Karma's justice without the satisfaction. I don't believe in justice.

Movie of the day:
Opening scene from 'Way of the Gun'. Great opener...


The history of today:
1914 : Archduke Ferdinand assassinated
1972 : Nixon announces draftees will not go to Vietnam

Quotes:
A zebra does not change its spots.
- Al Gore 1991 (and again in 1992)
So many of the people in the arenas here were under-prividged anyway. This is working very well for them.
- Barabra Bush (September 2005, during the Katrina disaster)












Senate Drives Stake Through Immigration - President Bush's immigration plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing both parties' hopes of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections. The Senate vote that drove a stake through the delicate compromise was a stinging setback for Bush, who had made reshaping immigration laws a central element of his domestic agenda. It could carry heavy political consequences for Republicans and Democrats, many of whom were eager to show they could act on a complex issue of great interest to the public. "Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," a grim-faced president said after an appearance in Newport, R.I. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."

Rep. Pelosi reminds the left that she’s on its side - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is working hard to make sure that the fiery liberal wing of the Democratic Party remembers that she is one of them. She is also going out of her way to reassure opponents of the war that she is on their side. Her efforts are taking place in speeches and interviews off Capitol Hill and away from the constraints and compromises inherent in running the House. Liberal lawmakers and activists accuse Pelosi of being too cautious. Now, with Congress’s approval rating plummeting following its passage of an Iraq war-spending bill without a troop-withdrawal timeline, the Speaker is signaling that Democrats will be more forceful in challenging the president.

Racial Issues Top Dem Debate Agenda - The struggles of the nation's blacks - a loyal Democratic voting bloc - topped the agenda Thursday as the party's eight presidential candidates gathered for their third primary debate. The debate at Howard University was scheduled to begin just hours after the Supreme Court ruled against public school programs aimed at achieving racial diversity, a certain topic for the event. The Democrats decried the ruling, saying it turned back the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said as president, she would "fight to restore Brown's promise." Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said it was "wrong-headed." Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said the decision "will add to the resegregation that is already occurring in our nation's schools."

Supreme Court rejects school race plans - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected diversity plans in two major school districts that take race into account in assigning students but left the door open for using race in limited circumstances. The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity. The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented. The districts "failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals," Roberts said.

Russia lays claim to the North Pole - and all its gas, oil, and diamonds - Russian President Vladimir Putin is making an astonishing bid to grab a vast chunk of the Arctic - so he can tap its vast potential oil, gas and mineral wealth. His scientists claim an underwater ridge near the North Pole is really part of Russia's continental shelf. One newspaper printed a map of the "new addition", a triangle five times the size of Britain with twice as much oil as Saudi Arabia. The dramatic move provoked an international outcry. The U.S. and Canada expressed shock and environment campaigners said it would be a disaster. Observers say the move is typical of Putin's muscle-flexing as he tries to increase Russian power. Under current international law, the countries ringing the Arctic - -Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, and Denmark (which owns Greenland) - are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts.

Drug Agents Raid Offices of Pro Wrestler Chris Benoit's Personal Physician - State and federal drug agents staged a late-night raid of the offices of pro wrestler Chris Benoit's personal physician and met with the district attorney investigating the Benoit murder-suicide on Thursday morning to see if any charges should be filed. The offices of Dr. Phil Astin were raided just before midnight Wednesday, officials said. Astin was at his office at the time of the raid. Officials said the raid stemmed from the investigation into drugs found in the Benoit home after the bodies of the pro wrestler and his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, were found Monday afternoon, Capt. Mike Pruitt said.

How Farm Odors Contribute to Global Warming - You can definitely smell it, but you can't see it. The United States Department of Agriculture has released reports stating that when you smell cow manure, you're also smelling greenhouse gas emissions. That will be the focus of new research that might happen right here in the Southern Tier. Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, was in Corning Wednesday morning at the Big Flats Plant Materials Center to annouce the award of nearly $20 million in Conservation Innovation Grants to fund 51 research projects across the country designed to refine new technologies helping dairy and other agricultural producers cut back on their greenhouse emissions and cash in on governmental incentives for the research.

The First Private Expedition to the Moon - You don't have to pack your bags quite yet, but passenger travel to the Moon is on the flight manifest of a space tourist company. The price per seat will slap your wallet or purse for a swift $100 million - but you'll have to get in line as the first voyage is already booked. Space Adventures, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, is in negotiations with the customers who will fly the first private expedition to circumnavigate the Moon.

California Debates Pet-Sterilization Law - A bill that would require most dogs and cats in California to be spayed or neutered has brought howls of protest from breeders and threats from the American Kennel Club to pull the nation's second-largest dog show from the state. The measure - which would be the most sweeping statewide pet-sterilization law in the country - passed the Assembly by a single vote earlier this month and goes next to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain despite the support of animal-loving celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Lionel Richie and retired "Price Is Right" host Bob Barker. Professional breeders complain that the measure would do little to curb "backyard breeders," that it would drive up their costs and entangle them in bureaucracy, and that it would amount to social engineering for animals. "I think what's happening in California is socialism in its prime," said Janet Wahl, who lives near Sacramento and breeds Havanese and Yorkshire terriers. She said she fears the government will put itself in the position of deciding which dog breeds can reproduce and which cannot.

Rosie's World

Picture of the Day

A picture of Rosie's little girl Vivi from her web page. Read some of her readers' comments about the picture.




The history of today:
1990 : Days of Thunder is released
1976 : Ebola breaks out in Sudan
1940 : Germans get Enigma

More quotes:
Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.
- Ronald Reagan (10 Sept. 1980)
Any idiot can get laid when they're famous. That's easy. It's getting laid when you're not famous that takes some talent.
- Kevin Bacon, 1996
That scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it.
- A congressional candidate in Texas.


Immigration Bill Clears Test Vote in Senate - A bill to overhaul the immigration system, all but given up for dead two weeks ago, cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate today, bolstering its chances for passage by the Senate within days. The senators voted, 64 to 35, to invoke cloture, or move to consideration of the bill itself. Since 60 votes are required for cloture, and only 45 voted for cloture two weeks ago, the measure’s supporters were heartened by today’s vote. Had the cloture vote failed today, the bill would have been dead for the foreseeable future. “This bill puts 12 million people on a pathway to legalization,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who pulled the bill from the floor on June 7 after a previous attempt to invoke cloture received only 45 votes. President Bush repeatedly urged Republican senators (only seven of whom had voted for cloture the first time) to give the legislation another chance. Mr. Reid, who was sharply criticized for pulling the bill, relented and said he was willing to take it up again.

Vote Summary

By Senator Name

By Vote Position

By Home State

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---64
Akaka (D-HI) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brownback (R-KS) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Craig (R-ID) Dodd (D-CT) Domenici (R-NM) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV)	Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY)	Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Salazar (D-CO) Schumer (D-NY) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---35
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bunning (R-KY) Byrd (D-WV) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX)	Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Dorgan (D-ND) Enzi (R-WY) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Landrieu (D-LA) McCaskill (D-MO)	Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Stabenow (D-MI) Sununu (R-NH) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA)

Not Voting - 1

Johnson (D-SD)

China shuts 180 food factories for using illegal chemicals - China has closed 180 food factories after inspectors found industrial chemicals being used in products from candy to seafood, state media said Wednesday.The closures came amid a nationwide crackdown on shoddy and dangerous products launched in December that also uncovered use of recycled or expired food, the China Daily said.Formaldehyde, illegal dyes, and industrial wax were found being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood, it said, citing Han Yi, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which is responsible for food safety.

Iran fuel rations spark violence - Several petrol stations have been torched in the Iranian capital Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private vehicles. Windows were smashed and stones thrown at the stations, and there was traffic chaos as motorists queued to buy fuel. Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month. Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and it imports about 40% of its petrol.

Giuliani Slams Bill Clinton on Terrorism - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday accused former President Clinton of not responding forcefully enough to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or later terrorist attacks. The former New York mayor criticized Democrats, accusing them of weakness and naivete in dealing with terrorism. Giuliani made the comments to about 650 business, corporate and political leaders at Regent University, the conservative Christian college founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. "Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11. Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993," said the former New York mayor.

Bill Clinton won't hit the campaign trail for his wife until next week, but he's already pitching in -- at least electronically -- to help boost Hillary's second quarter fundraising numbers. In an email solicitation that just arrived in our inboxes, Clinton says 1) that Hillary's opponents might outraise her; 2) that she won't let Swift Boat-like attacks go unanswered; and 3) that she turned down high-paying jobs out of law school to help children -- which is similar to the message that Obama tries to get across in his first TV ads.

GOP Support for Iraq War Slips - Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day. After four years of combat and more than 3,560 U.S. deaths, two Republican senators previously reluctant to challenge President Bush on the war announced they could no longer support the deployment of 157,000 troops and asked the president to begin bringing them home. "We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a transition where the Iraqi government and its neighbors play a larger role in stabilizing Iraq," Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Bush. Voinovich, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released his letter Tuesday - one day after Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel's top Republican, said in a floor speech that Bush's strategy was not working.

Bolton: I'm 'very worried' for Israel - Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective.

John Leo’s 2007 Sheldon Awards: Tufts Leads the Pack - John Leo, nationally syndicated columnist and tireless critic of campus PC, has announced his Sheldon Awards for 2007 in today’s New York Sun. The Sheldon is “named for Sheldon ‘Water Buffalo’ Hackney, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania,” and is “dedicated to identifying the worst college president of each academic year.”

Steroids discovered in probe of slayings, suicide - Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a Bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with the pulley of a weight machine, authorities said Tuesday. Investigators found prescription anabolic steroids in the house and want to know whether the muscle man nicknamed "The Canadian Crippler" was unhinged by the bodybuilding drugs, which can cause paranoia, depression and explosive outbursts known as "roid rage."

Suit - A Beaverton mom says the record industry terrorized her with bogus claims - A disabled single mother from Beaverton has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, claiming that she is the victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating. The recording industry sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, accusing her of violating copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in a suit she filed last week in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert supported her claims of innocence. Instead, industry officials threatened to interrogate Andersen's 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. The intimidation included attempts to contact Kylee directly. A woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother called the girl's former elementary school inquiring about her attendance, according to Andersen's suit.

Venezuela's Chavez seen wanting office "for life" - Insecurity, "malignant narcissism" and the need for adulation are driving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's confrontation with the United States, according to a new psychological profile.Eventually, these personality traits are likely to compel Chavez to declare himself Venezuela's president for life, said Dr. Jerrold Post, who has just completed the profile for the U.S. Air Force.Chavez won elections for a third term last December. Since then he has stepped up his anti-American rhetoric, vowed to accelerate a march towards "21st Century socialism" and suggested that he intends to stay in power until 2021 -- a decade beyond his present term.But Post -- who profiled foreign leaders in a 21-year career at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and now is the director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University -- doubts that Chavez plans to step down even then. "He views himself as a savior, as the very embodiment of Venezuela," Post said in an interview.

SKINHEAD FUN

Picture of the day:
An inmate with tattoos covering his face and head stole a gun from a corrections officer and shot him to death Monday when the prisoner was at a doctor’s appointment, authorities said.
















Online alarm, this is pretty cool.

The history of today
1993 : Clinton punishes Iraq for plot to kill Bush
1945 : U.N. Charter signed

Stupid celebrity quotes:
“I’ve never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that’s very popular out there in Africa.”
- Britney Spears
“I’m sounding worse than Jessica Simpson right now. She’s looking like a rock scientist.”
- Tara Reid
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”
- George W. Bush

War watch
IRANIAN forces are being choppered over the Iraqi border to bomb Our Boys, intelligence chiefs say. Military experts claim this worrying move means we are at WAR with Iran in all but name. Last night an intelligence source told The Sun: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran — but nobody has officially declared it. We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot." Our Boys picked up the Iranian helicopters on radar crossing into empty desert. The sightings have been confirmed to The Sun by very senior military sources. At least two Brit squaddies are thought to have been killed by bombs planted during these incursions into Maysan province — Corporal Ben Leaning, 24, and Trooper Kristen Turton, 27.

An Iraqi tribal leader was assassinated in Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraqi police said, a day after a suicide bomber killed six Sunni Arab tribal leaders opposed to al Qaeda. A police source said Hamid Abid Al-Shijera from Wasit province and one of his companions were killed in a drive-by shooting in the southern Baghdad district of Saidiya. The source said he believed Shijera was Shi'ite Muslim. In Monday's attack, a suicide bomber killed the six tribal leaders in the lobby of a Baghdad hotel.

Old post follow-ups
New Hampshire's convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown have gained a new supporter: presidential hopeful Ron Paul. In an interview with RogueGovernment.com, the Texas congressman compares the Browns to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Junior. He says the Browns are suffering like those leaders. The Browns are holed up in their Plainfield (New Hampshire) home and have threatened violence against federal officials if marshals come to arrest them. They were convicted of an elaborate scheme to hide millions of dollars in income. Their protest has become a rallying cry for anti-tax activists and militia members.

A 15-year-old boy who allegedly delivered a baby by cesarean section in an attempt to set a world record as the youngest surgeon apparently fled as police prepared to arrest him on Tuesday. Raj Sekharan, superintendent of police in Tiruchirappalli district in southern Tamil Nadu state, said the boy had absconded and police were looking for him. On Monday police arrested the parents of Dhileepan Raj, both doctors who supervised their son while he allegedly performed the cesarean section. They were charged with cheating, forgery of records, endangering human life, concealing evidence and abetting a crime.









Drug-Resistant Bug Becoming More Common - Fifty-six-year-old Sandi Sampson dusted herself off after falling in her backyard. Her ankle hurt, but she thought the pain would go away on its own. As days passed, however, she realized that she wouldn't be able to just shrug this one off. Sampson went to see her doctor, who recommended surgery to replace her ankle. She woke up from the operation believing everything was fine, but the months that followed would prove otherwise. "My ankle kept bothering me, and we decided in about July that it didn't seem to be 'setting,' as they call it -- healing to the bone," she said. Seven months after the initial operation, she went back to have her "replacement" ankle replaced. "And that's when they found the MRSA," she said. Nearly three years after her initial surgery, Sampson went back into the operating room, this time to have her leg cut off below the knee.

A skin abscess on the knee of a prison inmate, caused by the "flesh-eating" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also known as MRSA.







This guy used to be one of my favorites.
Pro wrestler Chris Benoit canceled a pay-per-view appearance at the "Vengeance" event in Houston because of "personal reasons" a day before he, his wife and their 7-year-old son were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide. Details of the deaths "are going to prove a little bizarre" when released to the public, Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Autopsies were scheduled Tuesday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in DeKalb County. Authorities were investigating the deaths at a secluded Fayette County home as a murder-suicide and were not seeking any suspects. Investigators believe Benoit, (pronounced ben-WAH) killed his wife and son over the weekend and then himself sometime Monday. The bodies were found Monday afternoon in three different rooms of the house on Green Meadow Lane, in a subdivision off a gravel road about two miles from the Whitewater Country Club.













WTFO?
Study links hurricane stress to teen smoking - Teenagers in a southeast Texas county were more likely to smoke cigarettes if they or their family members were affected by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita, according to a university study. The study by the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston surveyed more than 5,100 middle school and high school students in Jefferson County six to nine months after the hurricanes made landfall. "The physical damage was easy to see, but the psychological damage from the hurricanes was pretty well hidden," said Alfred L. McAlister, a behavioral scientist and an author of the study. "The hurricanes had an emotional impact on the youth and we need to recognize that and give them the help they need. Otherwise, they use tobacco as a crutch and then they become addicted."

Oh Lord Xenu...
Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defense Ministry said on Monday. Cruise, also one of the film's producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognize as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject. The U.S. actor has been cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944 with a bomb hidden in a briefcase. Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns. The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits). "We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind." Speed matters on the Internet. A 10-megabyte file takes about 15 seconds to download with a 5-megabit connection — fast for the USA. Download time with a 545-kilobit connection, about the entry-level speed in many areas: almost 2½ hours. Broadband speed is a function of network capacity: The more capacity you have, the more speed you can deliver. Speed, in turn, allows more and better Internet applications, such as photo sharing and video streaming. Superfast speeds are imperative for critical applications such as telemedicine.

Paris Hilton was greeted by a huge crowd of cameramen and photographers today as she was released from jail in Los Angeles after serving half of her 45 day sentence for breaching her probation. The hotels heiress and socialite walked out of Lynwood's Century Regional Detention Centre at midnight Los Angeles time (8am BST), to a rapturous reception from wellwishers and raucous shouts from the large media pack. Hilton has served 23 days of her sentence for violating probation rules over her conviction for alcohol-related reckless driving. An analysis by The Los Angeles Times found that the time she spent inside far exceeded the sentence served by most county inmates for similar offenses.

Stupidity of the Hip

US actress Cameron Diaz has apologised for wearing a bag with a political slogan that evoked painful memories in Peru. The voice of Princess Fiona in the animated Shrek films visited the Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru's Andes wearing an olive green bag emblazoned with a red star and the words "Serve the People", perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong's most famous political slogan, printed in Chinese. The bags are marketed as fashion accessories in some cities around the world, but in Peru the slogan evokes memories of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency that fought the government in the 1980s and early 1990s in a bloody conflict that left nearly 70,000 people dead.

The history of today:
1950 : Korean War begins
1876 : Indians defeat Custer at Little Big Horn

Stupid celebrity quotes:
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
- Hillary Clinton
"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
- Jason Kidd, Dallas Mavericks
“I’ve got taste. It’s inbred in me.”
- David Hasselhoff

President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government. Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort—Venezuela's military nerve-center—before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: "Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!" "We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti- imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday," said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation's immense oil reserves.

A teenage schoolgirl will appeal to the High Court on Friday to overturn a ban on her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolize her decision to abstain from sex before marriage. Lydia Playfoot, 16, from West Sussex, says the silver ring is an expression of her faith and should be exempt from the school's rules on wearing jewelery. "It is really important to me because in the Bible it says we should do this," she told BBC radio. "Muslims are allowed to wear head scarves and other faiths can wear bangles and other types of jewelery. It feels like Christians are being discriminated against."

In an extraordinary outburst aimed at America's failure to tackle global warming, Al Gore says that if scientific agreement on the climate crisis had been reached sooner it would have been easier to "galvanise the public and persuade Congress to act". The failed presidential candidate claims that the stronger scientific consensus he knew was about to emerge meant "we in the US were about to shift into high gear in addressing the climate crisis". Mr Gore argues that if he had made it to the White House, he would have been able to use the office as a "bully pulpit" to achieve change.

Jim Frederickson, the research director at the Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined after a German study found that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material and is in preference to putting it into the landfill. The German government wants 45% of all waste to be composted by 2015. "Everybody... thinks they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire," said Frederickson.

To meet the needs of today's global economy, some states are now requiring that all students learn a foreign language. But Pennsylvania has decided that such a mandate would be "irresponsible," because it would cost too much and because there are too few certified foreign language instructors, said state board of education Chairman Karl Girton. After years of debate, the board last month voted to drop a proposal that would have required all students to have at least survival skills in a modern foreign language or meet other standards in a classical one.

During an appearance on the wildly popular Piolín in the Morning radio show in Los Angeles, Sen. Ted Kennedy broke into lively rendition of "Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes (Don't Give Up On Me)." They also discussed immigration reform. Hear the audio.

Though the next president will probably command soldiers in two separate wars, few of those hoping to win the job can say they've ever seen combat or even taken abuse from a drill sergeant. Of the 18 announced Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, only Republicans John McCain and Duncan Hunter have served on the front lines. Three others served in noncombat roles and another two served in the reserves.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are to go Iran 'as early as practicable' to resolve issues over Tehran's nuclear programme, the UN nuclear watchdog agency said. The announcement follows talks between IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei and Iran's chief negotiator Ali Larijani, who flew into Vienna on Sunday, the IAEA said in a statement. 'Dr Larijani invited the IAEA to send a team to Tehran to develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues related to Iran's past nuclear programme,' it said. 'The IAEA intends to send a team as early as practicable.'

An increasingly crowded market for 24-hour news is facing a new rival -- a channel from Iran whose self-proclaimed aim is to break the "stranglehold" of the West over the world's media. Iran's state broadcaster is to launch "Press TV" on July 2 at a time of mounting international tension over its nuclear program, complete with international journalists brought in from foreign countries including Britain. The Tehran-based channel is promising the usual diet of on-the-half-hour news bulletins, talk shows and documentaries familiar to viewers of established names like CNN and BBC World but with a distinctly Iranian spin.

To avoid serving prison sentences for tax evasion, Ed Brown and his wife, Elaine, have locked themselves off from the world on their own terms. From behind the 8-inch concrete walls of their 110-acre hilltop compound, the couple taunt police and SWAT teams and play to reporters and government-haters with references to past standoffs that turned deadly. Residents want the Browns' circus to end before their small town along the Connecticut River becomes the next Ruby Ridge or Waco.

Convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown of Plainfield aren't the first Americans to claim they shouldn't have to pay income tax, and they likely will not be the last, given the amount of debate the issue has sparked on the Internet. But legal scholars are quick to point out the U.S. Constitution -- the document many anti-government folks like the Browns hold most sacred -- does in fact allow an income tax. Article 1 enumerates the powers of Congress, including "the power to lay and collect taxes ... to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States ..."

Bobby Cutts Jr. and his alleged accomplice are expected to be arraigned today on charges of killing a 26-year-old pregnant Ohio woman. Cutts, a former police officer, and his former classmate Myisha Ferrell remained behind bars in the murder case of single mom Jessie Davis.

Zhou Fenying is a living witness to the dark history that still poisons China's relations with Japan more than 60 years after World War Two. When Zhou was 22, Japanese soldiers came to her village in eastern China, grabbed her and her sister-in-law and carted them off to a military brothel, she says. Now 91, Zhou has broken decades of silence to speak of her traumatic experience as a "comfort woman" -- the euphemism the invading Japanese used to describe women forced into sex slavery.

As many as 1.2 million hospital patients are infected with dangerous, drug-resistant staph infections each year, almost 10 times more than previous estimates, based on findings from a major new study. And 48,000 to 119,000 hospital patients a year may be dying from methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections — far more than previously thought, the study's data suggest.

State Sen. Jenny Oropeza broke ranks with many Democrats on Wednesday, and voiced her opposition to a bill that would require dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered. Oropeza's public opposition comes as the bill awaits hearing in the Senate. "I oppose (Assembly Bill) 1634," the Long Beach Democrat said in a written statement. "It is too severe a solution to a noble objective. Further, I am concerned about the economic consequences for the city of Long Beach's convention business. It will hurt public safety and other vital city services." As it is worded now, the bill would require most cats and dogs four months old and up to be spayed or neutered. Failure to do so could result in a $500 fine for owners.

The Red, White, and Blue

The Americans are going for the gold - in gold. The U.S. women's team unveiled its jerseys for the upcoming World Cup, and the look certainly is distinctive. The primary jersey is gold, with red, white and blue trimming. "This is a statement Nike and the rest of us are taking on," scoring leader Abby Wambach said Thursday at the first public showing of the uniform. "We believe we can win the World Cup. Seeing how we're No. 1 in the world, we're going into this tournament with all the confidence in the world."
Does this bother anyone else? Would any other country reject their national colors? I won't be watching the World Cup anyway, but if I turned it on I wouldn't even know it was America's team. I hope there is enough reaction that Nike decides to change the jersey colors back to the red, white, and blue. Plus the arrogance inferred by wearing gold and coming in ranked #1 is just asking for other teams to KTFAs.












On the heels of Die Hard 4 (Live Free or Die Hard), Entertainment Weekly ranked the movies that delivered the biggest bang for the buck, from No. 25 to No. 1

25 - The Incredibles
24 - Lethal Weapon
23 - Drunken Master II
22 - Predator
21 - Spiderman 2
20 - Kill Bill Vol. 1
19 - Goldfinger
18 - Adventures of Robin Hood
17 - The Bourne Supremacy
16 - Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
15 - Enter the Dragon
14 - Robocop
13 - The Wild Bunch
12 - The Empire Strikes Back
11 - Speed
10 - Terminator 2
9 - Hard Boiled
8 - Saving Private Ryan
7 - Galadiator
6 - Seven Samurai
5 - The Matrix
4 - The Road Warrior
3 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
2 - Aliens
1 - Die Hard

Iraq watch- The U.S. may be able to reduce combat forces in Iraq by next spring if Iraq's own security forces continue to grow and improve, a senior American commander said Friday. He denied reports the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgent groups to help in the fight against al-Qaida. Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top day-to-day commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, did not predict any reductions in U.S. forces but said such redeployments may be feasible by spring. There are currently 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Immigration news- U.S. Border Patrol agents say illegal immigrants are being given a potentially deadly cocktail of energy-generating items in hopes of speeding up their mad dash into the country, but agents are worried that the items may be increasing dehydration and leading to death in the baking hot brush country, 1200 WOAI news reports today. "They're giving them what we call a 'triple stacker'," Border Patrol agent Jesus Rodriguez says. "That consists of an ephedrine-type bill, along with an aspirin, along with making them drink Red Bull."

One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands. An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine.Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as "a cigar-shaped brilliant white light". Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, described what he thought to be a UFO as 'a cigar-shaped brilliant white light', similar to the image supplied by Dennis Plunket of the British Flying Saucer bureauAs the plane got closer the captain viewed it through binoculars and said: "It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. "It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737.







Her parents knew Georgia Brown was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French. But it was only when their bubbly little two-year-old took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed. Georgia has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152. This puts her in the same intellectual league, proportionate to her age, as physicist Stephen Hawking. According to an expert in gifted children, Georgia is the brightest two-year-old she has ever met.

The countdown begins

Countdown to Steelers kickoff - 80 days. (Pittsburgh v Cleveland @1:00pm)








Local talk radio host of the Sports Contraption, Dave Dameshek, is petitioning to get a "Steel Curtain" memorial for Heinz Field.
To: Dan Rooney, Steelers owner
Hear ye, hear ye! Folks, it is time for the Pittsburgh Steelers to build statues of the legendary players on the "Steel Curtain" defense to be displayed in front of Heinz Field.
How tall, you say? At least 10 feet, but preferably 100! They should be towering, awesome monuments that will shock, awe and shock all enemies of the Pittsburgh Steelers. These "enemies" include but are not limited to the Cincinnati Bengals (when they're not in jail), the dirty Cleveland Browns, the New England Patriots and all of their fans, and all other naysayers.
If you believe in this just and righteous cause, then add your John Hancock to this petition! And if you don't like it, well, suck it!
Sincerely,
Sign the petition here.

Quote of the day: When asked what is best in life?
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Conan (1982)

Bush watch-
The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move its terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned. Senior administration officials said Thursday a consensus is building for a proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where they could face trial. President Bush's national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting Friday, the officials said, but after news of it broke, the White House said the meeting would not take place that day and no decision on Guantanamo Bay's status is imminent.

President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy. Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada. The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report entitled "Building a North American Community" published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing. This trilateral initiative is premised on our security and our economic prosperity being mutually reinforcing. The SPP recognizes that our three great nations are bound by a shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions.

Iran watch-
Iran has produced more than 220 pounds of enriched uranium, the country's interior minister was quoted Friday as saying about the process that can make fuel for civilian energy or fissile material for a bomb. The semiofficial ISNA news agency carried comments by Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister, who said that Iran now has 3,000 hooked-up centrifuges actively enriching uranium.

Islam news-
Angry Islamists protested against Britain's knighthood for Salman Rushdie Friday, as an Iranian cleric said the death sentence on the writer was still valid 18 years on. The Indian-born Rushdie remained at the centre of a firestorm nearly a week after being awarded the honour with demonstrators in Pakistan torching effigies of him and Queen Elizabeth. Rushdie was sentenced to death in a fatwa by Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 for his book "The Satanic Verses", which some Muslims regard as blasphemous.

Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. Like little else, their appearance has unnerved Britons, testing the limits of tolerance in this stridently secular nation. Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. At the same time, efforts are growing to place legal curbs on the full Muslim veil, known as the niqab. The past year has seen numerous examples: A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her. A teacher wearing a niqab was told by a provincial school to go home. A student who was barred from wearing a niqab took her case to the courts, and lost. In fact, the British education authorities are proposing a ban on the niqab in schools altogether.

Politica-
Appearing on John Ziegler's evening show on KFI 640 AM in LA, U.S. Senator James Inhofe says he overheard Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) saying they want a "legislative fix" for talk radio.

Sen. Jeff Sessions has likened the current immigration bill — which contains the nuts and bolts of President Bush's guest-worker program — to a rotting fish and charged that the legislation could let foreign-born child molesters obtain U.S. citizenship. But last night, the president flew all the way to the home state of the Alabama Republican — who has emerged as one of the Senate Republicans toughest critics against the measure — to help him raise nearly $1 million for a re-election bid in 2008. And Mr. Bush did so with a big, broad smile on his face.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will not be permitted to use State Department funds to travel to nations that are known to have sponsored terrorism if a Republican amendment to appropriations legislation passes the House on Thursday. The amendment to the $34 billion State and Foreign Operations bill, offered by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), prohibits funds to be used to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. In a “Dear Colleague” letter released earlier today, King said Pelosi had overstepped her constitutional role as Speaker when she traveled to Syria in April.

Global warming watch-
Paris will sizzle and much of the Mediterranean will wilt according to a new study which raises alarm bells about the heat the region will take from global warming. Today's hottest days could become some of the summer's coolest days by the end of the 21st century if the current rate of carbon dioxide emissions continues, the authors warn. Once-rare heat waves, like that of 2003 which killed 15,000 in France, will become more intense and more common as the number of dangerously hot days in the region increases 200 to 500 percent. That's as many as 49 more unbearable days in Paris, 48 more scorchers in Athens and Valencia, Spain and 55 more broilers in Tel Aviv, the study projects.

Misc-
Wading into an age-old debate, researchers have found that firstborn children are smarter than their siblings — and the reason is not genetics, but the way their parents treat them, according to a study published today. The study of 240,000 Norwegian men in the journal Science found the IQs of firstborns were 2 to 3 points higher than that of younger siblings. (The average IQ is 100.) Though that may not sound like a lot, experts said even a few IQ points could make a big difference over the course of a lifetime — and set firstborns on a trajectory for success.

Bob Barker’s nice comments about Rosie O’Donnell taking over “The Price is Right” have started an avalanche of stories. Will Rosie be exclaiming “Come on down!” soon to contestants? The story will get a little more focused on Thursday when O’Donnell meets with the game show’s producers in Hollywood. That’s the first time all parties will be in the same room. But O’Donnell has issues that could scotch the entire set up. They are: she lives in New York, the show is shot in Los Angeles and the twain just don’t meet.

A 13-year old girl lost both of her feet when a Superman ride malfunctioned Thursday afternoon at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville. The accident happened around 4:45 p.m. Thursday on the Superman Tower of Power, formerly known as the "Hell-a-vator." Riders are strapped in and slowly taken to the top, then dropped at a speed of 56 miles per hour before easing to a stop on the ground. That's what happened here except for one major mishap. A metal cable snapped and severed the feet of the 13-year old girl. The girl's name and hometown have not been released because she is a minor.

Juneteenth Aftermath

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.

Police and organizers of Juneteenth events in two cities are insisting that attacks against drivers — one of which left an Austin, Texas, man dead — have nothing to do with the crowds attending the celebrations. On Tuesday, 40-year-old Austin resident David Rivas Morales was beaten to death in an attack near a Juneteenth celebration after the driver of the car he was riding in struck and injured a little girl. In Milwaukee, police responded in riot gear to disperse the crowd at that city's celebration on Tuesday after a man was pulled from a car and beaten and an officer was injured trying to break up a fight. "It doesn't seem to be a hate crime. It really seems to be a spontaneous act resulting from that collision with that child," said Austin Police Department Commander Harold Piatt. "We don't know if there were any words exchanged between the driver and the men to start with that escalated this to the assault."














Watch the raw helicopter vidoe footage.

Watch the newscast from local Milwaukee station.

WTFO...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement in honor of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 that news spread that the Civil War was over and that all slaves were free:
"Juneteenth has evolved into a national day of reflection and celebration for millions of Americans across the country. Juneteenth is America's reminder of a past of inequality, and a future of justice for all citizens. It is a reference point from which to appreciate the progress made in our society, toward the ideal of equality that is America's heritage and hope."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday reaffirmed her commitment to end the war in Iraq, but her words were greeted with skepticism and some boos by anti-war liberal activists.
Addressing the liberal pressure group Campaign for America’s Future, Pelosi called the war in Iraq a “tragedy” and a “grotesque mistake,” but her words elicited catcalls for her to do more.
Pelosi acknowledged the protesters and even challenged them. At one point in her remarks, she told the protesters, “The best preparation for combat is combat.”

The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling.

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, argues in the Financial Times that ambitious environmentalism is the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity. Mr Klaus writes that “global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem” and the issue “is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.”

Police in Montreal say they've foiled a bizarre extortion and murder plot apparently aimed at a couple who pocketed a $27 million lottery jackpot last month. An 18-year-old Mexican citizen was arrested Monday afternoon in a Montreal neighbourhood and arraigned yesterday for conspiracy to abduct, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges.

State health officials tested 286 employees at a Greenville (SC) poultry-processing plant for tuberculosis after a case of TB was reported there, and nearly half had a positive skin test. The investigation at Columbia Farms began a week ago after tests on the first individual confirmed active TB, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.The positive skin tests on 131 of the workers means they were exposed to TB sometime in their lives, not that they have active disease, he said.

Almost one-fifth of veterinary drugs tested in China in the first quarter were not up to standard, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Thursday, unveiling a long list of fake products. Still, that one-fifth figure is a slight improvement over the same period of last year, the ministry said, putting a positive spin on the announcement. "Although more of the veterinary drugs tested were up to scratch, there remains a problem with the illegal production and sale of fakes," it said in a statement posted on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

The 15-year-old son of two doctors successfully performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent attempt to set a record as the youngest surgeon, officials said Thursday. Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges. Dr. K. Murugesan showed a recording of his son performing a Caesarean section to an Indian Medical Association chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month, said Dr. Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the association. The video showed Murugesan anesthetizing the patient.

The Colgate-Palmolive Co. said Thursday that 5-ounce tubes of counterfeit toothpaste sold in discount stores in four states under a Colgate label are being recalled because they may contain a poisonous chemical. A Food and Drug Administration official, Doug Arbesfeld, said Wednesday that testing had found the chemical in a product with the Colgate label, but said in the initial announcement that the FDA was unsure whether it really was Colgate or a counterfeit. "We are aware that toothpaste is something that's been counterfeited in the past," he said. "We don't want to alarm people unnecessarily." MS USA Trading Inc. of North Bergen, N.J., the importer involved in the initial recall announcement, said the toothpaste may contain diethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze.

Not sure if you have heard of this new miracle pill.



















alli™ is the only FDA approved, over-the-counter weight loss product. But it’s more than just a pill. It’s an innovative weight loss program. The pill works by preventing your body from absorbing some of the fat you eat. The active ingredient in alli attaches to some of the natural enzymes in the digestive system, preventing them from breaking down about a quarter of the fat you eat. Undigested fat cannot be absorbed and passes through the body naturally. The excess fat is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it in the toilet as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza.
Straight from the products official website, here are the side effects and recommendations...
alli™ works by preventing the absorption of some of the fat you eat. The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects. You may get:
1) gas with oily spotting
2) loose stools
3) more frequent stools that may be hard to control
but wait...WTFO?
- You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.
- You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens.

The Charleston 9

A fire at the Sofa Super Store on Savannah Highway claimed the life of nine Charleston area fire fighters. Nine crosses and a memorial line the street in front of the destroyed store. Firefighters from the Charleston area pay their respects to the fallen.








"The Price Is Right" needs a host, and Rosie O'Donnell is interested. Very interested. The 45-year-old said on her blog recently that she was meeting with the "Price" people this week and that she "sure would" accept the job if they offer. "I LOVE THE PRICE IS RIGHT," she wrote, the capitalization underscoring her feelings.



















Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton has unveiled her new campaign song with a spoof of popular TV show The Sopranos that also stars husband Bill.

And the new campaign song can be heard here..."You and I" by Celine Dion

Governor John Lynch signed a law yesterday banning smoking in New Hampshire's bars and restaurants.
I recently read that evidence suggests that every hour of exercise may add an additional two hours to your life. It is commonly said that for every cigarette you smoke you loose 3 minutes from your life. So it would appear that you can work out an hour a day and smoke a pack (20 cigarettes) a day and still gain an hour to your life...

From New Hampshire to California, American Indian leaders are speaking out more forcefully about the danger of climate change. Members of six tribes recently gathered near the Baker River in the White Mountains for a sacred ceremony honoring "Earth Mother." Talking Hawk, a Mohawk Indian who asked to be identified by his Indian name, pointed to the river's tea-colored water as proof that the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced has caused changes around the globe.

California's dry spell has cities looking for ways to conserve water. But a Columbia University researcher isn't referring to the dry spell as a drought. He sees it as a transition to a more arid climate. Unlike past droughts, the culprit, he says, is global warming.

China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show.The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year.

Cyclists pass a factory in Yutian in China's north-west Hebei province.








China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said. He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions. Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC.

Attention hip hop stars and billionaires: the world's biggest airliner, the 73-metre-long (239-feet) Airbus A380 superjumbo, has been ordered by a mysterious buyer for use as a private jet. The order sets new heights in the private plane sector, leaving the Learjet, which used to be the ultimate symbol of ostentatious air travel, in second class. The doubledecker A380, which enters service later this year, is capable of carrying 840 passengers, has 900 square metres (10,000 square feet) of cabin space and towers over its biggest rival, the Boeing 747.

More of the same

Internet-Addicted Boy Kills Mother Over Cyber Cafe Money - A 16-year-old "Internet addict" stabbed to death his mother in China after she and the boy's father refused to give him money to go to a cyber cafe, China's state media reported Thursday. The boy, only identified by his last name, "Wang," grabbed a knife from the kitchen in their Guangzhou apartment Tuesday and stabbed his mother to death and then seriously injured his father, the Beijing News reported.

Robot Displays Emotions - Japanese engineers have come up with a robot that's guided by a software program which associates certain words with facial expressions.










Housewife Awarded $184 Million In Divorce - A judge has awarded a Chicago area housewife $184 million in a divorce lawsuit with her husband. Maya and Michael Polsky moved to the U.S. from Russia in 1976 with just four suitcases and $500 in cash. During their 30 year marriage Michael Polsky launched the company SkyGen Energy, an independent power producer, he later sold in 2000 for $450 million. He's now president and CEO of Invenergy Wind LLC, a Chicago-based wind energy company.

Komodo Dragon Kills Boy - An 8-year-old boy was fatally wounded in eastern Indonesia when a Komodo dragon grabbed him by the waist and shook him violently before fleeing. The rare attack by one of the giant lizards occurred during the weekend in a national park on Komodo Island, Sky News reported Monday. The boy had gone behind a bush to relief himself when he was grabbed by the animal. The boy's uncle threw rocks at the lizard until it released him but the child bled to death within half an hour.

Bobby Brown Still Fears Bin Laden Will Kill Him - Bobby Brown still fears for his life, after discovering Osama Bin Laden wanted him dead so he could marry Whitney Houston. Although he and Houston are no longer together - the singer is convinced he is still on the Taliban leader's hit list.

Logger Cuts Off Leg to Free Himself From Downed Tree - In a remarkable display of strong will and survival, a California logger cut off his leg to free himself from beneath a fallen tree on a remote hillside east of Colfax. Al Hill, 66, an experienced logger from the small Gold Rush community of Iowa Hill, was recovering Wednesday at Sutter Roseville Medical Center. With a cell phone but no reception, Hill resorted to amputating his left leg below the knee with a pocketknife sometime Friday.

Paris shaped by the pen - Marvel comics legend Stan Lee is developing an animated series for MTV starring Paris Hilton, his office confirmed to Gatecrasher. A separate source directly involved with the project likened it to the 'Stripperella' cartoon developed by Lee in 2003 for Pamela Anderson.

'Mighty' Hypocrite Angelina Jolie Bans FOX and Others From Premiere - Angelina Jolie's true colors came out Wednesday as she promoted a film about freedom of the press and then tried to censor all her interviews. Jolie is touting press freedom these days, playing the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a new movie called "A Mighty Heart." But Jolie turns out to be a mighty hypocrite when it comes to her own freedom of the press. Her lawyer required all journalists to sign a contract before talking to her, and Jolie instructed publicists at first to ban FOX News from the red carpet of her premiere.

Haiti Youth Soccer Team Goes AWOL At JFK - At least seven members of Haiti's youth soccer team are missing Thursday. They disappeared from John F. Kennedy International Airport during a layover while heading to South Korea for the Youth World Cup.

Freedom, not climate, is at risk

McCain says he will strike Clinton's 'pork' projects in defense bill - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said today in Los Angeles he will try to squash nearly $150 million in proposed defense spending backed by Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling the projects wasteful and unneeded by the military. Speaking to reporters outside a downtown fundraiser, the US senator from Arizona said Clinton had larded a Senate bill with "pork-barrel" proposals that would drain funds needed to shore up armed forces arrayed around the globe.

City of Seattle may ban microwave popcorn - First, Washington State banned indoor public smoking. Now, the City of Seattle may ban employees from making microwave popcorn. A memo from the Fleets and Facilities Department addressed to "Employees at Civic Center Buildings" says there has been several evacuations in recent years due smoke alarms being tripped by burning popcorn.

Cajun Town Bans Saggy Pants - Sag your britches somewhere else, this Cajun-country town has decided. Mayor Carol Broussard said he would sign an ordinance the town council approved this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or certain parts of the body. Broussard said he has nothing against saggy pants but thinks people who wear them should use discretion. "It's gotten way out of hand out here," he said.

Venezuela's Chavez to finalise Russian submarines deal - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expected to finalise a deal on buying up to nine Russian submarines during a visit here later this month, a Russian newspaper reported on Thursday. Caracas has already ordered five 636-type diesel submarines and four of a new model of diesel submarine, the 677E Amur, the Kommersant broadsheet said, quoting unnamed sources in the ship-building and arms export sectors.