 22:33:42Vietnam Veterans Memorial... interactive version debuts online this week...

Hospitals Suckhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:20:52The use of physical restraints on nursing home patients declined nearly 40 percent nationally in recent years as the federal government, states and the nursing home industry placed greater emphasis on eliminating what once was a common practice...

Wasn't the Pothosted.ap.org/ ... 21:08:43drunken driver had a suspended license and had marijuana in her car... didn't have any pants on... claimed she wasn't wearing pants because she needed to use the bathroom...

Prison Suckshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:10:04On Monday, the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments in a class action suit brought by inmates who say it's not food but punishment and that anyone subjected to it should get a formal disciplinary process first... Prison officials see nutraloaf as a tool for behavior modification... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:07:42Los Angeles company... provides cards for inmates... "With more than 2.5 million people incarcerated in the Unites States today, I saw that there was a tremendous need..."

Slavery - still with usreuters.com/ ... 21:04:38Police rescued two teenage Bulgarian sisters from a circus in southern Italy... 19-year-old sister... [forced to] swim with flesh-eating piranhas for the amusement of guests... 16-year-old was forced into a container where the circus staff tossed snakes at her...

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 23:15:23National Guard... March 26, 2008... This week, the Navy and Marine Corps announced a decrease, while the Army and Air Force announced an increase. The Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is 2,443 more reservists mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 98,400, including both units and individual augmentees....

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 23:14:31The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Sgt. Harry J. Laurence of Cleveland, Ohio, will be buried April 9 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.... Laurence was a member of L Company, 31st Infantry Regiment, then making up the 31st Regimental Combat Team (RCT), 7th Infantry Division. The team was engaged against the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea, from Nov. 27-Dec. 11, 1950. The unit was forced to retreat to the south due to intense enemy fire. Laurence was among many soldiers reported missing in action. In 2001, joint U.S. and Democratic People's Republic of Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted two excavations of a mass grave near the Chosin Reservoir. The site correlates closely with defensive positions held by the 31st RCT at the time of the Chinese attacks. The teams recovered remains believed to be those of 11 U.S. servicemen. Analysis of the remains subsequently led to the identifications of three individuals, including Laurence.... defenselink.mil/ ... 23:13:32

Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin L. Canham, 21, of Lake Stevens, Wash., died March 23 from a non-hostile incident in Djibouti. He was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, Portland, Ore. The incident is under investigation.

In the Line of Dutyap.google.com/ ... 23:07:58A firefighter investigating an explosion that blew manhole covers off an underground electrical vault was killed when a second blast hurled more of them, which apparently struck him... He was a 10-year department veteran...

Anthropologyhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:55:19A small piece of jawbone unearthed in a cave in Spain is the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor in Europe and suggests that people lived on the continent much earlier than previously believed... up to 1.3 million years old...

World Climatehosted.ap.org/ ... 22:40:00A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk... the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan... [I wonder how hard they had to search for a scientist to quote that... not much.]

Orbiting Overheadnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:38:56The US space shuttle Endeavour has landed successfully in Florida after the longest mission of its kind to the International Space Station...

Solar Systemreuters.com/ ... 22:38:05The basic ingredients for life -- warmth, water and organic chemicals -- are in place on Saturn's small moon Enceladus, scientists said on Wednesday in detailing the content of huge plumes erupting off its surface...

Animal Culturenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:38:36

The tactics used by elephants to keep their cool in extreme desert heat have been caught on camera... A BBC crew filmed the tusked beasts spraying themselves with water that they had stored in a reservoir in their throats several hours earlier. Although this skill for storing water was first documented 100 years ago, the team believes this is the first time it has been filmed... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:16:42Petra the swan has a new home and so does her beloved swan-shaped paddleboat... Zoo officials finally parted bird and boat last week after Petra settled down with a real white swan and the boat was returned to the lake. But the romance was short-lived. The zoo says that, on Saturday, her new beau flew off and sought out the company of other black swans...

Why People Go Veganhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:16:11

Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time...

It came from the skynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:37:48Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found... object hit north-west Scotland about 1.2 billion years ago... "The massive impact would have melted rocks and thrown up an enormous cloud of vapour that scattered material over a large part of the region around Ullapool. The crater was rapidly buried by sandstone which helped to preserve the evidence..." reuters.com/ ... 22:15:33BARNAUL, Russia... A shepherd is suing Russia's space agency for compensation after he said a 10-foot-long chunk of metal from a space rocket fell into his yard, just missing his outdoor toilet... Residents in the neighboring village of Ust-Kan said rocket pieces regularly rain down on their area. Parts of the surrounding countryside are designated special zones where people may not go during the launches...

Raising Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 21:09:03Full-term babies who are exclusively breastfed are not at heightened risk of low iron stores by the age of 6 months, even if their mothers were iron-deficient during pregnancy...

US Election 2008blog.washingtonpost.com/ ... 23:10:07Mike Gravel is headed to the convention in Denver... The septuagenarian former Alaska senator, who, depending on your viewpoint, was an amusing or aggravating presence in the early Democratic presidential debates, has announced that he is joining the Libertarian Party and will be competing for its presidential nomination in Denver in late May...

Look Who's Talking!hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:54:57China strongly protested to the U.S. on Wednesday over the mistaken delivery of fuses for long-range missiles to Taiwan...

Supernaturalhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:23Several Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders reacted warmly to a proposal for dialogue among the religions by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, welcoming the overture from the leader of the strict Muslim country as a major development in interfaith relations...

Digital Warsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:32:41The makers of World of Warcraft are locked in a legal battle with a firm that has produced a tool to automate many actions in the virtual world. Blizzard is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting. Both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona...

Digital Culturereuters.com/ ... 22:21:35A U.S. and British library plan to reproduce online all 75 editions of William Shakespeare's plays printed in the quarto format before the year 1641...

Noise can be Dangerousfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 22:20:05Teenagers seem to know that loud music can damage their hearing, yet most see no reason to lower the volume on their iPods, a small study suggests...

People Do Drugsfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 22:19:13Young women who smoke cigarettes, use marijuana or binge drink will often stop doing so while they are pregnant, but a partner's pregnancy has no effect on young men's pot use or binge drinking pattern, a new study shows...

Big Nannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:01:58Indonesia's parliament has passed a bill criminalising those who access internet sites containing violent or pornographic material... could be jailed for up to three years, or have to pay a heavy fine... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:01:31Uganda's government has banned a workshop for prostitutes scheduled to start on Wednesday in Entebbe. "We don't take any delight at all in the idea that prostitutes are coming together to devise ways of spreading their vice," the ethics minister said... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:18:24A rattlesnake rancher who calls himself Bayou Bob found a new way to make money: Stick a rattler inside a bottle of vodka and market the concoction as an "ancient Asian elixir." But Bayou Bob Popplewell's bright idea appears to have landed him on the wrong side of the law, because he has no liquor license...

Big Whoops Cascadereuters.com/ ... 22:14:49Two Fijian youths who mistakenly stopped a police car thinking it was their truck... dumping their sacks of dried leaves, believed to be marijuana...

Digital Tyrannyhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:13:41Syria is cracking down more on Internet use, imposing tighter monitoring of citizens who link to the Web, as well as jailing bloggers who criticize the government and blocking YouTube and other Web sites deemed harmful to state security... even as Syrian officials show off a press center with fast Internet access and wireless technology for journalists covering this weekend's Arab League summit...

Digital Future is Nownews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:12:45Google has made no secret of its ambitions in the mobile space. There are mobile versions of all its key services, such as search, e-mail and calendar. But the company is going much further. At the end of 2007 it lifted the lid on Android, an open mobile operating system that is being used to power a new generation of devices under the Open Handset Alliance, a group which involves firms like HTC and chip designer ARM. Android is the creation of Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms. He believes that a lack of openness in the mobile phone space has stifled innovation to date. "What Android enables for third party developers is the kind of programming we see on the internet..."

Digital Businesshosted.ap.org/ ... 22:33:18Eros LLC, a Tampa Bay-area company that creates virtual sex scripts in the online world "Second Life," sued Robert Leatherwood, 19, last year claiming he copied, displayed or distributed Eros products without permission. Eros creations allow "Second Life" users to equip their online personas, or avatars, with realistic genitalia and engage the avatars in various sexual actions. A federal judge accepted a settlement in the case last week that doesn't involve money or an admission of wrongdoing from Leatherwood. Reached at his grandmother's home in North Richland Hills, Texas, he acknowledged he sold Eros products but said the whole case had been overblown. "I did it in private," he said. "I wasn't out to do a huge market thing. I was doing it for a little bit of money..." hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:13:58The nonprofit group behind Wikipedia, the mammoth Internet encyclopedia built by volunteers, is getting its largest donation ever - $3 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:13:15A mystery surrounds satellite broadcaster Dish Network Corp.'s surprise, $712 million winning bid in the government's recent auction for radio spectrum reclaimed from television stations. Will Dish start a mobile video service? Will it try to offer interactive services to better compete with cable companies? Or will it simply wing it? The company is mum... reuters.com/ ... 22:12:05Dell... said on Tuesday the personal-computer industry was experiencing a shortage of laptop batteries partly because of a recent fire at a major supplier, but the company was working with other suppliers to limit any price increases... reuters.com/ ... 22:11:47Shareholders of Google Inc will propose that the Web search company take steps to ensure freedom of Internet access and establish a review of its operations' effect on human rights, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday...

Woman's Righthosted.ap.org/ ... 21:11:07A state appeals court upheld sanctions Tuesday against a pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills to a woman and wouldn't transfer her prescription elsewhere...

Transport Pre-Automationhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:10:31excuse for speeding through a small Connecticut town... blamed his driving problems on an errant Oreo...

Policing Ourselveshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:06:3970-year-old man... pulled over a real officer while driving a black and white car equipped with flashing lights... [said] he chased him down because he was going 65 mph in a 45 mph zone...

Reasons for Repealkgan.com/ ... 23:12:55DES MOINES, Iowa... The Iowa Court of Appeals has reversed a ruling in a case where a police chief obtained a search warrant after talking to a woman who smelled of marijuana.... A district court granted her motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the search warrant. In today's ruling, the appeals court says there was cause and sent the case back to district court... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:11:39A mother-of-three who smoked cannabis for a month as part of a BBC documentary has described how the drug left her paranoid and frightened... [WHAT A SICK EXPERIMENT!] hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:05:17STURGEON BAY, Wis... man tried to deposit money smelling of marijuana at a bank... $4,000 in bundled bills did not smell like burned marijuana but had a musty odor of ground sweet leaves...

TUE 2008-MAR-25

Transport Troublereuters.com/ ... 12:39:05Four hundred people were trapped on the London Eye for more than an hour while engineers fixed a mechanical fault... Staff spoke to visitors over an intercom system fitted in each of the 32 glass pods... The wheel... can carry 800 passengers during each 30-minute revolution...

Nature can be Deadlyreuters.com/ ... 12:34:00A war on gophers waged by two Canadian men went awry this weekend when a device used to blast the rodents in their holes sparked a massive grass fire in a rural area near Calgary, Alberta, causing more than C$200,000 ($197,000) in damages... ap.google.com/ ... 11:03:19Arkansas... Muddy water rose to the middle of front doors Monday as a historic flood crest flowed southward on the White River through communities in the state's eastern prairie... had risen about 7 feet in four days... Water poured into Bayou Des Arc, an area just north of the town of 1,900, damaging scattered homes and cabins...

Transport Tragedycnn.com/ ... 11:02:10HONG KONG, China... Hope has nearly faded for 18 Ukrainian sailors trapped in a tugboat that sank after hitting a Chinese cargo ship three days ago... Rescue crews saved seven of 25 crew members after the collision, but 18 others were trapped in the vessel as it slipped beneath the waves, toppled upside down and came to rest into the sea bed...

Healing Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 23:41:52BETHESDA, Maryland... The U.S. government began a major overhaul of its effort to produce an AIDS vaccine on Tuesday, stressing basic scientific research after the failure of a key clinical trial last year. Government officials at a summit with AIDS scientists pledged to prioritize spending on lab work and animal tests rather than expensive, and thus far disappointing, clinical vaccine trials on humans. "We need to turn the nob in the direction of discovery. That is unambiguous," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who convened the meeting outside of Washington. "We really do need new and novel ideas..." [Nob? Knob?] hosted.ap.org/ ... 13:30:39The World Health Organization claims polio transmission has been stopped in Somalia, leaving only a dozen other countries with the deadly disease... But given the lack of detailed medical data from Somalia, the absence of a centralized government and continued violence across the country, officials admitted the virus could very easily pop up again... At most, polio paralyzes one out of every 200 children it infects... Polio cases were also detected last year in Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger and Sudan...

Science Marches Onnnnnnreuters.com/ ... 13:29:13U.S. researchers have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 12:49:17

Army Staff Sgt. William R. Neil Jr., 38, of Holmdel, N.J., died March 21 in Sperwan Ghar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:48:58

Army Sgt. Thomas C. Ray, II, 40, of Weaverville, N.C.

Army Spc. David S. Stelmat, 27, of Littleton, N.H.

Army Sgt. David B. Williams, 26, of Tarboro, N.C.
died March 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 1132nd Military Police Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, Rocky Mount, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:48:08

Army Pfc. Antione V. Robinson, 20, of Detroit, Mich., died March 19 in Nawa, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the vehicle he was repairing collapsed. He was assigned to the 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. The incident is under investigation. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:47:41

Army Pvt. Tyler J. Smith, 22, of Bethel, Maine, died Mar. 21 at Forward Operating Base Falcon near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when the base received indirect fire. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:40:21

Air Force Tech. Sgt. William H. Jefferson, Jr., 34, of Norfolk, Va., died March 22 near Sperwan Ghar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 21st Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Air Force Base, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 12:47:24The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Arthur F. Eastman, of East Orange, N.J. will be buried in September in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.... On Aug. 18, 1944, Eastman departed the airdrome at Finschhafen, New Guinea, on a test flight of his F-5E-2 aircraft, but never returned. Subsequent searches failed to locate Eastman or his aircraft. In 2003, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) found documents in the Australian National Archives about an earlier site visit believed to be associated with an F-5E crash. According to the archives, an Australian official had visited the crash site in 1950 in Morobe province near Koilil Village, but there was no subsequent recovery. In 2004, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) investigated the crash site in the mountains of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The team found aircraft wreckage and recommended the site be excavated. In February-March 2007, a JPAC team excavated the crash site and recovered human remains, pilot-related items and other personal effects, including Eastman's military identification tag....

Animal Companionsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 12:36:33

Two lion skulls found during excavations at the Tower of London... kept by royals during medieval times... have the same genetic make-up as the north African Barbary lion... radiocarbon dated to AD 1280-1385 and AD 1420-1480...

Orbiting Overheadreuters.com/ ... 11:06:20Mar 25, 2008 12:34am EDT... Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station on Monday and headed home after delivering part of Japan's ambitious space laboratory...

Animals can be Deadlywashingtontimes.com/ ... 11:03:48

An Arlington man was in stable condition yesterday in Inova Fairfax Hospital after reaching into his luggage and being bitten by a snake... Officials have not determined how the reptile — preliminarily identified as a juvenile canebrake rattlesnake — got into the luggage...

Broadcast is Deadhosted.ap.org/ ... 23:49:11The Justice Department on Monday approved Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s proposed $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers... [NB: There is NO "competition."]

Digital Libertyhosted.ap.org/ ... 23:48:38A Czech far-right party has offered to help a Dutch lawmaker distribute an anti-Quran film on the Internet if it is banned from being released in the Netherlands...

Digital Threathosted.ap.org/ ... 23:48:11A security lapse made it possible for unwelcome strangers to peruse personal photos posted on Facebook Inc.'s popular online hangout, circumventing a recent upgrade to the Web site's privacy controls... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:46:10A new book details the extent to which countries across the globe are increasingly censoring online information they find strategically, politically or culturally threatening. Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering challenges the long-standing assumption that the internet is an unfettered space where citizens from around the world can freely communicate and mobilise. In fact, the book makes it clear that the scope, scale and sophistication of net censorship are growing... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:45:39China is investigating a spam attack after almost half of China's mobile phone users received unwanted text messages from advertisers... more than 200 million...

Digital World Without Bordersreuters.com/ ... 13:34:58The Internet came to Bhutan along with television just nine years ago. In a country where open criticism of the elite is almost unheard of, the anonymity of the Web is giving a few people the chance to speak their minds without fear...

Digital Tyrannyreuters.com/ ... 23:49:43The Cuban authorities have blocked access from Cuba to the country's most-read blogger, Yoani Sanchez, she said on Monday. Sanchez, whose critical "Generacion Y" blog received 1.2 million hits in February, said Cubans can no longer visit her Web page (http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/) and two other home-grown bloggers on the Web site on a server in Germany. All they can see is a "error downloading" message... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:46:25People in China are able to access English language stories on the BBC News website in full, after years of strict control by Beijing... reuters.com/ ... 13:34:29The Turkish government has been blocking access nationwide to Slide Inc and its popular multimedia Web software after a local court ruled the site let users post photos and stories insulting the Turkish republic's founder...

Digital Businessnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:47:28Flat-panel computer displays could be manufactured quickly and cheaply using novel inkjet printing equipment demonstrated by Japanese scientists. The technique has already been used to produce the delicate wiring and tiny components needed for flexible screens... reuters.com/ ... 23:42:45Online DVD rental company Netflix Inc said it resumed shipping DVDs on Tuesday after a technological breakdown knocked out its site for much of Monday. "We're shipping everything that should have been shipped yesterday as well as what we'd normally ship today..." [STILL SHIPPING DATA... How 20th C is that!!!] reuters.com/ ... 13:34:09U.S. software maker NetSuite Inc is adding new accounting, business analysis and sales force automation programs to its product line... reuters.com/ ... 13:33:37Google Inc on Monday unveiled plans for a new generation of wireless devices to operate on soon-to-be-vacant television airwaves, and sought to alleviate fears that this might interfere with TV broadcasts or wireless microphones...

Digital Future is Nowreuters.com/ ... 13:33:19this is no normal wrestling match -- the contenders are diminutive humanoid robots built and controlled by participants in the twice-yearly Robo-One Championships... [Until PETR comes and shuts them down, throwing WD40 on people...]

People Livehosted.ap.org/ ... 13:26:25OKLAHOMA CITY... Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good..." one thing he does remember is hearing the doctors pronounce him dead. "I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do..."

Lost & Foundhosted.ap.org/ ... 13:24:16spied a plastic bottle among the Japanese glass floats he often finds along the shore of his tiny Alaskan fishing village. He walked over and saw an envelope tucked inside... found a message from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle... traveled 1,735 miles... "This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands.... Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung..." About 21 years passed between the time Emily Hwaung put the message in a soda bottle and Merle Brandell picked it up on the beach... Hwaung is now a 30-year-old accountant named Emily Shih who now lives in Seattle... "I don't remember the project. It was so long ago. Elementary school is kind of foggy..." She also was a little chagrined by the offer to mail a photo to whomever found the letter and by the environmental implications of dropping plastic bottles in the ocean, and noted that times have changed a lot in 21 years...

Pareidoliahosted.ap.org/ ... 13:20:25Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped corn flake on eBay Friday night for $1,350.... listed the corn flake on eBay last week, but eBay canceled the auction saying it violated the Web site's food policy. The sisters restarted their Ebay auction, advertising a coupon redeemable for their corn flake, instead of the cereal itself...

Just Random Chancereuters.com/ ... 12:37:35A Scottish cleaner who won a record bingo jackpot over the Easter weekend... 1,167,795 pounds ($2.3 million)... said she would return to work as normal on Tuesday...

Sportsmanshipreuters.com/ ... 12:32:48China has launched an Olympic-themed lottery with prizes of up to 5 million yuan ($709,000)...

Big Nannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:43:34A website that a Dutch right-wing politician was planning to use to release a film expected to be fiercely critical of Islam has been suspended. The US hosting service, Network Solutions, said it was investigating complaints that it may have breached guidelines on hate language... washingtonpost.com/ ... 11:06:59In an unusually aggressive step, Fox Broadcasting yesterday refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission for an episode of a long-canceled reality television show, even as the network fights two other indecency fines in the Supreme Court...

Business Wisdomcanadianpress.google.com/ ... 11:05:55Al Copeland, who became rich selling spicy fried chicken and notorious for his flamboyant lifestyle, died Sunday at a clinic near Munich, Germany. He was 64. The founder of the Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken chain... sold his car at age 18 for enough money to open his own one-man doughnut shop. He went on to spend 10 modestly successful years in the doughnut business... in 1971 used his doughnut profits to open a restaurant, Chicken on the Run. ("So fast you get your chicken before you get your change.")... In March 1989, Popeyes - then the third-largest chicken chain - purchased Church's Chicken, the second largest behind KFC. The two chains, operated separately, gave Copeland more than 2,000 locations...

Political Theaterobserver.com/ ... 11:01:01“I tried it a couple of times,” [NY Gov. David Paterson] said... when asked if he had ever used cocaine.... also admitted he has used marijuana, but added that he has not touched illegal drugs since his early twenties...

MON 2008-MAR-24

Civilization vs Gangsterismreuters.com/ ... 21:34:38Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi parliament and U.S. embassy, was hit by a sustained barrage of rocket or mortar bomb fire early on Sunday... not immediately clear where most of the missiles landed or if there were any casualties after an apparent attack lasting about 15 minutes...

Theory of Sex Educationtampabay.com/ ... 21:32:5145-year-old high school honors teacher was arrested Thursday, accused of having sex with a 17-year-old boy... met two male students at a liquor store last Friday, then took them to a Tampa motel, where she had sex with one of them in the shower as four other students overheard in the next room...
one week after another female Hillsborough County teacher was arrested after being accused of having sex with a 14-year-old from Davidsen Middle School, where she taught...

Violencepress-citizen.com/ ... 21:27:38Iowa City Police are investigating the death of an Iowa City mother and her four children in their east Iowa City home... Police received a 911 call... from a cell phone and the caller immediately disconnected... husband... a former vice president at Hills Bank, who was recently indicted for embezzling more than half a million dollars from the bank... wasn't there and the family's tan Toyota Sienna minivan was missing. Police haven't confirmed the cause of death, but did say that the incident was not a shooting... Meanwhile, Iowa City Police are on the scene of a single-vehicle fatality east of Iowa City in the median of Interstate 80 near the 250 mile marker. A Toyota minivan was westbound on the interstate between 6:30 and 7 a.m. when it crashed into the concrete support for an electronic road sign. The minivan burst into flame, and an Iowa State Trooper at the scene said there was one body found inside but that it was burned beyond immediate identification...

Animals can be Deadlytheleafchronicle.com/ ... 21:32:05

The Rev. Liston G. Richardson, 76, pastor of Sunnyview Independent Missionary Baptist Church, was found dead Tuesday afternoon by his wife, Lucille... "It was a tragic accident..." killed by a goat he was attempting to return to a fenced-in area... the rope tied to the goat was wrapped around Mr. Richardson's feet and neck — he wasn't breathing and his face had turned blue... The goat was on top of Mr. Richardson, rearing up and down...

Modern Family Lifethisislondon.co.uk/ ... 21:34:11A mother has lost a High Court battle to stop her ex-husband destroying embryos created during IVF treatment... the High Court in Belfast ruled that under the 1990 Act, Mr Bonner's decision to destroy the embryos should take precedence. The Act says the man and woman who created the embryos must both agree before they can be used for IVF - even if it involves donating the embryos to another couple. Therefore, once one partner wants to destroy the embryos, their wish must be carried out... The hospital last night confirmed the embryos had been destroyed...

US Election 2008news.yahoo.com/ ... 21:30:56

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996... Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on that trip... Former Army Secretary Togo West, who accompanied Clinton to Bosnia, said he was not surprised "that there could be confusion" when someone who has taken a number of trips tries to recall details of a particular trip 12 years earlier. "The important thing is that she was there. Our soldiers saw she was there and heard her and knew that our country cared about them and what they were doing..."

Digital Threatkgw.com/ ... 21:29:41JACKSONVILLE, Ore. -- Police say belongings removed from a Southern Oregon man's property have begun slowly reappearing at his home, a day after a pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost [him] much of what he owned... ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking... trespassers, armed with printouts of the ad, tried to brush him off. "They honestly thought that because it appeared on the Internet it was true.... It boggles the mind..."

Political Theaterwwj.com/ ... 21:26:04Criminal charges were filed today against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty in connection with the "text message scandal" that has enveloped the Mayor's office. There are 12 criminal counts in all, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy, misconduct in office and perjury... claims they lied under oath during a whistle-blowers' trial last summer when they denied having a romantic relationship. Published excerpts of sexually explicit text messages left on Beatty's city-issued pager in 2002 and 2003 appear to contradict their testimony...

SAT 2008-MAR-22

Nuclear is Nastynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:40:38President Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will reduce its number of airborne nuclear weapons by one third...

Under Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:38:46North Korea is facing a chronic and worsening food crisis, according to an aid group which has experience of working inside the secretive state... rations have been cut severely, badly affecting even elite citizens in the capital, Pyongyang... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:32:45Information barely trickled out of the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other far-flung Tibetan communities, where foreign media were banned and thousands of troops dispatched to quell the most widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in nearly five decades. The Chinese government was attempting to fill the vacuum with its own message. It disseminated footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and accusations of biased reporting by Western media via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which is blocked in China. The communist government's leading newspaper called to "resolutely crush" the Tibetan demonstrations... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:30:07A television journalist was found dead in a Moscow apartment Friday with a belt around his neck and numerous stab wounds - a grisly murder that reinforces Russia's image as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:24:13A Tibetan monk crouched in the quiet courtyard of a nearly deserted monastery and bitterly recalled the words he and his fellow monks have been forced to recite every year at government-organized classes: "I love this country..." The "patriotic education classes" have been imposed on the monks for the past decade, but the young monk in the centuries-old Rongwo monastery still can speak his own mind to a journalist. "We want freedom..." reuters.com/ ... 21:17:42China said 19 people died in riots in the Tibetan capital last week and official media warned against the unrest spreading to the northwest region of Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims bridle under Chinese control... reuters.com/ ... 21:16:31Chinese police shot and wounded four protesters this week in an ethnic Tibetan community in the province of Sichuan...

Nature can be Deadlymlive.com/ ... 21:50:43It's just as you suspected - this has been the snowiest winter ever in the Ann Arbor area, or at least since 1880 when record-keeping started. And it's not over yet... In 2004-05, 83.9 inches of snow fell. This year, we're sitting at 85 inches. That's a lot of shoveling... jsonline.com/ ... 21:49:49Milwaukee... the mighty winter of 2007-'08 took another swing at southern Wisconsin on Friday, smacking the area with up to 15 inches of snow and knocking out plans for thousands of Good Friday travelers at Mitchell International Airport... raised the winter's total to the second highest on record for a single season - 95.4 inches... ajc.com/ ... 20:07:34

As Atlanta continued to clean up from crushing storms a week ago, a worker using a Bobcat to remove debris discovered the body of a man who apparently was killed when a tornado skipped through central Atlanta. "This will be the first fatality from the tornado..."

Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:39:36Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders - also known as imams - in an effort to counter militant Islam... part of a wider programme launched by the Saudi monarch a few years ago to encourage moderation and tolerance in Saudi society. The ministry of religious affairs and new centre for national dialogue will carry out the training... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:39:13An accidental explosion was to blame for the deaths of two Palestinian militants at a training facility in Gaza City... Hamas had initially blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast... the two had mishandled explosives... Hamas said they died performing their jihadi duty... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:31:58Saturday, Iraqi authorities reported that a U.S. airstrike north of the capital killed six members of a U.S.-backed Sunni group - straining relations with America's new allies in the fight against al-Qaida... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:31:18An Al-Qaida terror cell was behind a mortar strike against the U.S. embassy in Yemen that missed its target but killed a security guard and wounded 13 students at a nearby school, an Interior Ministry official said Saturday... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:30:42Hugo Chavez has been accused of using Venezuela's oil riches to meddle in Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Now, Peru's president says the Venezuelan leader may be doing it here by funding militants and anti-poverty centers that preach populist revolution... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:29:04A car bomb exploded Friday outside a police station in Spain's northern Rioja region after a warning call from the Basque separatist group ETA... One officer was slightly injured... in the city of Calahorra in an area that had been filled with people attending a Good Friday religious procession... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:22:03A suicide car bomb killed five Pakistani soldiers and wounded nine others near the Afghan border on Thursday... in South Waziristan's main town of Wana...
On Sunday, missiles that witnesses say came from an unmanned drone struck a suspected militant safehouse and killed about 20 people three miles outside of Wana. Only U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan are known to operate unmanned drones in the region... reuters.com/ ... 21:17:00An explosion killed a soldier from NATO-led forces in southern Afghanistan... during a patrol... an area where foreign troops are engaged in daily battles with Taliban militants who are fighting to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and drive out foreign troops... latimes.com/ ... 20:04:53BAGHDAD... a roadside bomb claimed the lives of three [US] soldiers... blew up the U.S. soldiers' vehicle and killed two Iraqis...
indirect fire, either a rocket or mortar, killed a U.S. soldier and wounded four others south of Baghdad on Friday...

Earth Shakescnn.com/ ... 20:03:56A total of four earthquakes -- the strongest of them a powerful 7.2 magnitude quake -- hit western China on Friday... no immediate reports of damage or fatalities...

Fatal Whoops Cascadedailymail.co.uk/ ... 20:03:20UK... A man who lost his job after being falsely accused of a horrific sex crime has been found hanged in a shed... sacked from his job at a local IKEA store after his employers received a letter saying he had raped a woman and her two children... writer claimed to be a journalist on a local newspaper, but the name and address in the letter were false and the author has never been traced...

Slavery - still with usnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:02:13Police in China have rescued 33 mentally disabled men who were forced to work as slaves at a building site... discovered in a filthy 30sq m (320sq ft) room in Hulan... College students reportedly saw a man jump to his death from a seventh-floor window, and raised the alarm...

Opposing Tyrannytimesonline.co.uk/ ... 20:05:33Despite 20 years of iron-fisted security, huge investments and mass migration since the last Tibetan uprising, the roof of the world once again looks like a hostile place to most Chinese. The uneasy sense of psychological defeat emerged from interviews with Chinese citizens and soldiers in Sichuan province... Almost without exception, people said they had lost faith in government propaganda and feared that Tibetans would turn to violence against China...

Theftdailymail.co.uk/ ... 20:00:41Italian police have issued video footage of a man who has been hypnotizing supermarket checkout staff and getting them to hand over the cash... In every case... the last thing staff remember is a man leaning over and saying 'Look into my eyes' before suddenly finding the till is empty... bears an uncanny resemblance to Rasputin and Saddam Hussein... news.yahoo.com/ ... 19:57:19Homeland security officials on Friday hinted at a possible face-saving deal to end their standoff with a handful of states over new driver's license rules — a dispute that, left unresolved, could cause big air travel headaches... a late Good Friday letter from a top DHS official suggested Washington may be backing away from a messy fight... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:45:53A Colorado man is accused of stealing an Army veteran's identity and using it for 24 years to get married, obtain free medical treatment and even serve as president of a VFW post... faces felony charges of identity theft, forgery and criminal impersonation... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:43:10TOLEDO, Iowa... A bevy of officers chased a doughnut delivery van at speeds up to 100 mph before arresting the driver at gunpoint... [News that Sounds Like a Joke as "News of the Weird" might put it] the doughnut shop gave them the purloined goodies...

Lasting Contributionshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:23:49Paul Scofield, a commanding stage and screen actor indelibly stamped on filmgoers' minds as the doomed philosopher-statesman Sir Thomas More in "A Man For All Seasons," has died at age 86... won an Academy Award and international fame for the 1966 film... in which he played the Tudor statesman and author of "Utopia" executed for treason in 1535 after clashing with King Henry VIII. But he followed that breakthrough with relatively few film roles. Scofield was a stage actor by inclination and by his gifts...

US Militaryreuters.com/ ... 21:17:28The U.S. navy took a sailor into custody early Saturday in Tokyo on the charge of desertion... Japanese and U.S. investigators had been looking for a U.S. serviceman whose credit card was believed to have been found in a taxi in which a Japanese taxi driver was killed this week...

Cosmologyhosted.ap.org/ ... 20:39:56The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye... 7.5 billion light years away...

Evolution Isn't Easyreuters.com/ ... 20:38:51Sexual reproduction may be nearly as old as animal life itself, according to researchers who discovered a new species of organism that lived 540 million years ago. The tube-like creatures called Funisia dorothea anchored themselves in abundant flocks onto the shallow, sandy seabed of what is now the Australian outback. Nothing appears to have evolved yet to eat them, so they lived peaceful lives, reproducing sexually at times and by asexual methods such as budding at other times...

Dinosaurs -- still with usreuters.com/ ... 20:38:22

Gas-belching volcanoes may be to blame for a series of mass extinctions over the last 545 million years, including that of the dinosaurs...

Solar Systemnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:32:56Saturn's moon Titan may have a deep, hidden ocean...

Marsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:32:44Mars appears to be covered in salt crystals from ancient dried-up lakes...

Don't drink the waterhosted.ap.org/ ... 20:28:48It could be three more weeks before residents of a southern Colorado town can drink water straight from the tap after dozens of cases of salmonella poisoning were linked to municipal water, putting seven people in the hospital...

Feeding Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 20:28:17Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday that its private-label Great Value milk is now being sourced only from cows that have not been treated with artificial growth hormones... its Sam's Club chain also is offering milk selections from suppliers that have pledged not to treat cows with rbST...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 20:19:56

Army Sgt. Gregory D. Unruh, 28, of Dickinson, Texas, died March 19 in Mandali, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas. This incident is under investigation.

Animals can be Deadlyklewtv.com/ ... 20:19:16[Photo of the] 75-pound stingray killed a Michigan woman Thursday when it flew out of the water and struck her face as she rode a boat in the Florida Keys...

Food Recallnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:40:01Sales of mozzarella cheese made from buffalo milk have been hit by a contamination scare. Eighty buffalo herds in the Naples area have been quarantined on suspicion that their milk may contain dangerous levels of dioxin. The animals grazed on land where toxic industrial waste may have been illegally dumped by criminals. The local Mafia - called the Camorra - have been making huge profits by dumping toxic waste in the region... ap.google.com/ ... 20:16:23People should throw away cantaloupes from a Honduran manufacturer believed to be linked to a salmonella outbreak... melons from Agropecuaria Montelibano... People should check with stores to see if recently purchased cantaloupes came from Honduras... So far, 50 people have become sickened in 16 states and nine have become ill in Canada after eating the cantaloupes. No deaths have been reported, although 14 people have been hospitalized...

World Energywashingtonpost.com/ ... 20:06:51Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill yesterday that would allow construction of two coal-fired power plants in the southwest part of the state and strip some power from the regulator who has blocked them...

World Climatetheaustralian.news.com.au/ ... 19:58:18Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs... "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years..."

Healing Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 20:27:46Impaired cognitive function at age 11 appears to be associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life... reuters.com/ ... 20:27:34People with a genetic variation that slows down HIV may also be causing a mutation to the AIDS virus that makes it less potent if transmitted to others... foodconsumer.org/ ... 20:16:40Men who have low intake of folate may have increased risk of abnormal sperm leading to birth defects... washingtonpost.com/ ... 19:55:38Happily married people have lower blood pressure than unhappy married people or singles... blood pressure among married people -- especially those in happy marriages -- dipped more during sleep than in single people... kaisernetwork.org/ ... 19:54:11Washington Times Opinion Piece Examines Five Health Care 'Myths'...
"Forty-seven million Americans do not have health insurance..."
"The state-run health care systems in Canada and Europe are better and cheaper than America's..."

Researching the Obviousnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:40:24European colonisation of South America resulted in a dramatic shift from a native American population to a largely mixed one, a genetic study has shown... [um... DUH?!!]

Sportsmanshiphosted.ap.org/ ... 21:29:58China might bar live television broadcasts from Tiananmen Square during the Beijing Olympics, apparently unnerved by the recent outburst of unrest among Tibetans and fearful of protests in the heart of the Chinese capital... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:29:33Germany's foreign minister has warned China that its response to the crisis in Tibet may jeopardize the Summer Olympics in Beijing...

Supernaturalreuters.com/ ... 21:18:26Pope Benedict led the world's Catholics into Easter on Saturday at a Vatican service where he baptized a Muslim-born convert who is one of Italy's most famous and controversial journalists...

Music industry is deadreuters.com/ ... 20:35:30Elvis Costello's next solo studio album, curiously dubbed "Momofuku," will arrive April 22, and plans are for the set to be released only on vinyl, with a digital download code included in the package... skips CD format...

Under Digital Tyrannyhosted.ap.org/ ... 20:34:20China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls...

Print is Deadbrandweek.com/ ... 20:17:41As the book chains report drops in income and the debt-ridden Borders seeks a buyer, analysts cite physical shelf space as a main limitation. Such chains, they say, can't compete with Web-based retailers like Amazon that offer millions of obscure books and follow consumers down the "long tail" of the purchase funnel... Traditionally, Borders and Barnes & Noble have been able to fight back by playing to their strength: new, discounted best-sellers. But now Wal-Mart and Costco are eroding that advantage as well...

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 20:39:21Pangelinan has built four online stores offering hundreds of products for sale, from Bulova watches to Betty Boop pillows, using the Web site Zlio.com. "It was real easy..." reuters.com/ ... 20:34:56A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:34:05The government is appealing against a High Court decision that granted Symbian a patent on a computer program. The ruling overturns a refusal by the UK Intellectual Property Office to give the mobile phone firm a patent. The case is being watched with interest because before now it was rarely possible to patent dedicated computer programs in Europe... reuters.com/ ... 20:33:28Coming to consumer electronic retailers nationwide this spring is the ecoNEW program from NEW Customer Service Cos., the company that provides extended warranty plans and protection programs for such retailers as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Under the program, consumers can return any electronics products they own to participating retailers (which have not yet been announced) -- even if they weren't purchased at the store. In return they'll receive an in-store credit gift card for a predetermined amount based on the type and condition of the device. EcoNEW handles all the collection and evaluation details and issues the gift cards directly... washingtonpost.com/ ... 20:12:09After causing controversy for charging US$49.99 to remove trial software from hard disks of new laptops, Sony has backtracked from imposing the fee on customers. Starting on Saturday, Sony's Fresh Start software optimization feature will be free, the company announced... john.jubjubs.net/ ... 20:11:49What Apple is doing now with their Apple Software Update on Windows is wrong... What they did yesterday was to use their updater for iTunes to also install their Safari Web browser... lists Safari for getting an update — and has the "Install" box checked by default — even if you haven’t ever installed Safari on your PC...

Jesus - still with ustulsaworld.com/ ... 20:18:37On Easter Sunday, Christians will proclaim the message at the heart of their faith -- "He is risen" -- and will affirm the hope that God will raise all the dead at the end of time. But this belief is deeply misunderstood, say scholars from varied faith traditions who have been trying to clear up the confusion in several recent books... dsc.discovery.com/ ... 19:59:47The Shroud of Turin, the 14- by 4-foot linen believed by some to have been wrapped around Jesus after the crucifixion, might not be a fake after all, according to new research... The director of one of three laboratories that dismissed the shroud as a medieval artifact 20 years ago has called for the science community to reinvestigate the linen's authenticity... Jackson, the director of the Turin Shroud Center in Colorado, has long claimed that a 1532 fire which damaged the cloth may have affected procedures used to date the shroud. Based on information about C14 dating that wasn't available 20 years ago, Jackson's theory suggests that only a two percent contamination could skew results by 1,500 years...

Political Theaterchron.com/ ... 20:10:06WILMER [Texas]... A registered sex offender arrested in a police sting for trying to arrange sex with a 15-year-old girl on the Internet is running for mayor of this small town... "People need to realize that people make mistakes, and they need to look past those mistakes and forgive and move on.... I'm not asking anybody to condone what I did..." eligible to run for office because he was never convicted, instead receiving deferred adjudication... newsweek.com/ ... 19:52:38Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act... Something Strange: After 9/11, Treasury issued stringent new regulations that required banks to look for unusual transactions... The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books...

Democracy in Actionapnews.myway.com/ ... 19:51:14Taiwan's opposition candidate cruised to victory in the presidential election Saturday, promising to expand economic ties with China while protecting the island from being swallowed up politically by its giant communist neighbor...

US Election 2008images.ucomics.com/ ... 21:43:422008-Mar-22 Editorial Cartoonist Glenn McCoy skewers the irony in Obama's recent speech reuters.com/ ... 21:16:05

McCain shrugged off criticism from... Obama over a gaffe about Iraq, saying on Thursday that all politicians slip up and it was time to "move on"... mistakenly told reporters in Jordan on Tuesday that Iran had backed Sunni militant group al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States accuses Iran of backing Shi'ite militias there, not Sunnis... reuters.com/ ... 21:15:17

Many U.S. voters have been shocked by the sentiments expressed by the pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama but they should not be surprised, say faith leaders with experience of black American churches. Anger at discrimination, real or perceived, and strong memories of racial injustice is a common thread running through black American discourse and is reflected in religious life... apnews.myway.com/ ... 19:49:02

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is trying to clarify comments by former President Clinton that seemed to question Barack Obama's patriotism - comments an Obama aide... retired Air Force Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak... likened to Joseph McCarthy... "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said Clinton... "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics..."

FRI 2008-MAR-21

Transport Near-Tragedywcbstv.com/ ... 19:54:09jumped onto the tracks to save a man... A man had fallen onto the tracks from the opposite platform, all the way on the other side of the station...

Opposing Tyrannyindependent.co.uk/ ... 19:50:27Almost half a century after he fled to India, the Dalai Lama has raised the extraordinary prospect of travelling to Beijing and holding face-to-talks with the Chinese regime in an effort to resolve Tibet's most serious crisis for two decades...

Nature can be Deadlymsnbc.msn.com/ ... 19:49:54FENTON, Mo. - Flooding from rainstorms blamed for at least 16 deaths threatened to worsen Friday...

Criminally Stupidnews10.net/ ... 19:48:34A state Department of Corrections spokesman said former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson, who pleaded guilty to several charges, including her role in the 1975 death of a woman during a Carmichael bank robbery, released from prison Monday... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:40:07EL PASO, Texas... It didn't look quite right to federal agents when the high school student strolled into the U.S. border crossing while carrying six enormous cans of vegetables... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:38:50A man who pretended to be a CEO complaining about his fast-food order in a taco scam was sentenced to 30 days in jail after authorities saw the prank in an online video... police said it was an easy case to crack... reuters.com/ ... 19:37:46Two teenage suspects in a convenience store robbery in Oakville, Ontario, near Toronto... fled the store on foot... then called for a taxi -- which showed up with two police officers inside...

Healing Ourselvesdailymail.co.uk/ ... 19:55:31AIDS research in crisis as 'miracle' vaccines actually INCREASE chance of catching virus...

World Zookeepingbreitbart.com/ ... 19:55:07Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2- foot-wide starfish... potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks...

Orbiting Overheadnews.yahoo.com/ ... 19:51:39The trashiest region of space lies within low Earth orbit, located at 1,243 miles (2,000 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. Space junk can also be found to a lesser degree in geosynchronous orbit—situated higher at 22,235 miles (35,785 km) above the Earth. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is tracking about 18,000 orbiting objects of debris about two inches (five centimeters) in diameter and larger. The space around our planet is also polluted by millions to tens of millions of smaller, marble-sized pieces of debris... trash zips around the planet at around 4 to 5 miles per second (7 to 8 kilometers per second)... "It could be made out of Jell-O or foam or stainless steel. When it's that big, it travels at orbital velocities and it hits something else, it's going to be a bad day..." Ideas for tidying up space range from the mundane, such as space tethers, to the exotic, such as trash-truck-like craft...

Animals can be Deadlysun-sentinel.com/ ... 19:49:38A tourist was killed by a large sting ray off the Florida Keys Thursday morning when the barb-tailed animal jumped out of the water into the woman's boat... a spotted eagle ray that weighed about 75 pounds and had a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet... The impact probably killed the woman, not the ray's venomous barb...

People Liveexaminer-enterprise.com/ ... 19:45:16Bartlesville, Oklahoma... She had been told about looking both ways before crossing the street but on March 5, Madi Sheffield — a Jane Phillips Elementary School kindergartner — forgot... Madi’s mother, watched helplessly from her front window as her daughter ran out in front of the vehicle.... Luckily, JP fourth-grader Devon Laird was nearby and grabbed Madi just seconds before a pickup truck would have run her over...

Big Nannyfoxnews.com/ ... 19:52:14A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption...

Digital Culturetimesonline.co.uk/ ... 19:50:06An elderly man has killed himself by programming a robot to shoot him in the head after building the machine from plans downloaded from the internet...

US Election 2008blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 19:47:44Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass... said that a President Obama would help the US, in relations with Muslim countries, "in some cases go around their dictator leaders to the people and inspire the people in ways that we can't otherwise... Because he's African-American. Because he's a black man. Who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country..." msnbc.msn.com/ ... 19:46:27

Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, threw his support behind Barack Obama for president Friday... news.yahoo.com/ ... 19:46:03

White House documents reveal that Hillary Clinton lied to voters about her opposition to a trade pact blamed in industrial states for killing jobs, Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday...

Under Digital Tyrannynews.yahoo.com/ ... 19:42:20China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls, a regulator said Friday...

Reasons for Repealhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:41:58An Australian man's complaint of an break-in at his home went to pot Friday when police arrested him for growing marijuana...

Lost & Foundhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:41:32A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back - 38 years after it was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different paint job... running just fine...

It's Only Moneyhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:39:50pile of cash discovered Thursday at a sewage purification plant in northern Israel... about 7,000 shekels ($2,000)... bills were cut in half... reuters.com/ ... 19:36:33British cash machine... paying out twice as much money as it should... drawing a crowd of hundreds eager to cash in on the mistake. Those requesting the maximum daily withdrawal of 300 pounds ($600) were being given 600 pounds and a receipt for 300. "People were calling their mates up and telling them to get down there..."

Big Whoops Cascadereuters.com/ ... 19:35:47Canada will probe how blueprints for the new headquarters of an elite military counter-terrorism unit ended up in a pile of garbage...

Theory of Justicebiz.yahoo.com/ ... 19:34:41A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Starbucks Corp. to pay its California baristas more than $100 million in back tips and interest that the coffee chain paid to shift supervisors... also issued an injunction that prevents Starbucks' shift supervisors from sharing in future tips, saying state law prohibits managers and supervisors from sharing in employee gratuities. Starbucks spokeswoman Valerie O'Neil said the company planned an immediate appeal...

WED 2008-MAR-19

Violenceap.google.com/ ... 22:36:46COLUMBUS, Ga... A man who sent a letter to his father indicating he was going to kill his children was found dead with the three youngsters in a wooded area on Wednesday... Investigators have said they don't know what led to 28-year-old Eddie Harrington's decision to leave his Columbus home with his twin 23-month-old girls and his 3-year-old son. He reportedly lived with his girlfriend and the children...

Nature can be Deadlynews.yahoo.com/ ... 22:11:37PIEDMONT, Mo. - Residents of low-lying towns stacked sandbags or grabbed belongings and evacuated Wednesday after a foot of rain pushed rivers and creeks out of their banks in the nation's midsection. At least 13 deaths had been linked to the weather, and three people were missing...

Prison Sucksnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:04:40A Yemeni man has described being held for nearly three years in secret CIA prisons, or "black sites", around the world and accused the US of torture. Khaled al-Maqtari told Amnesty International he was held in isolation for more than 28 months without charge or access to any legal representation. He said he first became a US "ghost detainee" at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after being arrested there in 2004. The US has not acknowledged detaining Mr Maqtari...

Supernatural Threatsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:04:19At least 50 people in southern India have damaged their sight by staring at the sun in the hope of seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary...

War is Hellhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:54:45U.S. soldiers fired a warning shot near a woman who "appeared to be signaling to someone" along a dangerous stretch of road north of Baghdad, but the bullet killed a young Iraqi girl, a military official said early Thursday...

WW1 - less with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:52France's last remaining veteran of World War I died Wednesday at age 110 after outliving 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in what they called "la Grande Guerre." Lazare Ponticelli, who was born in Italy but chose to fight for France and was a French citizen for most of the past century, died at his home in the Paris suburb of Kremlin-Bicetre...

Civilization vs Gangsterismhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:56:03Mar 18... SAN'A, Yemen... Three mortar rounds targeting the U.S. Embassy crashed into a high school for girls next door Tuesday, killing a Yemeni security guard and wounding more than a dozen girls... Three of the girls were described as in serious condition and were being flown to Jordan for treatment... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:55:24Mar 16... Pakistan's capital was on high alert Sunday and embassies reviewed security measures after a bomb struck a restaurant, killing a Turkish aid worker and wounding at least 12 others including four FBI personnel... reuters.com/ ... 21:45:01WASHINGTON... More than 160 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices... reuters.com/ ... 21:42:28Grannies holding a knit-in to protest the war in Iraq clashed in a shouting match with pro-war activists in Times Square on Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict... reuters.com/ ... 21:41:15U.S.-led coalition troops killed three men, two children and a woman, in a raid in southeastern Afghanistan, provincial officials and village residents said on Wednesday. They said the victims, from the families of two brothers, were all civilians, but the U.S. military said the two brothers were involved in conducting bombing operations using improvised explosive devices...

WW2 - less with usfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:50:29Angela Merkel began on Sunday a highly symbolic visit to Israel, where she will become the first German chancellor to address its parliament more than 60 years after the Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews...

Under Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:05:22The Cuban government has lifted its ban on farmers buying their own supplies to improve agricultural production... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:29Year after year, the U.S. issues a troubling assessment of human rights in Russia. Year after year, Russia lashes back, accusing the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights practices around the world of twisting reality and warning that Washington has no right to preach. With relations at what could be a post-Cold War low, it is no different this time around. In a sometimes bitter, sometimes sarcastic statement Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry said the portrayal of Russia in the 2007 report was prejudiced, mistaken, poorly sourced and counterproductive... reuters.com/ ... 21:41:30China vowed on Wednesday to take the Olympic torch to Tibet despite deadly riots there and said it was in a "life or death struggle" over the Himalayan region with "the Dalai Lama clique"... reuters.com/ ... 21:40:54China sought to put an end on Wednesday to pockets of protest still flaring in its Tibetan regions, with arrests, tight security and a war of words with Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. China's state-run media says 105 people surrendered to police for taking part in protests in Tibet's capital Lhasa last week that turned violent and that China says were orchestrated by the Dalai Lama from exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala... reuters.com/ ... 19:49:37China gave Tibetan independence protesters an ultimatum to surrender on Saturday... gave protesters until Monday night to turn themselves in and benefit from leniency... reuters.com/ ... 19:48:02The Tibetan capital Lhasa braced for more possible confrontation on Saturday after independence protesters challenged China's rule in the fiercest protests to have rocked the region in two decades. China accused followers of the Dalai Lama of "masterminding" the uprising, which shatters its carefully-cultivated image of national harmony in the build-up to the Beijing Olympic Games...

Transport Incidentfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:44:39Southwest Airlines Co said on Wednesday it had grounded more than three dozen planes, cutting 4 percent of its scheduled flights, due to another glitch in ensuring safety inspections are completed...

WW2 - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 21:54:32Mar 12... About two dozen Holocaust survivors, including some saved by German industrialist Oskar Schindler, will mark the 65th anniversary of the Nazi's liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. In just two days in March 1943, German soldiers emptied the ghetto of its estimated 16,000 Jewish residents, shipping them to a forced-labor camp in nearby Plaszow and to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where most were killed in the gas chambers. Those left behind were executed, with some 2,000 Jews killed. By the end of World War II, just 3,000 Jews who lived in the ghetto survived... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:46:46On the same square where thousands gave Adolf Hitler an adoring welcome in 1938, Austrians marked the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany's annexation Wednesday by lighting 80,000 candles: one for every person who perished under the regime... defenselink.mil/ ... 19:41:16Officials of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) met today with representatives of the Indian government in New Delhi to lay the groundwork for future U.S.-Indian humanitarian operations in Arunachal Pradesh State.... discussed a tentative timeline for future investigations and recoveries of aircraft crash sites associated with missing U.S. servicemen from World War II....

Yuck!hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:24:51Ben Russell, 15, of Eagle River, Alaska, holds his winning pair of sneakers in the annual Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest...

Feeding Ourselvestelegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:39:56Research has found that women are programmed to choose a healthier diet... Favourites such as duck, veal and ham are high on men's menus and they are also more likely to eat shellfish such as shrimp and oysters. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to choose vegetables, especially carrots and tomatoes, and love strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and apples. Women also prefer dry foods, such as almonds and walnuts, and are more likely to consume eggs and yogurt compared with men. However, the study of more than 14,000 Americans found some exceptions to the rules. Women loved fresh burgers while men preferred frozen ones and men were significantly more likely to eat asparagus and Brussels sprouts than women...

Staying Healthyusatoday.com/ ... 22:39:20Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that heart surgery patients who got transfusions of blood that was more than two weeks old fared worse than those who received newer blood... reuters.com/ ... 21:43:36Circumcision does not appear to shield men from the types of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) common in the developed world, according to new research from New Zealand... While there is "compelling evidence" that circumcision protects men from contracting HIV through sex with women, it is unclear whether circumcised men are at lower risk of other types of STDs...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 19:43:26

Army Staff Sgt. Michael D. Elledge, 41, of Brownsburg, Ind.

Army Spc. Christopher C. Simpson, 23, of Hampton, Va.
died Mar. 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo. defenselink.mil/ ... 19:42:52

Army Spc. Lerando J. Brown, 27, of Gulfport, Miss., died March 15 in Balad, Iraq, from injuries suffered in an incident currently under investigation. He was assigned to the 288th Sapper Company, 223rd Engineer Battalion, Mississippi Army National Guard, Houston, Miss.

US Militarynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:05:39A US marine has been charged with murdering an unarmed detainee in Iraq... Sgt Ryan Weemer is the third marine to be charged in connection with the November 2004 incident, which happened during heavy fighting in Falluja... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:11The U.S. military said Tuesday that it will allow detainees to make regular phone calls to their families from Guantanamo Bay prison, where many have been confined in extreme isolation for as long as six years... feeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:46:53A U.S. soldier stationed in southern Germany was shot dead by police after threatening an ex-girlfriend and then going on the run armed with an assault rifle... defenselink.mil/ ... 19:42:35National Guard... March 19, 2008... net collective result is 131 fewer reservists mobilized than last week.... brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 95,957...

Orbiting Overheadnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:39:50Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) has been parked up in front of the International Space Station (ISS). The cargo truck is about 2,000km from the platform and will wait until the current shuttle mission has left the ISS before moving in to dock...

Gardeners of Earthnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:39:27Vietnam has become a major South-East Asian hub for processing illegally logged timber, according to a report from two environmental charities...

Cosmologyreuters.com/ ... 19:38:12An organic molecule has been spotted for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system... Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found methane in the atmosphere of a planet called HD 189733b, which is about the size of Jupiter and is 63 light-years from Earth... scientists were quick to point out that this distant planet -- with atmospheric temperatures around 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) -- is not thought to be a candidate for hosting any form of life...

Animal Culturefeeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:34:28Why do birds sing? It's all in the brain...

It's All in Your Mindreuters.com/ ... 19:30:24Although boys with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) appear to be more impulsive and troubled than their female counterparts, in adulthood the condition seems to have more impact in women than in men...

World Zookeepingnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:38:48

A senior wildlife park official in Democratic Republic of Congo has been arrested amid claims that he organised the killing of rare mountain gorillas... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:25:20Nearly a dozen central Florida firefighters pulled a 2-month-old foal from some deep doo-doo after the little horse fell into a septic tank...

Lasting Contributionsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:24:36British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90... achieved his greatest fame in 1968 when his short story The Sentinel was turned into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike... foresaw the concept of communication satellites... When asked why he never patented his idea for communication satellites, he said: "I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime..." detailed descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems inspired millions of readers... In the 1940s, he maintained man would reach the moon by the year 2000, an idea dismissed at the time... he had recently reviewed the final manuscript of his latest novel. The Last Theorem, co-written with Frederik Pohl, will be published later this year...

Freedomwlbt.com/ ... 22:36:07A Philadelphia agency has ruled that English-only signs at a famous cheesesteak shop are not discriminatory. The Commission on Human Relations says in its Wednesday ruling that the sign at Geno's Steaks does not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance. Joe Vento posted the signs at his shop in October 2005. They read "This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.'..."

Unclear on the Conceptreuters.com/ ... 22:08:14In an audio recording posted on the Internet coinciding with the birthday of Islam's founder, bin Laden said the drawings, considered offensive by Muslims, were part of a "new crusade" in which Pope Benedict was involved...

Human Rightnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:07:11A French woman with an incurable facial tumour who lost a legal challenge seeking euthanasia has died at her home near Dijon at the age of 52...

Transport Pre-Automationnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:06:41Drivers caught speeding outside their home countries will no longer avoid prosecution, under EU proposals...

Copy Rightsnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:06:28Sweden's Supreme Court has ruled that advertising breaks inserted into films violate the film-makers' copyright... case was brought by... two directors never gave permission for ads to be shown during their films...

Political Theaterreuters.com/ ... 21:40:26The new governor of New York admitted to past extramarital affairs and one by his wife on Tuesday, seeking to quash even more wild rumors and move past the tumult caused by his predecessor's resignation amid a sex scandal...

It's Only Moneyfeeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:47:20The government's debt limit would be raised to $10.2 trillion under a budget plan for next year approved by the U.S. House of Representatives... feeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:46:37The U.S. economy lost the title of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets...

US Election 2008abcnews.go.com/ ... 22:14:20Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives... drudgereport.com/ ... 22:13:52[Couldn't beat Drudge's headline:] **VIDEO** ANTI-OBAMA PASTOR UNLEASHED: 'HE WAS BORN TRASH'... 'LONG-LEGGED FREAK'... 'EMISSARY OF THE DEVIL'... news.yahoo.com/ ... 22:09:46

Barack Obama... told military families and local officials that the war has emboldened al-Qaida, the Taliban, Iran and North Korea. "Ask yourself," Obama told the crowd, "Who do you trust to end a war: someone who opposed the war from the beginning, or someone who started opposing it when they started preparing a run for president?.." reuters.com/ ... 21:42:49

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Wednesday for misidentifying Iraqi extremists, saying he fails to understand the war has emboldened U.S. enemies... reuters.com/ ... 21:42:06

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton now argues that the North American Free Trade Agreement needs to be renegotiated, but newly released records showed on Wednesday she promoted its passage... feeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:44:15

Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro stepped down on Wednesday from her finance position with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign...

Digital Future is Nowhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:37:35A robot with a cowardly streak took top honors at a conference on human-robot interaction in Amsterdam with antic displays intended to mimic human phobia... When first exposed to a fear-inspiring object - in this case, a menacing larger robot - the Phobot retreats and then spins in circles. It overcomes its "fear" by getting comfortable with small robots and working its way up to large ones - mimicking the psychological principle of "graded exposure..."

Data Theftnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:35:59Eight out of ten people are taking greater care to protect personal information following recent data loss blunders, according to a survey... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:32:21Eight in ten people say they are taking greater care over their personal information after recent data losses...

Digital Businesshosted.ap.org/ ... 19:37:06Many people now create and share content on the Internet or blend services from various sites in their daily tasks, reflecting the medium's clear evolution from a place for simply consuming Web sites. The upcoming version of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, version 8, embraces those trends by adding an "Activities" feature that makes all that easier for PC users. Although it's still in a "beta" test mode meant mostly for Web designers to try out, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:36:45Since March 13, customers of two large Internet providers, Cogent Communications Group Inc. and TeliaSonera AB are unable to contact each other through the Internet, unless they have backup connections from other companies. This means, for instance, that some U.S. Web sites hosted by Cogent customers are inaccessible to surfers in the Nordic countries, where Sweden-based TeliaSonera is the largest telecommunications operator. It's like Cogent and TeliaSonera customers are on different Internets. "Basically, parts of the Internet can't talk to each other..." not the first time this has happened: Now and then, Internet companies indulge in what Zmijewski calls playing "chicken." If they're fighting over a contract, they disconnect each other, and wait to see who blinks first. The number of irate customers each company faces will probably determine who does... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:29:01Two sisters from Virginia who are selling a corn flake shaped like the state of Illinois on eBay say the online auction Web site canceled their listing... received an e-mail from eBay saying the state-shaped cereal was in violation of the site's food policy...

Cartoons Countbreitbart.com/ ... 22:07:46Bin Laden Slams EU Over Prophet Cartoons... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:28:25Japan has created an unusual government post to promote animation, and named a perfect figure Wednesday to the position: a popular cartoon robot cat named Doraemon...

Reasons for Repealmy58.com/ ... 22:35:23SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- An El Dorado County couple were sentenced to five years in federal prison Wednesday for growing and selling marijuana... charged with growing and selling in their hometown of Cool. They claim they were acting under state law. Schafer said his wife was targeted by the federal government after she prescribed marijuana to patients under the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Fry, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, said she used marijuana to treat the side effects that were a result of her chemotherapy sessions... nashuatelegraph.com/ ... 22:34:52CONCORD – In a stunning development, the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to decriminalize possession of up to a quarter-ounce of marijuana. Currently, possession of this small amount – equal to about seven or eight joints – can result in up to a year in jail or $2,000 fine. The typical punishment is a large fine. The amended bill makes it a violation rather than a criminal misdemeanor with a fine of up to $200... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:05:11

The eminent conservationist Richard Leakey has given qualified backing for South Africa's plan to cull elephants... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:04:55Coca plantations and a fully-equipped laboratory for making cocaine have been found for the first time in a Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest. A senior army officer said the find might mean drug traffickers were trying to find new locations to grow coca... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:55:03Selling sex isn't illegal in Sweden, but buying is - a radical approach to prostitution that faced ridicule when it was introduced nine years ago. Now, while Americans are preoccupied with the downfall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in a prostitution scandal, some countries are considering emulating the Swedish model, which prosecutes the client but views the prostitute as an exploited victim... reuters.com/ ... 19:45:18Mexico has captured a high-level drug suspect working for the powerful Tijuana cartel and will deport him to face smuggling charges in the United States... Gustavo Rivera Martinez, a U.S. citizen wanted by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on drug charges... reuters.com/ ... 19:26:24Following a shootout with the gang, soldiers said they arrested four municipal police and confiscated an armored Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with a smoke machine and spike sprayer meant to deter pursuers. Soldiers also confiscated dozens of rifles, pistols and hand grenades, 3,000 of rounds of ammunition and $20,000 in cash, the army said. President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of soldiers and federal police to hot-spots across Mexico, where cartel violence has killed more than 300 people so far this year and left more than 2,500 dead in 2007. Soldiers busting drug smugglers in Mexico often uncover federal police uniforms, sophisticated radio equipment and even gold-plated pistols and assault rifles... [Repeal won't stop gangs... it will just stop their drug profits.]

Beatles - still with usreuters.com/ ... 19:22:28

Judge Hugh Bennett, who on Monday ordered McCartney to pay Mills 24.3 million pounds ($48.7 million), said she had conducted her own defence "with courteous, yet steely determination" after earlier sacking her own lawyers. But in a judgment Mills never wanted to be aired in public, he concluded: "Overall she was a less than impressive witness." In contrast, the judge praised McCartney for giving balanced evidence during the six-day hearing...

Marriage Todaynews.com.au/ ... 19:20:56AN 11-year-old boy has married his 10-year-old cousin in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia...

People Diewcco.com/ ... 19:20:29Wis. Man, 82, Dies After Falling In Septic Tank... [In the realm of... $#!+ happens...]

TUE 2008-MAR-18

Under Digital Tyrannyreuters.com/ ... 17:29:23Syrian authorities have ordered Internet cafe users to reveal their identity, the latest measure in their "iron censorship" of cyberspace... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:17:10Cuba's new President Raul Castro is to lift a ban on a wide range of consumer electrical appliances. Cubans will be allowed for the first time to own DVD players and computers... reuters.com/ ... 16:11:58China's carefully controlled media may have remained largely silent on the unrest in Tibet, but a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West... "Westerners think they know all about China, telling us that this, that and the other is bad," wrote one blogger... "Most foreigners have been brainwashed as far as this issue is concerned," assented another user. Other blogs were virulently nationalistic...

Opposing Digital Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:09:33Thousands of people are taking part in "virtual protests" against countries accused of censoring the internet. For its first Online Free Expression Day, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has created virtual versions of nine public spaces. These areas where protests are not normally possible include Beijing's Tiananmen Square and Kim Il-Sung Square in the North Korean capital Pyongyang... RSF says at least 62 cyber-dissidents are in jail around the world. More than 2,600 websites, blogs, or forums were closed down or blocked last year...

Supernatural Threatshosted.ap.org/ ... 14:38:59Authorities say the owners of a suburban Chicago tarot-card reading business have been charged in an alleged plan to defraud customers by persuading them they were cursed...

Prison Sucksreuters.com/ ... 14:34:40The 279-foot (85-meter) long tunnel resembled an underground mine structure, built with cement and wooden beams and boasting electrical power and carts for hauling away dirt and rock. Police said the wives of two inmates at the Colina II prison had hired four miners to build the escape tunnel, which led from a nearby house toward the facility and was only 98 feet shy of an interior prison yard...

Transport Incidentreuters.com/ ... 14:34:07A German high-speed train was forced to make an emergency stop when a trampoline was blown on to the tracks from a nearby garden...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 19:42:49

Army Cpl. William D. O'Brien, 19, of Rice, Texas, died March 15 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when he was attacked by small arms fire during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Dinosaurs -- still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 19:40:35

BISMARCK, N.D... Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota's state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all... Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus named Dakota, a duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in southwestern North Dakota in 2004, is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron... fifth dinosaur mummy ever found that is "of any significance..."

Antiquity - still with usreuters.com/ ... 19:37:24Researchers have found the ruins of an Inca temple built for religious ceremonies in the Andes mountains, at a park in the archeologically rich region of southern Peru that includes Machu Picchu. The temple measures 2,700 sq feet, includes 11 rooms of various sizes and an area in the shape of a Chacana, an Incan religious symbol...

Anthropologyhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:36:27Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests... confirms previous indications of the six maternal lineages... The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there...

Animals can be Deadlyreuters.com/ ... 19:34:50The bug repellent DEET works by making mosquitoes and their brethren unable to smell the sweet aroma of human sweat that alerts them that a meal of blood is nearby, scientists said on Thursday... It is the world's most widely-used topical agent against mosquitoes and other blood-eating insects...

It came from the skynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:28:42A pair of meteorites discovered in Antarctica are in a class all of their own... Several scientists propose that the Antarctic meteorites broke away from a previously unrecognised reservoir of asteroids before falling to Earth...

World Climatereuters.com/ ... 19:26:30The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting... Scientists have said the trend is spurred by human-generated climate change... [SOME scientists....]

Solar Systemnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:29:53One of Saturn's moons may once have harboured a liquid ocean beneath its icy surface... Tethys... a mid-sized satellite with a density close to that of pure ice... tidal interactions were the only viable way of providing the amount of heat associated with the formation of Ithaca Chasma... a large valley system... reuters.com/ ... 19:24:34"an unexplained software hiccup" that came at a very bad time... prevented a key piece of equipment on the Cassini spacecraft from recording data as it flew through the plume from a geyser shooting off a moon of Saturn...

Animal Companionshosted.ap.org/ ... 19:17:31

CARPINTERIA, Calif... A pet macaw... flew the coop... Dec. 6, 2006, leaving the couple heartbroken... found 15 months later some 80 miles away in Pasadena... [Woman] called the Pasadena shelter and said to put the bird on the phone. The skeptical humane society manager then put the woman on the speaker phone. It seems Danny Boy waves his foot when asked while offering him a treat. Danny Boy, who had been "sullen and morose," heard the familiar voice of his owner and perked up, fluffed up his feathers and became animated. He waved his little foot throughout the ensuing conversation...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 19:40:59Traps, pyrotechnics and beanbags shot at sea lions have failed to deter the annual springtime feast of threatened salmon at a Columbia River dam, so federal authorities gave some of them a death sentence on Tuesday... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:38:21

Once so famous for its herds that it was called Prathet Lane Xane, or Land of a Million Elephants, Laos is thought to have only 700 left in the wild... Elephants in Laos are better off than in most of the 12 other nations that are home to the animals. The country has extensive forest cover and a sparse population. But like elsewhere, it's a race against time. Poachers, dam builders, loggers and farmers are taking a deadly toll on the endangered species... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:27:41

The world's tiger population may have halved in the past quarter of a century, conservationists from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have warned... reuters.com/ ... 19:25:54 Dolphin

The vaquita, a tiny stubby-nosed porpoise found only in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, is on the brink of extinction as more die each year in fishing nets than are being born... reuters.com/ ... 19:25:25A small greenish bird that has been playing hide-and-seek with ornithologists on a remote Indonesian island since 1996 was declared a newly discovered species on Friday and promptly recommended for endangered lists. The new species is called the Togian white-eye, or Zosterops somadikartai... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:16:43A device used to safely guide warships through mine fields could be used to reduce the number of dolphins and small whales caught in fishing nets. The football-sized "acoustic cat's eyes" reflect sonar signals... developers believe a smaller version could be fitted to fishing nets to reduce the estimated 300,000 creatures caught in nets every year...

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 19:43:17The Department of Defense announced today 34 awards to academic institutions to perform multi-disciplinary basic research. The total amount of the awards is expected to be $19.7 million in fiscal 2008 and $200 million over five years. Awards are subject to the successful completion of negotiations between the academic institutions and DoD research offices that will make the awards.... defenselink.mil/ ... 19:42:22Undersecretary of Defense David S. C. Chu today announced the formation of the Deployment Support and Reintegration Office within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. The office, mandated in this year's defense authorization act, is an integral piece of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program.... designed to provide support and outreach services to Reserve component service members, their families and communities throughout the deployment cycle. This program places particular emphasis on preparing service members and their families for the stresses associated with separation and deployment, educating members and families about resources available to assist them, and connecting members to service providers before and during deployments. The focus shifts to reconnecting service members with families and communities for successful reintegration following deployment.... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:36:59An Atlas 5 rocket carrying a secret U.S. satellite lifted off before dawn Thursday... for the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that oversees the nation's constellation of spy satellites. No details of the mission were released... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:15:58

The Navy on Tuesday asked a federal judge to clarify and modify an injunction placing restrictions on the service's use of sonar in Hawaii waters... U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement that it will go ahead with planned anti-submarine warfare exercises this month in accordance with an order issued late last month by U.S. District Judge David Ezra. Officials will then determine whether to seek additional clarifications and modifications...

Animal Culturehosted.ap.org/ ... 19:38:40

Researchers say they have shown for the first time that humpback whale calves make sounds... reuters.com/ ... 19:37:41

Alligators can stealthily maneuver through the water leaving nary a ripple, despite having neither fins nor flippers like other adept swimmers. Instead, they use special muscles to shift the position of their lungs... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:30:37

A gecko's tail is as crucial to the animal's acrobatic ability as its "sticky" feet... High-speed video reveals that the creature uses its tail as a "fifth leg" to prevent it from slipping as it climbs wet surfaces... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:27:10BERLIN... Petra, a black swan, became a minor celebrity in 2006 when she became so attached to the boat - which is shaped like an oversized white swan - that she refused to leave its side... Petra met a live swan this winter... boat is to be returned to its local owner...

Feeding Ourselvesnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:27:55Scientists say poorer populations in vulnerable countries could starve if a disease called Ug-99 hits yields hard enough to push up wheat prices... reuters.com/ ... 15:27:31A gluten-free vegan diet full of nuts, sunflower seeds, fruit and vegetables appears to offer protection against heart attacks and strokes for people with rheumatoid arthritis... reuters.com/ ... 14:50:42An increase in the number of foodborne illnesses caused by contaminated spinach or lettuce over the past 35 years cannot be explained by increases in salad consumption over the same period, U.S. government researchers said on Monday...

Raising Ourselveshosted.ap.org/ ... 15:25:26If he's lucky, Zach Pickard will live past the age of 13. Zach, now 13 months old, suffers from Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a disease that accelerates the aging process when the child is 18-24 months old. Children with this syndrome die of heart disease at an average age of 13 after aging at a rate six to eight times faster than an average person. Approximately 100 cases have been formally identified in medical history and the odds of being diagnosed with it are roughly one in 8 million... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:23:29Meg Robustelli had heard reports that a chemical in most plastic baby bottles could be dangerous, but she had not done anything about it. That's when her mother stepped in and bought her glass bottles... reuters.com/ ... 14:46:57Mothers who stop smoking while pregnant tend to have cheerier, more adaptable babies, British researchers reported on Wednesday... reuters.com/ ... 14:43:31Parents can indirectly reduce their children's risk of problem drinking in college by keeping an eye on them in high school, research demonstrates...

Biodigital Threatsreuters.com/ ... 14:43:19Implanted heart defibrillators, which automatically shock a fluttering heart back into a normal rhythm, can be hacked from the outside... they made one Medtronic Inc device give up patient information off its computer chip, got it to fire improperly, and ran its battery down, all using inexpensive equipment...

Love is Beautifulhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:19:35Verizon has recovered a lost message recorded by Charles Whiting's wife, Catherine, before her death in 2005... 80-year-old man can hear his late wife's voice again, any time he wants... When Verizon upgraded the man's telephone service, his wife's voice disappeared from his voicemail system... her husband said he listened to it every day for comfort...

Digital World Without Bordersreuters.com/ ... 17:29:05China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest Internet market by number of users, a research firm said on Thursday...

Data Thefthosted.ap.org/ ... 17:25:12Harvard University is notifying thousands of graduate students and applicants that their personal information may have been exposed by a data breach... hacker gained entry to its server last month... 6,600 having their Social Security numbers exposed...

World of Sexual Cultureshosted.ap.org/ ... 17:23:08It may be the world's oldest profession, but prostitution is using some 21st-century tricks... text messaging to clock in the client, electronic fund transfers, a Web site featuring color photos, prices and rankings...

Transport Futurenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:19:55Aerospace giant EADS says it will need a production line of rocket planes to satisfy the space tourism market.... plans for a commercial vehicle to take ticketed passengers above 100km... market assessment suggests there would be 15,000 people a year prepared to part with some 200,000 euros (£160,000) for the ride of a lifetime...

Digital Culturenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:21:38video games... focus is shifting dramatically... In technical terms Bejeweled is known as a casual game because it can be played for a few minutes rather than for the hours that games such as World of Warcraft demand. James Gwertzman, director of business development at Popcap, said just because Bejeweled and its ilk can be played for a few minutes at a time doesn't mean they are without merit... reuters.com/ ... 16:11:11Lou Reed is lashing out at new modes of audio technology, saying that "people have got to demand a higher standard" than current MP3 music files... "If you don't like good sound, none of this matters for a second..." news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:06:34Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has been accused of agreeing to edit a page on the online encyclopaedia in exchange for a donation. Former Novell chief scientist Jeffrey Merkey says he donated $5,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation in exchange for changes to his Wikipedia entry. Mr Merkey says Mr Wales agreed to "use his influence" to remove libellous remarks in the entry. In response, Mr Wales has called the allegations "nonsense". The edit history of the page does show changes made by Jimmy Wales and that the page was "protected", so that no further edits can be made by the public. Jay Walsh, a spokesman for Wikipedia, told the Daily Telegraph that the allegation was "absolutely false"...

Sportsmanshipnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:26:55Scientists at universities in Plymouth and Durham analysed data on all English league clubs since World War II and found home teams in red won more often... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:24:52Athletes who take human growth hormone may not be getting the boost they expected. While growth hormone adds some muscle, it doesn't appear to improve strength or exercise capacity, according to a review of studies that tested the hormone in mostly athletic young men...

US Election 2008hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:24:30

Sen. John McCain's trip to Iraq, which began Sunday in Baghdad, coincides with a number of milestones. The Iraq war, to which the probable Republican presidential nominee has linked his political future, will be five years old Thursday. Around that date, the U.S. military is likely to suffer its 4,000th death in the war. And McCain's arrival Sunday coincided with the 20th anniversary of a horrific chemical weapons attack in northern Iraq... he expressed public worries that militants in Iraq might try to influence the November general election. "Yes, I worry about it," he said, responding to a question during a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania. "And I know they pay attention, because of the intercepts we have of their communications..."

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 19:20:28Facebook said on Tuesday it is introducing new privacy controls that give users of the fast-growing social-network site the ability to preserve social distinctions between friends, family and co-workers online... only 25 percent of existing users have bothered to take control of their privacy using Facebook's existing personal information settings... reuters.com/ ... 19:11:06With their digital download sites, a growing number of indie rock labels have begun to answer the prayers of fans who would love to hear long-out-of-print singles on their iPods or other mobile devices... reuters.com/ ... 19:10:12The online release of the new Nine Inch Nails album, "Ghosts I-IV," resulted in just under 800,000 transactions in its first week, totaling $1.6 million in revenue, the industrial-rock band has revealed... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:27:36Although more money is going to online video advertising, relatively little of that is subsidizing user-generated video... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:24:33Acer... The top model of the new "Gemstone blue" line of laptops has a screen with the same resolution as an a top-of-the-line HDTV, at 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, and will have six speakers, including a subwoofer, for so-called "5.1" surround sound. The computer will go sale next month in the U.S. for $1,999... reuters.com/ ... 16:13:36Intel... and Microsoft... committed $20 million over the next five years to create research centers focused on parallel computing at two U.S. universities... Parallel computing allows computers to run faster by dividing tasks over multiple microprocessors instead of using a single processor to perform one task at a time, but not many software companies know how to write software to harness this computing power... reuters.com/ ... 16:09:45Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates urged U.S. communications regulators on Thursday to free up more vacant television airwaves to be used for wireless services such as broadband Internet access... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:06:57Communications in the remote Australian outback are getting a boost following the development of a system that links the internet to amateur radio technology... reuters.com/ ... 15:21:17Gibson Guitar... has told Activision... that its wildly popular "Guitar Hero" video games infringe one of Gibson's patents... violates a 1999 patent for technology to simulate a musical performance... Activision has asked a U.S. court to find the claim invalid... The "Guitar Hero" series has sold more than 14 million units in North America and raked in more than $1 billion since its 2005 debut... Gibson... has been a high-profile partner in the "Guitar Hero" games... "Gibson is a good partner, and we have a great deal of respect for them. We disagree with the applicability of their patent and would like a legal determination on this..."

Digital Future is Nowreuters.com/ ... 17:28:32YouTube... is giving away tools that let Web developers tap the underlying database functions of YouTube, in effect allowing users to build their own YouTubes... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:26:23The technology best known for pirating movies, music and software online is increasingly being adopted by businesses as a cheap way to get video content to customers. A number of startups are embracing so-called peer-to-peer technology and have convinced some big-name media companies to use them to deliver legal content... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:17:40Speech recognition seems to be one of those technologies that should be the perfect answer to a whole range of situations but has never made much impact in the mass market... A company based in Buckinghamshire is hoping to take things a step farther with its system that converts voice messages to text... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:15:21Six advances that could spell the end of traditional computing... quantum... electrons... magnetoelectronics... Chemical... biomolecular... organic polymers... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:05:49Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer. Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade. And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:17:42The El-E robot looks like something you'd see in a Hollywood sci-fi flick: It's got two lenses spaced together just like eyes and a slender 5 1/2-foot-tall body. It spurts out wacky catch phrases when it accomplishes its goals. But unlike android movie stars, the El-E isn't designed to behave like a human. Rather, its focus is interacting with us. It simply grabs stuff you point at with a laser...

Unclear on the Conceptreuters.com/ ... 19:10:36A California bill that could lead to a tax on Internet music downloads faces slim odds of success, but the Democrat who wrote it says a debate over taxing such online retail transactions is overdue... reuters.com/ ... 15:17:15Poles should not be allowed to vote online because the Internet attracts people who watch "pornography while sipping a bottle of beer", a former prime minister told his party's Web site...

Music industry is deadhosted.ap.org/ ... 17:27:15PORTLAND, Ore... A woman who claims the recording industry's anti-music piracy campaign threatens and intimidates innocent people has filed a new complaint accusing record companies of racketeering, fraud and illegal spying. Tanya Andersen originally sued the Recording Industry Association of America after RIAA representatives threatened to interrogate her young daughter if she didn't pay thousands of dollars for music she downloaded from somebody else. Her amended complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland seeks national class-action status for other people allegedly victimized by the industry's anti-piracy campaign and the company it hired, MediaSentry... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:16:54The BBC has issued a fix to stop people downloading programmes from the iPlayer website that were intended for streaming on an iPhone or iPod only... reuters.com/ ... 15:16:48The talent scout who turned down the Beatles has long been credited with committing the music industry's biggest gaffe. But Dick Rowe's billion-dollar boo-boo has been beaten to the top spot on Blender magazine's list of the "20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time" by the failure of record companies to capitalize on the Internet... "The labels' campaign to stop their music from being acquired for free across the Internet has been like trying to cork a hurricane -- upward of a billion files are swapped every month on peer-to-peer networks..." Geffen Records grabbed... No. 12, for pumping a reported $13 million into a Guns N' Roses album that still has not seen the light of day after more than a decade of work...

Digital Threathosted.ap.org/ ... 17:28:15Microsoft Corp. posted a major package of updates and security fixes for its Windows Vista operating system for download starting Tuesday... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:28:03Frank Harper is well aware that all those free video clips on the Internet come at a price: advertising. But that doesn't mean he sits idly as short video ads precede many of the dozen or so clips he watches each day at sites like Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. "For the most part, I just mute the volume..." d hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:26:04From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from the factory - pre-installed viruses that steal passwords, open doors for hackers and make computers spew spam... hosted.ap.org/ ... 17:23:26The Dutch interior affairs minister says a technology being used in up to a billion security cards around the world can easily be hacked. The "Mifare" chip technology owned and licensed by NXP Semiconductors is frequently used in public transport systems such as London's "Oyster" card. It is also used by corporations and governments in "swipe" access cards... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:20:27Online advert system Phorm is illegal in the UK, the Foundation for Information Policy Research (Fipr), has argued in an open letter. BT, Talk Talk and Virgin have all signed up to use Phorm, which targets adverts to users based on web habits. Fipr believes Phorm contravenes the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which protects users from unlawful interception of information... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 17:18:52The creator of the web... Sir Tim Berners-Lee... has said consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet... Sir Tim said he did not want his ISP to track which websites he visited. "I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that's not going to get to my insurance company and I'm going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they've figured I'm looking at those books," he said. Sir Tim said his data and web history belonged to him... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 16:17:31...Botnets are networks of computers which have been subverted by malicious code so they fall under the control of cyber criminals. Typically owners of machines forming a botnet do not know their computer has been hijacked. Home users account for 95% of all attacks mounted by botnet, according to figures from security firm Symantec... botnets... the "Swiss army knife" for cyber crime... mostly used to send spam and harvest private data... can also be used to deluge websites with data to knock them offline, host phishing sites and other illegal content... "There really is no limit to what a 'good' botnet is capable of. They make easy money for the controller and are in huge demand..." International conflicts can also be waged with a botnet... reuters.com/ ... 14:55:15iPod nano media players gave off sparks while being recharged in Japan in January, Japan's trade ministry said, prompting a safety investigation...

Human Rightreuters.com/ ... 14:48:52A woman suffering from an incurable and disfiguring cancer failed on Monday in her bid to set a legal precedent in France for patients seeking medical help to end their own lives...

People Livereuters.com/ ... 14:38:33A man in Australia is auctioning his life -- his house, his job, his clothes and his friends -- on eBay, after his marriage broke up, saying he wants to start a new life. "It's time to move. A completely fresh start..." www.alife4sale.com...

Big Whoops Cascadereuters.com/ ... 14:55:42The talent scout who turned down the Beatles has long been credited with committing the music industry's biggest gaffe. But Dick Rowe's billion-dollar boo-boo has been beaten to the top spot on Blender magazine's list of the "20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time" by the failure of record companies to capitalize on the Internet... reuters.com/ ... 14:36:49...luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air. Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question...

Big Nannyhosted.ap.org/ ... 15:22:46Boston has joined others cities in banning artery-clogging trans fats from food served in restaurants and grocery stores. Businesses, as well as schools and hospitals, will have to stop using oils and spreads that contain trans fats. Prepackaged foods such as a bag of chips or cookies won't be included... up to $1,000 per violation... hosted.ap.org/ ... 15:19:48Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five-month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined $8,000... The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine. There are no exceptions for people who object to vaccinations on religious grounds... reuters.com/ ... 14:36:05The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants...

Reasons for Repealreuters.com/ ... 14:50:27Two standard heart attack treatments can be dangerous for people who have used cocaine, and certain patients with chest pain should be asked if they have used the drug, a leading medical group said on Monday... reuters.com/ ... 14:47:32New Zealand party goers bought up stocks of legal stimulants on Friday, a day after the country banned the use of an ingredient in the so-called party pills. The parliament passed a law on Thursday classifying the active ingredient in the pills, benzylpiperazine (BZP), the same as cannabis, and giving retailers until April 1 to dispose of stocks. The pills, which go by such names as Frenzy, Torque and D-lite, have been legal and have been touted by their supporters as keeping their users away from hard drugs, while being safer than alcohol and tobacco. The industry group of party pill makers and distributors said the ban would drive them underground... reuters.com/ ... 14:37:39An American in Costa Rica was caught smuggling nearly a pound of cocaine (0.4 kg) in his stomach after he went into convulsions on a plane bound for Miami... second American arrested this month at the airport for smuggling cocaine in his stomach... reuters.com/ ... 14:35:48Lawmakers defiantly chewed coca in Peru's Congress on Thursday while criticizing a U.N. recommendation to criminalize traditional uses of the plant... "The United Nations doesn't know our culture. It doesn't understand our values..."

Theory of Justicereuters.com/ ... 14:35:26An accountant who tried to sue British retail chain Marks & Spencer after he slipped on a grape and injured himself lost his case on Wednesday and was ordered to pay legal costs... "In my judgment it was one of those accidents that could happen to anyone," the judge said...

MON 2008-MAR-17

Criminally Stupidhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:55:51A Monroe County sheriff's detective on a stakeout to catch an arsonist arrested the suspect as he tried to steal gas from the officer's cruiser...

Transport Incidenthosted.ap.org/ ... 21:55:35

Mar 17... Millions of swarming honey bees are on the loose after a truck carrying crates of the insects flipped over on a California highway... 8-to-12 million bees... stung officers, firefighters and tow truck drivers trying to clear the accident... several beekeepers driving by... stopped to assist in the bee wrangling...

World of Sexual Cultureshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:34:43The oldest bordello in Hamburg [Germany]'s red-light district is shutting down for lack of business... family-run Hotel Luxor, established in 1948, is being sold to an investor and will close down for good next month... madam Waltraud Mehrer... blamed the decline in business on easily available Internet porn, the rise of call-girl services, and "noisy discos and dance clubs" on the same street as her business... "You can't make any big money selling sex in St. Pauli any more..."

Nudity can be disturbinghosted.ap.org/ ... 21:33:33a man placing an order in a suburban New York doughnut shop's drive-through lane didn't have any pants on... charged with misdemeanor public lewdness...

Violenceap.google.com/ ... 21:28:52BOULDER, Colo... A man in a wheelchair at a hospital who claimed his oxygen tank had a detonator was shot and injured by police after a five-hour standoff Monday... suntimes.com/ ... 21:26:48A man featured on America’s Most Wanted for allegedly murdering his wife and stepson in California in 1998 was arrested in the Near South Side’s Chinatown neighborhood late Sunday...

Industrial Tragedyap.google.com/ ... 21:25:41NEW YORK... The last of seven bodies was pulled from the rubble Monday at the site of a crane collapse that obliterated a town house and severely damaged other buildings. Six construction workers and a woman in town for St. Patrick's Day were killed... [woman] was in the four-story town house that was demolished when the crane fell on it...

Under Digital Tyrannyarstechnica.com/ ... 21:21:46China's Great Firewall... China has joined the ranks of countries that have instituted either temporary or permanent blocks on YouTube. The decision came as clips of the recent riots in Tibet—a "sensitive" topic in China—have made their way onto the popular video sharing site. As usual, the Chinese government has remained mum on the move to block content from the eyes of Internet users, so it's unclear whether this block will remain in effect for the long term or if it's merely a short-term solution... Popular news sites reporting on the riots—such as CNN, The Guardian, the BBC, Google News, and Yahoo!—have allegedly had all or parts of their sites blocked. Some Chinese readers have reported that only specific articles have been blocked, including ones that contain keywords about Tibet, riots, or the Dalai Lama...

WW2 - still with usnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:20:23Naval experts have found a World War II cruiser 66 years after it was sunk off Western Australia by a German ship. HMAS Sydney, regarded as the pride of Australia's navy, sank in November 1941 after being attacked by DKM Kormoran - a much smaller vessel. None of the Sydney's 645 crew survived the attack - making it the country's worst-ever naval disaster... a day after the wreck of the Kormoran itself was found by the team hunting the Sydney... Australians have long been fascinated by the mystery of how the Sydney was lost to a German auxiliary cruiser. For years theories have abounded...

Civilization vs Gangsterismap.google.com/ ... 21:15:46A female suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers in the holy city of Karbala on Monday, an official and a witness said, killing at least 43 people and leaving pools of blood on the street leading to one of Iraq's most revered mosques... a series of attacks that left at least 72 Iraqis dead, including six youths killed when mortar rounds slammed into a soccer field in eastern Baghdad... Two U.S. soldiers also were killed Monday in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad...

Only Naturalmedheadlines.com/ ... 21:28:31A consumer watchdog group, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), has recently uncovered small amounts of a petroleum-based ingredient, known to cause cancer in animals, in some cleaning and personal grooming products manufactured and distributed by some of the leading names in the natural and organic arena... isn’t a deliberate addition to the products and so is not cited on the ingredients lists. It is a manufacturing by-product instead...

Epidemic Without Bordersboston.com/ ... 21:27:06A 12-year-old Worcester County girl died Sunday from influenza, the fourth Massachusetts child to succumb this year to the respiratory illness...

Just Random Chancehosted.ap.org/ ... 21:54:31

GREEN RIVER, Wyo... Some people catch fish and release them. Bill Wengert releases them and then catches them - a quarter-century later...

Defending Ourselveshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:36Mar 15... SANTA FE, N.M... An 83-year-old great-grandmother thwarted a would-be purse snatcher with a gas nozzle and an iron grip... She fought back, spraying his shirt with some gasoline. Both of them kept hold of the purse, and he pulled her to the ground and dragged her a short distance until another man confronted him. The second man demanded, "Turn her loose, you something something..."

Beatles - still with usap.google.com/ ... 21:29:59

Money may not buy her love, but Paul McCartney's ex sure has a lot more of it now. One of Britain's bitterest divorces reached a settlement Monday when Heather Mills was awarded $48.6 million — an enormous sum, but a fraction of what she sought and a sliver of the former Beatle's $800 million fortune...

Digital Culturenews.com/ ... 21:22:27• News is shifting from being a product to more of a service.
• The days when news sites were final destinations are over.
• Prospects for user-generated content now appear more limited.
• Madison Avenue does not yet grok the world of new media.
• U.S. media coverage is becoming increasingly narrow.

Big Whoops Cascadehosted.ap.org/ ... 21:52:3160 postal bags of mail and parcels that were mailed from other countries were found by workers renovating the unused tunnel at a train station in the southeastern town of Breclav... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:51:57CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas... a woman decided she should bring in a hand grenade she found... police department was briefly evacuated... tulsaworld.com/ ... 21:19:37[Kansas bombs Tulsa] The non-explosive BDU-33 bomb came from an F-16 fighter plane that was headed for Salina, Kan., from the Tulsa Air National Guard Base... raveling about 600 mph crashed into a building at a Tulsa apartment complex Thursday... No one was injured...

People are Bornfoxnews.com/ ... 21:18:42Baby with two faces born in Northern India...

Theory of Educationfoxnews.com/ ... 21:18:31SEASIDE, Calif. — A 15-year-old girl who stopped an out-of-control school bus she was riding on was handed a Saturday detention instead because she was skipping school... the driver fell out of her seat after a turn and hit her head. Rouse jumped up and applied the brakes...

Political Theaterfoxnews.com/ ... 21:17:48Both former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey and his one-time driver insist that they engaged in three-way sex with McGreevey's wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, who is in the midst of a nasty divorce from from the now openly gay ex-governer. Matos McGreevey denies that the threesomes ever occured... foxnews.com/ ... 21:17:28Itzler, who once called himself the "King of All Pimps," said Dupre... the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal... was one of the best hookers he'd ever worked with. Itzler ran a high-priced escort agency called "New York Confidential," and said Dupre worked for him. He claims Dupre was 19 at the time and went by the name "Victoria..."

Big Nannygameinformer.com/ ... 21:29:34In another move aimed against the video game industry – the Massachusetts legislature will mull over House Bill 1423 tomorrow.... attempts to restrict the sale of video games with violent content to minors, making the sale of such titles illegal. No similar law is currently in effect as pertains to video games, movies, music or literature with violent content... ap.google.com/ ... 21:15:10The Supreme Court will decide whether it is indecent when some foul-mouthed celebrity drops the "F-word" on live television, stepping into its first major broadcast indecency case in 30 years...

SUN 2008-MAR-16

Under Tyrannytimesonline.co.uk/ ... 20:31:11Fears of another Tiananmen as Tibet explodes in hatred The Olympics, just months away, will not stop Beijing cracking down on riots that may have left more than 30 dead...

Nature can be Deadlybreitbart.com/ ... 20:31:40

Tens of thousands of basketball fans at two arenas were perfectly safe, officials insisted Saturday, even though the crowds apparently weren't warned about an approaching tornado—one that would ravage skyscrapers and injure dozens... apnews.myway.com/ ... 20:30:32Mar 15... Storms killed one person Saturday in northwest Georgia, less than 24 hours after a tornado with wind up to 130 mph cut a 6-mile path through downtown Atlanta, blowing windows out of skyscrapers and injuring dozens... Many residents were surprised by the storm, as were tens of thousands of basketball fans at the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament at the Georgia Dome and the NBA matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Clippers at Philips Arena. The warning was not displayed or announced at either game. The first sign was rumbling and the rippling of the dome's fabric roof. Catwalks swayed and insulation rained down on players during overtime of the Mississippi State-Alabama game, sending fans fleeing toward the exits and the teams to their locker rooms...

Industrial Tragedywnbc.com/ ... 20:28:47March 15... A massive crane collapsed onto four neighboring buildings on the east side of Manhattan Saturday, killing four people... At least 10 others were injured and rescue operations are still under way...

Sex can be... disturbingstartelegram.typepad.com/ ... 20:28:02A 21-year-old Harris County woman filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines alleging employees on a flight to Los Angeles from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport failed to protect her while she slept from another passenger who masturbated to her and ejaculated in her hair...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 20:33:25

Army Staff Sgt. Collin J. Bowen, 38, of Millersville, Md., died March 14 at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered Jan. 2 in Khowst Province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment, Maryland Army National Guard, Towson, Md. defenselink.mil/ ... 20:33:02

Army Sgt. 1st. Class Shawn M. Suzch, 32, of Hilltown, Penn.

Army Staff Sgt. Ernesto G. Cimarrusti, 25, of Douglas, Ariz.

Army Staff Sgt. David D. Julian, 31, of Evanston, Wyo.

Army Cpl. Robert T. McDavid, 29, of Starkville, Miss.

Army Cpl. Scott A. McIntosh, 26, of Houston, Texas.
died March 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

Easter 2008telegraph.co.uk/ ... 20:30:54With his arms outstretched, his legs straight and his hands nailed to the cross, it is the image of Jesus's crucifixion held dear by Christians for centuries. The traditional Christ on the cross, performed at an Easter Passion parade But now the producers of a BBC drama about Christ's final days have challenged the traditional representation, saying they believe Jesus probably did not die that way...

Digital Future is Nowdailymail.co.uk/ ... 20:27:37Japanese scientists have invented a pair of intelligent glasses that remembers where people last saw their keys, handbag, iPod or mobile phone. The spectacles -- which come with a built in camera, display screen and computer brain -- can even identify unfamiliar plants or faces. In fact, the only thing it can't help you find are your glasses...

FRI 2008-MAR-14

Transport Tragedygulfnews.com/ ... 14:51:33March 12... Abu Dhabi: At least three people were killed and nearly 350 injured in a horrific 60 vehicle pile-up on the Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway near Ghantoot on Tuesday... closed for more than five hours, resulting in huge tailbacks during rush hours... 25 vehicles caught fire... thick fog and lack of attention by motorists...

Love is Strangereuters.com/ ... 14:42:14A Chinese bride burned her new husband to death after he got into bed after a drunken argument without washing his feet... married on February 2...

Animal Companionsazcentral.com/ ... 22:51:06

More than 600 Chihuahuas and other small dogs, as well as a smattering of exotic birds, were found at an Avra Valley home this week... "We cleaned out most of the house... but we didn't even get to the barn yet..." a triple-wide trailer full of cages... an elderly couple who meant well but "got in over their heads..."

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 22:48:14The Department of Defense announced today that it has custody of Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, a high-level member of al-Qaida captured in the War on Terror and placed him under control of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prior to his arrival at Guantanamo Bay, he was held in CIA custody. Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani was a close associate of Usama bin Ladin and had ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East. He became one of bin Ladin's most trusted facilitators and procurement specialists prior to his detention. Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani is now under DoD custody and control and will be treated appropriately and in accordance with policy and procedures for other DoD detainees at Guantanamo.... As a result of this latest transfer, there are now approximately 280 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. defenselink.mil/ ... 22:47:30The Department of Defense announced today that the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas, is scheduled to deploy as part of the next rotation operating in Afghanistan. This announcement involves approximately 3,500 service members, and their deployment is scheduled to begin in late summer 2008. This brigade will replace one active duty brigade currently on the ground, and continues the current U.S. commitment to providing two brigade combat teams in support of Regional Command East.... defenselink.mil/ ... 22:44:33National Guard... March 12, 2008... This week, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps announced a decrease, while the Air Force announced an increase. The Coast Guard number remained the same. The net collective result is 213 fewer reservists mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 96,088, including both units and individual augmentees.... defenselink.mil/ ... 22:43:51The Defense Department announced today that charges have been sworn against Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Kamin of Afghanistan. Kamin is the thirteenth detainee at Guantanamo Bay against whom charges have been sworn under the Military Commissions Act. He is charged with providing material support to terrorism in violation of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. If convicted, the accused faces up to life in prison. The charges allege that between January and May of 2003, Mohammed Kamin provided material support to terrorism by joining the terrorist organization al Qaeda and receiving training at al Qaeda training camps on making remote detonators for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), in modifying military ammunition, and on use of small arms for attacks against American and Coalition forces. It is further alleged in the charges that Mohammed Kamin conducted surveillance on U.S. military bases, placed explosive devices under a bridge along the route to Zaina Khail Village in Afghanistan, placed missiles near the Khowst Customs House to launch into a U.S. or Coalition base and installed missiles near Khowst, Afghanistan. The charges also allege that Mohammed Kamin launched the missiles toward Kwhost, then occupied by the United States and Coalition armed forces. Mohammed Kamin is also alleged to have transported weapons and equipment such as missile remote controls, rockets, handheld radios, anti-tank mines, and GPS systems to be used by Taliban or al Qaeda members in attacks against American forces.....

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 22:49:19

Army Staff Sgt. Juantrea T. Bradley, 28, of Greenville, N.C., who was assigned to the 7th Special Troops Battalion, 7th Sustainment Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Eustis, Va.

Army Spc. Dustin C. Jackson, 21, of Arlington, Texas, who was assigned to the 350th Adjutant General Company, Grand Prairie, Texas

Army Pfc. Tenzin L. Samten, 33, of Prescott, Ariz., who was assigned to the 7th Special Troops Battalion, 7th Sustainment Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Eustis, Va.
died March 12 in Tallil, Iraq, of wounds suffered when their vehicle was hit by indirect fire. defenselink.mil/ ... 22:48:25

Army Staff Sgt. Laurent J. West, 32, of Raleigh, N.C., died March 11 near Kishkishkia, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. defenselink.mil/ ... 22:47:02

Army Sgt. Phillip R. Anderson, 28, of Everett, Wash.

Army Spc. Donald A. Burkett, 24, of Comanche, Texas

Army Capt. Torre R. Mallard, 27, of Oklahoma.
died Mar. 10 in Balad Ruz, Iraq, of wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas. defenselink.mil/ ... 22:42:53

Army Sgt. Gabriel Guzman, 25, of Hornbrook, Calif., died March 8 at Orgun E, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device in Gholam Haydar Kala, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 14:48:46

SAN MARINO, Calif... So many bees live in the walls of the stately Tudor home that honey drips out of the walls, discoloring the wallpaper in the dining room... the bee problem had been going on for at least 20 years, but living in an apiary never bothered the family... "thousands, maybe millions" of bees... hosted.ap.org/ ... 14:46:29 Dolphin

Most days, Moko the bottlenosed dolphin swims playfully with humans at a New Zealand beach. But this week... Witnesses described Wednesday how they saw the dolphin swim up to two stranded whales and guide them to safety... Before Moko arrived, rescue workers had been working for more than an hour to get two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, back out to sea after they were stranded Monday off Mahia Beach... "Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales..."

Cascading Weirdnessthesun.co.uk/ ... 14:50:42A TOWN in South America is living in fear after several sightings of a 'creepy gnome' that locals claim stalks the streets at night...

US Election 2008bloomberg.com/ ... 14:50:26March 11... U.S. Secret Service... began providing protection to candidates earlier this year than in any previous election in response to crowds that have sometimes topped 30,000, a record for the primary season... Obama, 46, began receiving protection in May 2007, 18 months before the November 2008 election. That was the earliest for any candidate since the practice was instituted following the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy...

Reasons for Repealbreitbart.com/ ... 14:49:23DRIGGS, Idaho... Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," is serving six months' unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car. She was sentenced Feb. 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving... Wells' lawyer, Ron Swafford, said that a friend of Wells' testified that he'd left a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle after using it that day, and that Wells was unaware of it...

Theory of Educationhosted.ap.org/ ... 14:44:05Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut. Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate... Superintendent Reginald Mayo said Wednesday that the principal was just trying to keep students safe... the New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy... [Any decent school would give the SELLER of the candy credit for entrepreneurship!]

People Diereuters.com/ ... 14:42:58Two Italian women carrying luggage containing the remains of a man who died in Brazil 11 years ago were stopped by Munich airport police during a stopover on their journey from Sao Paulo to Naples... One of the women was the dead man's sister and she explained to surprised officials that it had been her brother's wish to be buried in Italy. After showing his death certificate, the Italians, aged 63 and 62, were allowed on their next flight to Naples...

Democracy in Actionnews.yahoo.com/ ... 14:41:38

COLOMBO... Security forces armed with loud hailers were deployed in eastern Sri Lanka Monday to drive away wild elephants blocking access to polling booths, police said.

People Livetimesonline.co.uk/ ... 13:41:18[Headline of the day]: Man buried alive saved by air trapped in his hat...
The power of positive thinking and Buddhist meditation techniques saved the life of a Chinese construction worker...

Language Culturecsmonitor.com/ ... 13:40:28Wolfgang Mieder has collected more than 10,000 items relating to truths in 10 words or less.... Paremiology – the study of proverbs, from the Greek "paroimia..." What, exactly, is a proverb? "A concise statement of an apparent truth, which has had, has, or will have currency," he says, adding that it's generally 10 words or less. "You need ready-made formulaic expressions that you can pull out of your drawer, so to speak..."

TUE 2008-MAR-11

Under Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:35:31The US state department has released its annual report on human rights around the world, detailing abuses in China, Russia, Syria and Zimbabwe. Unlike in previous years, China is not listed as one of the world's most systematic human rights violators. But it is described as an authoritarian regime that denies its people basic human rights and freedoms, tortures prisoners and restricts the media... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:27:56A Jordanian court has sentenced a French national of Palestinian origin to three months in jail for slandering King Abdullah... became abusive after a row at a five-star hotel in the capital, Amman... continued to insult Jordan and its king after he was detained...

Under Sexist Tyrannynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:22:55Saudi women's rights activists have posted on the web a video of a woman at the wheel of her car, in protest at the ban on female drivers in the kingdom. Wajeha Huwaider talks of the injustice of the ban and calls for its abolition as she drives calmly along a highway... posted to mark International Women's Day. Thousands have viewed it on the YouTube website... The last such public show of dissent was in 1990 when dozens of women were arrested for circling Riyadh in cars... In February, two leading Islamic scholars said there was no reason to continue the ban. However, many conservatives continue to resist reform, arguing it would lead to mingling of the sexes which is banned under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic Law...

Transport Tragedyreuters.com/ ... 20:12:07Lima, Peru... A helicopter for mining giant Rio Tinto disappeared on Tuesday with 10 people aboard...

Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:21:25Militant group al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa has said it took two Austrian tourists hostage in Tunisia last month... Austria's foreign ministry said two Austrians had been missing in Tunisia since mid-February... reuters.com/ ... 20:13:32President George W. Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress on Tuesday upheld his veto of a bill to ban the CIA from subjecting enemy detainees to interrogation methods denounced by critics as torture... reuters.com/ ... 20:09:36At least 46 people were killed in a surge in violence across Iraq on Tuesday, including a roadside bomb attack on a bus carrying mourners and day-long clashes between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi security forces... In the southern city of Kut, members of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army fought U.S. special forces and Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. warplanes in clashes in which 14 people died... reuters.com/ ... 20:09:11Two suicide car bombers struck in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing 24 people and wounding scores, most of them in an attack on a government security office... reuters.com/ ... 20:08:58A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter in the Iraqi province of Diyala... a day after a suicide bomber killed five U.S. soldiers in Baghdad... Ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala is one of four provinces north of Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched offensives this year after al Qaeda militants regrouped in the north...

WW2 - still with usreuters.com/ ... 19:31:19The wreck of a British warship sunk by the Germans during World War Two, killing more than 100 men, has been discovered on the bottom of a deep fjord in the north of Norway... HMS Hunter went down on April 10, 1940, in the Ofot fjord outside of the Arctic port of Narvik during the first of two battles between the British and the Nazis, during which several other ships were sunk and never seen again in the deep inlet... A memorial ceremony was held on Saturday for the victims, with over a thousand British and Norwegian soldiers taking part...

Yuck!hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:14:08Investigators are searching for whomever poured deer urine into an air conditioning unit at a school in eastern Tennessee. About a dozen students became ill...

Animals can be Dangeroushosted.ap.org/ ... 19:12:33

PHOENIX... A rabid mountain lion was shot to death after attacking a 10-year-old boy as he and his family celebrated his birthday in a national forest near Phoenix... suffered minor scratches on his back but wasn't seriously injured... "It just placed it's paw on me, and it bites my head.... It scratches my back. I just stayed calm. I like animals but I know this one would probably try to kill me..." A member of the group shot the lion twice, killing it...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 21:56:13The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial.
U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Ernest G. Munn, of St. Clairsville, Ohio, will be buried in May in Colerain, Ohio.... Munn was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight that departed Mather Field, Calif., on Nov. 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no results. In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered the wreckage of the AT-7 aircraft. Fragmentary, skeletal remains found at the site were buried as a group in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif. Then in October 2005, other hikers in the Sierra Nevadas discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial evidence and personal effects of an aircrew member. Park rangers from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and a forensic anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) recovered the remains. They were sent to the JPAC laboratory in Hawaii and identified as Cadet Leo M. Mustonen, one of the four men aboard the AT-7 aircraft. In 2007, two other hikers found human remains near the 2005 discovery site. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of a second individual from the 1942 crew, Cadet Ernest G. Munn....

World Climatenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:21:06An EU report says climate change will have a growing impact on global security, multiplying existing threats such as shortages of food and water. It warns that climate change could cause millions of people to migrate towards Europe as other parts of the world suffer environmental degradation...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 20:15:49Federal officials said Monday that wolverines do not warrant endangered species protections in the contiguous United States, despite lingering concern among government scientists that the rarely seen animal remains imperiled. Once found from Alaska to Colorado, wolverines now survive in only a few strongholds in the lower 48 states. That includes an estimated 500 to 600 animals spread over thousands of square miles in Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming. But because wolverine populations retain strong connections to larger ones in Canada and Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday the species could survive even if it disappeared entirely from the contiguous United States. Environmental groups vowed to challenge the decision in court...

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 21:57:00The Department of Defense announced today its recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for the month of February... All services met or exceeded recruiting goals for the month of February... and to date have surpassed goals for FY 2008.... reuters.com/ ... 20:10:00The top U.S. commander for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars said on Tuesday he would quit after a magazine reported he was pushing President George W. Bush to avoid war with Iran. Adm. William "Fox" Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command headquarters responsible for the Middle East, insisted he did not disagree with the Bush administration over Iran but perceptions of a rift made it difficult for him to do his job...

Cosmologynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:32:23A Nasa space probe measuring the oldest light in the Universe has found that cosmic neutrinos made up 10% of matter shortly after the Big Bang...

Animal Culturenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:31:34Researchers have found that monkeys combine calls to make them meaningful in the same way that humans do...

It came from the skyreuters.com/ ... 19:27:39A meteorite that struck Peru in September, digging out a deep hole and startling nearby residents, traveled faster and hit harder than would have been expected, researchers reported on Tuesday... pieces stayed together and were speeding at 15,000 mph (24,000 kph) when they hit... was made of rock... Usually only meteorites made of metal make it to the surface intact enough to scoop out a crater... scientists may need to change theories about the different ways objects can hit planets...

Orbiting Overheadnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:30:15Europe's new ATV space truck is up and running following Sunday's launch, although one propulsion glitch means a back-up system is currently being used. The freighter is sitting in a 260km high orbit and is due to deliver just under five tonnes of supplies to the space station on 3 April... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:24:07Endeavour's seven astronauts jumped into their first full day in orbit Tuesday as the shuttle pursued the international space station to deliver a giant robot and the first piece of a new Japanese lab... a rare middle-of-the-night launch...

Antiquity - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 20:15:11Greek archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed rare evidence of what they believe was brain surgery performed nearly 1,800 years ago on a young woman - who died during or shortly after the operation. Although references to such delicate operations abound in ancient writings, discoveries of surgically perforated skulls are uncommon in Greece... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:23:42Greek workers discovered around 1,000 graves, some filled with ancient treasures, while excavating for a subway system in the historic city of Thessaloniki... dated from the first century B.C. to the 5th century A.D... Thessaloniki was founded around 315 B.C. and flourished during the Roman and Byzantine eras. Today it is the Mediterranean country's second largest city...

Staying Healthyreuters.com/ ... 19:18:18More than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease, and the rate is highest among blacks... reuters.com/ ... 19:18:06Inhaling diesel exhaust triggers a stress response in the brain that may have damaging long-term effects on brain function... very small particles of soot, or nanoparticles, are able to travel from the nose and lodge in the brain... reuters.com/ ... 19:17:45Containing an influenza pandemic in a large U.S. city like Chicago would require widespread school closings, quarantines of infected households and bans on public gatherings, U.S. researchers said on Monday. But, if done quickly and well, such steps could reduce infections by as much as 80 percent... reuters.com/ ... 19:17:24Diets rich [in] magnesium, found in whole grains and vegetables, could help reduce stroke risk in smokers...

Animal Companionshosted.ap.org/ ... 19:15:08A Boulder woman facing a $1,000 fine for dyeing her poodle pink... says she dyed Cici, her white miniature poodle, to call attention to breast cancer. She says she used beet juice and Kool-Aid... a Boulder ordinance... makes it illegal to dye animals... designed [to] discourage people from dyeing rabbits and chicks for Easter... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:13:50

when Randy Earl's small boat capsized while he was fishing with his dog Lacy, a black spaniel mix, he stayed in the water with his life jacket while making sure Lacy was OK. "When the boat flipped over, I put the dog on top of the boat..." a state trooper paddled out... "He asked the state trooper to take the dog first..." Earl, 53, said Lacy means a lot to him and his wife since they lost both of their children in a car accident 15 years ago. "That dog is like a child to us..."

Healing Ourselvesreuters.com/ ... 20:13:55There are two distinct culprits behind head and neck cancer -- the long-recognized heavy tobacco and alcohol use as well as a common sexually transmitted virus... The risk factors are so dramatically different in head and neck cancer in people infected with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that it should be considered a separate disease from cases in which patients are not infected, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said... reuters.com/ ... 19:09:50Vaccinations in Uganda have eliminated Hib meningitis, a dangerous inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord, as a public health concern in the African country...

Human Rightnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:24:30An Iranian homosexual man who has said he will be executed if he is deported from the Netherlands has had his claim for asylum overturned. Mehdi Kazemi has said his life is in danger if he is returned to Iran, where he says his boyfriend named him as a partner before being executed. Homosexual acts are illegal in the Islamic republic... [Wait! I thought Armanideenyjabber said there was no homosexuality in Iran!]

US Election 2008reuters.com/ ... 20:13:17

Democrat Barack Obama beat rival Hillary Clinton in Mississippi on Tuesday... extended his lead over Clinton in pledged delegates... Both candidates visited Pennsylvania on Tuesday, looking ahead to an April 22 contest there that will have 158 delegates at stake -- the biggest stake remaining in the race...
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984, told a California newspaper. "And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept," Ferraro said...

Nature vs Transporthosted.ap.org/ ... 20:08:24Flooded roads and subways, deformed railroad tracks and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, a new study says. Climate change will affect every type of transportation through rising sea levels, increased rainfall and surges from more intense storms, the National Research Council said in a report released Tuesday... Complicating matters, people continue to move into coastal areas, creating the need for more roads and services in the most vulnerable regions...

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 20:14:39Google Inc won approval on Tuesday from the European Commission of its planned acquisition of DoubleClick Inc and promptly closed the deal, sending its stock 6 percent higher. The move will allow the Web search and advertising leader to accelerate its move into the market for corporate banner and display ads, where it has little business, and fulfill an expansion plan that has been on hold for a year... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:28:22Computers that run the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows didn't attract enough attention from Wal-Mart customers, and the chain has stopped selling them in stores... To test demand for systems with the open-source operating system, Wal-Mart stocked the $199 "Green gPC," made by Everex of Taiwan, in about 600 stores starting late in October. Walmart.com, the chain's e-commerce site, had sold Linux-based computers before and will continue selling the gPC...

Digital Future is Nownews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:24:26A tiny chemical "brain" which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented. The molecular device - just two billionths of a metre across - was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test...

Digital Beatlesreuters.com/ ... 19:21:57

Apple Inc has dismissed claims in the U.K. press that the Beatles catalog is about to be made available online through the computer giant's iTunes Music Store as "unsubstantiated speculation..." [She Loves You, Yawn Yawn Yawn]

Reasons for Repealnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 20:20:41Bolivian officials at a conference on illegal drugs in Vienna are planning to ask the UN to remove the coca plant from its list of dangerous drugs. The UN's International Narcotics Control Board has called on Bolivia to ban coca chewing, and the use of the plant in products such as tea. Bolivia says such a ban would be an attack on its culture. Analysts say much of Bolivia's coca harvest goes into cocaine, making it the world's third-largest producer. Bolivians call coca "the sacred leaf"... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:20:06Is Salvia the Next Marijuana?.. On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of Salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: "Time is running out!" and "stock up while you still can." That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously...

Lost & Foundhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:10:35MELBOURNE, Australia... Homicide detectives were holding a press conference Monday morning at the Ostell's home to appeal for information when the couple drove up... reuters.com/ ... 19:06:01A Finnish library-goer... quietly returned a book on loan for more than 100 years to a library in Vantaa, in southern Finland... bound copy of a 1902 volume of Vartija, an active religious monthly periodical at the time... "There is an old note attached to the book which says there is a fine of 10 pennies a week for late returns..."

Political Theaterhosted.ap.org/ ... 20:35:45The idea sounds simple: Build British pride with a new pledge of allegiance, a new national holiday and citizenship ceremonies for children and immigrants. But the proposal Tuesday from a government panel calling for the introduction of American-style patriotic rituals raises thorny questions in the sometimes fractious United Kingdom... reuters.com/ ... 19:04:44Who really is "Client 9"? The New York Times says it's the code name for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in court papers that link him to a prostitution ring, but now anyone can be "Client 9" with T-shirts available online just a day after the scandal broke... abcnews.go.com/ ... 19:03:18The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes...

MON 2008-MAR-10

WW2 - still with usmsnbc.msn.com/ ... 23:50:54‘Mastah Preddi’ fell from the sky, into hearts Islanders heal, hail WW2 pilot; man changes lives, returns to build school...

Snail Mail is deadananova.com/ ... 23:50:21[13yo French girl] who wrote a letter to her late mother in heaven had it returned... with an "unknown at this address" notice and a demand for 1.35 euros as she hadn't put a stamp on the envelope...

People Diebreitbart.com/ ... 23:48:27NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.... A woman whose body was found packed in dry ice... fully clothed inside a large Rubbermaid container... in a hotel room had outstanding warrants from drug charges in Colorado... death did not appear to be a homicide... miamiherald.com/ ... 23:47:13Kaye O'Bara, who pledged to never leave her then-teenage daughter's side as the girl slipped into a diabetic coma 38 years ago, died at her Miami Gardens home this week -- in the same room she shared with her child, Edwarda, since 1970... As the frightened girl began to lose consciousness, she turned to her mother and asked: "Promise you won't leave me, will you, Mommy?" Kaye O'Bara promised her she wouldn't, and those final words to her daughter became the blueprint for her life...

Reasons for Repealsfgate.com/ ... 23:46:11While same-sex couples battle for the right to marry, a lesbian lawmaker is proposing that the state allow heterosexuals to take a step short of going to the altar — registering as domestic partners...

Supernatural Threatsreuters.com/ ... 23:44:57Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight...

Digital Threatbreitbart.com/ ... 23:44:34

Senator John McCain will burnish his foreign policy credentials with a trip next week to Israel and Europe... Joined by two close Senate colleagues, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham... wtvq.com/ ... 23:43:21[Kentucky] Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted... [A rousing chorus of "unclear on the concept..."]

US Election 2008blogs.abcnews.com/ ... 23:45:51

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaking to a local Iowa radio station, said that terrorists would dance in the streets if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is elected president -- precisely because of not only Obama's position on withdrawing US troops from Iraq, but because Obama's middle name is "Hussein," his father's Muslim roots, and his appearance -- or "optics," as King put it... politico.com/ ... 23:42:29

Sen. Barack Obama delivered an animated rebuke today of suggestions from the Clintons in recent days that he could run as her vice president... He referenced comments from Bill Clinton in 1992 that his "most important criteria" for vice president was that person must be ready to be commander in chief... "I don’t understand. If I am not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?.."

Political Theaterwcbstv.com/ ... 23:41:11[NY] Gov. [and Clinton supporter] Eliot Spitzer was not expected to continue as governor and may resign as soon as Monday night, sources told CBS 2 shortly after it was reported that he was linked to a prostitution ring...

SUN 2008-MAR-09

Firenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:45:08A mother in the Canadian city of Montreal has saved the lives of her seven children by throwing them from the window of a burning building... By the time firefighters arrived, she had thrown the children several metres onto a snowbank and jumped...

Iraqnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:44:23The situation for women in Iraq has become a "national crisis" since the US-led invasion in 2003, a report by an international women's group has warned. Women for Women International said they had had relative autonomy and security, but now faced violence, controversial leadership and poor infrastructure...

WW2 - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 22:38:58Boere was part of a Waffen SS death squad of mostly Dutch volunteers tasked with killing fellow countrymen in reprisal for attacks by the anti-Nazi resistance. His is among more than 1,000 cases worldwide which the Nazi-tracking Simon Wiesenthal Center says are still open as of last April 1...

9/11 - still with usreuters.com/ ... 22:29:55A portion of staircase from the World Trade Center that provided an escape route for some survivors of the September 11 attacks was moved from its original site on Sunday ahead of its installation in a memorial museum...

Earth Shakesreuters.com/ ... 22:29:33Scientists have found evidence that an overlooked fault in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to produce an earthquake and tsunami every 800 years as powerful as the one that destroyed Alexandria in AD 365...

Scary Timesnews.yahoo.com/ ... 20:43:09A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people's clothes from up to 25 meters away in what could be a breakthrough for the security industry... uses what it calls "passive imaging technology" to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays -- known as Terahertz or T-rays -- that they emit... does not reveal physical body details and the screening is harmless, the company says...

Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:44:03The US military in Iraq says American and Iraqi forces killed nine suspected al-Qaeda fighters in a raid near Talafar in Ninewa province last Sunday. Three Iraqi troops were killed in the operation, which the US said targeted a suspected militant training camp... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:32:03Hamas militants in Gaza backtracked Friday on their claim of responsibility for an attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight Israelis. Ibrahim Daher, head of Hamas' al-Aqsa radio, said his station put out an earlier claim of responsibility prematurely... reuters.com/ ... 22:31:43Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has not been seen in public for months, issued an unusual statement on Friday explaining his absence to his followers and admitting splits in his movement. "I swear that I live with you and among you. I am a part of you. I will not change this unless death separates us..." did not say though when he might return to public view... reuters.com/ ... 22:31:13The United States said it had designated a Bangladeshi Islamist group, Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami, as a "terrorist" organization, subjecting it to U.S. financial sanctions. Bangladesh accuses the group of involvement in a grenade attack on a political rally in 2004 in which 23 people were killed... reuters.com/ ... 22:30:32Thu Mar 6... Two coordinated bomb blasts blamed on al Qaeda killed 55 people in a crowded Baghdad shopping area on Thursday, on the day the U.S. military said it was withdrawing 2,000 troops from the Iraqi capital... apnews.myway.com/ ... 20:42:07Chinese police killed alleged terrorists plotting to attack the Beijing Olympics, while a flight crew managed to prevent an apparent attempt to crash a Chinese jetliner in a separate case just last week, officials said Sunday...

US Militarynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:45:44A former Pentagon official has written a book attacking Colin Powell, the CIA and other US officials over the US-led Iraq war, the Washington Post reports. As under secretary of defence until 2005 Douglas Feith was closely involved with the planning of the invasion. However, in "War and Decision", he blames officials outside the Pentagon for seriously mismanaging the invasion and occupation...

World Zookeepingnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:28:45

An anti-whaling campaigner says he has been shot by Japanese sailors while protesting over their hunting activities in the Antarctic... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:27:56Scientists hope to unlock secrets contained in the DNA of what are believed to be the only polar bear remains to be found in Britain. The skull, of which only a part survives, was found at Inchnadamph in the Scottish Highlands in 1927... had a terrestrial diet, rather than a marine one, and preyed on reindeer and not seals... 18,000 years ago...

Staying Healthyhosted.ap.org/ ... 20:41:44A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans... far below the levels of a medical dose... But the presence of so many prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health... reuters.com/ ... 20:40:57non-drinkers who begin taking the occasional tipple live longer and are less likely to develop heart disease... reuters.com/ ... 20:40:42Smokers are more likely to kick the habit if they are told how "old" their lungs are, a British study found on Friday... reuters.com/ ... 20:40:30About one in six Americans 65 and older have suffered a fall in the past three months, with about a third of those people sustaining injuries such as a broken hip...

Reasons for Repealnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:44:37Australian police say they have broken up an international sex-trafficking ring after rescuing 10 South Korean women from Sydney brothels...

Lost & Foundhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:33:11Police on Friday found Waris Dirie, three days after the Somali-born model who launched a worldwide campaign against female genital mutilation had vanished... unclear what had happened... She shocked the world with a best-selling book "Desert Flower" that described how her genitals were sliced off with a dirty razor blade without anesthesia, and then stitched together...

Digital Libertyhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:25:01BERLIN... Police and customs officials investigating suspected patent violations seized dozens of boxes of mobile phones, navigation devices and other gadgets from exhibitors in a technology fair... CeBIT... largely concerned devices with MP3, MP4 or digital video broadcast functions, as well as DVD players and blank CDs and DVDs... [???]

Data Threatnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:23:06Two respected privacy campaigners have praised the user protection measures of a controversial online advertising system about to be deployed in the UK. The tools, developed by US firm Phorm, track users' online surfing habits... "We were impressed with the effort that had been put into minimising the collection of personal information..."

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 22:27:08WB... Warner Bros. Television Group plans to resurrect the network in the form of a new Web site, whose working title is wb.com. Users will be able to catch free streaming episodes of all WB-produced series that aired on the network during its 1995-2006 run... ad-supported... reuters.com/ ... 22:26:01View music videos and shop at the same time. That's the premise behind an innovative advertising and entertainment branding program launched by GET Interactive... reuters.com/ ... 22:25:48The No. 2 U.S. radio broadcaster CBS Radio said on Friday it will combine its more than 150 online radio stations with AOL's more than 200 online stations... [AOL-Time-Warner-CBS...] reuters.com/ ... 22:22:14Any takeover bid for peripherals maker Logitech... by Microsoft... would be "an operation without sense", Logitech's chairman was quoted as saying in an Italian newspaper on Sunday. Shares in Swiss-based Logitech rose in January based on speculation Microsoft would launch a takeover bid. Analysts dismissed rumors of an $8 billion takeover bid and Logitech board member Daniel Borel, the company's largest shareholder, said he had no reason to sell his stake...

Transport Futurereuters.com/ ... 22:21:04...Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised just such a vehicle, a futuristic "City Car" that could even drive itself. Once at your destination, the vehicle's computers would, at the press of a button, look for a parking spot behind others like itself, then fold roughly in half so you could stack it there as you would a shopping cart...

US Election 2008thehill.com/ ... 20:44:50

Dick Morris... The race is over. The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way... The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year... Will Hillary win Pennsylvania? Who cares?..

SAT 2008-MAR-08

Nature can be Deadlyreuters.com/ ... 17:56:19A late-season winter storm slammed into the Ohio Valley on Saturday, forcing flight delays and cancellations at airports before heading out toward the eastern Great Lakes and the Northeast. Canada also was being hit with a winter blast that snarled air traffic and wreaked havoc on the roads. Snow totals from Ohio to western New York could exceed 15 to 20 inches by Sunday...

Disturbing Family Patternsdailymail.co.uk/ ... 18:16:45[daughter] and six "guests" - have now been questioned by police after her so-called evening in "to watch a video with a few friends" (as she told her mum) spiralled into a night of debauchery involving more than 50 young people... mocking her own mother on her Bebo page, boasting: "My mother thought it would teach me a lesson by putting it in the papers. . . all thats dne is make everyone go 'wow ur party made the front page' . . . i meann it wasssss goooodddd. . . and my mums a t*** nehowww..." Riotous events like Gemma's are increasingly common and have become known as "Skins parties". They take their name from the Channel Four drama Skins, about appallingly behaved adolescents... ap.google.com/ ... 17:55:55Authorities have arrested a mother who was videotaped spraying her young daughter with a high-pressure water hose at a Florida car wash... says she was trying to discipline her 2-year-old daughter for throwing a temper tantrum...

Crack is Crazyfoxnews.com/ ... 17:55:23

naked and high on crack one night a little over a year ago when he lost an arm to a 12-foot alligator... Then on Thursday, police found him naked again wading in Saddle Creek with a gator only about 50 feet away. "Do I think he went there to commit suicide by alligator? I don't think so. I think he is just bizarre and takes those risks..."

WW1 - still with usboston.com/ ... 17:52:57World War I veterans still have no national memorial. There has been no Hollywood blockbuster in recent years to bring their story to life. But they still have Frank Buckles. More than 90 years after he fudged his age to join the Army, Corporal Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I, came to the Pentagon yesterday to represent the more than two million "doughboys" who braved the trench warfare and gas attacks of the "The Great War..." "It is an honor to be here to represent the veterans of World War I. I thank you," the 107-year-old Buckles, of Charles Town, W.Va., told a packed auditorium. Buckles spoke softly but clearly, and shared stories - including a meeting with General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing...

Missingnydailynews.com/ ... 17:51:26They seem to have simply vanished, shutting off their cell phones, missing important business meetings and abandoning their 2006 Mercedes-Benz and a private plane. The disappearance of prominent couple John and Elizabeth Calvert has baffled investigators in Hilton Head Island, S.C., and gripped the upscale resort town... investigators found their Mercedes on Friday outside the Palmetto Dunes resort, a gated yacht community 4 miles from the Calverts' own. The car yielded no clues, and divers called off a search of the marina near their yacht because of bad weather...

Violencetulsaworld.com/ ... 18:03:15Norman Okla... A jury recommended the death penalty Friday for Kevin Underwood, a former grocery stocker whom they had convicted of killing a 10-year-old girl in an attempt to carry out his cannibalistic fantasy... ap.google.com/ ... 17:54:21MEMPHIS, Tenn... A convicted killer recently released from prison was charged Saturday in the deaths of six people, including his brother and two children... ap.google.com/ ... 17:50:18AUBURN, Ala... A man arrested after a car and foot chase by police who suspected him in a string of robberies was charged with capital murder in the abduction and shooting death of an Auburn University student...

Governing Ourselvesap.google.com/ ... 17:49:21Serbia's government collapsed Saturday over an impasse between the nationalist prime minister and the pro-Western president on how Kosovo's independence affects the Balkan country's pursuit of EU membership...

Alcohol Was Involvedreuters.com/ ... 00:18:08A Russian tank crashed through a villager's house after the crew stopped to buy more vodka at a nearby shop...

Modern Medicine can be Dangerousreuters.com/ ... 00:17:43LONDON... A patient was told there was no reason why he couldn't have surgery in a hospital, despite the smell caused by a dead rodent trapped in the building's ceiling... he decided not to proceed with the operation...

Theftreuters.com/ ... 00:16:16Australian who took a new car on a 3,200 km (1,988 mile) six-day test drive from the city to the outback... has been arrested... equivalent of London to Istanbul... The test drive was the longest known to Australian police and topped a 500km theft on New Zealand's South Island in 2006...

Criminally Stupidhosted.ap.org/ ... 00:15:03TULSA, Okla... Two fortune cookies helped Tulsa police make an arrest after a pair of break-ins Chinese restaurants... police were able to link [accused] to the Asian Express that was robbed because he had possession of the same type of fortune cookies that were at the restaurant...

Love is Strangehosted.ap.org/ ... 00:14:13A spurned Chinese wife set fire to more than 400 cell phones owned by her and her husband after he walked out on their marriage... hosted.ap.org/ ... 00:13:41Instead of popping the question on a moonlit Caribbean beach this week, though, Aaron Tkachuk, 24, wound up popping the question to Jennifer Rubadeau, also 24, at an airport security screening station...

Under Tyrannybreitbart.com/ ... 00:07:00China pledged Friday to impose tougher curbs on foreign artists after pop star Bjork sang in support of Tibetan independence in Shanghai, warning similar actions could lead to them being blacklisted...

Supernaturalamericanchronicle.com/ ... 18:04:06...."When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have already received it, and it will be given whatever you ask for." Mark11: 24 The above statement is the "secret" personified, presented not in tomes as laid out for us today, but just in two simple and direct sentences from someone we´ve never directly met, caught a glimpse of on TV, or listened to on the radio. Amazing! Consider: "If only I touch his cloak, I will get well…your faith has made you well." Matt: 9: 21-22. The woman wanting to be healed knew it would happen before she even touched his outer garment. Why? Because it´s what you believe to be true that you attract...

Lasting Contributionsnytimes.com/ ... 18:01:43So when Mr. Gygax, the intellectual and spiritual father of all modern role-playing games, died on Tuesday at 69 after multiple extended illnesses, it prompted a reconsideration of the power of the imagination he unleashed, a power that continues to resonate and swell around the globe... 1up.com/ ... 18:01:07Five Things We've Learned From D&D...;

US Militaryinformationweek.com/ ... 17:59:39The U.S. Department of Defense put Google on the defensive last week when it issued a communique to make it clear that the roving photographic vehicles Google uses to acquire Google Maps Street View images aren't allowed on U.S. military bases. In pursuing its mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Google inadvertently ran afoul of the military's mission to maintain security for its personnel and sites...

Animal Companionshosted.ap.org/ ... 00:12:57

A scrawny, black and white female kitten has apparently survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean and North America inside a shipping crate... mother cat and other kittens found in the crate were dead... came to Samsel Supply Co. [Cleveland, Ohio, USA] from Singapore...

Repeal Daylight Savings Time!coloradoan.com/ ... 17:58:57With the city on the verge of moving its clocks forward an hour, a California study suggests the shift might increase energy consumption, and a city engineer doubts the change has any impact... After pouring through studies and reports about the shift's possible outcomes, John Phelan, an energy services engineer at Fort Collins Utilities, said it was "very inconclusive" whether the change would cause an increase or decrease in consumption. "At the end, all I could say was that we were shifting it around..." Daylight-saving time actually increases the amount of energy used by households, according to a University of California-Santa Barbara study... nytimes.com/ ... 17:58:16Conserving energy has always been the object of daylight saving time, of course. Yet Matthew Kotchen, a professor of environmental economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Laura Grant, a doctoral student, argued in a recent study that it may increase residential electricity demand. They studied 7 million electric bills over three years in Indiana where for decades 77 counties chose to skip the spring ahead and fall behind. In 2006, the State Legislature ended the boycott, and the Hoosiers seem to have the last laugh. Against intuition and contrary to the entire point of government policy, the study found that daylight saving time resulted in an $8.6 million increase in spending on residential electricity...

Big Brothersfgate.com/ ... 17:54:03Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denounced a state appeals court ruling that severely restricts homeschooling and promised Friday to change the law if necessary to guarantee that parents are able to educate their children at home...

Reasons for Repealbostonherald.com/ ... 17:53:43An international prostitution ring that charged wealthy clients in Europe and the United States up to $5,500 an hour for the body of their choice was stripped of its high-class veneer with the arrest of four organizers, prosecutors announced Thursday...

Yawnreuters.com/ ... 00:17:05The normally taciturn Bob Dylan was moved to words on Thursday night when a young Brazilian woman rushed on stage and hugged him during a concert in Sao Paulo...

Cascading Weirdness4029tv.com/ ... 00:04:46CENTERTON, Ark. -- The mayor... resigned on Wednesday, claiming he was abducted and brainwashed by Satan worshippers nearly three decades ago... said he has been living under an assumed name for nearly 30 years... told authorities he was born Don LaRose and that in the mid-1970s, he was a preacher in Indiana. He said he was abducted and brainwashed into forgetting all about his life as Don LaRose... didn't even realize... until he had recently taken a truth-serum injection...

US Election 2008king5.com/ ... 18:08:03

BONNEY LAKE, Wash. – The so-called "red-phone ad..." The political ad that sparked nationwide controversy turns out to have a surprising local connection. One of the actors in the Hillary Clinton ad was shocked to see herself, especially because she's a fierce supporter of Barack Obama. reuters.com/ ... 17:49:00

Sen. Barack Obama won the Wyoming contest to choose a Democratic presidential candidate on Saturday... politico.com/ ... 00:18:55

John McCain became hostile with the N.Y. Times' Elisabeth Bumiller on the campaign's plane today, after the reporter questioned him about a 2004 meeting with John F. Kerry, in which the Massachusetts senator suggested a VP slot... breitbart.com/ ... 00:03:57

A Barack Obama adviser resigned Friday after calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster." Samantha Power, an unpaid foreign policy adviser and Harvard professor, announced her resignation in a statement provided by the Obama campaign in which she expressed "deep regret..." Power's interview Monday was published Friday in a Scottish newspaper, even though she tried to keep it from appearing in print. "She is a monster, too—that is off the record—she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying... "You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'"...

Theory of Educationguardian.co.uk/ ... 00:01:42Brazil's lawyers have been shocked to find that a boy aged eight has managed to pass the entrance exam to law school. The Bar Association said the achievement of Joao Victor Portellinha should be taken as a warning about the low standards of some of Brazil's law schools...

Carelessness Consequenceswxii12.com/ ... 00:01:05A Davidson County [NC] woman, trapped in a closet for more than 20 hours, smashed a hole through a wall in desperation to finally escape... works out at a gym three days a week... The force of her swings made a hole a little more than a foot wide. "I threw another blanket out there on the floor and pillow and squeezed through," she said smiling. "Not bad for a grandma.... So I say to everybody 'keep a hammer in your closet, tie your cell phone around your neck, and be in shape,'..."

FRI 2008-MAR-07

Sex can be Boringtelegraph.co.uk/ ... 23:54:54French women are becoming increasingly assertive in their sexual habits, while one-in-five younger French men "has no interest in sex"...

Transport Troublereuters.com/ ... 23:15:33At least 33 pilots in Canada, including some flying large commercial airliners, have complained about being flashed in the eyes by bright lights that could be lasers, officials said on Thursday...

Digital Warscnn.com/ ... 23:15:12They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon... In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government -- a claim the Beijing government denies... The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world...

Civilization vs Gangsterismwcbstv.com/ ... 23:58:58The FBI and the NYPD are sifting through a mountain of clues, trying to determine who is responsible for Thursday's Times Square bombing... Those clues included letters to Congress that at first read seemed to be claiming responsibility, but turned out to be "an incredibly unbelievable coincidence" according to a law enforcement official... The writer is an anti-war activist who sent as many as 100 letters—including a photograph of a man standing in front of the Times Square office—to Congress members. Meanwhile, a bicyclist captured on private security video riding along Military Island at about 3:38 a.m. and getting off the bike just outside the military recruiting station still appears to be the key figure in the case. About two minutes after the cyclist rides away from the scene, the explosion occurs. Police were also looking at a new bike found in a dumpster at 38th St. and Madison Avenue at 7 a.m... Characteristics of the explosion bore several similarities to two other minor explosions in the city in years past: pre-dawn explosions last October at the Mexican Consulate and the British Consulate in 2005. "The times are very close, a bicycle was believed to be used..." wnbc.com/ ... 23:57:44Nearly a full day after the explosion in Times Square, law enforcement officials said they had no suspects. WNBC.com has learned NYPD, Homeland Security and FBI officials are now revisiting an incident that occurred along the Canadian border last month, concerned there might be a possible connection to the Times Square explosion. Four men trying to cross the border attempted to flee the checkpoint as Canadian officials tried to question them, investigators said. Two of the men got away... The men left behind a backpack with photos of various New York City locations including Times Square... One of the photos included the military recruitment center, officials said... One law enforcement official described two of the men are believed to be "anarchist-types." He stressed as of now there is nothing to link the men to Thursday's explosion. But it is a prudent to follow this possible lead... jpost.com/ ... 23:11:35A Palestinian terrorist opened fire at a central Jerusalem yeshiva late Thursday night, killing eight students and wounding 11 others... hail of gunfire - a reported 500-600 bullets - that lasted for several minutes... As security forces raced to the scene, the gunman fired round after round of ammunition into the library at the seminary, religious Zionism's flagship institution. About 80 students had gathered in the library to celebrate the Hebrew month of Adar II, which begins on Friday evening... police arrived at the scene and an intense gunfight erupted with the terrorist lasting several minutes... terrorist was killed by an IDF officer who lives near the yeshiva and raced to the scene...

Criminally Stupidcbs2chicago.com/ ... 23:08:36A couple who allegedly planted live worms in a restaurant entree to scam a free meal have been arrested and charged with conversion... left behind her purse, with a plastic container of maggot-like bee moth worms inside... A waitress searching for identification in the purse found the container and called police...

Disturbing Family Patternscfnews13.com/ ... 23:07:44Orange County deputies are searching for two women caught on tape powerwashing a young child at a car wash... using the high pressure washer to spray the child with cold water all over her body. A manager at the car wash said she heard one of the women scolding the child and telling them they would continue until their behavior improved... foxnews.com/ ... 23:07:21A Hutchinson [Kansas] man is on trial this week on charges he put his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son in a hot clothes dryer... said he put the children in the dryer to show them they could have a good time without much money. An hour later, the dryer had become hot and the boy had second-degree burns... Jurors also heard from a pediatrician who testified that the burns, combined with prior injuries including a twice-broken clavicle, could indicate an abusive environment...

Geologyreuters.com/ ... 23:05:48The Grand Canyon, carved out over the eons by rushing river water, began to form 17 million years ago, making it nearly three times older than previously thought...

Solar Systemscience-frontiers.com/ ... 23:50:26"NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER" Poet T.S. Eliot speculated that life on earth might not after all be terminated catastrophically, as in the impact of a large asteroid (today's popular doomsday machine). Rather, we might depart slowly, quietly, and mournfully. Of course, Eliot was not thinking of asteroids -- no one foresaw impact havoc in his day. But, his use of the word "whimper" can be attached to another, much slower astronomical agent of planetary death: cosmic dust and gas. Here's the current situation:... reuters.com/ ... 23:04:39Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea may have a small ring around it -- the first time a moon has been found to have a ring...

It's All in Your Mindreuters.com/ ... 23:04:26You can't buy happiness but it looks like you can at least inherit it, British and Australian researchers said on Thursday. A study of nearly 1,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins found genes control half the personality traits that make people happy while factors such as relationships, health and careers are responsible for the rest of our well-being...

Cosmologynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 23:02:17The world's most powerful optical telescope has opened both of its eyes. Astronomers at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona have released the first images taken using its two giant 8m diameter mirrors. The detailed pictures show a spiral galaxy located 102 million light-years away from the Milky Way. LBT has been 20 years in the making but promises to allow astronomers to probe the Universe further back in time and in more detail than ever before...

Policing Ourselvescbs2chicago.com/ ... 23:59:21Chicago's new top cop said he is considering a mandated physical fitness test for officers, one that could also take into account body fat, not only how much a cop weighs. But as CBS 2's Jim Williams reports, the superintendent may have some heavy lifting when it comes to putting the weight of that responsibility on the shoulders of his officers...

Theory of Educationsfgate.com/ ... 23:36:43A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution. The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming... The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home. Some homeschoolers are affiliated with private or charter schools, like the Longs, but others fly under the radar completely. Many homeschooling families avoid truancy laws by registering with the state as a private school and then enroll only their own children...

Cascading Weirdnessnewsoftheweird.blogspot.comThanks as often to News of the Weird (somewhat) Daily for a couple of leads today

Digital Theory of Educationthisislondon.co.uk/ ... 23:08:58A primary school has been accused of being alarmist for covering up the faces of pupils on its website – apparently to protect them from paedophiles. Bizarrely, the images have been altered with the type of smiley faces popular during the Acid House dance craze of the 1980s...

Lost & Foundhosted.ap.org/ ... 23:05:30Some investigative work by a New York couple has led to return of a McKinley High School ring 33 years after it was lost on Waikiki...

St Patrickhosted.ap.org/ ... 23:04:03It's depressing, it's not usually sung in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, and its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil. Those are only some of the reasons why a Manhattan pub owner is banning the song "Danny Boy" for the entire month of March...

WED 2008-MAR-05

Theftarstechnica.com/ ... 23:24:43after a decade of falling steadily, the rate of robberies rose strongly in 2005 and 2006, but other property crimes did not rise... iPods have several characteristics that make them attractive targets. They not only have a significant cash value, but they have also become status symbols, encouraging young people to steal them and keep them for their own use. Their visibly distinctive white earbuds make them easy to spot in a crowd and reduces the victim's awareness of his surroundings. Unlike cell phones, iPods do not require a service contract and cannot be easily tracked. Most importantly, the timing seems right: iPod sales soared in 2005 and 2006, the same time period in which robbery rates increased...

Violenceap.google.com/ ... 22:51:57Police shot and killed a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus Wednesday in northern China... hijacker's motives were not known... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:36The bodies of four adults and two children have been found by US police in a house in Memphis, Tennessee. Three more children, including a 10-month-old baby, were critically injured and taken to hospital... The victims had been shot, and at least one of the children had been stabbed... All the children involved were under the age of 12... Police have not given many details and have not [said] whether they think the killer is among the dead or remains at large...

Transport Tragedynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:40:38Officials in Nepal say they have recovered the bodies of 12 people from the wreckage of a United Nations helicopter that crashed on Monday... burst into flames after being struck by lightning... The UN has said 10 people... were on the helicopter... It is unclear how more bodies have been found from the wreckage...

Nature can be Deadlyreuters.com/ ... 22:16:17Floods in Namibia have killed 42 people and displaced thousands since early February and officials said on Tuesday more flooding can be expected...

Criminally Stupidhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:53:51When two guys in cowboy garb offered the sheriff's deputies doughnuts, and then the deputies investigated a burglary involving doughnuts and the prints of cowboy boots... "The officers kind of put two and two together..."

Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:42:58Italian police have seized more than $220m of property and goods from the Calabrian mafia... In dawn raids, heavily armed special forces seized a number of houses, cars, land and businesses in Calabria and the northern industrial region of Lombardi. The areas are strongholds of feuding mafia clans under investigation for six murders in Germany last August... reuters.com/ ... 22:17:27Army Lt. Gen Ray Odierno, who recently ended a 15-month assignment as the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said... Iran may pose the greatest long-term threat to Iraq's stability... said Iran continued to train extremist militia groups in Iraq... also said he was not surprised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to move around without security problems during his two-day visit to Baghdad as the groups that often target high-profile visitors are Iranian-backed... "Over the last 12 months, every time a visitor would come from the United States, we'd either foil a rocket attack or the rocket attack happened. And guess what? That's because it was being done by Iranian surrogates..." reuters.com/ ... 22:16:03A suicide bomber killed at least six people and wounded 19 in an attack on Tuesday on a Pakistan naval college in the eastern city of Lahore... worldtribune.com/ ... 21:46:37U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq... They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007...

Cold War - still with usnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:41:19China says it plans to increase military spending by nearly 18% this year, to 417.8bn yuan ($59bn; £30bn)... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:39:28North Korea has executed 15 people in public for trying to flee or help others to escape across the border into China... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:25:41China has warned that Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's government will pay a "dear price" if he continues moves towards independence for the island... reuters.com/ ... 22:19:18A Russian bomber aircraft approached a U.S. aircraft carrier off the Korean coast on Wednesday and was intercepted by American fighter jets -- the second such incident in less than a month... reuters.com/ ... 22:14:48China on Tuesday condemned the annual Pentagon report to the U.S. Congress on Chinese military power, saying it was a distortion of the facts, interfered in the country's internal affairs and showed "Cold War thinking"... reuters.com/ ... 22:02:02China is developing weapons that would disable its enemies' space technology such as satellites in a conflict, the Pentagon said in a report released on Monday. The report also said "numerous" intrusions into computer networks around the world, including some owned by the U.S. government, in the past year seem to have originated in China...

Threatsnews.yahoo.com/ ... 21:45:53Files in a laptop computer seized from the wreckage of a Colombian rebel camp in Ecuador offer new insights into Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government... suggest Chavez has been in league with the rebels for more than a decade... guardian.co.uk/ ... 21:45:31Monday March 3... Chavez dramatically ordered 10 battalions to the frontier and the closing of Venezuela's embassy in Bogotá, with all staff to be withdrawn, plunging the region into a sudden crisis...

Transport Incidentupi.com/ ... 22:54:29A Canada-bound plane carrying more than 250 passengers made an unplanned stop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to deplane members of a family who had fallen ill... telegraph.co.uk/ ... 21:42:05A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board... Chicago to London... 22,000 gallons of fuel... estimated that each passenger produced 43 tons of CO2 – consuming enough fuel to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times... [Wot th hek is a Mondeo?] cost American about £30,000... a spokesman said it had no alternative...

US Military Casualtiesdefenselink.mil/ ... 23:26:08

Army Spc. Steven R. Koch, 23, of Milltown, N. J.

Army Sgt. Robert T. Rapp, 22, of Sonora, Calif.
died Mar. 3 in the Sabari District of Afghanistan, of wounds suffered during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N. C. defenselink.mil/ ... 23:25:38

Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher S. Frost, 24, of Waukesha, Wis., died March 3 near Bayji, Iraq in a crash of an Iraqi Army Mi-17 helicopter. He was assigned to the 377th Air Base Wing, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The circumstances surrounding the crash are under investigation.

Lasting Contributionspcworld.com/ ... 23:23:54Dungeons & Dragons fans this week are mourning the death of Gary Gygax, 69, co-creator of what went from being a popular face-to-face game to being a much played online game as well... Gygax and cohort Dave Ameson first published Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 through a Gygax-owned company. The basic game mainly consists of rule books, polyhedral dice and character sheets. Gygax was said to have lamented the rise of computer graphics in online games in that they curtailed some of the imagination needed to play the tabletop versions...

US Militarydefenselink.mil/ ... 23:26:46National Guard... March 5... This week, the Army and Marine Corps announced a decrease, while the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard announced an increase. The net collective result is 287 more reservists mobilized than last week.... This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 96,301, including both units and individual augmentees. ap.google.com/ ... 22:56:24A former Navy sailor was convicted Wednesday of leaking details about ship movements to suspected terrorism supporters, an act that could have endangered his own crewmates. Jurors convicted Hassan Abu-Jihaad, 32, of Phoenix of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing classified national defense information on the second day of deliberations. The American-born Muslim convert formerly known as Paul R. Hall faces up to 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in May...

Antiquity - still with ushosted.ap.org/ ... 22:11:27Road construction on the western Greek island of Lefkada has uncovered and partially destroyed an important tomb with artifacts dating back more than 3,000 years... "This is a very important find for the area, because until now we had next to no evidence on Mycenaean presence on Lefkada..."

Marshosted.ap.org/ ... 22:10:57A robotic spacecraft circling Mars has snapped the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole...

Being Humanreuters.com/ ... 22:04:01Smells so irritating they make you cough or gag may act upon a single type of cell in the nose that senses caustic chemicals and warns the brain of potential danger, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday... Scientists had thought such smells acted directly on nerve endings in the nose, but the study in mice suggests special cells in the tip of the nose act as air quality control sensors that protect the body from harmful chemicals...

Evolution Isn't Easyreuters.com/ ... 22:03:31A U.S. scientist has unearthed the remains of the earliest-known primate to live in North America. In doing so, he figured out the path these ancient representatives of the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and people must have taken to reach this part of the world. Based on a group of teeth from a teeny primate unearthed in Mississippi dating to 55.8 million years ago, paleontologist Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh said the species likely scampered over a now-vanished land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska. The tiny immigrant was called Teilhardina magnoliana, Beard said in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

Modern Medicine can be Dangeroushosted.ap.org/ ... 21:57:14Nearly 40,000 people learned this week that a trip to the doctor may have made them sick. In a type of scandal more often associated with Third World countries, a Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years. The shoddy practices may have led to an outbreak of the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus and exposed patients to HIV, too... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:56:55Some of Baxter International's recalled blood thinner heparin contained large amounts of a contaminant that might explain hundreds of serious side effects. And the government said Wednesday it's investigating whether what appears to be a fake ingredient got there by accident or by fraud...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 22:21:37A research project aimed at martens has turned up a bigger prize: a picture of a wolverine, an elusive animal scientists feared may have been driven out of the Sierra Nevada long ago by human activity... could affect land-use decisions if the wolverine is declared an endangered species, a step the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering... reuters.com/ ... 22:10:18

Scientists have found an Antarctic fish that hibernates to conserve energy during the long southern winters... The cod Notothenia coriiceps... local6.com/ ... 21:47:19Residents in a Polk County community are demanding help in getting rid of vultures that are ripping shingles off rooftops and chewing rubber linings of car doors and windows... City officials said little can be done about the hundreds of black and turkey vultures because they are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act... scaring off the vultures could be considered a violation and could result in fees of up to $500 a day...

Human Rightreuters.com/ ... 22:18:23The California Supreme Court appeared divided on Tuesday over whether to allow gay marriage during nearly four hours of oral arguments on the contentious issue that could impact gay rights nationwide... Several of the seven judges asked whether the state legislature might better decide whether matrimony should be limited to a man and a woman, while others pointed to how the same court ended the state ban on marriages between blacks and whites after World War Two...

Digital Future is Nowreuters.com/ ... 22:10:39Brain imaging may make it possible to someday see what others are seeing, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. Such a device would make it possible to decode brain signals and track attention. It may even be possible to "see" someone else's dream, the team at the University of California Berkeley said... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:04:44A controller developed at Carnegie Mellon University allows computer users to manipulate three-dimensional images and explore virtual environments not only through sight and sound, but by using their sense of touch... comes close to the sensitivity of the human hand... Using magnetic fields, the so-called haptic device replicates the response a hand might have to textures and gravitational forces...

Digital Theory of Educationwashingtonpost.com/ ... 23:21:51A teen who used vulgar slang in an Internet blog to complain about school administrators shouldn't have been punished by the school, her lawyer told a federal appeals court. But a lawyer for the Burlington, Conn., school told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday that administrators should be allowed to act if such comments are made on the Web... reuters.com/ ... 22:02:17Thai students will be barred from wearing watches in national university entrance exams this weekend after a student was caught cheating using a mobile phone wrist watch, Education Ministry officials said on Wednesday...

People are Bornhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:52:53identical triplets were born Wednesday at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island - an event so rare that an obstetrician estimated it might happen just once in 200 million births... mother... was impregnated with just one embryo through in-vitro fertilization... That embryo split in half, and then one half of that split again...

Democracy in Actionhosted.ap.org/ ... 21:51:51

Voters in two Vermont towns approved measures Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for what they consider violations of the Constitution... sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere - if they're not impeached first... In Brattleboro, the vote was 2,012-1,795. In Marlboro, which held a town meeting on the issue, it was 43-25 with three abstentions... a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee denounced the indictment effort. "It appears that the left wing knows no bounds in their willingness to waste taxpayer dollars to make a futile counterproductive partisan political point," said Blair Latoff. "Town people would be much better served by elected officials who sought to solve problems rather than create them..."

People Diereuters.com/ ... 21:56:25The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them... signonsandiego.com/ ... 21:48:24A woman who sheriff's officials say was commemorating the one-year anniversary of her father's death was struck and killed by a freight train in Leucadia Monday night... She was attempting to place a shirt on the tracks when she fell forward and was hit by the train... vather committed suicide... Investigators do not know if her death was accidental or deliberate...

Reasons for Repealwashingtonpost.com/ ... 23:22:25The federal government said yesterday that it has received hundreds of court orders reducing the prison sentences of crack cocaine offenders in the two days since new sentencing guidelines took effect. A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons could not say how many prisoners have already been released under the U.S. Sentencing Commission's new guidelines, but the bureau has processed about 400 orders modifying prison terms nationwide... the Bush administration asserts that they will result in the release of violent criminals... nzherald.co.nz/ ... 22:47:04

Smoking cannabis does not appear to increase the user's risk of head and neck cancers, according to a new study by New Zealand and British researchers... There were greater relative risks of contracting the cancers among tobacco smokers... and heavy drinkers of alcohol... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:46:22

Environmentally-friendly concrete made from a variety of the cannabis plant is being used on a new £6.2m project at an eco-centre in Powys... abc.net.au/ ... 22:46:07

Police in south-west Sydney have seized hundreds of marijuana plants with an estimated street value of nearly $900,000... ajc.com/ ... 22:45:51

It's been only four weeks, but members of the newly-formed Gwinnett County Police interdiction unit are practically paying for themselves. [This PuriTalibaNazi mouthpiece has a weird notion of Prohibition Priests ever "paying for themselves...!] A traffic stop Wednesday morning on I-85 North near Pleasant Hill Road netted a 308-pound marijuana seizure with a street value of $1.4 million. It's the first of what officials hope will be many significant drug busts by the unit, which began operating in February... foxnews.com/ ... 22:44:53

INDIO, Calif. — Border Patrol agents stopped a big-rig in the Southern California desert and found nearly two tons of marijuana concealed in a shipment of hay bales... abc.net.au/ ... 22:44:34

An international narcotics report shows cannabis continues to be the most abused illicit drug in Australia... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:50:19

Workers who were sorting items at a San Jose recycling center last week found a large trash bag full of marijuana plants... The center collects leaves, tree limbs and other natural material for composting, but San Jose police say the plants won't end up that way. Instead they'll be held as evidence of a crime... [heh...] suntimes.com/ ... 21:44:57Tiny plastic bags used to sell small quantities of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs would be banned in Chicago, under a crackdown advanced Tuesday by a City Council committee. Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) persuaded the Health Committee to ban possession of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," after picking up 15 of the bags on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll through a West Side park... [Great! Now there'll be a black market it little baggies....] Prior to the final vote, Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) expressed concern about arresting innocent people. He noted that extra buttons that come with suits, shirts and blouses -- and jewelry that's been repaired -- come in similar plastic bags... Burnett was reassured by language that states "one reasonably should know that such items will be or are being used" to package, transfer, deliver or store a controlled substance... [Another fine example of irresponsible laws leading to even more inappropriate legislation and hassle of the public.] Violators would be punished by a $1,500 fine...

Digital Businesshosted.ap.org/ ... 22:20:58Microsoft Corp. gave early testers their first glimpse of its next-generation Web browser Wednesday, and said Internet Explorer 8 will adhere to the same standards as competitors' programs... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:06:57In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 22:02:44Warner Music has signed a deal with media site 7digital.com to offer its music without copy protection... breitbart.com/ ... 21:42:49Travelers using Denver International Airport's free Wi-Fi service cannot visit Internet sites that airport officials consider provocative... blocking Vanity Fair magazine's Web site... airport would rather deal with infrequent complaints about access than handle angry parents whose children might see pornography. Critics say the airport is using the same technology used by repressive regimes in Sudan and Kuwait...

US Election 2008reuters.com/ ... 22:19:03Clinton was asked about a joint bid with the first-term senator from Illinois. "Well, that may ... be where this is headed, but of course, we have to decide who's on the top of the ticket..."
Obama would not talk about a joint ticket. "I've said before I respect Senator Clinton as a public servant, a tenacious opponent. I think it is very premature to start talking about a joint ticket..." insight-report.com/ ... 21:40:00

Barack Obama's most senior military adviser says President Bush is to blame for Iran's bad behavior... In the view of... retired Gen. Merrill McPeak... the most senior retired officer to back Obama's presidential run, Iran's behavior is a reaction to Bush's tough talk... news.yahoo.com/ ... 21:38:22

Hillary Rodham Clinton scored comeback primary wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island Tuesday night, denting Barack Obama's delegate lead in a riveting Democratic presidential race.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, an unflinching supporter of the war in Iraq, clinched the Republican nomination...

MON 2008-MAR-03

Transport Tragedynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:43:26A United Nations helicopter has crashed in stormy weather in Nepal, killing all 10 people on board... returning to the capital, Kathmandu, after a regular visit to a camp for former Maoist rebels in eastern Nepal...

Violencenews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:43:07at a... Wendy's outlet in West Palm Beach [Florida]... A gunman killed one person and injured several others before turning the gun on himself... Three of the survivors were in critical condition...

Prison Sucksnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:41:20The Pakistani government has released from jail an Indian man who had spent 35 years on death row... sentenced to death for spying in 1973... discovered by... a social worker who tracks people lost in Pakistan's jail system...

International Incidentshosted.ap.org/ ... 19:37:07Ecuador on Monday broke off diplomatic ties with Colombia and Venezuela says it will expel Colombia's ambassador after that country conducted a strike against leftist rebels inside Ecuador...

War is Hellhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:36:36Palestinians say they know when an Israeli drone is in the air: Cell phones stop working, TV reception falters and they can hear a distant buzzing. They also know what's likely to come next - a devastating explosion on the ground... "The drone has a zone of around 15 meters (50 feet) where it decimates everything. It targets people and leaves them in pieces..." Israel is at the forefront of the drone technology that is increasingly being used in hotspots around the world. The unmanned craft provide a deadly and cost-effective alternative for armies to target enemies, without risking their own pilots' lives and reducing civilian casualties in heavily populated areas...

Civilization vs Gangsterismreuters.com/ ... 19:33:50Two bomb blasts killed 19 people in Baghdad on Monday... Iraqi officials said the attacks were not related to the state visit by Ahmadinejad... reuters.com/ ... 19:33:30Two missiles hit a house in southern Somalia on Monday, in an attack the United States said was directed at "a known al Qaeda terrorist". It was the fourth U.S. strike in 14 months on Somalia, where Washington believes Islamists are giving shelter to wanted al Qaeda figures... Dobley district commissioner Ali Hussein Nur said six people were killed. A local politician, who had visited the scene and who asked not to be named, said only three were wounded. A militant Islamist organization, the Mujahideen Youth Group, said in a posting on a Web site often used by al Qaeda and its supporters that the U.S. attack had "failed to hit leaders" of the group...

Virtual Civilization vs Gangsterismnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:31:25The US government has begun a project to develop ways to spot terrorists who are using virtual worlds. Codenamed Reynard it aims to recognise "normal" behaviour in online worlds and home in on anomalous activity. It is likely to develop tools and techniques for intelligence officers who are hunting terrorists and terror groups on the net or in virtual worlds. The project was welcomed by experts tracking terror groups using the net to organise or carry out attacks...

Disturbing Family Patternshosted.ap.org/ ... 19:26:47A child's birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant was cut short after a fight broke out between two mothers. Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman's son was "hogging" an arcade game...

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 19:35:14

A rare and threatened species of tiny frog has been found breeding in a New Zealand animal park, meaning its future may now be more secure...

Healing Ourselvesnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:34:13Tiny magnets made by bacteria could be used to kill tumours...

Why People Go Vegannews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:40:45

Activists from the Sea Shepherd group threw containers filled with a mild form of acid made from rotten butter at a Japanese ship. The group described it as "non-violent chemical warfare", but Tokyo condemned the actions as illegal and said several people were slightly injured... hosted.ap.org/ ... 19:34:44COLCORD, Okla... In a region that produces billions of pounds of the nation's poultry, part of doing business for the past half-century was trying to ignore the smelly waste dropped by the birds... Now, the chickens have come to roost, as Oklahoma wants a federal judge to stop 13 Arkansas-based poultry companies from dropping any more chicken litter in a once-pristine watershed... reuters.com/ ... 19:24:36

Eat a whale and save the planet, a Norwegian pro-whaling lobby said on Monday of a study showing that harpooning the giant mammals is less damaging to the climate than farming livestock...

Digital Businessnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 19:32:42Europe's technology industry is gearing up for the giant Cebit trade fair that kicks off this week in Hanover... In previous years mobile technologies have taken centre stage but in 2008 the focus has switched to green issues. On show will be more efficient ways to run large computer systems and gadgets that are more environmentally friendly... feeds.reuters.com/ ... 19:28:02Mitsubishi Electric Corp said it planned to exit its loss-making mobile phone business, becoming the latest Japanese electronics maker to withdraw from a market dominated by overseas giants such as Nokia...

Mysteryhosted.ap.org/ ... 19:26:33STRATFORD, Conn... Officials now know who wrote a 50-year-old postcard that has intrigued Stratford residents, but they may never solve the mystery of how it arrived at town hall earlier this year... cellophane-wrapped postcard, postmarked Aug. 14, 1957, showed up in January, more than 50 years after it was sent from East Sumner, Maine, to Stratford Town Manager Harry Flood, who died in 1966. "Hi, Enjoying this rather fallish weather. It was 44 degrees yesterday. See you next week. Alice..."

Supernaturalreuters.com/ ... 19:24:55The body of the mystic monk Padre Pio, one of the Roman Catholic world's most revered saints who died 40 years ago, has been exhumed to be prepared for display to his many devotees...

SUN 2008-MAR-02

Scary Timessuntimes.com/ ... 23:06:02Police in north suburban Skokie have identified and released a suspect who caused a security scare at Skokie’s Westfield Old Orchard Mall Saturday evening... Police Department received several 9-1-1 calls regarding a suspicious person at Nordstrom’s. Additional calls made mention of a possible bomb threat... Police determined there was no intent on the part of the man to disturb or alarm others...

Violenceap.google.com/ ... 23:04:59EMORY, Texas... Angry that her parents demanded she break up with her boyfriend, a teenage girl helped kill her mother and two brothers during a grisly weekend ambush on the family's rural, wooded home... lone survivor was Terry Caffey, the father... shot five times — including twice in the back — before he dragged his bloodied body through the woods in search of help... Killed were Penny Caffey, 37, and sons Tyler, 8, and Mathew, 13...

Infrastructure Failurebreitbart.com/ ... 22:50:41A power failure that plunged large parts of Florida into the dark this week was caused primarily by human error, the state's largest electric company said Friday... a field engineer... was investigating a malfunctioning switch at one of the power company's substations in west Miami when he disabled two levels of protection for the system...

WW2 - still with ustelegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:45:14Kathleen Dodd, 87, was in the Land Army during the Second World War, and was issued with the shoes as part of her uniform. Kathleen Dodd was given the shoes in 1941 as part of her uniform while serving in the Land Army The shoes - which she is donating to a museum - saw her through three years of service, from 1941-44, and she continued to wear them for decades afterwards. They also have deep sentimental value for Mrs Dodd because she was wearing them when she met her husband, Harry, who died shortly after their golden wedding anniversary 14 years ago... "I never wanted to get rid of the shoes because they reminded me of one of the happiest times of my life." Mrs Dodd decided to retire her hard-working shoes after hearing an appeal from an exhibition at the Museum of Hartlepool - Shoes, Glorious Shoes - which will be taking place this month...

Disturbing Family Patternsbreitbart.com/ ... 22:01:49A cabdriver who dropped off a baby at a firehouse, claiming someone had left her in his car, was arrested Saturday and charged with making up the tale to help an overwhelmed family abandon the child...

Alcohol Was Involvedthepittsburghchannel.com/ ... 22:01:15A Greensburg [Pa] man accused of assaulting his stepdaughter with a garden gnome... came home drunk at about 4 a.m...

1960s - still with ustelegraph.co.uk/ ... 22:00:45Sir Mick Jagger... was the target of an assassination attempt which only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm. Details of the plot have been revealed by an FBI agent... made by a group of Hells Angels after the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Concert in 1969, which the Rolling Stones had organised and for which the motorcycle gang reportedly provided security... black 18-year-old member of the audience, was stabbed and kicked to death by a group of Hells Angels... Sir Mick allegedly refused to use their services again...

Nature can be Deadlytulsaworld.com/ ... 21:29:54

A late-winter storm system brought severe weather to Oklahoma on Sunday, with at least two tornadoes touching down in rural areas... No fatalities were reported and early damage reports seemed minimal, although strong winds associated with the storms brought down power lines, causing some outages and road closures in northwestern counties...

Under Tyrannybreitbart.com/ ... 22:45:47a surprise change in Mexican import rules [has] turned a single year's worth of used cars into pick of the used-car lot. Beginning Monday, only cars made for the 1998 model year—none older and none newer—can be legally imported into Mexico. Car dealers were given notice only a month ago... reuters.com/ ... 21:24:38Russia's next president Dmitry Medvedev pledged to uphold Vladimir Putin's policies on Monday after easily winning an election critics said was stage-managed to let the outgoing Kremlin leader keep his grip on power...

Modern Medicine can be Dangerouslasvegasnow.com/ ... 21:12:52The city has marched in and closed the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada late Friday afternoon.... thousands of people may have been exposed to hepatitis and HIV because of unsafe practices...

World of Sexual Cultureshosted.ap.org/ ... 21:09:41The no-tell motels in Beijing's university districts pulsate with sex... China is in the midst of a sexual revolution, a byproduct of rising prosperity and looser government restrictions on private life. The relaxed attitudes about sex mark a historic turnaround... But the revolution is taking place largely behind closed doors, and the word "sex" - or "xing" (pronounced shing) is spoken only among close friends, and then usually in a whisper. As a result, sex education has not kept up with sexual activity, with some unwelcome consequences. High school girls make up 80 percent of the patients at Shanghai abortion clinics during one-week school holidays...

Unclear on the Conceptnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:07:23On the first-ever visit to Iraq by an Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of bringing terrorism to the region...

International Incidentsreuters.com/ ... 21:15:15President Hugo Chavez warned Colombia on Saturday it would be a "cause for war" if its forces struck inside Venezuelan territory as they did in Ecuador killing a top Colombian rebel commander there... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:07:07Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia, marking a sharp escalation in regional tensions...

9/11 - still with usnews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:06:16Thousands of people have watched the naming in Louisiana of a US warship built partly from steel salvaged from the World Trade Center...

Transport Tragedynews.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:06:51Three men are in custody in the resort of Chamonix in the French Alps, after one of their friends fell to his death from a cable car the four were using. The cause of the fall is unclear, but the men - aged 32 to 35 - had engaged in "rough play", prosecutors said... fell from a height of 25 metres (82ft) and died instantly... news.bbc.co.uk/ ... 21:06:00At least 45 people have been killed in a bus crash in southern Guatemala... at least 20 people were also hurt and more bodies may be trapped in the wreckage... reports say at least 65 people were on a bus designed to carry 40...

Civilization vs Gangsterismupi.com/ ... 23:01:58Fighting in Sri Lanka left at least 25 people dead Sunday as the military and Tiger rebels clashed... reuters.com/ ... 21:11:55U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel for using "excessive" force in the Gaza Strip and demanded a halt to its offensive after troops killed 61 people on the bloodiest day for Palestinians since the 1980s... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:08:31A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted al-Qaida in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers... Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan... According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers... hosted.ap.org/ ... 21:07:45Troops killed a senior commander of Colombia's largest rebel army in an air-and-ground raid Saturday, as the U.S.-backed military dealt a stunning setback to the nation's leftist insurgency... reuters.com/ ... 21:05:26Israeli aircraft struck new targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing two militants, after the government vowed to press home an offensive despite appeals from Washington and elsewhere for an end to violence... reuters.com/ ... 21:05:13Armenia's military said on Sunday it would confront opposition protests with force, a day after riots killed eight people in the ex-Soviet state... reuters.com/ ... 21:05:00At least 39 people were killed and scores more injured when a suicide bomber attacked a traditional tribal meeting in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday... "They were finalizing the formation of a committee of locals to take steps against miscreants and help the government..."

Animal Companionstcpalm.com/ ... 22:44:04

Vero Beach, Fla... 233 animals in the house — including three pot-bellied pigs... cats, dogs... rabbits... ducks and chickens... rodents, lizards... woman who was living with the animals was committed under provisions of the state's Baker Act for a psychiatric evaluation... has since been released... kxly.com/ ... 22:41:16

SPOKANE... A macaque monkey, native to Africa and Asia, escaped its owner's home, biting three neighbors... In Washington, it's illegal to own a primate...

Lasting Contributionslatimes.com/ ... 21:26:34Barbara Seaman, a writer and health activist whose groundbreaking 1969 book that warned against the dangers of the birth control pill is widely credited with launching the modern women's health movement, has died. She was 72... In her first book, "The Doctors' Case Against the Pill," Seaman exposed the serious and little-known side effects of the high-estrogen pill prescribed at the time. Women weren't warned that the pill could cause heart attacks, strokes, depression and a host of other ills. Her investigative work prompted Senate hearings in 1970 that led to a warning label on the drug and the mandatory inclusion of patient-information inserts. When women who had been harmed by the pill were barred from testifying at the hearings, they fought back by constantly interrupting, calling out questions such as "Why isn't there a pill for men?" and "Why are 10 million women being used as guinea pigs?" Seaman wrote 30 years later in the New York Times. Those acts of "feminist disobedience," as Seaman called them, are often portrayed as ground zero of the women's health movement...

World Zookeepingdailymail.co.uk/ ... 21:14:14Knut the polar bear has grown up fast - as this startled young visitor to Berlin Zoo discovered [see pic at link]. Knut now weighs 22 stone and has six-inch claws and a fearsome set of fangs to match. And he seemed to be particularly keen to test them on the three-year-old boy lying on the ground next to his enclosure...

It's All in Your Mindreuters.com/ ... 21:00:22Defects in working memory -- the brain's temporary storage bin -- may explain why one child cannot read her history book and another gets lost in algebra, new research suggests. As many as 10 percent of school age children may suffer from poor working memory...

Staying Healthyreuters.com/ ... 20:59:24Influenza viruses coat themselves in fatty material that hardens and protects them in colder temperatures -- a finding that could explain why winter is the flu season...

Big Whoops Cascadedailymail.co.uk/ ... 22:47:42A monstrous 50-ton crane has destroyed a million-pound home which builders had just finished...

Leap Yearmsnbc.msn.com/ ... 22:46:40Passengers using United Airlines' "Easy Check-In" found it anything but that on Leap Day when the automated system failed, resulting in longer lines at its U.S. airport counters... The Chicago-based carrier blamed the service interruption on software issues related to the leap year... [Uh, it's never the software... it's the PROGRAMMERS!]

Bartlesville - prarie frontier towntulsaworld.com/ ... 21:24:57One of the most star-studded lineups in its 24-year history will grace the 2008 OK Mozart International Festival in Bartlesville. Artists as diverse as singer-actor Ben Vereen, opera star Frederica von Stade, jazz artist Branford Marsalis, piano legend Peter Nero and multi-instrumentalist and composer Mark O’Connor will take part in this year’s event, which will be June 13-21...

Reasons for Repealpr.cannazine.co.uk/ ... 21:20:42

It was back last year (June 07) that the Canna Zine seed shop was first opened for business, selling a commodity, (cannabis seeds) which is legal and bona-fide in the UK, where the Canna Zine is based... Within 24 hours "someone" had complained to online payment hypocrites PayPal, that the Canna Zine was offering cannabis seeds for sale using Paypal as a payment option... Within minutes PayPal had frozen the Canna Zine account, making it not only impossible to receive payments, but also denying us access to the account to remove any funds which may have been in there. Although as the shop had only been open 24 hours suffice to say there was nothing in there, but thats not the point right? I know of a number of online vendors who have had literally thousands of pounds of hard earned revenue, essentially "stolen" from them by PayPal... naplesnews.com/ ... 21:19:09

Fla.... One legislator wants to add a bit more meat to the criminal charges growhouse operators face. Rep. Nick Thompson, R-Fort Myers, hopes to usher through Tallahassee this spring a bill that would make it felony to own a home that you know is used to grow marijuana or manufacture other illegal drugs. It’s already a crime to rent a place for trafficking or selling drugs. Having 100 or more marijuana plants is also already a crime that comes with harsher sentences at the federal level. Thompson says authorities are increasingly finding crops with just under 100 plants, so the operators can duck that charge. His bill would make just 25 proof of the intention to sell or deal the drug. Also, letting young children near drugs or manufacturing would be a separate crime under House Bill 173. Not surprisingly, Thompson’s proposals appear to have the support from area law enforcement... baltimoresun.com/ ... 21:18:13

You know you're in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye. Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole new meaning. The school prepares people for jobs in California's thriving medical marijuana industry... ap.google.com/ ... 21:17:46

Jamaica is considering the legalization of marijuana... In 2003, a government commission recommended legalizing marijuana in small amounts for personal use. But lawmakers never acted, saying legalization might entail loss of their country's U.S. anti-drug certification. Countries that lose it face economic sanctions... news.theage.com.au/ ... 21:17:12

More than 1,200 cannabis plants with a street value of almost $2.5 million have been seized during a three-day operation in northern NSW...

Digital Culturenypost.com/ ... 21:14:58No one seems to know why Paul Tilley, the 40-year-old creative chief of ad agency DDB Chicago, jumped to his death from the window of the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago on Friday. But that hasn't stopped a barrage of finger pointing on several advertising blogs at the center of a controversy about what role, if any, they played in Tilley's suicide. Most of the anger appears to be directed at two sites - Agency Spy and Adscam - that subjected Tilley to scrutiny leading up to his death. Both bloggers defended their coverage yesterday...

Mass Media is Deadreuters.com/ ... 21:14:23Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news...

US Election 2008msnbc.msn.com/ ... 22:49:47

Hillary Rodham Clinton took a break from the campaign trail to thank "Saturday Night Live" for giving her candidacy a boost — although she failed to get an official endorsement from the show... Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani... appeared later on the "Weekend Update" segment... blamed his campaign’s failure on a 1997 episode of the show, in which he dressed in drag for one sketch... iht.com/ ... 21:11:41

Top supporters of Senator Barack Obama, joined by at least one prominent but uncommitted Democrat, raised the pressure Sunday on Senator Hillary Clinton to bow out of the presidential nominating race if she fails to score clear victories in two big-state primary contests Tuesday...

Digital Businessreuters.com/ ... 20:59:58Intel Corp has picked "Atom" as the new brand name for its latest microprocessor... low-power processors, the brains of digital devices, that will power mobile Internet devices and ultra low-cost and small notebook and desktop personal computers...

SAT 2008-MAR-01

Violenceapnews.myway.com/ ... 22:59:36A mother and two children were killed in a predawn attack at their remote East Texas ranch, which burned to the ground, and four young people who knew the family will be charged with murder...

Civilization vs Gangsterismapnews.myway.com/ ... 22:56:43Israeli troops turned heavy firepower on rocket squads bombarding southern Israel Saturday, killing 54 Palestinians in the deadliest day in Gaza since the current round of fighting erupted in 2000... Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven were wounded...

Earth Shakessciencedaily.com/ ... 22:50:38To help prepare for the next megathrust earthquake, a team of researchers led by seismologist Kim Olsen of San Diego State University (SDSU) used a supercomputer-powered "virtual earthquake" program to calculate for the first time realistic three-dimensional simulations that describe the possible impacts of megathrust quakes on the Pacific Northwest region... What the scientists learned from this simulation is not reassuring... could inflict major damage on metropolitan areas -- especially on high-rise buildings in downtown Seattle. Compounding the risks, like Los Angeles to the south, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia sit on top of sediment-filled geological basins that are prone to greatly amplifying the waves generated by major earthquakes...

Prison Sucksreuters.com/ ... 10:20:50Thousands of Americans are in prison for crimes they did not commit, experts believe, but the few who are exonerated and set free often are consigned to a purgatory between guilt and innocence. "My life has been a living hell. Some of my loved ones want to see me come in the door, some don't. I'm very, very bitter," said Marlon Pendleton, who was freed from prison in 2006 based on DNA evidence that cleared him of a 1993 sexual assault. "I was glad to get out, at first. But I can't get a job -- no one will hire me..."

World Zookeepinghosted.ap.org/ ... 22:54:47 Dolphin

The Navy must abide by limits on its sonar training off the Southern California coast because the exercises could harm dozens of species of whales and dolphins, a federal appeals court ruled... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:54:25

Preliminary results of a necropsy show that a pygmy sperm whale found stranded off the Florida Keys died of heart failure... 10 1/2-foot, 985-pound male was discovered by a fisherman Feb. 23, stranded in shallow water off the upper Keys... hosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:45

The Indian government plans to spend more than $13 million establishing a special ranger force to protect the country's endangered tigers...

Solar Systemsciencedaily.com/ ... 22:49:14A mega-collision between two large embryonic planets could have created Venus as we know it, according to a new paper by a Cardiff University scientist... In particular the collision could explain why the interior of Venus is dry, the odd rotation of the planet and the carbon dioxide atmosphere...

Antiquity - still with ussciencedaily.com/ ... 22:48:03Anthropologists from Wheaton College (Illinois) and The Field Museum have discovered how the ancient Maya produced an unusual and widely studied blue pigment that was used in offerings, pottery, murals and other contexts across Mesoamerica from about A.D. 300 to 1500... First identified in 1931, this blue pigment (known as Maya Blue)... unusual chemical stability, composition and persistent color in one of the world's harshest climates... resistant to age, acid, weathering, biodegradation and even modern chemical solvents... unique chemical bond between indigo and palygorskite, an unusual clay mineral that, unlike most clay minerals, has long interior channels... The new research shows that at Chichén Itzá the creation of Maya Blue was actually a part of the performance of rituals that took place alongside the Sacred Cenote. Specifically, the indigo and palygorskite were fused together with heat by burning a mixture of copal incense, palygorskite and probably the leaves of the indigo plant. Then the sacrifices were painted blue and thrown into the Sacred Cenote...

It's All in Your Mindsciencedaily.com/ ... 22:44:05Researchers have discovered that neurons can use two different neurotransmitters that target the same receptor on a receiving neuron to shape the transmission of a nerve impulse. Although the researchers' experiments identified the "co-release" of the two neurotransmitters only in specific types of neurons in the brain's auditory center, their finding may apply more broadly in the brain.... nerve impulses... rather than being the electrical equivalent of a shotgun blast, are precisely modulated signals, like the finely shaped notes of an orchestra... sciencedaily.com/ ... 22:43:02A team of scientists from Princeton University has devised a new experimental technique that produces some of the best functional images ever taken of the human brainstem, the most primitive area of the brain...

Cosmologysciencedaily.com/ ... 22:42:11Interstellar space may be strewn with tiny whiskers of carbon, dimming the light of far-away objects. This discovery by scientists at the Carnegie Institution may have implications for the "dark energy" hypothesis, proposed a decade ago in part to explain the unexpected dimness of certain stellar explosions called Type1a supernovae... sciencedaily.com/ ... 22:41:19An important discovery has been made with respect to the mystery of "handedness" in biomolecules... some of the possible abiotic precursors to the origin of life on Earth have been shown to carry "handedness" in a larger number than previously thought... Scientists have long known that most compounds in living things exist in mirror-image forms. The two forms are like hands; one is a mirror reflection of the other. They are different, cannot be superimposed, yet identical in their parts. When scientists synthesize these molecules in the laboratory, half of a sample turns out to be "left-handed" and the other half "right-handed." But amino acids, which are the building blocks of terrestrial proteins, are all "left-handed," while the sugars of DNA and RNA are "right-handed." The mystery as to why this is the case, "parallels in many of its queries those that surround the origin of life..." "Thanks to the pristine nature of this meteorite, we were able to demonstrate that other extraterrestrial amino acids carry the left-handed excesses in meteorites and, above all, that these excesses appear to signify that their precursor molecules, the aldehydes, also carried such excesses.... In other words, a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a long cosmic lineage."..."

Unclear on le Conceptdailymail.co.uk/ ... 22:59:11Actress Marion Cotillard... 32-year-old French actress, who received an Oscar last month for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose... sparked a political row yesterday after accusing America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks... [Bringing her keen trained-physicist studies to the situation, she blurted] "We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed..." she also queried the 1969 Moon landings...

Digital Future is Nowhosted.ap.org/ ... 22:53:12At a university lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust... responds to the word "war" by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears "love," and its pink lips smile...

Theory of Educationsciencedaily.com/ ... 22:44:37A study by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the University of Florida suggests that 'tweens' should receive alcohol prevention programs prior to sixth grade, when nearly one in six children are already alcohol users...

US Election 2008reuters.com/ ... 10:40:41

Many Washington pundits assumed she would defeat the Republican nominee to win the presidency, with Americans looking to turn the page after eight years of President George W. Bush. Then voters started confounding the pundits and pollsters. She lost Iowa to Obama, won New Hampshire, split the February 5 "Super Tuesday" states with Obama and then lost 11 contests in a row to the Illinois Democratic senator. A day of reckoning is approaching on Tuesday, when Texas and Ohio vote. Anything other than sweeping victories in those two states would spell more trouble for her, and possibly signal the end of her campaign...

Modern Culturereuters.com/ ... 10:20:18

Billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would feel "exploited" if a fan's unofficial encyclopedic companion to the boy wizard series was published, she said in court papers made public on Thursday. Steve Vander Ark has written "The Harry Potter Lexicon" -- a 400-page reference book based on his popular fan Web site (www.hp-lexicon.org). Rowling and Warner Bros. are suing RDR Books, which planned to publish the book last November...