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http://royharbin.tripod.com
Roy L. Harbin:The DANG-DInGIE American
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LinksPile 7
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re:saudis abdullah in britain
~Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil producer, is an absolute monarchy where citizens are expected to follow a strict interpretation of Islam. Convictions of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery carry mandatory death sentences by beheading.
As the pageantry unfolded in London for Abdullah's visit, two men convicted of murder were beheaded in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, bringing to 119 the number of people beheaded by the kingdom this year.
British officials acknowledge the abuses, but say Saudi Arabia is their closest ally in the Middle East and Abdullah, 82, is helping it to slowly reform.
Abdullah was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown Wednesday to discuss Iraq, the Iran nuclear standoff, the Middle East peace process and counterterrorism.
A cartoon in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday depicted Brown lauding "universal human rights" but bowing to the Saudi king.
Others accuse Saudi Arabia of spreading ideas that fuel extremism and terrorism.
The Saudi royal family's legitimacy depends on a puritanical version of Islam known as Wahhabism. The Saudi royals face the delicate task of maintaining the approval of some of the same clerics who inspire al-Qaida-oriented terrorists.
The London-based The Policy Exchange think tank said in a report published Tuesday that organizations linked to the Saudi government have been trying to export that puritanical version of Islam by distributing extremist literature to mosques and Islamic centers in Britain.
The material called for violence against enemies of Islam, including women and gays who demand equal rights, according to the think tank.~
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re:columbia university turns anti-semetic
~A Jewish professor found a swastika on her office door at Columbia University on Wednesday, the latest symbol of bias and hatred found at the school in recent weeks, police said.
Elizabeth Midlarsky discovered the swastika painted on her door at Teachers College, a graduate school of education affiliated with Columbia. Prof. Madonna Constantine found a noose on her office door at the college Oct. 9. Both are professors of psychology and education.
The New York Police Department's hate crime unit is investigating both incidents. No arrests have been made, police said.
Midlarsky's research focuses in part on altruism, and she has studied heroic rescues during the Holocaust. Her profile on the Teachers College Web site says she is working on a project on school violence.
Both Midlarsky and a Teachers College spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The discovery of the noose roiled the Ivy League campus, and students, faculty and administrators had denounced the incident targeting Constantine, who has written extensively about race.
A few days later, a caricature of a yarmulke-wearing man and a swastika were found on a university bathroom stall door. Police at the time said there was no reason to believe the two incidents were linked.
Police have said they believe one or more copycats could be responsible.~
(or baiters)
re:da leaving amid black against white racism case
~District Attorney Eddie Jordan has called it quits, citing a $3.7 million discrimination verdict against his office.
"This is all about the district attorney's office and what is in the best interest of the office," Jordan said at a news conference Tuesday announcing his resignation. "And the lawsuit is what really made it difficult for us to go forward."
He planned to leave at the close of business on Wednesday.
The discrimination lawsuit filed by dozens of his former employees and the subsequent judgment against his office highlight numerous problems he faced. Many of them increased after Hurricane Katrina.
The storm flooded the courthouse and Jordan's offices, paralyzing the criminal justice system for months. As the city's number of homicides spiraled this year - reaching 179 on Tuesday, compared with 162 all last year - pressure on Jordan grew.
Jordan, who is black, has repeatedly lost appeals in the 2005 case of 35 white former employees who said they were fired because of their race. This week, a federal judge refused to delay payment of the judgment, opening the door to the possible seizure of assets of his office.
"I'm hoping my departure will end the threat of the seizure of the district attorney's office's assets," Jordan said Tuesday.
Richard Leefe, an attorney for the fired employees, said Jordan's resignation will not end the possibility.
"It sounds as if we are being used as an excuse, but it was never about him," Leefe said. "The judgment is against his office, and we still want to be paid."
Mayor Ray Nagin reiterated that the city would not pay the judgment, saying that it could not afford it and that it would set a bad precedent.
Criticism of Jordan became particularly heated this year after he dropped charges in two high-profile cases. One defendant was accused of killing five teenagers; the other was charged in the death of a popular local musician.
Both cases have since been revived, but shortly after the charges were dismissed, New Orleans City Council member Shelley Midura sent a letter asking Jordan to resign. "Recall Eddie Jordan" signs began appearing around the city, and some lawmakers talked of impeaching him.~
re:the dog grovels to censors masquerading as civil rights advocates
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071101/D8SKL9FG0.html
~In the conversation, Chapman urges his son to break up with his girlfriend. He also expresses concern about the girlfriend going public about the TV star's use of the N-word.
In the clip, Chapman also stated he doesn't care that his son's girlfriend is black.
In a statement, the 54-year-old Chapman said he has "utmost respect and aloha for black people who have suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred.
"I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world," he said. "I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused."
Chapman said, "My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation."
Chapman said the clip was completely taken out of context.
"I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character," he said. "However, I should have never used that term."
Chapman said he is meeting with his spiritual adviser, Rev. Tim Storey, who is black, and hopes to meet with other black leaders, "so they can see who I really am and teach me the right thing to do to make things right, again."
"I know that all of my fans are deeply disappointed in me, as well, as I have tried to be a model for doing the right thing," he said. "I did not do the right thing this time, and hope you will forgive me."~
re:what kind of discriminatory label do you put on this?
~Shigeta took them to a brothel, leaving Biegel, who is married, offended and humiliated that he had been forced or duped into going there, the lawsuit said.
It said Shigeta later demanded they participate in prostitution and became angry when they did not, accusing them of being "no fun."
The lawsuit said Shigeta later told them that having sex with prostitutes was a proper style of conducting business and commemorating business dealings.
According to the lawsuit, Biegel, of Woodbury, N.Y., was "horrified, offended and humiliated by this sexually debasing experience of being forced to attend a brothel imposed on him as a condition of his employment."
On another business trip to Tokyo in October 2004, Shigeta insisted that Biegel and two other employees accompany him to a Japanese bath house where they were instructed to climb naked into a bath with Shigeta, the lawsuit said.
Biegel confronted Shigeta in spring 2006, telling him he almost complained to human resources about the bath house experience, the lawsuit states. Afterward, Shigeta's attitude and demeanor toward Biegel changed completely and he was fired in November 2006, the lawsuit said.~
re:naomi campbell joins other celebs in advocating venezuelas anti-american ruler hugo chavez like the WWP&ANSWERS folks like their sheeple to do
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071101/D8SKI7OG1.html
~"I've been here for 24 hours and I'm amazed to see the love and encouragement for the social programs that you have here for women and children in Venezuela," the British fashion model said.
After calling Campbell "a very special woman," Chavez blasted President Bush for maintaining Washington's 46-year trade embargo against Cuba.~
~Campbell praised Chavez's health and education programs after a four-hour meeting Tuesday at the presidential palace, where she interviewed Chavez for an unspecified publication.
The hot-tempered model, who in January pled guilty to assaulting her maid in New York, is the latest foreign celebrity to visit Venezuela's socialist leader.
Chavez met last month with American actor Kevin Spacey. Hollywood stars Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte have also made recent trips.~
re:racist latino groups tout advances in media employment take over other ethnic groups complain,,naacp,,their work done,,stays out of it
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071030/D8SJQQBO0.html
~The council comprises 14 major Hispanic civil rights organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund.~
~The analysis of 2006-07 season scripted and reality shows was based on information supplied by the networks.
ABC, home of "Ugly Betty" and its Hispanic star, led in diversifying its work force, with CBS, NBC and Fox all earning commendations for improvement. The networks earned overall grades of A and B on the council's "report card."
Fox, however, was rebuked for what the council said was its failure to match other networks in fully disclosing hiring data.
Fox responded Wednesday that "while we will be happy to provide the numbers of actors, writers and directors of color, we believe they have a reasonable expectation of privacy and will not provide their names."
The network statement said Fox "remains steadfast in our diversity efforts."~
~It was heartening to see the number of Asian-American writers and producers rebound from a severe drop last year, the group said, but the numbers remained inadequate. The ranks of Asian-Pacific directors were cut from 27 the previous year to 23 last season.
When it comes to hiring of American Indians, the networks earned overall grades of D or C in an analysis that focused on scripted shows.
"Behind the camera, American Indians remain invisible. ... We are still misunderstood and underrepresented in front of the camera," said Mark S. Reed of American Indians in Film and TV.
The group lauded the hiring of Adam Beach ("Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,""Flags of Our Fathers"), a Salteaux Indian from Canada, as a series regular on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
An original partner of the diversity, the NAACP, has not participated in recent evaluations.~
http://www.mundo.com/lulac.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_United_Latin_American_Citizens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_American_Legal_Defense_and_Education_Fund
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/guides/m673.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/hispanic.asp
http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
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re:illegal immigrants unlawful entry crime to be ignored in
~MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A small town in Vermont is implementing a policy designed to encourage immigrant farm workers to cooperate with police - even if they are in the country illegally.
Under the new policy, Middlebury officers will check the immigration status of a person only if they are suspected of committing a crime. Police Chief Thomas Hanley proposed the policy, which was adopted unanimously by the town Select Board last week.
"There's a potential for a subculture to develop where people don't report things here. They are easily subject to predation from others because they know they won't report anything," Hanley said.
"I'm worried about somebody seeing a fire or somebody that needs help not picking up the phone and calling us because they're afraid somebody will find out who they are and deport them," he added.
Middlebury police will assist in any federal immigration operations in the area if needed, the chief said. And they will contact immigration authorities if someone is suspected of committing a crime.
"If they've committed a crime, then let the chips fall where they may," Hanley said. "Some guy that's working on a farm here that minds his own business, he's of no interest to us."~
(They have commited a crime.No?Then how come you would NOT leave a pot smoker,,that works on a farm and that minds his own biz,,alone?)
~The move is a response to the growing number of immigrant workers in Vermont. A study conducted two years ago estimated there were about 2,500 immigrant farm workers in the state, many of whom are illegal, said Middlebury College Spanish Professor Gloria Estela Gonzalez-Zenteno, who is a Mexican citizen.
"I think it's really, really good news for this area here, because there is a consensus that the employers, the workers and the farmworkers just needed something like this so they could go about their regular lives without fearing disruption of all kinds," said Gonzalez-Zenteno.~
(she's a MEXICAN citizen!!)
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re:the gov-inator says weed not drug,,but it was a joke?
~"Of course the governor understands marijuana is a drug. It's like when he goes on Leno or the Daily Show, if you took something like that out of context, it might seem shocking but it was in a silly entertainment context," he added.
In the interview for the magazine's December issue, Schwarzenegger refused to condemn politicians who decline to answer questions about drug use.
"What would you rather have? A politician taking stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names all the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?" Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying.
"A politician's job is to do what's best for the people and to improve the country, the economy, the environment. Why should I care if a politician takes sleeping pills every night so long as he can do his job?" he added.~
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re:predominate aids came from africa via haiti
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7068574.stm
~The strain of the HIV virus which predominates in the United States and Europe has been traced back to Haiti by an international team of scientists.
The virus strain passed from Haiti to the US in around 1969 before spreading around the globe, say the scientists.
The HIV virus can lead to the disease Aids, and scientists say knowledge of its origins could help find remedies.
"HIV-1 group M subtype B" predominates in the US, Europe, large parts of South America, Australia and Japan.
Now scientists say they know where it came from.
The findings are published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences.
'Single carrier'
The team examined archived blood samples from five early Aids patients - all of them Haitian immigrants to the United States - and analysed genetic sequences from another 117 Aids patients from around the world.
With this data, they recreated a family tree for the virus, which they believe shows conclusively that the strain came to the US via Haiti - probably via a single person - in around 1969.
Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson is one of the study's authors. He says the new research suggests HIV first arrived in Haiti in the mid-1960s - probably from Africa where HIV is thought to have originated - before making its crossing into the US.
"By 1966 the virus first starts spreading in Haiti," he told the BBC.
"A few years later one variant from Haiti gives rise to what would then light the fuse and explode around the world as the Aids pandemic that we first became aware of."
Prof Worobey and his colleagues now want to trace the strain back further. His suspicion is that it probably arrived in Haiti from the Congo via Haitians who were working in Africa during those years.
He says understanding the origins of this and other strains of HIV will better enable scientists to predict how the virus may mutate in the future. ~
re:chimps as main origin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5012268.stm
~It is thought that people hunting chimpanzees first contracted the virus - and that cases were first seen in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo - the nearest urban area - in 1930.
Scientists believe the rareness of cases - and the fact that symptoms of Aids differ significantly between individuals - explains why it was another 50 years before the virus was named. ~
~This was useful because University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers had been able to determine the genetic sequences of the chimpanzee viruses - which could then be searched for in the faecal samples.
Lab tests detected SIVcpz specific antibodies and genetic information linked to the virus in up to 35% of chimpanzees in some groups.
All of the data were then sent to the University of Nottingham for analysis, which revealed the extremely close genetic relationship between some of the samples and strains of HIV.
Chimpanzees in south-east Cameroon were found to have the viruses most similar to the form of HIV that has spread throughout the world.
The researchers say that, as well as solving the mystery about the origin of the virus, the findings open up avenues for future research.
But SIVcpz has not been found to cause any Aids-like illnesses in chimpanzees, so researchers are investigating why the animals do not suffer any symptoms, when humans - who are so genetically similar - do.
Close relation
Paul Sharp, professor of genetics at the University of Nottingham said: "It is likely that the jump between chimps and humans occurred in south-east Cameroon - and that virus then spread across the world.
"When you consider that HIV probably originated more than 75 years ago, it is most unlikely that there are any viruses out there that will prove to be more closely related to the human virus."
He said the team were currently working to understand if the genetic differences between SIVcpz and HIV evolved as a response to the species jump.
Keith Alcorn of Aidsmap said: "The researchers have pinned down a very specific location where they believe the precursor of HIV came from.
"But there are vast areas of west Africa where other forms of SIVcpz lineages exist, and the possibility remains for human infection. ~
re:claim tainted polio vaccine caused aids
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/431167.stm
~A polio vaccine using tissue from primates could have been behind the leap made by the human immunodeficiency virus - HIV - from apes and moneys to humans, a new book claims. ~
~Edward Hooper, author of The River, points to a correlation between the sites of mass inoculations using Dr Koprowski's vaccine in the late 1950s and the first recorded cases of Aids in the 1960s.
Three parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo - at the time the Belgian Congo and subsequently Zaire - were particularly affected.
These were Rouzizi Valley, Lubudi and Leopoldville - where the first case of the disease was detected in a blood sample from 1959.~
~"I have individual testimony from three or four people that these chimps were used, the kidneys were excised from these chimps and sent back not only to Philadelphia where Koprowski was working but also to Belgium where they were used in cell cultures."
But Professor Preston Marks, a senior scientist at the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Centre, in New Orleans, has yet to be convinced.
"The first problem is that we have an oral vaccine that would not transmit SIV (the chimpanzee form of HIV)," he said.
"That's compounded by the fact that these viruses have existed in monkeys for millions of years, and the virus never crossed over."
(huh/)
Eating chimps
In that time, monkeys and chimpanzees had been hunted for food, he said.
"One's mucous membranes and mouth would be exposed to the blood and tissue of these chimpanzees and monkeys while chopping and processing them for the table.
"There has to be something else, something additional, besides oral exposure to minimal amounts of SIV."
The WHO stressed that all polio vaccines currently in use are rigorously screened and are safe.~
re:claim it didn't come via contaminated vaccine
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3645323.stm
~Scientists have rejected claims that a contaminated vaccine triggered the HIV pandemic in humans.
According to one theory, HIV jumped to humans after polio vaccine became infected with a similar virus found in chimpanzees in the Congo.
However, a team of international scientists has now carried out genetic tests on chimps in this part of Africa.
Writing in Nature, they said there was no evidence to suggest HIV came from these animals. ~
re:dual vector origin (chimp AND monkey)
~Chimps could have been infected by other SIV-type viruses when they preyed on monkeys.
The study confirms what has been established about the origin of Aids: it emerged from the forests of western Africa some time in the last century.
Humans caught it from chimpanzees when they ate them as food, or became exposed to their blood in rituals.
Timing mystery
We know more about the origin of Aids than most people think. Genetic studies have shown conclusively that HIV is a variant of the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) that is found in wild African monkeys and apes.
At some time in the recent past, SIV entered humans and mutated to become HIV. From this incident sprang the epidemic which has killed 20 million people and infected 15 million more.
Where this virus transfer took place is fairly well established: the Guinea-Bissau region of West Africa.
Many scientists believe the transfer occurred more than once because of the multiple strains of Aids that infect humans.
When it happened is more problematic. Significantly, millions of Africans were forcibly removed from their homes as slaves in the 19th Century, and none of them was infected. This suggests the origin of Aids is post-1860.
Time uncertainty
The first case of Aids reported in the US was in 1981, though it seems an African-American teenager died of it in St Louis in 1969, and that HIV was found in a blood plasma sample from a man living in Congo in 1959.
Studies of the rate of genetic divergence between the two major strains of Aids, HIV-1 and HIV-2, suggest the transfer into humans occurred about 1940, with an error of about 20 years.
There is also speculation that the increase in international air travel since the 1960s has helped to spread the infection.
The genetic study of SIV, which sheds more light on the trans-species crossover, is by an international team of scientists, and published in the journal Science.
The team suggests two viruses from different monkey species recombined in the chimpanzee to form the SIV strain that causes Aids in humans.
Other viruses
The authors present evidence that this strain, called SIVcpz, arose in the chimpanzee through successive infections by viruses from red-capped mangabeys and greater spot-nosed monkeys.
Chimpanzees prey on both of these species and their ranges overlap in west central Africa.
Elizabeth Bailes of the University of Nottingham, UK, and colleagues say a hybrid origin of SIV in chimpanzees has significant scientific and public health implications.
It provides evidence that humans are not the only ape species to acquire two different SIVs by cross-species transmission under natural conditions, most likely predation.
The researchers raise the possibility that the precursor virus to human Aids, SIVcpz, may itself interact with another virus in chimpanzees to form another Aids-like virus that could also infect humans.
They say: "It will be important to examine whether chimpanzee predation on smaller monkeys has led to additional SIV acquisitions, and possibly co-infection and recombination with SIVcpz, and whether the resulting chimpanzee-adapted SIVs are more likely to infect humans." ~
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re:uv light activated cancer antibodies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7067828.stm
~Writing in ChemMedChem, Newcastle University researchers say they have found ways to make antibodies only respond when light is shone.
UV light is shone at the site of the tumour to activate the antibodies.
The body does not on its own generate the antibodies needed to fight cancer, as it does so often with other diseases, so there have been high hopes for these therapeutic antibodies.
These work either by attacking the disease itself, or by stimulating the body's own T-cells, which regulate the production of its own antibodies.
The power and the danger of these treatments was highlighted in 2006, when six men were taken seriously ill after drug trials at an independent research unit sited at London's Northwick Park hospital. Their immune systems had been sent into overdrive.~
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re:sudans gov shows intent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7068544.stm
~A United Nations humanitarian chief has expressed alarm at reports Sudan's government forced people from a refugee camp in South Darfur on Sunday night. ~
~Government security forces allegedly used sticks and rubber hoses to force new arrivals at Otash to leave.
The camp in Nyala, south Darfur, is home to some 60,000 people who have lost their homes in the conflict.
The numbers fleeing to Otash have increased in the wake of violence at the Kalma camp, Darfur's largest, a week ago.
People surrounded
Mr Holmes said the Sudanese government was only supposed to move people from the camps if they wanted to go and threatening them with sticks and rubber hoses was contrary to agreements.
UN officials on the ground saw 10 vehicles with heavy machine guns surrounding people, while eight trucks were loaded with their belongings.
This renewed tension in the camps comes as the peace talks aimed at ending the four-year conflict in Sudan's western region continue in Libya.
The Sudanese government declared a ceasefire as those talks opened at the weekend.~
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7039360.stm
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re:mexico can't handle being in oil biz
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/22/bloomberg/bxatm.php
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re:chinas products cause defects in their children
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7032085,00.html
~The report said about 2 to 3 million babies are born in China with "visible defects" every year, and a further 8 to 12 million would develop defects within months or years after birth.
Officials had also linked high defect rates to poor, rural areas, and regions that suffered "high rates of illness".
About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking dirty water, according to a World Bank study.~
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re:iraq deaths down for Oct
~Violent deaths of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians appear to have fallen sharply in Iraq in October, according to the latest Associated Press tally.
The AP's figures mirror other evidence that the levels of bloodshed are falling here. But the meaning of these statistics is disputed, and experts generally agree that the struggle for security and stability is far from over.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed fell from at least 1,023 in September to at least 875 in October, according to the AP count.
That's the lowest monthly toll for civilian casualties in the past year, and is down sharply from the 1,216 recorded in October 2006. The numbers are based on daily reports from police, hospital officials, morgue workers and verifiable witness accounts.
The count is considered a minimum based on AP reporting; the actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.~
re:japan pulls fueling operations
~Amid a showdown in parliament, Japan's defense minister ordered the end Thursday to this country's naval mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Officials vowed to pass new legislation as soon as possible to allow limited support in the fight against terrorism.
Japan, America's top ally in Asia, has refueled coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001, but opposition parties effectively scuttled the mission by raising concerns it was too broad and posed possible violations to Japan's postwar pacifist constitution.
The order to end the mission was made by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Legislation had been passed repeatedly to allow the mission, but the latest extension expired Thursday amid the stalemate in parliament. Japan refueled its final ship on Monday.
The two ships in the mission - a destroyer and a refueler, with 340 troops aboard - would begin heading for Japan later Thursday. It was expected to take them about three weeks to return, said Navy spokesman Kozo Okuda.~
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re:taliban on run in afghanistan
~Fighters moved into the Arghandab district of Kandahar province this week, about two weeks after the death of a tribal leader, Mullah Naqib, who had kept Taliban fighters out of his region. Karzai traveled to Kandahar for Naqib's funeral.
"He was a good influence for his tribe. He was supporting the government," Saqib said of Naqib. "After he died the Taliban were thinking they would go to Arghandab and cause trouble for Kandahar city. But now they're surrounded and they're in big trouble."
The gathering of fighters on the doorstep of Kandahar - the Taliban's former power base - is reminiscent of last year's battle in neighboring Panjwayi district, one of the biggest fights in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
NATO officials have said hundreds of Taliban tried to overrun Kandahar last year. But Saqib said he did not believe the militants occupying the villages of Chaharqulba and Sayedan would attempt a run on Afghanistan's main southern city.
"We are capturing and killing them and I don't think it will cause any problem for Kandahar," he said.~
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re:colledge text prank calls in swat tactics
~The school sent text-message alerts to students Tuesday night after police said they received a phone call from someone claiming that a man with a gun was going into the building with a group of people.
City and university police surrounded the residence hall and searched for the group, which turned out to be students participating in a prank, and the gun fired only foam pellets, authorities said.
Still, the gun violated the university's zero-tolerance policy, and five students were taken into custody.
Conor O'Rourke, 19, was charged with inducing panic, and Ryan Gallatin, 18, was charged with complicity to inducing panic, according to the Clark County Municipal Court Web site. The charges are misdemeanors.~
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re:the original id element touches the future
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071101/D8SKLL8O0.html
~Ten Shell gas stations in the Windy City are testing biometric systems that let consumers walk up to the pump, scan their fingertips on a device and fill up their vehicles. The systems, also installed at Shell convenience stores, are directly linked to customers' checking or credit-card accounts for payment.~
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re:whois info privacy
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071031/D8SKG1U80.htm
~Privacy wasn't a big consideration when the current addressing system started in the 1980s. Back then, government and university researchers who dominated the Internet knew one another and didn't mind sharing personal details to resolve technical problems.
But the makeup of the Internet population and the use of Whois have changed greatly since then. The requirements for domain name owners to provide such details also contradict, in some cases, European privacy laws that are stricter than those in the United States.
Over the past few years, some companies already have been offering proxy services, for a fee, letting domain name owners list the proxy rather than themselves as the contact. It's akin to an unlisted phone number, though with questionable legal status.
The rejected proposal, known as operational point of contact, would have made that standard, with fewer restrictions on who could be named as a proxy.~
re:web tracking privacy issue
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071031/D8SKBQQG0.html
~The issue arose during recent congressional hearings on Google's $3.1 billion bid to buy DoubleClick Inc., which places and tracks online ads.
Industry representatives say targeting means users are more likely to see ads for products they are interested in, rather than random ads.
Consumer groups counter that companies such as DoubleClick collect vast amounts of data on Web users that amount to a potential privacy threat.
Pam Dixon, executive director of the San Diego-based World Privacy Forum, added that the practice could lead to price discrimination. For example, lower-income Web surfers might receive higher interest-rate mortgage or other loan offers than what higher-income consumers receive.
Other advocates warn that the collected data is vulnerable to hackers and other security breaches, not to mention possible government agency efforts to subpoena the information.~
re:current mail scam
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071031/D8SKBUB81.html
~WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal agency that fights Internet scams and spam is caught in the middle of an effort to fool e-mail recipients.
The Federal Trade Commission warned this week that scammers are behind messages from the phony address of "frauddep(at)ftc.gov."
The e-mails claim that a has been filed with the FTC against the e-mail's recipient. An attachment to them includes a virus that, if opened, will install a program that can steal passwords and account numbers from receiving computers.
Government officials said recipients of such e-mail should be suspicious of them for one simple reason: Federal agencies rarely communicate with citizens over e-mail.
Instead of clicking on the attachment, the FTC said, recipients should forward it to spam(at)uce.gov, the FTC's spam database.
Because the sending address on e-mails can be easily spoofed, scammers often try to mimic legitimate companies and government agencies in hopes of making their messages appear believable.
The FTC said earlier this year that corporate and banking executives, among other consumers, have received fake e-mails with spyware attachments purporting to be from the agency. The Treasury Department, meanwhile, said it has received tens of thousands of complaints about messages purportedly from the IRS.
Further information about bogus e-mail is available at , a computer fraud site maintained by several government agencies.http://www.OnGuardOnline.gov ~
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re:condo cable monopolies busted up
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071031/D8SKALQO0.html
~"There is no reason that consumers living in apartment buildings should be locked into one service provider," he said in a statement Wednesday.
The rule would prohibit cable companies, such as Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) (TWC), from enforcing existing exclusive cable TV contracts with apartment managers and allow telecommunications companies, such as Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) (VZ) and AT&T Inc. (ATT), to offer video services along with high-speed Internet access and phone service.~
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http://boards.excite.com/jsp/topicview.jsp?tid=503048&va=1
The Costs of Illegal Aliens - http://immigrationcounters.com/
The Dark Side of Illegal Aliens ? http://www.usillegalaliens.com/
Immigrations Human Cost - http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/
Illegal Alien Fact Sheets - http://mohaveminutemen.com/illegalaliens.htm
http://www.texasbordervolunteers.org/Illegal%20Alien%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
Tracking Illegal Alien Activities - http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
One million sex crimes by illegal aliens - http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50441
Racist quotes by Hispanic leaders - http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/hispanic.asp
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hot sauce?
http://www.kalustyans.com/catalog.asp?menucategory_id=57&category_id=59
http://carolinasauce.stores.yahoo.net/bosuhihotsa.html
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re:change homosexual to drug addict and you see what is really wrong with all this
http://www.skeptictank.org/janut2.htm
~All these years later, I seriously doubt that John was saved so much from homosexuality as he was saved from himself. Being gay doesn't cause you to become a prostitute. Circumstances and low self-esteem do. Having the utilities turned off and your furniture repossessed isn't caused by being a homosexual either, it's caused by not honoring your obligations. Being a homosexual also doesn't cause dishonesty or create suspicion either. These are character issues that affect all people, regardless of their sexual orientation. ~
~A life spent making all the wrong choices is a life spent in poor judgement, not in the gay world as Exodus desperately wants people to believe. People who seek attention will do anything to be center-stage, even if it means tearing themselves up, tearing themselves apart, and then destroying themselves in order to re-create themselves.
John's issues were, and I believe continue to be, those of integrity. During the time that I knew John, the truth was always something that was treated as an afterthought. He regularly mistreated himself as well as those who cared about him. Because of this, I will always mistrust him, his actions and deeds, including his very public salvation.
This mistrust is only deepened when I read about his much-publicized life story. Nowhere in that history do I see where he acknowledges that people in and out of the gay community tried to help John. Nowhere in these life testimonies do I see where John takes responsibility for anything that he did to himself and others while he was intoxicated with his path of self destruction. ~
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